The Trouble With Eden - Lawrence Block [177]
“Would you try it again ever?”
“I wonder,” he said. “I suppose I might. You know, I’ve never really thought about this, but it’s surprising I haven’t tried it again in all these years. At least since, oh, at least in the past few years.”
“Since the divorce? Is that what you were going to say? Anita smokes.”
“Your mother?”
“That’s weird, isn’t it? All their friends do, which is probably why she does. But I’m not supposed to.” She told him of the conversation they had had on the subject. He laughed, thinking how typical it was of Anita in recent years. He supposed it was typical parental hypocrisy and was oddly pleased that he was not hypocritical in that sort of way.
“Daddy? Would you like to get stoned?”
“Why, I suppose I’d try it again,” he said. “Why not?”
“’Cause I could really dig smoking together. The two of us, I could dig that.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a connection in the area. Is that word still current? I could probably get some in New York.”
“You wouldn’t have to go that far.”
“I gather there’s some in New Hope, but I wouldn’t know who to ask.”
“Oh, you could say there’s some in New Hope. If Mechanic Street ever caught fire, the whole county would be stoned for a week.” She drank some more of her drink. Her face was thoughtful. At length she said, “You wouldn’t have to leave the house.”
“Ah, so.”
“Well, I have this one jay that somebody laid on me a while ago. I didn’t know how you would react so I never said anything about it. I could get it.”
“How does it mix with liquor?”
“I don’t know. I never used to drink. One joint between the two of us can’t do too much anyway. Should I get it?”
He grinned. “Mrs. Kleinschmidt wouldn’t approve,” he said.
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
He had not been able to remember the feeling. But now he was able to recognize it, just as he had recognized the smell the instant she lit the misshapen little cigarette. And he remembered the elaborate ritual of dumping half the tobacco from a regular cigarette and dropping the roach in so that not a crumb of the marijuana would be wasted. They had called it tea then, and the cigarettes were called reefers, or sticks if you were especially hep. He couldn’t remember any special name for the butts. A roach, in those years, was something that crawled around the bathroom.
He sat back on the couch and closed his eyes. Yes, he remembered the feeling. How could he have forgotten the feeling? For that matter, how could he have gone smugly without it all these years? It did feel nice. There was no getting away from it—it felt very nice indeed.
“Daddy?” Her voice was so soft and lazy. “How are you feeling?”
“Far-out,” he said, and laughed.
“Let me look at your face. That’s such good dope. Oh, you’re so stoned!”
“Far-out.” “Oh, wow.”
“Where are you going?”
“Get more drinks. Throat’s dry.”
“You didn’t take the glasses.”
“How can I get the drinks without glasses?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So did I.”
“So did you what?”
“Huh?”
They both started to giggle. It was funny, he thought. You would get into a sentence and your mind was doing such interesting things and doing them so quickly that you forgot what the sentence was about before you could get to the end of it. He pursued this thought, considering all its implications, following them through to wherever they led him and then trying to remember what he had just thought of. One connection in particular struck him as meaningful, and he decided to tell Karen about it when she got back. Then he realized she was sitting beside him.
“I thought you were going to get the drinks.”
“Oh, man, are you wrecked!”
“Huh?”
“What have you got in your hand?”
He looked. He had a glass of scotch in his hand and no idea on earth how it got there.
He said, “I’m not stoned at all.”
“Right.”
“It’s a magic trick. A power I have. Whenever I want a drink I just wish for it and a glass turns