This following story took place in La Vale, Maryland. Some time between '97 and '99(due to my substance abuse at the time, '96 to '00 are kind of a big blur timeline-wise).
First let me lay out the main players in this production.
Freddy: One of my best friends since my freshman year of high school. Weight lifter, classic rock and rap music fiend. All-around laidback guy.
Matt: Also one of my best friends since about junior year of high school. Went to the rival high school across town. Baseball player, wanna-be playa, and Mr. backwards-baseball-cap guy. Casual stoner. Only one of us motivated enough to get a driver's license at 16.
Me: The silent one. The art club/show member, straight C student. Slept everyday during Algebra class. Knew people from every group but mostly the "burnouts". Usually the only one with money, and the one that kept Matt talking to Freddy, and vice versa.
The setting was a cool fall night, and we were cruising the highway outside La Vale. We had gone to Bob's Billiards and shot some pool, and talked with some of the other guys from school(Bob's Billiards was the hot hang-out spot since there really wasn't anywhere else to go in the small town of Cumberland). After getting our asses beat by Freddy in a few games of pool, as we usually did, we left Bob's and started driving back towards town.
At the time, Matt drove a '92 Pontiac Grand Prix. To be honest, it kind of sucked. Mostly, because we were so rough on it(cigarette burns were endless). Whenever Matt and Freddy would get pissed off at each other, somehow the car always became a point of argument. Freddy would say something about Matt never buying any of the drugs, and also expecting us to give him gas money all the time. Matt would tell Freddy he could walk home. Then Freddy would say something like,"I only hang out with you because you have a f*ckin' car, anyway,"
Matt hated that line. To be truthful, Freddy wasn't really lying. Matt would piss us off by saying stupid things to girls(there's too many examples), or by ditching us for some other people. Freddy would only forgive him because he needed a ride somewhere, and Matt had a car. I thought their arguments were pretty damned stupid, and never got involved(except for the one time I prank called Matt on Freddy's behalf, leaving a message at his parents' house saying he owed me money for some drugs he stole from me).
So, as I was saying, we were cruising along in Matt's Pontiac, floating in space staring up at the stars and listening to The Geto Boys(we played The Resurrection constantly). We had just smoked the last bowl and were all silently listening to the stereo. Just about five minutes after the last round, red and blue lights come through the rear window. It was a Maryland State Trooper.
Matt gets a wide-eyed look all of a sudden. He turns to me and Freddy, asking,"I wasn't speeding... I wasn't speeding... Was I?!"
He could have been speeding. I don't think any of us were looking at the speedometer. We were too busy gazing at the moon. It was a good question, but neither Freddy, nor myself, were prepared to answer it for Matt.
Freddy was silent, but sat upright and stiff as a robot. I was also silent, but for some reason I wasn't really worried(I think I was delusional).
We pulled off the road and onto the shoulder. As we sat there for about five minutes(that took ten minutes to go by), Matt continued to ask us his new favorite question, and Freddy finally spoke. At that moment he uttered the stupidest thing I think I had heard up to that point. "I'm gonna drop the pipe out the window,"
"No, you're not!", I said as forceful as I could(which wasn't very forceful after a dub-sack)"Keep it where you have it. If you toss it, we're all gonna get busted,"
Just then, a flashlight was pointed directly in the backseat and into my face. I squinted and turned my head slightly. My eyes were as red as stop signs(my eyes stay red for hours after I've come down, but at this moment I was still in space). He then asked Matt for his license and registration, and walked back to his cruiser without giving us a clue about what was going on. When he stuck his head in the window he must of smelled something because he sniffed in the air real hard, and then turned away.
I remember during this time, I kind of woke up and saw one of those newspapers spinning toward the screen like some old detective movie, with the headline "Local Teenagers Busted!" and our three pathetic mugshots underneath. I think my paranoia was just kicking in(my most common side-effect). I think Matt and Freddy were already sweating the situation. I knew Matt was because he had pulled his baseball cap off and was rubbing his head. It was a sure sign he was nervous since that hat was basically glued to his head like some human cartoon character.
Then, the state trooper returned, lean into the window, and said to Matt,"I'm giving you a warning ticket, your taglight is out. Ok, you guys... have a good night."
I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe the guy didn't smell the marijuana in the car(we could). I couldn't believe he didn't notice my bloodshot eyes, or the two sweaty guys in the front seats. And to think we would have actually gone to jail if one of us hadn't said what he was going to do, before he actually did it.
The ride home was weird. The trooper was a complete buzz-kill. We were all kind of in shock, and no one really spoke on the ride back.
Of course, we did the same thing the next weekend! But the State Trooper was still on our minds for a while. Matt got his taglight fixed and got into the habit of checking all his lights whenever we went out.
I'm not sure why I chose this story to tell first. I have much better ones, but for some reason this one came to mind tonight.
Cheech and Chong's Dave RealAudio
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