A Po-boy's tale of Nawlins California Logic Chapter 5

California Logic (as told by Billy The Beach Bum)

Thursday (9:30 p.m.)

The wind had died down, and Lori was finally asleep. Danny jumped in the front and he gazed out the window as I drove at a steady pace. We were getting real close to Pittsburgh, and I was starting to get goose bumps as the memories and nostalgia crept up on me. It had been too long since I’d been in the town where I lost my mind. I was only there for a year and a half, when I was eighteen and nineteen, but they were some crazy years, and a lot of the friends that I made there I haven’t seen since I moved away. But, the close friends, the ones who I spent the most time with, I still talked to on a regular basis. Danny had only been to Pittsburgh once, and he didn’t seem to share the excitement as we pulled up. I decided to warn him about the people he was about to meet.

“You ready for a wild night?” I asked.

“Are we going to stay in Pittsburgh or are we going to keep driving.”

“Well, I tried calling Rusty earlier and he didn’t pick up his phone so I’m not really sure. But I’m thinking we’ll probably go get something to eat, have a drink, get high, then get back on the road.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

It had just occurred to me how cool Danny actually was. I mean, it had been a really long day for Lori and I. It seemed like weeks since we left from our shore house (it actually had been about seven and a half hours) we were real excited at first sipping champagne, I mean she gave me a hummer on the bridge from New Jersey to Philly who knows what would have happened had he not been in the car. But, I’m glad he’s here. He’s a mellow guy. I’m not sure if I had a little sister I’d be as cool as him with the situation we had in the car a few hours ago when Lori flipped out on everybody, but here he was remaining calm. I decided to ask him a little about his living situation, he seemed like he had seen it all done it all, but he lived in his parents basement. I wonder what put him so down and out.

“I’m just curious man, why did you withdrawal from school?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately. And you know, I’m not even sure. I was at school doing real well when I think it all overwhelmed me. I have blamed it on a lot of things like smoking too much pot, excessive gambling habits, drinking five nights a week, but really what it all comes down to is apathy. I mean, yeah, those things didn’t help but I knew a lot of people that were doing the same things I was doing and they were doing fine in school. I think what it all comes down to is that I am at a crossroad in my life where I really don’t know what I want to do.”

“I hear you man. I actually did graduate, with a degree in communications, but all I am doing is working at the same restaurant I worked at as a kid, but it felt good to get my degree. It wasn’t really about what it did for me it was more about accomplishing something. And I’m sure I’ll eventually put it to use I’m just about taking it easy right now.”

“I hear you man, I’m on the same level, but listen, how much money did you put into accomplishing that something. I mean, really I think that college is more about all the life experiences you go through, and the people that you meet, and learning to live on your own. And I did all that, times three, it’s just that when I walked into this class, a class that I had taken the previous semester and got a D so I had to retake it, and I listened to the same professor give the same lecture that I heard the semester before, I think I almost went into a mental breakdown. Like, how did I not pass this class. Then I started doing a lot of degenerate things. I started taking football bets, selling large amounts of weed, playing poker every chance I had and I simply stopped caring about the only reason I was at school in the first place. Then it all hit the fan. My hookup got arrested, I realized I was failing half my classes, I owed this dude like two thousand dollars in football bets. And I cut my losses and moved home.”

“Damn,”

“Yeah man. I mean I hardly knew this kid, I was really afraid he was going to tell the cops about our whole operation because we sold a lot of pot together.”

“Serious? How did he get busted?”

“There were a lot of Narcs at school. And this is another thing that bothered me. I hated how these fuckers would smoke blunts with us, blow lines, party there ass off then two weeks later they’d Narc you out. How does someone have the heart to become best friends with someone then hang them out to dry. I got so paranoid. I pretty much gave away my last stash, and moved home, I threw my cell phone into the ocean because I thought it was tapped. I hardly ate anything for like a week and a half I was nervous as hell, but if he did tell on me, I don’t think he knew anything about me except the fact that they called me hippie Dan. I don’t think that does the cops much good, they’re probably still searching for a hippie Dan up there.”

“Damn, how much was the most you ever had on you?”

“Three pounds”

“SHIT MAN!! What did that look like, did you take pictures?”

“It was sweet at first. Yeah I had a digital camera and well the pictures went in the ocean along with the camera.”

He laughed about it, but then he just stared out the window again. There was probably something he wasn’t telling me. Maybe he got kicked out of school, maybe he had to Narc someone out, but something about this whole situation bothered him. I knew this trip would be good for him. Let him blow off some steam; forget about everything for a while. The conversation made the time go by fast and next thing I knew we were crossing the bridge and on our way to Oakland, home of the Pitt Panthers.

“Sweet man, we’re going to pass my old house,” I exclaimed. “I used to sell a little weed, but I mostly just sold it to smoke for free, I never got that deep in the game.”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to either. Some guy owed me money from betting, and paid me off with a pound. I was real good at selling weed though, it came natural. I wish I could put it on my resume or something, haha.”

“Yeah dude takes some entrepreneurial skills to move that much weight!”

“You think we should wake Lori up?”

“Yeah. You see that house with the beat up bush in front of the porch. That’s my old house. I used to jump off the porch and do flips into that bush. Haha.”

“No shit, where do the guys we are meeting live at?”

“I don’t even know man, let me call Rusty up again, these dudes are cool as shit, you’ll like them.”

I then called Rusty and he told me to meet him outside Bootleggers, a bar practically across the street from where I used to live.

“Yeah we got to meet him in front of this bar, I know where it is it’s easy to find,” I explained. “He said that Scraps, our other friend, met some crazy dude at the bar and they are all bloody and wasted.”

“Rock and Roll, Killer,”

“Yeah, wait till Lori meets these fuckers.”

We both laughed. But, I had a bad feeling that this would probably be the last weekend of our relationship.