“You’re a fat slob, MacGregor,” he said, and MacGregor began laughing.
“It’s the end, ain’t it?”
“It’s the living end,” Andy said. “Goddamn, it’s the living end!”
In the beginning he knew it was wrong.
He knew damn well it was wrong, and so he steered away from MacGregor, and he tried to pretend that afternoon in his room had never happened. But he could not forget the feeling he’d had once the mootah had snapped the top of his wig. He could not forget that feeling, and there was no other way of getting that feeling because alcohol made you high, but it also made you stupid — and marijuana did not make you stupid. Marijuana made you very smart, very wise.
There was no substitute for marijuana. He went back to the Benzedrine, but, hell, that was nothing at all. All it did was give you a nervous jag, all it did was make you jumpy and hypertense. Marijuana didn’t do that at all. Marijuana smoothed the ruffled feathers. Marijuana was like a big mound of breasts you just put your head on. Marijuana was floating.
But even remembering the floating he knew it was bad, and so he steered away from MacGregor, but that didn’t help at all. His second stick of M came from the drummer on the band, a cat named Bash Bellew. He didn’t know why he took the stick, except that it wasn’t connected with MacGregor, and that somehow took the onus off it.
After that, and still knowing it was wrong, he blasted regularly. There was always one guy who was holding, and when you couldn’t find that guy, the Man was always on the scene. He got so he could spot the Man instantly. A different man each time, but he always bore the unmistakable stamp of the Man, and you always knew he was around, and for half a buck, you could spin your own disk, play your own tune, leave the ants and start floating.
Fifty cents a joint, and what was half a buck to a guy pulling down a bill a week? Three joints a day, that made it a buck and a half a day, ten-fifty a week. What was ten-fifty to a guy who’d already bought all the ties and socks he needed?
And it wasn’t habit-forming — that was the best part of it. The thing could be dropped tomorrow, and that would be the end of it. Dropped cold, with no aftereffects. So if it wasn’t habit-forming, and if even the big medical men didn’t know a hell of a lot about it, why not?
Why not, but at the same time, why?
Why indeed?
Well, why not, if it definitely is not habit-forming, and if it helps break the monotony, and if it doesn’t cost too much, and if the Man is always on the scene ready to oblige, and if you could blast in your own hotel room with nobody to bother you, with no cops snooping around or even suspecting, why in hell not?
And suppose it did take two joints after a while to bring on any sort of a charge, so what did that have to do with it? What the hell was a buck when you got right down to it? You got two shots of whisky for a buck, and that left you a long way from being stoned, and with this buck, this buck spent on M, you were guaranteed a charge, so wasn’t it worth it? And wasn’t it better than mooning around over Carol, or remembering Helen’s body? Wasn’t this, when you really grappled with the situation, a hell of a lot better than all of that? And it didn’t hurt the playing any, did it? Made it better somehow, made you sharper and cleaner, and all around better.
So why not?
Well, it’s wrong, for one thing.
How is it wrong?
It’s against the law.
Only if you’re caught with the stuff.
You can go to jail. You can get up to ten years for...
If the breaks are against you, you can go to jail for almost anything. Hell, if you falsify your income tax...
This isn’t income tax. This is fooling around with DRUGS.
Who said marijuana is a drug?
Well...
Is it habit-forming?
Well, no, not exactly.
Then why is it wrong?
Because it’s a bad habit.
You just said it wasn’t a habit.
It’s a voluntary habit — all right? And it’s bad because... well, what happens when you build a tolerance to it? What happens when you no longer get a boot from it? Where do you go then? What do you try next?
Man, your arguments are all wet.
No, Andy, they’re not. You know that.
I know nothing. You haven’t told me a goddamn thing.
It’s wrong, Andy. It’s wrong, and you know it is, and you can he to me, maybe, but you sure as hell can’t lie to yourself.
He knew it was wrong in the beginning, and he still knew it after the taking of a reefer had become a “voluntarily” habitual thing, like brushing his teeth. He knew it was wrong, and the knowledge plagued him, but he could see no way of escaping the boys on the band, or the Man who was always there. If a lot of them did it, if they insisted on clinging to him, clinging to him fiercely, their fingers tight and grasping, what could he do, what could he possibly do?
He could run! To Bud. Bud would know... but Bud was away.
Run, run! To Helen then, Helen... no, what was he thinking? Carol. Of course, Carol.
When Jerry Black told him the band was moving on to Cincinnati the following week, he handed in his notice. Jerry was stunned because he hadn’t suspected anything was troubling Andy. He tried to talk him out of it, but Andy was adamant. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be back with the people he knew and needed. That was all there was to it. The band left Chicago on a Tuesday night in July, and Andy caught the midnight plane for New York at the same time.
He went to see Carol the next morning. She cried when she saw him, and she held him close, as if she never wanted him to leave the circle of her arms, and he was sure then that he’d made the right decision in leaving Jerry Black.
They went out that night, the spark of the reunion having been replaced by a warm intimacy. They talked of what they’d each done in their separation, and then Carol asked, “Why’d you leave the band, Andy?”
“Just like that,” he said, not wanting to tell her about his infatuation with marijuana.
“Didn’t you like the fellows?”
“They were fine.”
“What then?”
“Nothing. I just decided to come home, that’s all. I missed you.”
“Did you get along with everyone?”
“Oh, sure.”
“He didn’t take any solos away from you, or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I told you.”
“No, you didn’t tell me.”
“I... I was bored, Carol.”
“Bored?”
“Yes. I... I just decided to come home.”
“And what’ll you do now?”