Junkie. Pothead. Thats where Id be headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadnt been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then anyway. I got just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didnt make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmmates sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother youd met at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl.
In Hawaii,
it is a felony to possess marijuana within 750 feet of school grounds, parks, or within 10 feet of a parked school vehicle. It is punishable for up to five years in prison and fines up to $10,000.
But but but.....he went to the finest, most expensive school in Hawaii on a scholarship because he was an Indonesian Price dontcha-know and who was going to stop him? His fellow choom-gang members would have been the sons of the Honolulu elite. It’s not what you are, it’s who you know that’s important.
And one day, you too, can grow up to become a community organizer and a bleeding heart for the down-trodden masses, if you have the Chicago Machine behind you. Remember Napoleon, whom nobody could stand because he was such an A-hole? they kept on promoting him until he was Emperor of France!