Harvey is excited to read this.
When I was about 16, my next elder sibling, Susan "Sue" Katherine Allen, left a plastic vial of marijuana on the stairs. Sue was about 18 or so, and one of my buddies, Jon, thought it was really cool that all my siblings smoked pot.
Once, when I got busted with pot by my dad, Brad asked me where I got the pot. I was probably stoned when Brad asked me where I had gotten my pot, and even if I wasn't, still to this day I have a terrible habit of telling the truth. I think I had gotten the pot from Jon. I am sure, many times I had given Jon pot or bought pot for Jon. Well, probably not that many. Jon was just nicer.
It just happened on this occasion that I had gotten the pot from Jon. I told my dad I got it from Jon and my dad immediately called Jon's dad to blame Jon and his father for making me the marijuana addict that I was fast becoming. Satan. That's me.
Jon's father was a German Jew, and the dirt under Jon's father's fingernails was smarter than all the smart stuff my dad ever did in his entire life, which explains why Sue did something stupid like leave a reused ibuprofen bottle with marijuana in it on the front stairs. So dad came home and found the pot on the stairs. My dad invented anti-loyalism from his dad, Harold. When he found the vial, Brad, being Brad, immediately took the vial to the police station to have it analysed. After he had it analysed, he asked the police if he could take it with him to accost me with the cursed demon weed. The police said, no, you can't take it with you. Surprise. If you think I am naîve, you should have seen my pops.
Pops came home and asked me if the pot was mine. I said no. I did not keep my marijuana in a legal drug container. That would ruin my buzz. What's the point in being a rebel if you put an establishment label on your rebel tools? Although, from a camoflauge perspective it is a good idea. Typical of Allen good ideas, after having one, we leave the good idea in a place which negates the value of the good idea.
My father did not believe me that the marijuana was not mine. He told me that when he found the marijuana on the stairs, he did not know what it was so he took it to the police station, and had it analysed. He said he wanted me to go to the police station with him now, and speak to the police. I was 16. My mother had just exited our lives forever (with a brief exception almost 12 years later), so I was sowing my wild oats with only half the parental supervision. I was in no condition to say, 'No, dad, I'd rather not go to the police station with you just now, but thank you for the invitation. How about we go pick up some chicks?' Had I not been stoned, I might have been more persuasive, and my da would have been a better wingman.
So, off we go to the Brighton Police Station. Perhaps it's because Brighton is the place I was raised, but I am fairly certain, if you ranked every police force in the world, the Brighton Police would rank as the nicest. On a bad day, they would come in second. They were super cool, nice folks. Guys back then. Don't want vaginas policing your stuff back then. Too smart.
So we go to police station. This is one of the many reasons I have no fear of police stations, principal's offices or parental rants. I looked at these opportunities as a cross between going to Disney World and playing Perry Mason. Stoned.
During those conversations, I could often hear myself saying 'Well, this isn't going well!' and instead of trying to get out of it, I would double down to get in more trouble.
The police officer certainly knew I was stoned out of my gourd. He was white, (like we had non-white police back then!) 20 something. The adrenalin rush of being driven to a police station by your father for the first time had sobered me a bit, but well into the second or third nanosecond of the police officer counseling my rampant drug abuse, he could see that he needed to get in touch with my dealer to see if he could get some of the stuff I was smoking. This was well before they were giving police officers whiz quizzes.
When I was studying for the Bar, not long after electricity had been harnessed, I recall there was only one or maybe just a few states who did not hold nuclear family members liable for conspiring to shield criminals from prosecution. Americans call that familial loyalty. Hmm, wonder why I think Americans are ijiots? My father was what Americans call anti-loyal. If a family member or a friend did something wrong, you told on them. You were doing it for their own good. They would thank you someday. Just not when you were alive.
My father taught me many important lessons. All of them resulted in him dying penniless, alone, and twice abandoned, aka divorced, and me having even less. Es el sueño americano.
At least I've got good stories for my blog.
