By my junior year in high school, I was already selling weed. I started off combining my money with a group of different friends who also smoked weed. Each Friday I would collect everyone’s money during school. Then after school I would ride my bike over to the local dealer’s house. I bought the weed and then split it up into everyone’s specific portions. I delivered each portion to each person one by one on different sides of town. Most of the time I smoked a bowl or two at

In order to get weed I had to find a new source. I was not even selling anymore at this point. I just needed weed to smoke. That summer before senior year, in order to keep me out of trouble, my dad gave me a job working for him as a house painter. I was only doing entry level tasks like covering floors and cleaning up but I managed to earn a little money. My parents did not want to give me all the money at once for obvious reasons, so they staggered it out, giving me a littl

Jason was Doogie’s best friend. He was only fourteen like Doogie but already stood 6’4. He did not look like a Freshman. Jason was smart enough not to stick around. As we stood outside the house where we had jumped the fence, the owner came out with her ear hugging her cell phone. She was describing us to someone on the phone either the cops or the school. “One of them has a black shirt that says, “Shut up stupid!” on it. The other one is wearing a black hoody and a hat.” We

Jason had a cousin named Lil Ron. Lil Ron looked the complete opposite of Jason. While Jason was ridiculously tall, Lil Ron was about 5’6. He was a short Jewish looking kid with a Justin Bieber haircut, a big nose, and an overbite. Jason looks like a young Jared Leto in the movie Requiem for a Dream. If Jared Leto was an NBA player. Jason got majority of his weed from Lil Ron. Since Jason and I started putting our money together I started getting my weed from Lil Ron as well.

My senior year in high school I started dating a girl who was a sophomore and looked like Malin Akerman. Her name was Sierra. Sierra liked to drink and dance. Her best friend Tasha was my neighbor and hosted regular high school house parties when her father was out of town. I met Sierra at one of Tasha's parties. Tasha was dating this older guy who was in his twenties. On New Years Eve he invited the three of us to come watch him perform a DJ gig at a private party in Nort

Trent “Dyno Mutt” Dade was the group mooch. His mother passed away when he was very young, and his dad worked a full-time job as a plumber. He was mostly raised by his older sisters. We had one main rule at the garage. If you showed up on a night when we were drinking and smoking and expected to drink or smoke you needed to contribute. You needed to bring money, weed, or drinks. Dyno never had any money. Or weed. Or Drinks. Most days he would earn bong rips and alcohol by doi

Peter was Dyno Mutt’s older friend. He was already 22 and bought majority of our booze. He was also a mooch and sometimes only agreed to buy booze if he could drink it with us for free. He looked like a young Johnny Depp from Gilbert Grape and had a big mole on his cheek. The rumor around town was that Peter’s parents supposedly killed an elderly man they were taking care of and suspiciously inherited all his money. They had been working as caretakers for an elderly man who w

Lil Ron got sent to a Juvenile detention camp somewhere outside Los Angeles. Several people had told us it was one of the easiest Juvenile centers in the country. It was a minimum-security facility reserved for nonviolent offenders. A rehab center with bars. Lil Ron made it sound like he was Miklo from the movie Blood in Blood out. There were many rumors around the neighborhood that Lil Ron had turned police informant and narked on a few of the other drug dealers in the neigh

I was working for my dad painting houses five days a week. It was a steady paycheck but truth be told I hated it. I saved up enough money to buy a ticket and bring spending money for a trip to New York to visit Jason. We planned my visit right around his next harvest. I flew out to New York and my mom arranged for one of her friends who lived there to pick me up from the airport and drop me off at Jason’s house. I remember it being really cold standing outside at the airport