Chapter 7: Dougie and Donkey

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 little each month for things like going to the movies or skate park.

Of course, majority of the time I was not going to the movies or skate park. I was spending the money on weed.

I ended up saving money up over time with the plan of getting back in business. I started putting my money in with a group of younger students from school each week.

When we put our money together, we could afford a bigger amount, and everyone got a better share.

They put their money together each week and bought from some new guy from Hermosa that rode a motor scooter.

We would all meet at a house across the street from the school during lunch. The house belonged to a kid we called Doogie Howser.

Doogie looked like the real-life version of Max, Goofy’s son from Disney. He had been promoted grades several times and was really supposed to be a freshman. He was already scheduled to graduate at the same time as me. He claimed he was going to medical school to become a doctor. Hence the nickname Dougie.

Both his parents were doctors, and they spoiled him rotten. They allowed him to have a hang out spot in his garage. They looked the other way and ignored him smoking weed as it did not seem to affect his grades. They even signed off so he could have an off-ground pass for lunch. He waltzed right through security while the rest of us had to jump a fence or run past guards.

Doogie always gathered the cash from everyone and organized the deal in his garage. His house was directly across from our high school, so it was pretty convenient. He would run out to the street and meet the mysterious scooter rider.

We all sat in the garage and talked bullshit. Sometimes there was music. The group consisted of several odd characters.

I met everyone through Taylor. Taylor was the younger brother of one of my friends growing up.

He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He was your typical blond surfer type. The cliche for our neighborhood.

Taylor was buddies with the twins Johnny and Timmy. They stole money from their mom each week and threw in the money on weed. Imagine Zack and Cody but not a Suite life. Then there was also Dougie’s best friend Jason who was a freshman and taller than me. He looked sort of like a Vampire.

To finish the group was this shady guy nobody really liked named Donkey. Donkey was known for stealing weed and ripping people off. His nickname was Donkey because he had long dark hair that ran along both sides of his face and resembled floppy donkey ears. He also had bucked horse teeth like a donkey.

He had embraced the nick name and made donkey noises as he walked down the halls of school past people he knew or girls he wanted to know.

Every time he spoke it sounded like he had a nose full of boogers. That was his other nickname, Boogers.

Donkey/Boogers overheard Taylor and the Twins planning to meet at Dougie’s house and invited himself to throw in on our purchase. I think Dougie was a little intimidated by him.

I had thrown in $100. The twins had $80. Jason had $60. Dougie threw in $50. Taylor threw in $20. He was happy with whatever he got.

Donkey had $10 and wanted the same price rate as the rest of us. He expected an entire gram for $10.

Dougie exchanged the money for the weed with the scooter dealer and brought it back to the garage to split up.

Apparently, some of the security from our school saw students walking around outside the school and wanted to try and bust us for ditching. 

They were able to figure out which house Dougie went in by watching him from the school fence.

Dougie and Jason were separating and weighing out the weed with Dougie’s scale.

We were all in the midst of rolling a joint when the security walked up the long driveway.

Doogie spotted them and immediately shut the garage door.

At first, he was confident we would be fine, but the security started banging on the garage door and yelling they had called the police.

Everyone just sort of froze and stood there.

I decided to act on instinct. I told Jason to stash the weed in a nearby drawer. Then I shouted, “bone out mother fuckers!” and climbed out an open back window, breaking the mesh screen in the process.

In the backyard I jumped the first fence thinking it would lead to the street. Unfortunately, it led to another backyard.

Some woman saw me in her backyard and started flipping out. I jumped the next fence and finally made it to the street. Someone from one of the houses was already shouting at me. I stopped for a moment expecting the whole crew of stoners to be following me. 

Only one person had.

Chapter 8: Jason