Chapter 7: Doogie and Donkey

In order to get weed I had to find a new source. I was not even selling weed anymore at this point. I just needed weed to smoke. P.J. and my former crew made that difficult.

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. At the beginning of my Senior year, 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.

We always bought from some new guy from Hermosa Beach that rode a motor scooter. I didn’t know the scooter guy on my own and had to go in with this group regardless.

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 was supposedly half Hawaiian, but he looked like your average white teen with a suntan. He had spiked, freshly styled black hair. He wore polo and collared shirts with fancy wrist watches. He thought he was pretty cool.

Doogie 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 Doogie.

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 was friends with the scooter guy. He 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 while the rest of us waited in his garage.

We all sat in the garage and talked bullshit. Sometimes there was music or video games. 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. Tan skin, sun blistered lips and resting idiot face. The cliche for our neighborhood.

Taylor was buddies with the twins Johnny and Timmy. They were technically identical twins, but Timmy was a bit chubby. Johnny grew his hair out long while Timmy had a buzz cut. They were both blond with brown eyes.

The twins stole money from their mom each week and threw in the money on weed.

There was also Doogie’s best friend Jason who was a Freshman and the tallest person in our group at six foot four. He was tall but skinny. He looked like a vampire with pale skin, blue eyes and black hair. One of his canine teeth came in crooked and looked like a vampire fang.

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 too had resting idiot face. I think he was just an idiot.

Donkey had actually 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 Doogie’s house and invited himself to throw in on our purchase. I think Doogie was a little intimidated by him.

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

Donkey had $10 and he expected an entire gram for $10.

Doogie did his usual thing and collected everyone’s money. Then he headed outside.

“What the hell is Donkey doing here?” Jason whispered to me.

Donkey and the twins were focused on playing video games on an old television in the corner.

I knew Donkey was shady and I did not like him, but I was trying to keep a low profile and avoid making any drama like throwing Donkey out and him causing a scene.

“I have no idea; he’s only got ten bucks.” I replied.

“Johnny and Timmy told him we were going to smoke and Donkey invited himself.” Taylor added.

“I think next time we will have to keep things more private.” Jason added.

Doogie 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 Doogie went in by watching him from the school fence.

Doogie and Jason met at an empty desk and started separating and weighing out the weed with Doogie’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.

“Don’t worry guys they can’t come inside if the door is closed.” Doogie reassured us.

The security started banging on the garage door. We all went silent.

“We know you are in there.” one of the security guards shouted from outside.

“Come out now before we are forced to call the police and have you arrested!” the second security guard said.

“I am sure the cops would love to lock up a bunch of pot heads!” The first guard added.

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.

The homeowner saw me in her backyard and started screaming. I jumped the next fence and finally made it to the street. The screaming woman inside the house had come outside her front door and continued screaming. I stopped for a moment expecting the whole crew of stoners to be following me.

Only one person had.

Chapter 8: Jason