Well, maybe early winter. Or possibly just before Christmas. It’s hard to keep track of events when you’re doing so much weed. And it was why I decided to cut it off, can it, and not do it again. So there we were on top of one of the icy streets leading up Beacon Hill. Just a bunch of stone heads doing what stone heads do; be silly and idiotic.
One by one, we were slipping along the ice, seeing who could slip their way down to the traffic on Cambridge Street fastest. We cheered each other on as we fell, got up, and tried again. It had been a fast early freeze, so the city trucks hadn’t finished scattering salt and sand on Cambridge Street yet, and certainly not on the Hill. So it was a perfect frolic for a bunch of people who’d left their common sense behind in a hashish pipe.
Then Dutchy, followed by me, slid onto Cambridge Street just before a skidding MTA bus. Everything can seem to be in slow motion when you are stoned. But that effect seemed even longer as the driver attempted to stop, and we slid and grasped for traction. Time sped up suddenly as the bus glided past Dutchy’s legs, missing by mere inches.
I helped him get up. Our friends stood by the corner, silently watching. Then, being young, immortal, and stupid, we cheered the bus driver and slipped into the Harvard Gardens for a beer.
After the second beer, we got quiet as what happened sunk in. Then, in a show of bravado, we began to talk about doing it again. But we were eagerly distracted by the hockey game scores, and somehow the moment slipped thankfully away. Instead we finished the process of getting totally bagged on beer.
We often remember it as a great adventure but never found an opportunity to repeat it. And I soon afterward stopped using.
Phew. Close evasion of disaster.
Close encounters of the worst kind!