Up In Smoke ©

Today was the first day since New Years Eve that I got some time to go out for an hour to be myself.
I’m not complaining or anything like that but fuck I need some time to myself sometimes just to smoke a joint and sort out my head.
So I walked over to see the boys who are usually at Archie’s place getting drunk and I was right, most of them were there.

Archie was on his phone listening to Joe recite what the lamb looked like and described the scent of garlic in the air every time he opened the oven door to look at it.
Archie was constantly asking him when he was coming over and bursting out with, “Why so late?” after.

Jon was on the cell phone arguing with my uncle because he said he didn’t have a car to get there.
Bernie was driving around to all the liquor stores trying to find a bottle of Metaxa with no luck.
Seems the boys have drank the city dry of the stuff.
It’s a good thing they don’t know I have three bottles at home and before you think I’m being mean.
These guys don’t drink because they appreciate what the drink.
They drink it because they want to get hammered as fast as they can and I am NOT going to waste it on that.
They will probably hit the rum instead anyway.

I grabbed a chair then sat down.
Arch with his free hand dropped a shot glass in front of me and filled it up with Metaxa before he wiped the drool from his chin with the back of his hand then picked up his glass to salute me right before he asked, “And the potatoes, are they ready too?” to Joe.

I nodded towards a small bottle where he keeps his pot and he slid it over and I proceeded to roll a spliff while they talked on the phone.
Opening the bottle a big bud rolled out onto the table and I stared at it for a second longer than I would have then reached into the bottle and grabbed the rolling papers and started pulling a bunch out, five to be exact.
Archie’s eyes just bulged; he knew what was coming.

I rolled five then lit the first one and started passing it around.
Before it got around once, Paul walked in with a big bag with three large containers of fettuccine Alfredo from the Italian restaurant down the street.
They passed him the joint while he was walking in behind me as I sparked up the second one.
He put the food in the oven until the rest of the guys showed up with their contributions.

Arch filled my empty glass once more as I was taking a deep pull on the joint then passed it off to Jon who had just hung up from my uncle.
He said my aunt had taken off with the car and he wouldn’t make it.
Archie had a fit then called Bernie and told him to go out to the country and drag my uncle in.
Then he asked him if he found any Metaxa and he said no even after going to 6 liquor stores.
Arch had another fit then told him to get two bottles of Captain Morgan’s Rum.
See, what did I tell you.

After he hung up we sat around smoking the third joint talking about the up coming Super Bowl.
I told him it was fine at my place but I wasn’t busting my ass cooking this time.
I can tell my daughter that she could stay at my mother’s for the evening, I figure the game will be over by 10pm and I won’t have much to clean up if we have sandwiches and beer while we play poker.
I have decided to change a piece of my life to accommodate my daughter but it doesn’t mean I have to sell my life away for the next five years if not more.
I wouldn’t change having her here for anything but Walker needs to be Walker too.

As Arch lit up the fourth joint Mahmoud walked in with a case of beer and the place started getting noisy with all the conversations going on all over the small kitchen.
After passing the joint Arch looked at me and asked where my brother was.
He said he’s been calling him about his dish for three months now and my brother doesn’t call him back.
Last summer my brother asked him to fix his cable and install a dish.
My brother showed up with one of our nephews to do the work while Archie sat inside drinking and cooking a feast for a gathering happening that night.
My brother is meticulous when he does something but along with that he is as slow as a sloth going for a crap without moving an inch from where he’s sitting.

Every hour Arch got drunker and went out asking him
“WHEN………will you be done”?!!!!!!!!!

I’m almost done would be the reply and Arch would go back in.
My brother is easily distracted and knows everyone in the city almost so when someone sees him and stops he climbs off the twenty foot ladder to talk for half an hour before getting back up and as luck would have it, Archie would step out and say

“WHEN………YOU SAID YOU WERE ALMOST DONE”?!!!!!!!!

My brother would tell him a few more minutes and Archie would go back in.
My SIL is a problem to because she calls him every ten minutes with some stupid question and to make sure there isn’t a woman with him.
My SIL has always been jealous and once said she looked through my mother’s front door window and saw my brother screwing a hooker while my parents sat there watching.
I wonder if they were eating popcorn too.

So he spends a lot of time on the phone talking to her and heaps of other people who call him constantly.
An hour goes by and Archie’s 350-pound frame staggered out of the back sc reaming at the top of his lungs

“WTF maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan………………..I have people coming and you’re still here”
“I’m almost done”?
“What do you mean you’re almost done”?
“You’re been almost done for four hours and you’re still hear”?
“One more minute and it will be finished”.

Arch went back in the house fuming.
My brother stood on the top of the ladder making jokes for my nephew’s sake because the kid was starting to get nervous.
The kids 16 and he has no balls.
If a mosquito took a dive at him, he’d break the land speed record getting away.

His mother is Mike’s sister and she told him she doesn’t want him to grow up to be like his uncles.
She caught us one time telling him one of our stories and she freaked out.
The kid was sitting on the couch in a catatonic state.

Forty-five minutes later Archie walked out the back door again hammered and holding a bottle of Metaxa in his hand and called up to my brother and asked him if he was done and my brother said “Almost”.
That was a BAD thing to say because Arch went ballistic.

“Get the fuck down and out of here NOW”!.
“I’m almost done”.
“I don’t give a fuck, just get out right now and take that little faggot with you too”.

The nephew’s eyes were bulging out of his head.

My broth3er told Archie that it would take one more minute but I guess Arch had run out of minutes and raise the bottle up and drank the last shot from it before he whipped it at my brother.
It shattered next to him head.
The nephew disappeared in a blink steaming POLICE POLICE POLICE!!!!!!

My brother grabbed his face and Archie sobered up when he say that and ran down the stairs to the back.
He was next to the ladder when my brother got to the bottom.

“Are you ok”?
“Gezz I didn’t want to take your eyes out”.
“Here let me look”.
“NO no leave me alone, I’m fine”.
“You sure, do you need something”?
“No I’m fine”
“So you’re not hurt”?
“No, I’m ok”
Archie breathed a sigh then grabbed him and tossed him out of the back yard and threw the ladder out right behind him and told him never to come back.
My brother found t he nephew hiding behind a van three blocks away.

I looked at my watch, forty-five minutes had passed so I got up and ready for the walk back home.
I have six hours to wait before I needed to pick up my eldest and by that time I would be back in the state I was in before I got there.
As I was walking out the door I passed on the fifth joint and wished them all a good time.

Situations change but in the end, nothing really changes, you just have to pick your spots to be who you want to be.

Have a nice day

Walker