The Joint

It was another quiet out-Shabbos in Yeshiva, and having already turned back the clock, davening and dinner were finished by about seven o'clock. I'm not the type who can sleep for eight hours straight, let alone thirteen. And I wasn't in the mood to just hang around and chill with the guys. This meant that I had a lot of time to kill. Yet I was prepared for the long night ahead as I'd recently found myself taking long walks by my lonesome, and activity I was finding addicting, depressing, and soothing all at once, which probably added to its allure. But most of all it seemed to emancipate me from the school that seemed to becoming more like a prison to me as the day went by.
Bet Shemesh is fortunately a good ten degrees warmer than Jerusalem on a usual night, but this Friday it was a comfortable 60 degrees. I took the latest novel I was reading, a simple love story about to artists in their upper thirties who finally end up together after years of separation, and made my way through the town. No real destination, no forebodings, no concern. I was just getting away, going my own way, getting lost in my thoughts, hoping something or someone of interest would chance by me.
I first passed by a couple of cute Ethiopian women, but being that my Hebrew is poor, and that I'm not the type to approach random women, I made eye contact with them, and we wished each other "Shabbat Shalom", and moved on. I continued on and found myself by the lower-class apartment-complex part of town, what some would consider the slums. There were many secular teenagers outside, laughing, tackling, and chasing one another in a playful fashion. They paid no attention to me, and I was careful not to pay too much attention to them. I was in no mood to talk to American teenagers, how much more so did I not want to talk to their Israeli counterparts.
I decided to go uptown from there to enjoy the view. I reached the top of a hill, found a strong street lamp, looked put and the enchanting hills in the horizon, sat down, and read for an hour or so. The occasional person passed by and distracted me with a greeting, but for the most part I read, escaping my current surroundings. I finished my book and decided to take the long way back. I made way to the outer edges of the slums, and decided to go down a dark side street rather than the main, lit road. It was very quiet for the first block or so and then I heard some laughter and came upon three teenage boys in a side crevice. I quickly smelled the hazing culprit that no doubt aided there laughter. I stopped and looked at them. The first two looked like atypical modern Israeli teens. Jeans, soccer shirt, slicked back hair, skinny. The third was Ethiopian, but had a similar dress. They saw me and smiled. There was nothing threatening in their grins, nothing that caused me alarm. In fact they seemed to be happy, certainly much happier than I was in my life. The exhaled waist seemed to circle around them forming an odd halo that almost dignified their juvenile delinquency.
I simply nodded back at them after receiving their smile and the Ethiopian held out the joint to me, and I my mind erupted. For the first time in my life I had been feeling the urge to experiment in drugs over the last few weeks. Having never experienced what it's like to be high, and having been a victim, in my own mind, of the second hand destruction of drugs, I wondered what it would be like to be a first hand participant. I had always shrugged off any drug that was past before me, but tonight this joint was calling to me like that first beer of the night the alcoholic in denial tells himself will be his last. I wanted to get high, to leave my sorrow behind, to maybe reach a different plane in life that I had ever stumbled upon. It was right in front of me, all I had to do was reach out and puff. I was seventeen again, and yet I had the apathy that was vacant years ago.
"It's only pot", I bluntly told myself. A line I had heard so many times in the past. I line I had debated a thousand times in the last year. A line I had reacted to stringently without fail, and as a result alienated my past love. I had blamed the drug, and though I know now that it was as much my fault at the drugs, still felt such hatred towards it. But now I was the one who felt lost in life, who felt unhappy. I remember how My Almost tried to explain how soothing marijuana was to her, how it was the only thing that put het at ease. How I longed to understand that at the time, and how I completely understood the lure of the drug now, watching it emit it's numbing fumes into the nights air, passing over the dying flames of Shabbos candles lit on the apartment above. And with that image my mind was made up. I smiled at the three boys, told them "No thanks" in their native tongue, and went my way. The boys wished me "Shabbat Shalom", before I was fully away from them. The greeting, which I've said thousands of time in my life, rang with heart warming approval in my ears, seeming to add just cause to my decision; one that was made simply out of respect for this day. I knew that no matter how far I could fall, how unhappy I might become, that I would always be true to number Seven, and I made my way back to my temporary home not knowing whether I would succumb to such unfortunate yet enticing temptation in the future, but still feeling an inner strength that had been vacant for far too long. Much like a decision I made years ago that limited my physical relationships, I knew that there was a line I simply wouldn't brake when it came to the sanctification of the day. The dope, that far too man speak highly of, may find it's way into my lounges, but I was able to resist it this one day. Perhaps the day I needed to resist it most.
I thought back to my childhood and remembered the boxes of candy that I had enjoyed: Alexander the Grape, Lemonheads, Red Hots, and my favorites, Cherry Clans. On the inner flap of each box there was a message, something along the lines of: "SAY NOPE TO DOPE". I thought of My Almost once more, and I laughed a healthy laugh.