It was the summer of my 16th year. As a result of my parents' botched marriage, I was forced every June to traverse the 400 miles between mother's house in Michigan and father's house in Kentucky. Father had decided that this would be the year that I learned the value of a dollar. This was a shock to me, since I had been working for my father, in one capacity or another, every summer since I was 7 or 8. Nonetheless, this year, I was consigned to work at a section 8, government funded apartment complex in Bullet County, Kentucky as an assistant maintenance man to a gentleman who, for the purpose of this story, I will refer to as John.

John and I worked, side by side for that entire summer amidst the hopeful poverty that government funding provides. The people lucky enough to get government aid are interesting and colorful characters. We were left alone by them, for the most part, except for the occasional 300 pound widow calling us into her apartment a couple of times a week to fix the same leaky faucet, or screen door which had mysteriously lost its bolt again. Our main responsibilty turned out to be mowing and trimming the more than an acre of lawn that surrounded each of the three apartment buildings in the complex.

The fact that my father, who wore a suit and managed this property, probably took some obscene pleasure in watching me bust my ass and sweat in the hot sun every day while he rolled around in his air-conditioned car, glad-handing and smiling at everyone was apparent to my new boss, who promptly took me into his own apartment after a week where we proceeded to smoke a joint every morning before work. "Yer dad ever smoke with you?" John asked me one morning.

"No," I said. "I know he smokes weed, though. He picked the habit up in Nam."

"What is he, one of those upper-administrative, holier-than-thou, white collar smokers? What kinda bum don't even share with his own son?" John asked in his home-grown, southern accent.

"That kind," I said, pointing out the window. My dad had driven back to the complex and his over-sized, oafish form was lumbering with administrative directness into the office of the building. John's sunburned face went white.

"Oh shit!" said John through his inhale as he put out the joint. Next, in a seamless flurry of motion, he exhaled, put eye drops in his eyes, grabbed his keys, and handed me a piece of gum while putting one into his own mouth. "C'mon, we gon' get busted if we stay in here, an' I can't afford ta get fired. Ta you it probably don't matter, but I can't afford it," he said while peering out his door toward the offices.

He waved his hand at me twice to indicate that the coast was clear, and I went out the door and turned right on the cement walkway, away from the offices. John locked his apartment door and followed me. "That was fuckin' close," said John as he left the walkway and started to walk through the thick grass toward the maintenance shed at the back of the complex where the lawn mowing equipment was kept. We were approaching the corner of his red brick apartment building when he spoke again.

"I was around when yer old man fired my boss before me. That wasn't no pretty sight. Yer dad's a scary son-of-a-bitch sometimes."

"Tell me about it," I said. "The key is to just agree with him and get away as soon as possible. He's got like, strength issues, and just looks for an excuse to use his muscles for something."

"He ever hit you?" John asked.

"Naw, he's more of a pusher than a puncher. He mostly just threatens a lot, which don't scare me at all. Besides, he's too fat to catch me anymore," I said and we both laughed as we rounded the corner which led to the back lawn between two of the three apartment buildings on the complex.

A shadow fell upon us as we advanced. I looked up into the eyes of my father's glowering face. He had squared his large shoulders and started wringing his hands the instant he saw us. "Boy, I thought I told you not to go inta anybody's apartment unless there was work to do in there," he growled.

I nearly shit in my pants, but opted for telling all instead. For some reason, whenever I'm stoned, I feel obliged to tell the truth, the whole truth, and I am incapable of a lie. I was scared and talking like a guilty 4 year-old before I knew what I was saying.

"Um, hi dad. We didn't think you'd be back here this early today, I mean you didn't tell anyone, not John or Mrs. White or me. We haven't started working yet. We were just in John's place where we..."

"Where we were gettin' my pistol. You see, I told yer boy about when I used ta be a cop, an' he asked if I still had my gun. An' a good thing too, because he reminded me that I gotta mow the back 8 today, an' I always carry my pistol on the tractor when I'm back there. Yer boy is jes sharp as a tack, I tell ya." John didn't share my problem with fibbing while under the influence. He was my hero at that moment.

My father turned his attention to John and they immediately started talking about the day's work. I took the opportunity to sneak away into the maintenance shed, which at this point had become my safe haven, my Shamballah, my sanctuary. I wasn't sure what my father would do to me if he discovered me smoking pot, but I didn't want to find out.

I had gotten falling down, smelling like vomit drunk once before, when I was fifteen. It was in Michigan, and I had hoped that my old man wouldn't find out, but he did. When he found out that I had been drinking, he kindly asked me to help him build something. I, not yet suspecting that he knew anything about my drunken episode or that my turncoat sister would have mentioned anything to him about it, obliged him. Everything was going fine with our construction project (I believe we were building his wife's fancy new bed or something) and we were laughing together even, when his mood turned angry all of a sudden. He grabbed me firmly by the shoulders, unexpectedly, and said, "Your sister told me you were drinking."

I shook my head to deny it.

"Don't fucking lie to me," he said angrily, and I froze. "Now, you are too young to be getting fucked up just yet. You wait till you are 17 to start that shit." And with that, he dropped both me and the subject. It is difficult to express just how frightening it is to be in the clutches of a drunk and angry Viet Nam veteran who is twice your size, and who wants you to understand that it is somehow rationally acceptable that you be 17 before you become inebriated again. At any rate, I hoped I lived to be 17 before he discovered that I had done any drugs at all.

Strangely enough, it was the talk of crack cocaine that pulled me out of my reverie. "Don't take him back there just yet, put him on the weed whip up by the road for now. I'll take him out there myself to see the crackheads, but not today," I heard my dad telling John.

It turned out that, placed conveniantly near the welfare housing project, was a well known crack house, which was guarded by three pit bulls on flimsy chains. Well known because the cops in town knew about the illegal selling of crack cocaine going on there, but allowed it to stay open for some reason. John thought it had something to do with the house's proximity to the poor people. At any rate, John had been attacked once when one of the pitbulls broke free from its chain, and charged the lawnmower tractor that he was operating.

"Them bastards don't feed them fuckin' dogs just ta make 'em meaner. Damn dogs are stretchin' their chains at every thing that walks by. Jes wait till one of them kids from up the middle class street gets mauled, then there will be trouble. Oh that reminds me again, I gotta go inside my house again. You wait in the office this time, I'll be right back."

With that, John disappeared into his apartment, while I had to go sit in front of the watchful eyes of Mrs. White in the office. I walked in, still stoned, to the discouraging glare of Mrs. White, who was eyeing me over the mother of pearl inlaid horn rims on her nose. On her desk was a picture of Jesus, with a plastic crucifix afixed to the frame. Next to that was a signed picture of Ronald Reagan in its own frame. On the walls of the office were various framed pieces of benign Christian wisdom, such as : "Jesus ends with all of US", and other nauseating nonsense. I found Mrs. White eyeing my Ozzy Ozbourne T-shirt which I had worn to work that day with dismay.

"Does your father know that you walk around with that blasphemy on your body?" she asked through pursed lips.

"He don't care, as long as I'm not drinking," I said. "Besides, I think Satan is pretty cool, and so does my dad."

"Jas, c'mon," John called from outside the door. Mrs. White was burbling and mumbling like a confused parrot from behind her desk as I rose to leave.

"Gonna call yer father," she said as I walked out the door.

John was carrying a thawed steak in his hand when I joined him on the sidewalk. "Wait till you see this," he said and walked back toward the back 8. The back 8 was the eighth of an acre of grass which bordered the lot which held the crack house. John cut the steak into thirds and threw one chunk each to the growling, barking pitbulls who were gnashing their teeth, and straining on the ends of their chains at us. These were the sentries guarding the temple of crack which the elected officials of this town had apparently neglected to shut down. The dogs tore into the meat with a ferocity that no living being should ever have to experience in a society like ours. Theirs was a meaness that could only be taught by truly cruel men.

"Jesus!" I said.

"Oh he ain't got shit ta do with that," said John as he walked away, putting his 9 mm pistol into his belt as he went. I lingered a moment longer to look around at the Kentucky countryside. The sun was high overhead, and a golden aura seemed to surround the bushes near the edge of the property. Cars buzzed by noisily on the highway which bordered one side of the complex, but was hidden by tall grass and a wooden barrier, while grasshoppers floated by tranquilly on my side of the fence. I saw a child in one of the apartment windows watching the dogs eat. My heart went out to the child, and I hoped briefly that he would stay on this side of the crackhouse dogs at least until he was 17. John and I finished the joint in the maintenance shed, then went to work cutting and raking small sections of the grass.

"Don't fuck with Mrs. White," my dad said to me later. "She called me and chewed my fucking ear off about the devil for an hour today." He then forced me one Saturday, at her request, to sit in her office and listen to Christian comedians and musicians on tape for over an hour while she watched me. John came to my rescue that day with a lump of black tar hash.

"Hey John, you were a cop, right?" I asked him after a month or two of working.

"10 years on the job," John said back proudly. We were in his pick-up, on our way to lunch at the time. The windows were down, and our sun-reddened arms hung loosely out the windows. John waved periodically at other pick-up trucks whose windows were down, and other sun-reddened arms waved back. I chanced occasionally to catch a glimpse of the red ears of the red-necks driving those pick-up trucks, and had to laugh to myself about the ridiculous sincerity of certain stereotypes.

"How'd you become an ex-cop?" I asked.

"Long story short? I busted the mayor's son fer DUI more times than he would've liked."

"They kicked you off the job for that?" I said, incredulously.

"No, I'm on suspension...for the last 4 years. They said I was a danger to myself an' others."

"Were you?"

"I don't think so. The mayor's prick bastard son was so drunk that last time that he tried ta outrun us. I got the call an' fell inta the pursuit at 90 miles an hour. The jerk cops ahead of me weren't doin' nothin' but followin' him. They knew who it was an' they were scared of stopping him an' dealing with the consequences. Someone gets demoted everytime this mayor's son makes the papers, get it? After this prick runs his 4th car off the road an' no one's doin' anything, I get mad, right?
So, I gun my car an' race up until I'm head ta head with this little bastard. He recognizes me an' gives me the finger. So now I'm doubly pissed, an' I maneuver myself around so I'm in between him an' the median. We musta been doin' about 120 by then. I rammed that little shit's import car an' hit the brakes ta slow us both down. We had got down ta about 80 or 75 when I feel that he's got his foot on the accelerator and is tryin' ta speed up again. So I say fuck it and I waited for the next unplanted field to show up next ta the road, an' I run him off the fuckin' road an' inta the field. Knocked his dick right inta the dirt! Nobody got hurt, but I got suspended without pay, an' the bank took my house, an' now I gotta work outside, an' live in my sister's section 8 apartment."

"Man, that sucks," I said.

"It's alright, at least I still got friends in the department and that means a constant supply of weed for me."

A few stands of trees and a dairy farm flew past the truck window before my next thought set in. "Hey John, we're not smoking confiscated weed right now, are we? Because I don't think I could handle the karmic consequences from that sort of thing. Smokin' governmentally extorted weed must have its recriminations," I said.

"No, not this stuff, man. The fire department, they're the ones with the poundage of seized weed. Me, I use my connection with the department to let me know which farm is gonna be inspected next, an' then I go there first. Every damn cornfield around here has got at least a couple pounds growing in between the rows. All the old farmers smoke it to relieve their rheumatisms, they have fer centuries. It was a real coup around here when the government took another one of the old farmers favorite pain killers an' made it illegal in the '30s. Anyway.
So I find out when the Sheriff's department is going ta visit a farm, an' I get there first, an' save the farmer jail time an' fines. The farmer usually gives me a hefty reward fer my trouble. Suspension does have its perks," John said and smiled broadly. He was obviously very proud of the service he offered to his fellow tokers. I watched as the rising and falling power lines on the side of the road slowed down, then disappeared into the ground under a new looking blacktop parking lot. We had arrived at a mini-mall which held several different options for our eating pleasure.

"You know what?" John asked me on the way back from our lunch at Rax. That was considered the nice restaurant around there because it had a salad bar. "I feel bad fer you."

"You feel bad for me? Why's that?" I couldn't wait to hear what he had to say. This man who had been suspended from the force for doing what he thought was right, then forced to move out of his house and into the projects. There he had to work for my dad in order to make ends meet, under the watchful eye of Mrs. White, where he had to carry a gun because hungry dogs were trying to make a meal of him and he had me to look out for on top of that. Why would this guy be feeling sorry for me?

"Because yer dad drags you down here, away from yer friends, fer three months out of the year, and during the summer, no less. Then, instead of spendin' time with you, he dumps you off here with me so I can work you like a dog. Then he picks you up an' takes you home where yer step-mom abuses you and yer dad ignores you some more, and at the end of the day, you're all so tired that you jes go ta bed. Don't look at me like that. You act like I ain't been listenin' ta you bitch ta me all summer long."

I was dumbfounded. I wanted to kick my own ass for whining like such a bitch to this guy all summer that he actually felt sorry for me. "It ain't like all that," was the only thing I could think of to say.

"Sure, yeah whatever. I got an idea though. The fire department an' the police department are havin' a party this weekend. You oughta come. It'll give you somethin' ta talk about back home in Michigan, aside from how much grass you mowed an' how many new welts you got on yer ass. You ain't gotta answer me now, just think about it," he said as he switched the toothpick around in his mouth with his fingers. There wasn't much for me to think about.

I asked my dad if I could go, and he exploded on me. "God damn it! I brought you down here so I could spend some time with you. But all you seem to want to do is spend it with your new friend John. You're my son, and I want to see you."

"What are you doing tomorrow?" I asked.

"You have to work tomorrow, son. You know that. I have to work in Shelby county this weekend, maybe you could bring your pole and fish while I worked. How's that?"

"That sucks."

"Well, you're not going to that party, and that's final. John is a good maintenance man, but I don't know anything about his personal life. What if he just wants to get you alone so he can do something untoward with you?"

"Way to go, homophobe. Are there any black jokes, or euphemisms you would like to add to my education?" I asked angrily. "Go to your room," said my father in a commanding tone.

When the weekend rolled around, I snuck out of the house. It was easy, my father was in bed by 10 pm, and his wife always went to bed around 9. I hitchhiked the 20 miles over to Bullet County, and made my way up to the house with the firechief's car parked near the garage, and all the noise and flashing lights inside. It was a small, humble little house, with about 20 cars parked all over its lawn.

The first person to greet me was a short, chubby 30ish woman named, May. May told me that she loved me. It was the first thing she said after, "Hello, my name is May."

"You need some jungle juice in you, tiger," said May as she grabbed me by my 16 year old neck and pulled me into the fray that John had told me was going to be a party. I was blushing brightly, and smiling nervously as I walked into the front door. I had moved approximately three paces inside, and had begun to bob my head to the beat of the music when I was blind sided by a rather large, rather gruff gentleman named, Percy. Percy wanted to know what I was doing with his woman.

Percy slammed me up against the wall and asked me for ID. He had five o' clock shadow, and his brow was menacingly furrowed. As I was mechanically trying to produce my wallet, Percy shoved a joint into my face. "Are you a cop?" Percy screamed at me.

"N-no. No, I'm no cop," I said. I was horrified and confused. I had just hitch hiked in the dark 20 miles, May had left me as soon as this guy started throwing me around, I had to pee, and John was no where to be found. I thought I might cry and pee myself. It was at that moment that Percy broke up laughing.

"Hey John, I think yer friend is here," yelled Percy across the room. He was still laughing hysterically. "I ask him if he's a cop an' he said no." Percy was now doubled over and laughing at the joke he'd made. The poorly lit living room was packed with people, socializing and dancing around like any pack of wild baboons in ecstasy would do.

"Ha ha ha, very funny," said John to Percy. "Hey kid, here." John handed me a joint and offered me a drink.

The drink was called jungle juice. Jungle juice consisted of a gallon of vodka, a gallon of spiced rum, a fifth of gin, a gallon of corn whisky, a fifth of single malt, 4 lbs of ice, and about a case of Hawaiian Punch all poured into May's bathtub and stirred with night sticks. I politely passed on the jungle juice, but gladly accepted a bowl of hash and and a shot of whisky, and found a nice perch to view the madness from. This was before I knew that perching on couch arms was not allowed in that particular house. The way I found out was interesting, at least.

I was quickly removed from the arm of the couch by a pair of lips, which were followed by the rest of May pushing me backward onto everyone who was sitting on the couch. I was rescued from her smothering embrace by Percy, who asked her to dance. Apparently, this was May and Percy's house.

As the night progressed, I was given approximately a half ounce of weed to take home with me, and I saw things that few mortals have ever dared lay their eyes on. At 3 AM, at least half of the party began removing their clothing, and jumping into the kiddy pool. These were not petit people, either. Coffee, doughnuts, and pork sausage had not been kind to those folks. Soon, the party was full of stark white, jiggling fat bellies. A size double D bra cascaded out of the air, and came to rest on my head, just before May did a screaming, splashing belly flop into the 2 feet of water that was the kiddy pool.

I don't remember much after that. John drove me back to my dad's house just before dawn, and I was in bed sleeping before they got up to cook breakfast. They were none the wiser, but I was a half ounce richer, and I had a great story to tell my friends back home. Thanks John, er, whatever. You know what your name is.