The nuns at Our Lady of the Foothills comforted their young pupils’ loss of a favorite toy by telling the tearful student that in heaven there was a closet containing all lost possession. I found solace in this possibility even after I lost my faith in heaven and hell, however one day I realized that that the closet would be filled with one sox and one glove without their match. My disappointment was tempered by the understanding that you really don’t ever have a favorite pair of sox, plus some possessions are meant to be lost. As my Irish grandmother said, “If you lose something then it wasn’t yours to begin with.”
Her harsh statement bore the truth.
Take care of your possessions and they will stay with you throughout your life.
Having lived around the world I’ve left a scattering of boxes and bags in LA, Paris, Bali, and Thailand. A VW bug in Germany. A Yamaha motorcycle in Florida. Books everywhere. Multiple pairs of glasses in this very apartment in Clinton Hill. Nothing seems to stay with me forever, but the other day my longtime friend Juiliana came to visit me on 47th Street. She had a paper bag in her hand.
“You left this at my house.” She lives on West 18th Street. I had last stayed there in 2002. I couldn’t remember ever having stored anything at her loft, but the bag held photos, CDs, and a Thai rice basket containing jewelry and a big bud of marijuana. The necklaces, rings,and bracelets were from my mother. The bud was still big and fluffy. I thanked Juiliana with a small gold ring. She could have kept the gold for herself, but she was an honest woman.
Later that night I stashed the jewelry in the apartment and broke out my pipe. The bud was fluffy. Its aroma had faded years before. Black specks coated the seeds. AP, my landlord, asked, “You’re not really going to smoke that, are you?”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” It looked dry not dangerous.
“You could be transported 10 years into the past.” AP had seen HOT TUB TIME MACHINE. The RISD graduate was a fan of the 80s. New York was fun in those years. The 70s had been wicked, but too far away in the past. Nothing could bring them back.
“The year 2000. Here I come.” I would be 48 again. My body would like that. Later in the summer I could try to stop 9/11. My name would be synonymous with hero. I stuffed the pipe with moldy weed. The reefer burned fast. I half-expected the room to swirl out of 2010, instead the clock on the wall ticked forward to 2011. The bud of Ten Years After was harmless to the time-space continuum, but harsh on my lungs and I coughed out a haze of smoke.
“How is it?” AP was curious if pot could be vintage. There was only one way for him to find out the truth. I handed over the pipe. He coughed himself into the present. Higher than minute before. Maybe time was more fragile than I imagined. It was a matter of perception to the Bud of Ten Years After. The master of the universe lost once, but now found.