Saint Mary Jane

I need marijuana.

Pot, hash, chronic, weed, ganja, grass, bud, herb or Mary-Jane; whatever you want to call it, I need it. Bad
I’ve been told it takes away pain. And that’s what I need, for the pain to stop. Above all else, that’s all I want.
The only problem is. I have no idea how to get it. So I did the only thing I could think of. I asked my friend Nathan; lucky for me he knows just about everyone and a little bit of everything.
“Weed?” Nathan says as he takes a drag of his third cigarette since we started our ‘fun-run’ in 1st period. “Didn’t think you did that stuff, Mary.”
“It’s not for me.” I can’t believe I said that. I told myself over and over that I won’t say that. It’s no one’s business who it’s for.
Nathan just smiled as he dropped his cigarette on the grass when the sound of other runners came from down the trail. “All right.” He laughed as we started to jog back onto the trail. “I’ll talk to my friend Ryan. He always gets me and Nick the best stuff.”
I nodded and tried to keep pace with him as we ran. I’ll never understand how he could smoke so much and still out run me.
By third period I figured out who Nathan’s friend was. It seemed Ryan got every pot smoker their bud, and every girl was in love with him. That’s what Nick said anyway.
It turned out that he was in my third period math class. He’s been there since the start of the semester, not that I’ve been attending that class much anyway. I usually get to school around the end of the period.
Ryan was a lot different then I had imagined him to look. He was tall with light brown hair and was cute. Really cute, no wonder every girl loved him. Some how when Nathan talked about Ryan I got the image of a creepy 32 year old guy who grew weed in his basement.
Not this normal looking guy who probably went to football games every Friday and plays video games until 6 in the morning with friends. Drug dealers were supposed to be twitchy and ignorant to just about everything other than their bong.
It didn’t make sense that this nice kid from my math class would sell grass, but then again it really didn’t make any more sense that a straight A student suddenly had the interest to buy pot. That’s what Nick said anyway, but he didn’t know why, no one did. 
When the bell rang to let out for first lunch the class emptied in a hurry and I watched as Ryan disappeared in the crush of students herding out the door.
“Mary?” Mr. Johnson said rising from his desk, “I’m going to go to lunch,” he said as he pulled on his coat. “Lock up when you’re done.”
I nodded and pulled out my note book and the Math finial, I missed last week and started to color in the empty answer bubbles with my pencil. I could have finished it during class but I was to busy staring at Ryan like an idiot, trying to come up with a logical story on why he sells drugs.
I heard the door creak open. I assume it was Mr. Johnson coming to check in on me. “Almost done, Mr. Johnson. I’m on number 19.”
“The answer is b.”
I looked up to see Ryan standing by the door. He rubbed the back of his gloved hand on his nose. Was he outside this whole time?
“And the answer to number 20 is c.” He said as he moved toward my seat in the back of the room. “In fact most of the answers on the final are c’s.”
         “Uh,” I was speechless, what was he doing here? Why isn’t he at lunch? Maybe he forgot some thing. “Thanks.” I looked down and finished my final. As I started to pack up my things I felt him still standing over me and I looked up.
         “Nathan said you need something.” Ryan said casually.
         “Oh,” we’re we going to do it here? “Yeah. I need it today.” I looked towards the window to check that Mr. Johnson wasn’t coming.
         Ryan nodded and pulled out his phone and pressed some buttons. “What’s your number? I’ll text you with the directions to my house. We can hang out after school.”
         “Umm. I can’t hang out after school, I just need weed.”
         “My stash is at my house.”
         “Oh.” I quickly gave him my phone number and he gave me his. Just then the bell rang.
         “Alright. I’ll text you the directions when it’s cool for you to come over.” He smiled at me like I was the one doing him the favor. We walked to the door and he held it open for me. “See you later Mary.” To be honest I didn’t even think he knew my name.  I waved goodbye and went to my fourth period SAT cram study hall with Nathan and Nick.
         It felt like forever when the final bell of the day rang. Ryan had text me during fifth period to tell me he went home early and the directions to his house from the school which turned out to be closer then I realized.
         I was so busy texting Nick back that I wasn’t paying any attention to where I was walking and collided with my teacher Mr. Terry. Open backpack went flying across the floor causing all my papers to scatter everywhere. All my important papers. I drop to my hands and knees and scramble to pick them up. 
         Mr. Terry mumbles his apology and offers to help, but before I could tell him no, he picks up one of the important papers.
         “Herbal therapy?” He asked as he scanned the article on the health befits of marijuana I printed out days before.  He looked over at me, “Are you doing a report, Mary?”
         “It’s for my…my…” I racked my brain for a believable lie, “My agricultural science class.” I didn’t look at him; I didn’t want him to see the lie on my face. I was never good at lying.
         I guess he bought it because he didn’t ask anymore questions. He just handed me my papers and wished me a good day. I went out to my car that was parked in the student parking lot and rummaged through my purse for my wallet and took out my last thirty dollars. I was hoping that was enough I put it in my back pocket.
         I drove to his house; it only took me 10 minutes. His house is a beautiful old, Victorian style, two story monster. With little blue shutters on every window and a huge green lawn, complete with a small pink rose garden in the corner of the yard.
         I sat there, dumfounded. Why the hell was this kid selling drugs? It wasn’t like he needs the money. Look at his house. It was better than my house and my parents are lawyers, for Christ sake.
         I forced myself away from the questions buzzing around in my head. Why do I care that the sells drugs? I’m happy he does, if he didn’t I would probably be downtown some where in a dirty alley trying to convince some drug dealer to sell me some hash without being stabbed or raped.
         I knocked once at his door and waited all of 5 seconds before the door opened. A small girl with big brown eyes stared up at me in a pink night gown. We started at one another for awhile before I saw Ryan coming down the stairs.
         “Hey Mary.” He said as he opened the door wider.
“Hey.” Ryan was in his boxers and a t-shirt that he wore during school. I looked from him to the little girl. They both look like they just woke up.
Ryan looked at the little girl. “Go back to bed, Kelly. Mary and I have homework.”
Kelly pouted for a little then marched upstairs stomping her feet the whole way. “Don’t mind her; she is just cranky that she has the flu.” Ryan said then ran his hand through his shaggy light brown hair as a door up the stairs slammed shut.
He invited me in and I fallowed him in to the kitchen. “I talk to Nat and he told me you’re new to this so I rolled some joints.”  He spoke about it like it was the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it was, I mean with the amount of kids doing recreational drugs. Inviting people into his house and talking about drugs were probably as normal to him as getting good grades was to me.
He went to the counter and picked up a cat shaped cookie jar, opening it he pulled out a small plastic bag with 6 small rolled up pieces of grey paper. They kind of look like Nathan’s hand rolled cigarettes he smokes from time to time.
Even though I told myself not to care why he sells drugs I couldn’t help but wonder if  his parents knew that there son sold marijuana in their house while little Kelly was upstairs playing Barbie’s or whatever?
“How much for the bag?”  I put my hand in my back pocket palming the bills.
“Twenty-five dollars for the whole thing.” Ryan pulled a joint out of the bag and held it between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s not like smoking a cigarette. You need to hold the smoke in as long as possible and let it out slowly.” He held it out to me. “You should practice here so you can get the rhythm down.”
“It’s not for me.” I said with out thinking and nearly kicked myself for saying it. It doesn’t matter who it’s for.  I pulled out my money and counted out twenty-five dollars then held it out to him.
He sort of just looked at it and put the joint back in the bag. “Do you have a lighter?”
“Umm…no.” Why didn’t I think about that one earlier? I suppose I could just buy one at a gas station.
“Here, you can borrow mine.” He picks up a sliver Zippo with a rose engraved on one side of it. He put it in the baggie with the joints. Then takes my money and gives me the bag.
I put it into my purse and smiled at him. Feeling a whole lot better then I had in months. “Thanks Ryan.”
“No problem, Mary.” Then he walked me to the door, “See you at school.”
“Yeah, bye.” I waved goodbye and basically ran to my car. He waited until I was in it before he closed his front door.
I tried very hard not to speed while driving this time. As much as I hated where I was going I was excided. Today was different, today I had weed. Thankfully no one from another family took the parking spot closest to the entrance. I was already having reservations about going into there with it; I really didn’t want to make small talk to security guards while walking 500 miles to the door.
I braced myself for that terrible sterile smell that always tied my stomach in knots every time I walked through the automatic doors and lobby on my way to the elevator.
I clutched my purse to my side as people in white coats pushed passed me to either get on or off on some floor. Floor after floor I watched number after number light up until finally number 14 was illuminated and I was the only one to get off.
I walked through the small waiting room and nodded at the plump old woman in blue who controlled the automatic door to the Pediatrics’ wing of Peter’s General Medical. She smiled at me as the door opened. There was a finality in the sound of the door closing behind me as I walked passed room after room of tiny pale bodies lying still in their beds.
**My footsteps echoed down the hallway ahead of me.  What most people think about Pediatrics in hospitals is that there is always laughter and hope echoing down the halls, but the truth is that most the times it’s dead quite. Eerily quite.
The only thing that breaks the silence is the cries of parents at the injustice or the pleas of the children begging their parents to not let them go. Almost on cue a woman with rich dark hair runs sobbing from a room ahead of me.
“Sonya!” A tall man with graying brown hair calls after her from the door frame. Tears in his eyes he turns to see me, “Mary.”
I have no idea what he was trying to say and I honestly don’t want to, so I just nod to where my mother ran too, “Go, dad.” I watched him run down the hall after her. It was better this way; they didn’t need to be here.
      “They aren’t taking the news so well.” Dr. Carter sighed softly as he rubbed his temples. “He needs another round of chemo.” 
When I first met Dr. Carter he was very young looking for his 42 years, he still had that twinkle in the eye and he was rested. That was two years ago, when Jacob, my little brother, was diagnosed with acute childhood Myeloid Leukemia; a cancer that’s starts in the blood stream and spreads throughout the body. At first Jacob was fine, he would take his chemo and then go into resection, it was only a few months ago that he started losing weight, getting weaker and then the pain started.
He was in constant agony all the time and the meds the doctors were giving him weren’t helping. And they still weren’t, I could tell by the way he rolled on his side and sobbed in pain.
I pushed pasted Dr. Carter to his bed side. I touched his soft bald head, and he moaned like I hit him. I pulled my hand back; he was in so much pain. But I had something to help him.
“I…” my voice cracked, so I swallowed hard and tried again. “I got something fro the pain.”
“What?” Dr. Carter asked as he closed the door softly.
I turned to look at him as I took out the bag Ryan got me for him to see. “You said marijuana could be used as a pain medication and could increase the life expectance in cancer patients.”
“Mary…” he sighed and ran his hand through his hair, “Your parents made it absolutely clear they didn’t want to use marijuana. “
“I don’t care.” My parents were morons if they thought it was better to use drugs that didn’t work to try to numb his pain then something that could help him because it was illegal. “They don’t have to know.” He couldn’t tell me no, not after the hours he spent trying to convince my parents that marijuana was safe for Jacob. Not when Jacob laid curled in a ball in agony.
He stared at me for a while then down to the bag I had a death grip on. “You know,” he finally said, “I could lose my license because of this?”
Jacob rolled over and moaned in pain.
“I’ll take the blame. You can pretend you had no idea I was doing this.” I would rather take my mom and dads hating me then have Jacob be in pain everyday until he died.
“Alright, go get the wheel chair.” He moved quickly to the other side of the bed and started to wake up Jacob. I put the bag into my purse and opened the closet door to where they kept his wheel chair nicely folded.
Dr. Carter was removing the IV from his arm and that little clip they put on his finger to keep track of his heartbeats. I unfolded the chair and wheeled it over to the bed where Dr. Carter was picking up my drowsy brother into his arms.
Jacob finally started to stir when he was put into the chair and Dr. Carter draped a blanket on his lap.  “Mary?” he said happily. He took a look around, “Where am I going?”
“Hey baby.” I kissed his forehead, “You’re going to the balcony with me.  So keep that blanket with you its a little cold.”  Only special cases got a balcony in their rooms. That’s what mom and dad said anyway, but I knew what they meant by special. They meant ‘hopeless’.
Hell even Jacob had figured that one out.
Dr. Carter opened the sliding glass door, “Mary, I can keep your parents away for at least an hour. I’ll try to give you more time later on in the day.”
“Thank you Dr. Carter.  You’re a good man.”  I pushed Jacob outside and he closed the door behind me and drew the blinds closed.
“An hour for what Mary?”  Jacob asked as he wrapped his thin arms around my neck and I picked him up.  I sat him down gently on the soft, plush bench-swing.  I sat down right next to him and pulled the white blanket on to his lap and tucked it around him.
“I got you something to help with your pain.”  I opened my purse and took out the plastic bag filled with the joints and the lighter.  I opened the bag and took out one joint and the Zippo.  “Dr. Carter says this will make you feel a whole lot better.”
I explained to him what Ryan had told me and held the lighter for him as he tried to take the first drag, but his hand shook too much, so I had to start the burn.  Then I gave it to him.
For an hour we sat there leaning on one another and rocking as he took hit after hit.  It was the first time in months we just talked and laughed without him screaming in pain.
He was so relaxed after the first joint that he fell asleep against my shoulder.  I sat there still rocking the bench in a soothing rhythm, until Dr. Carter came outside to get Jacob in bed before our parents came back.
But that became our routine, after the THC wore off and Jacob could feel the pain Dr. Carter would have mom and dad leave, and we would go outside and smoke until he fell asleep.  A peaceful, painless sleep, then he would wake up happy, and thank god, with out pain.
The next time I saw Ryan it was a week since I had bought from him.  I was walking to my car with Nathan and Nick about to give them a ride to Nathan’s house when I heard him call out my name and ran towards me.
“Hey.”  I called to him while Nick and Nathan fought about who was in the backseat.  “I forgot to give you your lighter back.”  I opened my purse and fumbled for it.  Hopefully I hadn’t left it with Jacob.
“Forget about it.”  He said then pulled me into a tight hug.  He held me for like 3 minutes then let go.  “I’ve got something for you.”  He took off his backpack and pulled out what looked like to be a large bag of green and brown dried mulch.
“Thank you?” I said and took it from him. Laughing he pulled out another bag of paper.
“I can teach you how to roll your own some time, if you want.” He smiled and nodded to Nathan and Nick.  “Later.”
When he walked away I realized that he didn’t just hand me a bag of dried mulch, it was a giant bag of weed. “Ryan, wait. I don’t need this!”
He turned around, “It’s not for you.”
         “Wow.”  Nick whistled.  “You just scored a lot of hash, baby.  We ought to start calling you Mary-Jane now.”  Smiling at his odd humor I put the weed and the papers in my purse and got into the car.
         “Man Ryan Carter is a good guy,” Nathan laughed as he got into the passenger side seat.
         “Carter?”  I looked at him in utter disbelief.  “His last name is Carter?”
         “Yeah,” Nathan said as he lit his ninth cigarette of the day.  “You didn’t know that?  You bought drugs from him and you didn’t even know his last name?”  He handed the cigarette to his boyfriend Nick after his first drag.
         Nick laughed and took a long drag.  “I think his dad is a doctor.”
         Nathan nodded.  “Yeah, some big time doctor.  He is huge when it comes to medical marijuana, wrote lots of articles, you know.”
         I drove past Ryan and a group of his friends and he smiled at me.  And I couldn’t help but smile back.  Nathan is right; Ryan Carter is a good man.