City rain falls in East Los Angeles. It’s a smell that brings memory of ozone, but there’s something dirty about it, like it’s been through a cloudbank of pure pollution. This is LA, so that’s probably it. I step out from the gated yard and clop clop clop to my car, noticing the odor. It’s not a sweet perfume smell, like you get after a rainfall in the East Coast mountains, but it’s not a stench either. Somewhere in between. The street is dark. About three hundred yards away from me are four males, my age or older, some in do-rags, some in Starter jackets, all of them milling about on a dark street corner. That’s not rain I smell, it’s trouble. I ease my car around and pull a three-point turn in the middle of the street. Head toward the light, they say. It’s a good rule here.
I carry the smell of pot on my clothes. I don’t smoke it, but if everyone in Los Angeles who smokes it raised their hands simultaneously, it would be the most impressive “wave” ever seen on the planet. But then everyone would look up and notice their hands and how funny they look, hanging in the air like that. They’ll marvel and wonder at what force keeps their hands majestically hovering above their heads. The nice thing about pot smokers is they’re generally quite well-disposed. In fact, the few that I know also happen to be quite generous people, especially with their pot. And you never have to fear people on the pipe mugging you for cannabis cash. Maybe if you have a sweet bong in your back pocket, but even then, they’ll mug you with a banana instead of a gun, and they’ll return your wallet with apologies, walking off at a comfortable shamble with your sweet bong, laughing, whilst you call the cops (who are likely on the take).
I have aquaintances who smoke pot. It’s a fact of life. I politely declined tonight’s offering, which is another nice thing about pot smokers. There’s rarely the social peer pressure you get from the “harder” drugs. If presented with a line of coke sitting on some naked chick’s bare backside, I would imagine it’s harder to say “no thanks” than with someone who offers you a hit off a pipe. There’s just something about the situation that tells me that if you’re staring at a naked girl with white powder on her butt, it’s probably too late to turn back, better get it over with. When someone offers you the pipe, you’re looking at someone whose train of thought stopped between stations to marvel at a bug that just hit the windshield. When someone offers you coke, you’re also looking at several grand in cash and a gun barrel. And a naked chick, let’s not forget that.
Honest, I didn’t smoke any pot.
Met some MonkeyFilter folks at the conjunction of International Talk Like a Pirate Day ^(Arrr!) and the semi-regular LA MoFi Meetup at the HMS Bounty, a scuppered but serviceable joint on Wilshire. I somehow ended up footing about $25 extra on the bill, though I still don’t know how it happened, as I counted twice and think I got money from everyone. Not sure what happened there, but I hope that will come back in the form of a paid meal at the next meetup. Maybe not. It’s just money.