While grocery shopping today I over heard two teenagers talking one isle over about the new kid at their school and one said, "I think she's a Nark." And I laughed because everyone remembers when they were in school and there was the new kid that everyone suspected of being "The Nark". That Mythical high school creature, "The Nark." With a smile and a bit of nausea, memories of friends, drugs, and high school came rushing back.
Paul N.- This is where It all began. It was 4Th grade and Mrs. Trew alerted us there was a new student coming today and he would be in our class. Oh the excitement of a New student. He entered the class, and my life, in brown corduroys, an orange and brown stripe sweater, and grey hush puppy shoes. He sat down in the empty seat behind me. Little did I know that I would no longer be the shy quiet girl, but the girl who had to pull her seat in the hall because she was disrupting the class with laughter. He would just look at me and make a face and I would be sent straight to the hall. The last straw was when we all gave our book reports in front of class. Mine was on Anne Frank's Diary. I was really excited about giving my report. I even dressed up like her. Nothing was going to mess this up. I just could not look at Paul and everything would go smoothly. I stood up in front of class holding my piece of paper, ready to blow the teacher and class away with my eloquent report. I looked at Paul and he took a hamburger shaped eraser and started silently eating it and I just broke down in tears and laughter. Mrs. trew jumped up out of her seat and grabbed me and Paul and sent us out in the hall and stuck me in one corner of the hall and him in the other. Shortly after that, Paul's Mom and dad divorced and his Dad got custody of him and he was taken away from me. He told me he was moving to Schenectady New York. Oh god I was devastated. Where was Skin-neck-titty?(this is how he told me how to remember the pronunciation) I got used to his absence pretty fast I got used to not spewing chocolate milk out my nose(sometimes even food) at lunch.
5 years later. 1988, 8Th grade. New kid enters class. It was Paul N.. This time he was wearing tight jeans with holes in the knees, a Motley Crue Shout At The Devil T-Shirt, and sporting long brown hair with bleached tips. I couldn't believe it, he entered my life again. He sat down in the empty seat across the room and looked back at me and smiled. He remembered me! We instantly became friends without ever discussing 4Th grade. His locker was right next to mine. He wasted no time taping Guns N Roses poster that he ripped out of the latest issue of Metal Edge. Poor guy. I quickly turned him on to what I was listening to and the posters came down fast. Summer came and he was gone again. Back to Skin-neck-titty.
10Th grade. There he was. This time he was wearing corduroys similar to the ones from fourth grade, Birk's, and a Doors tee. There we were, friends like no time had gone by. We talked about the Music we were listening to, the books we were reading, and the drugs he was taking. I always wanted to get high but never really had the opportunity presented to me. And now I had the teacher and the tools. Little did I know that one Autumn night in 10Th grade behind his mom's house in the woods, taking hits from his prized glass pipe, would change my life forever. He told me I probably wouldn't get high the first time, but I was on a mission, and I had succeeded. It was the best feeling sitting under the tree laughing till I literally puked. We slowly made our way through the woods back to his house. He then told me he was taking me to see Pink Floyd's the wall. There was a midnight showing at Regal Cinemas. I told him that I didn't really like Pink Floyd (which was like telling a christian that you hate Jesus). He didn't take the news well. So I called my mom and dad stoned out of my gourde and told them I was staying at my friend Amy's house. We got to the theatre and all I remember is everything was orange. The glow of the orange carpet and the orange walls was hypnotizing. But the trance was quickly broken by the paranoid feeling that everyone was looking at me because I was stoned. I remember wanting to just sit down in the dark theater so I could get my shit together. Next thing I know I'm watching two flowers fuck on screen and @ that moment I thought Pink Floyd was the best thing my ears had ever witnessed. but then the buzz wore off, and I came to my senses. 10Th grade went by and we discovered we weren't the only two people on earth and started making other friends. Slowly our separate lives began and that's when I met April.
I met April in 11Th grade in English Lit. we sat far away from each other in an over populated classroom. By the end of the semester she decided to come and sit in front of me. as she was sitting down I noticed she was wearing an old leather belt that looked like it was bought at truck stop in the 70's, with the words JESUS LOVES YOU carved into it. I giggled and said, "I like your belt." She turned around with big doey over sized blue eyes, and said very seriously "my dad used to spank me with it". and then she made a whipping motion while saying "Jesus loves you." I knew at that moment I was going to be her friend. A couple of days after our first introduction the weekend had come and I was planning on going to a rave with a girl I had met from work. I get to the rave. Lose my friend, and decided to go out on the dance floor. I then felt a tap on my back and there she was, April. She was holding a large balloon and screaming, "Christina! This is my boyfriend Rob!" I looked next to her in the flashing strobe and I see a tall skinny guy holding a green balloon with the biggest shit eating grin while taking a hit off it. She then ask if I wanted one. I said "what? a balloon" and then she yelled "a NITROUS balloon!" Now at this moment I remembered where I had heard the word nitrous. once in a physical science class(boring) and once at the dentist when he told me he was now going to let me breath in a little nitrous oxide(glorious). With this re found memory there was no hesitation I said, "yes" and that's when I discovered a couple seconds of what I'm sure heroin would of felt like. Next thing I know I'm spending everyday all day with my new friends April and Rob. Rob came from a wealthy family, attended an all boys preparatory school, had a relentless drive for his next high, and never had money.
I then became friends with all his friends. This was trouble, I ended up experimenting with every drug known to me at the time. Some how I manage to keep my grades up and be home @ curfew. My time spent with Rob and the others was short lived, thank god. I Didn't think I could've listened to one more Grateful Dead song. I think back on the time we used my van to break into Rob's fathers dentist office to steal a Nitrous tank, and the time rob came by my place of employment and handed me the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes filled with 4 triple-dipped hits of Felix the Cat acid, and told me to take them an hour before I got off work. This was my first time ever doing acid and I was then about to consume the equivalent of 12 hits of acid. I thought what harm could it do. I was excited, so I decided to eat it 2 hours before I got off work. I started tripping an hour before closing. I remember just finding a table in the far corner of my work, closest to the door, that way I could escape if it got too much. And It got too much. I remember just staring at the restroom door because it looked like it was breathing or at least slowly bending. I then thought if I close my eyes and pictured myself invisible it would surely work and no one would see me. I sat waiting for Rob and April and the fucking Garcia crew to show up. Finally in storms Rob. Smiling and saying, "did you take them yet?" I said, "yeah?", and then he said "shit none of us have taken ours yet." I thought what the fuck had I gotten myself into. There was no turning back now. I followed him out to our friend Chuck's jeep(Chuck, who 3 years later died on the side of the road after taking cat tranquilizers mixed with booze). I climb in the back seat next to April who hands off a giant cooler of beer to me, while Chuck turns the shit they called music (The Dead) on full blast. I noticed there was a Tank of Nitrous straddled in between me and April with the valve facing Chuck and Rob. As rob handed off balloons filled with hippie crack to me and April he filled one for himself and the driver Chuck. I took a long drag. My body felt like it was falling forward and all I remember was looking up and saying, "I'm fishing" and everyone laughed as I felt the cooler slipping through my fingers. I couldn't hold onto it. I was convinced there was water pouring all down around it making it impossible to hold onto. That's when I noticed the driver was now taking hits off his balloon. Even in the state I was in, I fucking knew what he was doing would probably kill us. So I just closed my eyes and convinced my self I was in a plane experiencing some mild turbulence. We ended up at a party where I guess everyone was on acid. I followed rob to a bedroom that seemed to be filled with 100 people and they start passing bowl after bowl after joint after joint until the next thing I know I'm laughing and the girl next to me starts laughing and that's when I look up to see what I thought was rob looking back with his mouth wide open in shock at me. That's when I felt a fire come over my back and then the shit hit the fan. Next thing I know I'm in a wood paneled hallway with my friend Jason(who died 5 years later committing suicide, jumping off a bridge) holding me trying to get me to hold some fucking crystal around his neck, telling me to feel the positive energy coming from it. I went home the next day still tripping and my dad immediately was on me. I just told him what I did and he started giving me milk and vitamin b . Apparently my dad knew this cure from his youth. I found out at that moment he used to host acid parties for days at a time before I was born, until my mom made him stop. He never told my mom about my condition. My curiosity for hallucinates was over and I moved on.
12Th grade. Now this is were my memory of "Nark" comes into play. I was sitting in the commons area of my high school minding my own business when in walks this hot guy wearing a Clockwork Orange shirt, a leather jacket and carrying a helmet. He looks lost. He looks older than your average Senior. But above all else he looks New. Later that day lunchtime rolls around and he comes and sits right in front of me. I couldn't believe it. We introduce ourselves. He tells me his name is Jeremy S. His last name was actually S. The bell rings and we go our separate ways. Later that day I start hearing the rumor that there was a nark in school, and it was my new friend Jeremy S. Now, I really don't think someone going undercover would ever choose to have this last name. I brush off this rumor and naturally I start going to his house after school to smoke. One time I made the mistake of getting high after school and then having to leave straight from his place to go work. I never had been so stoned. I would drive up to lights and not really remember if green meant go or if red meant stop. So I just stared at the driver next to me and did what he did. Needless to say when I got to work they sent me home.
Later that year Mr. S. asked me to prom. Now I really had no desire to go with him, but I said yes. He picks me up night of prom. I hop on the back of his bike and we ride off into the sunset to a shitty motel. I think cool well smoke a joint in our room go to prom, leave, come back and get high some more. Well, we get there and discus how we really didn't want to go but it would be fun to get our picture taken in front of one of those cheesy prom back drops. That's when he pulls out two joints. one for me and one for him. His was rolled in white paper, and mine was wrapped in leopard print paper. I found out when I got to prom why my joint was so special. I immediately start feeling my heart pound. The music sounded like it was screaming my name over and over again. I get paranoid because I kept thinking there's a group of teachers standing in every corner and then I would look again it would be bouquet of balloons. I was pissed and confused. I asked the "Nark" what the hell was in the joint and he laughs and Say's, "Dust". What? What the hell is dust. I lost him fast and searched for my friend Davina. I finally found her. She resembled an Amazonian Molly Ringwald. She looks shocked and asked me what's wrong, I told her I didn't know and tell her to come help me find my van. Now I was so fucked up I forgot I drove on the back of motorcycle, and was convinced I was park somewhere outside. So we (Davina and I) search all over downtown for my van, when I realized I had rode with Jeremy. She then says, "lets get out of here." Next thing I know I'm with Paul N. and Molly Ringwald in the back alley of another fucking rave buying a Nitrous balloon. Well that was the end of my drug experimenting in high school. I never really talked to Jeremy S. again. Found out "Dust" was PCP. He later moved away to become a Nark in someone Else's school.
2. I've been wanting this book for along time. So much so that I got a copy from 2 different people. The book contains some real photos of real people in 1950's America taken by Swedish photographer Robert Frank. Introduction written by none other than Jack Kerouac. I mean who better to introduce a book on photographs of Americans. I was pleasantly surprised to see a picture taken in Chattanooga (my home town). Such good stuff.
3. this great reprodtion of a 1930's phone. It's ring if even for second makes you feel like your getting a phone call from the past.
