"I don't understand why you wouldn't rather do what you're doing now back here with us," Mike said to me the other day. "You could wait tables at The Dock and stay with us. Doesn't make sense."
The conversations I have with Mike are frustrating because he's right. Maybe if I was broke when I first met him and Rod, I would still be down there.
After working at the hall, I never want to see Johnny again. He wasn't someone I wanted to go out and meet locals with, but I had no one else to go out with. I wanted my relationship with him to be just business. I wanted to make my own new friends, although that's not what I told him. I knew that the people I would probably meet wouldn't get along with him. Johnny was as close to a friend that I had when I was in school, but he's too much of an ego head. He was different from most of the private school kids, but he had that same sense of entitlement that a lot of the other kids had. His dad is a really successful business man and Johnny was obviously going to take up the family business, which he did.
After a day's work at the hall, I went out with Johnny, his family, and some coworkers to a bar close to the beach. The only thing worse than going out with Johnny was going out with his family tagging along with us. It just wasn't enjoyable to be with them at all but after being miserable for about an hour at the bar, the group of them left and went home early. I stayed at the bar and that's where I met Rod, Mike's roommate.
I had just ordered a beer from the bar when I saw one guy hit another guy. I was at the end of the bar and turned my head to watch the bouncer carry the guy who through the punch out. Rod and his group sat down next me, irate about what had just happened. His friend that got hit was laughing and the left side of his face was starting to swell up. Rod was laughing too. The other guys they were with were really upset about it.
It didn't take me long to realize that this group was "Rod's group." Some of the girls kept asking him if he was going to let the group go back to his place for the night. The girls were really sexy. Rod introduced one of them to me. We didn't talk too much, but I liked her. She and her friends were wondering which of Rod's friends would "just buy and go" if the group went back to his place. He was getting angry with them. I think one of them was his girlfriend but I never found out for sure.
Rod and Mike are coke dealers. Obviously Rod was a dealer of some kind, but I didn't know what yet. Rod and I bought each other drinks at the bar and he drunkenly tried to explain to me what had happened with his friend who got hit. The friend came up behind us at the bar and joked "Want to smack my other cheek?" He was really fucked up too. Way more than Rod. I'm still surprised that the bar didn't kick him out too. Rod told me that the other guy started the fight, but who knows. The way his friend was acting, it wouldn't surprise me if he was just as much at fault. After Rod's group was really drunk and it was almost 2:00am, Rod announced that we could all go back to his place, which is a beachfront apartment.
After Rod was done getting the group together, I followed him. All the girls couldn't fit into his car, so I took one of them with me. I was pretty fucked up, but not on the level of the people in the group yet. The girl I took to Rod's apartment was so drunk. I asked her what her name was and she said something like "Emjee". I was going to say something else but she waved her hand as if saying "Just drive".
I parked next to Rod and the girl joined her friends. Rod put his arm around my shoulder and said
"Nice place, eh?". Yeah, I thought, really nice. It was a Friday night and I had finally met some people.
Rod's apartment was way too small to accommodate 20 people. Mike was playing Super Smash with a fucking huge Mexican guy everyone called "Papa". He was cool. The "buy and go" guys left, and they took some of the girls with them, which lessened the group to about 10. I did three or four lines with Rod and Mike and then everyone except Papa went down to the apartment pool. One of the girls and a member or Rod's group were having sex in the pool. Nobody bothered them. Everyone was fucked up, smiling, and joking around. I ended up crashing on Rod's couch that night.
My god was I fucked up. This was my first experience with coke and it was unlike any experience I've ever had. Once I lost my job at the hall, I would help Rod and Mike for the next couple weeks and would stay at their place. There was a trust that Rod, Mike, and I shared. After the first night I crashed at their apartment, the three of us became close. They would leave me alone in their apartment knowing that I knew that there were $100's of dollars of coke and cash that I could steal. That made me feel good. It sort of reassured me that we were close friends, that I belonged.
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