SUPPOSE THAT YOU AND I were sitting in your living room, chatting for the first time out of school. I sit there looking at you; I avoid making eye contact while I ponder… What do you do behind closed door? I am not referring to the hook ups you have with guys that seemed to be stunning at the time, the ones you look back and throw up a little in your mouth when you think, I did that with him! I mean did you get curious and try some marijuana and like it? Did you continue getting curious and experimented with other drugs like shrooms, acid, ecstasy, crack, heroin, or even meth? I want to know, but thought it rude to ask. I want to know, because I don’t want to get close to someone and lose them again.
I wasn’t always this careful in my selection of friends. I became friends with anyone that was actually nice enough to talk to me or didn’t know anything of my past. Moving to a different country is one thing but being stared at everyday and ridiculed constantly isn’t something to look forward to. I was teased for tan skin, an accent, and trends since money was an issue. Anger was the side effect of daily slaps in the face for being different.
Yet I found friends. It was the best feeling, to think… Wow; someone likes me…for me. I finally made a friend, but it came with a price.
Her name was Candace, but she went by the name of Candii. She dressed so different from everyone else, but it fit her. She reminded me of a raver with her parachute pants, multicolored t-shirts and tank tops that she wore over her t-shirts rather then under. The jewelry she wore was bright colors like orange and yellow. Her outfits weren’t always color coordinated, but it was always very bright. Yet she fit into her own world. The way she put make up on was so different then all the other girls. I wasn’t allowed to wear make up, so I was plain and unattractive. She had naturally brown hair, but dyed it bleach blonde, which I thought was fascinating at the time. I loved that her hair was so thin and she had an assortment of hair styles to choose from, unlike me and my thick, frizzy, and tangled hair. I was so jealous of her at the time. I later found out her hair was so thin, because all the drugs she was doing. Over the years the tables turned, because drugs took their toll on her appearance.
I remember the first drug I was exposed to. Summer of 2000, Candii took me to her friends’ house down the street. Her friends’ names were Jeff and Jason. They were some very unattractive, drugged up twins. It was a horrid looking house. I later found out the reason for the house’s unappealing appearance was due to the lack of a mother to take care of the house work. It smelled so strange to me. It was like the smell of cigarettes, but with a twist. To this day if I smell this strange odor, I know exactly what it is: marijuana. I looked around the living room and I saw where the source of the smell was coming from. It was a small, circular container accentually used to hold water. It wasn’t being used for water though; it was made into a cheap bong. I wasn’t sure how it was constructed at the time, because I wasn’t paying much attention to the details.
I remember the last time I was exposed to something so different… mas minha mãe, eu não gosto de falar inglês (but mommy, I don’t like speaking English). I was only six years old and was forced to throw away my first language. After thinking about that time when I was six, I started to also remember something my mom had told me... Your grandmother made a couple bad decisions in her life; one of them included drugs. She isn’t around anymore. After hearing how my grandmother died and why I never met her, frightened me. I thought… How could something so small kill someone? I was only in fourth grade at the time so I was very naïve. We didn’t learn about how drugs kill someone until the fifth grade. Then as I thought to myself, I realized everyone was staring at me. Their eyes were glazed over and Candii was holding that foreign object and pointing it at my direction.
Of course, I was being offered pot for the first time in my life. I had so many thoughts running in my head. I didn’t want to lose the only friend I had, but I also didn’t want to disobey my mother. So are you going to take it? It is burning up. I decided then and there that I didn’t want to end up like my grandmother. No thanks. My grandmother died from that stuff. You can do it, but I won’t. They were taken back by my answer. I suppose people my age never refuse to take a hit. Yet I did. It was the biggest decision of my life, up until then. I didn’t disobey my mother and I didn’t lose my friends. Even though I did feel a little distant from them, because they would be laughing about the word “cheese” and I just sit there and watch them make fools of themselves. From time to time I would hide their weed and they would go crazy searching the house for it. It was funny to me how something so small could control someone’s life.
It was fun watching my friends’ act like idiots every time I saw them, but it started to escalate. Candii and I made a new friend named Nicole. She brought something new for Candii to try and attempt to convince me as well. We went to the nearby park and sat in one of the play structures. I had no idea what she brought with her, but it didn’t take me long to see the effects of it. I was confused for a second when she pulled out a bottle of air freshener and a rag. She was showing us what to do. Nicole took the rag and placed it over the spray bottle. Placing her mouth over the rag and spraying the chemical product into her mouth. I suppose the rag blocked most of the chemicals from going into her mouth, but it was still gross. Once again I declined the offer of inhaling something foreign into my lungs. I watch my friends’ once again act retarded for sometime, but it was different. I will never forget them talking about the little purple people dancing the hula. I was laughing because they acted so funny. Basically I was always high on the way my friends acted. Earlier that day I never would have thought I was going to be dragging my two friends home and had to tuck them into bed. They threw up half the way home and they were on the verge of passing out. I was less than five foot at the time and they were both at least five inches taller then me. Candii on one shoulder and Nicole on the other, I basically dragged them three blocks until we reached Nicole’s house. All my friends that did drugs had parents who did it or they just didn’t care about them at all. I walked into Nicole’s house and found a note that read… At the bar, clean the house. I was always shocked on how their parents didn’t even care about them. I undressed them and put some comfy pajamas on both of them. Then I laid them down in the same bed to sleep and tucked them in. I grabbed a blanket and laid on the floor next to them. Next morning they didn’t remember a thing and didn’t really care what happened. At that time I realized that my friends didn’t care much about life at all.
The year passed by and Nicole moved. But another friend always came into town with something new to show Candii and me. One day it will be something they place on their pizza called shrooms, the next I see pills that they call E, and needles get involved with heroin. After the ecstasy, I stopped hanging out with Candii. I got sick of dragging her home and never getting a thank you. I started to care about me and thought…I could be responsible if something really bad happened to her. At times I thought she was going to die, because she started shaking, which I found out later were the drugs making her have a seizure. She always told me she would be mad at me if I called 911, so I listened to her.
I still talked to her, but I always made an excuse that I couldn’t go out. She told me about the new drug she was taking. It was heroin and she was getting it from this girl Ashley and Ashley’s Mom. After that day at school, Candii stopped going to school. I thought maybe she decided to move in with her Dad in Florida. She was talking about it for some time, but I later found out from the newspaper what really did happen to her.
The newspaper didn’t say the names of Ashley or Candii, but it did say Ashley’s last name which was referring to her mother. All three of them got caught using heroin and started pointing fingers. Candii was saying Ashley and her mother forced the heroin needles into my skin. I doubt that really happened, but it got her out of more trouble. Ashley and Candii went to rehab, while Ashley’s mom is still in prison to this day.
I have not spoken to Candii since that day she informed me of the new exciting drug she was taking, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she ended up like my grandmother. I feel sorry that such a beautiful girl like Candii was dragged into drugs and controlled by it through all of her youth. I watched her fail in life, but someone always has to fail for someone to succeed.
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