Traffic

I slap my left and right cheeks; I know better than to snort this brownish powder and hit the pipe at the same time. But I do it anyway, I roll up a bill and aim the end to the line and SHHHH as every little pixel is sniffed. My body feels heavy and I nod forward in ecstasy.

I tilt my head back, put the straight pipe to my lips and light the end. The white rock crackles as it melts. The white smoke smoothly enters my lungs. Wosh! Head rush, I hear waves of sound. Ring ring ring! I lay back lazily in euphoria on my seat. I grind my teeth as my legs shake with rapid eye movement zoning in on every object in the room.

All my worries go away. My pregnant ex girlfriend, the exam next week, working tomorrow, violating probation and the smoke all go out the window.

I decline from my high, reality sets in. Frantically, I jump into my car and yield as I enter the highway, soon concentrating on the green sign displaying Baltimore. Forty five minutes later, I arrive in the inner city, an open air drug market. All the grass and trees of my world replaced with concrete and gray buildings matching the color of the cloudy sky.

People wander the streets as if it’s a third world country. The hopeless urban landscape consists of public housing projects with boarded up windows, abandoned neighborhoods with graffiti criss crossing all over bricks, block after block of vacant decaying row houses, busted up cars, and crooked streets littered with trash and paraphernalia. Traffic lights, one ways, U-turns, four way streets confuse me as I traverse this tightly built maze. I cruise around, searching corners for distributors congregating in this high intensity drug trafficking area. I constantly check my mirrors and windows for police patrolling. Flashing Blue and Red lights indicate a free pass to central booking for possession.

The English language becomes simplified. Crews yell out YO and wave at me. I crank down my window, allowing exhaust in, and announce: “Four Ready!” I park to the side ahead a block. The crew splits in different directions like a mirv and post in every corner of the two way street, closing both distributor and customer in, all observing for the dreaded Impala, ready to scream 5-O to give us a heads up.

A man calmly approaches my window to wonder if I am a Narc. “Are you police?” “No, Four Ready!” Trusting his gut instinct he walks quickly into a narrow dark alley. He returns to the car, drops 4 glass vials with blue tops filled with clusters of rocks, into my left hand as he pulls the folded bills from my right. The entire crew scatters in different directions as I drive off slowly blending in with traffic.

Unsatisfied, as Dope goes hand in hand with Ready, I drive to another block and yell out “Four Dopes!” This time the man trusts me and disappears into a dilapidated public housing complex. He returns with four capsules filled with brownish powder and we swap as a police officer on foot pretends he didn’t see the transaction.

With products in hand, I return to my world. Grass and trees appear as the clouds disappear revealing the sun. I take a ramp back on the highway exiting the drug capital of the United States. I am done playing cat and mouse with the cops. It has only been fifteen minutes, a new record. I wonder why it seemed like an hour.

I'm headed home satisfied yet worried about my irresponsible lifestyle.

Then REW, REW right behind me. Eight blue and red light orbs spinning and flashing. What do you know? It's an Impala.