Read I Was There the Night He Died for Free Online

hours of Mountain Dew-abetted writing—I need this. Before I put match to joint, though, I decide to take my toking outside, the fresh air on my face probably as good for cooling down my over-busy brain as the warm smoke in my lungs. I peel off the heating blanket and put on my coat and hope that the parkette is empty. It’s 11:30 on a Thursday night in January in Chatham. Of course it’ll be empty.
    And it is, for as long as it takes me to light up and cough right back out what I just breathed in.
    From behind me, “It’s probably best if we don’t wake the grown-ups.”
    I turn around on the bench but don’t need to, immediately recognize the voice from last time. “How do you know I’m not a grown-up?”
    The girl inhales, holds it, emits a perfect stream of smoke. “Just a hunch,” she says.
    Since she doesn’t appear to be going anywhere and it seems silly to turn around and pretend she’s not there, I get up from the bench and pretend to admire the night sky. I casually take another toke; not so casually hack my way to a raw windpipe and two watery eyes.
    â€œNot much danger of you becoming a pothead, is there?” the girl says.
    Still coughing, “I”—right forefinger raised, just a moment, please, while I—“don’t usually”—bent over, hands on both knees now, tears clogging both eyes—“smoke”—
    â€œMarijuana. Yeah, I can see that.” She gives me a moment to stand upright and wipe my eyes dry. My joint has gone dead. On the plus side, no one has turned on their porch light or set their Rottweiler on us. Not yet, anyway. “Why bother, then?”
    I attempt to relight the joint while considering her question, but the wind is always one stifling step ahead. I give up and stand there in the cold blowy night with the extinguished joint in one hand and the useless lighter in the other. “Self-improvement,” I say.
    The girl makes a perfect pucker, sucks in another lungful of dopey smoke. “I’ve never heard of anyone taking up pot smoking to better themself.”
    â€œThere are a lot worse things to do to yourself, believe me.”
    â€œNow that’s the kind of thing I like to hear from an adult. You should talk to my shrink.”
    Shrink? The girl’s—what? Seventeen? Eighteen? Besides, people in Chatham don’t go to psychiatrists. When I was her age, psychiatrists were who actors in Woody Allen movies visited, or maybe characters in Robertson Davies novels set in Toronto.
    â€œHe doesn’t approve?”
    â€œ She says I have an unhealthy propensity to self-medicate.”
    â€œTell her she should be proud of you. Tell her self-medication shows initiative.”
    The girl laughs. “Do you want me to show you?” she says.
    Hold on a minute—show me what, exactly? Nice smile or not, unusually precocious or not, if Steady Eddie can be a grandfather, I could be this girl’s father.
    â€œI should head inside,” I say, thumbing in the direction of the house, just to make sure it’s absolutely clear I’ve got somewhere I should be—and, by extension, so does she.
    â€œI wasn’t offering to fuck you,” she says.
    â€œNo, no, I know. No. God, no.” Out comes the thumb again. “I just—”
    â€œShow you how to get high,” she says. “Do you want me to show you how to get high.”
    â€œRight. Of course. Right.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œSo … yeah, sure. Thanks.”
    The girl pats the empty swing beside her. Not like a brazen temptress, more like a patient owner with a willing but witless puppy. “Watch,” she says, returning the joint to her mouth. “Breathe in the smoke like this.” Which she does—like a flight attendant patiently instructing her passengers how to fasten their seatbelts—before calmly pausing and then gently inhaling what’s left.