CHAPTER 26 - HIGH SCHOOL

Pavel and I walked through the woods toward my first day at West Boylston Jr/Sr High School. Without thinking, I slipped my fingers under his arm. He lifted his elbow high. I wanted to steady my nerves by being physically closer, but that bit of self-soothing was no longer an option. It annoyed my brother. A moment of sadness wafted by like smoke.

Read. Don't cry. Be independent. All this I learned from Pavel, who I was beginning to think was a genius.

We arrived at what we called 'our field' and filled a ceramic pot pipe Pav made in art class. Seeds popped as he held the flame over the bowl. This was when marijuana was a giddy, thoughtful high rather than the powerful drug it is today. 

The pipe was heavy and square-ish, and holding it with your lips looked funny. We laughed. That was the best part of getting high with Pav: laughing at silly absurdities.

The THC worked our young brains and before long, we shared awe. About life. About the startling suchness of existence. 

A blade of grass was no longer just grass. It became an inarguable mystery. 

"Pav, everything is alive and it's fucking weird."

"I know!" Pav got it. "You ever wonder why we're here, Van? I mean, Why life?" Pav's long hair lifted with a gust of wind. 

"Adults don't even ask those questions," I said, making a whistle out of the grass as Bryan had shown me, years before, when he was my mentor. 

"Adults tell us stuff they don't even believe," Pavel said.

I blew through my thumbs. The grass vibrated and made a noise like a party favor.

"There has to be, like, a magic genie who can tell us what life is all about."

"Van, what if everything we know is in a box? What's outside that box? There are always more boxes, see?"

"Ow, my head hurts!" I pretended I was in pain. But it did almost hurt physically to ponder infinity and feel the edges of my thinking. I laughed at the weirdness of our conversation, then got up and spun around like the Sound of Music lady.

We hid our contraband and continued to the brick school with all the big kids who were untouchably cool to me.