2.08 Cross my Heart

Windbreaker asked if I liked traveling.

"Yeah. I go to Southeast Asia--Thailand, Malaysia, and so on--about once a year," I said. "And I try to visit a new country at least once every one or two years."

"You do drugs when you were there?"

"Where?"

"Thailand. Have you done drugs in Thailand?"

"Huh?"

"Have you done drugs in Thailand? You know, ecstasy?"

On the top shelf of the bookshelf just behind him was an article Jean had clipped for me from The Bangkok Times a few weeks earlier. It described Thailand's illicit trade in narcotics, particular yaba.

"You must be joking." I said. "Of course, I haven't."

"Oh? Why not?" Windbreaker seemed to find that surprising.

"Why not? Because I have no interest in ending up in a Thai jail is why not!"

"How about Japan, you ever do drugs in Japan? You ever smoke 'ganja'?"

"Ganja?"

"Marijuana."

"No. Never."

"You've never smoked ganja?"

"Look, I'd be lying if I said I'd I've never smoked," I admitted apologetically. "In college, you know, I tried it just like everyone else. Hell, even Clinton did. But, no, I have never smoked marijuana in Japan."

Cross my heart and hope to die.

A taller cop, thinning on top and shabbily dressed, took a large case off the top of my refrigerator, placed it on the dining table and opened it. Inside was a water pipe, broken down into about eight pieces.

"What's this?" he asked, holding up the Bohemian glass bowl that formed the base of the pipe.

"It's an argileh," I said.

"A what?"

"A Lebanese water pipe,” I explained, “for smoking tobacco. The tobacco is in the cabinet across from the fridge. Top shelf."

Boy, if there was anything dubious in my apartment, besides yours truly of course, it was that pipe, but, rather than pack it up with all the other things the cops were gleefully confiscating, the cop returned the argileh to its case and put it back on top of the refrigerator. You can smoke dope on one of those, not that I was ready to inform them.

The same cop, obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed, asked if I were Muslim.

"How many Muslims do you know keep a well stocked bar?"

I had a small shrine of sorts dedicated to St. Max Kolbe, patron saint of among all things addicts, stocked with Ron Zecapa Centenario, Absinthe, imo shôchû, awamori, and so on to keep the home fire burning.

He signed irritably, then, started hunting through the contents of my refrigerator where, in addition to the usual perishables, I kept vitamins and other supplements on the top rack of the door.

"What's this," he asked, holding up a small bottle of filled with a green liquid.

"It's Champo-Phenique," I said. "It's for insect bites and cold sores."

He bagged it up as evidence. Then, he removed a small box. "And this?"

"I have rhinitis," I explained, pulling a handkerchief from my back pocket and honking the klaxon for effect. "It helps." Sniff.

The box contained about a month's supply of Modafinil, a stimulant I'd been popping like candy for the past three years--I happened to be slightly jazzed up on it that morning. Was I giving the truth a slight twist by saying that it helped with my rhinitis? Not really. It helped me keep my eyes open when the antihistamines I had to take daily were trying to pull the shades down.

There was something, however, that I wasn't about to let them in on. As they say, loose lips sink ships, a fact that is all the more poignant when your boat is filled gunwale-to-gunwale with plainclothes policemen. Modafinil taken with a cocktail of the Cognamine and other nootropics I had stashed away in the back of the fridge would have you soaring like a rocket all night and, at the end of the flight, landing softly as if onto a giant marshmallow. Astonishingly enough, none of them were controlled substances in Japan.

He dropped the Modafinil into a Ziploc bag to be sent to the lab, and then closed the fridge having done his bit.

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.