T'is the summer glow, I reckon, that's got the mind all a-flutter for some sweet, Czech cheeba. A little something lingering from Santa Cruz maybe, that sweat sun and a cold beer sloshin' around in my belly that calls to it. And it's almost too easy, especially with no packs on. Packless, there's a flex in our step, and it pushes with all that strength accrued in our calves from dancing and trekking and grinding all over damned Europe. It's good. Our heads are chattin' off as we romp down the cobblestone streets, about our weekend in the Berlin forest and Devil's Hill and the high times, and Shahar, the Colorado Kid and the girls, and everything Mike is missing back in summer school. And this city we're sprinting through in two days. I wish we had longer in this grandfather of European kingdoms, on the skinny one-way streets lined with tiny Euro cars. The buildings on both sides are just tall enough so that the sun may never touch the cobble, even at it's highest. The shade's warm, and that's when my sweet Mary Jane's lips taste the best. Back out in the busy Old Market square, we mosey around in front of St. Nicholas Church (Santa Church) and remember what Tony and Dajana had told us back Berlin, "You know, just look for some ghetto-looking black guys in the square." "Yeah, they usually always have some." Racist? Kind of feels like it in the moment, but, sure enough, in no time, Max picks up the ambassador torch and makes eye contact with two guys in baggy jeans and Fubu jerseys. In Prague. In the summer. He makes the motion of a joint and they both nod, smile, and come over. We're just a trio of smooth river stones, and with tourists flocking like schools of salmon and swimming by this way and that, we tell them, "Hey, we're from California and we're just looking for some marijuana."
"Oh! California girls! That is cool!" Oh, yay... And they tell us to wait for them under a tree with a bench circling it in corner of the square. "We see you there in, uhhh, ten minutes, okay?" they say through a heavy Czech accent, "Eet well be, uhh, 380 koruna, okay?" For two grams? There's a chort of astonishment before we remember that the Budweiser's were like 23 koruna, and that the Czech koruna is kind of a bitch. A quick head calculation brings us to the conclusion that it's just about 20 doll-hairs.
"Okay," we say and stroll over to the shaded benches. It's so exciting! Nothing like the pre-drug-deal jitters.
"Man, I hope it's good stuff and we don't get shafted," thinks Max aloud, and, not surprisingly, his thoughts mirror my own. But when the FUBU twins stroll casually up to us and one hold's his hand out for the ole' shake-n-switch, it's on. Grant shakes and now we've got a small baggy. We all sneak a discreet look at his hand and nod acknowledgement, and the Berlin girls' shining stereotype scoots off and disappears into the crowd and around the corner.
Grant cracks the little baggy seal and we all sneak a sniff this time. It's a promising scent. Then I hear, "Absher?" from behind me and for a second I freeze at the criminality of our being at the moment. When I turn, it's a laugh of nostalgic recognition and there before me are two old friends I hadn't seen since high school. strolling the city Prague just as we are. Bobby and Ryan, two rapscallion sons-of-bitches. We all used to binge drink at expensive mansion house parties in the Los Angeles hills on weekends between those 8-3 school days. A couple of LA wise-cracks, those guys. There's old jokes, sarcasm abound, a quick catch up, intros to Max and Grant, and we make plans to meet in the evening. That dastardly duo's got a bar crawl on the mind.
