Darlene McCoy
The Fish Rap Live!
12 April 2011
Outstanding Opiates
Once upon a time, in a land far far away, I was a freshman. I understand that it’s hard to be a freshman. I understand that it’s hard to be a pitiful, mongering, creature that might only be considered to be of the same species as normal human beings. You’re longing for something, for some change, to alter your life and thought drastically so you can actually feel like you’re in college. Well my dears, my loves, my poor specimens, there’s a cure. You can’t find it at the health center, nor can a psychologist give you enough therapy to merley emulate the effects of this cure. There is only one thing, available at only certain types of places, sold by only certain types of people, that can cure you, darlings. You need drugs. And you need a lot of them.
Now, I’m aware that you might be all “straight-edge” and shit, but I was, too. I understood the whole, “drugs are bad and if you take them you’re going to die,” thing. But – if you’re of this mindset, oh dear poor freshman, you are in dire need of aid. In dire need of the cure. I know, back in that foreign time, I was. I was far too stubborn to think about doing anything I considered “out of the ordinary.” Then, on one Friday night, two weeks into my first quarter of college, one silly incident changed everything.
It was sometime around midnight in the dorms. My roommates were out, and I was bored. Lonely, even, too. I’d been up since six, and figured that sleep might be a good idea. (I’ve learned better than to think that, now.) I began to snuggle up with my bed, with the comfortless generic dorm sheets, when I heard someone say my name in the hallway. Confused, and surprised that anyone even knew my name, I rolled out of bed and opened my door to investigate.
I found three guys outside my door. They looked friendly enough, and apparently they were friendly, for they asked me to come back to their room with them. I accepted their offer without hesitation – the prospect of friendship to a lonely freshman renders all common sense from the brain.
In their room, they began drinking and smoking and whatnot. It terrified me at first: what if I got in trouble, for something I wasn’t even doing, for something I was so against doing? How would my mother react? Would I be kicked out of school if I was caught? Furthermore, I’d never been around weed before, and that shit smelt awful. So, after careful deliberation (more, fuck this shit) I decided that returning to my room was in my best interest.
One of the guys followed me out of his room, and back to mine. I didn’t think anything of letting him into my room; though I’m sure now he was crossfaded as all hell and that I should’ve been thinking. Freshman brains, man, they really don’t work so well sometimes. This boy went to the center of my room and started playing some God-awful club mix crap on his phone. He then began dancing in a way that I would only describe now as, “like a drunk bitch.” And for some damn stupid reason, I decided to join him instead of kickin’ his ass out and going to bed.
He grew tired and sat on my bed. I followed, not thinking that a drunk boy inviting you to bed might be a bad idea. My brain, oh my brain at the time, it did not work. I had not found the cure for my freshman ways. I had no idea a cure even existed.
Anyway, this asshole tried to get all up on me. He told me, “You’re the third hottest girl in Porter,” hoping that I’d take it as a compliment. I did (it meant I was pretty, right?). So this guy, noticing my nonsensical smiles at his fantastic playa skills, tried to kiss me. His face was far too close to mine before I pulled back. The boy’s lips reeked of tequila. Gross gross gross.
By that time, I was incredibly annoyed and too damn tired to think sensibly. I climbed onto my bed (which are significantly above the floor in the Porter dorms) and laid down. I hadn’t mustered enough courage to ask him to leave yet, so he laid down right next to me. He hugged me, and then like, started flipping me back and forth over his body. He found it amusing. I found it terrifying. The rage began to boil up inside of me, and I started yelling at him to stop, because I was sure someone was going to get hurt.
I was correct in my assumption.
This guy, in his drunken glory, threw me off the side of my bed enough to throw me off balance and allow my weight to pull me to the floor. The dumb shit came tumbling down off my bed right after me. I feel on my hand. He fell on me. We got up, and by that time my rage had finally boiled over – that motherfucker was going to leave, and leave at that very moment.
Angry injured girls are quite frightening creatures. He left. Quickly.
I woke up the next morning and became aware of my hand – and how it was twice it’s normal size. Since the health center on campus is closed on the weekends, I ended up icing my hand on and off for the entire day. I finally decided to call a RA, because my hand wasn’t feeling any better. The RA ended up calling a CSO, and I ended up in an ambulance on my way to Dominican Hospital.
In the next few days, I learned that I had “broke the shit out of my hand,” (direct quote from my doctor, by the way!) and that I’d need surgery to realign the bones. They had to put metal pins in my hand, so, after the operation, they gave me hella drugs. Opiates, to be specific.
After spending some time in a hotel that my mother was staying at during the ordeal, I returned to the dorms. I was all hopped up on those opiates – and the thing was, I had never been on any kind of “happy-pill” before. Everything was so wonderful, so cool, and I found myself wandering aimlessly around the halls. Well, I say wandering aimlessly now, but at the time I feel the more appropriate term might have been, “floating.”
With time, I found myself in the 5th floor lounge. There were a few people in there, fumbling with laptops. They looked friendly enough – and hey! I was looking for friends again. Now, naturally, I’m quite the shy individual, and approaching a group of strangers, or a single person, for that matter, is not of my normal character. But because I was all super-happy and didn’t feel insecure, I began talking. Blabbering. Going on about whatever came to mind. I guess it was amusing, and I found that I had enjoyed myself, too.
I returned to the 5th floor lounge, time and time again during the two weeks that I was on those amazing amazing opiates. I just talked. Talked forever. About nothing. By the time I had stopped taking the opiates, I had made friends. It was fantastic! Amazing! Magnificent and phenomenal.
Because a large cast calls for inquisition, I ended up telling many a person how exactly, my hand had been broken. With each retelling, I realized more and more how damn dull I was that night. Those observations became my rite of passage back into the human species, and in the end, all I could think was, “This was all due to me wandering around on opiates?!”
Opiates were my cure. The floating feelings caused by the drug helped me look at my life in a different mindset, to asses how I’d been living, and the decisions I’d made in my life thusfar. The conclusions I drew from my experience helped me grow away from the closed-minded, naïve, little freshman that I was, once upon a time, in that land far far away.
I’d like to state here that after: I smoked hella fuckin’ weed.
Happy 4/20, everybody!
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