Trash of the Gods

Chapter 4

Robert and I were enjoying ourselves at his house, smoking weed and crushing and snorting Vicodin. Andy's friend Ian had gotten into selling, and he not only had top shelf weed at $10 a gram, but he had Vicodin, ecstasy, and every once in a while my favorite, psychedelics.

One Saturday Robert and I were enjoying a good bender with the stash we had scored on Friday, while washing it down with Robert's usual supply of Jack.

As our buzzes took us to other levels, our conversations drifted around the contexts, purposes and meanings of the works of Danielweski and other avant-garde writers.

"Dude, I'm telling you you gotta read more Vonnegut," I said, after a bump of painkiller.

"yeah?" he replied, before he took his next line.

"Yeah, I mean danielwski is great because he really manages to use his layout of the text to make you feel whats happening in the novel, and palanhuick has the graphic gore and horror thing working for him, but Vonnegut keeps," I paused rattling my high brain for an eloquent way to word this," a tone that's bizarrely casual about all these parts of our society which are dark, human, real, but we don't really talk about them. Kinda like porn."

That was when i had one of those self-aggrandized moments of stoner genius. "Dude!" I said, giving him a smack on the shoulder as he took another bong rip. his reply was to make a fish face as he exhaled, pretended to look pissed at me, then stuck his tongue out at me before collapsing and smiling, laughing together.

"But seriously," I continued, "I think thats why this character of his, Kilgore Trout, writes in porn mags."

"why?" replied Robert.

I paused for a moment, terrified by the reality of the situation, before the pot kicked back in and I stopped taking the situation so seriously.

"I don't know, I forgot," we laughed again and did more lines of pain killer.

Apparently as this went on, Andy was on the opposite side of town, drunk, with some other guys, wasting time in a parking lot. Blunts and bottles of jack were passed around for hours, when Andy, decided apparently to show off his new toy.

After forgetting the glock was loaded, it went off. Andy had shot Ian, our new dealer, who was a recently graduated senior at my school, and a prominent eagle scout to. Andy had waved the gun around, until it went off and caught the poor guy in the chest. He had a bright future ahead, just a few bad decisions and community college classes to work through.

His brother was a sophomore who used to smoke weed with us sometimes. We never saw him again after this.

I didn't hear about any of this until Monday. But apparently andy had made a stop at Robert's house after the party was ruined by his butter finger. He had to dump his entire supply. Robert accepted eagerly.

Andy was picked up the next day. He got manslaughter, 15 years. Robert got the heroine.

I wouldn't see much of Robert for a while after this.