Life Saver

Sketchy people!!!...What a full phrase! I learned it from a friend that I love to death. It came to take a life of its own. I loved more how she said it, the ease with which she let it out, the effortlessness, the grace, and now in hindsight, the precision of those two words to describe a human condition. She said it in the same way you’d breathe, or scratch the back of your neck when it itches. She didn’t think about it. I got the impression that she didn’t move a single muscle to let it out because it wasn’t work for her. She just said it and moved on…to other things. And so did I, till now.

Truth is: if you still breathe, if there’s still some energy left in you, if you haven’t exhausted your mileage (which reminds me of my sister. Let me digress one minute. My sister doesn't like to run. She says it's because she believes God assigned each of us a certain amount of mileage (fixed mileage) which we have to cover in our lifetime. Once we cover it we die. The quicker you cover yours the sooner you die. Basic math. So? She doesn’t run; she walks!…She runs only when she has to. Like when she’s fleeing something that might bite her), you will run into sketchy people quite a bit. They are everywhere: at the mall, at the gas station, at the beach. You will know them when you run into them because they are people we know, they do things that we recognize. They are our friends. Here’s a little definition to work with. A sketchie (aka sketchy person) is someone who wears shades in the club. A sketchie is someone who will update their Facebook status saying something like “Eating ice cream. So yummy. We are having fun lol”. The “lol” part is a dead giveaway. A sketchie is someone in skinny pants (hehehe…no I lie).Some of them are people we look up to, people we see on television and admire. We flip pages of magazines to read about their latest tattoo. People on whose every word we cling.

The point I mean to make is that Sketchy is not just a person; it is a phenomenon, it is a human condition. Sketchy is a movement – The Sketchy People Movement, just like the LGBT Movement. Its members span the entire human spectrum, a riot of humanity. It knows no race, nor religion, nor sexual orientation. None of that. What’s common to all sketchies is their strong yearning for urban correctness, for sophistication. They scream for validation. They are vain a huge part of the time (for that's the hallmark of sketchiness). A lot of times they will dive into cliques, like Savannah moles dive into their holes in flight to save their skins (or rather their fur) from a predator. They find safety in cliques. They will avoid having to construct real identities, for the cliques become THE identity.

Here is what happened. My friend Kwame graduated from college a week ago. That was before I knew about Sketchies and their stunts. A graduation party was organized that night and friends got together to celebrate a brother on his big day, you know the works. I was invited, and you never turn down invitations of this nature; you show your love, so I said game.

Around 10:30 that night I pitch up. The party is at a ballroom within the apartment complex where my friend lives. I can tell as I park my car that a fair number of people have attended. The parking lot is fairly full. Music is booming from the ballroom, people speaking over the din, an occasional laugh, signs of merry making. A promise of a good night. I make my way.

                There are a few dozen people here already, most of whom I cannot recognize. You see, we have very few common friends with Kwame. Most people here are his friends from school or some other place that only God (and him) would know. The music is loud. Most people are holding red plastic cups with drinks, or cans of booze, milling around, talking – a cacophonous stew of unintelligible sounds. It’s like an open air fruit market (or a livestock market). People are having fun. I look around. There’s a lot of food, and faces. I spot Kwame chatting up a group of friends at the other end of the room (it’s a big room). He’s saying something to his friends, that small band he is talking to. He has their attention. They are listening; he’s a bubbly guy. His friends seem to be tipsy, from what I can tell. Not him. Kwame doesn’t drink. He is a born-again Christian and as he says, he doesn’t mix his faith with his drink.

That’s fine with me, but just so long as he doesn’t starve his friends with water and juice (if they'd rather do with some gin). Now he turns and sees me. Hell breaks loose. “Heyyyyyy!!! Guys look who’s here…!!!” he shouts in glee and walks towards me, arms stretched open. Everyone looks. “My homeboy Danieli is here! Guys you’ve got to meet my boy Danieli before the night is done”. He gets to me and embraces me in open arms, a firm embrace, and welcomes me to his party. He is so proud I came. He shows off (he is a little corny Christian). As the night progresses I get to meet a couple of his friends. I make friends. The circle gets bigger, right?

This post is not about the circle, though. Rather, the sketchiness of the assemblage that night, and my ultimate salvation. There was a certain phoniness about the place. Knowing very few people there, it was a somewhat awkward for me given how everyone was relating with everyone. People sat in snotty little clusters, people who were supposed to be friends already. From these clusters they eyed other groups across the room. It was as though willing them not to dare mix with their group because they might just end up diluting their assemblage with their less pedigree…that sort of vibe. Doesn’t that sink the spirit? Look, I might not know shit (yes I said that…bite me) but this I can bet my bottom shilling for: friends’ parties, by definition, should be events where people get along. They should be forums where that friendship is celebrated and toasted to and renewed, otherwise the essence of having them is lost and people would rather sit at home and watch tv.  

At some point I step outside for a breather and there I meet this old chum – a coffee-colored guy with a puff of hair on his chin. He looks like Ginjah. He is tall and lank, a man in his early forties I think. He has a roll of weed held between his fingers. On the other hand a cigarette lighter (in this case a weed lighter). He is leaning against the wall, looking at something distant, something far out in the night sky. Am carrying a bottle of mineral water that I’ve been nursing since I got here. I hadn’t seen him at all inside, this guy…but then again I didn’t see everybody who came. He regards me momentarily and asks if I would like a smoke.

“No, thanks. I do not smoke,” I tell him. There’s something like a faint smile on his face when I say that. He doesn’t say anything. Some silence, then he brings the roll to his lips, in slow motion. The lighter clicks and he lights it. He closes his eyes and takes a deep drag at it. Smoke fills his soul. He doesn’t open his eyes but lets smoke crawl out of his nose into the cold chilly night in a lazy trail. He stays in that position for a while; immobile. Still. The roll smolders in a dull ember between his fingers. He smokes some more. Same fashion. There’s just silence between us save for the sound of his puffing and the screaming insects of the night (and perhaps the sound of life from the ballroom behind us). A soft breeze blows through. He slowly, even achingly opens his eyes and looks at me. His eyes are red, like sorghum juice. Now he smiles a bit, at me.

“My friend, this is some good stuff,” he is saying, his voice deep and scratchy, gnawing at me like a greyhound’s bite. I nod. I don’t want to spoil the mood. “You know in this country you have economic disparity – the very rich and the very poor.” He continues, “And you have a marijuana disparity. You have the crappiest marijuana on earth – herb that comes in from Mexico, that doesn’t get you high. You smoke three or four rolls and you still are not satisfied. And then you have the best bucchi bud on earth! The can dogs, the guava cams…” He lifts the roll held between his fingers and looks at it admiringly, as if seeing it for the first time. He nods in approval, his eyes still fixed on the roll. “This stuff is grown with love out of extraordinary genetics.” I almost laugh but I don’t. “They call you, the high is incredible, the smell is incredible. This sells for a lot of money, my friend. I spend a lot of money on this.”

He holds it out to me to feel. I grab it. I take and look at it. He is pleased. “The best gardens in the world are turning their attention in pulling the potential in this plant.” He says, pointing at the roll in my hands. “And you can coax a lot of different flavors and a lot of different experiences out of it, and that’s what they are doing…”

“Really? So where’s this one from?” I ask, just to keep him talking. He’s on a roll.

“This one? This is from the mountain slopes of Afghanistan. Fine stuff, I tell you. Grown by the Taliban,” he replies. He pauses. Clears his throat and turns to look at something in the dark. A few seconds pass in quiet.

Now, as if talking to himself he says, slowly, in a measured, almost sacred tone. There’s conviction in his voice, “Marijuana enhances my life. Marijuana enhances my sensuality. It brings me closer to God. I think it makes me a better parent, I think it makes me a better man,” At this point I imagine what his family might look like. Is his wife a nurse, a school teacher, a secretary at an office? What does she do? What about him? Does he have a son or daughter? Or both? A whole flood of questions, like a curse, descend on my mind and refuse to leave. “I think it makes me more sensitive to my surroundings and the people around me. It certainly makes me more sensitive to food, and music, and art and, speaking as a fifty six year old man, it beats the hell out of Viagra.” What!!! The guy is fifty bloody six years old! Good gracious…He looks forty, or less! Is it the weed? “That’s why marijuana is different. That’s why you have to put an asterisk when you call the drug.” Hahaha…I laughed at that last line. It was a punch-line. Ginjah here was running with it. A weed ambassador for real. A bullshitter. He saved the night that sketchies would have otherwise ruined with their classist attitudes. He told me afterwards that there was a guy selling oranges and smoking weed in Golgotha when Jesus was being crucified. It’s somewhere in the book of Luke. Thank you Ginjah; show me a sign wherever you are. You are a life saver.