Moses and the missing marijuana
Inspired by Canada’s finest storyteller, Moriarty shares a tale from his misspent youth
As a tribute to Stuart McLean, Canada’s finest storyteller who passed away Wednesday, I’d like to tell you a story about the time, in a whim of desperation, I considered killing Moses, the family dog.
I was 16 the night my best friends Drew and Larry came to my house to smoke some marijuana.
The three of us were going to a dance that night. My home seemed like a safe place to toke before heading off to the gymnasium at Lord Byng Secondary, where, if fortune smiled upon me this evening, I would slow dance with the golden Ilona through the entirety of Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick.
Larry and I danced with the lumbering elegance of a prison transfer, but Drew, well, Drew could dance like a dandelion in the wind.
My mother and father, Paul and Henriette, were going to a movie that evening. They were trying to salvage the remains of a marriage that hung like an anvil on the end of a thread that was attached to a memory. When they drove off in their 1969 Chevy Biscayne to go watch The Sting, Drew and Larry jumped from the bushes in the backyard and ran into my house giggling like teenage boys who had already had a puff or two.
Larry was roly-poly with hair best described as molten and skin that appeared translucent in the winter. He was to the art of rolling joints what Neil Armstrong was to walking on the moon.
Drew was tall and thin. He looked like David Bowie and moved like Mick Jagger.
We sat in my living room, the three of us. It was then Larry reached into the deep pocket of a down-filled coat that could keep a man warm on Mars and pulled out a paper bag filled with 10 perfectly rolled reefers — each tapered like the business end of an HB pencil.
In those days, 10 reefers were necessary if a buzz was the objective.
Larry laid each joint on the floor side-by-side like he was constructing a raft. I ran around the house opening windows and doors so as to eliminate the trace odours of the night ahead.
My dog, Moses, the finest beagle-terrier on the block, came over and laid beside us on the floor — his big eyes looking crestfallen as he stared up at me in shame.
Larry lit the opening joint with a first-generation Bic lighter, then inhaled the smoke in a way that showed the remarkable lung capacity of a 16-year-old. He held his breath and puffed his cheeks like Dizzy Gillespie. Traces of smoke crept out the corner of his mouth as he passed the doobie to Drew.
This went on for some 30 minutes before we were half way through the 10 joints.
Drew and Larry were giggling uncontrollably, while I stumbled deeper and deeper into paranoia, convinced Paul and Henriette would appear unexpectedly at the front door.
When Larry took inventory of our remaining reefers, he fell back laughing, looked my way and barked: “Moses ate a joint.”
At this, Drew laughed so hard he almost spit out a tooth.
My expression did not reflect the comedy of the moment. Rather, I appeared ashen.
I imagined, the next day, when Paul took Moses on a morning constitutional to void his bowels, out would pop a perfectly formed marijuana cigarette. My father, being a man of keen observational skills, would survey the situation and conclude with certainty what had gone on in the house the night he and Henriette went to the movies.
At that moment, my life felt like it was unravelling in ways a life can unravel when you smoke marijuana. It seemed certain I would be caught when Moses passed the joint. Literally.
Then, in a blinding flash of genius, switched on by the THC coursing through my brain, I knew what I had to do to avoid being sent away to a school for wayward youth: I had to kill the family dog.
The plan, if you could call something so hastily put together “a plan,” was as follows: Drew and Larry would head off to Byng while I would feign illness and take Moses for a fateful walk in the endowment lands.
Then suddenly, as I considered the unconsiderable, Larry declared a miscount — that, in fact, Moses had not consumed a grain of the green, let alone an entire joint.
We made it to the dance that night. Ilona enjoyed most of Thick as a Brick in the arms of Barney.
At the time, I was good with this. I had my own reason to be happy. I still had a dog.
When midnight approached, we found ourselves at the Varsity Grill eating burgers and fries.
It was the best of diners until the Vinyl Cafe opened its doors.