My friend A, yesterday: “Sometimes people ask me what going to high school in LA was like, and my response is, well I did let an itinerant sixteen year old coke dealer live in my house for a couple of days senior year.” More on that on EmilyBooks!
by Zan Romanoff
J was a curly-haired sophomore who drove what we called the party car: whenever he showed up he would unload an enormous duffel bag of hookahs and weed and terrible alcohol, for some reason usually electric blue bottles of Alizé. There were other drugs, too, but I didn’t partake so I couldn’t tell you what all he provided. It was never clear to me where it all came from, how my prep school classmates scored their ‘shrooms, E, coke and meth, or who met the actual drug dealers so that my friends could distribute in the parking lot before first period.
J’s parents found out about his habits and the company he was keeping and sent him off to boot camp rehab out in Utah, which sounded like it was as much a scared straight punishment program as it was treatment for any actual substance abuse issues.
After J went other classmates peeled away in short order, five or ten more pulled from class mid-week, leaving us with rumor and speculation: he was in the psych ward at UCLA before they would let him get on a plane; she was doing heroin in her bedroom by the time her parents figured it out. These rumors ought to have served as a cautionary tales, but seventeen year olds experimenting with hard drugs are not exactly looking for the lesson in things. It seemed like every time one of them went, those who remained would redouble their efforts, hellbent on proving to everyone just how untouchable they were.
