Sea Legs, Instant Coffee and a Pot Smoking Veteran

Since a career in politics is not in my near future, I would like to s hare yet another intimate story starring Marijuana as the protagonist.

One monotonous high school day, my friend Jenny leaned across the aisle in homeroom and whispered, "Hey, do you wanna go somewhere special after school?"  At my high school, "special" meant finding the right pharmacy to shoplift from or locating the key to a liqueur cabinet belonging to the rich Bethany Brennan's jet-setting parents. I was too young and too naive to ever imagine there was an even finer place that defined "special", one that far surpassed any five-finger-discounted bottle of Sweet Amaretto from a suburban home.

It was a retirement complex for seniors surrounded by large pine tress and shrubs, giving each small apartment the privacy it coveted.

His name was Jerzey.

Whenever I see a spider plant, I think of Jerzey, a 74-year-old, pot-smoking World War II veteran with a penchant for only the very finest sinsemella and mature high school girls. Me and my girlfriend, Jenny, happen to fit nicely into that category.

He called up Goils. "Would you Goils like to get high?"  he would ask with a northern New Jersey, slightly diluted Brooklyn accent.  "Are you Goils listening to me!?" he would often ask due to his loss of hearing from his early days of World War II Battleships. Jill and I would eagerly say yes as he would reappear with a solid carved, wooden box filled with the finest grass God had to offer. 

We would sit in a circular fashion around a simple 70's wooden kitchen table, in an apartment sprinkled with spider plants; plants that seemed to have taken a personality of their own after we reached an expected state of smoke euphoria. My back was always closest to the kitchen since it was my duty to make the Nescafe Instant coffee, ironically the same coffee my Mother would drink every morning. And Jerzey would pan fry the Sea Legs as he reminisce of his days as a young sailor working alongside many other sailors. "Sea Legs and Instant Coffee, the poifect meal" he would tell us. A meal only imagined when a smoke-inspired appetite is called to duty. 

Occasionally, Jerzey would rest these heavy, dust-free WWII albums on the table and would voice his frustration when we would break into contagious fits of laughter not focused on his stories but on the shadows casted on the walls by the many spider plants. The plants would play a game of Charades with us as we would have to guess which face of famous television personalities were shadowed on the kitchen walls.

These high late day luncheons became a secret ritual, riding our bikes there every other Wednesday. More Sea Legs.  More Shadows.  Jerzey was lonely and loved our company until he went on a long drinking binge.  He wouldn't even have the strength to answer the door. We would just knock and call, "Jerzey, its your goils!  Can we come in?" And then we'd wait. We'd wait and moments later come in.  The place would reek of week old liquor and his eyes were so glazed over he would barely recognize us.  We would offer our help.  Did he need food?  Help dressing?  Help cooking?  He would tell us his binges would last five to seven days and then he would be back to normal.

After those five to seven days passed, we would come back and find the temperamental Jerzey at his front door, once again, nodding us in with a smile, pan frying us Sea Legs as I mixed the instant coffee and reprimand us like his children when another wave on contagious laughter would hit right in the middle of his story of ,"...did you ever hear of a place called Poill Harbah....Goilz are you listening to me?"

Growing up enough to realize that his time might be limited, after the second year of high late day luncheons, we started listening.

Comments

[Jim]

Great story, Kali. Very nicely written too.

I was wondering - what are sea legs? I honestly don't know what they are.

Jim

[Kali]

Sea Legs are made out of imitation crab meat. Pan fry and enjoy!

[the sobsister]

Truly the Greatest Generation...

Good story well-told. And thanks for clearing up the Sea Legs mystery.