There are three basketball courts at Collimore Park. We go here because they have lights and nets. Kids usually tear down the ones near my house at Maccas Courts on the rare occasion somebody courageously decides to fork the twelve dollars at BigW to put one up.
I tell Andrew to park his black Mazda 3 at the far corner of the big parking lot. There are some cars scattered around the grid. Serbian and Lebanese families having evening family dates, children running around, men talking in their groups, women talking in theirs.
I take the glass billy from his Nike bag and pour water just above the pipe and hand it to him so he can go first. The smoke thickens in the glass chamber as fire meets earth. His lungs suck in the black Bic lighter and I hear the weed and chamomile pop and crack. I’d been told chamomile is a good calming agent. I’m not sure if its true because I get high either way but it tastes pleasant. Through Andrew’s window, I notice a head bobbing up and down in the passenger seat of a matted out Honda Accord three spots next to us. The driver’s seat is reclined.
Bro… what the fuck, I say nudging him. His eyes look at me and I nod to his right. He turns his head and connecting two and two like her lips and the dudes cock, he coughs the smoke he was holding in his lungs and I die. The smoke disperses through the black interior, mixing with the red lights of his dashboard. Broooo…. I’m mooing, slapping his arm, laughing, while he’s still cough, cough, coughing.
We're wiping tears from our eyes as we walk to the court, savouring that shared moment of mutual sucking in our respective parking spots of our redhot corner.
It’s really bright even though the sun has well set. The white, Orwellian lights illuminate the bodies that move coodrinately about the big blue surface of the courts like a prison play yard. We sit on the bench where the regulars play. There are fewer people than usual. Lucky for us there is a game of twos happening so we can go next and be on the same team.
When we get on we’re vsing a KD & Westbrook combo. They’re tall and strong and good and we’re two small quick Asians. We play to 11 and lose 11-8. It’s late and its almost lights out and everyone has left except us four. After the game, we ask them if they want to toke and they say yes. They tell us their names are Marquis and Dom and we shake hands. Inside the car, under the yellow door light I pass Dom the billy and then when Dom finishes I pass it to Marquis. We tell them how we’ve always been looking for two other stoner ballers to play with.
We play a second game and we can tell the weed is getting to them because they’re getting frustrated and making excuses and it feels a bit awkward. Andrew and I play our game, calm like two stoic Buddhists, dancing with the universe. They leave after the game and thank us for the weed. We tell them no worries, shake hands the way boys do and come into a half embrace bending our elbows and clapping each others backs.
Our bodies are rekt so I roll us a jay to call it a night. I lick the paper as Andrew takes off his shoes and sits back then says, bro, we found them. The night air feels good as it whistles over the film of sweat on our skin.
On the way to a feed we see three police cars on separate occasions. One zooms passed a red light blaring red and blue like lasers at a rave perfectly in rhythm with the hard trap and bass of RL Grime that’s playing from the AUX. Another white and blue body creeps up on us next to the next red light and we hold our breathes as if by doing so they will not smell the weed exuding from our orifices, let alone Andrew’s bakery of a car. We’re so high I swear the THC is blowing out of our pores like Bob Marley shaped geysers. The third is conducting an RBT near Kebab King on the other side of the road. Andrew decides to take the side streets after this.
The paranoia kicks in and he wants to go home instead. Bro, idk man. Im getting bad vibes from all that. I’m hungry af so I’m pretty cut. Nah bro, it’s fine.
“Listen,” I say and pause for dramatic effect, “let’s pull another cone and it’ll be alright”. I manifest my intention. It’ll be all right.
“OK. U convinced me.” He says.
Hahahaha. I’ve already got the cone piece packed, billy in one hand, lighter in the other ready for him by the time he’s pulled over.
Every few steps my circadian rhythms remind me how sore and tired I am. It’s 1;23AM, bro, wtf u doing. Go to bed. We stumble toward the White Castle of duh area, holy Kebab King with its alluring neon and salt and fat saturated aromas. As we’re looking at the menu longer than deemed appropriate a hella rank dude approaches us. His black hair and baggy clothes are dishevelled.
“Hey bro, do you guys have any money? I’m really hungry man. Please.” the words sneak up on us through his thick Filipino lips and we’re pulled from our dream.
“Uh..” we mumble like two lame zombies, taken aback by his homeless puppy dog eyes.
“Please, man. Listen we’re brothers, man. Us brothers look out for each other in jail, man.”
Maybe he sees something in two yellow fellas in basketball shorts that resonates with him. I look at my wallet. Just a 50. I don’t wanna give this dude my whole 50.
“Nah man, don’t have any cash. We were gonna pay by card.” Andrew says.
“Aw, seriously man? Nothing? These guys don’t take card tho.” he says.
Fuck, he got us. Andrew and I look at each other feeling awkward as fuck.
"Please, man. I'm really hungry, man."
"We don't have any money, bro." I say.
I feel bad for the guy but I'm too high for this. He's bumming around and we told him we didn’t have any money so now we can't go on paying for our food. Fuck, this guy man. I just wanted to down a post-ball snackpack and hit them Zs. We look at each other then the begger then the kebabs on the menu then get back inside the car.
Inside there is a pause of stoned bleakness but it lasts only a moment because Andrew raises the question: Kebab Klub?
I answer with another question.
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