Don't Cry for Me, Jamaica

THE STORY OF THE FIRST (AND ONLY) TIME I EVER SMOKED POT.

DESIGNATED DRIVER

All through my high school years, I had avoided ever doing drugs of any kind. Maybe I drank a little here or there, but never drugs—basically because my parents scared the crap out of me with horror stories of people who did drugs and became homeless, or got addicted, or went crazy, or just straight up died.?

For better or for worse, this approach worked for me, and I never felt the desire to go out on a limb and smoke pot with my friends (that was about the hardest stuff any of them did). I was the reliable designated driver type: clean, sober, and happy to keep it that way.

BEACH, PLEASE

Fast forward to spring break of my sophomore year of college. To celebrate surviving another grueling round of studying, I headed to Jamaica with a couple of my childhood and high school friends, Mike and Nate. We were planning to have the time of our lives!

To make things as stress-free as possible, we had booked an all-inclusive stay at Sandals in Negril, Jamaica. We were completely stoked to experience the beach, nightlife, and everything that Jamaica had to offer. And so, we flew into Montego Bay and deboarded.

I SAY A LITTLE PRAYER

As soon as we stepped foot outside, we were bombarded with what seemed like hundreds of taxi drivers, all clamoring to take us wherever we wanted to go. It was bewildering, but we ended up getting into a minivan with a driver named Kenneth.

The resort was two hours away from Montego Bay, but Mike and Nate were already excited to start the party. They started joking back and forth with Kenneth, telling him to “take them to the ganja!” Kenneth was agreeable to that, and cheerfully tore off down a dirt road toward, apparently, the ganja.

It was terrifying. Basically, five minutes into our two-hour drive, we were ripping through Jamaica at about a hundred miles per hour, flying past children and actually grazing some billy goats that were picking their way along the mountainous, jungly path. There were no railings on the road, and it was painfully obvious that if anything went wrong, that minivan would be rolling down the mountainside with nothing to stop it.

My friends were laughing like hyenas, mostly at me because I was freaking out, horrified to think that this “fun” spring break vacation could end at any moment in a fiery car crash. Desperately, I tried to remember my Bar Mitzvah prep, babbling out any snippet of a prayer that came to me! It was bananas.

WHO’S SNAKE?

Eventually, Kenneth put on the brakes. We had reached our destination: an abandoned Esso gas station, broken down and sinister in the middle of a dense jungle. It was like a movie set, complete with a one-eyed, three-legged dog sniffing around. A lone gas pump tilted drunkenly. The gas nozzle dangled toward the ground, waving gently back and forth in the heat.

A wave of awareness washed over me–nothing profound, and yet I felt it to my core. I was not supposed to be here. This was no place for an ordinary, computer nerd, drug-free, Jewish kid from Great Neck to be. I was never, ever meant to be in that place, and time, and situation. Someone could walk out of that gas station and shoot us, and no one back home would ever know what happened. That would be it.

Kenneth, still jaunty, poked his head out of the minivan window and yelled, “Yo! Snake! Snake!”

“Holy shit. Who’s Snake?” I blurted out.?

Mike and Nate tried to shush me, telling me not to be a baby, but I couldn’t help myself. “Guys, I do not want to meet Snake, whoever he is,” I insisted helplessly.

Then Snake came out of the woodwork. He was literally about seven feet tall, and quite possibly the most built, muscular, Arnold-Schwarzzeneger-but-even-more-so guy I ever saw, before or afterward. It was impossible not to notice this, given the fact that he wore only a pair of tightie-whitie, Fruit of the Loom-style underwear, a pair of flip flops, and a pair of glasses frames without lenses.

Snake walked affably up to the minivan window. I was sure we were dead, but he simply asked what we wanted, and my friends were eager to explain. They told him they wanted fifty dollars’ worth of ganja, and Snake smiled broadly.?

“No problem, no problem mon!” He said. “I get you fifty dollars’ worth. Show me the money!”?

So Mike and Nate pulled a few bills out of their wallets, and in return, Snake (magically, out of his underwear? I have no idea how he managed this, looking back) produced an enormous marijuana brick. It was truly an insane amount of pot, and he sectioned off a huge wad for my friends, who thanked him profusely. Snake smiled again. “No problem, no problem mon!”?

As we drove away, unscathed, they yelled to him that they liked his glasses, and Snake called back, “Yeah mon, people tell me I look smart with them on!”

CHECKMATE

The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful, and gave Mike and Nate plenty of time to laugh at me for worrying so much. Finally, Kenneth pulled into Negril and dropped us off at the resort’s check-in area. We lugged our luggage to the front desk and began the check-in process, but something wasn’t right.

As we waited, the concierge frowned at her screen. “I’m so sorry, but it seems that you have your dates mixed up. Your reservations are for next week.”?

Stunned, none of us responded for a minute. Then Mike, Nate, and I all started talking at once, asking the concierge to check again and asking each other if it was even possible that all three of us got the dates mixed up.?

It was no good. After a fair amount of pleading on our part, the concierge told us that we could come back next week, and that was that. For now, we would have to find other accommodations.

But as college students, the three of us didn’t exactly have money lying around to fund a second vacation getaway. We had already paid for our reservations, and couldn’t just pick up and go somewhere else. So we begged, and pleaded, and begged some more. But since it was spring break, the resort was booked solid.

AT THE DELI

“Look–you just got here, you’re tired, why don’t you go get something to eat. Then come back, and maybe we can do something for you.” The concierge said, dismissing us once and for all. Dejected, we took our luggage and headed back out to the street. Sandals is on the beach side of the street. On the opposite side, we saw a small detached house that was also a deli.?

Well, we were hungry. So we trudged across to get a cheap bite to eat and plan our next move. As we sat at a table, tearing open our bags of chips and biting into our sandwiches, the deli owner overheard us lamenting our fate. After a few minutes, he interrupted our meal to let us know that he had a room for rent, if we wanted it.?

We all trooped up the narrow staircase to have a look. He wasn’t being modest. It was an almost empty room, with three beds and a window AC. But it was better than nothing, and with a certain amount of resignation, we told him we would take it.

As we arranged our luggage neatly in the small room, all three of us were clearly struggling with the whole ordeal, but I think I was the most upset. The whirlwind of arriving, the long car ride, Snake and his abandoned Esso, and then realizing that we couldn’t even use our reservations was an emotional rollercoaster. Now we were staying in a bare room above a tiny deli, trying to salvage what was left of spring break.?

I stood by the window, brooding on all of this. At that moment, Mike and Nate philosophically took out their mega stash of weed, and as I watched them settle down and prepare to relax a little, I suddenly thought, you know what? If I’m ever going to try smoking pot, now’s the time.

REEFER SADNESS

I had seen my friends roll up a blunt a million times, so without really saying anything, I joined them and started rolling up my own. They were, of course, in total disbelief. For years, they had pushed and teased me to give it a shot, at least once, and I had never given in. They were so excited for me to finally give it a try.

The blunts were large and thick, and as we sat around smoking, I finished about half of mine. Nate and Mike cautioned me not to get too excited, since a lot of people expect a buzz or a high and don’t really achieve that. They told me not to be disappointed if I didn’t “feel anything.” They shouldn’t have bothered.?

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

After smoking, the three of us decided to stroll along the beach, and that’s when a sudden realization came over me: a potent mixture of remorse, fear, and sadness. Without warning, I began to sob, bawling and crying that I was so disappointed in myself. “My mommy’s going to kill me,” I gasped. “I need to go back home!” Mike and Nate had to stop me from wading out into the water to swim back to New York! The two of them tried to console (and control) me while I wept that I couldn’t control my brain any more.?

And really, that was the kicker. For me, having no control over my mind and body was driving me insane. I would think about moving my hand, but it would lag, only moving two or three minutes later (or so it seemed to me). That really freaked me out, and I was convinced that I would suffer from this weird, disconnected, out-of-control feeling the rest of my life.

So we went back to the deli, with me sobbing and my friends laughing at me while simultaneously taking care of me, which made it even worse. We wound up sitting outside the deli on plastic chairs by the side of the road, while I tried my hardest to bring myself back. But of course, the only thing that could do that was time.

BAD TO THE BONE

As we sat in the darkening twilight, a Jamaican guy came walking along the side of the road. I guess he was homeless, and maybe he thought we could give him some money. Whatever the case, as he approached us, I realized that he was missing a kneecap. I could see right into the joint of his knee, all the way to the bone.

Normally, I would obviously have ignored this out of politeness, and even helped with some cash if I had any on me. But in my current state of mind, I didn’t believe what I saw–I thought I was having a hallucination, and started sobbing hysterically all over again.

“Do you see that?” I asked Mike and Nate over and over. “Are you seeing that? Am I going crazy?” The guy kept walking, while my friends assured me that they did, in fact, see it and that I wasn’t insane. Finally, they decided to just call it a night and help me get me to bed.

STARTING OVER

I lay in the bed, utterly miserable. After about thirty minutes, I got up, still feeling high and unlike my normal self. I headed for the bathroom and stood there looking at myself in the mirror. Smoking that blunt was by far the stupidest thing I had ever done, I told my reflection.?

In the glow of the bathroom vanity light, I swore to myself that if I ever got my brain back, I would never, ever smoke pot or do any kind of drugs, ever again. Then I prayed a little more, basically promising that if G-d would make this thing go away from me, I would spread the “Don’t Do Drugs” message far and wide!

PARTY TIME

Although I genuinely believed that I was stuck in that mental state for the rest of my life, the high wore off after a couple more hours. It was a huge relief to feel normal again, and I lost no time in telling Mike and Nate that I was sober for good–which of course, they found very funny. After calling me a wimp a few times, they came up with the idea of heading to a club.

It seemed like a good idea, something that would turn this bust of a spring break around. There was a club called Hedonism about 20 minutes away, known for being the type of place where people got naked, put on togas, and all that kind of thing. We were curious to see what it was like, so we got dressed up and headed out.

For transportation, we rented a moped and a motorcycle. I would drive the moped, while Mike and Nate would use the motorcycle. In hindsight, I have no idea what we were thinking. It was the middle of the night in Jamaica, and it only took a few minutes for the inevitable to happen: as we sped along the road in the dark, a sudden, torrential rainstorm flooded down on everything.

Rain is one thing, but I had never experienced a tropical rainstorm like this. We went from excited (and dry) to fully soaked in about two seconds, while huge drops continued to beat down like machine gun fire. Without thinking, I hit the brakes, which naturally had the effect of launching me off of the moped and onto the asphalt. It was a rough landing. I got all scraped up along my underarm, chest, shoulder, and elbows.

The motorcycle doubled back, and my friends took stock of my sorry condition. I was bleeding, bruised, and my clothes were muddy and torn. “We better get back to the room.” They said, so I gathered myself together and got on the back of the motorcycle. Mike took the moped, which now featured a twisted set of handlebars. You had to aim them to the left in order to drive straight.?

While the rain continued to batter everything mercilessly, we began the drive back to our room, only for Nate to run the motorcycle straight into an enormous pothole. Again, it was the middle of the night. In Jamaica.

As if in slow motion, the front wheel of the motorcycle dropped into the pothole, while Nate flew gracefully through the air, in a perfect arc that landed him smack in the middle of a massive puddle in the road. I crashed along with the motorcycle, but managed to pick myself up without too much additional damage. Nate staggered to his feet.?

The both of us were now covered in muddy water and blood. Without saying much, we walked the motorcycle gingerly back to the deli. When the owner saw us, his eyes widened with alarm. Then he made us sit down and rummaged in a cabinet for hydrogen peroxide and bandages. There we sat, nursing our wounds in a Jamaican deli, and whimpering to each other about how badly things were going. It was absolutely Murphy’s law in action.

SALT LIFE

The following morning, we were still sore and cut up, but at least there was the beach! We decided to go enjoy the sun and the waves. Negril’s beaches are truly some of the most beautiful in the world, and I felt my heart lift as we headed across the street toward the white sand and clear, jewel-like water. I guess my friends were feeling the same way, because with a sudden burst of energy, the three of us broke into a run, heading straight toward the water. We dropped our stuff in the sand as we went, laughing, and took running jumps into the ocean.

It was like jumping into a lake of rubbing alcohol. The salt water instantly found every scrape and scratch, burning like fire. Yelping, we all sloshed back out of the water to the hot sand, burning sun, and tropical humidity. Now what?

A CAUTIONARY TALE

That moment really drove home the fact that this spring break was more or less a bust. And sadly, it never recovered, ranking as by far the worst vacation I’ve ever taken. As a result, I have never gone back to Jamaica–and true to my promise, I never tried any kind of drugs, ever again.

As much as my parents frightened me with stereotypical stories of “reefer madness,” I think this will be my own personal cautionary tale for my kids when they’re older and it’s time to talk about substance abuse… and safe driving… and the effects of salt water on a fresh scrape. Basically, it’s a good all-around story of what not to do on spring break, from someone who lived it!