Chapter 12

All the women now sat around the coffee table in Persia’s basement. The two joints that Deborah had witnessed being passed around had been smoked down to the roach and now rested in an ashtray.

Deborah recalled asking whether or not Klarke was saved when Lynox had first encouraged her to befriend the woman. Now she couldn’t help but address this subject. “So all y’all are members of a church?” Deborah asked the women. She would be in utter disbelief if she were to learn that for the past fifteen minutes she’d been in a room with some weed-smoking Christians who claimed to love the Lord. She didn’t care what those women said about marijuana being natural, like an herb grown in the ground. It was a drug, and the last time she’d checked, in the state of Ohio possession of illegal drugs could lead to an arrest, which could result in imprisonment. And although she had no intention of condemning and judging the women for choosing to smoke the substance, it just wasn’t something she wanted to do herself. Even if they did legalize it in Ohio, she couldn’t get past the idea of putting her mouth on something that everyone in the room had put their mouth on. Yuck!

“I am,” Persia and another woman, who had been introduced to Deborah as Cinnamon, said simultaneously.

“No. I’m not,” Klarke said. “Not on the regular. But Persia has invited me to her church, and I’ve gone.”

“I’ve invited you to mine too,” Cinnamon said, jumping in, “but you’ve never taken me up on my offer.” She didn’t hide her attitude about this.

“Next Sunday. I promise,” Klarke told Cinnamon. “No. Wait a minute. The Sunday after that one. I forgot, I have a gig this Sunday.”

Cinnamon twisted her lips up, as if she didn’t believe a word Klarke was saying.

“For real, I’ll be there,” Klarke promised. “Just text me the info.”

“And don’t think I won’t,” Cinnamon said.

Klarke looked at Deborah. “I might not belong to a church, but I believe in God. Reo doesn’t belong to a church, either, but he can pray his butt off. We owe that to our oldest daughter. She is one praying lady. Even when she was young, she always had a relationship with God. She did that on her own, because I can count on one hand how many times I ever took my children to church.”

Persia asked Klarke about her daughter. “Isn’t Vaughn a co-minister or something like that at a church in Nevada?”

“Yep. That’s one of the reasons why I couldn’t convince her to move back to Ohio,” Klarke said.

“I’m not a member of a church,” one of the other women said, “but I’ve been attending the same one for about a year now.”

“Then why don’t you just join?” Deborah asked.

“Because sometimes I like to attend other churches too,” the woman replied. “My focus is being committed to God—and He’s everywhere—not to a church, which is in just one place. I have to have a gym membership and belong to my home owners’ association. Is the church the same way? If I don’t have a church membership, I can’t belong to the Kingdom?” She rolled her eyes. “Let a sista worship and fellowship.”

“I hear you,” Persia said. “I’m committed to God, but as with having any other type of membership, I like the security that comes along with being a member of something. It’s not only about me being committed to something, but about something being committed to me as well. It feels good to be able to call on a group of my fellow church members to pray for me in my time of need. Being called on by them is equally rewarding.”

Deborah feared the conviction within of being called on spiritually by someone after having had a glass of wine, let alone after smoking a blunt. She didn’t voice that to Persia, though.

“But wouldn’t God’s children pray for and be there for a complete stranger off the streets?” the woman countered. “Would you not bury a dead person who was not a—quote, unquote—member of the church and pray for his or her soul?”

“Okay, okay.” Deborah put her hands up. “Forget I asked.” She had had no idea that posing that simple question was going to lead to a near argument. “I was asking only because it seems weird that churchgoing Christian women get high.”

“It’s not about getting high,” another woman snapped. “It’s about keeping our sanity. You try raising four kids, only for your husband to leave you for the babysitter, who is barely legal. You struggling to take care of the kids that he don’t even wanna get on his every other weekend court-ordered visitation, and yet he’s taking care of the new wife and their new baby and threw me and my kids away.” The woman’s bottom lip began to tremble, and her hand balled into a fist. “Oh, Lord, somebody light another one up.”

Cinnamon, who was sitting next to the woman, laughed and patted her on the shoulder. “Calm down, Deidra.”

Klarke looked at Deborah, who was trying to take in everything Deidra had shared. “That was a very rough time for her. She was hospitalized and everything,” Klarke informed Deborah.

“Mind you that I was handcuffed while I was hospitalized,” Deidra added.

“Handcuffed?” Deborah said.

“Yeah,” Klarke said, answering for Deidra. “She was already struggling to deal with the situation of losing her husband to another woman. Hadn’t slept or eaten in weeks.”

“And I finally get her out to a restaurant to eat something,” Cinnamon said, “and her ex and his new, pregnant wife are at the same restaurant.” She shook her head. “Now, you know that wasn’t nothing but the devil.”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant at the time,” Deidra said. “I just know that I had not only paid her to watch my kids, but apparently, I had also been paying her to suck my husband’s—”

“Dee, come on now,” Persia said. “Bring it back. Reel it in.”

“I’m sorry,” Deidra said, apologizing. “I know you don’t cuss. I’m not trying to disrespect your house.”

“It’s okay,” Persia said.

Deborah sat there thinking, Really? She can’t cuss in your house, because you find that disrespectful, but she can smoke weed in it? This was more than Deborah could even begin to comprehend.

On the ride over here she really had started to feel like her connection with Klarke was becoming stronger. When she met Persia, that same connection had existed. Klarke had told Deborah that the people she would be surrounded by tonight all knew where the others were coming from and had a way of dealing with life’s issues. Deborah had been hopeful that she’d find the answer to her situation here tonight. God had been the provider of all her resources. But it would take some major convincing for Deborah to believe that marijuana was, in fact, one of those resources. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, after all, to try to be friends with someone who wasn’t saved.

“Klarke,” Deborah said, “I don’t want to ruin your evening, but I think I’m ready to head out. If you’re not ready to go, I can call my husband or a taxi or something.”

“Oh, no. Don’t leave yet,” Klarke said, truly disappointed that Deborah was ready to dip out on them.

“I don’t want to be Debbie Downer.” Deborah looked at the women. “No pun intended, but this whole group smoke therapy thing isn’t for me.” Deborah went to stand.

“Well, how do you know if you haven’t tried it?” Klarke said.

“And never in my life have I had a desire to try it,” Deborah said.

“Well, neither had I, but then I actually gave it a chance,” Klarke retorted.

Deborah stared curiously at Klarke for a moment. “And what exactly made you try it?” She looked at the other women. “What made any of you sit there one day and say, ‘I feel like I’m losing my mind. Let me smoke a joint and see if that will help’?”

“Research,” Persia interjected. “I researched it. After hearing so much about medical marijuana and the various things it was being used for treatment-wise, I wanted to know more.”

“Yeah,” Cinnamon said. “I was receiving court-ordered therapy. I remember seeing a special on CNN about marijuana. It was, like, in the middle of the night. I’d had a bad day that day. Terrible depression and anxiety had been plaguing me all that week. I’d been praying and getting hands laid on me, you name it. I continuously cried out to Jesus for help. But on that particular night, when I was minutes away from taking my own life, what pops on television?”

“I saw that special too,” another woman said. “They said that when there is an imbalance in the brain, there are too many receptors associated with intense emotions.”

These women definitely had Deborah’s attention now. Her being on overload with intense emotions felt like an understatement. But it was a statement, nonetheless, that connected with something in Deborah, causing her to focus fully on what was being said about marijuana.

“The emotions can be fear, anxiety, and stress,” Cinnamon said. “And there’s not enough of a chemical that binds to those anxiety receptors to keep them calm and in check.”

“Girl, you are quoting that show verbatim,” the other woman said.

“Honey, I rewound it so many times, took notes, you name it,” Cinnamon declared. “I swear, it was like God was speaking to me through that TV show. Call it blasphemy if you want to, but then I’ll rebuke you,” Cinnamon said, wholeheartedly convinced about her findings.

“Please continue,” Deborah practically begged, hoping those anxiety receptors could remain at bay while she waited in anticipation for Cinnamon to proceed.

“Anyway,” Cinnamon said, “science has proven that marijuana is filled with a chemical that can bind to these receptors and help restore balance in the brain.”

Klarke jumped in. “With me, as I’m sure it is with Cinnamon, my flashbacks, depression, and anxiety are similar to those of people suffering from PTSD. People suffering from PTSD need a substance that can quiet those receptors that are associated with anxiety, but not completely shut down other parts of the body. Marijuana has some of those properties.”

Cinnamon nodded in agreement. She was in accord with everything Klarke had said. “Marijuana farms are popping up all over the world. And God has the whole world in His hands,” she said matter-of-factly.

Deborah took in everything the women had to share. The more they talked, the more Deborah started to think that maybe marijuana wasn’t just a natural resource, but a scientific one as well.

“I didn’t bring you here tonight to take you back to the high school days of peer pressure,” Klarke said to Deborah. “I felt like the least I could do was inform you about something that I know for a fact works for me. For most of our lives, have we known it to be an illegal drug? Yes,” she said. “But you think about it. How many people smoke a dime bag, jump in their car, enter the freeway via an exit ramp, and take out a family of five? Not many. Yet some people who drink alcohol, which is legal across the map, do it daily.”

Deborah nodded. The way she saw it, Klarke really did have a valid point.

“Again, I don’t want to pressure you,” Klarke said. “I felt compelled to share with you, that’s all.” she exhaled. “So if you’re ready to call it a night, I brought you here, so of course I’ll take you home.” She stood.

The women began telling Deborah how nice it was to have met her. Klarke started to walk away but then realized that Deborah was still sitting on the couch, staring off into space.

“Deborah, you ready?” Klarke asked.

Deborah looked up at Klarke, then responded, “Not quite.”

***

“Oh, my God!” Deborah roared in laughter as she passed Klarke the joint she’d just taken a puff from. It was actually the second joint she’d partaken of since deciding to stay at Persia’s house and give the nonprescription medical marijuana a try. “You actually did that to that poor woman?” Deborah asked Klarke. For the past several minutes, she’d been sitting with Klarke and listening to her tell stories about how she’d met Reo and how they’d broken up and then made up, and about all her experiences with his ex-wife in between.

The other women were sitting in clusters throughout the room, except for Cinnamon, who had left for the evening. But she hadn’t left without first confirming Klarke’s attendance at her church and then inviting Deborah to come visit as well. Both Klarke and Deborah had promised her they’d be there.

“Poor woman, my foot. Meka was the devil,” Klarke said. Meka was Reo’s ex-wife, the mother of Reo’s teenage daughter, who lived with them. “I’m just getting started on her foul self. Believe me when I say you ain’t heard nothing yet when it comes to her.” Klarke took a puff from the joint. “Heck, she’s the main reason why I need this here.” Klarke held up the joint. She took another puff and then passed it to Deborah.

Deborah took the joint. “I thought I put Lynox through some shenanigans in order to catch his heart, but you playing secret pen pal to get Reo to take interest in you was as much of a roller-coaster ride for you too.”

Reo was actually Klarke’s second husband; she’d been married to her son and daughter’s father prior to that. But when she found out that his cousin’s daughter was actually his love child, she’d flipped the script on her first husband. She’d beat everybody down. That divorce had been so painful for her physically, mentally, and financially. Trying to raise two children while depressed and not wanting to see another day of life had been hard. Klarke had wanted the easy way out. While most women had been trying to snag NBA players, she’d figured a semi-world-renowned author would suffice, so she’d schemed her way into Reo’s life via sexy little pen pal e-mails. Her intentions weren’t to find love. She was done with love. Her goal was to find a man who could provide for her children. This was back when authors’ publishers paid them obscene advances and kept them on the road, touring. She figured she wouldn’t even have to be bothered with the man; she could just cash his checks. She had no idea she would actually fall in love with Reo. But like a Prince Charming in a fairy tale, he swept her off her feet. Unfortunately, Meka, who was then his ex-girlfriend, was not having it. If she couldn’t have Reo, nobody could. Meka put Klarke through the ringer as she tried to get her man back, and her conniving actions landed Klarke in jail.

“It was a roller coaster,” Klarke confirmed. “And a haunted house and every other crazy attraction at the amusement park.” She took the joint back from Deborah and took another hit and exhaled.

“Uh, you know I hadn’t taken a puff yet, right?” Deborah chuckled. “I’m no pro, but I thought it was puff, puff, pass. You took three puffs.”

“Oh, my bad. Girl, got to keep my receptors in check.” Klarke laughed and extended the joint to Deborah.

Deborah put her hand up. “No, that’s okay. I was kidding. I think I better slow my roll, anyway.”

“It’s only two joints.” Klarke took another puff. “Well, one and half for you.”

“Yeah, but I’m a newbie, and I don’t want to overdo it, especially when I’m not sure of the effect it might have on me.”

Klarke was not going to argue with Deborah. She definitely didn’t want to come off as having coerced Deborah into this whole weed-smoking venture. She was coming from a good place. On top of that, she most definitely didn’t mind finishing off the joint on her own.

Deborah leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes.

“You all right?” Klarke asked her.

Deborah sat there for a minute and then opened her eyes. “I’m better than before I came, I know that.”

“See, girl? I told you God was all up in this here,” Klarke said. “Just like at church.”

Deborah furrowed her eyebrows. “Come again.” She sat up, waiting to hear Klarke’s response.

“You know how church is supposed to be for sick people and how you’re not supposed to leave the same way you came? Well, there you go.” She held up the joint and took another puff.

Deborah leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes again as she laughed. “Whew-wee. You are something else.”

“Actually, I’m hungry.” Klarke dropped the doobie in an ashtray.

Once again Deborah opened her eyes. “Girl, me too, and I ate that whole plate of food I fixed when I first got here.”

“I’ll go grab us something else.”

“No. Everybody might think I’m a pig.”

Klarke looked around the room. “Child, ain’t nobody stuttin’ you. Besides, it’s just one of the side effects of weed. Everybody who smokes it gets it. It’s called the munchies.” Klarke stood up and went and got herself and Deborah some more snacks. When she returned, she sat down, and the two of them began to devour the food.

“I know you’ve mentioned it a couple of times already,” Deborah said, biting into a cracker with cheese on it, “and I hope you don’t think I’m being nosy.” She paused.

“About what?” Klarke asked, tossing back a cherry tomato dipped in ranch dressing and chewing it.

“The whole jail thing,” Deborah said.

Klarke shrugged her shoulders in a nonchalant manner. “What about it?”

“I didn’t really want to ask. I was waiting on you to tell me, but you never did.” Deborah ate a piece of salami. She chewed it, swallowed, and then asked, “But what exactly were you in jail for, if you don’t mind me asking?” She continued stuffing items from the plate of food into her mouth.

“Girl, you could have Googled that,” Klarke said. “I was all over the paper when that all happened.”

“I’m not a Googling type of chick, unless I’m fact-checking a book or something,” Deborah said. “If I want to know something about someone, I simply ask that person.”

“Okay. Well, then, you should have just asked, because I don’t mind telling you at all.”

Just then Persia walked over and handed Klarke a lit joint. Klarke took a puff, then exhaled. Staring at the joint between her fingers, she said, “Murder.”

Deborah didn’t even have any smoke in her lungs, but she began coughing. She was choking either on the words stuck in her throat or the words Klarke had said.

One of the other women walked over and asked Deborah, “You okay?”

Deborah was too busy choking to reply. Persia, in all her concern, began patting Deborah on the back, while Klarke, just as cool, calm, and collected as ever, took a hit from the joint.

“She’ll be all right,” Klarke said, exhaling. She looked over at Deborah, who had a horrified look on her face. “I know you said you were done for the night, but something tells me you’re going to need another hit.”

Without hesitating, Deborah took the joint from Klarke and puffed her little heart out. Hopefully, the chemicals in the marijuana would not only help her depression, anxiety, and stress but, with any luck, would make her so high that come morning she’d forget all about the fact that she’d spent the night doing drugs with a murderer, an ex-felon, and a woman who had very good taste in home decor.

Jesus, take the wheel!