Bryans tales

In my Junior Year, I volunteered to go to a college, as I had horrible grades and probably wasn't going to be able to graduate. I had to learn something. 

I picked a firefighter training thing, honestly I don't know what I was thinking. Like I was gonna be climbing ropes and shit, I'm good at it, but I'd need probably 10 years of emotional and muscular development to get that going. Or 2 years of mushroom abuse. Well, regardless, that doesn't matter, they chose my second option, welding.

On my first day, I went on the bus, and went to where I must, the back. Immediately I'm met with a man. One I was familiar with. Asian, if that helps paint a picture. His name was Ronnie, now, Ronnie was my drug dealer. I bought Marijuana off of him, and Lysergic acid diethylamide one time.

This guy had a pen, and I had just gotten back from a long summer of almost only drinking, hardly any weed. Ronnie allowed me to be graced with the pen, a marijuana vape, and, I'll confess, I was not prepared. I took a big hit, wasn't ready, and clouded the entire bus. Everyone was looking at me and laughing, if you've seen the Sopranos, think of that one scene. You know the one.

I was so high, and that became the schedule. Get on the bus, buy and hit dab pens, get constantly out of my mind, and not weld for 2 months because I thought it was going to kill me. The last thing I wanted to do was die in front of the hottest teacher I ever had. The first thing I wanted to do was probably… befriend my teacher on Facebook.

So I'm just high, every day off chron which is a great move for a High Schooler, and one day these two new broads are on the bus. They weren't new, but they shouldn't be on the bus. I realize, they're part of the yearbook club, and son of a bitch, they want interviews. I knew for a fact they were going to interview me, and I was not excited. So I smoked a lot of weed on the bus hoping I was wrong.

Suddenly, I'm doing classwork and there's a little tap on the door and the teacher walks off to address it.

Not only was it the two damn girls, there was actually a third one that drove independently. They asked for me, of course they would, I was the only one in my class that was from the school. The teacher is weirdly excited about it, as is my class, like 4 dudes told me to get their numbers. I should've.

This is my only run in with PR, when they asked me questions, I kept swearing for some reason. For example: 

“What made you go here?”

“Well I fuckin uh honestly I just saw that I would spend 80 minutes on the fuckin bus once a day so that's less learning and shit, which those bus rides are just filled with drugs.”

Unusable answer.

“Why did you pick welding?” 

“I didn't, it was like my 3rd fuckin choice.” 

Unusable answer.

“Oh what was your first choice?” 

Remember, I'm high.

“I don't know.”

Unusable answer.

Then, it gets interrupted, I'm thinking, “Thank god I can leave this hellish experience.” But then the teacher hits me with “You should show them your uniform and the station you're at.” 

Heh, I guess you could say… FUCK YOU! Now I'm in this weird obligation to open my locker in front of these chicks, and it's not like anything was bad in front of my locker. It just needed explaining.

I am now at my locker, laughing like a total psycho, like a lot, cause I know what's about to happen. I almost can't even open it, my hands were trembling and my stummy hurt. I open it, and it's just a huge pile of metal I was stealing with my uniform wrapped around on top of it all, not neatly either.

The other welding teacher (bald fella), comes out and tells me I can turn the lights on. Yeah buddy I figured that's what the switch is for, jackass. I didn't say that but I started laughing like I did. This interview just can't end, but it's finally starting to, it's just picture time now. I stand there like a moron doing my only picture pose, thumbs up, mind you, my welding mask has been on almost the entire time since I opened the locker, and I cannot see a fucking thing.

All of this just to explain one thing. Chron. I was smoking all day every day for about that entire school year, and it was a ticking time bomb. One unprompted search and it was all over, and I knew it.

In December, after smoking chron in the bathroom, I went to the bus, ready to weld, but I noticed the principal walking off of the bus. I knew something was up. Now, I'm sure after my cloud on the first day, you may have questions.

The bus driver did not care about mine or anyone else's transgressions on the bus. Never gave a fuck, and said it, too. In the first week a girl would ask him questions about it and we got the answers, it's not a Vape-Free zone. 

So when the girl asked him why the principal was on the bus, we heard the cameras would be checked, to “see who was riding the bus and who drove.” Spider-Sense fully activated, I knew exactly how to survive, and it was just doing things the way I always did it, blowing the smoke DOWN. But Ronnie, seeing he had a different philosophy, moved differently, in elementary school he opened all the chocolate milks and poured them on the ground for sport, a real Darth Vader.

Ronnie just got a brand new Box Mod Vape, for those unaware, they make a shit load of vapor, which is part of the gimmick. A bad gimmick for high schoolers but a gimmick nonetheless. On that day, I told him, “Yo they're checking the cameras today so be chill.” He just blows a cloud directly up without hesitation, I had handed him my pen that day before knowing the situation. He blew a cloud, and I have a connection to that. Fuck.

I spent the entire day not welding and coming up with a plan. I was in my welding station, with my bag, and I cut a hole in it. Flash forward and I'm back to school, and ready for my ultimate humbling. I walk into English and the teacher, who was a very cool guy, hands me a note silently that says “You're needed in the office.” I lock in.

First things first I went to the bathroom, a guy offered me to hit his vape, I said “Yeah one second.” I went into a stall, heart pounding, door broken, put my pen in that secret compartment and walked out without a word. No vape hits for Bryan.

I'm in the office, there's the principal, and the vice principal, which means 2 things, 1. I'm fucked and 2. The vice principal is there. I'm in my head thinking “confidence is key, if I’m jumpy they'll know more than they should.” So I empty my pockets, nothing in there, they check my bag, and this is where I needed to lock in.

They're tearing my shit apart looking for something, and not finding it. The secret compartment was on the side of the straps, which was facing down on the table as they were searching. If they pulled it right side up maybe they could've heard or seen something, but they didn't. 

They told me that they had me on camera, showed me the footage of me passing the pen and said “We tested what Ronnie had and it was positive for THC.” What a shitty bluff, you had me on camera, why are you making shit up? Unless they smoked it I don't know how they could test that in 30 minutes. So, I did what any scientist would do, I saw a punch, I rolled with it.

“Yeah I did smoke weed. I rarely ever do it and it was definitely a bad decision.” Fighting at this point was futile so I said fuck it, the real issue is if they found my pen, they didn't, I'm safe. Homerun. 

After giving me and my mom the option “Either 2 weeks suspended or a month of rehab”, I had a very nice break from school, after being called a “retard” by my mom for getting caught. I heard later that Ronnie was taken out in cuffs, I don't know if that's true, as afterwards, they gave HIM the option to finish school online, so I seldom saw him ever again. Until last year.

I was scrolling on Instagram drunk as shit on my personal account, which I almost never do. I probably posted a scary picture of myself that night, and I happened to see I had a message request.

It's Ronnie, fuck yeah.

:( 

What the heck, Ronnie? I didn't do any of that. I was one of your last supporters, not one of your first haters… Also if there is a group leader, I'm not him. I thought we were friends? Y'know… before the “getting a Sophomore in high school pregnant thing.”

What the hell? 

-Bryan