Long Past Stopping by Oran Canfield

moment of panic before my brain turned on and told me it was just kids running around having fun, or dealing with whatever intense playground issues kids deal with. The panic subsided and was replaced by a cold, clammy feeling. I wrapped myself tighter under the blanket, waiting for recess to end, but it didn’t help. Even when they got called back in for class, I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I just kept tossing and turning, thinking that the last month of hard living had finally caught up with me, and I was coming down with the flu.
    Then the panic came back. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I said to myself as I flashed through the last few weeks. Lawrence, Mary, then on my way home from Mary’s, the next night, the next morning, then Mary again. Has it been that long? When did Lawrence start coming by? A month ago? I can’t evenremember, and it’s been a blur since then. What the fuck were you thinking? It’s so obvious. How could you be such an idiot? I had read enough William Burroughs books to figure out I didn’t have the flu. Even though I had never really understood at the time what he went through when he described withdrawal, his descriptions matched the way I felt now. How could I let this happen? I knew Lawrence is full of shit. I didn’t believe him for a second about not getting addicted in thirteen years. Motherfucker’s at the house every night. But it’s not as if I’ve been nodding out or anything. Actually, I’ve been getting a lot done. I’m not as tired as usual, not as anxious or depressed. Shit, it’s only been one or two bags a day, and I don’t even feel that bad. I can totally deal with this. If I don’t smoke any of that shit today, I’m sure tomorrow will be fine.
    I got out of bed, climbed down the ladder, took out my piece of tinfoil, and rooted around for the three little pieces of plastic I had thrown in the trash. There was a little bit of brown residue on each piece, which I scraped off with a pocketknife. I got enough out of it for a small hit, and within seconds I felt better. You fucking idiot. You just said you weren’t going to do this thirty seconds ago . Oh well. You already fucked up today.
    There was a sinking feeling in my chest as I walked out of the house to get more. The feeling of impending doom. It went away when I got back to my room and smoked a little of it. Fuck it. It’ll be fine. I’ll deal with this tomorrow.

five
    Wherein the boy encounters a holographer, a born-again Christian, and his Jewish grandmother, and lives to tell about it
    E D DROVE US FROM Santa Fe to Taos, New Mexico, in his falling-apart Toyota Celica and dropped us off at a deserted Buddhist retreat up in the hills. There were a few people around, but no one paid any attention to us. We slept in a geodesic dome and spent our days jumping on yet another trampoline, a big round one that proved to be a disappointing, less bouncy substitute for the one back in Santa Fe.
    Four days later, Wavy Gravy and his partner, Surya, showed up with their group of jugglers, acrobats, hippies, and clowns to set up for a month of Camp Winnarainbow. It was a traveling camp at the time, and they had just come from Woodstock. I hadn’t juggled much while I was in Santa Fe, but I quickly got back into it and even started branching out a little with gymnastics and tightrope walking, neither of which I was very good at.
    The camp’s next stop was in Mendocino, California. Kyle and I tagged along with the hippie clowns, who were our counselors, and we slept in tepees with a new batch of kids for the next month. I was always nervous as hell around other kids, and I could never figure out how to make friends with them. But one kid in particular made me more nervous than I had ever been in my life. Her name was Jibz, and unlike me, she had no problem making friends. The first few days of camp were nerve-racking for almost everyone, but Jibz was running around