Illustration by Jason Booher

There’s an adorable waitress at the coffee shop next to my house. Benny, who works in the kitchen there, told me that her name is Shikma, that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, and that she’s a fan of recreational drugs. Before she started waiting tables at the coffee shop, I’d never been in the place—not once. But now you can find me perched on a chair every morning. Drinking espresso. Talking to her a little—about things I read in the paper, about the other customers, about cookies. Sometimes I even manage to make her laugh. And when she laughs it does me good. I’ve almost invited her to a movie a bunch of times. But a movie is just too in-your-face. A movie is one step before asking her out to dinner, or inviting her to fly off to Eilat for a weekend at the beach. Asking someone to a movie can mean only one thing; it’s basically like saying, “I want you.” And if she isn’t interested and she says no, it all ends in unpleasantness. Because of that, asking her to smoke a joint seems better to me. At worst she’ll say, “I don’t smoke,” and I’ll make some joke about stoners, and, as if it were nothing, order another short espresso and move on.

That’s why I call Avri. Avri was the only person in my high-school class who was a super heavy smoker. It’s been more than two years since we spoke. I run through hypothetical small talk in my head as I dial, hunting for something I can say to him before mentioning the weed. But as soon as I ask Avri how he’s doing, he says, “Dry. They closed the Lebanese border on us because of the trouble in Syria, and they closed Egypt because of all that Al Qaeda shit. There’s nothing to smoke, my brother. I’m climbing the walls.” I ask him what else is going on, and he answers me, even though we both know I’m not interested. He tells me that his girlfriend is pregnant, and that they both want the kid, and that his girlfriend’s mother is a widow and is not only pressuring them to get married but wants a religious ceremony—because that’s what his girlfriend’s father would have wanted if he were still alive. I mean, try to withstand an argument like that! What can you do? Dig up the father with a backhoe and ask him?

And all the time Avri’s talking I’m trying to get him to relax, telling him that it’s no big deal. Because for me it really isn’t a big deal if Avri gets married in front of a rabbi or not. Even if he decides to leave the country for good or get a sex change, I’m going to take it in stride. That bud for Shikma is all that’s important to me. So I throw this out there: “Dude, someone somewhere has some product, right? It’s not for the high. It’s for a girl. Someone special I want to impress.”

[audio url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/178029298"]

“Dry,” Avri says again. “I swear to you, I’ve even started smoking Spice, like some kind of junkie.”

“I can’t bring her that synthetic shit,” I tell him. “It won’t look good.”

“I know,” he mumbles from the other end of the line. “I know, but, right now, weed—there just isn’t any.”

Two days later, Avri calls me in the morning and tells me that he may have something, but it’s complicated. I tell him I’m ready to pay for the expensive stuff. This is a onetime thing for me, and I only need a gram. “I didn’t say ‘expensive,’ ” he says, annoyed. “I said ‘complicated.’ Meet me in forty minutes at 46 Carlebach Street and I’ll explain.”

“Complicated” is not what I need at the moment. And, from what I remember back in high school, Avri’s “complicated”s are complicated indeed. When it comes down to it, all I want is a single bud, even a joint, to smoke with a pretty girl who laughs at my jokes. I don’t have the headspace right now for a meeting with hardened criminals, or whoever it is who lives over on Carlebach. Avri’s tone on the telephone was enough to stress me out, and also he said “complicated” twice.

When I get to the address, Avri’s waiting by his scooter with his helmet still on. “This guy,” he says to me, panting as we climb the stairs, “the one we’re headed up to see, he’s a lawyer. My friend cleans his house every week, but not for money—she does it for medical marijuana. He has a bad cancer of the something—I’m not sure which part—and he’s got a prescription for forty grams a month, but can barely smoke it. I asked her to ask him if he maybe wants to lighten his load a little more, and he said he’d discuss it, but insisted that two people come, I don’t know why. So I picked up the phone and called you.”

“Avri,” I say to him, “I asked for a bud. I don’t want to go to some drug deal with a lawyer you’ve never met before.”

“It’s not a deal,” Avri says. “He’s just a person who requested that two of us stop by his apartment to talk. If he says something that doesn’t sit right with us, we say goodbye and cut our losses. Anyway, there won’t be a deal today. I don’t have a shekel on me. At most, we’ll know we’ve got things rolling.”

I still don’t feel good about it. Not because I think it’ll be dangerous but because I’m afraid it’ll be unpleasant. I just can’t handle unpleasant. To sit with unfamiliar people in unfamiliar houses, with that kind of heavy atmosphere looming—it does me bad. “Nu,” Avri says, “just go up, and after two minutes make like you got a text and have to run. But don’t leave me hanging. He asked that two people show up. Just walk into the house with me so I don’t look like an idiot, and one minute after that you can split.” It still doesn’t sit right, but when Avri puts it that way it’s hard for me to say no without coming off like a penis.

The lawyer’s last name is Corman, or at least that’s what’s written on the door. And the guy’s actually all right. He offers us Cokes and puts a lemon wedge in each glass with some ice, like we’re in a hotel bar. His apartment’s all right, too: bright, and it even smells good. “Look,” he says, “I’ve got to be in court in an hour. A civil suit over a hit-and-run involving a ten-year-old girl. The driver did barely a year in jail, and now I’m representing the parents, who are suing him for two million. He’s an Arab, the guy who hit her, but from a rich family.”

“Wow,” Avri says, as if he had any idea what Corman is actually talking about. “But we’re here about a completely different matter. We’re Tina’s friends. The subject we came to discuss is weed.”

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“It’s the same subject,” Corman says, impatient. “If you give me a chance to finish, you’ll understand. The driver’s whole family is going to come out to show their support. On the side of the dead girl, other than her parents, not a soul is going to show. And the parents are just going to sit there silently with their heads bowed, not saying a word.” Avri nods and goes quiet. He still doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t want to aggravate Corman. “I want you and your friend here to come to court and act like you’re related to the victim. Make a ruckus. Make some noise. Scream at the defendant. Call him a murderer. Maybe cry, curse a bit, but nothing racist, just ‘You piece of shit’ and things of that nature. In short, the judge should feel your presence. He needs to understand that there are people in this city who think this guy’s getting off cheap. It may sound stupid to you, but things like that affect judges deeply. It shakes them up, shakes the mothballs out of those old, dry laws, rubs them up against the real world.”