I took deep breath and filled my lungs with with the crisp fall air. I tried not to think of the smoke filled concoction I had been inhaling for the last two and a half hours along with my Long Island Iced Teas at the Brewery. My friends Kevin, Dave and I had decided to go out for a few drinks that Friday evening, The Brewery seemed to be the best place to go, it was just across the parking lot from our dorm, and there was one bartender Kevin knew who served decent drinks. So, off we went, and were having a rather nice time until all the Kid Rock concert goers started pouring in, singing off key excerpts from Kid,s most recent album. Shouts of " Cowboy Baby!" and " Bomb widda Bomb..." were rather successful in chasing us out. So there we were, looking out over the parking lot to the tower that is our home, Fox hall.

Across the street are a line of trees, their yellow leaves glowed in the light of the street lamp, which were practically crying out to be played in. Three twenty-somethings then started running through the piles of fallen leaves laughing and kicking through the bright yellow mounds until I came up to a very special tree. The lower branches hadn,t been cut away and there were several within easy reach. " Hey, lets climb!" was all I had to say, so we hauled ourselves into the upper branches and found comfortable perches to relax on and enjoy the cool night.

Ten minutes went by with Kevin, Dave and I chatting about this and that, while we watched the comings and goings at the bar when a particularly unsteady individual staggered his way outside, across the street, then proceeded to make his way to the base of our tree. " Hey there!" He called up to us. We all answered with a " Hello " or " Hi ".

"You guys buying?" Buying? I thought, lovely, a drug dealer.

" No thanks." I answered.

" No, we,re all set." Answered Kevin.

" Sure!" said Dave. I couldn,t believe he said that. Dave had never done drugs in his life. So, with that one affirmative answer, the Dealer tried to make his ascension into our world. The picture of the man trying to climb the tree was enough to temporarily take my mind off Dave,s weird behavior. Attempt after attempt was made by the man to reach us. First he tried to jump and grab, but he never managed to grasp the branch, then he tried to get a leg up, only to land back on the ground. It never occurred to us to help the man, we didn,t want a drug dealer up our tree. After after a good ten tries the man finally made it up the tree. Great I thought, now what.

" My names Richie. Whata you guys doin, up here?"

" Just hangin, " was our reply.

" Jus, came back from that Kid Rock. F__ man, I love that sh__." He too then began to sing the chorus of "Cowboy" , while pulling a can of Bud Light out of his jacket pocket. " Want some?"

" No thanks." I replied

" Nope, all set. Answered Kevin.

" No, I,m all set" Thank god! Dave wasn,t totally gone then.

As you can imagine I wasn,t really all that thrilled with having a drug dealer up our tree. You shouldn,t invite a drug dealer up your tree, it has the potential to bring about all sorts of problems. We were in close proximity with a person who routinely breaks the law, we couldn,t easily escape the situation should it turn sour, and worst of all it ruined the child-like atmosphere we had created for ourselves. The man was potentially dangerous, and drunk, and right in front of us.

" What are you guys looking for? I,ve got pot, tabs, and I can geta hold of most anything else you want." His sales pitch was delivered in a surprisingly clear, low voice. I started to wonder how drunk he really was.

" How was the concert?" Asked Dave. I couldn,t tell if Dave was ignoring the dealer,s last statement or if he just didn,t hear him. I guessed he didn,t want to buy anything.

"Awwwww, it was awesome. " replied the dealer. He then described in unnecessary detail every possible aspect of the concert.; the music, Kid Rock, fellow concert goers, smoke, and the Tsongas arena, making a point of swearing at least once in every sentence.

" You guys want some?" He was trying to push the beer on us again.

" No thanks," I replied

" Nope, all set," answered Kevin.

" No, I,m all set," good old Dave was back.

" Hey!" He yelled, causing us all to jump. " There is a F,n cop at the corner. Are you guys trying to F___ me over? You're all in deep sh__ if you do."

" No, no, no, we aren,t doing anything like that. We didn,t even hear what you said down there. We really don,t want anything. Just chill, relax. That is all we were trying to do when we climbed the tree. Why don,t you try it. Just sit back down, nice and easy. See, not so bad. " Kevin,s mind was working as quickly as it could to calm him down, an angry drunk drug dealer is exactly what we had been trying to avoid.

This is what I meant by things going sour. A police cruiser had slowly pulled up across the street and had parked at the near corner. This obviously had a negative affect on our drug dealer, he was blaming us for trying to set him up. I guess paranoid and overcautious aren,t just stereotypes, I hoped that the more violent and unpredictable aspects of the stereotypes didn,t also apply.

Fortunately with the presence of the cops Richie had no desire to sell us anything. The question now was how to leave. Unfortunately, with the opportunity of a sale down the tubes, Richie decided we would be a good audience for his life story. He had just become the father of a beautiful baby girl. His girlfriend was doing OK, and was home taking care of the baby. He had been in jail in the past, but things were looking up for him, he had a job somewhere, and his current girlfriend wasn,t a ___ like the others. "The poor infant," I though, " I wouldn,t trade her future for anything."
"I don,t know about you guys, but I,m ready to go home. Take care Rich, good luck, and glad you enjoyed the concert." Bless Kevin's heart..

" Yeah, bye-bye. Congrats on fatherhood. You must feel very proud," I called out, a little kissing up couldn,t hurt. So down we climbed, but as we started to walk away we heard swearing and then saw a beer can fly over our heads. Apparently Richie couldn,t climb down with the beer in his hand.

"Any of you guys got a cigarette?" he asked.

" No, none of us smoke." Kevin said.

" None of you guys wanna give me a butt?"

" We don,t smoke, " I said, " Sorry."

" Can you guys give me a ride to Giorgio,s Pizza?"

" We didn,t drive." Would he ever leave?

" You guys better not be lying." Beautiful, back to the threats I thought.

" Listen, we live in the big Dorm across the parking lot, we didn,t drive, and we are all too drunk to give you a ride home. I am sorry, but we are just going to walk home now." I couldn,t take it anymore. First he climbs up the tree, tries to sell us drugs, accuses us of trying to get him arrested, then gets demanding. All reasons why you should not invite a drug dealer up your tree.

" You guys live in that Artoo-Deetoo piece of s___ over there?"

" Yes, and we are walking home. Were knew we were going to drink too much to drive, so we opted to walk over, and now we are going home. OK, good bye." I had really had enough. Fortunately for all he got the hint and he turned towards the bar and walked away.

" Just what possessed you to invite a drug dealer up our tree Dave? Are you on crack or what?" I couldn,t help it, I had to know.

" Yeah Dave. That had to have been one of your top crackhead moves of all time." Kevin wasn,t too thrilled either.

" I thought he said you guys climbing,, I didn,t know he was a drug dealer. It wasn,t like he had a sign that said DRUG DEALER, on it, " Dave said.

" He kinda asked if we were buying, that would generally indicate a dealer of some sort. Given that it was dark out, and he got nervous at the sight of the cops I would think that he wasn,t selling anything legal, " countered Kevin " Also we answered no thanks, or " we,re all set,, didn,t that give you a hint? " Kevin was just as perplexed as I was it seemed.

" I didn,t hear you, " was all Dave had to say.

The conversation then went on to evaluate the whole situation. We all agreed that it was Dave's fault, and that it was a rather dumb thing to do. There we were stuck up a tree with a man who was potentially dangerous. He was selling illegal drugs, was paranoid, easily angered, and drunk to boot. It wasn,t too much of a stretch of the imagination to see that our lives were put at risk, not to mention if the cops had decided to investigate we could have ended up in jail with the very guy we were trying to avoid.

To play devils advocate Kevin started to describe some of the benefits to having a dealer in the tree with us. Should any of us have been users, here was a really nice opportunity to end the evening, we could have bought something to alter our mind state, and not even have to work for it. The dealer did all the work, coming to us to make the sale, even offering to go out and find anything he didn,t have in stock. As for the risk of getting caught, the tree was lit from the front by street lamps both the leaves, and the glare covered us to the point where one couldn,t who we were or what we were doing. In fact if we had moved to the side of the tree opposite the cops, the trunk could have hidden us rather well. If we needed to get away quickly, we were all sober enough to climb the tree without any trouble whereas the dealer barely made it up to us. We could have either avoided him, or pushed him out of the tree. The three against one odds also worked in our favor. The only real reason why we had a problem with him up our tree was because we didn,t want to buy.

I wasn,t totally convinced with his argument. The man was rather upset with us when he saw the police cruiser pull up, and even the smallest thing, like us not giving him a ride made him rather mad. The three-to-one odds wouldn,t have done us much good is the man had a gun either. I think the whole situation was bad and even if we wanted to buy how often would you take anything from a complete stranger, especially something as dangerous as drugs. I did agree that is was convenient to have him come to us, and it would have been cool for him to go out and search for any " specialty items" for us.

We left the argument at that. Kevin truly did believe this was a dangerous thing to have happen. The man was unknown to us, drunk, and a drug dealer. The potential for things to go horribly wrong were there, and we had no real way to protect ourselves. The best way out of the situation would be to have never invited the man into our tree in the first place, a lesson we drilled into Dave's head , and still make him repeat regularly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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