Thursday

Woke this morning to a darkened cave, moisture dripping from the walls. I reached up with my left hand to search for one of my lighters on the makeshift shelf I created just a couple days ago. Once found, I lit one of the four candles we had in the cave, three of which were lifted from the local Safeway.

The cave smelled dank, as Chris would say. I quickly lit the other three candles. There was Chris, sleeping, just inches from me, under a pile of blankets. I reached for one of the many snipes arrayed on the shelf that ran along the length of my body, about a foot and a half above my head.

My first breath of tobacco is my first breath of life in the morning. It's what gets me going and what motivates my day. I'm not saying that I live for cigs, but I spend a lot of my day looking for snipes or buming smokes. I'm saying that niccotine is a cool drug, and for now it gets me through the day and the night too.

I left Chris sleeping in the cave and took a bus to the MAX platform. From there I rode the train into Portland, where I caught another bus to NE Ainsworth. That's where the Day Center is, a place where HIV possitive people can: eat, relax, take a shower, do laundry, use the phone, pick-up mail, access the internet, play pool or foos-ball, watch t.v. and get a free montly bus pass.

I ran into Ricky at the Day Center, and I knew he had weed. I had been rude to him the first time he tried to introduce himself only to learn later what a cool guy he is. I showed him my little cigarette shaped one-hitter that Brandon gave me just the day before. I asked if he had a nug for my hitter and he said sure he'd go out and smoke with me.

Ricky lead me out into the alley and down a side alley to a little nook where a tall fir tree grows on a mound of dirt. He dropped his bag down and I sat mine next to his, near the fence. Then he unzipped one of the pockets in his backpack and removed a black tin. It was an old tea-tin, with artwork on it. The egdes were rubbed clean of paint in the places where hands had lifted the lid and reclosed it countless times.

Ricky opened the tin to reveal about a quarter ounce of weed. Green, stinky bud danded across a silver floor, as he shifted all of it from one side to the other and then held it in place so all the bud fell together in a pile at one corner.

He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a glasss pipe. It was all one color, smokey brown, and not like other pot pipes I'm uses to seeing. It looked more like a tobacco pipe with a long narrow, tappering stem and a large, perfectly shaped bowl.

He packed that thing full and we smoked three of those large bowls together. Ricky began to tell me his story. He's a small guy, probably four-eight or four-nine. He has coa-coa tan skin and small beady eyes. He has a way about him that is at once endearing and offputting at the same time. He's very flambouant and flirtatious and also very gentle and kind.

It's his kindness that won me over. He opened up his life to me the way an art collector shows off his prized posessions. There was: the time he ran away from home when he was only nine years old; the many lovers and the four partners who all left him pennyless. He talked and packed bowls. We both smoked, and I mostly listened.

When we were finished smoking, he gave me some to take back to Chris, and then we went back inside the Day Center and played a short game of foos-ball. The table was old, and one of the foos-ball players was pretty chopped up, but we played like we were two teenagers, just hanging out in my parents garage. It was a blast.

Later, on my way home, I stopped at the Tri-Met office in Pioneer Square to use the bathroom. On my way out I ran into Zaza, an old friend from the days of my early HIV diagnosis. Zaza and I hung out for a while in an adgacent park, smoked a little weed, and I got introduced to his new companion pet, Lucie. I enjoyed petting her smooth coat. It made me feel a little closer to Lexi and Max. Zaza gave me a little money and his phone number.

When I got back to the cave, Chris was there waiting for me. He was beaming that I brought him some nugs to smoke. I was pleased with the small acts of love I had experienced, from Zaza and my new friend Ricky. It was a day of magic... no, it was a day of love.