And I’m thinking: “Buddy, what you don’t know.”
And Ted, he can’t leave well-enough alone because here he comes again, a woodpecker hittin’ the same damn hole time after time: “Dave … there’s something I gotta tell you.”
I wished there was something I could’ve thought to say--an interruption or something, but I stood there drawing blanks.
“Sure man,” Dave says, “what is it?”
“Well,” Ted began …
“Dude!” Dave suddenly shouted. “Would you look at this!”
The glass in the flame was a swirling cauldron of colors: peach, berry, orange, cherry; spinning yet all seemingly melting but yet, staying together, holding a molten shape. Pure poetry, man. And then Dave starts schooling Ted, ‘cause after all, he’s the apprentice, right? And Dave’s talking about this process called fuming, where you bleed in the color rod to the clear Pyrex shape you’re working with. Of course, it’s all with heat, all with the torch. Dave said it all works because glass traps fire’s heat, cooling it and keeping it for its own beauty. Is that cool or what?
So picture the planet Mars, all molten red. Now shrink it down to golf ball size--that’s what Dave had suspended in the flame. The shape was becoming a form. Then he did this etching stuff, where you take a piece of iron about the size of a pencil, and you start putting in swirls, curly-cues, swooshes– any design you want. For example, that astrologer dude was a Leo, so the piece Dave had made for him had the lion symbol; you know, the curly tail thing, all over the pipe. Talk about technique; if you push too hard the reamer goes right through the molten glass and you’ve ruined it. Touch and pressure are everything.
So this Dave is spinning and grinning, stylin’ and profilin’, and a guy shows up, Tim or something, and he says, “Hey, Dave, need any weed?
And Dave says, “Sure, need any ‘shrooms?
And this Tim guy says, “Is the pope Catholic?” And they both whip their bags out and trade: an ounce of kind buds for an ounce of ‘shrooms, plus Dave kicked him a piece. And I’m thinking, what a gig, you just sit there blowing glass all day and people bring you drugs.
Could you hang with that, bro?
So next thing you know we’re huffing again. Talk about smoking from a phat piece, you should see Dave’s personal bubbler. And this herb is killer: Willies, dude. I don’t think those guys even smoke schwag; I mean, why would you if you were surrounded by kind buds all day long?
Now Tim is talking about the band Tammi is in, and how they’re getting more gigs lately. He saw them play the other night.
“Dude,” he said to Dave. “Tammi’s good. She’s got a great voice.”
“Yeah,” Dave said, “that’s what I hear.”
“What! You mean you haven’t seen them?”
Dave’s shoulders sagged a little and a sigh escaped his lips like he’d explained this one before and was getting a little tired of it: “No,” he said, pausing. “It’s hard to leave the flame, brother.”
And the weird part was, at that exact moment we all realized that we, too, were staring at the torch, riveted by its hissing and roaring and burning. I’m tellin’ ya, when he cranks that bitch it’s a foot long. It grabs you, dude. It grabs you by the booboo.
And check this out. AK, that mean old bastard, he’s laying on the sofa with his nuts hanging out growling at everyone. So I’m all wrecked, and every time I look at AK he shows me fangs. And I’m thinking, Jesus, that dog’s gonna rip my friggin’ throat out. I couldn’t make friends with that dog for nothing, but you know what I say: Never trust a pit bull tripping ‘shrooms.
So here comes Ted again, talking about women. The dude is a freak, what can I say. I can tell he’s trying to get it back to Tammi, and sure enough, he says, “You and Tammi got any plans tonight, Dave?”
And Dave … it’s obvious he hasn’t even thought about it. Like they say: you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right? I mean, Dave, wake up and smell the kind buds, buddy. And while you’re at it, check on your woman, you know what I’m saying, dude? TCB buddy--take care of business.
So Ted can’t get Dave to stop thinking about blowing and start thinking about Tammi, which I guess has been the problem all along. Finally Ted gets tired of beating around the bush and he says, “Dave, there’s something I gotta tell ya. Can we go in the kitchen?” and I’ll be damned if the phone didn’t ring.
So Dave’s on the phone, and I look at Ted and say, What are you … crazy?
And Ted says, “Man, his chick is with another guy and he doesn’t even know she’s left. Somethin’ aint’ right about that.”
“Look,” I says. “If you tell him, he’ll hate your guts.”
I’m right, aren’t I? You don’t want to be the one to tell your bro his woman’s stepping out on him. It’s like he’ll blame you. Besides, I was tripping balls, dude, things were crazy enough, I can tell you that. Jeez, you shoulda been there.
Then Dave’s off the phone. The guy he was talking to is coming over with three hundred dollars to have a piece blown. So the guy shows up and we all commence to smoking again, Dave matching his Willies with this guy’s Kush. Yes, Hindu Kush, dude, you heard me. He had to have grown it himself. That’s what I figure. His nugs were the size of strawberries--covered with crytals! You can’t buy nugs like that! No I am not lying. One hit, you’re baked. Try it with ‘shrooms, dude! I was torched! My brain was melting!
Speaking of melting, I saw the coolest thing. Dave’s glass is coming alive under the torch. It’s in the flame, and it’s glowing like an aura or a rainbow, and the colors are shifting and changing, shimmering and twirling. What began as a shapeless blob is now plainly going to be a fat pipe with form, design and color. Around the rim of the molten bowl, glass melts and ripples like lava. And Dave’s putting those color-dot-things around the equator of the bowl. You know, those knobby things of color on glass pieces? He did a red one, then a green one, then blue and so on. And each time, he held the color-stick to the side of the bowl, working in the flame–always in the flame– varying its length, temperature and intensity. Then he pulls the color stick out with pliers, but the tip remains trapped in the sticky glass.
“Whoaa,” he starts yelling. “Who’s yo daddy? Who’s yo Daddy!”
I’m tellin’ ya, that guy is a trip.
Now check this out. Dave picks a gold coin up with tongs, straight up twenty-four karat gold, and sticks it in the torch with the pipe. Molten gold flecks drip around the base of the bowl, which he keeps spinning of course. And on top it’s all purple, crimson and ruby-colored. The bomb, dude, the bomb. Time kinda stands still when you’re watching that stuff, know what I mean?
That’s the part where he held the figure still momentarily and pushed the reamer into the glass. Dude, that becomes the bowl. Is that sweet or what? I have never seen anything like that in my life. And then you just poke your little carburetor hole on the side and presto! You got a pipe.
And all the while Dave’s rapping about the trip to Jamaica he and some homies took a few weeks ago, talking about this swimming pool where the chicks went topless, and you jump in it from a ledge and swim over to a big wall of water vines and you climb up them and that’s where the bar is! Would that be sweet or what?
So the guy with the Kush, he knew Tammi somehow, and he says to Dave: “Hey, who’s Tammi’s new boyfriend?” and Dave about came unglued.
“What the fuck are you talking about, crack ho?”
“Nothing