text: from Love & Chemicals: The Memoir I had an afternoon to kill. Burlington, VT, ‘Bello & Friends’ Summer Tour, 2000. The original ideal of running away had become a full-time profession, working the past month with no rest, until today. A warm July day-off in a Canadian border town, I got off the bus at the central pedestrian shopping district and fulfilled a promise that I had made to myself to eat breakfast before going to the bar. Smoked a few cigarettes to complement the blueberry pancakes and spotted a teenage couple dressed like the Jamaican Flag. I reacted without thinking when they passed me by, ‘Hi, I’m from the circus, you know where I can find a J?’ Like a call to the wild, my people responded instinctively. A passing cab took us out of the decorated New England city into a stale suburban district devoid of any character. ‘You can hook us up, too, right?’ Aaah, the innocence of youth... ‘I’ll give you most of mine, I just have an afternoon to kill...’ ‘No, no, we want some heroin.’ The bright-eyed idealist traveler inside of me dimmed a little that day, and still has not returned. The taxi stopped and I was rushed out of the backseat as they started to beat their fists against an unassuming door. I felt a little safer when I noticed a Dodge caravan in the driveway, but then came a sound that I had heard before, and, unfortunately, have heard again thereafter, the metallic clacking of a weapon being loaded. ‘I told you kids to get the hell out of here!!!’ I took them by their dreads and hustled back to the waiting car. The driver didn’t need any instructions to floor it, I’m sure the looks in our eyes were obvious enough. Back to original street corner, no one spoke a word. They followed me to a local deli, and I bought them sandwiches to satisfy my conscience. I ran away from them down a side street and hid in a sports tavern, but couldn’t even finish a beer, before taking one last taxi back to the lot. I’d had enough reality for that day. I hope that I wouldn’t have bought them their drugs, if the situation had transpired as they had planned, but if I analyze my actions, I never resisted being pulled along. I sat in my trailer with a bottle I had stashed away and debated if I was really the man that I had always dreamed of becoming. After a few more drinks, it didn’t matter anymore, and I still don’t know if I’ve answered it. In my best moments, I can say, I hope so.