All or Nothing (5 page)

Pot goes quickly when you use every day. After a week, Chris and I had nearly reached the end of our four ounces, and we agreed to meet up on the clubhouse deck to smoke the rest. We loaded our Pyrex pipe with some of the remaining weed and sat on the deck with our backs to its two entrances, puffing away. Suddenly, in a blur, cops swarmed in from both sides. “Stop what you're doing now!” a gruff, faceless voice called out from the darkness.

I quickly grabbed the bag with the remaining weed and threw it in a patch of lakeside weeds. But the cops were faster than me. They grabbed Chris and me, slapped cuffs on our wrists, and sat us in the back of a squad car. Strangely enough, I wasn't worried about getting busted by the cops as I sat there. Instead, I felt a sort of perverse excitement about being arrested. The feeling of those cuffs on my wrists and the cheap leather of the squad car seat against the backs of my legs was oddly empowering. All I could think was,
Wow. This is fucking cool.

Being arrested made me feel special, fueling my overblown fourteen-year-old ego and adding another layer to my already thick sense of entitlement. I knew I could manipulate my parents and that nothing would come of this incident. As usual, there would be no consequences. They loved me too much to watch me suffer. No one was shipping me off to military school or abandoning me, and I knew there was a safety net in place, no matter what, to catch my fall. At the Parkland Police Department headquarters, my hands were cuffed to the back of a cold gray office chair. It was my first arrest: possession of a controlled substance.

My dad didn't impose any limits on me, but he was still a powerful force in my life. I admired my dad and looked up to him. He got angry whenever I fell short of his high expectations of me, which happened all the time. Deep down I didn't think I would ever live up to his standards, so I didn't even try. The look of disgust and anger on his face when he came into the station that night was far more difficult for me to deal with than any arrest. The drive from the Parkland police station to our house took only a few minutes, but on that night it seemed like an eternity. It was eerily silent, with none of the usual banter about music or sports. I don't think my dad knew what to say or what to do with me. Parkland is a small town, and my dad was active in the community. My behavior made him look like a failure, and he must've felt ashamed, vulnerable, and defenseless.

As soon as we got home I launched into all of my usual bullshit. I played the victim, cried some well-timed tears, and threw in a touch of remorse to top it off. This was the best, most fail-safe recipe I had created to date, and it worked like a charm. “It's just a phase,” I heard my dad say to my mother later that night. As soon as I heard that I knew for sure that there would be no consequences. I lay in bed that night with a single thought dominating my consciousness. I didn't think about getting arrested. I didn't worry about parental repercussions, public scorn, or even what anyone thought about my behavior. All I could think about was getting high again.

My parents sent me to a psychologist for an evaluation after that first arrest. To me, this was a small price to pay. The therapist's name was Alan Braunstein, and his office smelled like patchouli oil and eucalyptus. Pictures of Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia lined the walls. I grew up listening to that music and felt right at home. At my first appointment Alan gave me all these tests to take, the kind where I had to tell him what I saw in a picture. He liked me, I could tell, and I was honest with Alan. I didn't feel the need to lie to him or manipulate him, at least not yet. I vividly described the way pot made me feel and what it did for me. He didn't judge; he just listened. Afterward he told my parents that I was intelligent and had real talent, but that I needed long-term rehab. He believed that the way I responded to the drug was a warning sign and a harbinger of bad things to come but my parents brushed it off. They didn't want to believe that I had a real problem, so they told themselves, “He's just experimenting. It's normal.”

Just a few months later I boarded the school bus feeling giddy. I had about half an ounce of some really good shit in my pocket and plans to meet up with some kids after school to get wasted. But suddenly I realized that walking into school with a wad of pot in my pocket wasn't such a great idea. Weed fucking reeks, especially the good stuff, and the teachers would be able to smell me coming from down the hallway. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a cassette tape of Alice in Chains'
Jar of Flies
—the perfect place to store weed. I quickly scanned the busybodies in the hallway and then carefully pulled a sandwich-sized bag out of my right front pocket, took out the cassette, and meticulously placed the pot inside the cassette tape case. Just as I was about to return the case to my backpack I noticed a raggedy-looking kid with a mop of curly brown hair wearing glasses. He was staring right at me for God only knows how long. I was so fixated on hiding the weed that I didn't even notice him, but he must've seen the whole thing go down. Still, I shrugged it off, figuring there was no way he was going to rat me out.

The morning rolled by. A couple of hours had passed since the incident in the hallway, and it already seemed like a distant memory. By third period I was sitting in the back of English class, flirting with a cute girl. I was hardly paying attention to whatever the teacher was talking about when one of the school administrators materialized at the classroom door. After whispering in the teacher's ear, she made her way to the back of the classroom and stopped right in front of my desk. “Jesse Schenker,” she said in a detached drawl, “take your things and come with me.”

I immediately knew what had happened. That kid had ratted me out. But rather than feeling scared, I actually felt special in a strange way. I had no idea what was going to happen to me, but things were definitely about to get interesting. We arrived at the principal's office, and the administrator slowly opened the door. Standing next to the principal was a cop. “Jesse, hand over your backpack,” the principal demanded.

The cop started rummaging through my backpack. All I could do was sit there and watch. Moments later he pulled out the tape. He knew exactly what he was looking for. “Jesse, take a seat,” the principal said and then proceeded to call my parents. As always, I was concerned about my dad's reaction, but I knew that nothing was really going to happen to me. My dad knew how to work the system even better than I did. No matter where we went, we never waited on line. My dad would tip the maître d' at a hot restaurant or the security guard at a concert and we'd walk right in. He knew how the world worked, and greasing the wheels had a lot to do with it. I don't know what he said to that cop, but the charges against me were dropped. All I had to do was write a letter of apology. My parents were more concerned about the fact that the principal wanted to expel me, but after several hours of begging I ended up with only a week's suspension.

My parents were both visibly upset when we got home. I wondered if they regretted ignoring Alan Braunstein's advice after our first appointment and would now take it more seriously. The three of us sat down, and right on cue I cried a few tears and told my parents how sorry I was and all the usual bullshit. No one was better at faking remorse than me, and they bought it hook, line, and sinker. I ended up serving my week of suspension on a family vacation in Aspen.

Years later a therapist asked me what I learned from that experience. I never answered his question, but to me it was obvious. I learned that I could get away with anything. My grandfather used to say that my sister and I were the only kids he knew who got rewarded for what they didn't do.

Roulade

Roulade
: Originating from the French
rouler
, meaning “to roll,” a roulade is a dish consisting of a slice of meat or other protein rolled around a filling, such as cheese, vegetables, or other meats.

C
ate was tall and slim, and she had mesmerizing big blue eyes. She was quirky and kind of offbeat, but damn if she couldn't make me laugh. By freshman year of high school we were inseparable. By then I'd also been smoking pot nonstop for two years, and the need for a constant supply consumed me. All day, every day, I searched for weed. Luckily, Cate had a neighbor named Simon with a steady supply. Most days after school I went straight from the school bus to Simon's and then to Cate's house, where we spent the afternoon smoking, getting high, playing golf, and listening to music. At night Cate and I retreated out to her porch and spent hours just gazing at the sky and following the stars.

The best source for pot in Parkland was Simon's brother Josh. He was a couple of years older than me and as big as a small elephant. And he had a car. In October, Josh, Cate, and I were driving down Lyon's Road in Coconut Creek when Josh ran a stop sign and a cop pulled up behind us. On cue, Josh grabbed his stash and stuffed it under his gut. He was so big that he could hide his weed under the thick roll of fat around his middle. I was in the backseat with a pipe and a little bit of pot, which I immediately crammed into my right sock.

“Get out of the car,” the cop ordered. As we got out he asked Josh, “You got any drugs?” He began to search Josh, but even Sherlock Holmes wouldn't have been able to find anything under all that blubber. The cop and his partner let Josh go. Then the police started searching me. I considered confessing, but was too scared. These were county officers, not the rinky-dink cops who'd busted me in the past. The cop found the stash in my sock within two minutes and immediately slapped some plastic cuffs on my wrists.

“Sit on the curb and wait there,” he ordered. A couple of minutes later Josh and Cate left. She offered to stay with me, but there was no need for her to make the trip. This was my fucking deal.

They took me down to the precinct, put me in a cell, and handcuffed me to a pipe. I was freaking out, thinking for sure there'd be serious consequences this time. It was my third arrest in three years, and even my dad couldn't bail me out of trouble this time because I had a prior record. As it turned out, we had to get a lawyer, and I went before a judge, who handed me a sentence of fifty hours of community service like she was giving out candy. I'd also have to check in with a probation officer once a month.

Through some friend of a friend, my father found a shelter for battered women that needed help from volunteers. We drove over to the secluded place and met with the woman in charge. At one point my dad asked me to leave the room, and he closed the door behind me; then he emerged a few minutes later, without saying a word. Within a week I received a letter in the mail with all of my community service paperwork already filled out. To this day I have no idea what went on behind that door, but I know I never had to do a day of community service.

Every time I got arrested my parents took me straight to Alan's office. It was always the same drill. They had me sit in the therapist's seat and sat with Alan on the couch; then the three of them grilled me for an hour. It was always intense and emotional as we cried together and came up with a game plan and consequences. But as soon as we got home everything would go back to the status quo.

Alan was a good therapist. He saw right through my act and knew I needed serious treatment, but my parents didn't want to hear it.

At that point the status quo consisted of smoking pot every day, cooking every chance I got, and studying food through cooking shows, restaurant menus, and eventually cookbooks. One day I saw a chef on TV slicing artichokes paper-thin, and I became obsessed with learning how to do that. I convinced my parents to buy me some artichokes, but when they brought the mysterious, thorny vegetables home, I had no idea where to start. Finally, I decided to put the artichokes in the freezer, figuring it would be easier to slice them frozen. It was a spectacular failure, with artichoke pieces flying everywhere, but it was the start of my learning how to manipulate ingredients.

When I was a young kid, my dad pushed me to try just about every sport imaginable—baseball, flag football, soccer, and one year I even tried basketball. Despite his busy work schedule he found the time to coach every single one of my teams. Baseball was the only one I really enjoyed or was any good at. I did have a live arm, and maybe if I'd had the motivation I'd have been pretty good. But my growing commitment to marijuana ensured that I didn't make the high school team when I tried out that year. That was fine with me. When I was younger I loved playing sports with my dad, but as a rebellious teen I wanted to get out from under his thumb. Not making the team was the perfect excuse to stop playing. There I was—young, full of nervous energy, with no respect for boundaries and a lot of extra time on my hands. I filled the void with pot, cooking, music, and sex.

When Cate's parents went out and she was stuck babysitting her little brother, I would go over to her house, and after he was asleep I'd raid the fridge, excited to find new ingredients to experiment with. One night I used squash and corn to make a crazy version of shepherd's pie that I covered with cheese and breadcrumbs and baked until it was golden brown and the cheese was bubbling up like lava. The excitement of creating something that delicious was better than any high I'd experienced so far.