Educational Experience

Part III--Chapter 10

Boy, have I got some surprises for you. So let's just do this. Buckle up!

I ran.

I don't mean I just to get out of the arena and away from people.

I mean like I was in the friggin' Olympics or something. Or like a goddamned race horse nearing the finish line in the Kentucky Derby. Or...Richard Pryor when he set himself on fire—have you ever heard him talk about that? I felt like that. Like I was trying to escape the flames and pain.

So I flew through the rear tower and through the plaza and then into the front tower, where I stopped dead, because I didn't want to run out where the stupid photographers and reporters might start chasing me or something.

And I looked around, and then took off for the fire exit. I think some part of me was hoping that running up a few flights of stairs would make me quit acting a damned fool.

And it did. Because after a few flights I felt like my lungs were bursting. And my throat was sort of on fire from breathing so hard. So I fell against the wall and just hung there 'til I wasn't so winded anymore.

But then the confusion caught up and damned near choked me to death. So I snatched open the exit door like maybe I thought I'd be outside or something, where I could breathe better. But instead, I was in the little plaza that all the guest wing corridors radiated off of like spokes in a wheel—you know what the layout is like already. Only theirs wasn't made of glass like Sky Walk.

And guess who was sitting on one of the chairs there—no, not Wyatt. Celie.

Taking little cautious hits off a blunt she'd got from somewhere. Maybe WeeZee. He does 'em better than anyone I know.

When she saw me, she didn't get all snitty or anything. She held up the blunt and said, "Quick hit?"

And I don't know if she had seen or heard about the thing with Wyatt. I wasn't sure anyone had, actually, since it'd happened right when they were all focused on the countdown and all. She just she looked like she was still sort of rattled from what had happened between us a little while before. And the blunt was, like, a way to test the waters.

I, by then, didn't give a shit about anything much. So I zombie'd over to her because she was the first human being I'd seen since I ran. And she was holding something that could take the edge off. That's the real reason I went over. To self-medicate.

So I took a generous pull and held it even though my whole body wanted to cough. Made my eyes water, but I held it as long as I could. And then I did start coughing. Like I was going to die or something.

Celie started whomping me on the back and said, "C'mon! You can handle your smoke better'n' that, son!"

So I did it again just to show her what I was made of. Only that time I coughed sooner and even worse. And we both started laughing our asses off. It wasn't about me coughing, though. It was about just...everything. You know, the way you laugh when something really awful happens and you just let go of the controls and don't care anymore.

So I looked at her with my eyes all squinted up from the weed and said, "You hiding from me?""Shit, I'm not hiding from nobody," she said. "I got no reason to hide from nobody. Don't nobody give a shit what I do. What are you doin' up here?"

She sounded more like Aisha than an Oscar winning actress. Guard totally down—no mask on. Just...finished, I felt like. With all of it.

And when I didn't answer right away, she shook her head and said, "I don't need to know. Here..."