Chapter 6 The 2:45 prepares for takeoff.

We had been warned during our meetings about eating poppy seed muffins and that they can cause a reading in your blood that shows you’re doing Heroin. So now we need to come up with another story. “Who is it?” we ask. We have sat through endless drug speeches and seminars put together by the “Company” to show us the dangers of a “wild” lifestyle. I look around the room. No one is munching out of control, no one is laughing repeatedly, and no one is following their fingers with their eyes. All the signs we've been told by the company is a direct result of pot smoking.

We feel as if we are trapped in a Shirley Jackson book, the book where someone has placed their hand in a bag and pulled out the black dot. I'm sure another speech about the dangers of drug use is in the works.

I'm 33 years old and I feel as if I can’t dress myself, feed myself or use the bathroom without a speech on the correct way to do it from the company. They also have rules, so many fucking rules it’s hard to keep track of all of them. The rule book we are given has rewrites of rewrites in it. Point with two fingers we are told when giving directions, so no one thinks you're pointing at them. Only one finger comes to mind when I think of this company today.

At the party for the dead one of my friends stumbles into the room so drunk that he closes one eye to look at me."Oh Christ!" he says falling off his six inch heels. "I knew this would happen". His drink jumps out of the glass and onto the floor as he falls on the couch. I’m not sure why he’s wearing heels today or yesterday or tomorrow but I am an early believer of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

Once again one of our celebrations turns as sour as the milk in my fridge during a Bahamian blackout. No one feels much like partying but everyone feels like drinking.

The bell at the front door rings and everyone jumps; we are used to people just walking in, so this must be important. A cast member answers the door, standing there is one of our fellow performers his face streaked with tears. Without any warning and without any questions he makes an announcement. “It’s me,” he blurts out, “I’m the one who had a positive drug test.” “I smoked pot two weeks before I came to work for the company.”

“That’s it,” I yell! Two weeks before, Christ, you don’t have to be Colombo to figure this one out. It’s our alibi, the golden clause, the icing on the cake. We are smug in our legal knowledge. “If you smoked pot two weeks before you were hired there is nothing they can do, you weren’t under contract.”

“I already tried that defense,” he says meekly “and it didn’t work.” I envision “Power Suit” sitting on high, a long white wig flapping in the wind of her banging gavel; a lesson must be learned she screams.

We do what we do best, we help him pack.

To be continued…………..

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "Not Only Magic Floats". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.