I Let Down DARE: My Sleepover With the Coolest Person in 5th Grade

The name in this story has been changed to protect the coolest kid I have ever witnessed.

I met Mikey Shope in my fifth grade class. Mikey Shope was the fucking coolest. He had dyed bleach blonde hair. He had stubble on his face. He did his fifth grade biography report about Kurt Cobain. He wrote a poem about 9/11, on 9/11.

What’s crazy is that Mikey was my friend. He liked me! I had no stubble until college. My biography was about Julius Cesar. On 9/11, I asked the teacher if I could call my Dad.

Mikey showed me rap music. Mikey was the reason I begged my Dad for Nelly’s “Country Grammar” CD. Mikey brought a picture of a boob to school and showed me the boob. I liked it.

I think my Dad could feel the dark energy of Mikey Shope all the way at our home. My Dad could see my eyes widen when I talked about my adventures with Mikey. My Dad resisted on many occasion my attempts to expand my friendship with Mikey outside of school.

This hurt. Because Mikey wanted the expansion. I wanted the expansion. Mikey would tell me beautiful stories of his home life which, at my age now, sound like Mikey’s parents were painfully absent. But for a fifth grader, it sounded awesome.

“My parents normally just get me KFC and I get to eat it in my room. All my video games are up there as well. I also have a bunch of lighters I bought at a swap meet.”

My brain was constantly exploding around the fucking god-like lifestyle Mikey occupied. I had to have a part of it. I stole a lighter from the kitchen at my house and brought it into my room. I was too afraid to use it so it sat on my desk until my Dad came into my room and yelled at me for having a lighter.

Mikey. A fucking legend.

I asked my Dad every weekend if I could sleep over at Mikey’s. Always no. But what I now know as an adult, if a child asks you something repeatedly, you will break down. Not because you love them, but because it is annoying.

“I don’t give a shit.” My father’s way of saying ‘yes’. Mikey lived far away and my Dad complained the entire time. It made me more excited: far from civilization. No rules.

Mikey’s house was a big, square of a home that was three stories high that sat in the middle of a desert. The house looked like a Monopoly piece dropped on the board, there was no blending of the home into the natural space. It looked like a middle finger to nature.

Almost all the lights were off inside the house. Before my Dad could ask if I was sure this was the right place I bounced out of the car and ran to the front door.

I knocked twice. The door opened and an older woman answered.

“Are you Mikey’s friend?” She had a warm, but kind of vague smile. I nodded. “Mikey is in his room. Just up the stairs. Last room down the hall.

I slid into the home and jogged up the stairs. My heart was racing. It was happening. A sleepover with Mikey.

I opened the door. Yup, Mikey’s room was cool. Everything in his room was black. Black sheets. Black pillows. Black chairs. There was a giant TV next to the bed along with a computer. He had speakers around his room that were playing Nirvana at a mood-setting level. Mikey was at his computer. He swiveled in his chair to face me.

“What do you want to do?”

I didn’t know how to look around his room without letting it be known that I was having a “coming of age” moment. He had every single thing my parents wouldn’t let me have. I pointed to a mini fridge in the corner.

“Is there anything in there?”

“Just some Starbucks frappuccino’s you can get at the gas station.”

JUST?! JUST SOME STARBUCKS FRAPPUCCINO’S? My father shut down a mini fridge for my room in quick fashion. “We have a fridge that you already have too much access to.” Starbucks frappuccinos that came in the glass container were completely out of the question for my Dad. “What? Why? Fuck off.” I am a grown man and still don’t understand his aversion. But it was there, and it was final.

I reached out my hand, and Mikey knew to fill it with a Frapp. I downed it fast like those kids who never got to drink alcohol and then drink alcohol for the first time. You know, dangerously fast. Mikey stayed seated in his chair, smiling. Mikey as a fifth grader already had a level of coolness where he could be completely secure in how cool he was, which meant he never had to shit on others. He was patient with dorks like me. He knew this was a big deal. I was drinking forbidden drinks out of forbidden mini fridges. He let me ride this high.

He then lit incenses. I am still at the age where I am learning about Christopher Columbus. I still at this age think Christopher Columbus is a good guy, and Mikey is changing the scent and vibe of his room with incenses. I watch the smoke fold over itself and leak off the stick.

“It’s Jasmine,” Mikey said. It smelled like balls. I didn’t care. Jasmine. Being cool smelled like Jasmine. I sat right next to the stick and watched it slowly burn away. Mikey went to the bathroom. I felt a prick of sadness. Was I old now? Was I no longer a boy? I looked up at the lights in Mikey’s bedroom. I saw the clouds hover around the light bulbs. I thought about my mother seeing me from wherever she was. She would see that I was breaking rules. It made me sad. I heard Mikey coughing in the bathroom. I wonder if Mikey got sad when he did stuff like this. No, I thought like a stupid person, Mikey always did this stuff.

Mikey came out of the bathroom holding a wooden pipe. He rested the pipe on his computer table and went back to fiddling with the music.

I was captured by the pipe on the table. Horrified. I started to smell something coming from the direction of the bathroom. Also, Mikey had his own bathroom. The smell wasn’t a bathroom smell. It wasn’t Jasmine.

“Did you use that?” I looked at his pipe. Mikey looked at his pipe. He coughed. He snuck a quick nod in between the cough noises.

I felt my head get light and the room spun a quarter turn. “Is that, mari — weed?”

Mikey got a little stiff. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s my sisters. She thinks my parents took it. Or, I don’t know, maybe she doesn’t.”

I would like to take this time to share that I was captivated by the DARE program. I loved it. The officer that spoke to us was Deputy Pruitt and he never did any drugs in his life. One time he killed a guy who allegedly tried to kill him, and they said that the only reason he was able to kill the other guy first is because he was drug-free. He remembers the day it happened. July 12th. My birthday!

He at one point blew up a balloon and stapled it to the wall. He said that was our pledge to be drug-free, or something. I honestly don’t remember why he did that, but it had something to do with drugs. Someone in my class within minutes threw a thumbtack at the balloon and it popped, which meant that we were all going to do drugs. The person who threw the thumbtack? Mikey Shope.

When DARE asked me to make a pledge to be drug-free, I earnestly made the promise. I thought it was a no-brainer. In all the videos we watched, the drugs were really bad. They were so mean to the kids. Why would I ever want to be around such mean things?

Now I am looking at Mikey who just smoked pot. Mikey was proving my Dad right. Mikey was bad. Damn you, Mikey.

I said nothing. We watched BASEketball. I was silent. The anger started to wear off as I watched what at the time I considered to be the funniest movie on earth. Mikey and I were laughing. I kept looking over at him. He did not seem like a demon. He seemed fine. I started to think, maybe, he was fine. Sure, every time he picked up the pipe I felt a new hole in my stomach form. But otherwise, the sleepover felt back on the right track.

I started looking at Mikey less and the pipe more. How did it work? I noticed that Mikey would cover a little hole. Why did he do that? When do you stop covering the hole? What does being high feel like?

At some point, I got up and went over to the computer table. I grabbed the pipe and held it up to my face. It smelled bad and looked old. The weed looked like a little black nugget. I put the pipe up to my lips.

“If I were to smoke it would I just — ”

I sucked in, expecting nothing. What I got was a very horrible taste. Something went down my throat and into my lungs. I gagged and started to cough.

Smoke came out of my mouth. My eyes were now watering from the coughing attack, along with instant tears. I smoked pot. I was dead.

“Oh no…no…no…NO…FUCK.” I bolted to the bathroom. I dropped the pipe. Mikey sprung up from his chair in a feeble attempt to catch the pipe. He was too far away. The pipe dropped and ash covered the floor.

“Fuck. Keith!” Mikey shot in my direction. “You can’t be too loud. My parents — ”

“No. No, no, no! FUCK.” I was no longer vibing off the Mikey Shope energy. I was white-knuckling my way through a panic attack. I was in the fifth grade and I already pissed it all away. I let Deputy Pruitt down. He and I would no longer be on the same side, we would be staring at each other with bars of a jail cell between us.

My Dad was going to beat my ass. I only know this because my Dad said that if I did drugs he would “beat my ass.”

Was I high? My stomach fell another ten stories. I felt normal, but that is how Weed tricks you. Right? I had to be high. That’s what happens. You smoke pot and then you are high and you disappoint everyone.

I am now on the floor crying like a cartoon. Mikey sat on the bathroom floor with his head down. He didn’t say much of anything. I felt like I cried for hours. He sat and watched. Again, Mikey, being cool, didn’t make me feel dumb. I made me feel dumb.

At some point, Mikey grabbed contact cleaning solution from under his sink.

“I don’t think you are high,” Mikey said calmly. He spun the solution in his hands a couple times. He took the cap off and squirted some of the solution onto the bathroom mirror.

“Like, what does that look like?” he said. He nodded towards the drops on the mirror.

“Um, ugh. I don’t know. Fuck…” I didn’t understand what we were doing. Mikey smiled.

“Just — okay. What do that on the mirror look like to you?”

I studied the drops for a second longer.

“Drops? Like raindrops?” I looked at Mikey for answers. He confidently nodded.

“Yeah, see, I think it looks like a whale. And I am high. So you’re not high.”

I shit you not, I felt eighty percent better instantly. I looked at it again. A whale?! There is no fucking whale on that mirror. Close call. I went to the mini fridge and drank another frapp. Sure, I still felt like I let down everyone on earth by accidentally smoking pot. But I dodged the bullet of addiction and self-destruction which would have been really hard for my loved ones to watch.

We wrapped up BASEketball, and while Nirvana songs quietly filled Mikey’s bedroom, we fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning with a deep pain in my heart. It was guilt. I let everyone down. When my Dad pulled up to the driveway I quickly apologized to Mikey and ran to the car. I didn’t talk much on the car ride home. I sat alone in my bedroom all day. The grief made me feel like my soul was bleeding. I was a bad kid.

Just before dinner time, I went to wash my hands in the bathroom. I closed the door behind me. I turned the faucet on and I cried. The water pressure sucked, so my cries were pretty audible in the house. My Dad came into the bathroom and sat on the floor. I sat on the toilet.

I told him everything. I couldn’t take it. I told him the truth and did not leave anything out. When I finished my Dad’s eyes were wide. He slowly closed them and dropped his head. He bobbed for a second and then picked his head back up.

“I smoked pot once when I was in college,” he said. He nodded as if he was being understanding for the both of us. I was floored. I didn’t know who was good or bad anymore.

This conversation is now hilarious to me. My Dad did smoke pot once in college. He also smoked twice in college. He smoked three times in college. He smoked every goddamn day in college and then for years after that. My Dad also sold pot. For a living. On a massive scale. It was his primary occupation. Everything in our house was purchased with money my Dad made from selling pot. My Dad was a millionaire. From pot.

This motherfucker grounded me! At the time I felt I deserved it. I was a bad child and this was my atonement for the horrible sins that I committed.

Mikey and I remained close. No more sleepovers though. Mikey eventually took some weird turns in his life. Some were bad. Some were good. I think Mikey lives in the Bay Area right now. I have no idea what he does but I bet that it is cool.