094: Aubrey

There was no place to shower and the consensus was to get on the road early, this was Ben's idea, as he'd researched Monterrey, our next stop and found that we could do a sunrise walk or hike in some local mountains near Monterrey, and then take in a cool cave system, not unlike Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

The waterfall had been cool, the zip-lining amazing, but both Rafe and I were tired. But we agreed to do it with Ben the next day, since we'd get there so early.

As the bus started rolling, it was early evening, and the guys were not ready for bed, so they jammed in the back lounge together. Dylan was still with us however, and I didn't know if either Rafe or Aiden had spoken with him. I simply steered clear.

Rafe worked our song hard. The first one we'd done together---- Fall into the Ocean. He wanted the band to get into it, and because there were hip-hop-rap parts, with someone else singing part of the time, there was concern over who could do it. The guys were really good at backup vocals, support vocals, harmonies and oooh's and ahhh's. But they hadn't done full on solo vocals for many years. The nice thing was they were up for it. I'd never seen such a positive and willing group.

What I liked about the jam session was the unleashed creativity. Rafe was successful because he was so focused. I could see that now. And he was a natural leader. The guys were willing to and enjoyed following him. He was very critical--- not of them, but of the sounds and the music. Like I said, he worked it—pushed it—I could see why he was a successful coach on a Voice show on TV, he took his time, and really tried to help artists improve.

He knew the music industry and had an uncanny sixth sense about it. It was why Axis remained at the top of their genre. His ability to take risks in music, try things that otherwise hadn't been tried, that didn't necessarily go together-- made Axis very powerful as an industry lead. Not to mention each band personality was strong, but none were A-type like Rafe, which left him alone at the top, with some really strong band back up.

It was exciting watching them. They spoke quietly, then got excited and whooped and hollered. Then got quiet and put their heads together again. I watched each one of them, and noticed that Dylan was making a huge humble effort. It occurred to me that Aiden and Rafe must have talked to him. He never once looked at me.

It must be hard for the guys on tour. They missed home and their girlfriends and families if they had them. I personally felt the strain of travel, the impatience with sitting there and not being able to live my normal routine. My mom had recommended a different regenerative herbal plan for me, and a diet that I was sticking to as best I could under the circumstances. And I had noticed others complaining of gas, bloat, inability to poop, and other gastrointestinal complaints. I wasn't here as the nutrition expert, or even the resident doctor. And I hadn't brought extra herbs; just enough for Rafe and me.

So I hadn't yet given any suggestions for better health and travel quality. Most of the complainers ate junk food when we stopped to get fuel, and drank the whole time we traveled. I figured their guts were fermented anyway. But if they ended up coming to me, I knew I would help them.

I'd looked at Jeremy's wound before we'd left, and re-bandaged it. I had not looked at Dylan's. I found myself reading medical articles as we drove, and I listened to Rafe's band. I made a lot of notes on the lap top, studied quietly, and stayed as unobtrusive as I could. Which meant at one point I was in on the bunk while they worked. I did miss the hospital.

I'd come out for another bottle of water and Rafe looked up, putting down his guitar, he stretched and yawned. I wondered if he was planning to come to bed.

"What I wouldn't give for a hit right now." He yawned, not looking at me, but his voice had a funny quality, like he was aware of me.

"I got some." Jeff volunteered, digging in his pocket. "I rolled it just this morning. Me and Dylan smoked the rest earlier, but we got this one left."

Mutt turned on the vents and fresh air wafted through.

"Aubrey, catch that door." Rafe said practically, and leaned forward with a lighter to light Jeff's joint. "Is it good, Jeff?"

"Your bitch is gonna kill you." Dylan said low, and the guys kind of laughed.

"Go to bed little girl." Rafe said to me as he took a long drag. I felt the shudder start deep in my legs and work its way up. I stood there a full minute and then closed the door with me inside. Rafe held the joint up to me. He nodded indicating that I should come over there if I wasn't going to bed. I heard his challenging voice from earlier at the waterfall and the boulder, saying he wouldn't take anything I had to say since I'd never tried it.

I stood there. What would my reaction be? He was testing me--- that was obvious. Really obvious. Anyone who knew Rafe at all could see he had an agenda. Was it the let's talk controversial subjects debate? Did he have to prove his point enflagrante.?

I felt the shiver settle and I went over to him and squeezed in next to Mutt on Rafe's right. He instantly put the joint to my lips. I pulled back, but not in any way scared or annoyed. I simply decided to pass this test.

Ben, on the other side of Rafe, took the joint, looked hard at me and then passed it on. It was clear his experience in the temple had affected him more than this little demo was about to. I hate the smell of weed, and have seen my fair share of babies born with the effects of THC in them. I figured it was time to educate the guys.

And then Rafe leaned back and rubbed my back. "Um, baby, what did you think of the song?"

I blew out my breath. Maybe it wasn't time to educate them. Maybe it was a different sort of test. Ben was watching me. Maybe he was using me to counteract his peer pressure. It was always easier to resist if someone else was resisting also. Maybe I was here for Ben.

And then again. Was I going to sit here and tolerate Rafe smoking pot? Was this going to be our life together? Would he smoke pot in front of Chloe and Noah?

"Aubrey's never been high." Rafe said conversationally, so now I knew it was one of those controversial subjects he intended on bringing up for the benefit of everyone. I noticed when the joint came around again, he did not take a puff.

"Seriously?" Jeff wondered with a gamin smile. "Pot doesn't hurt you, baby. You should try it. We're only getting a little buzzed. Helps take the edge off." He giggled, and I remembered the effects of early brain saturation including that instant sense of euphoria and giddiness.

"That's okay." I told him. "I like to be in control of my mind."

"Oooooh!" Rafe wiggled his fingers like a voodoo witch at Jeff and grinned at him with his scary face on. "She likes to be in control of her mind. Does that mean you're not in control of your mind, Jeffrey?" I was starting to get that Rafe liked to instigate these little soirées and then sit back and let others do the debating, until it hit up against his own beliefs, or he got bored, then he'd escalate it into a full on disagreement and be done with it.

"It'd take a lot more than this little joint shared with five other people to lose control of my mind. So, you don't use, Aubrey?"

"I get high in other ways. I really enjoy the outdoors, like we did the last couple of days, hanging out with people I care about and sharing the experience. That's all I need."

There was nodding all around, and everyone agreed that hanging out outdoors was really good for you. This said while they got high in the back lounge of their bus. Dylan lit another joint. I reminded myself about second hand smoke, and potential side effects of it.

"Medical studies have shown the benefits of marijuana to outweigh the possible detriments." Ben stated, then cocked his head and bit his lip, looking down, in that funny way he sometimes did.

I decided to take that bait. It was right up my alley, of course. "Medical studies have been largely inconclusive, Ben, because of the difficulty in growing and procuring test plants and subjects using the exacting standards necessary for medical research."

"Yeah, but they've been studying it for over twenty years." Jeff protested. "They know what they're doing." He was one of the ones having more than one puff. I still noted that Rafe did not, and since I was leaning forward and he was leaning back, I couldn't see his expression, but I sensed his beady little eyes on me.

"The FDA still considers it a schedule 1 drug with no accepted medical use."

"Making it illegal for recreational use in most states." Rafe put in. I shrugged his hand off my back, and he deliberately hooked his fingers in my shorts waistband and drew tickling circles on my back. I tried to wiggle again, unobtrusively, and he kept doing it anyway. I refused to look at him.

"There are plenty of medical users where I come from." Dylan said magnanimously. "They are having a lot of success curing glaucoma and seizures in little kids."

Really? Get your facts straight. I had to take a deep breath, and focus. I did not want to sound too stuffy, or too condescending. They were entitled to their opinions.

"Actually the effect THC has on glaucoma is to lower the intraocular pressure in the eye and possibly slow down the progress of the disease, not cure it. THC is a pain reliever at best." I offered this and felt the pressure of Rafe's thumb rubbing softly. Fine, if he wanted to keep this contact, maybe so we didn't get into an argument, fine.

I'd used big words. Clearly made that point. Nobody wanted to challenge me.

"What about the seizures in little kids?" Jeff continued.

"Um hm. Seizures in little kids." I repeated. "Anyone else want to weigh in?"

Rafe's thumb poked me. I knew he meant that it was an informal debate, he did not want it to turn into a more formal debate. Just a conversation, playing naturally on what the guys knew or cared about.

"Medically speaking, there are two active ingredients in Marijuana. Cannabidiol which causes no high, can be extracted and used in an oil base and may prevent cancer cell growth in lab rats. And then there is THC, which you all recognize from the slight buzz you're feeling, and the mild sense of time and movement slipping away. In some cases it feels like euphoria, to some people, just a lack of anxiety. The first ingredient, Cannabidiol, has been known in one case to reduce infantile seizures from over 700 a week, to 1 a month. In one child, mind you. And the controls on the experiment were unrecorded, and the sources of the Cannabidiol were not completely standardized. Very hard to repeat the experiment and be scientifically conclusive."

Again there was no way to refute my words, and they definitely gave a different spin to Ben's thoughts.

"Would you give it to your kid if he or she had seizures?" Rafe wanted to know, actually this would be the crux of it for the two of us. I turned to look at him, his eyes were dark, narrowed, and his smile was slow and lazy. That thumb never stopped rubbing. It was causing a slightly sore spot.

"I think there are other possible treatments that work just as good or better."

"Good answer." Ben said and clapped his hands a couple of times.

I jerked a tiny smile. Rafe was challenging me with his eyes. I waited.

"I see no real harm in recreational use. There is less impairment than alcohol, and no long term effects. Marijuana isn't addictive."

I shrugged. "Studies have shown long term effects include loss of IQ points over a twenty year period, especially if the user started in their teens. It's been proven that even short term memory can be affected by pot smoking, and mothers who use during pregnancy have dysfunctional developmentally brain damaged children." Okay that was a slight exaggeration. I shrugged his thumb off and he snapped the waistband, ran his hand up under my shirt and began a soothing massage.

"But it isn't addictive."

"That's not conclusive." I insisted, shrugging his hand off me. He wasn't deterred.

"I know an awful lot of pot smokers and none of them are addicted."

"How would you know? How many alcoholics in a bar insist they don't have a problem? All of them?"

Everybody laughed.

"Try going to NA sometime. The number of addicts there might surprise you."

"Do you go to NA?"

"I've been."

"For what? Prescription drug abuse? You doctors are famous for that. And it's the number one growing threat in the nation. It affects more people than the whole marijuana industry overall."

"I agree. Prescription drug abuse is rampant. And far deadlier than smoking pot, in a heartbeat. I won't argue with you."

"But you didn't deny your reasons for going there."

"I'm not addicted to anything, Rafe."

"Not even me?"

I smiled. "Not even you. Especially not you."

"That's a lie." He said. Then his hands slid around my middle and pulled me back to his side while he kissed my neck. I squirmed and giggled because I couldn't help it, and Mutt joined in for just a second, holding my legs down while Rafe administered the tickling, but as soon as Rafe realized that Mutt was touching me, he stopped, smoothed my shirt down and said to the room at large:

"How many people here feel smoking pot is detrimental to your health, raise your hand."

I raised my hand.

"How many feel it hasn't altered or changed, but more enhanced their life?"

Everyone else raised their hands. Ben raised his half way.

I nodded. "The real question that I have to ask, Rafe, is very personal: are you up for it?"

"Does it belong here in this room?"

"I don't think it matters one way or another. Maybe give everybody something to think about."

"Then shoot." Rafe said, and I looked only at him.

"Evidence on marijuana use is inconclusive. So, it's just a matter of opinion. I don't believe there is a place in my life for inducing lost inhibitions either with drugs or alcohol or any mind altering substance anywhere. That said: --- being a personal preference in this case--- and not an indictment against anyone here who chooses differently--- how would you handle your friends smoking pot in front of Chloe and Noah?"

Rafe bit his lips to keep from smiling. I'd totally got him there. Totally. I could see it in his eyes. I had to bite my own to keep it in as well.

"Well----." He drawled, while everybody else looked slightly confused or bemused. "Them--- okay. But not in front of Jackson or Harper."

"I rest my case." I said and slapped his knee, using it to push myself up.

"Hey, wait a minute there!" Ben said in confusion. "You said it would give us something to think about. Who are Chloe and Harper?"

I turned and pulled Rafe up. My eyes flashed the challenge to him. He grinned.

"The dogs." Rafe said nonchalantly, and I playfully punched his shoulder, shoving him back so he was off balance and fell into the seat he'd just vacated. He scrambled up, much to the hilarity of his companions.

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