Jeff Connor and Mary arrived while we were in the kitchen breaking the kilo into lids. As usual, Kinsey set aside one for the dealer. But it wasn’t until the decadents showed up that we decided to do the whole ounce at once. My dormmate Michelle and Matt her dark-minded boyfriend walked in at sunset with Red Mountain wine, French cigarettes, and a desire to deepen the bags under their eyes. Alan tagged along. Matt started baiting Michelle as he poured his first glass of wine. Michelle began shaking her finger at him. The rest of us agreed to get high.

Jeff Kinsey set up the hookah in the living room. The thing was three feet tall and had four working hose connections. A small metal cage, sufficient to contain a normal amount of smoking material, sat within its embellished six inch bowl. The two Jeffs soon figured out that if they removed the cage, a full ounce of pot would fit in the smoking bowl.

Ignition was a challenge. We figured we needed people at all four mouthpieces; the two Jeffs, Alan, and I each took up a hose. Rick wanted the fourth spot, but I always try to play with the big boys, so I kind of muscled him out, in a non-physical way. We each tried to stand at the cardinal points of the compass; if we got that right, I was north. We knew we’d need a big flame, so Connor rolled sheets of newspaper diagonally into a torch. All that was straightforward. The trick was going to lie in the steady, deep, simultaneous inhalation.

The Doors album played on the turntable. Connor lit the newspaper torch and held the flame half an inch above the pot. As one we toked. Smoothly. After about six seconds I knew this was going to turn into an endurance contest, and I wasn’t interested in competing.

But Alan dropped out first, coughing across from me. “Wow,” he gasped. “I am stoned.” I continued to inhale for another five or six seconds, and then I offered the hose behind me to Mary. Connor and Kinsey were watching each other across the bowl, west and east, going for it.

It didn’t last much longer. At around 25 seconds Kinsey got cute. Acting like he couldn’t take in any more sitting down, he rose to his feet while still trying to inhale. He shouldn’t have stood up.

None of us saw him actually pass out. I recall thinking he was continuing the joke as he started to fall backwards toward the plate glass window. That’s the thing about suddenly-unconscious people; your first idea is that they’re faking it.

Jeff didn’t bend. He didn’t stop. He broke the window with his head.

The cheap venetian blinds probably saved him. All the shards fell outward onto the front porch. He didn’t bleed, and he came to in a minute. We cared for him without a trip to Cowell Hospital or the Free Clinic. We even continued to smoke. But Kinsey definitely made us a memory.

Unfortunately, it may have made a medical consequence for him. The doctors say a cerebral aneurysm is a ticking bomb that was probably always there and can detonate any time, but what do they know? They told me that my herniated disk wasn’t related to the hard hard fall I took 15 months before the back symptoms started, but they weren’t there when my ass smacked those bricks. They didn’t hear the impact or feel the thud. I don’t think it’s a stretch to connect that trauma to a gradual inflammation or dislocation that finally resulted in me feeling it. They told me the hernia wouldn’t repair itself, but no doctor orders an MRI for a patient who’s feeling good…