In the summer between the sixth and seventh grade, I was a member of the United Methodist Church Youth Group in Fallbrook, California. (Which is The Avocado Capital of the World, FYI.) We used to take vanloads of youth to Disneyland like it was Wal*Mart, which is to say, frequently, and without much fanfare or oversight.

While this sounds like a good thing for a youth group to do, sadly, these trips were when I got exposed to the first kind of bad trouble I can recall. Pot smoking was the least of it; a bonafide pedophile buying me gifts while waiting to board a boat for Pirates of the Caribbean and rampant underage drinking were just a few of the first assaults on my innocence that took place in the Magic Kingdom, or on the ninety minute van ride the way there and the way back.

It’s summer of 1982 and I’m about to be twelve years old. The van load of us youth group kids have been scattered throughout Anaheim’s claim to fame all day and now we’re stacked up in a hotel – this was an overnight, co-ed. Four kids to a room, probably three rooms of kids and a pair of adults, somewhere. Separated by gender in each room, but not until bedtime curfew at maybe 11 or 12 midnight…And until then everyone is gathered in my room, partying. Someone brought a bottle of whiskey, (I think?) but I was more interested in the long haired surfer boy who was willing to share his weed.

The hotel is two-story, and he and I scamper downstairs, outside to the back parking lot. He busted out a tightly wound twistie joint, quite small. He lit it and dragged many times while I watched, before he finally offered me my turn. I doubt I told him I was new at this, I may have had to coerce him into sharing. I remember the sounds of trucks going by on the freeway as we toked this joint together.

Back in the hotel room is the next thing I can remember. The drunken foolishness of my fellow youth group members not interesting to me, I withdrew to lay flat on the floor with a pair of headphones and someone’s cassette walkman. Pink Floyd? I am zoned out, eyes closed, imagining that there is a fly that is about to land on my face.

Zap! I clap my hands an inch above my nose, thinking I’m snatching that fly.

On a virgin high…

Instead, eyes wide now, I’m realizing I’ve evidently punked someone who was punking me. Since I was so blissfully zoned out, one of the youth group roomies had come over to investigate my solitude. He hung from the bed adjacent to where I’m laying on the floor, his face poised over my face, his long hair wisping at my nose. Now, we’re discovering that my long fingernails had swiped his cyst-acne in my “Zap” hand clap – and there was blood on his cheek from this split second interaction. Served him right.

My buzz was killed and I wanted everyone out of my room immediately. Which didn’t happen because I didn’t express it. Curfew was coming soon enough, and tomorrow we’d have another half day in the park before the ride home. I got over it, like I always do.

I don’t remember how long it was before I got high again, or if I ever had such a realistic dream – the fly on my nose – actually being this kid’s hair – and my dreamy yet real life actions having such an immediate real world impact. I made that guy bleed, on accident, by instinct, while high! What a first, huh?