Brie Fly (pt. 2)

My friends call me Arty, mostly. Sometimes, though, it's Arthur. Or just Stanley.

At the ripe old age of 13, I was nearly accused of raping a girl at school. We were only kissing, in a class room that was occupied by about 4 kids. The rest were on the playgrounds. She got embarrassed, I guess, and the story started circulating around the school, until it got completely blown out of proportion. The principal took me home and had a talk with my dad. He said that he didn't think anything serious had happened and he confided to my dad that the girl in question, while only 13, looked like a sexy 18 year old. He suggested I not speak of the incident with anyone and let it blow over. The girl later apologized to me.

Around that same time, I was nearly shot by an older ex-con that was dating a girl in my class. This happened late one night, in a cemetery that was a hangout for us. The rumour was that he had actually shot someone before.

The summer of that same year, my best friend, Jameson, and I, began smoking pot. We both smoked our first joint with the same mutual friend, though we didn't tell each other. The friend told me about Jameson and, I guess, he told Jameson about me.
In the beginning, we had a tremendous fear, that if caught, we would be arrested, drawn and quartered, decapitated and have our heads hung from the London bridge. Later, we outgrew our fears and eventually, we were toking at school - in the bathrooms and behind the building.
Of course, we had our confrontations with the law. We were often hassled and the flashing blue light in the rear view mirror became a sickeningly familiar sight. We would often be fucked up on speed, beer, liquor, acid, wine, pot or Valium - in various combinations. But that was after we got our driver's license.
We were extremely lucky that we were never arrested (except once...) and we never got seriously hurt. Or hurt anyone else.

I began questioning the bible around the age of 13 and by the time I was 14, I was a confirmed atheist. Jameson said he was a leftist agnostic...
The bible, to me, was a jumbled collection of writings, thousands of years old, translated and re-translated and printed in god only knows how many editions. Even if there was anything to it in the beginning, I could hardly see how it could have survived. An amazing thing to me was how all of those Jews and Romans spoke the Old English language!
Talk about miracles.