Billionaire Beast

“Oh, I really don’t like to talk about it,” she says.

“Why not?” I chortle. “You know all sorts of disgusting details about me, how about a little reciprocation here?”

“Did you know,” she says, “that it’s actually against the rules to actually smoke as a method of delivery for this stuff?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well,” she says, “I guess a lot of people didn’t pay attention to this part, but in the Compassionate Care Act in this state, it’s actually stipulated that smoking cannot be authorized as the way to take your medical marijuana into your system.”

I ignore for a moment the fact that she’s dodging my question and say, “So, I’ve been breaking the law this whole time.”

“What have you been doing?” she asks. “How’d you even get the green stuff?”

“A guy in my building’s been trying to get me to try it out for a while now, and so I thought I’d finally take him up on his offer,” I laugh.

Our cab finally arrives and we get in, but Yuri’s not done with her questioning.

“So,” she starts again, “what did you do with your script?”

“I just never got it filled,” I tell her. “I figured if I could just get the same stuff from a guy in my building, it’d be a time-saver. I didn’t know it was such a no-no.”

“Here,” she says, pulling the pen out of her purse and handing it to me. “Why don’t you hang onto this and whenever you run out of your stash at home, just go get that prescription filled. This stuff’s better for you anyway.”

“I can’t take that from you,” I tell her, and I start to laugh. “It’s your little buddy. I can’t get between the two of you.”

Either she’s not as high as I am, or I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am.

“Seriously,” she says, “take it. It burns cooler than what you’ve got, and it’s actually got a higher content of-”

“Sorry to interrupt your drug talk,” the driver says, “but is one of you going to tell me where I’m taking you? If not, I’m happy to sit here while the meter runs.”

I give the man my address, and making no effort to be discreet about it, I scoff and say, “What a dick!”

“Whatever,” the driver says, and pulls onto the road.

“So,” I say, turning back to Yuri, “you never answered my question.”

“No,” she says, “I’ve tried telling patients before. It just bums them out.”

“How do you bum out cancer patients?” I ask. “I mean, other than by telling them that they’ve got cancer. I mean, I’ve got a fucking brain tumor. It’s not like-”

The driver scoffs in the front seat, and I’m caught in that brief moment before fight or flight kicks in where it hasn’t quite sunk in yet that the man in the driver’s seat thinks that me having a fucking tumor in my head explains something.

“I’m sorry, but what the fuck is your problem?” I ask.

“Nothing,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road.

“Really,” I persist, “if you’ve got something to say, why not just say it instead of being a fucking pussy? Besides, if there’s something funny about my oligodendroglioma, I’d love to hear it because it hasn’t been all that funny to me.”

Yuri puts a hand on my knee and leans toward me, whispering, “He was clearing his throat.”

“He scoffed at me when I mentioned my fucking brain tumor!”

“I really didn’t,” he says. “I would never do something like that.”

Well, don’t I feel like the perfect little piece of shit right about now?

The rest of the drive to my building is quiet, but as I’m reaching into my purse to pay my portion of the fare, I ask Yuri if she’d like to come up for a minute and show me how to change out the fluid in my new pen, but she says that she’s got to get home.