Boston is Funny...

It’s been a few years, but maybe I should get a perm. It might just drum up a little business.

I’m a narc – a narcotics agent.

I first realized I wanted to be a narc when a little show called 21 Jump Street first hit the airwaves. I realized then that I wanted to be an undercover narcotics agent roaming high schools throughout the state busting kids for the drugs.

The year was 1987, I was twenty three, jobless, and high most of the day, and so, I needed to do something. I needed a change. So change I did. And boy did I change.

I made a choice one afternoon when I saw a commercial for a heating and air conditioning training program. I applied, was accepted and then expelled from the HVAC program after only three and a half hours. I was expelled for getting involved in a rather complex, large scale embezzlement scheme and subsequent plans of laundering the take. I was accepted for my dashing twenty three year old good looks. I applied with a number two pencil.

Minor setback – and quite possibly, it was a sign that I really was meant to be a narc. So, I got a degree from my town’s mid-level narc school in a couple of short weeks. It wasn’t the best narc shoolin town, nor was it the worst. It was there that I mastering the art of disguising myself as a sixteen year old kid, looking to score a little weed.

The first few years were good. I was good. Modesty be damned, I was great. I partied my fuckin’ face off, and I managed to make a few collars (37) along the way.

Then sometime in the mid 90’s all of the kids just stopped doing drugs. Every school I went to it was the same. No drugs to be had. The Nancy Reagan message of just saying no must have finally resonated with these kids. That’s the best explanation I can think of. Who would have believed that a woman like Nancy Reagan could reach the kids of America? When you think about it, she did have many qualities that would make the youths heed her advice. She was old, which equals wise. From her public image one can only infer that she was also caring, understanding – and concerned that kids were getting wasted. Plus she was probably a little promiscuous, and kids love an old whore, they are so authentically charming.

But alas, I’ve been on a ten year dry spell trying to find drugs in High Schools, and believe me, I tried everything. I’ve asked kids to go to a Floyd laser shows, to no avail. Nobody wants to come over to my pad to watch The Wall. They aren’t even interested in cueing up Dark Side of the Moon to the Wizard of Oz! Pink Floyd always worked. Always. These fuckers don’t even know who Pink Floyd is; even the ones wearing vintage Floyd T-shirts are clueless.

Fact is, these kids don’t even party anymore. There hasn’t been a house party in years. No beer busts at the quarry, no kegs in the woods, and no bongs at the beach.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I just don’t blend in as well as I once did. I drive a re-built Trans-Am; they drive Prius’ and little VW’s. I listen to Pearl Jam and Sting, they listen to Paris Hilton. I have a mustache and these kids can’t grow a decent sideburn if they wanted to, which apparently they don’t. I’ve got a wife, kids, a mortgage, and a receding hair line. They’ve got virginity, text messages, and sprouting pubic hair. They’re teenagers and I’m 42. Maybe it is me. I don’t think they believe that I’m 16 anymore. They probably think I’m sort of child molester trying to lure them with psychedelic Floyd rifts so I can diddle their bits, but all I want to do is bust ‘em for drugs!

No, I still hold that kids today don’t party or do drugs.

I should probably just quit, but I never got paid to begin with, so quitting a job that technically doesn’t exist loses that dramatic panache. I think I’ll just retire quitely. Besides, I was always conflicted with confiscating these kids’ drugs and then selling them at a very, very small discount to my friends and family.

Filed under: Today in Boston

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