Survival Of The Fittest

Juanita hunched her shoulders and squinted into the July sunlight. The sun had lowered a bit, but the heat showed no signs of abating. Should have brought a hat, she thought. At this rate, her freckles were going to darken. That always made her feel self-conscious.

She looked down at her phone, where an animated version of herself was wandering the navy-blue streets of Pokemon Go. There was a Diglett nest around here somewhere, and she only needed a few more candies to evolve him. Filling holes in her Pokedex was a small victory, but these days that was important. Small goals.

Following the Juanita turned up Pratt Street and headed for High Street Park. Sometimes there were people playing on the basketball courts, but luckily they were empty today. She didn't have to watch. Her knee was already acting up, sending little flashes of sensation. These blips were warning shots, her body's way of saying, "I'm not going to hurt you, not yet. But I want you to know that I can." She was already near her walking limit for the day, and High Street was a ways from home. She didn't love the idea of walking all the way back in the middle of a pain spike. Last time that'd happened, she'd given up and had to phone her brother Dan to come get her, and paid him twenty bucks not to tell Mom.

Her phone emitted a brash, metallic sound, and a brown, cheerful Diglett popped up at the edge of the virtual park. Success! She smiled and started an encounter. It took a few throws, but eventually she snagged it. Nodding her satisfaction with a job well done, Juanita looked up at the park. As she'd seen before, the courts were empty. But it looked like someone was sitting on one of the benches. Another Go player, maybe? But as she drew a few steps nearer, she recognized a shaggy head of red hair.

"Max?"

It was a lovely, warm, pleasant summer's afternoon. The sun beamed down, spilling across Max's face and sending the first few trickles of sweat down his back.

[[Max McCormick, sometime in the summer holidays]]

He had no particular reason for being out of here, other than being in an artificially induced good mood and feeling like he needed to go on a stroll. Eventually that had gotten dull, so he'd just bought himself an ice cream and a can of Monster, before plonking himself down on a bench overlooking one of Salem's parks. With his eyes closed he didn't see the figure walk up to him, and he was in the middle of signing along with his headphones when a question came through.

"I got one hand in my pocket, and the o-"

"Max?"

"Other... Huh?" He tapped down on his phone and turned around, glad that whoever it was had stood on his right-hand side. "Oh." He said, eyes coming across a form he had become acquainted with, against all odds. "Hey Juanita!" He said, his voice as warm as the air around the pair. "How you doing?" He raised an eyebrow, popping the earbuds out and turning himself so he was leaning on the back of the bench. As she replied, he sipped at the battery-acid flavoured drink in his hand, foot idly tapping to a beat that had just stopped.

Juanita smiled pleasantly at Max, and waved with her free hand. "Ah, I'm not doing too bad, actually. Just getting my miles in for the day. Gotta go in for a few followup tests next week, make sure that the ol' peg leg is still shipshape." She patted her thigh with one hand, by way of explanation.

As she looked over at the redheaded boy, leaning back against the bench with one foot joggling lazily, she found herself inclined to take a break. She didn't usually interrupt her walks for anything, but she'd already be over her mileage for sure, and "I ran into a classmate" would be a handy excuse for being late for dinner. Besides, Max was fun to banter with.

Juanita plopped herself down on the opposite end of the bench, leaving an expanse of weathered wooden slats between them. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her thick black pullover, stashing her phone away and leaning forward a little bit to squint at him. Her brown eyes flicked up and down, and she lowered her voice conspiratorially.

"So... is the park where you go when you need to secretly unleash your inner Alanis fan?"

Max nodded along with Juanita's words, but when she sat down and asked her question, confusion flashed over his face? "Wha? No, I mean..." Max spluttered, but the noise quickly turned into a giggle that he couldn't help but let run its course. "I need to be in a specific mood to go for Alanis. I'm in it now. 'S all." He wiped away a small string of spittle he hadn't kept under control during his laughter, then turned to look away from Juanita and towards the park.

It was quiet today. The basketball courts were empty, the grassy areas largely free of people. It was strange- for such a pleasant day you'd think more individuals would be around, but... Apparently not. Taking a bite out of his ice cream and chewing it slowly, he considered absolutely nothing in particular, until at last his thoughts veered back around to his new companion.

"So, speaking of the ol' pegleg, what's been happening with it?"

Juanita looked curiously at Max. What was up with the giggling? She hadn't known him long, but she'd never heard that kind of reaction. Ordinarily he'd come back with some kind of sarcastic wiseass remark or something. She mentally shrugged it off. Maybe he was having an off day, or something.

She patted the slight bulge around her right knee, the brace made visible through her sweatpants now that she was sitting down. "The doctors say it's doing pretty good! It still hurts sometimes, but they say it'll get better soon." As if responding to this comment, a small flash of pain lanced down into her calf.

"Actually, they grafted in a replacement tendon that they took out of a dead guy. So if you think about it, I guess that means I'm technically part zombie now. Don't worry about me eating your brains, though," she teased. "I don't think there'd be enough for a meal."

"Ah, the good old 'still hurts sometimes.'" He chuckled to himself, continuing the trend of finding things that weren't that funny, funny. "They said my eyehole would 'still hurt sometimes,' and here I am, fifteen years later and it still gets twinges. Well, not as I am right now." They said weed was great for chronic pain and he couldn't deny it. By the time he'd finished the joint, any niggling twinges from the day had vanished, gone with the smoke rising up into the air.

"Hey," he commented with a smirk. "You can't be 'part zombie,' that's not how this works. You're either a zombie, or you aren't. It's like how you either have a bum leg, or you don't." This time, he actually fired back. "You can't have half a shit leg, that's not how this works." Was it a bit cruel for him to immediately shoot for her leg when it came to the joking insults? Maybe, but he had been calling her 'pegleg' for what felt like ages, so it wasn't like the precedent didn't exist.

Max's behavior was confusing, but it was his words that Juanita was more unnerved by. He was still in pain after fifteen years? Would she really be dealing with pain like that into her thirties? The idea profoundly unnerved her, as did the question of exactly what he meant when he said he wasn't in any pain now.

But whatever curiosity she had was abruptly shoved aside by his next comment. "Shit leg." That phrase hung in the air a little while, malodorous and grotesque. Juanita's family, her coaches, her old teammates, the other kids at school... all of them went out of their way to refer to the whole thing obliquely, or hint at it by omission. They mostly said things like, "How are you feeling, these days?" On rare occasions when it came up directly, they talked about it as gingerly as possible, calling it "the injury" or "the graft" as though careless words might fracture it all over again. But here was Max, with "shit leg." A whole shit leg, because you couldn't just have half. Worthless all the way down, from hip to toenails.

It was out of line, even for Max. Even for this weird, giggly, Alanis-loving Max. Out of line because both of them knew how true it was. But just because something was true, that was no reason to go saying it out loud. Her knee throbbed, shittily. Juanita clenched her teeth and let the jibe pass, told herself he didn't mean it like that.

"Yeah, well, guess I'm entirely zombie then. Or maybe some kind of Frankenstein. Least it'll save me money on Halloween costumes, since now I can just go as myself."

She nodded towards the energy drink. "What's with the can? That stuff must taste pretty lousy with ice cream."

"Nah, you're too..." Max's brain flicked through synonyms, one after the other, trying to settle on one that felt right. Eventually, he shrugged. "You ain't a freakshow like me, so you still gotta dress up." He let loose another short giggle, finishing it r decwith a fresh swig from his can, just as she gestured towards it.

"Eh. Felt like it. Been a while since I drank Monster." He shrugged whole-heartedly, then offered it up to her. "You a fan, or nah?" He dangled it, let her make her decision of if she wanted a sip or not, then took it back and tapped it against the bench. "Come on, sit down, no need to stand for the whole conversation." He paused, the blinked a few times. "Actually, you're sitting already. Never mind me!"

If his behaviour and words hadn't tipped her off before, getting closer might just do it. The smell of weed clung to Max like a burr on a dog's fur, with only the gentle breeze to take a little of the edge off the scent.

Juanita considered the can, and whether she really felt like risking a mouthful of Max germs. She wasn't a big fan of energy drinks in general, since they tasted funny and had gnarly side-effects that athletes were supposed to avoid. But she'd been walking a while, and a little extra pep for the walk home wouldn't hurt. She took the can, and sipped it, trying not to think about backwash. It tasted worse than she remembered, and she stifled the urge to make a face as she handed it back. "...Thanks."

A small shift in the wind as Max drew closer caused Juanita's nose to wrinkle. She knew what weed smelled like. Her brother Patrick had come home from a long weekend reeking of it one time, and caught six kinds of hell for it. Juanita's mother and father weren't particularly well-versed in worldly temptation, but even they hadn't bought Patrick's cover story about running over a skunk.

The smell was definitely coming from Max. Confused thoughts blipped through her head, rapid-fire. No, he wouldn't. I mean, he's acting weird today, but... He can't be... He goes to my church. Sure, he's kind of weird sometimes, but that doesn't mean he's on drugs. If he was, I would know. I'd definitely have noticed something like that. I wouldn't hang around with someone like that, no way.

He was looking at her. Waiting for her to respond to whatever he'd said last. She couldn't just let her suspicions lie. She shifted away slightly, and made a show of sniffing the air. "Hey, Max, do you smell that? I think someone around here's smoking weed..."

Max paused. If he was honest, he didn't know how cool Juanita would be about him being high right now. Finishing the can of energy drink, Max set it down between his legs as he considered how best to respond to the question she had posed to him. A second dragged past, then two, then three. He sniffed the air contemplatively, as if he was seriously thinking and considering her question. Then, finally, he spoke.

"Could be? I mean... Even if they are." He paused and looked around. "Nobody else here. Not bothering anyone, there's a bin right there to toss butts in, and it's not like it hurts anyone else." He shrugged. "If someone wants to enjoy a bit of weed, that's on them, y'know." He paused. "'Sides, it's legal here. No different to smoking a cigarette or two." Alright, that was pretty smooth, he had thought. Might even be able to make it seem like he hadn't been smoking, if she continued to pry.

Max's blasé attitude took Juanita aback a bit. Sure, if someone was smoking around there earlier, there wasn't much that the two of them could really do about that, but what he said afterwards was... strange. She'd heard a lot of these same arguments before - "It's not bothering anyone," "it's legal," "it doesn't hurt anybody," but they sent red flags shooting up all over. Those were the kinds of things she'd heard Patrick say when he was begging their parents not to kick him out after coming home from a long weekend of partying. It hadn't sounded right then, and it didn't now, either.

Juanita leaned over and hugged her knees, pulling them inwards. She felt like she was a turtle, trying to vanish into her black hoodie carapace. She wasn't sure she liked where this conversation was headed. "Do you... really believe that? That nobody gets hurt? Do you really think that that makes it okay?"

Max snorted. "Of course I believe that. It's a plant. Sure, it could be grown by bad people or in a bad way, but in the end, pretty much anything we buy runs that risk. My laptop probably involved some slavery for some of its parts." He shrugged. "As far as I see it, if you think alcohol's alright, I don't really see why you would think weed was wrong." Was he blowing his cover here? Hmm... He didn't really know, to be honest. Probably not though, it's not like he was being super blatant, right?

Juanita frowned. The aftertaste of the Monster still clung to the back of her tongue, adding an unpleasant note to her thoughts. It was weird to hear these things coming out of Max's mouth. She actually didn't think that alcohol was all right, with the notable exception of communion wine. But even then, transubstantiation meant that it wasn't really alcohol in the strictest sense, and also, it was gross. She'd had the lessons drilled into her more times than she could count: Drugs are bad. Alcohol is bad. Smoking is bad. People who drink and smoke and do alcohol are bad. Those associations were as deeply rooted in her mind as things like "Fire is hot," or "Water is wet."

She shook her head, fixing Max with a serious stare. "I'm not saying it's a bad plant or anything, Max. I'm saying it's wrong to get high off of it! Doing that kind of thing is totally a sin! You'd have to go to confession and everything! And just because it doesn't necessarily hurt anybody else, that doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt you, ya know! That stuff can mess up people's brains or whatever! I heard about a guy who took it and thought he could fly, so he jumped off a building! And other people turn into drug addicts and start robbing stores and stuff when they can't afford to feed the habit!"

Juanita was sure that there were a lot more bad things about drugs than what she remembered from after school specials and lectures on the subject at Bible study, but whatever they were, they weren't in her head now. She stared down at her knees. Her leg was already sending up warning signs; the ligament wasn't a big fan of the way her sitting position was stretching things out. But she wasn't quite ready to get out of turtle mode. Not while she still had one last question to ask. She just had to be sure.

"I mean... come on, Max. You wouldn't do something like that, right?"

"Is a sin?" He looked at her seriously. "In excess, yes. The Bible's quite clear about 'drunkenness' and 'debauchery,' but," he paused for a long moment, formulating his thoughts. "We're Catholics, Juanita. We don't believe in all that 'temperance' stuff." He frowned heavily, brows furrowing, then scoffed, loudly.

"Come on Juanita. You sound like you're straight out of shit like Reefer Madness. "Little Johnny," he started, in a phony approximation of an overly dramatic presenter voice, "Was a good boy who went to church every Sunday... Until one day, he had a single mary-jay-wanna, and became a murderous drug fiend!" He chuckled to himself, clearly amused by his own joke. "That shit's all scare tactics. DARE making people do more drugs than those who didn't go through DARE." He shook his head.

"This isn't PCP or heroin or something we're talking about. I mean, hell J, my dad's on prescription opioids, does that make him a sinner that should confess that Father McNamara? Or make him a drug addict in danger of robbing stores?" He folded his arms over. "And even if I did smoke weed, so what?"

Juanita's jaw clenched, and she felt her face getting hot as Max continued mocking her. The two of them had always been combative, and not always polite about it, but this... this felt different. It was one thing to have kids at school talk down about religion, but hearing that kind of thing from someone she saw at mass every week, much less someone who was - for better or worse - a friend, burned her up inside. If there was one person who should have understood, who should have respected her convictions, it should have been Max.

"It's not like that!" she snapped back.

But what was it like? She faltered, suddenly unmoored by the realization that she didn't know.

What really rattled her, what set her teeth on edge, was that she didn't actually know how to respond to his arguments. The temperance thing she was pretty sure he was wrong about, but everything else... had her at a loss. Asking her why it was wrong to do drugs was like asking her why five plus five was ten. It was because it just was. Even if it was legal, it was still wrong. It seemed so self-evident that she had no idea how to defend it. Even if marijuana was legal now, there had been a reason why it was illegal in the first place, right? There must have been something. But she didn't know what it was. And now here was Max, mocking her like she was one of those hysterical old ladies at church who thought any band with a drum set was inviting the Devil to tea. He sounded just like her brothers, laughing about dumb little Juan who couldn't keep up.

He was wrong, and she knew it. But she had no words to explain herself. It wasn't like that. It was different. It had to be.

"You're... you're twisting things around! There's a difference between medication and drugs! Getting high is basically the same as getting drunk! If one of those things is wrong, then the other's gotta be too. And even if you don't go out robbing liquor stores or whatever, you're still hurting yourself! If you get hooked on that stuff, you could screw up your whole life!"