Today on Midwest Weird: “Drug Test” by Sam Sharp.
Sam Sharp grew up in the low hills of northcentral Ohio. He writes essays and stories about complicated relationships between people, places, and the animals who call them home. He recently earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wyoming with a concurrent degree in Environment and Natural Resources. You can read his work in Western Confluence Magazine, The Trek, Deep Wild journal, and elsewhere.
Midwest Weird is an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions. We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.
Submit your own work to Midwest Weird at www.midwestweird.com!
Episode Transcript:
This is Midwest Weird, an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions.
We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.
Today’s episode: A nonfiction piece by Sam Sharp, titled “Drug Test.” Read by the author.
Drug Test
There are 35 questions.
Circle T for True, and F for False. Read each question carefully before responding. Respond truthfully.
1. I do drugs. T / F
2. I don’t do drugs, but if I did, I’d do weed. T / F
3. I don’t do weed – nobody “does” weed – but if I did, I’d do edibles. T / F
4. I don’t do edibles, but if I did, I’d take a 10 milligram gummy, sprawl out on the carpet, and sink into the beanbag of my thoughts. Like why do I dislike the sound of my own voice? Does anyone like the sound of their own voice? Could you be a DJ if you disliked your own voice? T / F
5. I wouldn’t take an edible or sprawl out on the carpet and sink into the beanbag of my thoughts, but if I did, I’d invariably enter an awkward conversation with my roommate because, well, I’m high. T / F
6. I get awkward when I’m high. T / F
7. I don’t get awkward when I’m high, but I also don’t get like, any smoother. T / F
8. I’ve been arrested for getting high. T / F
9. I’ve been arrested for smoking weed. T / F
10. I’ve been arrested for possessing small quantities of weed. T / F
11. I was arrested for possessing a small quantity of weed at my town’s fair when I was fourteen years old. A bald police officer pressed my two accomplices and I against a wall while sirens flashed, and parents and teachers watched in pity and disgust. The cop had tailed us on a bicycle. Later, he informed my parents that he aimed to “teach us a lesson.” T / F
12. I was not arrested for carrying weed at my town’s when I was fourteen years old, but if I was, I would not have learned any lessons. T / F
13. I do meth. T / F
14. I don’t do meth, but if I did, it might be because I live in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. T / F
15. I do not live in Mt. Vernon, but If I did, I’d be closer to old friends. T / F
16. And I’d end up doing meth in an attempt to escape it. T / F
17. I am always wishing I could escape to someplace else. Someplace like Colorado. T / F
18. Everyone in Ohio talks about moving to Colorado. T / F
19. Two years ago, I moved to Wyoming. Now I would never want to live in Colorado. But I’m still looking for… something. T / F
20. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I keep moving in search of it. T / F
21. I am tired of moving every two years. T / F
22. It’s not that I’m tired of moving; I’m tired of my relationships withering every two years and struggling to establish new ones that are even half as genuine and free as what I have with my friends back home, in Ohio. T / F
23. One day, I won’t feel the need to escape, and I’ll be content with where I am. T / F
24. I do heroin. T / F
25. I don’t do heroin, but my aunt does. T / F
26. I don’t actually know if my aunt does heroin. But she’s done a lot of things. T / F
27. My uncle doesn’t do heroin because he died in a suspected overdose of crack. T / F
28. He’d been clean for 6 months prior. And on the night of his “overdose,” my aunt mysteriously fled the state. T / F
29. My cousin is on heroin. T / F
30. My cousin has since broke free of heroin. T / F
31. Now another of my cousins is on heroin. T / F
32. That cousin is not on heroin. But when he was 14 years old, he did shoot his mom’s crack-dealer. He shot him in the spine with his dad’s shotgun. He shot him as the dealer drove away because my aunt told him to – trying to teach the dealer a lesson, I guess – then the dealer called 911 and cried to the operator that he was just shot while selling clothes, according to a court transcript. While on the phone with 911, his steamy, crack-dealing girlfriend said to him, “Drop the pistol, baby,” and the dealer let out a crack-addicted moan before crashing his Mercury Tracer into the ditch, foiling his attempt to escape. T / F
33. Everyone is trying to escape Ohio. T / F
34. But some people really like it here. And besides, others want to escape to Ohio. T / F
35. Those people are escaping from Florida. T / F
Sam Sharp grew up in the low hills of northcentral Ohio. He writes essays and stories about complicated relationships between people, places, and the animals who call them home. He recently earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Wyoming with a concurrent degree in Environment and Natural Resources. You can read his work in Western Confluence Magazine, The Trek, Deep Wild journal, and elsewhere.
We’ll be back in two weeks with more weird stories.
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