420 by Kenya Wright, Jackie Sheats Page A

ceremonial time to partake of a smoke. Almost all celebrated, smoked, and munched together on the day of April 20, as a sort of cannabis subculture holiday. From London to Los Angeles, South Africa to Iran, one could yell out the term to strangers, and if they smoked, they nodded and understood, maybe even shared a little something with the person.
    There were so many origin stories on the term. Crazy tales flooded the internet. Sites claimed that in the 70s a group of California kids coined the phrase due to that being the time they would always meet in a certain area and smoke. Apparently the term caught on and spread. Old stoners declared that Grateful Dead fans made it up. Youngsters boasted about the term being a plot from the government, some secret way to discover all of the leaf violators.
    None of that mattered to me. I just loved having a day to smoke with others, to stop hiding and sneaking around with the habit, and to just have one day to freely say, in private walls with a select group of people, “Let’s smoke!”
    “Happy 420!” I called out again.
    “Really?” Coco laughed. “They’re already gone.”
    “I’m just excited.”
    “Me too,” Mary said.
    Ignoring us, Coco scanned the hallway as if something was going to jump out and attack us. “So is the party behind the door that the couple went through?”
    I gazed at the black door. It lay several feet in front of us. The hallway had apparently been decorated for the person’s event. The whole scene was straight from that movie, Eyes Wide Shut. There were polished marble floors and strings of tiny white lights that dangled down cream-colored walls. Every person entering the penthouse suite had on a mask.
    Even I.
    We all wore the same disguise, tiny silk marijuana leaves sewn into crushed velvet. The masks only covered the top half of our faces. They’d come with the invitation that had been mailed to my house in a huge, black envelope, with no address or name for the sender. Somehow I’d gotten the perfect number of masks. Three. One for me, and one for each of my two best friends.
    Although April 20th represented one of the biggest holidays for weed connoisseurs, the drug wasn’t legal in Miami. So with this crowd, identities remained hidden and high-power jobs protected.
    Too bad I couldn’t convince my friend Coco of that very fact. My two girls—Mary and Coco—had come with me, and we’d been standing at the entrance for the past ten minutes, due to a particular person’s illogical anxiety.
    “There’s no way I’m smoking here.” Coco tugged at her disguise probably to make sure it was definitely on. “I’m leaving.”
    “You can’t leave,” I begged. “We just got here.”
    “We could just smoke at my place,” Coco countered.
    Her long black bangs hung over the top of the mask. That pale flesh seemed to glow in the dim lighting of the space. Like me, she’d worn an all-black dress that hugged her curvy frame with heels. She radiated pure elegance. The attire was so out of character for her. Coco liked gray slacks and pinstripes, business outfits that hid her breasts from the judges who ogled her as she fought for her clients in the courtroom and dull colors that kept her hidden from the rest of the city.
    In the legal world, they called her Colleen Shaw, fighter of justice. To us, she was simply Coco, the grandmother of the group, Miss Boring and Responsible.
    “This is dangerous. We don’t even know who invited you here.” Coco inched over to the side as the door opened and a couple walked in. Like us, they wore the masks as they sashayed down the long hallway and dripped expensive jewelry. “And with your hair so freaking red and all this publicity you’ve been getting on your street murals, you’ll be recognized.”
    I stared longingly at the black door that sat at the end of the path. Every time someone opened it laughter and jazz music escaped and excitement surged through my veins.
    “How did I let you