I Come in Peace (1990) to the Library
On a good day in the library, we have the slight smell of weed drifting through the air. Some guy might barricade himself in the bathroom to put some heroin in his veins and have a long, long poop. But I'd never seen anyone do a line off the old card catalog.
"Sir, are you doing cocaine?" I said to Penny Man doing cocaine off the old card catalog.
He wiped his nose and said no. He smeared powder all over his face.
Penny Man had been coming into the library since I was little. He used to be some kinda genius. My momma said he was in junior college with her cousin, shared a room with him, until he went out riding on a donkey and got thrown. He fell onto a bag of hammers. Nobody knew why someone left a bag of hammers around the trail.
They called him Penny Man because he liked pennies. Thought they were shiny.
"Penny Man, is that cocaine?" I said.
Penny Man said, "What's cocaine?"
"It's a drug that you snort up your nose. Apparently off the old card catalog. That thing's an antique, man."
"I thought this was a chest of drawers for carrots."
I could not deal with this nonsense. So I slipped into my happy place thinking about a movie I loved in my youth called "I Come in Peace" from 1990. It's about a rogue cop and a federal agent partnering up to catch an intergalactic drug dealer who steals heroin and injects it into people to steal their endorphins that can be sold in outer space black markets as the best drug in the market.