The first time I ever tried cocaine, I did it with none other than B.B. King.

You
know, the blues guitar great, B.B. King, the son of the even greater blues artist, Albert
King. Yea. Yea. And just how did this happen? I imagine you asking with a
disbelieving yawn. Well, Ill tell you. It all started the year I quit medical school.
Actually, I had flunked out of medical school. In my second year. I was a parents
worst nightmare: had an all-expenses-paid seven year run which would have netted
me not only my M.D. but a Ph.D. as well. In neurosciences. My life was set. But I
couldnt do it. I got Fs in four out of six classes and my scholarship was gone. Poof!
So there I was, kicked out onto the cold cement steps of this prestigious
university, barely a nickel to my name, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my
life. But I did know that I wanted to be with my girlfriend, Diane. Now Diane was
really the first true love of my life. She was a skinny, Hippie, vegetarian, constantly
constipated, narcoleptic who never shaved her legs or armpits. And she was pretty
hairy. Her last name was Bush, which I tried to joke about with her to no avail. She
could not finish making love before falling asleep and often I had to give her abdomen
a massage to move her turds around. But all this took on a poetic charm for me. I
loved her that much.
So I called her up, told her what happened and said I was coming out to see
her. You see, when I was accepted into medical school in Los Angeles, Diane had been

accepted to graduate school in Michigan. We had agreed to put our careers first, but
this was the first time in four years that we had been apart.
So I loaded up my piece of shit, baby blue Toyota Corolla and headed east. I
had told Diane I was going to take my time, visit some of the national parks along the
way, clear my head. She sounded appreciative of this. This was in the days before cell
phones so I simply told her that I would be there to see her in about two weeks.
My cross country trip was going great, but about halfway through, I simply said
fuck it, I didnt want any more pretty landscapes, animals or natural formations, I
wanted to be with Diane. I didnt care if that meant driving all day and all night for
forty-eight straight hours, I wanted to see her. Bad. And this would be great, I
thought, because I would get to Dianes three or four days early, what a surprise that
would be! So that is what I did. Thirty nine hours straight it took me. And when I got
there my mind was crazed from the lack of sleep, cup after cup of coffee and the
blurring median lines on the straight flat roads between Colorado and the Great Lakes.
I arrived at around two a.m. Sunday morning and I thought to myself: Man! This is even
better! Not only am I getting here three days early, but it is two a.m. in the morning.
What a great surprise this is going to be!
The front door was locked of course, but around the back the door was open. I
stepped through the kitchen, which smelled of curry, Dianes favorite and mine. An
opened, half-empty bottle of red wine on the counter next to a used wine glass struck
me as odd, since red wine gave Diane violent headaches, but I was in a hurry. I walked
down the hallway towards the stairs that led to the bedrooms. Before I got to the
stairs I saw a photograph on the wall, a black and white photo of me, enlarged to
about 24 inches by 12 inches hung in a silver metal frame on the wall. I was naked,

sitting on one of the branches of a leafless sycamore tree outside the university
Presidents house. She had taken this photo about three years ago and seeing it here
in her house told me I had made the right decision. I felt as if I had come home.
I made my way up the stairs as quietly as I could. I had to guess which door
was hers but the choice for some reason seemed obvious, as I chose the door that was
closed. I turned the knob and opened it a crack. I whispered into the darkness:
Diane! I immediately heard a sound, some rustling, a faint voice crying out something
unintelligible, then I heard her say my name, softly, querulously, then came some
more noise, then the words Oh my God! and then the light in her room came on. I
opened the door and there she was, completely naked sitting in the middle of her bed.
That she was naked was not much of a surprise, because Diane was more than a bit of
a hippie and so she was naked a lot of the time. But what was surprising was that
there was a man in her bed. And even that wasnt so surprising since the two of us
had had issues with fidelity in the past but always worked past them. But what was
really surprising was that this man was her professor. I recognized his skinny form,
unkempt beard and balding burst of ragged hair from the pictures she had sent to me.
And that wasnt even so surprising to be honest, because what was really surprising
was that this professor only had one arm. That is what really threw me. Because the
fact is, you cant hit a man with one arm. And so I had to stand there and watch this
man get dressed, which, when you are in a hurry and only have one arm, is not a
pretty sight to witness, while Diane sat on the bed weeping. Finally the man was
dressed and left without saying a word. Diane raised her tear streaked eyes towards
me and said: but you told me you were not going to be here for a few more days! Oh,
I said, so if I had called and told you I was coming tonight, everything would be okay

then? Yea? She said. Nope, I said. And with that I left her in that room, got into my
car and drove all the way back to L.A.
It was a terrible, tortuous drive as you might imagine, but what made it worse
was that I keep seeing that one-armed professor everywhere! Yes, everywhere! He
would pass me driving a semi-trailer. I saw him behind the cash register at a fuel stop.
And it didnt end there. When I got back to LA I would see him at the all-night grocery
store, in a seat in front of me at the art film theater, at the local Irish pub or on the
bus that I took to go to the school library. Any place I sought escape and refuge from
the pain of losing the love of my life, the one armed man was there to torment me.
I became severely and probably clinically depressed. I stopped going outside
and spent all my time shut in my room of the apartment that I shared with two other
university students. One of them felt sorry for me and gave me her guitar. She also
showed me how to play a song Hey Joe by Jimmy Hendrix. Three chords and the only
two lines of lyrics that she knew. And that is what I did. I played that song. I played
that song over and over again, I played it all day and all night, those same three
chords, singing that same two line verse. Soon I was driving my roommates fucking
crazy. I even drove the guy downstairs crazy and finally he came up the steps, banged
on the front door and shouted at me down the hall: Hey dude! If you are going to
play the guitar all day and all night, at least let me show you how to play the fucking
guitar!
And it turns out he was in fact a pretty good guitar player. Peter Spellman was
his name and he did just that, he gave me lessons and taught me how to play the
guitar. And in little time I have to admit I got to be pretty good. Over the course of
these lessons, Peter also became a good friend and so of course I told him about Diane

and the one armed man and how this had fucked up my brain. He said, Dude, you
need to get out of this room. Let me take you to a gig I got tonight. I am opening for
an act in town. Lets go.
And just like that I left my apartment for the first time in months and we drove
down to the beach. We got to the club, the Golden Bear, which had this giant outdoor
marquee outside where these huge letters said: B.B. KING AND HIS BAND. Down below
that in much smaller, as in barely noticeable, letters was: Peter Spellman. It was
really small, but it was cool all the same, him having his name up there. I felt proud
and I was smiling as we walked into the back of the club. Peter and I were the only
members of the Peter Spellman contingent, and there must had been fifty, maybe a
hundred of B.B. Kings band. Once we walked inside Peter just disappeared into the
crowd, I never saw him again. So I just made my way over to a corner of the room and
sat down with my guitar and plunked away, pretty much ignoring everything going on
around me.
But then I sensed this presence come over the top of me. I looked up and
there was the face and head of the biggest man I had ever seen. And he looked down
at me and he spoke to me in this deep, dark voice, but I could not understand anything
that he was saying, except he had in his hands a crystal box with this white powder
and two silver spoons. I had never done this before but I had seen the Woody Allen
movie and so I took a spoonful up each nostril and then he looked at me and said, IF
THEY ASK YOU WHO YOURE WITH, YOU SAY YOURE WITH BB KING. Wow, this was
cool! I had understood him, I suddenly understood every word. But then WHOOSH! It
really hit me. My brain exploded and suddenly B.B. King was gone and I looked around
me and all the people were suddenly moving about with this sudden sense of purpose.
I had to get up and find out what I was supposed to do. I put my guitar down and spun

myself in a circle, looking for some sign, some clue. Then I saw a man standing next
to a set of doors, in one hand he had a clipboard, in the other had he had Wait! He
only had one arm! I bounced over to this guy and I shouted: Hey what are you doing
here? And the guy looked up at me and said; Dude, you know you are one bad ass
guitar payer! I said, Wha- yea? And he said: Like yea, I was listening to you get
down. Who you with dude? Well, I said, I am with PeterI am with B.B King!
Ok then, the man with one arm said, then you go right up these stairs all the way
to the top. He opened the door with his one and only hand and I started up those
stairs. I was suddenly moving fast, I was tearing up those stairs, I was climbing those
stairs so fast I wanted someone to see me climbing these stairs. In fact, I suddenly
wished these stairs were the stairs to the Empire State building because I was climbing
them so fast that if these were the stairs to the Empire State building people would be
getting out of my way and they would be looking at me and they would be saying:
Man, look at that guy climbing those stairs! Because I was climbing those stairs so fast
the people would be looking at me not outside the windows, theyd be taking pictures
of me, not pictures of New York City! And I finally made it to the top of those stairs
and I opened another set of doors and walked into darkness. I stood there for a
minute amidst all this dark and quiet when suddenly - KA-BAM! The lights came on
from the stage down below and I could see now that I was in the back of a huge
auditorium, I was standing behind hundreds of people who filled the seats in front of
that stage. And then the horns of the band that stood to the back of the stage blared
out - LIKE THE HORNS OF JERICHO! my mind screamed to me and then those stage
curtains parted just like the horns had made those curtains part and out from them
curtains came a colossal giant of a man, and of course this was none other than B. B.
KING! With a guitar like a blue lightning bolt hung to his hip, he came right out to the

center of the stage and he didnt say a word, he simply lifted his hand and pointed his
finger RIGHT-AT-ME!
And then he spoke, and I am sure he actually said something like Yea, Hi, I am
B.B. King but that is not what I heard, no, what I heard as he was pointing RIGHT-ATME was THAT GUY HE IS THE KING!
And the lights began flashing and the music was blaring and I was up on my own
private stage, my hands in the air, my eyes to the heavens, shouting out loud although
no one could hear me:
Yes, I am the King! YES I AM THE KING!