Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Jeremy Clarke: I’m a fake. The cannabis tells me so

Not once in the past ten years have I told the truth without calculating the capital that came with it

Can it be that the one single agreeable thing about getting old is that one loses one’s pot paranoia? No.

I thought I was going to get away with it, but here it came again like a creeping fog: the terrible introspection, the loss of identity, the psychic disintegration, the paranoid delusions. And here already, I noted, was the paralysing delusion that I am rooted to the spot and somehow tied to the company by a bond of loyalty, to the extent that even to uncross my legs and leave the beer-garden table would feel like a terrible betrayal. It’s horrible. I hate it.

My immediate task was to try to drink off the paranoia or the evening would be over before it started. Trev was pulling belated, nauseated faces about there being too little or no vodka in his vodka and lemonade. It was supposed to be a double. Canvassing opinion, he gave his glass first to me. I could taste liquefied sweetener with a slice of lemon and nothing else. Here was my chance to pull myself out of this mire, extract myself from the magic circle, and try to retrieve my sense of self before it was chaff in the wind.

I uncrossed my legs, stood up, and — nobody seemed to mind — I went inside to buy a round. The bar was filling rapidly. The pub was small and cosy with a culture of conversation. From a small speaker above my head, the voice and guitar of Muddy Waters competed gently with the murmur of conversation. The bar staff were busy, and looked glad to be doing something at last. I had to stand and wait to be served for what seemed like an eternity.

My usual pot paranoia identity crisis was deepening by the second.

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