Free For the Sake of Love by Dwan Abrams

response, a big-name producer assigned to work on Spade’s CD came into the studio with his entourage. They wore hoodies with baggy, saggy jeans, the latest kicks, and talked loudly. At first glance, they looked like a bunch of thugs ready to snatch and run. But in reality, they were rich and accomplished in the music industry.
    The sound engineer gave him a look that let him know he didn’t have to give an answer right then, but the conversation wasn’t over.
    The entourage had hot wings, french fries, sodas, bottles of booze, bags of the best marijuana money could buy, and the nefarious drug Molly.
    As soon as Spade saw the weed he tensed up. Back in the day he used to be a bona fide “weed head.” He smoked weed every day from the time he was fifteen to eighteen years old. Most of his teen years were spent in a haze. Like a lot of people he didn’t see anything wrong with getting high. Nearly every guy he knew got high.
    His grandmother had told him, “Smoking marijuana is just a momentary escape from life and doesn’t solve your problems. Getting high only compounds your problems. Satan wants to keep you in bondage to marijuana; God wants to set you free.”
    He had justified it because it was a plant, grown from the earth. “How bad could it be?” he had told her.
    â€œBaby, yes, God did create the plant marijuana comes from. However, God never ever intended for you to dry the plant out, go buy a pack of plastic Ziploc bags, crumble the dried plant in the rolling paper, roll it up, and smoke it. That’s a perverted use of God’s creation.”
    He wanted to laugh because he wondered how his grandmother knew so much about it. He knew she would’ve slapped the sound straight out of his mouth if he dared disrespect her by asking. Instead, he defended, “It’s safer than cigarettes and alcohol.”
    â€œFirst of all, it’s illegal. The only reason you smoke marijuana is to get that ‘high’ feeling. God wants us to have a sound mind, not an altered mind! When you’re high you’re not able to think clearly.”
    Spade still wasn’t convinced.
    â€œListen to me, Spade. I’m not going to keep lecturing you. I’m going to pray for you, because what you do in your early years will have an effect on your later years. You may not care now, but one day when your short-term memory is gone you can think back to these times.”
    His grandmother’s concerns weren’t enough to stop him, though. It wasn’t until he met Bria and she told him that she didn’t date guys who smoked weed that he stopped. She meant so much to him that he willingly cleaned up his act. He hadn’t lit up since. And then he realized that everything his grandmother tried to tell him was true. Whenever he had difficulty remembering something, he wondered if it was a side effect of his years of getting high.
    â€œHey, I’m not trying to be funny,” Spade told the guys in the studio, “but I don’t feel comfortable with y’all having drugs in here. If the cops roll up in here, I’m not trying to catch a case.” The look on his face let everyone know that he was serious. He didn’t have a criminal record, and he wasn’t trying to get one. Plus, the police department seemed to have a special task force dedicated to busting rappers. He didn’t want to give them any reason to bust him.
    There were four things Spade didn’t play with and that was his relationship with God, his freedom, his money, and his love for his woman.
    The producer nodded in his direction and instructed the guy with the ganja to get it out of there.
    One thing Spade hated about the industry was the acceptability and accessibility of drugs. Temptation was everywhere, and he refused to entertain her.
    Spade spoke to everybody who spoke to him. The producer offered him some wings and the smell of hot sauce made his empty stomach