I don't think
I've ever really felt like a criminal. Sure, I have broken some
laws, especially when I was under twenty-one, and drinking,
and breaking the speed limits. But nobody feels like a criminal
for rituals
like that. If that were the case, this would be a nation teeming
with
criminals.
So the first
time I was close to a real "bust", I got the damndest
feeling in
my gut. I was really afraid. But it was more than that. I'd been
afraid
before. Like the time I was a medic, and I saw a guy cut open for
the first
time. And when I fucked a girl for the first time...man, that was
fear. But
this was different. It was like one day when I was six, and my dad
found me
scratching my name, which I had just learned how to print, on the
fender of his
new Buick Riviera, with a nail I'd picked up in the garage. There
was no malice
to my act; I was just waiting for my folks to show up for a trip
to
Grandma's. I hardly knew what I was doing. My name just sort of
magically
appeared in the blue metallic paint. Kind of neat, in a wobbly way.
My father
took a different view. I was rotten to the core, and also evil,
malicious and
destructive. The worst thing, in fact, to hit the globe since Hitler.
In a
word, I was a criminal, one beyond redemption.
I was eventually
forgiven, of course. I mean, he was my dad. But these
guys...this was a whole new ballgame.
It all happened
by accident. I woke up real early one day, in the second year
of my new career. Again, my crop was just about ready. This time,
I had close
to one hundred beautiful Afghanis crossed with something. (I don't
know much
about breeding, but I now know good plants when I see them) when
suddenly I got
that same feeling I'd had the year before when the rip-offs had
struck my
patch. And Spiro was way off at the edge of the property doing his
bark and
howl bit, too.
I could tell
he was down close to the Smith's place. Their property adjoins
mine, across the road from Reg the Veg's. Anyhow, I grabbed my pants
and my
shotgun and took off for the trail that short-cuts the lower ridge
between me
and the county road. By the time I got close to the boundary, I
knew what was
going on.
Rip-offs don't
come roaring in on helicopters, at least not around here. (I did
hear of one case in Hawaii...) But I kept running with, like a damn
fool, a
tight grip on my shotgun. Here I was, hairy as hell (my second haircut
of the
year wasn't due until Christmas), half naked and carrying a loaded
gun while
hauling my ass down a trail that led right into the arms of the
law. I do not
exaggerate. This very large man in a flak jacket, a baseball cap,
wearing a
badge and carrying what looked like a combat weapon of some sort
(I don't know
gun types and names on sight; I just know this looked like what
the P.L.O.
terrorists carry...lethal), stopped me and announced, with a very
stern look,
that I was under arrest. I didn't even think to ask him what for.
I knew what
for. For being rotten, that's what. The same rotten kid who had
scratched his
name on his dad's Buick. Only now I was a dope grower. Oh God!,
I prayed: let
them torture me or whatever, only please don't let them find those
plants. To
grow is human, to get away with it, Divine.
He marched me
down to the flat near the Smith's house, where they had me and
Reg and John just stand around the Sheriff's Bronco for a while.
Then they told
us we could sit down in the shade. "But don't talk," one
burly guy warned. That
was easy, since we didn't have much to say anyway. So we just sat
in the shade
while the temperature climbed, and while these guys, sweat rolling
down their
red necks and faces, dragged plants to a couple of pickups and to
a big net
stretched out on the meadow. (The helicopter would come back later
for that.)
By early afternoon,
it must have been 90 degrees. The sheriffs worked
diligently, with only a break for lunch, which they shared with
us, dragging
eight foot plants out of the various spots in the woods where John
and Reg had
patches.
In the morning,
when they'd started, they were almost jolly, even trading a few
remarks with us criminals under the tree. But as the day wore on
and got
hotter, they waxed grim and breathless; and redder.
John managed
to tell me that he had seen that my name and property were not on
the warrant. That helped a lot. If only I hadn't run to the aid
of my neighbor,
I could be in the Branding Iron that minute, gulping cool beer,
instead of out
here in the company of criminals, caught besides.
I was amazed
at the number of plants that came out that day. I hadn't realized
John and Reg were such big timers. But something you learn real
soon around
here is that you don't tell anyone exactly how many plants you have,
exactly
where they are, or how well they're doing. It's part of the Growers'
Code.
Finally, around
four, the sheriffs formally took our names. They got a good
laugh out of "John Smith." Then they confiscated my shotgun,
the weapons they'd
found at John's and Reg's, a couple of water pumps, and some assorted
growing
equipment which they called evidence, and which John called "Loot."
He remarked
later on how they had carefully put the good pumps and some of the
best plants
in a separate pickup. "I'll bet my ass that stuff doesn't get
to Eureka!" He
said.
That done, they
let us go. Though I hated to eat and run, I just had to see
what had been happening over at my place. So I hightailed back over
the hill,
with Spiro running alongside and underfoot and in exuberant circles.
When I got
to my patch, I felt like someone had punched me a good one.
Of the nearly
one hundred ladies that had stood fat and tall that morning, only
a little over twenty were left. The patch looked as though the Russian
Army had
had lunch on the spot.
I was shuffling
mournfully through the stubble and broken branches when the
flutter of white paper caught my eye. It was a note, tied to one
of the
remaining plants. Its hand was firm: "Have a nice day and see
you next year.
Sincerely, your Law Enforcement Officers."
Later that fall,
I had occasion to be around when Reg sold a considerable
amount of grass to a guy from L.A.. He could have been my customer,
except that
I'd harvested only enough to satisfy Marvene, with none left over
for my
friends. I mentioned to Reg that these same friends had cash. Reg
was more than
obliging. It was nice stuff, too.
"I though
you got wiped out in the sheriff's raid," I said innocently.
He gave me a
pitying look. "Always have a back-up patch," he said gently.
"You
may need it to pay your attorneys."
I am taking
his advice. This year, I will divide up my projected one hundred
females into four, maybe six patches. I hope it works. I worry about
that note
the sheriffs left. I worry about how big the CAMP program will be.
I'm also
tired of feeling like a criminal. I'd like for once, to feel like
a success.
When I told
Kiki about John's guess that the best plants and equipment would
never be turned in, she just shrugged. "Am I naive, or are
you just blase?" I
asked.
"Neither,"
she said. "It's just that sheriffs are human...and underpaid."
I exploded.
"That doesn't make it right! It was just that kind of thinking
that
produced Watergate!"
She didn't bat
an eye. "So what you're doing is right, huh?" I felt like
a
criminal again, and she looked suddenly a lot like a Jewish mother.
Her name
probably is Belinda Bernstein.
