Until the day I actually
put my heart and mind into growing my
fortune, I had never so much as touched a crumb of chicken manure.
I mean, I
knew in some corner of my mind that chickens shit. This is basic
zoology. But I
had no idea what a bag of chicken shit might weigh, what it felt
like on your
shoes, or how it STANK! When I was a kid and had a dog, I thought
dog shit was
the smelliest stuff on earth. But that was long before I had a pile
of shit
excreted by chickens someplace in Oregon dumped about twelve feet
from my tent.
That shit-pile
did not just appear there by magic. I bought it and had it
delivered, just as if I had good sense. I had been told on good
authority,
which was just about anybody at that time (since I didn't know anything,
and
everybody else knew everything), that it provided that special something
for
pot. I didn't know what, and still don't, but I bought a ton of
it
anyway. Yeah, two thousand pounds of chickenshit, bought in bulk
to save money.
In bulk means
that one morning a guy who looks remarkably cheerful for having
driven 27 miles with a load of stinking, reeking shit right back
of his head in
the bed of his truck pulls up what I dare call my driveway, and
dumps said
stinking, reeking stuff over the almost only flat place on my forty
acres.
I had one shovel.
And a box of plastic trash bags, and a couple of galvanized
buckets, used for carrying water from the spring. So I figured to
use this
high-tech equipment to move the manure up the hill, over the ridge
and down
again to my patch.
That is when
I learned that it takes a long time to fill a plastic trash bag
with shit, and that when you lift it, the bag breaks.
After much experimentation
and pondering, I remembered a movie about China and
how the Coolies carried two buckets or baskets on either end of
a pole slung
across the shoulders. I tried it. It worked. The thought came to
me that I had
not intended to make my fortune imitating Chinese Coolies.
Then I remembered
a movie about the conquest of Everest, and how the Sherpa
porters carried incredible loads on their backs in something that
looked like
an oversize papoose cradle. That worked even better. So now I was
going to get
rich imitating Sherpa porters. On to Everest!
My ignorance
about manure was not too surprising, considering the fact that I'd
never owned or grown a plant in my life before moving to Humboldt
County.
Plants were what they put around trendy bars in the city, not the
stuff a
bachelor kept in his apartment. The Funks as a family weren't gardeners.
Gardening was what was done to the yard around the house by groups
of Hispanics
who came once a week to cut the grass and trim the anonymous shrubs
lining the
drive. I never saw them actually plant anything. If we wanted flowers,
we went
to a florist and bought a dozen roses, or an orchid. I assumed all
flowers were
grown in the same way, at the same time, somewhere up around Encinitas.
So as a result
of my gardenless childhood, I had a mess of misconceptions, and
a
depth of ignorance beyond belief. At least that's what Kiki told
me, as did
Brenda, and with a grand smugness, Eagle. But everyone was very
helpful. I
heard about stuff called rock phosphate, and potash. And people
kept talkng
about enpeekay, which I thought was the name of some special brand
of
fertilizer, until Eagle, barely concealing a sneer, informed me
that what they
were actually saying was N for nitrogen, P for phosphorous, and
K for
potassium. (Why "K" for God's sake? There isn't a K in
the whole damn word.
Never mind. I was feeling to dumb too care.)
And that was
just the beginning. There were discussions that lasted late into
the night over the use of peat pellets versus plastic cups for starting
the
seeds; and how much light and how much heat was needed, and when
to switch from
high nitrogen to high phosphate. And how about Perlite, and Vermiculite,
and
how much peat should be used in the mix? All the growers had their
own recipes,
just like for spaghetti sauce. One guy told me to put corn syrup
on the plants,
and another vowed that dry dog food made the plants practically
jump out of the
ground.
I finally came
to agree with one old timer, Maxie, who said that it was a damned
good thing marijuana was a vigorous weed. No matter what damned
fool thing was
done to it, any dumb asshole (I think he meant me) could get a little
crop off
it. He turned out to be right. I did a lot of damn fool things,
and got a
little crop the first year. That's more than you can say for the
commodities
market.
Which takes
me back to the day of the chicken shit delivery. A couple of weeks
before, Brenda had walked the property with me and pointed out an
ideal place
for the all-important patch. It had the right southern exposure,
and wasn't too
far from the spring that was supposed to have flowed "Right
through the driest
years in the memory of man." The "Man," in this case,
being the real estate
agent who sold me the place.
So after clearing
away the brush in several locations...spaces just big enough
to hold the hoped for monster plant of September...I went back with
my shovel
to dig the holes. That's what everybody told me to do. "You
gotta have holes,"
they said. One for each plant. Somehow I got the impression that
these diggings
had to be about the size of an open pit strip coal mine in Wyoming.
So what I
tried to do was practically dig the Panama Canal, by hand. I knew
about as much
about shovelling as I did about manure.
At the end of
the week, I had five grave-sized indentations in my patch, and a
lower back pain that prevented me from moving like anywhere near
a normal human
being. Instead, I scuttled around like a chimpanzee in blue jeans.
This amused
Kiki no end, until my bentness interfered with our sex life.
I was too busy
to care. All I had to worry about now was the dolomite, the rock
phosphate, the bone meal, the greensand, the Perlite, the Vermiculite,
the fish
emulsion...up the hill, over the ridge and down again, and then
back to my
supply heap to repeat. I developed a good relationship with a local
chiropractor, as well as a taste for dark beer. Preferably San Miguel.
The beer
seemed to supply that little extra push I needed at abut three in
the
afternoon. It also kept me slightly drunk, so I didn't realize just
how much
dog labor I was doing until I quit at about five to head for my
homemade 55
gallon drum shower.
What with all
this over the hill and down the ridge business, I didn't get the
vegetable garden planted. I did buy and plant a rose bush, just
to prove that I
was more than a crazed dope grower. The deer ate it.
This was the
first time in my life I had come into contact with animals bigger
than the family mutt, who had been a smallish terrier of nervous
disposition.
Here, I was surrounded by herds of deer, packs of racoons, passles
of possums,
vast numbers of skunks, porcupines, rats and even one bear. And
that was only
the mammals. I won't even mention the insect world. It's too painful.
But it
came upon me to wonder, while all these critters were desperately
trying to eat
anything I planted, what dumbnut had come up with that "Back
to nature and live
off the fat of the land" jive. Mother Nature, as it turned
out, was a lean and
mean bitch, with an awful lot of mouths to feed.
So in the middle
of everything else I was trying to do, I had to take the time
to learn about things like traps and repellents. And guns. Yes,
I confess: I
was taken over by gun lust.
With my shiny
new shotgun, and a .22 rifle, I soon learned to hit the side of
a
barn. Actually I eventually learned to hit a deer, porcupine, and
various other
scooting and scampering critters. To save the goddam pot, I became
a killer. Ah
wilderness! I began to see why Kiki was a vegetarian. After killing
a few of my
four legged neighbors, the sight of a piece of meat was less appetizing.
Not that I got
any sympathy from Kiki. "Even a carrot has consciousness,
larry. Every bite that we eat is a sacrifice to the Earth Mother.
I just prefer
to keep my consumption on the level of lower consciousness."
"Then why
don't you stand up and cheer when I, a confirmed steak lover, say
I'm
beginning to feel uneasy about blood running down my chin during
dinner?'
"Because
you'd expect a medal for doing something that millions have been
doing
for centuries...eating sanely...and also because animal protein
was usually
more expensive. So why should I stand up and salute because you
decide tofu is
better than turkey?"
I didn't say
tofu was better, but once Kiki is riding a wave there's no use
trying to point out misconceptions or anything else, for that matter.
I just
shut up and let her make a nut loaf with cheese sauce to prove how
right she
was.
I finally decided
to use peat pellets to start my seeds, seeds I'd gotten from
Brenda. It had dawned on me one morning, as I was pounding pegs
in the ground,
to pitch my tent, on my very own piece of land, that if I was going
to grow
"Sinsemilla" (seedless marijuana), I had to start with
something.
That afternoon,
I drove over to Brenda's and asked her the following: "If the
stuff we grow (note how I made that 'we,' before I even knew whether
or not the
stork delivered baby marijuana plants) is seedless, where do you
get the
seeds? I know you use seeds, because I heard you talking about them."
She was
patient with me, mainly because she was stoned. When she is not
stoned, she is
not patient with anyone.
"I will
give you some seeds to start with. I have plenty of those. but you'll
have to buy your own mousetraps," was all she said then. But
later over
breakfast at the Woodrose, she deigned to explain.
"Sinsemilla
isn't a special brand of grass; it's just seedless. And since it's
a
sexy plant, with males and females, you can separate the males before
flowering
takes place..."
"And kill
'em," Eagle interrupted, leering. I clutched my balls under
the
table. Brenda ignored her.
"But you
keep one or two good-looking studs, and later, shake some of the
pollen
over a nice fat mama plant. From that mating, you get the seeds.
But you keep
all the rest of the girls virgin, and they keep making fatter and
fatter flower
buds that will end up being sinsemilla that will get you royally
stoned, and
will also get you $2400 a pound in L.A. or San Diego.
On the afternoon
I got the seeds from Brenda, I made a trip to Garberville with
the shoppng list she gave me: a hundred peat pellets, four cookie
sheets, and a
bottle of B-1. She also told me to get some Maxi-Crop, which is
powdered
seaweed, but when I looked at the price of the stuff, I skipped
it. I was
beginning to get just a little nervous about money. Because after
I had put
down the money on my property, and bought a tent, shovel, propane
camp stove,
and sleeping bag, and figured out how much it would cost to eat
and drink over
the next ten months, and put gas in my truck, and take Kiki out
just often
enough so she'd keep fucking me, my inheritance didn't seem as big
as it had
back in San Diego on that day the will was read.
Back from town,
I proceeded to wet down the peat pellets with warm water, then
arranged them neatly on the cookie sheets, that done, I pushed a
seed into the
center of each pellet. Wealth and luxury, surely, lying in wait...on
four
aluminum cookie sheets.
About then,
it started to rain, so I lit the camp stove, made some coffee, and
calculated how rich I would be by October. Brenda had said that
out of the
hundred seeds she gave me, I might get 50 females, if I were lucky.
So in my
mood of rainy day dreaming, I figured I'd get 70 or 80 anyway. Then
from each
plant, I'd get at least a pound of dried product. Why not? Hadn't
I just spent
all winter listening to guys in the Branding Iron Saloon tell me
about their
four and five pound plants? So even as a beginner, I should get
at least a
pound. I would then take the 75 pounds of really high grade potent
weed to San
Diego in my truck, knock on Marvene's door, and collect my $150,000.
Wow!
In the meantime,
I had run out of propane. I'd have to make a trip back to town
if I wanted more coffee before I made my killing.
About a week
later, I had four cooky sheets full of little green babies with
two
green leaves each. I was stoked. A week and one day later I had
six little
green babies on four cooky sheets. I had forgotten the mouse traps.
So I would have
to suffer the embarrassment of going back to Brenda for more
seeds. But I still had six plants, now completely surrounded by
mousetraps. I
decided that maybe I'd better do something drastic to make those
survivors grow
into the four pound monsters I longed for. There was that bottle
of B-1 stuff
that Brenda had convinced me to buy. She said to use a little of
it on the
seedlings, and then a little more when I transplanted them. well,
to give my
few survivors a real boost, I poured on a cupful. straight and undiluted.
After they died,
I read the label.
Nobody's perfect.
Brenda refused
to give me any more seeds. Hell, she wouldn't even sell me
any. "It's a waste, honey. You just haven't got any plant consciousness."
She looked
down her nose in that Funkian way that reminded me of my father
when he was
telling me I'd fucked up again.
"And you
do, I suppose?"
"Well,
I made money last year. I made it from taking little
itsy-bitsy plants and making them into great big plants. So yes,
I've got plant consciousness...after three years of working my ass
off."
"Three
years!" I exploded. "You told me I could get rich in one
year. All I had
to do was get some land, drop these seeds in the ground, and stand
back..."
She was real
cool. "I said 'could', not 'would'. It's been done, but not
often. Don't be an ungrateful ass. This was your great chance to
get away from the
family, and maybe...I said maybe...get rich. Would you rather be
in San Diego,
sitting on your ass in some bar while Dad and David dole out your
profits,
making sure you realize what a loser you are each time they give
you a
check? Is that what you want? It sure as hell isn't what I wanted.
Not when the
biggest event of my week was a visit to my therapist." She
took a deep drag on
the joint Eagle passed her, and I used the opportunity to butt in.
"Okay,
I apologize for taking you at your word. I know I should be profoundly
grateful to you. You took me out of my air-conditioned apartment
in San Diego
and put me in a tent at the ass end of nowhere, eleven miles from
the nearest
bar, for Christ's sake. And now I have to wait three years to get
rich? And do
you think Kiki will wait that long?"
"Why not?"
Brenda drawled. "None of the other guys she's fucking are any
better
off than you; maybe worse. At least you have some regular income
from those
bonds. And you took her to Jamaica last winter. For all I know,
her last big
trip was a whirl around Sacramento with 'Fast Eddie Success'."
The Fast Eddie
she referred to is a slimy, squinty-eyed guy from KikI's past whom
I prefer not
to think about. In fact I prefer not to think about any of the guys
in her
past, which means there are a lot of guys hereabouts I tend to blank
out. I
guess I'm old fashioned. "Nineteenth century," is the
way Kiki put it.
Eagle spoke
up. "She's a cunt, but that should ease your mind. She'll wait,
she'll be around." It was the closest thing to kind word I'd
heard all day.
"I thought
you didn't approve of words like 'cunt'" I said. "Or is
that only
when I use them?"
"Right,"
Eagle grunted, heading for the kitchen to stir the chili. She wasted
no
words. She was also a damn good cook. But I was never sure when
I ate with them
that my next bite might not be laced with a little pesticide. Since
to her, all
men were pests, the logic was irrefutable.
Brenda picked
up where she'd left off in her horticultural advice. "Since
I
figure you haven't any plant savvy, I'm not gonna let you loose
with more
seeds. You've gotta see Louie Louie and buy some plants. I hear
he's got some
already sexed out, going for twenty, twenty-five bucks."
"Jesus!
That's twenty-five hundred, just for plants."
"How many
holes have you got ready?"
Since, after
picking the spot for my patch, Brenda had not been back to my
place, I was free to lie. "Fifty big ones. And I figure on
putting in two
plants per hole, and I want..."
"People
in hell want ice water, too," Brenda cut in. "Buy fifty,
plant fifty,
take care of fifty, and with your luck and plenty of rat traps,
chicken wire,
sunshine, and the grace of God, you'll get maybe twenty-five pounds."
"So what's
wrong with that?" Eagle asked, setting out bowls of chili.
I took a
cautious sip of mine, and waited to see if I went into convulsions
before
gulping down the rest. For the past week, I'd been living mostly
on the big jar
of peanut butter I'd bought to bait the traps, my diet being pretty
restricted
by that propane camp stove and my lack of cooking skills.
I had to agree
with Eagle. There was nothing wrong with a twenty-five pound
crop. My dreams of seventy-five thousand dollars dissipating in
the chili laden
air, I began to conjure what I could do with fifty-thou cash.
So it might
take me three years to get rich. I could wait. I relaxed and had
another bowl of chili.
It would strap
me some to buy the plants. Over a thousand dollars for fifty
small green plants sounds steep, but Louie Louie and his plants
have a fine
reputation. He majored in botany and stuff like that at the Davis
campus of the
University of California. That's the campus that turns out top winemakers
and
cattle breeders. So why not a top marijuana nurseryman?
That's the way
Louie Louie figured it, and like me, a disappointment to his
doctor-father from Southern California, he adopted the "alternative"
life style
of Humboldt County.
Now he has a
nice home, a wife, a couple of kids and several discreetly situated
greenhouses where he turns out several thousand top-grade baby plants
for the
growers. Hell, if you've got a special plant he'll even clone it
for you.
He is an example
of a 21st century man who lives without a telephone. But then
as I said, he's one of the "alternative people."
There are lots
of alternatives up here: alternative life styles, alternative
food stores, alternative energy consultants, alternative schools.
There is also
at least one alternative college here that I know of, where you
can spend $2500 to learn how to rub somebody's back and get a good
grasp on the
state of the art in herb teas. Not that I mean to put down this
particular
enterprise. Being the son and brother of MD's has soured me more
than a little
on regular, nonalternative medical care. Miracle drugs and all
that. Contrarily, I dont think my father is a party to a vast conspiracy
to
suppress cancer cures so he can rake in more dough. He's doing quite
nicely
already, what with Medi-Cal and Medicare, and the tendency of people
to get
allergic to things they can't get away from. Come to think of it,
an allergist
has it made. His patients hardly ever die, but neither do they ever
get much
better. Maybe that's what I have against the massage and herb tea
crowd. It's
not that a back rub doesn't feel good. It's just that, at least
in my case, it
was never good enough to cure what ailed me. Like poison oak, and
scratches
from the world's most horrendous blackberry patches, and pulled
muscles, and
sunburn, and the spider bites, and ticks: the slings and arrows
of the growers
particular outrageous fortune.
And of course,
there is nothing in Holistic medicine that can cure one of the
perpetual hots for Kiki, even though she has done her best a time
or two. Like
from trying to fuck my brains out one weekend when she had a particularly
good
stash of magic mushrooms, all the way to announcing she planned
to be
celibate for thirty days, to "purify her system." One
of her Holistic
practitioners has a thing for purifying.
What wouldn't
have bothered me too much, except that I dropped by her place one
afternoon to find her frolicking in a very unpurified way with a
cowboy from over
the other side of the mountain.
She didn't apologize.
She just said she wouldn't be a "Kathy " to my
"Heathcliff." I remember that movie, but I don't remember
Kathy fucking a
cowboy.
Probably the
most successful alternative effort hereabouts is the combined
elementary and high school, "Light Up The Sky." Most of
the parents of the
current crop of sprouts were the rebellious sort going in. I mean
they were
giving society the finger back in the 60's, and then went on to
take degrees in
Sociology, Urban Redevelopment, and Minority Studies, as well as
Ceramics and
Weaving. Then they came here to be pot growers. They weren't cut
out to settle
into some niche at General Dynamics. So here they are, still carrying
grudges
against what public schools had done to their collective psyches,
with rug rats
of their own. Are they going to let them be shoved into the same
old rat
race? No way. So the "Light Up The Sky" school came about,
with the aid of some
Government grants (the urban redevelopment types were good at getting
these),
and parental sweat and bucks.
The school puts
a lot of emphasis on volunteer work. Kiki, for example, teaches
"primitive movement and free dance", and a neighbor of
mine, Reg the Veg (named
for his vow to eat only members of the vegetable kingdom), once
taught
'Adventures In Ethnic Cooking', which proved really popular.
I wish I could
have gone to a school like "Light Up The Sky." I've tried
to
think of something I could teach the kids. But aside from a combined
course in
bartending and selling stereos, beginning and advanced, I can't
think of a
thing.
