1st Chapter of Marijuana Cowboys: Free At Last
(August 2006)
The family reunion started as usual, with Dad’s Chief of Security frisking me.
“He’s clean, Doc,” said Agent Donte, sounding disappointed.
“I doubt that,” scoffed my older brother Major Johnny.
Agent Donte chuckled. “At least for weapons.”
“My turn,” said my little sister, slipping on a pair of latex gloves.
Hoping to back her off, I said, “Happy Birthday.”
Bonnie said, “Thanks.” Then, “Assume the position.”
I shook my head. “Come on, Bonnie.”
“It’s Director Bonnie.”
I sighed. “Right. Do we really have to do this?”
“Yes,” hissed Major Johnny.
“Now bend over,” said Director Bonnie, “and we’ll see if you brought any party favors.”
I humored her, but only because of Major Johnny’s gun.
Director Bonnie, until recently known as Bonnie, had just been appointed Director of the DEA, and apparently, it had gone to her head. Dad stood by with a Taser in case Director Bonnie struck gold. Mom was up next, but always strategic, she waited till we were at the dinner table to strike. That way they had me surrounded.
“So, Mikey,” said Mom, just warming up, “where are you living and what are you up to?”
“What I’m up to isn’t important. Let’s talk about you guys.”
Mom said, “Nice try. We know you’re not on Maui because our agents haven’t spotted you in ages.”
Mom and Dad, both bigshots in the CIA, liked to keep tabs on their wayward son. Their agents were right. With the head of Maui Vice on a vendetta against me and a huge indoor project going on, well, somewhere, I hadn’t been home in a long time. But I couldn’t tell my family that. Nor could I tell them what I was up to. Not with the War on Drugs and their narrow worldviews. Given what my partner Charley and I had going on, I didn’t tell anybody where I lived.
With Charley supervising our project and me needing a break from the stress, I’d flown to Santa Barbara where I hoped nothing went wrong while I was away. If not, it might be the first time. Our project, apart from a few intermittent harvests, had been nothing but headaches and cost overruns for three years, and I still hadn’t broken even.
We’d had one problem after another with the power supply. Like the time we had a radiation surge that made our crop glow in the dark. On the bright side, the mutant pot had monster buds with twice the THC of anything ever seen and so did the clones I nurtured from it. What with the Day-Glo color, Charley and I nicknamed it the Green Flash—here was a strain that truly raised your consciousness—right before it knocked you out. We figured one more harvest and we’d finally break even. After that, hello profits. But only if nothing else went wrong.
If I wanted to relieve stress, I never should’ve visited the Good family. Like a law of nature, a visit with those squares was a guaranteed drag. But it was Director Bonnie’s birthday, and since I was in town, I was obligated to join them for dinner. At least that’s what Mom said. Fortunately, Uncle Dick (AKA: President Nixon) had kicked the bucket and wouldn’t be there to evil-vibe me. He never got over me costing him the election against Kennedy. Or trying to turn on his daughters in a White House bathroom. Still, I never thought he’d start the War on Drugs over it. I’m proud of the election meddling, but in retrospect, I wish I’d have thought that second prank through.
Mom repeated her question. “So, what’ve you been up to? And where?”
I was trying to come up with a plausible lie when Dad said, “You know you can’t keep a secret from your mother.”
Dad (AKA: Dr. Strangelove), now in his eighties but still ramrod straight in his Uncle Sam costume, looked younger every year. So did Mom. They wouldn’t tell me their secret, but with Dr. Strangelove the CIA’s Mad-Scientist-in-Chief, I’d long suspected he’d invented a fountain-of-youth machine.
Dad was right about the secrets. Thanks to the Dungeon of Learning in the family bomb shelter, the place I’d spent half my childhood, I’d given up many of young Mike Good’s secrets. Not without torture, but still. . .
I had to nip the interrogation in the bud or Mom would never stop. Lies wouldn’t work, so I played my distraction card. “You’re looking younger and lovelier every time I see you.”
Mom patted her hair. “Aw, you’re just saying that.”
“No, really.” Mom had always been trim, but I said something guaranteed to raise a smile. “Not a single wrinkle and you lost a little weight, didn’t you?”
There it was. And instead of a question, Mom said, “It’s so nice to have you home, son.”
“You fall for Mikey’s b.s. every time, Mom,” said Director Bonnie.
“Language, Director Bonnie,” said Dad.
Not that he was a prude.
“Quit laughing, Mikey,” said Director Bonnie.
“Humor is over-rated,” said Major Johnny.
I sighed.
“And quit sighing. Every time you visit, that’s all you do.”
“That’s not true,” said Director Bonnie. “Sometimes he smacks his head.”
“That’s right,” said Major Johnny. Giving me a look, he asked, “What’s that all about, anyway?”
Knowing it’d piss him off, I sighed again. “So good to be home.”
“I hope you’ll be around for a while,” said Mom.
“He never told us what he was up to,” said Major Johnny, always with a hard-on for his little brother.
“What makes you think I’m up to something?”
“When are you not?”
That was a good question. My family only knew a fraction of what I’d gotten into over the years, but it was more than enough to make them permanently suspicious. For that matter, so was my childhood. I was thinking: I gotta make a break for it when my cell phone rang.
I looked at the phone. “Sorry, Mom, I’d love to sit here and get grilled, but this is urgent.”
As Mom rolled her eyes, I made my getaway. Once out of earshot, I said, “Thanks for calling; that was perfect timing.”
The jubilant voice on the other end said, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, I’m free at last!”
“Reverend King? You’re back from the dead?”
“No, man, it’s Dee.”
“Well, yeah, I figured, you know, from your voice and phone number. How come you’re so excited? You’ve been out of prison for six months.”
“Yeah, but now I’m off supervised parole and drug testing.”
“Ah.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to go for six months without getting high?”
“Don’t even joke about it.”
“Who’s joking?”
“Wait a second. Only six months? You were in Lompoc for four years.”
“Yeah, but I got stoned every day. By the way, thanks for sending that pot.”
“One pound lasted four years?”
“Not with me involved, but there were all kinds of other drugs. Of course, not all of them were good.”
“What? You mean crank and heroin?”
“I mean the experimental drugs they gave us.”
“They gave you drugs?”
“Only if we volunteered.”
“Well, who wouldn’t?”
“Anyone afraid of weird side effects.”
“Oh. Why would you volunteer for something like that?”
“They offered us early release.”
“I see. . . What kind of drugs are we talking about? Psychedelics?”
Dr. Strangelove and his pals at the CIA had a little program in the ‘50s and ‘60s called MKUltra where they dosed unsuspecting soldiers with LSD, so it’s not like the government had qualms about screwing with people’s minds. And yet, he never offered me any. Crazy, huh?
“The good ones were psychedelic,” said Dee, “but you never knew what they were giving you. I took this one pill? Turned me black for a week.”
“Get out of here.”
“I’m serious.”
“What was that like?”
“Sucked. Everyone disrespected me. Even the black guys. On the other hand, there was one thing I really liked about it.”
“You got better at sports?”
“Make that two things.”
Sorry I’d asked, I changed the subject. “What’d the other drugs do?”
“You name it. You remember Bighead, don’t you?”
Of course, I remembered Bighead. He meant Big Ed Head, another major league smuggler who’d done time at Lompoc. You ever see Big Ed, you’d remember him, too.
“Well, he took something that turned him into a werewolf.”
“A real one?”
“Just on full moons.”
“Jesus. . .”
“It was the zombies that bothered me.”
“Zombies?”
“Some of those drugs, man. . .”
“That one does not sound like fun.”
“Had to be a bad trip,” agreed Dee. “You never saw those fuckers smiling.”
“Why didn’t they stop using them?”
“They wouldn’t get their early release.”
“No, I meant the researchers and the warden.”
“Well, they weren’t taking them.”
“Let me rephrase that. Why didn’t they stop administering the zombie drugs?”
“For the money.”
“What money?”
“You kidding? Where do you think all the extras for the zombie shows come from?”
I wasn’t sure if Dee was pulling my leg, but I let it slide.
“So, free at last. I guess that means you’re ready to celebrate.”
“Why do you think I’m calling? I gotta get out of L.A.”
“Yeah, well I gotta get out of Santa Barbara.”
“You just got there.”
“That is not the point.”
“Well then, let’s go down to San Diego for the weekend, play some golf, party with some friends.”
“That’ll work. I can’t wait to see Doc again.”
Our old buddy Doc, who’d decided to quit the teaching racket—something to do with a student stabbing him and a huge settlement—had recently moved to San Diego from Denver. I hadn’t seen him since he got the new foot. I wondered if he’d be ready for golf. As for Dee, he was eager to look up Bighead, and not just for golf.