Pot Stories for the Soul, page 21
I was under the cover with my eyes opened wide enough to roll out of my head, pretending to sleep, as these very polite men apologized for bothering us. As I was about to have a heart attack, I wondered what they were thinking of my mom’s giggling.
When they left, I immediately went for my stash and rolled a big one.
Vega
MR. HOWELL
Do you remember the Chevrolet Vega? It came in a number of versions and was the Big Three’s response to rising gasoline prices in the early’70s. I owned the station-wagon version. Compared to the true station wagons of the era like Ford’s monolithic Country Squire, it was a true miniature and intended, I suppose, to confuse anyone thinking about buying something foreign-made. You could still pack a lot of stuff in a Vega wagon. Everything I owned could fit in it and still leave room in the front passenger seat for my dog. Her name, of course, was Vega.
Vega is an okay name for a dog, and it gave me one less thing to remember. I was doing a very short tour of duty in the Army at the time and living in the enlisted barracks at a fort in Georgia. We were all young and very glad we were not going to Vietnam. The U.S. Army was in a state of shock: Tricky Dick had been canned, our current [Gerald Ford] commander in chief apparently couldn’t climb stairs without injuring himself, and we were left to do pretty much as we pleased.
We partied a lot. Even right in the barracks. Guys were rotating back from Asia who had actually been shot at, and—when the Army felt they had decompressed enough—began joining us in the regular barracks. These guys were so glad to be alive—reprieved from death at the hands of an enemy most of them never even saw—that no amount of debauchery or intoxication was too much. But, God, we tried.
Pretty soon we ran out of dope. In fact, the whole base went dry, and it was time for a logistical resupply mission of some magnitude. This would turn out to be the only mission of any merit that I would ever be sent on, so I took two weeks’ leave and headed south. My orders: Score four pounds of the best pot I could find.
With Vega next to me in the passenger seat, it was nice to be on the road. The two weeks went by, and I was headed back to station with the shopping list filled and a case of real Mexican-made Kahlua to boot. I was on U.S. Highway 1 north, and just passing through many small rural communities that populate its roadside, when the blue and red lights of a municipal police car slashed across my rearview mirror.
Bummer, adrenaline, life flashes. Can you say Midnight Express, y’all? The Georgia correctional system was not perceived as a positive life experience, judging from the ever-present roadside gangs. I didn’t look good in stripes, couldn’t eat fifty eggs in one sitting, and people with mirror sunglasses and shotguns made me uncomfortable.
I pulled to the side of the road and looked at Vega. Dogs can sense when you are scared shitless. My ears were ringing with fear when I heard a voice say, “Let me see your license and registration, son. You were doin’ thirty-seven in a twenty-five zone back there.” I pulled my wallet and fished the other papers out of the glove compartment. I had everything in my right hand and was reaching across my chest to hand over the papers when Vega struck.
In an instant, she had hold of the constable’s blue jacket sleeve, and there was considerable growling and cursing. As I pulled her away from the window, the jacket sleeve gave way with a loud—really loud—ripping noise. With my right hand on top of Vega, I reached out in vain to hand over my papers. All I could see of the policeman’s face was my own reflection in the mirror aviator frames and a frown that looked extremely pissed off.
“All right, boy, follow me to the station.”
I did as he asked, of course. We pulled into the gravel and red-clay parking area with the lights of the police car still flashing. He didn’t even look at me, just waved his hand as he trudged into the building. I followed him into the building, and he was already seated with the offended jacket lying on the desk in front of him. I was shaking like a leaf while he stared at my driver’s license, and we waited for a call back on whether I had any outstanding warrants.
Everything came back clear.
“You ready to pay the fine now, son, an’ you can go. You’re a serviceman, so that’s all I’m gonna do. That’ll be thirty-seven dollars—cash.”
I about pissed myself walking out of that building. Vega seemed pleased to see me as well.
Bank Job
JUDITA
Pam and I were on our way to the desert when we realized neither of us had any pot. We called around, and the only person we could get was the man who sold “tea.” You ordered it by code, and I even had my own pin number.
We were on our way out of town, so it was decided we would meet Jack on the off-ramp of Lincoln Boulevard at the gas station. When he arrived, he told us that the pot was still wet, so we should spread it out and let it dry.
We were in too much of a hurry to wait, so we took our first hit immediately, and we were off to the bank to replenish our funds. When we arrived at the bank, Pam decided to stay in the car and let the motor run so she could use the heater to dry the stuff.
I went into the bank and immediately felt there was something wrong, but I was very stoned, so at first I thought it was my imagination. I got into line and noticed that everyone seemed to be standing still.
I waited a few moments and still no one moved, so finally I got up my courage and turned around and called to the manager, “What’s wrong—is this a holdup?”
As I said this, it unfroze everyone, and the robber ran right by me out into the street. I realized that Pam was in danger with the car motor running, parked right in front of the bank, and all that pot in her lap. Paradise for anyone.
As I ran out toward Pam, the police and guards gave chase after the robber. I jumped into my car with the motor still running, hoping the police would not mistake me for the thief. They didn’t and we were off onto another adventure . . .
Stems and Seeds
A poor little rich boy I worked with named “Joe College” asked me to score a quarter pound of pot for him to take back to school. As usual, the late summer dry spell was upon us and pot was scarce. I had heard that this guy across the street had been busted a couple of years before for coke, so I thought maybe he still had some connections.
We sat on my front steps shooting the shit for a while, and then he told me to stop over later and he’d have the pot for me. When he let me into his apartment, there were a half dozen or so guys sitting around. I was probably stoned and didn’t pay much attention to them, but I was taken aback a bit when he handed me the quarter pound out in the middle of the room in front of everybody.
But I thought he was cool, so I assumed the rest of the guys were, too, or he wouldn’t be conducting business in front of them. I took the pot home and after a while Joe College came over to check it out. Like I said, we were in a dry spell, but Joe was picky and didn’t want the pot. Too many stems and seeds.
Oh, well, it was fronted to me, so I’d just take it back. As I was getting ready to walk out the door a while later to do just that, someone knocked on the door. I didn’t know the guy but I recognized him. He hung out at the same bar my friends and I went to every weekend. It was a dive bar that we sat around in, smoking joints. It was paradise, soon to be a parking lot.
He said he was from “John’s” across the street and was wondering what was up with the quarter pound. I told him I was just on my way back over with the pot because my friend wasn’t satisfied with the quality and we hadn’t smoked any. I gave it back to him and he left.
Some weeks later, after Joe College had gone back to school and paradise had been razed, I was telling a girl at work, who also knew John, about the whole incident. “After John got busted,” she told me, “he turned narc to stay out of prison.” What?
It all became clear then. The crowd in John’s apartment, the guy popping in with the excuse that he was concerned about the pot when he was really trying to see who I was getting it for, and the bar where no one hassled us about smoking joints. Hell, Big Brother was probably watching us the whole time! I was sure glad then that Joe College hadn’t wanted the pot. He would’ve been looking through books, and I would have been looking through bars.
Radical Luck
TOM CRAIG
It was early spring 1971. My wife, young child, and I shared a house with two fellow students in a working-class suburb of Washington, D.C. We had all moved in together after leaving/being asked to leave the major radical commune of our university because of a perceived lack of proper revolutionary spirit. It was the wild and woolly times of the revolution.
Even our staid, old, preppy college, Georgetown University, had risen up the previous spring after the invasion of Cambodia, Kent State, and “Shut It Down,” and even that fall there had been a local version of the “Days of Rage” protest in the streets of trendy old Georgetown, which required a massive mobilization of D.C. cops to restore order.
Our two roommates, Steve and Ray, were wildly wacky anarchistic dope dealers who, about every two weeks, had a well-dressed visitor from California fly in and deliver a large suitcase full of Acapulco Gold and other goodies for local distribution. Needless to say, our house was unique on our little side street, where office workers and tradespeople left early in the morning, lunches packed, to pursue their version of the American dream.
We even had a Virginia state trooper living about five doors down, who parked his patrol car out in front of the house. It was a living reminder that we were, if not in the belly, at least in the gullet of the beast. For the most part, we were fairly discreet, but after one large shipment from the Golden State, we planned our first big party. The May Day demonstrations of that year were winding down, and there was major steam that needed to be released.
Ray, the trickster of the dynamic duo, organized a gathering of our fellow art class students, assorted radicals, and hippies, and even some of the Vietnam Vets Against the War from around the country who had trekked to Washington and whom we had brought out from their encampment down on the Mall.
Steve, not to be outdone, invited his band down from Long Island to provide musical accompaniment for the spectacle. So, here we were in a small two-story house in sleepy little Falls Church, Virginia, with a loud band wailing in the basement and about forty stoned people sipping Boone’s Farm. Soon the sickly sweet smell of righteous herb seemed to be wafting from the very heating ducts themselves.
I had always been the “father figure” of the household. Everything was in my name, and I fixed the clogged sinks, etc., so naturally I was feeling a little paranoid and responsible. I remember even going out in the front yard to check the noise and hilarity level, which much to my surprise was relatively under control. Finally, I decided to abandon myself to the revelry and proceeded to compete in the shotgun and bong events with great relish. After my consciousness had been significantly altered, I drifted into a relaxed state and began having a marvelous time.
I thought our little house had been successfully launched into an orbit around Jupiter and was far beyond the clutches of the sad, violent, gray world it had once stood in. Somewhere along that time, I heard someone calling my name loudly from a distance. I swam down through the haze and wandered toward the front door where I saw Ray, grinning widely to someone outside and motioning me to come and deal with these new guests, who were just hidden from my sight behind the opened door.
All right, Ray, I thought, what is waiting for me: a face-painted ghoul, a naked lady, a pie in the face? Ray, still beaming, stepped back to get a better look at my facial reaction as I came around the door. There on our doorstep stood two fresh-faced, red-cheeked Virginia troopers, grinning almost as beneficently as Ray. I swallowed hard, smiled weakly, and tried to ignore the wafting ganja smoke escaping from the upper doorway.
“Can I help you?” I managed to ask. Still grinning, one of the troopers addressed me in a broad cracker drawl: “We were just passing by and we noticed that one of the doors on that red van was open, and it being after midnight and all, we wanted to make sure everything was okay.” I jumped at the chance to go inspect and lead them away from the smoking house, thanking them profusely.
The next day as I was leaving for town, I saw a state police car rounding the bend in front of our house. The driver wore the same grin he’d had last night as he waved cheerfully to me, happy to greet his new neighbor. Was he a nice guy, just doing his job? A curious but benign straight hoping to catch some orgy scene? Or a good ole boy just a-messin’ with our minds? Damned if I know. I’m just glad I kept my underwear clean that night.
Foolish Question
JERRY OCHS
In the early ’70s, I shared a house with seven other people—some college students, some married working couples. We liked to smoke pot, and there was always some around, except for one horrible day when we realized that we all had run dry at the same time.
Everyone being conscientious communalists, each person made an extra effort that day to score, and at dinnertime the results spoke for themselves: a kilo here and a half kilo there and minimountains of pot in front of each person.
In order to judge the quality of this cornucopia of Mary Jane, we each rolled a joint, and we smoked them one at a time. At about the time we were toking on contestant number five, which had reached the status of roach, there was an abrupt and violent knocking at the front door.
Bob, the nervous type, holding the roach and sitting at a table piled high with pot, eyes wide with fear, squeaked, “Should I swallow it?”
Not Busted
These Untidy Guys
MICHELLE PHILLI PS
Our rented car with almost all our worldly possessions had been stolen from the underground car park on Franklin. We reported it to the police and, in the pace of events, forgot about it.
After moving to Flores, we had a visit without warning from a member of the FBI. The car had been found and had been stolen by someone they were interested in. I invited him in, and he began to spell out his story while I, horrified, froze.
All across the coffee table was an array of marijuana in various stages of preparation and cleaning: a hundred joints, all neatly rolled, separated and stacked by Denny. Buds still clinging together from the fields, some cleaned, some twigs, a lot of seeds. A whole mess of pot.
While the FBI agent told his tale of sleuthing rewarded, I decided that the only way to deal with this awful sideshow of cannabis was to busy myself like a housewife. I took a big paper bag from the market and started shoving all the marijuana into it, all the while playing the scene as if to say: “These untidy guys around here—always leaving things around.”
If the FBI man knew or suspected anything, he never indicated it to me. His eyes didn’t stray to the table. He just kept to the subject at hand—the stolen car—while I showed suitable interest: “Really? How amazing! Well, now. Gee!”
The Hole-in-the-Floor Gang
A whole bunch of us jumped into my friend’s van to go to Starved Rock, Illinois. For the fourteen of us, we took three ounces of high-grade weed. After spending several hours there and getting very stoned, we started back. For some reason that made perfect sense then, we decided to travel down one of the main streets of town.
Suddenly, the driver said that the cops were right behind us and wanted to pull us over. Underneath the carpeting on the floor was a big hole that had once been part of the frame but was now surrounded with rust. Out that hole went pipes, papers, roach clips, and, in three different baggies, an ounce and a half of smoke.
The cops stopped and searched each of us, the males much more thoroughly than the females, but we were all lucky that we had dumped our stashes. We had to follow the squad car to the cop shop where they gave the driver a bogus ticket—why didn’t they do that on the spot?—and told us to get out of town. They were not amused when we pointed out to them that we already would be if they hadn’t made us go to the station.
We went back to see if we could find any of our stash, as most of us figured that we needed a smoke. We were able to find two pipes, one roach clip, one pack of papers, and about half an ounce of weed. After going over the drop zone twice, we left town fast.
About a month after the incident, I was helping the van owner replace the muffler. Stuck in the frame just “downwind” of the hole, we found a bag of dope. We figured that we should forget the muffler and, in honor of our trip to Starved Rock, we should smoke the dope.
We started to and his brother and a friend arrived home to help us. When they heard the story, we turned it into a religious ceremony and got totally stoned.
The Grateful Living
WOODY
On a typical Saturday evening around 11:00 PM, some friends and I decided to go to the cemetery just to smoke and be with the dead. (Don’t worry, we’re not vampires or anything.) We hopped over the fence surrounding the burial ground and lit up a huge joint. We went to the back to lay down on the hill. We had brought along some more weed ’cause we do smoke too much.
This cemetery being close to the highway, somebody must have seen us and called the cops. Flashlights were seen coming from afar, but we thought nothing of it, assuming more friends were on their way. Hell, no! The cops said that if we wanted to smoke, to do it in a safe place, not in public like that.
As we were exiting the place, we had to walk alongside the highway to return to our homes, and they passed by us with their sirens on, yelling over the intercom, “Yabba dabba doo” over and over again as they vanished in the fog.
Nickel Bag
