Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes (2 page)

They walked on.

“What’ll we do with it when it’s dried
out
, C.K.?”

C.K. shrugged, kicked at a rock.

“Shoot, we find
some
use for it I reckon,” he said, with a little laugh.

“You think it’s dried
out
enough?” Harold was asking now, as they sat with the pile of it between them, he crumbling some of it in his fingers, scowling at it.

C.K. took out his sack of
Bull-Durham.

“Well, I tell you what we goin’ have to do,” he said with genial authority, “. . . we goin’ have to
test
it.”

He slipped two cigarette-papers from the attached packet, one of which he licked and placed alongside the other, slightly overlapping it.

“I use
two
of these papers,” he explained, concentrating on the work, “that give us a nice
slow
-burnin’ stick, you see.”

He selected a small segment from the pile and crumpled it, letting it sift down from his fingers into the cupped cigarette-paper; and then he carefully rolled it, licking his pink-white tongue slowly over the whole length of it after it was done. “I do that,” he said, “that seal it in good, you see.” And he held it up then for them both to see; it was much thinner than an ordinary cigarette, and still glittering with the wet of his mouth.

“That cost you
half-a-dollah
in
Dallas
,” he said, staring at it.

“Shoot,” said the boy, uncertain.

“Sho’ would,” said C.K., “. . . oh you git you three for a dollah, you
know
the man—’course that’s mighty good gage I’m talkin’ ’bout you pay half-a-dollah . . . that’s you
quality
gage. I don’t know how good quality this here is yet, you see.”

He lit it.

“Sho’
smell
good though, don’t it?”

Harold watched him narrowly as he wafted the smoking stick back and forth beneath his nose.

“
Taste
mighty good too! Shoot, I jest bet this is
ver’
good quality gage. You wantta taste of it?” He held it out.

“Naw, I don’t want none of it right now,” said Harold. He got up and walked over to the kindling-stack, and drew out from a stash there a package of Camels; he lit one, returned the pack to its place, and came back to sit opposite C.K. again.

“Yeah,”
said C.K. softly, gazing at the thin cigarette in his hand, “I feel this gage awready . . . this is
fine.
”

“What does it feel like?” asked Harold.

C.K. had inhaled again, very deeply, and was holding his breath, severely, chest expanded like a person who is learning to float, his dark brow slightly knit in the awareness of actually
working
at it physically.

“It feel
fine
,” he said at last, smiling.

“How come it jest made me
sick
that time?” asked the boy.

“Why
I
tole you, Hal’,” said C.K. impatiently, “ ’cause you tried to fight
against
it, that’s why . . . you tried to
fight
that gage, so it jest make you
sick!
Sho’, that was
good
gage that ole Mex had.”

“Shoot, all I felt, ’fore I got sick, was jest right
dizzy.
”

C.K. had taken another deep drag and was still holding it, so that now when he spoke, casually but without exhaling, it was from the top of his throat, and his voice sounded odd and strained:

“Well, that’s ’cause you
mind
is young an’
unformed,
you see . . . that gage jest come into you mind an’
cloud
it over!”

“My
mind?
” said Harold.

“Sho’, you
brain!
” said C.K. in a whispery rush of voice as he let out the smoke. “
You
brain is young an’
unformed,
you see . . . that smoke come in, it got nowhere to go, it jest
cloud
you young brain over!”

Harold flicked his cigarette a couple of times.

“It’s as good as any dang nigger-brain I guess,” he said after a minute.

“Now boy, don’t
mess
with me,” said C.K., frowning, “. . . you ast me somethin’ an’ I tellin’ you.
You
brain is young an’ un-
formed
. . . it’s all
smooth,
you brain, smooth as that piece of shoe-leather. That smoke jest come in an’ cloud it over!” He took another drag. “Now you take a
full-growed
brain,” he said in his breath-holding voice, “it
ain’t
smooth—it’s got all
ridges
in it, all over, go this way an’ that. Shoot, a man know what he doin’ he have that smoke runnin’
up
one ridge an’
down
the other! He control his high, you see what I mean, he don’t fight against it. . . .” His voice died away in the effort of holding breath and speaking at the same time—and, after exhaling again, he finished off the cigarette in several quick little drags, then broke open the butt with lazy care and emptied the few remaining bits from it back onto the pile.
“Yeah . . .”
he said, almost inaudibly, an absent smile on his lips.

Harold sat or half reclined, though somewhat stiffly, supporting himself with one arm, just staring at C.K. for a moment before he shifted about a little, flicking his cigarette. “Shoot,” he said, “I jest wish you’d tell me what it
feels
like, that’s all.”

C.K., though he was sitting cross-legged now with his back fairly straight against the side of the shed, gave the appearance of substance wholly without bone, like a softly-filled sack that has slowly, imperceptibly sprawled and found its final perfect contour, while his head lay back against the shed, watching the boy out of half-closed eyes. He laughed.

“Boy, I done
tole
you,” he said quietly, “it feel
good.
”

“Well, that ain’t nothin’, dang it,” said Harold, almost angrily, “
I awready
feel good!”

“Uh-huh,” said C.K. with dreamy finality.

“Well, I
do
, god-dang it,” said Harold, glaring at him hatefully.

“That’s right,” said C.K., nodding, closing his eyes, and they were both silent for a few minutes, until C.K. looked at the boy again and spoke, as though there had been no pause at all: “But you don’t feel as good now as you do at
Christmastime
though, do you? Like when right after you daddy give you that new Winchester? An’ then you don’t feel as
bad
as that time he was whippin’ you for shootin’ that doe with it neither, do you? Yeah. Well now that’s how much difference they
is
, you see, between that cigarette you got in you hand an’ the one I jest put out! Now that’s what I tellin’
you.”

“Shoot,” said Harold, flicking his half-smoked Camel and then mashing it out on the ground, “you’re crazy.”

C.K. laughed. “Sho’ I is,” he said.

They fell silent again, C.K. appearing almost asleep, humming to himself, and Harold sitting opposite, frowning down to where his own finger traced lines without pattern in the dirt-floor of the shed.

“Where we gonna keep this stuff at, C.K.?” he demanded finally, his words harsh and reasonable, “we can’t jest leave it sittin’ out like this.”

C.K. seemed not to have heard, or perhaps simply to consider it without opening his eyes; then he did open them, and when he leaned forward and spoke, it was with a fresh and remarkable cheerfulness and clarity:

“Well, now the first thing we got to do is to
clean
this gage. We got to git them
seeds
outta there an’ all them little branches. But the
ver’
first thing we do . . .” and he reached into the pile, “is to take some of this here
flower
, these here
ver’
small leaves, an’ put them off to the side. That way you got you
two
kinds of gage, you see—you got you a
light
gage an’ a
heavy
gage.”

C.K. started breaking off the stems and taking them out, Harold joining in after a while; and then they began crushing the dry leaves with their hands.

“How we ever gonna git all them dang seeds outta there?” asked Harold.

“Now I show you a
trick
about that,” said C.K., smiling and leisurely getting to his feet. “Where’s that pilly-cover at?”

He spread the pillowcase flat on the ground and, lifting the newspaper, dumped the crushed leaves on top of it. Then he folded the cloth over them and kneaded the bundle with his fingers, pulverizing it. After a minute of this, he opened it up again, flat, so that the pile was sitting on the pillowcase now as it had been before on the newspaper.

“You hold on hard to that end,” he told Harold, and he took the other himself and slowly raised it, tilting it, and agitating it. The round seeds started rolling out of the pile, down the taut cloth and onto the ground. C.K. put a corner of the pillowcase between his teeth and held the other corner out with one hand; then, with his other hand, he tapped gently on the bottom of the pile, and the seeds poured out by the hundreds, without disturbing the rest.

“Where’d you learn that at, C.K.?” asked Harold.

“Shoot, you got to know you business you workin’ with
this
plant,” said C.K., “. . . waste our time pickin’ out them ole seeds.”

He stood for a moment looking around the shed. “Now we got to have us somethin’ to
keep
this gage in—we got to have us a
box
, somethin’ like that, you see.”

“Why can’t we jest keep it in that?” asked Harold, referring to the pillowcase.

C.K. frowned. “Naw we can’t
keep
it in that,” he said, “. . . keep it in that like ole sacka turnip . . . we got to git us somethin’—a nice little
box
, somethin’ like that, you see. How ’bout one of you empty shell-boxes? You got any?”

“They ain’t big enough,” said Harold.

C.K. resumed his place, sitting and slowly leaning back against the wall, looking at the pile again.

“They sho’ ain’t, is they,” he said, happy with that fact.

“We could use two or three of  ’em,” Harold said.

“Wait a minute now,” said C.K., “we talkin’ here, we done forgit about this
heavy
gage.” He laid his hand on the smaller pile, as though to reassure it. “One of them shell-boxes do fine for that—an’ I
tell
you what we need for this
light
gage now I think of it . . . is one of you momma’s quart
fruit-jars.
”

“Shoot, I can’t fool around with them dang jars, C.K.,” said the boy.

C.K. made a little grimace of impatience.

“
You
momma ain’t begrudge you one of them fruit-jars, Hal’—she
ast
you ’bout it, you jest say it got
broke!
You say you done
use
that jar put you fishin’-minners in it!
Hee-hee
. . . she won’t even wanta
see
that jar no more, you tell her
that.
”

“I ain’t gonna fool around with them jars, C.K.”

C.K. sighed and started rolling another cigarette.

“I jest goin’ twist up a few of these sticks now,” he explained, “an’ put them off to the side.”

“When’re you gonna smoke some of that other?” asked Harold.

“What, that
heavy
gage?” said C.K., raising his eyebrows in surprise at the suggestion. “Shoot,
that
ain’t no workin’-hour gage there, that’s you
Sunday
gage . . . oh you mix a little bit of that into you light gage now and then you
feel
like it—but you got to be sure ain’t nobody goin’ to mess with you ’fore you turn
that
gage full on. ’Cause you jest wanta lay back then an’ take it
easy”
He nodded to himself in agreement with this, his eyes intently watching his fingers work the paper. “You see . . . you don’t
swing
with you heavy gage, you jest
goof .
. . that’s what you call that. Now you light gage, you
swing
with you light gage . . . you control that gage, you see. Say a man have to go out an’
work,
why he able to
enjoy
that work! Like now you seen me turn on some of this light gage, didn’t you? Well, I may have to go out with you
daddy
a little later on an’ lay that fence-wire, or work with my post-hole digger. Why I able to
swing
with my post-hole digger with my light gage on. Sho’, that’s you
sociable
gage, you light gage is—this here other, well, that’s what you call you
thinkin’
gage. . . . Hee-hee! Shoot, I wouldn’t even wanta
see
no post-hole digger I turn
that
gage full on!”

He rolled the cigarette up, slowly, licking it with great care.

“Yeah,” he said half-aloud, “. . . ole fruit-jar be
fine
for this light gage.” He chuckled. “That way we jest look right in there, know how much we got on hand at all time.”

“We got
enough
I reckon,” said Harold, a little sullenly it seemed.

“Sho’ is,” said C.K., “more’n the law allows at that.”

“Is it against the law then sure enough, C.K.?” asked Harold in eager interest, “. . . like that Mex’can kept sayin’ it was?” C.K. gave a soft laugh.

“I jest reckon it
is
,” he said, “. . . it’s against all kinda law—what we got here is. Sho’, they’s one law say you can’t have
none
of it, they put you in the jailhouse you do . . . then they’s another law say they catch you with more than
this
much . . .” he reached down and picked up a handful to show, “well, then you in
real
trouble! Sho’, you got more than
that
why they say: ‘Now that man got more of that gage than he
need
for his personal use, he must be
sellin’
it!’ Then they say you a
pusher.
That’s what they call that, an’ boy I mean they put you
way
back in the jailhouse then!” He gave Harold a severe look. “I don’t wanta tell you you business, nothin’ like that, Hal’, but if I was you I wouldn’t let on ’bout this to
nobody—
not to you frien’ Big Law’ence or
any
of them people.”