CHAPTER TWO (5) Mitzi's dream continued...

After all, he was part of an organization now, and his job had to be done.

All Mitzi was given on Katz was a minilla folder with a brief history and his recent whereabouts. Katz was originally inducted into NORML in ’74 and worked his way up to the title of Officer, apparently in charge of District 11. The memo said, explicitly, that Katz “was known to be a force to be reckoned with in his day”, but had recently diverged from NORML’s game plan. All the other Officers back at the base claimed that he “really was something,” but that he had tragically fallen off; he had become mad. Mitzi’s mission was thus created, and the aim was to get Katz in one piece – and if in one piece, perhaps even alive.

And so he was informed of exact proceedings regarding the mission early yesterday morning. Procedurally, he had to be checked by a physician, which, Mitzi mused, was an odd experience. An odd experience, indeed. But it wasn’t just the physician, it was the entire event that made him squirm in his seat on remembering it. The two women, dressed completely in black, who welcomed him into the office had been watching TV, and one, who was many years older than the other, stared at him with almost sympathetic eyes from time to time, probably during commercials. Oh quite an odd feeling it gave him! He could remember rather vividly her cold stare that stuck to him and penetrated his flesh, her gaunt eyes embedded in an emaciated face; her cheekbones protruding from her skull casting shadows onto the crevices and wrinkles in her skin. The horror!

But they went on watching television. The younger one was a tad more attractive, but it must have been the flashing light thrown from the television that gave her that insensitive look, as well. But dim rooms with fluorescent light never did a woman any good. He blamed it on the light.

After about fifteen minutes, the older more grotesque of the two raised herself from her eternal seat and ushered him into the back room. For a doctor’s office, the room seemed steril but grimy: all the nooks were filled with grunge. Sometimes mops couldn’t reach such crannies. He blamed it on the mops, but reckoned that the mops simply needed to be thrown out and new mops purchased to replace them. Yes, it must have been the mops.

The physician walked in almost immediately and starkly contrasted the receptionists from the front room. He was carrying his token clipboard and a stethoscope draped carelessly round his neck onto a standard doctor’s coat. The rest of the visit had gone pretty much as Mitzi expected, however, his impression of the two women was still with him as he exited the car. He had be warned that there were two accomplices to greet him at his destination, District 11, whom had been waiting for his arrival.

CHAPTER TWO (4) Mitzi's dream

The Bellie, a cruising mustang, as his cheuffer called it, began to heave it’s steel –framed body up the busy street. The wind was calm, and beginning down the street he was bewildered. Things looked oddly obscure tonight, perhaps it was the lack of heat ripples ascending from the concrete; it made the night look too still, too dark. I have been here before, thought Mitzi, but everything is so dark it is hard to tell. Regardless, he laid back and relaxed in the seat cushion and let his mind wander. The Indians must have been mighty pissed that we took their land, he thought, but that was the way the world worked.

All places had at one point been taken over, right? Could the road he was driving on possibly be the exception? Doubtful. Once, a Native American walked on this very earth, the earth now covered by concrete and asphalt, rubber tires, and a retro steel-framed mustang. A beautiful mustang it was! How glad those Indians must be to have things like Mustangs and concrete and asphalt to drive them on. That sucks though about the smallpox and the firewater… well you win some, you lose some. After all, we brought civilization and women like Amanda, and apple pie and Levi’s and… what am I thinking? My parents were still in Ukraine living like paupers when old Chrissy Colombo came over… what was the saying? In 1492, Colombus sailed the ocean blue? That had –

“We have arrived, sir.”

“Ah, yes.” Mitzi pulled a twenty from his pocket and handed it to the driver over the front seat.

His mission was clear: NORML had hired him on the low to salvage an insider of the operation – a Mr. Katz – and return him to their base in Los Angeles. Mitzi was possibly up for Mr. Katz’s position, and upon learning that Katz had gone psychotic because of various reasons, Mitzi had last week pushed his name up the agency’s ladder until the VP got wind of his it. He was promoted and sent on this mission, and he was positive beyond doubt that this was his chance to prove himself. NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, since early 1970, had had its stingy voice in the public policy debate; claiming to represent “those Americans who smoke marijuana responsibly.” Recently, a more aggressive approach had been advocated by its private endorsers and the branch Mitzi was currently working for was thereby developed. He took his oath and began the grudging task of paperwork, “advertising assistance” as his seniors termed it (a euphemism for coffee-runner), and getting out on the street for public protests and so forth. He had shown his loyalty, and three years after his oath, he became a senior himself and was briefed on the upcoming mission in the newly developed and highly classified branch, christened “Project Violet.” The name had been too classified for even Mitzi, but he let that bygone go and aimed all of his attention towards Katz.

 

CHAPTER TWO (3)

Somehow, he felt clearer, and cleaner. His thoughts began to order, and he found himself perfunctorily exiting the apartment out into the light of day. He had his weed, which was exactly what was intended of the visit. He felt suddenly thrown upon the blistering pavement lining the Mile – it was a completely different world. No, that was just the pot. To his right, there was a scuffle occurring between a Mexican man and woman – their voices were raised and the woman’s arms flailed wildly about her as she spoke. Mitzi could barely understand them due their the distance, but they were apparently speaking coherent English, and he heard expletives among other slurs. Abandoning his place in front of Squirley’s door, Mitzi continued walking towards his car fearing that it might be stolen or tagged. One never knew on the Mile. But the woman’s arms were flailing so wildly that he had to look, it was too entertaining. The golden cross that laid between her cleavage glinted and flashed in the sun causing Mitzi to squint. Quite annoying. The heat waves from the asphalt rippled their image so terribly, that it seemed the two must fly away from each other at once.  

The man held out a bill. She stopped the wailing and cursing, and Matt could see her contemplating. Her mascara was heavy, so heavy that from a distance her eyes looked but two horrendous pupils bulging from her abnormally hollow face. She seemed not a day older than fifteen, and so her legs and arms seemed emaciated in the current circumstance.  Ah, thought Matt, a prostitute, of course. How perfect. The woman then began to caress the man and lead him down an alleyway. Losing his attention, Matt entered his car: No tagging, though one hubcap had been pried loose in an effort to steal it. That could be fixed.

The hit he had taken was wearing off. Mitzy saw the man and his apparent neighbor again. The whole damn scene seemed staged, wistful, like a camera-man had expertly panned the entire complex. Mitzy felt desecration creep under his skin again and quickly slammed the door. The thought of the woman – the girl, really - disturbed him, but that was just how it was on the Mile. What folly. He smoothed his hair with automatic hand, and put a CD in the player. He’d be back next week.

But in Mitzi, Ryan instilled the thought of growing weed. “I wish I knew someone who grew” resounded in Mitzi’s head. And here he was today, fixing his eyes on those two wonderful vessels nearly a year and a half later. But enough with nostalgia, now was the time to plan – preparation was key. He laid out the sheerers and canisters in which the tiny little blossoms tomorrow would be deposited. Tomorrow, they would find themselves into carefully weighed baggies, the scale (of which he’d stolen from his 10^th grade chemistry class) sat with its electrical cord neatly wound beside the sheerers. All of his utensils – Mitzi, afflicted somewhat with a tad of obsessive compulsiveness – were arranged concisely in the order in which they would be drawn on tomorrow. Oh tomorrow! Yes, tomorrow was the day of recognition, the day in which his life had culminated. How beautiful.

He took another hit. It had been a long day and his eyelids were heavier than he had expected.

It was on these nights, when he had so little weed, that he would dream of Amanda before falling asleep. She was a transfer from Denver, and moved down here to attend the University in order to obtain her bachelor’s in theology. A bright girl of twenty-two, Amanda had grown up in a small town outside of Denver – a suburb packed with symmetrically grided streets and children destined to be loitering heirs of city directors – and, wanting to break free of her father’s also symmetrical Christian-reform ideals, decided to move once she was of age. Her father, of course, was heart-broken by this fact and removed himself from her life almost completely. The first hint of spite began to well in the both of them, but, the guilt that so often accompanies a father in addition to a Priest, allowed him to help her financially. Thus, Amanda had situated herself in a moderately priced one-bedroom apartment near the University campus and as far away from Miracle Mile as possible. She figured – it being the dregs and impiety of the city – she might only have to pass through the Mile three or four times a week to facilitate her making a little extra pocket money at Corrotto’s.

It was at Corrotto’s that Mitzi first caught site of Amanda SevenBarge. It was this moment in which his impervious obsession began, but so sadly juxtaposed with its vanity. Amanda was quite literally Matt’s antithesis in every way: she had neither smoked marijuana or taken a sip of alcohol (ruling out the fact that the Blood of Christ was alcohol) and claimed never to have wanted to. She depended almost entirely on her father financially and Matt hadn’t spoken to his parents for years, justifying this fact by declaring he had simply “become bored with them.” She, on the other hand, spoke to her father once or twice a week as a token of love, but really as a ploy to keep the flow of money constant. Plus – her father had ignited in her passion for religion and to him she owed more than one phone call a week. They both seemed in two entirely different worlds in which neither of them could even remotely comprehend the other’s.

The most manifested of differences was Amanda’s virginity. She was not a shy girl, this Amanda, and she certainly let it be known to the front of the house where her values stood: in complete and utter chaste. No nicotine, no weed, no alcohol, only the occasional over-the-counter painkiller, and for goodness sakes (never say the Lord’s name in vain!) no sex. No sex. No sex. Her prudence, “come fire and brimstone” will never retract, less she meet the man that might take her hand. “And he himself must be a virgin,” she would repeat endlessly. And Mitzi was certainly no virgin.

CHAPTER TWO (2)

He procured his small glass pipe and began to load it with the last bit of weed he had in a Carmex container. Mersh, despicable. The worst weed there was; made you giggle. No, he needed his batch to be ready – there were too many injustices going on in his life, God! He thought, If I could just smoke some hydro. He took a hit off the small pipe. Well, it’s better than nothing… at least this mersh didn’t have paper clips in it.

A while back, Mitzi had entered Squirley’s apartment on Miracle Mile, with  hesitation of course for it was dangerous to be white in that neighborhood unless you were Toddy. The day was filthy, but then, days and weeks, months and years always seemed to be filthy on the Mile. Mexican prostitutes, fresh from south of the border always seemed to settle on its every corner and their Josés were forever close by. Regardless of environment, the aim at all cost was to secure some kind bud, but if all else failed, some mersh.

Mitzi knocked and cautiously scanned the apartment complex: a black man speaking to his “neighbor” – which he kept calling him his neighbor for some reason – and shaking the other’s hand the whole while. Matt could see money in his shake. Children crying desperately, Crack babies, no doubt, he thought. These were the dregs, the ass of man-kind in which only destitution and addiction spawned like a viral infection. He suddenly felt the urge to shower, if not, at least to wash his hands.

“Who is it?” yelled a voice from inside the door. The peep hole had been turned inside out – probably some hair-brained scheme by Toddy. Matt peered into it curiously and a colossal brown eye appeared and disappeared. Through the cracked window, the same ordinarily-sized eye appeared.

“Would you mind letting me in, Squirley?”

“Password, please.” There was no damned password, but Mitzi played his game to get out of the bedlam of the complex and into the probable fire of the studio.

“Uhhh… Kind?”

“Enter.”

Matt stepped into the filthy apartment, disregarding the fact that Toddy was asleep on the fold-in bed. The carpet had probably never been cleaned, it seemed to be a shag from the seventies or even earlier. Probably fairer at its installation, now it resembled the oily brunette of the Mexican prostitutes, but much, much older. The smell of Scwampagne wafted through the stale air, and Matt felt nauseous. It was as if the infection was seeping through the cracked window and slowly consuming them, too. By god, how did they look so clean at work?

“Mitzi – I could only score some mersh. I hope you don’t mind.”

Not at this point, he was too dry.

“Naw, its cool.”

“Its just that everyone’s dry, even Pruge. Apparently there’s a war in some Mexican border towns and the Feds are cracking down. So I’m gonna have to steep you, man. Sorry, but I’m not even making a profit. I wish I knew someone who grew.”

“Yeah, me too.” Said Matt.

Squirley handed Mitzi the plastic casing of a cigarette box full of mersh, and Mitzi methodically put it to his nose. Toddy had started to snore.

“Yeah, its mersh alright.”

“Sorry, dog. It’s the best I could do.”

Ryan seized the tiny back and began to burn the plastic to seal out the air. Mitzi noticed the paperclip at the bottom of the bag and a few strands of brunette hair.

“You measure that?” Mitzi asked.

“Sure did.” What a piece of shit, that Squirley was, weighing in a paper clip! But Mitzi refrained from speaking; the sooner he got out of here, the better.

After Ryan sealed the bag, he produced from his pocket a similar bag and ripped it open. “You wanta taste? It’s the same stuff.”

He did. They smoked. It hit him like a small ton of bricks. Mersh could sometimes do that. 

CHAPTER TWO (1)

And so, nothing was resolved, but that was normal. Todd and Ryan gazed at the board in awe, neither of them pondering on what to do about the debt, nor about how to start selling Mitzi’s crop, nor about anything much for that matter – in reality, they knew very little what was going on in each other’s seemingly tiny mind and that was okay with them. They seemed both alone in a world of misdemeanor and felony: one living complacently through life, drifting on a thin, anarchic breeze accompanied by the after taste of Schwampagne and marsala, while the other forlorn in a jungle of skepticism deserted by mankind, believing himself better than the rest of the useless automatons that surrounded him. They floated in that unstable air together, yet so far, far apart.

“We should just smoke it all, Squirley.”

“You baffoon.”

 

CHAPTER TWO: Mitzi’s Harvest and Reality

 

Mitzi walked into his one-story house that evening after an intolerable day of work. Not much money tonight, just like last night, and the night before. He was always broke. His roommates had already retired to their rooms, and he felt like an island in the midst of a darkening sea; cold, futile, white… cold and white. I feel white, he thought, ahhh to understand symbolism.

Anyways, first thing’s first! I must check on my babies.

Matt entered his room and the smell hit him immediately: Mmmm, a skunk. No, a skunk in a wondrous forest – a pastoral scene of black and white flashing in a forest of green and oh the aroma! Nothing could go wrong here, not in my forest, thought Matt. He sat down between the budding weed plants (weed trees rather) and tenderly took a mister to their trunks. He knew paternity like no one else; how tenderly he would mist the trunks, how painstakingly he would adjust their photon intake. No soil for my precious Mary Jane, instead the two plants hung grotesquely suspended from the ceiling in oversized hydro-tomato vessels. The whole get-up resembled an engine: from the top hung the canister filled with the marijuana’s lifeblood (water – only filtered), but there was no suck, squeeze, pop, or wheeze. Rather, it was an organic machine in complex and deliberate flux – the lights would slowly dim as the day wore on, set to a perfect timing in congruence with the daily patterns of the sun mid-spring in Southern India – only the perfect climate for cultivating cannabis sativa.

At night, he would fall asleep to the gentle hum of the drip drip, a small suction noise, the flow of water subtly gurgled against its will through a cylinder, the wondrous workings of Nature in his very bedroom. The day was nearing when harvesting would begin, then one might see Matt’s oblong figure in silhouette – his almost monstrous figure by their pseudo-illumination. Yes, the harvest would begin soon. 

CHAPTER ONE (10)

That night at 930, the duo sat in front of the Board. A piece of cork board with a rough frame hung perilously on paper thin walls. The damned Mexicans were fighting still, or maybe they were partying. One could never tell with Mexicans. The Board was divided into three uneven columns, each column consisting of sticky-notes. Some seemed ancient. The Board required order to be effective, but grasped onto only a tiny bit – even the writing on the sticky notes were illegible and smudged. However, it was enough to get the job done, and Shirley and Toddy currently stared at it as if in awe of its clout. It was their filing cabinet; their means of control; their input and output.

“Did Hugo pay up the other day?” Asked Ryan.

“He gave me half.”

“Where’s the money, then?”

“I dunno. Maybe I spent it.”

Shirley crossed out Hugo’s total and entered the new total – half of the former amount. “Make sure you get that from him tomorrow, you hear? I ain’t no charity.”

Todd sipped his Schwampagne submissively. It would be a great day to get trashed, he thought.

The Board had grown throughout the years into a great web: sticky notes with names scribbled on them represented people and the amount owed for various types of weed. “Nothing was to be advanced” was Ryan’s maxim, but he always let things slip. The first rough column was comprised of people who owed. The middle column was for what he and Todd owed the dealers higher up than themselves; the ones they bought from in large quantities, namely Gato (a man who spoke little English and had lost his left pinky to frostbite while coming across the border from god-knows-what small town in Mexico; They called him Gato because he told them, “I make like cat. I lost a life in desert) and Pruge (A Russian born mafia wanna-be from the upper-north side who’d made it big in the upmarket but realized he could scam the up and coming drug dealers). And the third column, which was always greater in its total, was what Ryan and Todd smoked themselves, therefore, the money they lost. The utter madness of the Board made it hell to interpret.

“We owe quite a bit to Pruge. Whatdyasay we tell him about Mitzi’s batch and try to make a deal with him?”

“That guy always creeps me out, Squirley. Don’t you get the feeling that he’s gonna hit you over the head with his bottle of vodka and shank you with some home-grown Russian spear or something? I don’t like that guy. I don’t like him at all.”

“Well what about Gato?”

Todd mused on this idea. Gato could barely speak English, and dealing with him was hard enough. Plus Gato always wanted to party – “You like to party? Party wit me – I give you weed free homes.” No Gato couldn’t be dealt with.

“Why don’t we just sell the weed that Mitzi gives us and take our cut. Then try to – “

“But wholesale means money fast.”

“I know. But who the hell cares, anyways. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

“No we don’t.”

“Why you in such a hurry, Squirley?”

            “You never know when Gato’s gonna be caught, or Mitzi, or one of us, and then the whole thing is gonna be exposed. I don’t want to be in their system Todd: the fingerprinting, the records. Hell naw, dog. That ain’t  for me.”

CHAPTER ONE (9)

After Mitzi’s discourse, the conversation lead to the normal chatter. More about Todd’s whereabouts in the late nineties, which server was a whore (“No,” said Tori, “a whore does it for money. You’re thinking of a slut, obviously”). Nothing relevant was usually said while the servers endlessly waited for tables. Often it was a complaint about the horrible management and the lack of advertising for the restaurant. That had to be the reason why no one was coming in to eat tonight. Sometimes judgments on the few incoming customers; the glare from Vanessa when a couple with an accent came in towards the hostess saying, “Do NOT seat these people in my section.” The well-worn hostess was sensitive to this, and Vanessa received no foreigners. It was a common Tuesday evening – easy-going and useless.

But that was not on Squirley’s mind today. Upon hearing word that Mitzi’s first batch was ready to be sold, he immediately found Toddy amongst the sea of servers. They lined themselves next to the entrance, in case fate should send a lucky server a set of customers or two.

They look like white pigeons sitting on a telephone wire, Squirley thought to himself and chuckled, Idiots. And there was Todd, in the center, talking about some useless mischief he got into last night. Ryan had heard enough of the story and stole him away from the line-up. He would lay out the plans for Toddy and later on that night they would consult the Board. There would be error, for sure, but Ryan and Todd would make an awesome duo nonetheless.

“Guess what,” said Ryan under his breath.

Todd already knew.

“When do we start?”

“Tonight after our shift. Matt said its primo…”

“Oh shit! Kind or hydro?”

“Hydro.”

Toddy tried to focus for a moment. That could mean into the thousands. Payday.

“What cut do we get?” A good question which took Squirley by surprise – Toddy normally sold weed for the enjoyment.

“I dunno,” he replied, “like 25 percent.”

“Why are we whispering? Squirley my man, we ain’t gotta hide this shit. Let’s tell the world! Remember – the world’s a stage, and we are merely men and women selling weed ontop of it.”

“Ha. Only you could quote Shakespeare while talking drug deals.”

“To be or not to be that is…”

Squirley gazed through Toddy. When he got into these moods, generally what Todd felt claimed was “Enlightenment”, Squirley would cut out the verbal Toddy. Rather, he would drift away into later dealings or women, mostly dealings though, and wait for Toddy to finish. Todd must have quoted at least six plays, some in which he thought was Shakespeare, some actually Shakespeare, and took them all out of context. Most of the clichés he had been quoting weren’t even said correctly. Ryan had taken many course in Shakespeare, his major being English, and had gotten to the last semester of his collegiant career only to drop out; the bursur had gotten hold of his credit card.

“… like an Othello without his occupa-“

“Shut up already. Jesus Christ you’re obnoxious dog."

“It’s what I do, Ry – It’s just what I do.”

CHAPTER ONE (8)

Without any hint of caution, Todd picked up the precious mixture and brought it to his nose like a fine wine.

“Mmm, hm.” He said pensively.

“Hint of the tropics; must be…” he hesitated, looking for the correct words, “yes, as I thought. Pineapple, and cherry, perhaps muddled together… Ah yes,” he breathed deeply, “The aroma is a bit oakey. Seems to have been aged for, say, no less than three full hours.” Todd tilted the entire stainless steel pot until his head was almost entirely inside. “And the defining factor! Yes – a two-thousand and nine purple haze from the Hermosillo region of central Mexico! Hence, the deep brown and almost green color!” This was all matter-of-factly, of course.

Toddy drank the mixture, finally, for he could tell that his being a conessiouer was beginning to get on Squirley’s nerves.

“The after taste, you ask, my good man Squirley? Complex, with a robust finish.”

“How do ya feel, though?”

“Complex and robust.”

“Give me some.”

And so schwampagne had been created. And so it was the main staple of Todd and Squirley’s “nights on the town,” which usually ended in Toddy going to jail. But he would always make it to work the next day, always sneaking glass jars full of schwampagne. It was a miracle that Toddy could function at work. Schwampage also constituted Toddy’s affliction for what he called “mischief”. Bar fights, petty theft, prostitution, and loitering were his main offenses of mischief. And Ryan would follow along on Toddy’s escapades, generally deceiving people into thinking that Toddy was really not out to get anyone. And Toddy really wasn’t out to get anyone. He was just a good guy who couldn’t think practically, even when he was sober. Hence, the creation of Schwampagne.

Squirley was not the opposite of Toddy by most means, but he resented the fact that Todd would let himself get into the business of a bank account. A self-proclaimed “paranoid,” Squirley would often bring up the fact that Toddy let them get his numbers. The dreaded numbers. Weren’t we all just dreaded numbers. Not me, Ryan thought. They won’t get mine. And why? Because in all this business helter helter-skelter, you never know when they are going to make a mistake and let out the only thing that defines a person; the only thing that makes one a person, that makes a human being. They might look like they have all their things in order, but really, they didn’t. Especially the banks, especially the government. It was bad enough having a social security number that anyone could just use to become someone else. Though Squirley hated this system, no, that he hated the system, he felt that if he had to live in it, he wanted his numbers kept safe – kept as far away from any muddling from the government. And things didn’t always go as planned, and you never knew when an entire identity theft would ruin your life.

So he was paranoid. The system had flaws. By some chance of events, schawmpagne had been created out of thin, chaotic air. If that thin air could so easily create Schwapagne, could it not also take his numbers? No one was safe from it. No one. 

A BREAK FROM RITTOS

I thought that I might take a little break from my Rittos. To be honest, they are simply getting on my nerves. So, I decided to take some time and work on an interesting application essay that I might need for law school or a master's program if possible. It isn't much, but I think that it gets the point across. Of course I haven't climbed Mount Everest; but it alludes to the fact that I like to mountain climb or at least wish to. Of course I haven't yet had a child, but I know that it will be one of those life changing events that I will have in my life (or maybe twice!):

I’ve climbed Mt. Everest; I got into the Harvard law school last year; I walked Che Guevara’s route through Argentina, Chile and, Peru; I met the Queen of England and got to shake her hand; I have been through childbirth; I know what it is like to be content; I know what it is like to read Shakespeare and understand; I have been in love for years; I ski every winter in the Alps; I have resuscitated a man; I have given to the Humane Society; I have walked with a llama in the Grand Canyon; I have photographed Niagra Falls; I have seen the destruction in Jerusalem’s markets; I have witnessed a miracle.

I have watched my own flesh and blood grow from a single cell; I have buried my father; I have prayed to God; I know what it means to be poor; I know what it means to be rich without money; I have seen the African bushmen; I have quoted Hemingway correctly; I have mastered English; I can “get around” in a foreign country; I have stayed in hostels; I have experienced wine from a vineyard in France (particularly Cabernet Sauvignon); I gave my shoes in the Holocaust; I starved during the potato famine; I knew the Czar Katherine; I have repented my sins.

I came from Germany; I came from Poland; I came from the Ukraine; I came from Ireland; I can speak Russian; I can drink whiskey; I can drink vinegar when there is nothing else; I can throw a left hook like you wouldn’t believe; I can go without food for 3 weeks; I can go without water for 3 days; I can go without air for 3 minutes; I am human; I am American; I am socialist; I am conservative; I vote; I can make up my mind; I can make the Volcan sign; I can recite Beethoven’s 5^th on the piano; I can run a mile in 6 minutes; I can do anything I want.

I can see the future. 

CHAPTER ONE (7)

“Bye, guys.” He addressed his small assembly. Half were paying him some attention, Toddy was fully entranced with anything that dealt with drugs, and the rest were mindlessly gaping at the floor that was vacant of all but Mitzi’s first table of guests. One might have expected him to announce that “the buck stops here,” or even, “I have a dream.” And normally Matt might get one of those phrases in, or one similar to it during one of his orations. Toddy would never have understood the implications, the sheer irony of tacking that on to his speech, but some of the servers might. Many of the servers under 25 were attending the university, still many others were attending the local community colleges. And then there were some like Toddy, who never had a chance of education.

There were rumors that Toddy had spent some of his early twenties in the California State Prison, which Todd liked to call euphemistically for his own purposes “A Correctional Playground.” He would never fully divulge his whereabouts during his twenties, and so the front of the house treated the situation as a mystery; a mystery in which one’s own imagination would fill in the blanks about Todd’s young adulthood. Some said that he never quite left the “party” stage, some said that he’s taken too many hits of acid, which explained why he was a server at the age of 31. It also explained his perverse urges, sometimes spontaneously exposed at work, his proclivity to something called “schwampagne”, and other odd things.

Schwampagne was first concocted by Toddy in a bout of extreme alcohol and marijuana binging, which, in this case, last for about three days. The scene was Squirley’s house; a studio house in the middle of Miracle Mile (the hangout for the rogues and desperados) that could not have exceeded more than 450 square feet. Clothes strewn about the fold in bed, dirty dishes strew… well strewn everywhere, Toddy and Squirley took a rip from a bong that cost more than two-month’s rent. Squirley’s peach fuzz haircut had grown sloppy and greasy, which was extenuated by the tiny baby curls his father had passed down. His dark brown skin (his mother was white, his father black) was also patterned with miniscule beads of sweat that accumulated to smaller drops around his hairline. Toddy was also beading sweat, and both of them had cussed the broken air conditioner in unison until finally submitting to the fact that yelling at it might not fix anything.

Ryan had a forty of Mickey’s in the palm of one hand, trying to balance it. In other other rested the bong.

“Yo, Ry. Give me the bong, it’s time for the smokin’ to begin.” They had been smoking for just under three days.

“I feel ya’, dog.” He passed the bong across the fold in bed with clothes weighting it down. The vertical blinds were slightly opened, enough to let the light fall on the clothes in increments. It was afternoon. There were Mexicans speaking Spanish outside in heightened voices. From what little Spanish Squirley knew, he could tell that one of them had screwed the other’s girlfriend and a fight was about to ensue. They perpetually fight about this girl, every day, 430 pm, thought Squirley.

“You got any more bud?” Asked Toddy.

“Todd, you know we’re out. We’ve been smoking for like three days now. I spent my whole damn paycheck.”

“Oh, yeah.” Todd took a hit. Tastes like Pinesol.

Suddenly, Todd stole the lighter away from the bowl. He had obviously touched his finger to the metal. The bong went flying, the weed in the bowl methodically sprung out and landed clear across the room into the kitchen. Earlier, the two had devised a plan to use the last of the everclear, rum, and fruitpunch to formulate an impromptu Jungle Juice and decided to put it into a large croc pot, for lack of anything better.

There was the clunk, then the sound of air bubbles exiting the caverns of the nugget of kind bud. Ryan and Todd caught eyes for a moment wondering what they were going to do next. Before Todd could explain the chaotic act of fate, Ryan clasped his large hands around Todd’s pudgy but tiny neck in comparison.

“What the hell were you thinking?!”

“Ry – “ He was gurgling.

“We ain’t got no more weed, you useless sonofabitch! You fowl piece of perverted, smelly, cock-sucking, crap!” Ryan loosened his grip on poor Todd.

All was quiet. All was still. Toddy and Squirley listened to the last bubbles departing from the weed in the mixture. The final exodus, thought Squirley. The final exodus.

And thus, Schwampagne was created. An accidental progession of events led to what Toddy called “the greatest invention of the 21^st century.” Toddy coined the word schwampagne because the mixture, once settled with its alcoholic contents and marijuana, turned a murkey  (and often chunky) brownish-green color. The two, at the moment decided, out of desperation, to try the brew. Squirley was apprehensive at first:

“I dunno, man. It looks a little too weird for me. Why don’t you try it…”

                  These were the words Todd had been waiting to hear.

CHAPTER ONE (6)

O, to live in that reality where weed didn’t exist! And yeah, I realize you said Mexico, Toddy, with the insinuation that the same would happen here if we instituted the same policy. It's the same "Oh! The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" bullshit America has been fed for decades now. There's only so long people are going to continue swallowing that sorta flawed thinking before they start looking for another direction to solve the problem. Sorry to break it to ya pal, but less and less of us in THIS century are interested in hearing these sad attempts at fear-mongering. Drugs are in America. Just like drugs are in Mexico. People in Mexico, like people in America, Canada, China, Europe, Australia, you get the point..; who want to use drugs will go ahead and use drugs. People who do not, make a choice not to. If heroin were legalized today would it make YOU want to use heroin? Use some common sense. I love this concept that a law abiding, free thinking adult is incapable of this caliber of decision making in their personal lives. Let's remove ALL personal responsibility from the lives of Americans. We want Uncle Sam to make all the decisions for us. What kind of America is this?
Go back to 1984.

“Mitzi, Mitzi, keep cool, man. You’re preaching to the quire.” Toddy said, throwing his hands up ready to be arrested. Toddy was an aging 30-something free-spirit, who spent most of his days in bed and most of his nights drinking himself into the delirium that we did live in the kind of world that Mitzi described. Then he would get up at 3 pm, smooth back the gargantuan cowlick, Conan O’Brien style, and head out to the bus station because he had received two extreme DUIs in the last year and would never own a car again. He was fine with that, who needs a car anyways when there is the wonderful world out there to experience. The kind of optimist that even Carlos on a bad day couldn’t bring down, Toddy was the permanent happy-go-lucky-installment at Corrotto’s.

“So what do you propose we do? Toddy here said Mexico legalized it and now they’re killing each other left and right. Mexicans aren’t any different than Americans when it comes to addiction.” Said one of the servers, his face shadowed by the perpetual darkness in the restaurant.

“That’s where we differ, my friend.” Matt put his finger up and pretended to orate, “You ever sold any herb to a Mexican? They’re like mangy old dogs – you feed ‘em once, and they keep coming back for more. That’s where people like me and Squirley come in and sell it to ‘em for double. Then they feel like they are getting’ ripped off – “

“But – “

“And then they always take out their knives and want to start something. See, they don’t have the instinct of an American. They can’t smell out the good from the bad weed, they don’t care if its mersh or kind bud. All they know is that they need some more. When I sell to a white person, they check out the goods, they want a taste. They act like business men, regardless of how bad they need it. With the Mexis, it’s always, ‘You got what I need hombre.’ ‘Yeah I got it. You want a taste?’ ‘Naw, man, I trust you.’ I hate to say it, but they trust me too, much.”

“Hey, Matt,” called a hostess from the hostess stand, “I just sat you.”

CHAPTER ONE (5)

In all of the schemes he’d conceived to make enough money to live – for certainly no one at Corrotto’s with the exception of a manager could make anywhere near enough to live – growing weed was the only one that had accomplished anything. If he didn’t smoke too much of it, a profit could be obtained. That was rare. But when Squirley got wind of Matt’s first successful attempt, Mitzi knew immediately that he would be making proceeds.
It was hard to tell which one of the self-proclaimed dealers actually consumed more, Squirley or Mitzi. Squirley, on a rough estimate, being at on the heavier side and at least 40 more pounds that Mitzi, probably could consume more based on sheer weight. One, however, absolutely had to take into account Mitzi’s resistance; Matt had been smoking for more than half of his entire life (about 12 years) at a rate of at least a gram a day. This, in the restaurant world, as well as popular urban America, was known as a “stoner.” Mitzi’s excuse always was, “well, you see… uh… I was gonna do it… and then I got high.” Of course he would never say this to a manager for that would be a death sentence. But perhaps that is what Mitzi wanted.
Mitzi had been smoking weed for so long, that he became a permanently stoned server; he could not function “properly” with out taking a hit, nor could he focus. Ironically, he would make more careless mistakes when he was sober – which wasn’t much. At lunch during a double shift, Mitzi would go out to his ‘91 white and perpetually broken Camry and produce a large glass bong, proceed to fill it with mineral water (only the best for Mitzi) and smoke his way back to the sanity that he protested “Corrotto’s continuously stole” from him. Squirley would join him occasionally. Mitzi would demonstrate the phenomenon of his generation: how do we get away. Matt embraced the answer: we get high. And so he did, and so did most of the servers, busers, hostesses, back of the house Mexicans…
“I learned how to take a rip from a bong in 1996, and ever since then I have managed to get high every day all day. Let’s see, that’s about… say… let’s just say more than a decade. Why would I want to quit?” Mitzi harangued the rest of the servers, which seemed like it would eventually turn into its normal rant. He would always leave out the fact that he grew it himself, sold it to Squirley wholesale, who would then distribute it in increments to the rest of the Rittos at one and a half times the cost, and then let Squirley take the blame if anything should go wrong. He continued:

CHAPTER ONE (4)

Matt appeared from the marble flooring and gazed at the board, seeing right through Squirley.

                  “What up, Mitzi?” Ryan sometimes called Matt Mitzi. The Mexicans, one day, realizing that Matt’s name somehow sounded similar to Mitzi, a south Mexican born well-renown fashion designer who may or may not have been a cross-dresser, transsexual, or at least homosexual, decided that they would get a few cheap laughs for a couple weeks over the ordeal. Matt brushed it off, normally. He figured the Mexicans weren’t worth the trouble, and besides, he was a nice guy.

                  “Eh,” Matt shrugged and waited for Carlos to walk back into the office, “I’m actually too sick of this place to… shit, sautéed spinach again?”

                  “Yeah.”

                  Matt looked at the board with disdain. What was the point of having the same vegetable every day as “the vegetable of the day”? No rhyme, no reason. Matt kept cool. He was fuming inside, but he kept cool.

                  Ryan, on the other hand could care less. His concern was how he was to get some routing numbers that didn’t belong to him and still receive his bi-weekly paycheck.

                  I oughtta burn this hell-hole down.

                  Ryan let his eyes drift to Matt. Matt’s mouth was open. He may have been drooling. Matt was a little dumb, most of the time, but he was a damn good server. Matt once told him about Carlos’ addiction to cocain, and Ryan then became suspicious. Matt ignited some suspicious in Ryan, not just about Carlos, but about the whole goddamn institution. The whole web of addicted little fiends out to get the worker bees who really did the dirty wor-

                  “Hey Squirley. I got some news.” Ryan jerked his brain back into reality at Matt’s words.

                  “Is it Sparky?”

                  “Yeah, and me… Our first batch is ready.”

                  They both looked around for Carlos, but this was only instinct. Carlos wouldn’t of cared if he knew the context anyways; what his employees did outside of work was none of his business and he felt that this ideal should be reciprocated. Regardless, they walked to a more worthy place for secret words.

                  “Is it any good?” Squirley asked.

                  “Fuck yeah it’s good… Primo… pruprle haze-shit.” Mitze smiled showing his tiny teeth.

                  “Can I get in?”

                  “Depends. What’s your price?”

                  “I gotta try it first.”

                  “Deal.”

                  “But hey, don’t tell anyone its ready. I only got a couple pounds.”

                  Matt had now perfected the art of growing marijuana. It wasn’t easy, and there and been many failed attempts. But this batch was primo, and his life depended on it.

CHAPTER ONE (3)

So Carlos didn’t get his bank routing numbers, nor did he really care. Whatever pleased the rung above him. Whatever kept the cycle going.

                  Ryan brought him the board and said, “Yo, boss. I got me new socks today.” Ryan lifted up his cuffed Dickies to reveal the black socks, ending just below the knee.

                  “Good job, Squirley. Now where are those routing numbers.”

                  Oh the routing numbers again!

                  There was no way in hell that meandering little flap-jack beaner is gonna get my routing numbers, even if I had ‘em, thought Ryan. All he wants is my numbers and what next? My email address? My social? What next? What  -

                  “I need to talk to you about that, anyways, Ryan. Step into my office.”

                  Ryan stepped into the office and saw the picture of a perfectly dressed Ritto, something Corporate had sent to each store in order to represent what was supposed to be. Ryan simply was. He felt his black socks cutting into his pudgy skin on the calf, and hated Corrotto’s deeply. Besides, they were cutting off his circulation.

                  “Every other Ritto has given me their routing numbers except for you.”

                  Not me. Not me.

                  “Should I be concerned?” Carlos said in his refined Chileno accent.

                  “No way boss. The thing is, is that I don’t have a bank account.”

                  “Then get one.”

                  “I can’t.”

                  “And why not?”

                  “Because I won’t.”

                  Carlos paused for a moment. When one has but a minute amount of power, every step was important. Every word could mean dozens of connotations. After all, his miniscule amount of power was won by this mantra. Convince him, Carlos thought. Convince him.

                  “You see, Ryan,” Carlos began. The accent was thickened. Maybe Ryan wouldn’t understand and just nod his head, “we all must do things in our lives that we don’t want.” No! He didn’t want to sound patronizing. But how else? “When I was growing up in south Santiago, I had a teacher. This teacher was supposed to be one of the best in the city, no, in the country. He wrote books and essays on grammar and all of the little children followed him. They awed in his shadow,” this was beginning to get poetic. Maybe Ryan might appreciate this. “Anyways, one day he came to me and asked me to tell my mother – mama – to come to the school building that evening so that they could talk. About what? Ah – you see – I knew what about. I knew I had stolen eggs from the cafeteria. I knew he knew. He taunted me. But of course, I was in awe. Oh what must’ve happened if I had stolen hens! For god sake, what wouldv’e – oh look, I’ve gone off on a tangent. And so I knew that if I told my mother to come to the building that evening I would be sent to detention. Worse – expelled.” Carlos stopped here to reflect.

                  Jesus, do I have to go through these ridiculous stories. I barely understand him anyways. I’ll just nod my head and smile…

                  “But I told her. And do you know why?”

                  “Because you didn’t want to get in trouble.” Ryan subtly rolled his eyes.

                  Not exactly the epiphany-inspired response Carlos had expected.

                  “Well… yes… on the outer layer, yes. But I believed that it was for the good of the school that I did. I would be punished, and I knew it. But the point is, is that I did it for the team. The team that was my school.”

                  Ryan pretended to ponder, and realizing that Carlos wanted nothing more than to be awed himself, Ryan  exclaimed, “Ohhhh, I see. I’ll get those numbers right away sir,” no he wouldn’t, “makes total sense now.” No, it didn’t.

CHAPTER ONE (2)

But wasn’t it always like that in every country? Carlos felt that he was an impediment, a rock thrown into a glass box, no, a glass orb. Yes, he moved to the United States. Yes, he felt the need to defy those Tchilenos. But the orb was continually cycling around him, and now the rock had turned into the hamster and was pushing the orb with its own useless energies. Wasted energies. This was his life – a futile hamster caught in the rolling orb known as Man and wo to the rock that tried to impede the cycle.

            Spoken like the words of his father.

            He figured he might do another line on the plexiglass covering of the Corporate Corrotto’s calendar on the desk. That’ll show ‘em; tell me to clean up dry storage… By four Carlos entered his tiny Mazda and drove home.

 

            “Ryan. Can you bring me the board?” Carlos called from the back of the house, he figured Ryan could do all the work today. Besides, coming down wasn’t the most fun last night.

            Ryan walked in with the plastic board deligating which server had which section of table on the floor that night. Ryan Shirley – “Squirley” they called him – was a pudgy black man – boy, really – who was recently diagnosed with adult onset diabetes. Squirley had a snaggletooth in the right side of his upper mandible, and was the source of his constant half-smile grin that didn’t exactly fit the Corrotto’s Experience. Recently, he had been excersizing for fear that the diabetes would take him , and he had become mad. So mad he become paranoid. Carlos repeatedly asked him for his bank number in order to directly deposit his paycheck in the name of efficiency. How noble Carlos was. But Ryan would make up some excuse or another of why he forgot his number:

            “I had it in my pocket, ya see, and, uh, it fell out while I was jogging. Hey Carlitos, you ever jog?”

            But Ryan did not have any bank code, nor any bank, because his philosophy simply was that banks stole your money. It wasn’t the fact that he dealt weed on the side, because the earnings from that wouldn’t nearly be enough to alert any big corporation that too much cash was flowing in and out. Frankly, he wasn’t a successful drug dealer. It was the fact that he had been burned badly by the bank (overdraft fees, nickel and diming him), done some research, and came out the other end with a low tolerance for paranoia and a strange felling that “the man” was constantly out to get him.

            “You see, the bank teller said that there was a mess up at the corporate center and their system was down.”

            “I’ll bring it tomorrow. I could swear I had that damn thing in my pocket.”

            “I will call you right away when I get off tonight. Promise.”