“Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon . . . ”
WASHINGTON, D.C.
President Collins was still staring at his secure phone. He’d called Isley moments after hearing the news of a potential cure. He hadn’t told him that, but he asked him to cease any interrogation that might be taking place; at least until more was learned. The commander-in-chief didn’t want to know the particulars of the janitor’s methods, he just wanted results, and an immediate cure for the monstrosity unleashed on the people who elected him.
The president’s mind raced as he returned the receiver to its hook. Yes, it was a wired phone, mounted on the wall. In this case, the bathroom wall of his White House residence. George Edward Bernard Collins had taken the most important call of his life while sitting on the toilet. He’d immediately phoned Isley from the same location. His bathroom trips had become more frequent of late, with his intestines in stressful sheepshank for most of each day. It was there on that cold, hard seat, with the Wall Street Journal folded upon his lap and Chess For Beginners on the white tile at his feet, where his brain took off.
Fucking marijuana? This was possibly the great cure? His first thoughts went to airline pilots and train operators. Was our only option now to have folks like them ply their trades in a diminished capacity? Would this be any better than the current situation? Would the government force parents to force children to force edible cannabis down their throats?
Well, everyone enjoys cookies. But what of pregnant women?
How to protect citizens from those who will refuse to avail themselves of the potential cure? Some genius will slap a softer moniker on internment camps, if it comes to that, so that any new housing areas for the segments of opposition will be distanced from the stigmas of history. Other chronicled stains of our past include, all relative to intelligence, the fear of being in the presence of victims of leprosy or rubbing elbows with the HIV positive. Enlightening the naïve was always a priority, but now, those afflicted, those with whom our sympathies must remain, will on occasion cherish nothing more than to tear into the warm blood of the nearest neck.
Some sort of guarded colonization of the refusers might be the only option.
And what of those with an allergy to cannabis? Runny noses are one thing, but what of anaphylactic shock? Where will the line be drawn between those who can’t take the drug, and those who won’t?
Would doses be administered in the school nurse’s office? President Collins knew those decisions would be best left to the doctors. He wondered if some type of card could be mailed, much the way stimulus checks had been, to virtually every household on file with the government, with such cards to be used to purchase official cannabis. Of course, this would be of no use to people living in boxes, under bridges, or even in tunnels. There was much to be done, and no time for partisan bickering in the House or Senate. This was Threat Level RED, DEFCON 1, the Doomsday Clock, and everything else all rolled into a big fat joint.
But the immediate future included the president’s fiancée, Madison, coming to the White House, where Collins would insist they smoke their first fatty together. He hadn’t lit one since Princeton, and this particular herb was going to be provided by the medical staff.
The President of the United States of America then flushed the toilet.
Over the next week, all of the well-worn quotes about slow government, red tape, and the wheels of justice took one to the chops. It seems that when the children of elected officials are eating one another, shit moves at a rapid pace. The potential cure was tested and retested with encouraging results. Case studies weren’t flipping, for the most part. It appeared to be over ninety-five percent effective. For those stuck in Canniland—a.k.a. the perms—the results were less effective, but still over seventy-five percent. The downside meant that roughly one quarter of perms would have to be housed and controlled somewhere. Another set of renamed internment camps? Then, if no progress presented itself down the road, would come the discussions about euthanasia.
The ingredients of the cure would continually be fine-tuned, always searching for improved performance, and the optimal dosage for both symptom relief and the ability to think clearly, but there was no time to await perfection. It was being shipped already—first to those responsible for our infrastructure, those with whom the new normalcy would have the greatest and most far-reaching effect on the general population.
Exodus.
That’s what they called it, and who could really argue? Growing enough to feed a nation was a concern. Some cornfields were actually converted to cannabis and there was a whole new spin on the word “farmer”. There were grow houses larger than Amazon fulfillment centers. There were going to be random check points for officials to test if citizens had taken their cure. If they had not, they could either voluntarily take it right there, or be taken to a detention center.
There was an immediate spike in the sales of snack foods and Pink Floyd albums.
More students enrolled in the arts.
LAS VEGAS
The wheels of governmental action blazed as if on the Autobahn, though when it came to Cash, Rob, and the Las Vegas tunnel people, those same wheels clacked as if dragged by horse wagon across the desert plains.
They’d heard nothing from Washington D.C. during that first week, but acknowledging the priorities involved in saving the country, not one complaint was uttered, other than the fact that Don Russo wanted his reefer reimbursement from the president.
The fact was, Russo’s folks had donated their stash in the rescue at Area 51 and things had been dryer than before pot was legal, never mind required. They’d been able to scare up a bit here and there, but the street supply was thinner than a blade of grass, the licensed shops were empty and there was now more weed at Sunday school than in the tunnels of Las Vegas. In fact, Quinn had flipped while on bucket detail, climbed a wall, and darted blindly into traffic, only to be struck by an unmarked government van on a high school cannabis delivery route.
He was uninjured.
The Jean Conservation Camp sounds like a place where one might go to study butterflies, but it is actually a women’s prison, twenty minutes from Vegas. It is minimum security and they only have about a dozen correctional officers, but one of those guards became friendly with Phaedra during her short stint there, and that guard happened to be involved in the new cannabis delivery chain for the prison. In exchange for some close personal time with Phaedra the officer smuggled her just enough edibles for the group to have a little party—and hopefully prevent them from killing each other.
They sure looked like regular chocolate chip cookies; tasted good, too.
“Funky President (People It’s Bad)” was the James Brown anthem that blasted through the speakers via Don Russo’s iPod Classic.
“Funky president gotta get me my weed,” grunted Russo. “I like to smoke my stuff up. What am I, seven years old, with these Keebler shits?”
“Has Paul heard anything from that Dr. Anderson?” asked Phaedra as she handed Russo another cookie while looking at Rob.
“No,” answered Cash.
They all sat in a loose circle within Russo’s lair, surrounded by his Raiders curtains, some damaged from the flood. Paul was absent, but almost everyone else took part. There hadn’t been much communication from the government of late, either directly to the tunnel people or to the nation as a whole. The president almost seemed to have vanished. There was a lengthy broadcast that featured the White House Press Secretary and messages from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, along with the Surgeon General. They were unsure if Exodus was a cure or merely a treatment for symptoms, and they relayed that to the citizens, along with a directive that it must be taken or relocation was inevitable.
Further televised confusion featured, on successive days a Fox News commentator who had refused to consume cannabis—without his station’s knowledge—literally flipping to canni during a live broadcast, and being fatally shot on-air after attacking his inte
rviewee, the Administrator for the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. The network immediately took viewers to an ad for a battery-powered lantern. Then, the host of an MSNBC discussion appeared to fall asleep at her desk, generating a few chuckles, which quickly subsided after learning that she was actually in a coma. She’d sprinkled her own additives into her ration of Exodus. MSNBC quickly cut to their montage of Barack Obama’s greatest speeches. Finally, there was the CNN reporter, who was terminated after his plan to fake a canni episode in the White House briefing room was exposed, with recorded evidence, by an anonymous source.
“It must be mayhem at the White House. We can’t think that our little group is high on their priority list,” offered Rob, his three-fingered hand taking another cookie.
“Back in the day, it took long for the government to agree on getting blocks of cheese to the hungry, so imagine the fuss over shipping weed to feed everyone,” added Hoffman.
“Yet,” said Cash, “they did it.”
“Not everyone,” answered Russo, eyes glazed. “Here we all are. We saved the world, but we have to scrounge for our weed. We gave up our stash in that government spook house.”
“We saved lives—you saved lives, Mr. Russo—up at Area 51. You saved our lives,” said Cash. “You’re a hero.”
“There was another hero,” said John G. “That professor; he died there for us.”
“Daniele, right?” asked Rob.
“Yes. Christopher Daniele.”
Cash’s eyes, already red, welled up. “So that was his full name. Christopher Daniele.”
John, savoring the power of a sense he’d never had, studied her face as her cognition drifted. Her blank stare told even his novice eyes that she had gone to the past—or perhaps even the future.
“He loved Bruce Springsteen,” said John.
“Not cool of that Dr. Anderson to blow off Paul, though,” said Russo.
Still gazing at Cash, John replied, “Doc Anderson was a pretty one, though.”
Everyone laughed, even though it was true, because John had said it. Everyone but Cash, who was still on her mind’s journey.
“We’re just returning to our natural form,” said Hoffman.
“Huh?” asked Russo.
“Hunters and gatherers. The strong survive. That’s this.”
“Why don’t you go and gather us up some snacks then? These here cookies are just making me hungrier. Man, like have y’all ever gone to the movies—like one of them multiplexes—and they always got that second candy counter, like deep down the halls, and that fucker is never open? All dark. Not an employee to be found. That’s bullshit, man.”
“Wait,” said Rob, staring at the stark-naked leader, “you go to the movies?”
“Not lately,” laughed Russo. “Because of those fuckin’ barren candy counters.”
“I’ve never been to a movie theater,” said John.
“Let’s go tomorrow,” said Rob. “Or, you come back to New York with me and Cash and we’ll go to the nicest ones in Manhattan.”
“I just might if the airlines ever resume flying.”
“They will, buddy, with pilots baked out of their asses. And I still believe that President Collins will get us on a flight.”
Quinn and Yurman came running in.
“There’s a van outside,” said Yurman, catching his breath. “Same kind that ran Quinn over. The driver is asking for Don Russo.”
Most of the group hurried toward a particular tunnel entrance; the one where they dumped the buckets. Russo led the way, hoping his weed had arrived. They could see the sunlight before them, a single figure awaited, three large boxes on the concrete beside him. His pants were tightly fitted from the knee down, but unnervingly baggy above that, all the way to the waist.
Midway between them and the mouth of the tunnel, they spotted an elderly woman; clothes ragged. She kneeled, head almost touching the ground. Most of the group initially thought she might be in prayer, but as they passed, her actions became clearer; she was drinking from a large puddle of water. The plash contained several of the same crayfish once fed by Polish Joe. The creatures brushed by her withered tongue as it dipped for a sop.
“Anyone recognize her?” asked Russo.
“Not one of ours,” replied Yurman.
“Lady!” hollered Russo. “We have water. Food too. No need for that, ma’am.”
No response. She never even looked his way.
“Maybe she’s deaf,” offered John G. He broke from the group, walked to her, and touched her shoulder. He noticed that her skin was pale and cracked. She just kept slurping.
“We’ll catch her on the rebound,” said Russo. “Let’s see if this dude has my reefer.”
Steeping out into the sun, Russo’s first words were, “Sweet pants, brother. Tell me that you’ve got packages for me.”
“Jodhpurs,” answered the visitor.
“Okay, Mr. Jodhpurs,” replied Russo, “where do I sign?”
“The pants are called jodhpurs,” was the emotionless response, as the man studied the bare-skinned, hairy physique of Don Russo. “I’ll need to see some ID.”
Russo stared at the visitor. He then began patting his naked chest and buttocks, as if searching for a wallet. Rob glanced over at the white concrete wall. There it was, gray with dark crossbars. Surely it was a different lizard than the one he’d seen weeks before while he sat wondering where Cash had gone, but here it sat, in almost the exact spot. Being there among the buckets and seeing the lizard brought back the torment of Cash’s kiss with Paul. He still wondered if there was more to it. Despite burning that ice cream truck to the ground, the haunting lingered.
“I can’t deliver this without seeing identification.”
“This,” said Russo, “is from the President of the United States, addressed to me.”
“It is from the government. Nowhere on my paperwork does it mention the president. Now Mr. Russo, it is apparent that you are a bit muddled, as are your friends, due to consumption of some kind of another. I admit that I have never delivered to the homeless before . . . ”
“Hey brotha,” interrupted Russo, “we are not homeless.” He pointed to the dark tunnel opening. “That is our home.”
Yurman moved toward the boxes. “I have an ID and I will sign for this,” he said, reaching down for the first package.
The deliveryman calmly grabbed Yurman’s wrist. He seemed to hold it for an eternity before he bent it backwards, snapping it. Yurman howled as his hand dangled from his freshly cracked radius. Before anyone could react, the jodhpur-wearing visitor tore into his victim’s neck, blood erupting like an errant firehose. At first, the group didn’t know whether to run or fight. Some just screamed.
It was Rob who acted first. While the canni chewed on Yurman’s throat, Rob grabbed a well-worn five-gallon bucket—part of the Home Depot logo was still visible on the faded orange container—and slid it down over the attacker’s head, separating his teeth from Yurman’s flesh. It had been the nearest bucket to Rob and the fact that it was still loaded with human waste mattered not.
Urine and feces coated the canni as if it were pig’s blood in prom night. He let go of his prey and thrashed about, unsure of how to simply lift the bucket from his head. It was ready to fall off on its own by the time Russo got his claws on an old steel fence post that had come loose months before.
He slammed it across the canni’s knees, then again and again. It went down right beside the bleeding Yurman, who was being pulled away by Quinn, Hoffman, and others. The bucket fell off the attacker’s head, which remained bathed in shit and piss. Its legs apparently broken, Russo went hard on its arms. They could be heard shattering under the power of the fence post.
Rob put a hand on Russo. “You can stop,” he said. “He’s immobilized. He won’t do any more damage.”
Russo kept pounding.
“Mr. Russo, this is a human being. He’ll probably return to normal in minutes. He’s going to wake up in unimaginabl
e pain. Stop it!”
“I got no ID!” growled Russo, still swinging, “But, I got plenty of fucking id.”
He struck him several more times, breathlessly exclaiming, “This condescending piece of shit should have taken his Exodus. It wasn’t his choice. Authentic motherfuckers like Yurman have to suffer because of his personal beliefs?”
Rob moved between Russo and the incapacitated canni. He questioned his decision immediately as Russo hoisted his weapon high, as if he hadn’t noticed, or hadn’t cared to notice, Rob’s presence. In that fraction of a second, Russo seemed to grow in size. Rob’s thoughts, possibly aggrandized by the cannabis, flashed back to a snowy night in Brooklyn when he and Cash had been watching An Officer and a Gentleman on TV. She’d fallen asleep, so he switched over to a documentary about Insular Gigantism; a true phenomenon whereby the size of an animal isolated on an island can increase dramatically compared to its mainland relatives. He convinced himself that Don Russo had acquired this trait, with the tunnels being his “island”, and that it was instantaneous rather than evolutionary.
It was then that Phaedra stepped between the men, and Cash, behind Russo, grabbed onto the pipe and hung from it as Russo held it high. His strength was imposing. Cash thought about how Quinn, in the cannibal state, had been hit by a truck and sustained not a scratch, yet Don Russo had just likely shattered a dozen rigid canni bones with a length of pipe.
Rob, sensing that he was probably not going to be bludgeoned by the steel post, reflected on how Russo could swing from empathy to enmity without notice. It would be wise to always cradle the notion that this was, above all, an exceedingly dangerous man.
Russo let go of the pipe, leaving it in the hands of Cash, who was taken by its heft. He ignored Rob and turned to Hoffman and the others, who were tending to the bleeding Yurman. The bite victim was sweaty, pale, and babbling on between coughs.
“That . . . worthless . . . delivery . . . cunt,” he gasped, as Quinn mopped his brow. “Wait . . . I don’t want . . . my final uttered word . . . to be . . . cunt. Fuck me . . . it still . . . is . . . cunt.”
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