by Chris Rush
“Chris, you’re here! Come on—join the family! Sit down. Get high!”
I was embarrassed by how nice he and Jingle were, but managed a shy smile.
I’d forgotten how tiny and strange Lu was. Legs shriveled, black hair to his waist, head too big. He was dressed in white, gauzy and celestial, with beaded moccasins and a silver cross around his neck—the cross more pirate than Pope. He turned to the men in the living room and introduced Donna and Vinnie as his dearest friends. “Christopher, too.”
I barely knew Lu. I knew that he was Valentine’s partner and blood brother; that together they ran a smuggling network that delivered pot and acid across America. I also knew that Valentine was back in New Jersey, running the East Coast business from some blanket on a beach.
As everyone chatted in the dark house, I was unsure what to do or say.
I looked at Lu’s cross and took my own crucifix out of my shirt.
Jingle noticed and winked.
Lu’s guests were Bob and Toby. In boots and buckles and a blousy shirt, Bob looked like Wild Bill Hickok. Toby, in braids and brocade, resembled a girly Genghis Khan. The room’s décor was calm and conventional: a large couch, a teak coffee table, a clock ticking on the mantelpiece. It could have been my parents’ house but for the small castle of black hash stacked on the floor. Lu filled his calabash. He said to Bob and Toby, “Let’s continue with Afghanistan.”
Obviously, Bob and Toby were dealers, sampling the goods. When the pipe came to me, I crossed my legs and inhaled slowly, attempting to appear professional. I knew immediately it was the strongest hash I’d ever smoked. Soon, the flames in the fireplace flickered like goldfish in an aquarium.
Lu was in command of my brain now, and I surrendered.
Donna had explained to me that the whole country was getting high on Lu and Valentine’s dope. Marin was now the center of their West Coast operation. By fate, I had joined the business.
Wild Bill Hickok pulled out a knife. “We’ll need a sample for our people.”
“Take whatever you need, brother.”
A fat slab was cut in two: black on the outside, green on the inside. The larger half went into the man’s saddlebag.
Donna said, “Oooh, that smells so good—like Christmas!”
I relaxed. I watched the fire and spaced out, knowing my father could never find me, here among the pirates.
* * *
AS DONNA AND VINNIE’S oversized foster child, I was privy to every aspect of their naked, sunny life. I adapted quickly, though it took me a few days to finally strip. After breakfast, we all smoked reefer, and in the afternoon, hashish. Donna made us fruit salad, guacamole, jars of sun tea.
We only had six albums and Vinnie played them over and over. The Allman Brothers, Dan Hicks, two Grateful Deads, Cat Stevens, and a solo Mama Cass.
I thought Tea for the Tillerman was secretly sad, especially when Cat Stevens and my sister sang at the same time: But tell me, where do the children play?
Donna, seeing the tears in my eyes, said, “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just happy.”
It was summer, and I felt safe in our tiny world, the same songs repeated day after day like prayers. I rarely thought about home or high school.
When the music faded, I’d listen to the afternoon breeze, to the wind chimes clattering like signals from space. I drew pictures, cheated at solitaire (as taught by Mom), and picked flowers in the yard. And when, in the glorious California heat, I closed my eyes, I slept deeply, without dreams. Nothing could disturb me.
I could forget.
Donna and Vinnie were my family now.
In our little house, we rested, waiting for the baby.
* * *
IT AMAZES ME to think that, at that time, Vinnie was only twenty-one, a child. In my mind, I see a bearded man, dancing with my sister in the living room, or swinging naked in the hammock, ticking off baby names. “… Abe. Acre. Acorn. How about Acorn, Donna? Is Acorn a good name?”
“Acorn?”
“Yeah.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Could go either way.”
And when we got bored, we simply followed the trail of smoke leading up the hill. At Lu and Jingle’s house, someone was always getting stoned. The youngest person there, I mostly remained quiet, listening politely to the adults. Conversation centered on one of three things: drugs, Jesus, or music. Jingle often called us to prayer, directing her special gaze toward me as she said, Help us, guide us.
As prayer drifted into work, Donna would often confer with Lu about plane tickets for her next run. Sometimes, I’d help Vinnie bag up buds or spoon LSD powder into capsules.
And sometimes, I’d snoop around the house. As a team member, I was allowed to wander wherever I wanted. “Take a nap on the big bed,” Jingle would say. “I put lavender oil on the pillows.”
One day, in the laundry room, I found a Pyrex beaker full of black fuzz, growing like the Blob—very mad scientist. I asked Lu what it was.
“The lab gave it to me. Psilocybin spores.” We looked down together into the beaker. “They’re alive,” he said reverently. “We haven’t figured out the dosage yet. Wanna try it?”
I carried the beaker into the kitchen. Everyone looked at the fuzz, and then Jingle handed Lu a spoon. He dipped it into the beaker and scooped up a lump of black goo covered in white hairs. “Open up,” he said to me.
I took it in with a grimace—though really it wasn’t so bad.
Within five minutes, my mind had disintegrated.
I ran outside, into the redwoods, and collapsed. For several hours, I was gone, my mind traveling to places my body could never follow. Endlessly odd things passed by: the orchid homunculus, his stained-glass wings, his various trumpets …
Stumbling back inside, I had sticks in my hair. Lu saw me and laughed.
“So, how was it, cowboy?”
“It was blue and violet. It had a definite sound … it still sort of does.”
“So, it was good?”
I nodded, then asked for more.
Donna said, “Not until you’ve eaten dinner. Go wash your hands.”
After brown rice and seaweed, Lu fed me another spoon of slime for dessert.
Soon, the elves returned, with their trumpeting trumpets—and a net of stars.
* * *
WHEN WE DROVE to Point Reyes, to see the ocean, I was dazzled. California was the end of America, where the continent slipped under the sea. One could go no farther. It was the place to collect one’s dreams and make something of them.
The fantasy of Haight-Ashbury had collapsed into violence. But across the bay, in Marin, there was peace. People were getting back to nature. It was a good scene. At Lu’s, I met yogis and junkies, trust-funders and bigamists. Rock stars lurked like lemurs in the trees.
And Lu sold to every one of them.
One evening, he had to deliver product to a nightclub and asked if I wanted to join him. I looked over at Donna, who said, “Yes, but wear shoes, in case there’s broken glass.”
Donna and Vinnie had Lamaze class and couldn’t come.
Lu and I went off in his VW bug. He drove surprisingly well, shifting with his crutches while nursing a joint. Of course, he had no license.
At the club in San Rafael, the doorman waved us right in, the midget and the tall kid who looked eleven. Lu knew everyone. When he walked toward the green room, the bouncer stepped aside. I stayed behind Lu as he entered the backstage area and began to chat with some old guy. I could see some people in the corner passing around an oxygen mask and taking turns huffing something from a big blue tank. When I turned to ask Lu what they were doing, he was already gone. I stood against the wall, watching people laugh and drool and wobble away from the tank.
The dude next to me said, “Go ahead, man. It’s laughing gas.”
His eyes sparkled under a mop of brown hair. It was Jorma, the guitarist for the Jefferson Airplane. Before I could say
one freaked-out word, he snagged some chick in a tube top and started making out. Over at the tank, some woman had the mask and wouldn’t let go. When a man finally yanked the mask away, she collapsed onto the floor. A bouncer dragged her to a couch.
Since the mask was free, I went over for a turn. I put it on and turned the tank’s valve. The gas tasted sweet, like snow, like winter.
And then I couldn’t feel my face.
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. From far away, I heard a voice: Who the hell are you? It was a very interesting question.
Some guy pulled the mask from my face. “Get the fuck out of here, kid. Now!”
The bouncer pushed me out the door.
Lu eventually found me, handed me a doob. When the band came on, I danced like I’d only ever danced alone in my room. Wild dancing for the whole world to see.
The next morning, I started yapping about the club—announced that I had done laughing gas with Jorma. I didn’t mention the unconscious woman, slobbering on the floor.
Vinnie frowned. “Nitrous oxide is not a sacrament.”
He looked toward Donna for support. She frowned, too. “Chris, I’m really disappointed you would even think of taking an anesthetic to get high. Do you think that’s something God wants?”
“It’s just laughing gas. Jorma was doing it.”
“Oh, so Jorma is God?”
Hell, yes! I wanted to scream.
“Chris, you’re my responsibility now. And I have to ask you to respect the rules of this house.”
“Amen,” said Vinnie.
Donna lit a joint.
* * *
OFTEN IN LU’S LAP there’d be a large wooden crucifix. Holding it up for all to see, he would touch the nearly nude figure of Christ and then yank His head. At that, the front of the crucifix would slide off, revealing a hidden compartment.
Inside was what Lu called the Glory.
It was his own personal stash of pills and pot—the best of the best.
I loved Lu’s crucifix. It was macabre—the hollow cross had once held unguents for the dead. I knew this because a very similar cross hung in my parents’ bedroom—containing candles and vials of oil and holy water, to be used in the ritual of extreme unction, or last rites. As a child, whenever my mother would catch me playing with the equipment, she would say, “Are you dying? If you’re not dying, then put that stuff away.”
Seeing Lu’s cross always made me think of my parents—that they were still alive, but that one day they would die. I wondered if that would make life better or worse. The question baffled me.
Like my father, Lu was a devout Catholic. The stash-cross was not meant as sacrilege. Though his drugs were of no use to the dead, he saw them, as Valentine did, as something holy. Listening to Lu, I sensed he was the true believer, while Valentine was more of a divine salesman.
On Sunday mornings, Lu would drop acid and go to eleven o’clock mass with Jingle. He told me that he often had visions of Jesus. After church, Jingle would make a big salad and say, “He’s in the room right now. Chris, can you feel Him?”
My answer was always yes.
I believed everything. Believing made me happy.
19.
The Barbizon School of Drug Running
EVERY WEEK OR TWO, my sister would leave on a run.
For Donna, smuggling was a performance. Her Barbizon training came in handy. She dressed as if she were preparing for a Good Housekeeping photo shoot. Wearing her Sunday best, she was the young mother, flying home to visit the folks. Seeing her in ribbons and bows, I’d gasp. She was so convincing in Mormon drag.
This was the early seventies, before the era of X-ray machines and increased security, when massive amounts of dope moved through the airports. The cops were clueless, harassing hippie types, while clean-cut drug runners walked on by.
A seasoned professional, Donna required a new ensemble for each run. Since money was tight, she and I would hit the thrift stores of Marin County, searching for something special, something that whispered, Utah. At the racks, I might shun a dung-colored maternity skirt, but not my sister—she saw the possibilities. Add low pumps, ruffled blouse, and plastic purse, and suddenly Donna was someone else. It was magic. Back at home, chemicals were applied: hair spray, makeup, perfume.
Time was obliterated. Donna looked and smelled like 1954.
In the morning, a taxi would take Donna away, with someone else’s baggage, in someone else’s clothes. Donna liked to begin her performance right away, starting with the driver. When asked if she was married, she’d answer, My husband is fighting in Vietnam.
I tried not to worry. Donna told me that people were kind to her when she traveled; someone always offered help. No one ever thought of hash or cash as they dragged her bags across the airport. They thought of a pregnant girl on the verge of widowhood.
Maybe she enjoyed being someone else for a few days, someone she might have been had she finished college, never met Vinnie or Valentine.
Of course, it wasn’t just a game. Despite the fun of dressing up, Donna took her job seriously. She knew, as we all did, that a drug runner could get busted or even killed. But she refused to be negative. “God will protect me and my baby.”
While she was gone, the house was quiet. Vinnie drank beers and moped. He hated to cook, and we ate a lot of sandwiches. Sometimes I wondered why Donna had to do what she did, why Vinnie wasn’t the one doing it—or at least doing some kind of job so that my pregnant sister could stay at home.
But that seemed a small-minded question, and so I kept my mouth shut. I knew that Vinnie loved my sister, and that he was as concerned as I was.
I’d heard Lu tell Donna, “Make sure you smile a lot. And if anyone asks why your bags are so heavy, say it’s books—that you’re in school.” He also gave my sister a special phone number to memorize should anything go wrong.
In some city, in some hotel room, my sister would sit on the edge of a big bed, waiting for the phone to ring. People would come by for her suitcases—men from Lu’s crew—and then, if everything went well, they’d return a few hours later with a pile of cash. She trained herself to stay calm until everything was completed. When I asked her what she did, she said she watched TV or washed her undies in the sink.
In the morning, she’d tape the money to her body, get dressed, and fly home.
When she walked in the door, I would nearly cry with relief. She’d kiss me, then hand Vinnie the envelope with her pay before going into the bedroom to change her clothes.
Vinnie would carefully count out the money. The first time he did it, I was stunned. After flying home with fifty grand, Donna’s pay was only three hundred dollars.
Both she and Vinnie thought it was generous.
* * *
OFTEN, WHILE MY SISTER WAS AWAY, I’d visit Jingle: simple and righteous in purple-tint granny glasses and pioneer frock. I loved going up the hill to see her, but I wonder now what she must have thought of me—this jittery, clod-hopping boy. If I knocked over my juice, which I often did, she’d stare at me, slowly saying, What were you thinking, Chris? Was it a sinful thought? Yes, I thought so. Come on, let’s say a quick prayer …
After a little Jesus-mumble, she’d pour me another glass.
Secretly, I adored her—her hymns, her prayers, her praise. I felt protected by her steadiness. We all did, I think. Strangely, Jingle never took drugs, though she believed in their power to transform. Jingle was already transformed. Donna told me she’d once been a Seventh-Day Adventist, but left the church to marry Lu. Her love for him was fierce. I could feel it like a flame.
I knew that this was not the kind of love Donna and Vinnie shared, which seemed both respectful and bland. Lu and Jingle’s love was more like my parents’—wild, weird, fanatical. But, unlike my parents, Lu and Jingle had no children yet—which seemed to intensify the drama. Once, when Lu came home from a particularly dangerous mission, I watched Jingle fall to her knees and hug her husband’s withered legs.
* * *
DRUGS AND LOVE and business.
I spent hours at Lu and Jingle’s, learning about life.
Clients dropped by constantly, a joint endlessly circling the room—a joint I was now deputized to roll. I was the mascot, I suppose—the smooth-faced kid who made the madness seem sweet.
The dealers were often fearlessly costumed, some arriving in robes and turbans, some in overalls and ten pounds of turquoise. The mystic espionage drew me in. Often I braided my hair and rolled it into a fuzzy crown. From the sidelines, I watched, carefully studying how all manner of product was measured and sold.
But I never saw the money. The cash was always offstage. As with sex, there was a mysterious silence surrounding the subject of money. The real deal always took place in another room, the curtains drawn, the door locked tight.
I wondered if they were ashamed.
No, I would understand later, when I’d become a dealer myself.
The truth was that the money was dangerous, much more dangerous than the product. People were killed for cash, not so much for a bag of LSD.
Lu was a sly businessman.
He made it all seem like a party: free drugs, free food, beautiful home, beautiful wife. Everyone said, He’s a good-karma dealer. The scene was, in some ways, similar to life at my father’s table: clients sucking down his scotch, everyone talking at once.
And, like my father’s, Lu’s income was a mystery. At the moment of payment, Lu would drift to a back room with a client, just as Jingle brought out hot kelp nuggets for the rest of us.
The phone rang often. Sometimes it was Valentine calling about business. As Lu’s partner, he was handling distribution of loads back east. I missed him, and always hoped he’d say: How’s Chris doing? Put him on the phone! Of course, that never happened.