Big Green Country

by Frances Rivetti

  I twisted my head to glance over at Luna as Serena continued to apply pressure on the knots in my feet. Luna, who was head-to-head with a vendor over a bunch of paperwork, washed up out here with a couple of kids in tow. Thank the Lord she’d had the gumption to run to the remote safety of the coast. First time I met her at the collective, Luna spilled whole darn life story, poured it out — all that happened to her before she and her little ones made their escape with no more ‘an a small backpack apiece. They’d headed as far west as they could run without falling into the ocean.

  “No way he would have thought to look for us out here,” she’d said of her ex, who is now in jail: “a no-good, mean ass, sociopathic drug dealer, I’m sorry to say.” Luna had lived with the asshole, unwed, in Sacramento for the good part of a decade.

  “When I finally had enough, I packed a change of clothes for the kiddos and me, held their hands and walked on over to the nearest freeway ramp,” Luna told me. Makes me real sad to think of it, the three of ‘em stood there with their thumbs out for a good, solid two hours. Poor baby, she was scared to death the bastard would come lookin’ for them before they’d found a ride.

  Serena persisted in her mission to explore the tenderest spots on the soles of my bony feet. She slapped on extra cream, rubbin’ in a circular motion, diggin’ in and addin’ pressure on a bunch of trigger points ‘til she felt me finally give in to the cause, relaxin’ my feet a little at the ankles.

  Chance had taken a hold of Luna and her little ones’ fate when a woman driver pulled over in her mini van on her way back west from a high school soccer game in the Central Valley. There had been plenty room in the van for three more, alongside two sweaty teenage boys with mouths full of expensive metal braces, a big ol’ bag of soccer balls in back. Luna was aware that the woman knew full well this was not your run-ofthe-mill road trip. And yet she told a series of white lies so as not to overly freak out her ride. Luna had asked to be dropped off in downtown Petaluma. She shared how they dined, hungrily, the three of ‘em on the few dollars left in her wallet on a supper of cheap Mexican tacos, the tastiest they ever ate, flavored with freedom and purchased from a food truck in the parking lot of a floorin’ store.

  Shortly before nightfall, a friendly-faced ol’ rancher from the Point Reyes Peninsula pulled over and offered Luna and her little ones a ride. Good thing, for if not for him, she’d have been left with no choice but to hold onto their small hands and walk them out along the unlit rural road from Petaluma all the way to the ocean.

  “We could not have landed better luck that night,” she’d said. Turned out the rancher had a workers’ cottage sittin’ vacant on his property. His wife was sick and the family was in dire need of help. It was as darn remote a place as any out here and findin’ good folk to work is always challenge. Not long after Luna and her kids were settled, the rancher’s daughter talked her dyin’ mother into a regular hit of medical marijuana to help her sleep at night. A connection was made with the collective and Luna found herself extra hours in a decent payin’ day job, runnin’ the dispensary books and reception while her kids were settled in school.

  With all this talk of drugs, I will put it on the record that I am for sure, no angel of purity, myself. There’d been no lack of access to all sorts of shit durin’ my teens and twenties. We never had much else to do in the way of entertainment out West.

  The muscle relaxant in Lydia’s lotion kicked in. It’s not euphoria I’m lookin’ for these days, it’s the calmin’, relaxin’ stuff that hits the spot. I’m even thinkin’ of tryin’ my hand at makin’ a few different types of balms myself. Expand my line. Why not? From what I’ve figured, balms are not all that likely to be any more troublesome for me to make than a batch of my cannabutter. I made a note to self to pick up some essential oils, wintergreen and clove — beeswax and cheesecloth.

  My restless mind is forever chargin’ away with itself. While Serena was rattlin’ on about the psychoactive effects of transdermal patches and how they deliver cannabinoids into the bloodstream and all, my brain was still flippin’ around, blurrin’ in and out of focus and windin’ itself in reverse back to a time when Maggie and me were teens. We’d taken care of our early mornin’ ranch chores before school, as did all the neighbor kids. Nothin’ original in that. Partyin’ in town at the bowlin’ alley or the pool hall was reserved for the most special occasions. Mostly, on account of someone had to drive. We were stuck out in the boonies, drinkin’ and smokin’ all of the pot we could get our grubby hands on, out back, behind whosever barn it was we happened to be hangin’ at. It was how we rolled in the small, tight-knit crowd I ran with and most of us were happy enough to go along with it.

  It was not so much of a crowd, as a hangout group, built out of necessity with no choice of any alternative company. Crack cocaine swept our rural scene in the late ‘80s, cheap compared to most of the other drugs, plentiful and, dang addictive. I thank the stars I was never hooked. We lost more than a handful of our high school friends to crack and heroin, Maggie and me. Bobby too. Molly and crystal meth followed suit in the ‘90s. I hate to say it out loud, but I dabbled more in my fair share of all of the above. Lucky for me in the long haul, I had way too much to deal with in the general pullin’ up of my bootstraps to let the partyin’ take over my life.

  Most of us who made it through the ‘80s and ‘90s are confirmed stoners by now, takin’ to the beer of an evenin’ an’ all, wine for some, with plentiful whiskey and vodka flowin’ come nightfall. It’s how it is — been that way with one substance or another since the first of the old Irish came west cookin’ up gallon after gallon of moonshine, their crude pot stills filled to the brim with the same rough-ass potato potcheen as they’d sucked from the teat back in the old country.

  I’ve shared most of my crazier stories with my buddy Luna. I hate for her to feel bad about her own history, you know? Hell, who am I to judge at the choices she made? She got out, that’s what counts. She put her kids first.

  I ran my eyes over a stack of pre-rolled joints in the glass case displayed beneath a colorful array of cannabis-infused chocolate, candy, breath sprays and spritzers. It’s all about the customer and the individual need. I stand by this even if the Feds will insist on stickin’ their heads in the sand on the legalization issue. An additional, narrow, glass front cabinet is home to a specially curated collection of pipes, bowls and bongs.

  Another cabinet displayed a range of fancy packaged teas, new to the dispensary that same week — real nice lookin’ packages with appealin’ logos toutin’ a range of blends designed to ease a variety of pains and cramps, elevate mood, boost libido, aid sleep. You name it.

  On impulse, given my enhanced mood of rare, semi-relaxation, I settled on a halfpound of organic weed bacon and a thick slice of locally smoked cannabis-infused salmon to take back to the ranch — way more money than I had reckoned on spendin’, but what the hell, I seldom splurge and I was cravin’ some extra protein.

  “Someone is looking for you, Bridget,” Helena came over to inform me. I’ve known Helena since she was a kid. In fact, I babysat her and her little brother back in my teens. We made good money that way when we were in school, me, Maggie, even Mia, for a short while, though, my daughter, being an only child, demonstrated little patience for it.

  Helena wore the same sort of business-style fitted wool dress she favored when she worked in the bank. She motioned to the reception area with a perfectly manicured hand.

  Nancy waved goodbye to me from across the room as I made to leave. Luna looked up from her paperwork and blew me a kiss. It was Nancy who brought Helena into the business after she’d accidentally fallen into it herself while caring for HIV/AIDs patients back in the major epidemic in the Bay Area in the eighties. Later, she’d figured the need for access to a dispensary while carin’ for her dyin’ husband. As a retired nurse, she sure is enthusiastic about extendin’ the same canna care she’d learned to ease the sufferin’ of her husband. Nancy drew Helena in after she h
ad problems bankin’ cash from the cannabis deals she passed on to other seniors she knew would benefit most from its medical use.

  “I never was able to make my way up the ladder at the bank,” Helena confided in me after I’d worked myself into the collective. By co-launchin’ the dispensary, she works around her twin boys’ busy school and baseball schedules. It’s she who calls the shots and sets the bar. I admire that. “Nancy and me, we’re making our own rules, within reason,” she explained. What they’ve done, these two women, is to build a framework for others, women like me, to figure out a future with a business of our own. Lifesavers are what they are, in more ways than one.

  Bobby was outside in the car, snoozin’ like a big ol’ contented baby. I was on my way out, basket in hand, when a small, round, Latina woman jumped up from a chair in reception, blockin’ my exit.

  “Señora. Mia’s mama?” Jesus — she pounced. I took a step back, my heart stoppin’ for a second. “Um . . . yes, that’s me. What is it you want?”

  “I find you, thanks to God. Mi hija, my daughter . . . ” she stumbled on her words in her broken English. “Jazmin, mi bebé. She with your Mia.”

  The woman’s face looked vaguely familiar — crap, maybe I’d sat beside her at any one of the numerous high school fiestas over the years? I was embarrassed not to remember havin’ met her. She was way younger than me, not a lot older than I was, it flashed through my mind, when Mia was born.

  Why hadn’t I taken more interest in Mia’s friends?

  It took a minute more for to me register why she was there before I spat out a garbled: “Oh my God, do you have news? Are they safe, the girls? Where are they?”

  A hundred and one questions shot through my head. I needed to know, right then and there, that Mia was safe. Months of denial burst the floodgates as my worst fears raged, unbidden but unstoppable.

  “They gone north, senora, to Humboldt. Mi esposo, he no find. They there though, we know this.”

  “Come with me,” I took her arm, gently but firmly, despite my suddenly wobbly knees and I walked her down the stairway and over to where Bobby was parked. I rapped on the window, wakin’ him from his state of ignorant bliss.

  He rubbed his eyes and, after figurin’ out it was me who was makin’ the commotion, he opened the door to a barrage of new information. “Whoa, slow down, Bridget . . . she . . . this woman, Jazmin’s mom, she knows this how?”

  Bobby had picked up his better than basic Spanish from years in the roadhouse kitchen and bar where most all of the staff hail from somewhere south of the border.

  Maria Fernanda took a breathe and slowed her words as she did her best to explain how some young dude who had declared himself her daughter’s boyfriend had showed up at her family’s door, tellin’ them how he was rightly concerned for the girls’ welfare and why. Accordin’ to his account, Jazmin and Mia were last seen or heard of after takin’ off on foot durin’ a nighttime raid on a cannabis farm in Garberville, shortly after the start of the harvest season.

  “Miguel telled Diego and me, Jazmin’s Papi, he in charge of the crew.”

  Bobby gleaned from Maria Fernanda’s garbled words how it was that this Miguel kid had met Jazmin and Mia down at the beach the previous summer. Just a few weeks later, it transpired he’d hooked up with the girls, by arrangement, in Garberville, transportin’ them to a property in the redwoods in the back of a truck. Miguel told Jazmin’s parents the girls had worked with him and his crewmates for barely two weeks, sleepin’ in a trailer and trimmin’ on a small mom and pop growin’ operation semi-legit enough for the girls to have the sense to stick with — until it went belly-up.

  We learned, much to our alarm, how it was that in the dead of the night, a mere couple weeks into Mia and Jazmin acclimatizin’ to the hectic harvest trim culture, the farmers and their unsuspectin’ crew were rudely awoken by the sound of helicopters hoverin’ overhead. They’d fled, by foot, all of ‘em, in all directions. Accordin’ to Miguel, he and the girls were separated soon after makin’ their way out of the forest and onto a paved road. The scared and anxious kid told Maria Fernanda how he’d assumed the girls had waited for daylight, hitchhiked into town and headed home.

  “He no forget her, my Jazmin.” Maria Fernanda cried, tears runnin’ down her plump, round cheeks. “Miguel, he come looking for her. We tell him no, we not see her. She no home.”

  He’d made it clear to Jazmin’s mom with no bullshitting about, the longer the girls were gone the more serious danger he feared they were in.

  “Diego and me, we have no papers,” Maria Fernanda cried, wavin’ her small hands around her head, pullin’ blue-black strands from her pretty, long, braided hair. The family was undocumented and way too afraid of the consequences to consider goin’ to the authorities.

  Shit. The timin’ sucked and it still sucks for so many to be forced into the silence of fear. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweeps and fearmongerin’ amongst the undocumented in our region is the real life fuckin’ bogeyman. Mia is half Mexican — as American as myself and yet, for the first time in her life, I feared for the color of my baby’s skin. On the orders of the government, ICE runs this reign of terror, puttin’ the fear of God into good people when it’s only the bad guys they should be goin’ after. The undocumented folk in our Latino community are scared to death of being forced out of their long-time homes and deported, their American-born kids sent into goddamn camps. It don’t bear thinkin’ of to live in this level of fear, little kids afraid to go to school should their parents be taken away while they’re in class. A person does not have to be a cardcarryin’ liberal to know in their heart that this is nothin’ short of inhumane.

  “Diego”, Maria Fernanda’s husband, Bobby further explained, had desperately driven up to Garberville and back on two occasions during the previous few weeks. “Damn, they’re freakin’ out, Bridg’. We’ve got nothin’ to go on other than Miguel’s word as to when and where the girls went missin’.”

  For the first time since Mia ran off, I gave myself permission to dig down deep inside the most painful inner part of me. I was startin’ to recognize how it was I’d silenced this pain in order to deal with my own selfish struggles. I was gonna have to muster up the courage and energy to get up off my ass and quit my denial, or else I was gonna regret it for the rest of my life. Christ, Mia and Jazmin had gotten themselves in deep trouble, I knew it, we all knew it.

  Chapter 9

  Bobby

  Inside the Daniel Boone, the lights were fit to blazin’. Angelina flapped around the kitchen in a panic. She’s all of five-foot-two and a whirlwind to behold, my family is real lucky to have her, she sure does keep a lookout for us all.

  “Your brother’s stuck in Petaluma with a truck bed full of meat and veggies, Bobby — road’s flooded,” Angie informed.

  “What was it he was plannin’ on fixin’ for today?” I asked.

  “We’re fish heavy,” she replied. “You’re gonna have to come up with your best cioppino, bro, that’s all there is to it.”

  One thing I do have is this classic San Francisco fish stew down to an art, cioppino being a staple of the De Santis family Sunday suppers since way back in the day. City folk might well assume we sit around twiddlin’ our thumbs through the long days and nights of the rainy season, restin’ the worn heels of our western boots on the edge of the bar. Not so. Roads in and out of here flood over so as to cut off all access in and out of the more remote, small seaside villages, hence the roadhouse servin’ as nothin’ less than a community lifeline come this time of year.

  Unless it’s one of them 4-wheel monster trucks you happen to be drivin’, an outsider such as yourself would be wise to steer clear of any unwarranted expedition through three feet or more of standin’ water — mud and asphalt damage at every turn. Hell knows, the creeks do rise. Best take my word for it. You won’t be hearin’ no more on that subject from me.

  All manner of folk tended to hang at my bar on a dark, wet, winter’s
day and night, rallyin’ the spirit with some reassurin’ banter, a bite of somethin’ warm and tasty and a libation or two or four. Company keeps the blues at bay. We been doin’ it this way, holdin’ up with nothin’ but local folk durin’ the rainy season since the first of the old families settled these parts. Even durin’ the so-called Prohibition years, the booze was flowin’. Oh yes, sir, despite the fact the Feds were out here in force, armed as they were with their substantial arsenal of pistols and long rifles, bulldogs and handcuffs. Tried their darndest to catch the bootleggers in the act, though the law was generally always outsmarted for the most part. I could tell you some stories. Hijackin’ and murders that took place in the 1920s and ‘30s, hair-raisin’ tales told a thousand times over under this roof. Same goddamn floorboards under foot hid stash holes filled with more bootlegged Canadian whiskey than the local cheap home brew. As soon as the agents left the premises, it was up with the floorboards and what’ll you have?