On August 15, 2018, at 11:33 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: Don’t you talk bad about my mom for working her butt off, M. It’s not like she doesn’t want the best for me and the other kids. She’s afraid if I start the application process it could trigger the deportation process. My dad, he gets it, though. I know he does, he knows of undocumented students who’ve gotten themselves into junior college with the Dreamer papers, scholarships and all. Anyway, it’s my plan and I’m sticking to it. I’m gonna get my pre-requisites done, work a transfer into a nursing program at one of the state schools in no time. Illegal is a state of mind, believe me.
On August 15, 2018, at 11:37 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: More power to you, J. You made the grades girl, not me. All I know is it’s time to get outta this shithole with action plan A — make us some cash. On August 15, 2018, at 11:39 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: If we do this together, M, it’s the J.C. next semester for both of us, agreed?
Just cuz you didn’t do it all in high school doesn’t mean you can’t ever get your shit together. You could take your pick of vocational courses at the J.C. There’s a whole bunch of trades to pick from, maybe even train as a dental hygienist, a radiology technician or a pharmacy tech, that way you’ll earn yourself a job that pays enough to get you the hell outa Hicksville with me.
On August 15, 2018, at 11:45 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Maybe, baby. Right now what I need is a class in how to stop myself from blowing my brains out. I am so bored (fake holding gun to forehead). Meet me down at the beach tonight at seven. I cannot stand being forced to listen to Van Morrison half the day and night. I’m done watching my mom lie around in a cloud of smoke. Total denial is what it is. She’s gonna kick the bucket if she doesn’t get real.
~ Mia McCleery
To: Jazmin Marques
Re: Bored Brainless Continued . . .
On August 17, 2018, at 12:08 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: You still awake, J? Might as well be dead as not have a goddamn phone. I need to text and Insta and Snapchat like I need a life.
Hate being forced to communicate this way, what is this, the frickin’ dark ages? Email for God sakes. Listen, I have an idea. Wanna make bank & get out of here? And I mean sooner not later. You in? (Insert truth detector eye scan).
M
On August 17, 2018, at 12:15 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote:
I’m awake. Can’t sleep.
What’s your plan, Veronica Mars? What we gonna do? Set up a detective agency? On August 17, 2018, at 12:17 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote:
Ha! If only.
Seriously, J, the dude from Santa Rosa, weed trimmer, big mouth bragger ‘round the bonfire at the beach that night, fastest trimmer in the west. You still crushin’ on him? On August 17, 2018, at 12:18 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: Yep. We’ve been messaging on FB, on and off! Miguel — man of emojis. Dude persists.
On August 17, 2018, at 12:20 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Hey girl. WTF —you still do Facebook? Tell him we’d be up for it, the weed trimming. You and me, as long as he’s vouching for us. On August 17, 2016, at 12:22 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: WTF back, Mia? My parents would kill me.
On August 17, 2018, at 12:24 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote:
Fast cash, Jazzy, think about it. I’ve been doing some serious homework, here, digging around online. Two hundo a pound. Easy. Trim, make bank, get out of there. Five weeks, five thousand a piece.
Why the fuck not? And we’re not telling anyone what we’re up to, so keep your pretty mouth shut and no posting. What they don’t know won’t hurt. (Insert evil grin).
On August 17, 2018, at 12:28 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: M, you’re bad. There’s sketchy shit up there, Phish fans with acoustic guitars, sex starved rednecks and all . . . And for your information, I don’t post shit, I’m only on FB on the pc for Messenger seeing as I broke my phone by accident.
On August 17, 2018, at 12:32 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Duh. Miguel and his friends, they’re cool, right? You said as much yourself. They’ll look out for us. Who cares about the rednecks and crust-punks, the tent dwellers, they’re everywhere these days. Anyway, I hear there’s plenty of semi-legit seasonal work to be had, money for nothing. Come on. Say yes.
Think about it. Ten thousand bucks between us gets us a sweet down payment, first, last and security on a place of our own. A chill little apartment is sitting there waiting for you and me to move in over in Santa Rosa, walking distance to the J.C. I can see it now, pots of cool plants on the deck. We’ll have plenty of money left for our enrollment fees, brand new iPhones a piece — spring semester. It’s ours, babe.
On August 17, 2018, at 12:36AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: U crazy! BCNU.
xoxoxoxo
On August 17, 2018, at 12:40 AM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Fuck Yes! Though I’d prefer to be known as badass than bat shit crazy. On August 18, 2018, at 10:38 PM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: You got me. Shit.
BTW, I messaged Miguel after work.
Been thinking on it all day.
We’re on.
Miguel’s down to meet up with us in Garberville early Sept. He’s headed up there now to get things going, says he’ll set us up on his crew, camping and all. Real nice people, same family he trimmed for last year.
On August 18, 2018, at 10:45 PM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Hell yes! Can’t believe you’re this ballsy, J. On August 18, 2018, at 10:48 PM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: You’re fucking insane, M.
How am I doing this to my parents? They’re gonna freak.
On August 18, 2018, at 10:50 PM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Babe, we’re all afraid of something. How the hell else are we gonna get outa here anytime in the next ten years if we don’t take a chance?
All we have to do is show back up at Christmas, act all sheepish, say sorry for the worry we caused. Better off begging for forgiveness than asking permission. Think of it, a backpack each, crammed full of cash by the time we get home. You can even buy the little ninõs some presents. On August 18, 2018, at 10:54 PM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: This is one big, fat massive deal for me, M.
So much worse for me than it is for you. Do you get that?
My dad. He’s old school. He’ll be mad as hell. It’s a pretty crappy stint to pull.
On August 18, 2018, at 10:56 PM, Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: K. Stay. Clean floors. Have fun with that. I’m going. Besides, Miguel might like me better ;) ;) ;)
On August 18, 2018, at 10:58 PM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: I said I’d go, didn’t I?
~ Mia McCleery
To: Jazmin Marques
RE: Operation Weed
On August 19, 2018, at 11:08 AM Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Meet me at the beach. Tonight at seven.
On August 19, 2018, at 12:00 PM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: K. Tell no one.
On August 19, 2018, at 12:05 PM Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: K. Who would I tell?
~ Mia McCleery
To: Jazmin Marques
RE: Get Me Out of Here
On August 20, 2018, at 10:00 AM Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Girlfriend, I am done with this place, these people. If I hear one more Janis Joplin track on that shit record player, I’m gonna slit my throat. Unfuckingbearable. On August 20, 2018, at 12:05 PM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: Chill. We’ll be outa here soon. You gotta give your mom a break, M. She’s sick.
On August 20, 2018, at 12:15 PM Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote:
You try being around her dark cloud of misery. Fuck, now it’s Leonard Cohen on loop. Depressing is what it is. Trapped in the past. Totally sucks.
All of it, J, it’s driving me insane. No work, no wheels, no money, no food in the house exc
ept for the sorry leftovers Bobby brings back from the roadhouse. On August 20, 2018, at 12:20 PM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: Hey babe, you’ll see, you’re gonna have it all once we get up to Garberville. I heard a lot of semi-pro skaters and surfers trim to pay the bills. I know that’s your type — Miguel says that after dark is party time.
On August 20, 2018, at 12:25 PM Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: Girl, I cannot wait.
xoxoxoxo
~ Jazmin Marques
To: Mia McCleery
Re: Countdown
On August 21, 2018, at 11:00 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: Shit. I’m a nervous wreck. I hope it’s not a total asshole move. I feel real bad for the lil ninõs. They’re gonna miss me so.
BTW, you packing some party wear?
On August 21, 2018, at 11:30 AM Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: What are you, nuts? Do not screw this up, girl. NO party wear. Cut-off shorts so your cute little butt cheeks stick out the bottom and a bikini top is all you’re gonna need. That’s about as hot as it gets in the backwoods, babe. And hey, watch one more round of Frozen with the ninõs for the seven billionth time, they’ll get over it.
Meet me at the beach tonight. Seven. On August 24, 2018, at 11:00 AM, Jazmin Marques [email protected] wrote: Babe. We’re outta here. Eight days to adventure time.
Can’t stop thinking of Miguel, now I know I’m gonna see him soon. Help? How dumb am I? Romance in the redwoods, ha ha!
Best get you hooked up with your own hillbilly-surfer hottie!
Meet at the beach again tonight. Usual time. Tell me everything is under control. (Insert scoff).
On August 24, 2018, at 11:53 AM Mia McCleery [email protected] wrote: K. No more emails. Just in case. Last of the logistics to go over tonight — sunscreen, don’t forget tampons, toothpaste, basics a chick can’t live without in the woods. Condoms?!?!
J, you’re the bomb. I love you babe. CUL8R.
xoxoxo
Chapter 15
Bridget
Bobby paced the kitchen after callin’ Jazmin’s boyfriend Miguel on the number her mother had handed over on a small piece of paper carefully folded into a tidy square. In his defense, it appeared the kid had never stopped tryin’ to make contact with Jazmin after the raid on the pot farm, in September.
Miguel explained to Bobby how he and his friends had hidden out in the woods for almost an entire week, livin’ off the little food and water they’d managed to grab ahold of after the choppers had scared the shit out of ‘em. He and his buddies had found more work that took ‘em through the season.
“He figured the girls had most likely freaked and made their way home,” Bobby said.
Miguel and Jazmin were together, Miguel told Bobby, as in a pair and in their minds, at least as seriously as any kids their age consider themselves a couple. At any rate, the lovesick Miguel maintained his concern and his feelin’s for Jazmin and he’d every intention of reconnectin’ after he made it back to Santa Rosa with his season’s earnin’s. “He knew somethin’ was wrong when his emails went unanswered durin’ the holidays and after,” Bobby said. “Poor kid has little more to go on than we do.”
If all this was not nearly enough to set my rusty alarm bells ringin’, my sister had decided to make this her moment to hit on Marcus, the first unfortunate guy to cross her newly single path.
That’s Maggie for ya. What she wants she gets. I don’t know why I never saw this one comin’ when Bobby told me he’d invited Marcus over. It may sound harsh for me to say it, but knowin’ how she reels ‘em in with her flirtatious ways, any decent lookin’, unsuspectin’ dude stuck out here in the boonies would be easy prey for the likes of my sister. The look on his face when she’d walked through the door said it all.
“Don’t mess with him, Maggie,” I warned her, as we packed up the truck. “I swear to God, he’s one of the good guys.” For her part, she totally denied startin’ anythin’ at all.
“For God’s sake, Bridget,” she’d said. “Ease up. Romance is the last thing I’m looking for.”
Whatever. So now we were four. Group therapy on the road — could things get anymore fuckin’ complicated? Me and Bobby, my sis’ and Bobby’s love struck best buddy sounded like a recipe for trouble to me.
I looked over at the guys as they were lockin’ up, the two of ‘em haulin’ an ancient, grimy ol’ Coleman cooler between ‘em, the pair havin’ bonded as brothers of sorts since rehab. Marcus bein’ the younger of the two, poor baby, was real messed up back then. His was a common tale. He’d come back to the States from a tour of Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder for good measure as well as a disability discharge in his back pocket.
His grandfather that raised him, passed, while Marcus had been servin’ overseas. The kid had no place to live, no backup money, nothin’. Marcus had not a single soul to look out for him other than the folk at the veteran’s hospital. It was durin’ that time that he’d come accustomed to gettin’ loaded in order to handle the physical and mental pain he was dealin’ with. Marcus might have had a fancy new leg, but a part of him, his soul, that is, he surely left there in the mountains of Afghanistan, blown to smithereens, a classic narc addict in the makin’ Bobby said.
He wound up in Sonoma County coming from a VA rehabilitation facility across the bay in Martinez, searchin’ for someplace well hidden to hole up off the grid. He chose to hide out in a redwood grove on the Russian River after he set up camp and by the grace of God he had managed to keep from dyin’ out there durin’ those first few summer months.
Folk in this region’s non-profit outreach groups scour the land from time to time lookin’ out for ex-military men and the occasional former armed forces woman like Marcus. Plenty of ‘em go underground in whatever their freaked out post-combat condition.
They sure don’t print those pictures in the military recruitment brochures, do they? Hell no. A kindly group of volunteer counselors pulled Marcus out of the forest. Lucky for him, these people know what to look for, the right way to approach an ex-soldier. As fate had it, he was placed in the exact same drug and alcohol rehab center where Bobby was and just in time. Marcus had resorted to the street heroin that’s way more accessible amongst the homeless. Many like him switch to heroin when the prescription drugs are done and illegal opiate supplies dry up — sad truth is the heroin costs less and is way more deadly.
Bobby took Marcus under his wing. He’d seen how opiate addiction opened the door to friends who were snortin’ or injectin’ heroin and, over the years and as I’ve said, we’d both lost count of folk we’d hung out with who eventually died from overdosin’. Thing is, Bobby never judged. He knew the lay of the land and how best to help his young buddy take steps to deal with his demons.
Settin’ Marcus up with the park job after rehab was hands down one of the best thing Bobby ever did. Unlike most guys his age, the kid was happy with an isolated, outdoor existence, far from the rat race and temptations of civilian life, I guess. Marcus was well in his comfort zone out there in the wild. We felt protective of him, Bobby and me, both, what with no family to look out for his welfare and Marcus bein’ high risk for relapse, due to the PTSD. He’d come a long way in the years since, contented out there all on his own, an occasional woman to warm his body with, I heard, though no one he’d brought to the house.
If the dude was about to drop a lifetime’s reserve, why did it have to be my sister? I could not fathom it, despite her more obvious charms. Maggie later insisted it was Marcus who made the first move. Right, like she never gave him the come-on, shakin’ her hair loose down over her shoulders like she did, battin’ those dark eyelashes over her flashin’ green come-hither eyes.
Anyways, since he has agreed to hitch a ride on our worry wagon, he sure has taken on a whole fresh set of troubles for himself, though none of them his makin’. He keeps on sayin’ he shoulda known better but it was not his sole decision to make and I only had so much energy that day to deal with t
he choices we did make.
I took the opportunity to survey my baby sister from my position on the back seat of Marcus’ truck. It must have been a good two decades or more since we’d driven in the same vehicle, she and me. Though my memory flashes in and out from the aftereffects of my treatment, I remember tellin’ myself to quit frettin’ on what the hell Maggie’s plans were for the long haul and let her get on with it. The only thing I had the bandwidth for was figurin’ out the trackin’ down of my daughter.
And besides, it was Marcus who knew his way around the forest. He was the one to take the lead. I watched as he shifted into gear without ever grindin’ the clutch. Marcus’ truck bein’ manual transmission like the old man’s, prompted me to make a mental note to re-register the ol’ rust bucket if Maggie was plannin’ on sticking around awhile. Forget all her talk of the self-drivin’ vehicles startin’ to take over in San Francisco. Every fool oughta know how to drive stick shift. I’d been about to get Mia behind that ol’ wheel when I fell sick.
“I’ve been thinkin’,” I announced after I came up with the one plan I shoulda absolutely enforced. “We oughta switch things up regardin’ our route, before we’re too far in,” I said. I was all for drivin’ directly east into Petaluma, catchin’ highway 101 and headin’ north on the freeway, avoidin’ any potential trouble along the coast. “It’s too darn unpredictable in this weather,” I warned.
It was Bobby who was the more stubborn-headed, damn well insistin’ we stick to our original plan to forge on up the rugged pathway of Highway 1, the Pacific Coast road.
“It’s gonna be dicey whichever way we head,” he said. “If we take the 101 back, Bridg’ we’ll have covered all routes out on the off chance someone along the way may have news on their whereabouts.”
Bobby and me, when had we ever sat in the back seat together, holdin’ hands like a couple of smitten teenagers? I snuggled into his warm, tobacco-scented, fleece-clad and oh so familiar bulk.
With Marcus in the driver’s seat, Maggie rode shotgun. She wore a real dopey look on her face as she twisted around, dealin’ me a grin like she was the teenage girl who’d landed a date with the hottest dude in high school. She was so darn obviously stoked, it was hard for me to stifle a smile.
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