Breaking Good

by Mike B. Good

  Trip cut me off with a yawn. “No narcs, though.”

  “Ha! They’ve still got the garden cops. A bunch of uncool bureaucrats with a book full of petty rules. Tell me that doesn’t go against a pot grower’s grain. Why should bureaucrats be involved? Plus, the Feds have the growers on a list. They could come sweeping down at any time.”

  “You old hippies are so anti-establishment.”

  “Well, yeah. When I started growing, we were revolutionaries. Underdogs. Outlaws, not rule followers.”

  “There you go on one of your rants again,” said Trip, popping another brew while the cash registers sang with profit.

  “Your biggest problem is counting all your money.”

  “Tell me about it. There’s so much, I barely make my tee times. You think that isn’t stressful?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize how tough you had it.”

  “Most people don’t.” Taking another toke, Trip said, “I love how the Green Flash tastes. What’s your secret anyway?”

  “Great genetics, I suppose. Mom was brilliant as well as beautiful, and Dad was considered quite handsome for an evil genius.”

  “Dude, I was referring to your pot.”

  “Oh. Also great genetics—and lots of practice.”

  “How much practice?”

  “Forty-six years, ten months, six days, and, uh, what time is it anyway?”

  “Close enough. How’d you got started?”

  “You’d have to ask my folks about that.”

  “No, I meant with the growing.”

  “Ah. With the only pot around seeded Mexican? I had no choice.”

  “Seeded pot? Jesus. . .what was that like?”

  “To get the real experience? You’d have to twist up some garbage.”

  “No way I’m smoking garbage. Or seeded Mexican. Come on, was it really that hard to score killer buds?”

  “Hard? Try impossible. The term killer buds didn’t even exist. Unless you meant the stuff our government sprayed Paraquat on. Until Colombian and Thai showed up, we’d be lucky to score mediocre weed. Pot lovers lived a nightmare. If your connection even had any pot, it’d be seeded, stale, and moldy. Also, full of stems. Sometimes a rock or pieces of corn.”

  “Rocks and corn?”

  “Only in the better stuff. Often as not, your dealer would shrug and say, ‘Sorry, man, just ran out.’ Seeing your tears, he’d lie. ‘I’m expecting a new batch any moment.’ Which was really code for days, maybe weeks. When you finally got some, you had to throw half of it away. And the small part left that wasn’t stems and seeds? It barely gave you a buzz.”

  “That’s a real shame,” said Trip, blowing out another smoke ring. I sensed insincerity.

  “Oh, it was. On the other hand, it motivated me to raise world consciousness with better buds.”

  “Pretty heroic of you.”

  I shrugged. “The least I could do. Plus, it beat going to law school.

  Trip, fashionably dressed as a skateboarding capitalist, smirked at my lame golfer disguise: Dockers, Polo shirt, and Costco Court Classics. With my short graying hair and geeky clothing, I looked as clean cut and straight as any pot-growing revolutionary ever had—and yet, beneath the corny disguise hid someone totally cool.

  “As superheroes go, Señor Bueno, you’re an unlikely choice.”

  “So was Clark Kent.”

  I would have argued, but Trip was right. I looked more like a professor than someone who combined the pot-growing skills of Jesus with the heroism of Superman.

  “Tell me about your first heroic move, Clark.”

  “I bought a How to Grow Pot book at my local head shop.”

  Trip pointed at his vast book department, packed with all the best How to Grow Marijuana books by experts like Ed Rosenthal, Jorge Cervantes, and dozens more.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  “Not one of those. They should have titled the one I read: How Not to Grow Pot. I think the DEA put it out. It told us to germinate the seeds with an herbicidal gout medicine called colchicine.”

  “Marijuana gets gout?”

  “Not if you kill it with colchicine first. The book also suggested we graft hops onto any seedlings not already destroyed with colchicine in order to grow a vine so unstony we couldn’t get busted for it.”

  Trip shook his head, as if I’d made that up. Even I had to admit, it’d take a real idiot to try it, and after my colchicine and hops experiments repeatedly failed, I tossed that book away. God knows what they’d have me trying next.

  “Well, how did you learn to grow such great weed?”

  “I moved to Hawaii and learned from the best. Eventually, I wrote my own book.”

  “I didn’t know you wrote a How to Grow Pot book.”

  “Actually, I wrote about my experiences with the homegrown scene back in the early days. I’m calling it Breaking Good.”

  “You mean like the show Breaking Bad?”

  “Except it’s about pot.”

  “So, you wrote a story about a murderous pot grower who—what? Turned into a mild-mannered unrecognized genius teaching high school botany?”

  “No, but I couldn’t think of a catchier title.”

  Chapter 2

  College Daze

  (Santa Barbara, September, 1967)

  “Hi, I’m Mike,” I said, popping my pointy head through the door to Anacapa Hall’s room 204. Then, “Hey, what’s that funny smell?”

  Frodo, a longhaired sophomore, looking hip in his patched bellbottom Levis, tie-dyed Grateful Dead t-shirt, and love beads, took one look at the straight kid in the doorway, put down the bong, and scowled.

  “Jesus Christ, man. . .what are you, some kind of junior narc? Because you gotta tell me if you are.”

  As an unhip, shorthaired, freshman nerd, it seemed I was loathsome. “Uh. . .”

  “Is that a crocodile on your shirt?”

  “Actually, I think it’s an alligator.”

  Frodo gave me a dirty look. “You a golfer?” He made it sound like a vile disease.

  “Well, yeah. . .”

  “Aw, man, I knew it. You play guitar?”

  “No.”

  “Keyboards?”

  “Sorry.”

  “I know you don’t play drums.”

  “If it helps, I sing off key.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  Off to a good start with my new roomie.

  “What kind of name is Frodo, anyway? You Hungarian or something?”

  “What kind of stupid question is that? Haven’t you read Lord of the Rings?”

  “Um. . .”

  “Aw, shit. . . You even get high?”

  Always upbeat, I answered, “If you mean high on life, then, yeah”

  “I don’t.”

  “You mean you’re down on life?”

  He shook his radical head. “Great, the bastards stuck me with a square.”

  “Which bastards?”

  “The Man, man.”

  “Oh. . . Which one?”

  “Aw, Jesus. . . If I’m gonna make you hip, I’ve got a lot of denerdifying ahead of me.”

  “No kidding.”

  Even I knew I was uncool. Not a jock, not a musician, but a certified bookworm with the grades to prove it. Guys in the science and chess clubs didn’t get through high school without hearing it dozens of times. Per day. Being a square gets old. So did having President Nixon for an uncle and right-wing CIA spies for parents. Hipness was not appreciated in the Good family, and as a result, my worldview had remained narrow. Aside from having fun and avoiding strife, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. Like Mr. Jones in the Dylan song, I knew something was happening—I just didn’t know what it was.

  No doubt some hippification would be good for me. At least that’s what everyone said. Away from the repressive regime at home for the first time, maybe I should find out.

  “Tell me, Frodo,
what’s the first step on the road to hipness?”

  “I’ll put on some rock ‘n’ roll and call Dirty Debbie. She’ll cover the sex and drugs part. I’ll handle the politics.”

  “That sounds much better than the other way around.”

  On the stereo my first protest song: Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth. Stephen Stills was singing about a thousand people in the street. They were singing songs and carrying signs. Which is exactly what Frodo had planned for me.

  “Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll—that does sound good. No more Peter, Paul, and Mary for me.”

  “No, man, rock sounds groovy, not good.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Squares say good. Hippies say groovy.”

  I pulled out my little notebook. “So much to learn.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll teach you all the cool words during the indoctrination process. Here, start writing On Strike, Shut It Down on these placards.”

  “We’re shutting the school down?”

  “You wanna end the Vietnam War, don’t ya?”

  “Well, sure. . .”

  “Right on, man,” ranted Frodo. “Now you get it.”

  “I do?”

  “That’s the spirit. Under your dorky exterior, you’re a born revolutionary.”

  “But, Frodo, classes haven’t even started.”

  “Like you say, why waste time?”

  I felt my hair growing already. Uncle Dick kept sending kids to die in Vietnam. And for us lucky ones back home with college deferments, the pot scene was dismal. I guess we all had our cross to bear. I didn’t get loaded in high school, so it had never bothered me before, but that all changed once I marched for Peace. (Oddly, despite my best efforts, the war persisted.)

  My reward for not stopping the war that day? Dirty Debbie turned me on, vanquished my virginity, and sold me my first kilo. I felt like I’d popped out of a cocoon. I felt like learning the guitar. I felt like eating a family-sized pizza.

  Timothy Leary visited campus and exhorted, “Turn on, tune in, and drop out.”

  Sounded good if you had a big trust fund and an air-tight deferment. In reality, besides the occasional fits of paranoid schizophrenia, there was a drawback to becoming a full-time acidhead. You dropped out of college, the Man punished you with a trip to Vietnam. The Man was not cool, not turned on, and not at all tuned in. In other words, exactly like Dad. (Picture a wild-eyed patriot, fists clenched, veins in his neck popping out, and dressed in an Uncle Sam outfit. Then have him yelling at me to cut my hair.)

  After just one doobie, I’d asked Frodo, “How could this be wrong and war be right?”

  “It’s not. The Establishment has skewed the equation. That’s why we gotta start a revolution.”

  “You and me? In particular?”

  “Now you’re talking. We’ll take it to the streets. Tell the pigs: Up against the wall!’’ Grabbing a baseball bat, Frodo shouted, “You with me?”

  “Umm, how ‘bout we grab a pizza first?”

  “Aw, man, you’re not gonna be that kind of hippie, are ya?”

  “What kind?”

  “The non-violent kind that just wants to enjoy life?”

  “I gotta tell ya, Frodo, there’s a distinct possibility that could happen.”

  “Your judgment is all screwed up.”

  “And I have you to thank.”

  Frodo had a point—marijuana seemed to impair judgment. Illustrating yet another benefit of the stuff. Ignoring her marketing skills for a second, I could think of no other reason the sexy Dirty Debbie would’ve seduced someone as uncool as me. I soon realized marijuana was outtasight even when not having premature orgasms. So much so, that my next roomie Fingers and I smoked it all the time. As academics, we tried to figure out how to turn on, tune in, and drop out without earning a trip to ‘Nam as a reward. We never did figure it out, so we stayed in school. A year later, the Beatles’ White Album came out. I found the lyrics to Revolution especially inspirational. By then, I was learning guitar. Sort of. To show my support, and because I loved that song, I always sang along with John. Off key, out of tune, and most of all, quietly—as requested. Okay, demanded. Whatever. As I did, I realized, like the Beatles, I wanted to change the world. But how?

  The ironically-named Fingers (an excellent guitarist until his voracious pet fish nipped a couple digits off) offered his point of view. “It won’t be through music.”

  Undaunted, I had vague plans to do. . .well, something. Maybe I’d foment a peaceful revolution that didn’t take too much time away from the surfing, golfing, and frequent naps my best work required. Unlike Frodo, by then serving five years in federal prison for setting fire to the draft board, my hippie friends and I weren’t violent. Still, the Anti-War Movement and talk of revolution dominated the news and campus politics. So did rock ‘n’ roll. John and Yoko wore bags. Hell, they wouldn’t even get out of bed. That’s how strongly they felt about peace. Like my protest march, it didn’t work. War raged on.

  Radicals rioted on our campus, smashing windows and setting fires while screaming, “Give peace a chance.”

  As we saw at Berkeley and Kent State, that didn’t work, either. I was all for peace, but with the Man shooting us down, I aimed my marches towards the beach. Like a Dickens novel, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. My insane Uncle Dick reigned in the White House, the war was tearing the country apart, and Mexican pot sucked.

  On the other hand, the music scene rocked. A student who looked at the bright side of things and had a good drug connection could have a lot of fun if he didn’t go to class or get shot down. If it was up to me, I’d have stayed in school forever. But it wasn’t, and I couldn’t. At least not according to Dad, who footed the bill and demanded results.

  “Listen up, Mister,” he commanded. “We want you out of the house.”

  “I am out of the house. Even better, I hardly ever visit.”

  He gave me a bemused look.

  “What? Still too much?”

  “It’s not that we don’t love you, son—speaking for your mother, anyway—but we want to make sure you never come back to haunt us.”

  “Thanks for the warm fuzzy feelings, Pop.”

  “Is that one of your so-called jokes?”

  He wasn’t being sarcastic. Born with no sense of humor, he really didn’t know.

  “I guess not.” I made an excellent suggestion. “One terrific way to ensure I stay away would be a nice fat trust fund.”

  Scoffing at my excellent suggestion, Dad had some suggestions of his own. “Let me give you some life advice. First and most important, cut your hair. Second, follow the plan. Finish college, then get an advanced degree. I don’t care what it’s in, as long as it’s law.”

  “Is that one of your so-called jokes?”

  His scowl said no.

  “Why are you so insistent on law school?”

  “You need to prepare.”

  He sounded ominous. But then, he always did.

  “For what?”

  “For the American Dream. Also, Mister, when your Uncle Dick goes down, he’s going to need your devious mind.”

  “What makes you think he’s going down?”

  “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

  He said that about everything. Which is why I never pestered him for answers. Unlike dads who weren’t mad scientists for the CIA, he really meant it.

  I appreciated the compliment regarding my skills, if not Dad’s ridiculous idea. Get a law degree so I could use my gift of sneakiness for evil instead of good? To help President Nixon escape his bad karma? I didn’t think so.

  “Dad, you’re clearly out of your mind.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’m not exactly fond of Uncle Dick.”

  “That’s all right. He feels the same way about you.”

  No kidding. Uncle Dick and I used to glare
across the table during family gatherings, enjoying hostile staring contests. At least until Aunt Pat let slip some of the humiliating stuff I made him do under hypnosis. Those nerdy Junior Magician courses had paid off.

  “Is he still blaming me for his loss to Kennedy?”

  “Of course he does. So do I. You cost the Good Guys Bomb Shelter Company millions.”

  After that early success at shaping history, I’d let my guard down, and Nixon had come back like a herpes outbreak. I’d have to thwart him again for the good of the country, but with his guard up and the Secret Service surrounding him, it wouldn’t be so easy the next time.

  In the interim, I toiled on, getting good grades, agreeing to go to grad school, and quietly freaking out. Anything to stay out of Vietnam. Still, after my first year in college, I knew the American Dream was not for me. My parents had big salaries, rode with the President in Air Force 1, and wielded lots of power. And because of that, they worked seven days a week and never relaxed. Hadn’t since World War II. “The commies don’t rest, why should we?” Though they traveled the world, vacations were few and far between.

  Dad, nicknamed Dr. Strangelove by admiring colleagues at the Secret Weapons Lab, dreamed of wiping out the commies with nukes. “Whatever it takes for peace.”

  My own dream was to enjoy life, not blow it up. I wanted to wake up every morning excited about the day ahead, not dreading it. Having read every issue of National Geographic during my oft-grounded youth, I wanted to travel the world, see exotic places, do as I pleased, work when I wanted to, vacation when I didn’t. In other words, all the time.

  A great dream, but not easy to pull off without a record deal, movie contract, or generous trust fund. I had another talk with Dad about that. It didn’t work out any better than the marches for peace. I needed a lucrative career that suited my talents, but didn’t take up too much of my leisure time. Having no discernable talents, that wouldn’t be easy to pull off, either.

  Chapter 3

  Career Advice

  (December, 1969)

  During my junior year, I got some great news. No, not an end to the war and a huge trust fund, but a high lottery number in the draft; something coveted even more than the terrible injuries, mental problems, or serious birth defects that earned the lucky ones a precious 4F. Next to having a Congressman for a father, you couldn’t beat it. Just like that, law school became a dreaded option, not a life-saving threat. For the first time in my life, I could do whatever I wanted.