by Mike B. Good
“And the rest of the time?”
“I bum around the beach.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Michael, not one bit. And neither does your father.”
“You’d rather I be broke and begging you for help?”
“Of course I would, I’m your mother. Just for our insurance records, what’s the name of the beach you’re living on?”
Insurance records?
“Makua Beach, Mom. This place is beautiful. You’d love it.”
“I’ll have to come see.”
“On second thought, you’d hate it.”
“Did you say Makua Beach? M-a-k-u-a?”
“Yep—why?”
“Oh, just double-checking something in the files.”
“Makua doesn’t mean garbage can, just to be clear.”
“Everyone knows mahalo means garbage can, honey. That’s the first thing the pilot squelches at you. Say, isn’t there a valley with the same name somewhere?”
“Well, yeah, it’s right behind us. The Army owns it. It’s so gorgeous they made it into a weapons range and do their best to destroy it.”
“Now be fair, it’s not the Army’s fault that Hawaii is so scenic.”
“But the valley has all kinds of Hawaiian artifacts and cultural significance. Or it used to. Now no one can enjoy the rubble without a nice strafing. Well, almost no one.”
I rubbed my hands together like Dad always did.
“I can picture you rubbing your hands together like a mad scientist. What are you up to?”
“You’re imagining things,” I said, knocking off the rubbing, looking for hidden cameras.
My threat detectors on full alert, I felt chills. It’s not like remote and forbidden Makua Valley was on any list of tourist destinations.
“By the way, where did you hear about Makua Valley before?”
“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps your father mentioned it in connection to a secret weapon his team is working on.”
“Secret weapon?”
I did not like the sound of that. I detected a vague warning.
“I hear they may be testing it at your Makua Valley. Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”
Fearing it was no coincidence, I poked my head out the window and looked in the sky. As far as I knew, the CIA didn’t dedicate state of the art spy satellites to individual Americans. At least for family-related reasons. Then again, I wouldn’t put anything past Dad and his crazed colleagues.
“No, Mom, it’s not funny.”
With a wry smile, I waved to the sky.
“I’m waving back, honey.”
I knew it.
“He’s excited to try out his new toy.”
I mentioned a couple off the top of my head. “Which one? The neutron bomb? The laser cannon?”
Mom teased, “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Plague mosquitoes? Robotic zombies. . .”
“Sorry, sweetie,” interrupted Mom. “I’ve already said too much.”
“You haven’t said anything.”
“You know it’s against the rules. You don’t want your dad to kill me, too, do you?”
“Maybe just this one time.”
“Michael.”
“No, I guess not.”
“That’s better. Now don’t forget, send those muffins. Oh, and call more often. For instance, every couple weeks to let me know more are on their way.”
Chapter 43
Nothing To Worry About
In the midnight darkness, we drove up the Army road, parked the Turd, and vanished into the brush. Creeping through the dark like a burglar towards a felony, my heart always pounded. Seeing the plants still there is always a nice rush. Conversely, it’s a soul-crushing bummer when they’re gone. To deal with the tension, the clever grower gets nice and stoned first, obtaining maximum coolness.
Like an early Who album, the kids were all right. I greeted the girls with sniffs and squeezes. They were harder than a calculus test, sweeter than citrus blossoms.
Happy shined his flashlight on a top. “Jeez, Mikey, look at the sugar on these buds. We grew da kine.”
“We sure did.”
“So, when should we pick them? Remember, we don’t want them exploding.”
“Right. We’ll come back in the morning. I’d like to see ‘em in the daylight one more time just to be sure. Also, take some pictures of these puppies for High Times. Let’s grab the pounds for Crash and get going.”
The future looked bright for the clever philanthropists. We knew how to grow da kine, now if we could just upscale production a jillionfold, we could start changing the world—a jillion heads at a time. That’s a lot of heads, but to change the world, visionaries needed to think big.
We left two pounds of personal stash in the lava tube, put the rest in the truck, and got in. I felt good, knowing the next day I’d double my life savings. The whole altruism thing was really paying off.
About then a little voice said: Do you really want to wait?
That seemed out of character for my little voice. I’d procrastinated all my life, and I’d never heard it say that before. It had seemed in total accord with my laid-back style. Maybe I should pay attention. After all, Ray and Plastic Donald had taught me the damnest things could happen if you waited too long. So did the Elite Eviction Team. Then there was the threat of exploding. I doubted that was a real thing, but like Happy said, we didn’t wanna find out the hard way. Then I remembered something else Ray had mentioned.
“The best time to harvest is at night. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but the THC levels are lower during the day.”
And so, we headed back to the plot, photos be damned.
As we harvested, Happy had a question. A good one. “Where will we dry ‘em?”
I’d already given that some thought. It’s not like we could bring ‘em to a drying room that wasn’t there anymore, but I did want to slow-dry them in the shade. The harsh sun not only dried them too quickly, it changed their color and reduced THC levels. On the other hand, it was great for initiating skin cancer.
I pointed at the grove of kukui nut trees. They were closer to the road and yet I said, “Should be safe enough under those for a few days.”
I admit, I was playing fast and loose with the definition of safe. The kukui nut trees, with their thick canopies, hid the hanging plants from the nearby road—but those babies smelled. A lot. Then again, except for two ingenious hippies, no one walked that road. As for military traffic? We’d never seen any vehicles go through the gate, and unless a rare one stopped right there for a deep-breathing break, our plants should escape detection. No, we had nothing to fear from the Army.
Two hours later, almost done with the hanging, Happy said, “You hear that?”
We stopped to listen. From the distance, we heard what sounded like a low-flying plane. Maybe a helicopter, too. Oddly, we saw no flashing lights.
“Sounds like they’re getting closer, doesn’t it?”
“Nothing to worry about, Happy.”
I trusted my instincts; they were unerring except when wrong. Still, when you’re doing outlaw stuff in a place where Uncle Sam guarantees your annihilation, unusual noises tend to be nerve-wracking.
“Look,” said Happy, pointing at the silhouette of a darkened plane from the direction of Koli Koli Pass. “We’re under attack!”
World War III breaking out? Had Nixon and Dad finally pushed the button? Aw, man, how inconvenient.
Seconds later, a low-flying black shadow zoomed just overhead. That seemed suspicious. Also, ominous. Perhaps something to worry about. As if it’d help, we ducked. It worked. The jet kept on going.
“Well, that was weird.”
“Maybe it’s lost,” suggested Happy.
My partner didn’t understand that people who hadn’t enjoyed a career as an LSD quality tester didn’t lose their way on straight roads. Or in military jets with trained navigators and
lots of technology. As the sound of the jet receded into the black sky, I relaxed.
At least till Happy said, “You hear a chopper getting closer? Or is it just another acid flashback?”
I rooted for flashback, but I could hear it, too. A couple of nerve-wracking minutes later, a helicopter closed in on the Turd, illuminating it with a brilliant spotlight. Fifty feet away, dressed in our UPS outfits, Happy and I leaped into the lava tube and hunkered down like Venusian rabbits.
“This can’t be good,” moaned Happy.
“Take it easy. Think positive.”
“I’m positive this can’t. . .”
“Don’t be so damn positive. Let’s leave room for doubt so we don’t panic.”
“Too late.”
“Jesus, what is that smell?”
He hung his head in shame. “Not sure. Unless you mean a side effect of panic.”
Not for the first time, I envied Happy’s inability to smell anything. A few seconds later, the chopper flew off.
“See, Happy? Nothing to worry about.”
“Thinking negatively, that’s the secret?”
“We gotta be flexible. Plus, I like to think our good karma helped.”
Our good karma had saved us from the comedian-hating sharks that had taken heckling to a new level with Sgt. Randy, and now it had repelled a military attack. Thank God Peter landed on that outcrop or mine might have seriously devalued. I wasn’t sure if karma worked that way, but I figured with the staph infection eating up my leg, any bullshit with the puffy fish had been evened out. We hung the last few plants, determined to get out of Makua Valley before things got any weirder.
That’s when Happy said, “Uh oh, Mikey, that jet is coming back.”
“Big deal. It’s not like he can hover. Probably just a strafing run.”
“Strafing run?” Happy’s eyes popped out with, I don’t know, excitement?
“Just kidding, it’s a bomber.”
I liked to keep things light. After all, growing pot was about having a killer time.
“Are you sure that’s better?”
“We better hope so. We’ll split as soon as it passes.”
“Good plan,” shouted Happy over the sound of the jet closing in.
I was glad I had my pounds for Crash already on board Miss Turd. I didn’t want to waste a moment hightailing it out of the weapons range. I looked in the black sky for the stealthy oncoming plane, wondering: Where is it? Then I wondered: What the hell is that streak of light? Could it be another fireball? Another good omen? A moment later, when the Turd exploded, I knew exactly what it was. Not a good omen, but Dad’s new toy: the Stink Bomb.
Happy and I made one with the lava tube floor while quark-sized particles of stinky pickup truck flew overhead, the reeking shrapnel annihilating the protective canopy and anything sweet-tasting hanging under it. How about that? Just as Happy feared, our pot had exploded. I took a moment to reflect. If we’d have left harvesting until the next day, the plants would still be fine. Same thing went for the pounds I’d gathered for Crash. (A painful lesson about the virtues of procrastination.)
Though tiny molecules of THC rained down everywhere, we felt anything but stoned. We ducked down like prairie dogs when the chopper returned with its spotlight. Hidden under a ton of shredded foliage in our hidey hole, we Venusians really were invisible. Satisfied with the vaporization of the offensive truck, and anything near it, the chopper took off.
The irony of Dr. Strangelove bulldozing the farm and then blowing up all my work was not lost on me. He loved to tell me crime didn’t pay. Mom hadn’t been kidding; he’d go to any lengths to get me into law school.
In a matter of moments, I’d gone from sitting pretty, to a man with no inventory, no just-harvested buds, no reeking truck, and no plot. Not to mention, blown eardrums, a blown mind, and a thousand splinters lodged in his body. Between the farm pot and the new stuff, I’d lost a small fortune. On the bright side, Mango, guarding the gate, remained intact.
With my mighty ego shrunken, my behumbled head looked like a misshapen golf ball. I started pulling splinters the size of chopsticks from my smoldering body and thought of all the unlikely factors that had to line up for things to go so wrong.
No doubt about it, changing the world was gonna take more work than I’d thought.
Epilogue
(Denver, Summer, 2014)
“Unbelievable,” said Trip after finishing my story. “After all that, you ended up with nothing?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I had all those splinters. . .”
“Guess your good karma wasn’t as all-powerful as you thought.”
“Heh heh, no. It was not. I blamed it on Sergeant Randy. I knew I shouldn’t have gone spearfishing.”
“Come on, Señor Bueno, how do you stay positive after such a major screw up? I know I’d get depressed”
“I’m resilient as a starfish, Trip. Plus, decades have gone by. At the time, I went into a nice refreshing coma. When I woke up, I looked at the bright side: I had a great dog and I lived in a spectacular place.”
Trip shook his affluent head. “You lived in a tiny canvas box.”
“A matter of perspective. Plus, I had plenty of personal stash, a wad of cash, and half an inherited van covered with a horrifying mural.”
“Still. . .”
“I know, but that’s a lot more than I started out with. Plus, I had an exciting new profession that could get me killed without going to Vietnam.”
“You’re like a Zen master of repression.”
“Thanks, Trip. I give credit to the Furry Freak Brothers.”
“Who?”
Seriously? I sighed at my young friend’s ignorance.
“Great philosophers from an earlier time. You run a pot store, Trip. You really need to brush up on your drug culture.”
“Ya think?”
“Well, yeah. You should read some underground comix. I bet your grandpa Far has a stash of them somewhere.”
“What’d they teach?”
“Some of them taught us to keep on truckin’, but the insightful Furry Freak Brothers preached, ‘Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.’ ”
“Brilliant. I’m gonna use that in my advertising.”
“Those guys knew what they were talking about. Sure, the bombing was a tough blow, but what could I do? I had to move on. I couldn’t go around acting bummed all the time.”
“I don’t know, dude. . .”
“I’m sure you’d handle it well if your store got blown up by backward-thinking Republicans.”
“Yeah, but I’m already rich. Not to mention, heavily insured. Were you?”
“You kidding? No way I’d fall for that insurance scam. But it wasn’t the end of the world. That was one thing Dad hadn’t gotten around to yet. Besides, I had a blast growing it.”
“Literally.”
“Good one. Anyway, I knew I could do it again.”
“Why would you wanna get bombed again?”
“I meant the growing.”
“Oh.”
“The thing is, my projects gave me self-confidence. Which is something not everyone who has messed up so bad can say.”
“And rightly so. Is that when you moved to Kona?”
“Nah, not quite yet. Dad taught me a lesson: Too much work could kill a fun-loving guy. After all, life was short. I needed to get further away from Dad’s brand of career guidance or it would be even shorter. So, after the near-annihilation, I decided to take a travel break, enjoy my life while I still could.”
“Where’d you go? Asia?”
“Not yet. I called Buddy and made plans for South America.”
“What about the philanthropy?”
“All part of the plan.”
Trip gave me a canny look. “I get it. You’re talking about smuggling cocaine, aren’t ya?”
“
Buddy sure was.”
“Not you?”
“It wasn’t my priority. Let’s not forget, Colombia was one of the world’s top producers of marijuana.”
“Ah, you were thinking of a little philanthropy south of the border, weren’t you?”
“More than a little.”
Trip smiled at that one, and asked, “Is that when you got your Señor Bueno nickname?”
“Sure is. When a delusional reporter named Gerardo wrote a five-part series about my seventy-five-man drug cartel, I became infamous for a while.”
“Cool!”
“Not really,” I said with a grimace of nostalgia.
“Let me guess, you’re gonna write stories about that, too?”
“Already did. You wanna read ‘em?”
“Are they exciting?”
“What do you consider exciting?”
“Well, was your trip dangerous?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Did you almost die?”
“Constantly. After all, we started our trip in Barranquilla, Colombia.”
“In that case, you bet I wanna read it. What’s the next book called?”
“I’m thinking High In The Andes.”
_ _ _
The End
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If you enjoyed Breaking Good, I've got more ready books for you. Up next in the Señor Bueno travel adventure series is High In The Andes, then The Machu Picchu Blues. They’ll soon be followed by Kona Gold, and Maui Wowee, and several others. There is also a hilarious collection of zany travel adventures in short story form called Weird Trips! ! So get ready for more insane adventures to Hawaii, South America, Mexico, and Southeast Asia.