Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes

by Terry Southern

  “Shoot,” said Harold, flicking his half-smoked Camel and then mashing it out on the ground, “you’re crazy.”

  C.K. laughed. “Sho’ I is,” he said.

  They fell silent again, C.K. appearing almost asleep, humming to himself, and Harold sitting opposite, frowning down to where his own finger traced lines without pattern in the dirt-floor of the shed.

  “Where we gonna keep this stuff at, C.K.?” he demanded finally, his words harsh and reasonable, “we can’t jest leave it sittin’ out like this.”

  C.K. seemed not to have heard, or perhaps simply to consider it without opening his eyes; then he did open them, and when he leaned forward and spoke, it was with a fresh and remarkable cheerfulness and clarity:

  “Well, now the first thing we got to do is to clean this gage. We got to git them seeds outta there an’ all them little branches. But the ver’ first thing we do . . .” and he reached into the pile, “is to take some of this here flower, these here ver’ small leaves, an’ put them off to the side. That way you got you two kinds of gage, you see—you got you a light gage an’ a heavy gage.”

  C.K. started breaking off the stems and taking them out, Harold joining in after a while; and then they began crushing the dry leaves with their hands.

  “How we ever gonna git all them dang seeds outta there?” asked Harold.

  “Now I show you a trick about that,” said C.K., smiling and leisurely getting to his feet. “Where’s that pilly-cover at?”

  He spread the pillowcase flat on the ground and, lifting the newspaper, dumped the crushed leaves on top of it. Then he folded the cloth over them and kneaded the bundle with his fingers, pulverizing it. After a minute of this, he opened it up again, flat, so that the pile was sitting on the pillowcase now as it had been before on the newspaper.

  “You hold on hard to that end,” he told Harold, and he took the other himself and slowly raised it, tilting it, and agitating it. The round seeds started rolling out of the pile, down the taut cloth and onto the ground. C.K. put a corner of the pillowcase between his teeth and held the other corner out with one hand; then, with his other hand, he tapped gently on the bottom of the pile, and the seeds poured out by the hundreds, without disturbing the rest.

  “Where’d you learn that at, C.K.?” asked Harold.

  “Shoot, you got to know you business you workin’ with this plant,” said C.K., “. . . waste our time pickin’ out them ole seeds.”

  He stood for a moment looking around the shed. “Now we got to have us somethin’ to keep this gage in—we got to have us a box, somethin’ like that, you see.”

  “Why can’t we jest keep it in that?” asked Harold, referring to the pillowcase.

  C.K. frowned. “Naw we can’t keep it in that,” he said, “. . . keep it in that like ole sacka turnip . . . we got to git us somethin’—a nice little box, somethin’ like that, you see. How ’bout one of you empty shell-boxes? You got any?”

  “They ain’t big enough,” said Harold.

  C.K. resumed his place, sitting and slowly leaning back against the wall, looking at the pile again.

  “They sho’ ain’t, is they,” he said, happy with that fact.

  “We could use two or three of ’em,” Harold said.

  “Wait a minute now,” said C.K., “we talkin’ here, we done forgit about this heavy gage.” He laid his hand on the smaller pile, as though to reassure it. “One of them shell-boxes do fine for that—an’ I tell you what we need for this light gage now I think of it . . . is one of you momma’s quart fruit-jars.”

  “Shoot, I can’t fool around with them dang jars, C.K.,” said the boy.

  C.K. made a little grimace of impatience.

  “You momma ain’t begrudge you one of them fruit-jars, Hal’—she ast you ’bout it, you jest say it got broke! You say you done use that jar put you fishin’-minners in it! Hee-hee . . . she won’t even wanta see that jar no more, you tell her that.”

  “I ain’t gonna fool around with them jars, C.K.”

  C.K. sighed and started rolling another cigarette.

  “I jest goin’ twist up a few of these sticks now,” he explained, “an’ put them off to the side.”

  “When’re you gonna smoke some of that other?” asked Harold.

  “What, that heavy gage?” said C.K., raising his eyebrows in surprise at the suggestion. “Shoot, that ain’t no workin’-hour gage there, that’s you Sunday gage . . . oh you mix a little bit of that into you light gage now and then you feel like it—but you got to be sure ain’t nobody goin’ to mess with you ’fore you turn that gage full on. ’Cause you jest wanta lay back then an’ take it easy” He nodded to himself in agreement with this, his eyes intently watching his fingers work the paper. “You see . . . you don’t swing with you heavy gage, you jest goof . . . that’s what you call that. Now you light gage, you swing with you light gage . . . you control that gage, you see. Say a man have to go out an’ work, why he able to enjoy that work! Like now you seen me turn on some of this light gage, didn’t you? Well, I may have to go out with you daddy a little later on an’ lay that fence-wire, or work with my post-hole digger. Why I able to swing with my post-hole digger with my light gage on. Sho’, that’s you sociable gage, you light gage is—this here other, well, that’s what you call you thinkin’ gage. . . . Hee-hee! Shoot, I wouldn’t even wanta see no post-hole digger I turn that gage full on!”

  He rolled the cigarette up, slowly, licking it with great care.

  “Yeah,” he said half-aloud, “. . . ole fruit-jar be fine for this light gage.” He chuckled. “That way we jest look right in there, know how much we got on hand at all time.”

  “We got enough I reckon,” said Harold, a little sullenly it seemed.

  “Sho’ is,” said C.K., “more’n the law allows at that.”

  “Is it against the law then sure enough, C.K.?” asked Harold in eager interest, “. . . like that Mex’can kept sayin’ it was?” C.K. gave a soft laugh.

  “I jest reckon it is,” he said, “. . . it’s against all kinda law—what we got here is. Sho’, they’s one law say you can’t have none of it, they put you in the jailhouse you do . . . then they’s another law say they catch you with more than this much . . .” he reached down and picked up a handful to show, “well, then you in real trouble! Sho’, you got more than that why they say: ‘Now that man got more of that gage than he need for his personal use, he must be sellin’ it!’ Then they say you a pusher. That’s what they call that, an’ boy I mean they put you way back in the jailhouse then!” He gave Harold a severe look. “I don’t wanta tell you you business, nothin’ like that, Hal’, but if I was you I wouldn’t let on ’bout this to nobody—not to you frien’ Big Law’ence or any of them people.”

  “Heck, don’t you think I know better than to do that?”

  “You ain’t scared though, is you Hal?”

  Harold spat.

  “Shoot,” he said, looking away, as though in exasperation and disgust that the thought could have occurred to anyone.

  C.K. resumed his work, rolling the cigarettes, and Harold watched him for a few minutes and then stood up, very straight.

  “I reckon I could git a fruit-jar outta the cellar,” he said, “if she ain’t awready brought ’em up for her cannin’.”

  “That sho’ would be fine, Hal’,” said C.K., without raising his head, licking the length of another thin stick of it.

  When Harold came back with the fruit-jar and the empty shell-box, they transferred the two piles into those things.

  “How come it’s against the law if it’s so all-fired good?” asked Harold.

  “Well, now, I use to study ’bout that myself,” said C.K., tightening the lid of the fruit-jar and giving it a pat. He laughed. “It ain’t because it make young boys like you sick, I tell you that much!”

  “Well, what the heck is it then?”

  C.K. put the fruit-jar beside the shell-box, placing it neatly, carefully centering the two just in fron
t of him, and seeming to consider the question while he was doing it.

  “I tell you what it is,” he said then, “it’s ’cause a man see too much when he git high, that’s what. He see right through ever’thing . . . you understan’ what I say?”

  “What the heck are you talkin’ about, C.K.?”

  “Well, maybe you too young to know what I talkin’ ’bout—but I tell you they’s a lotta trickin’ an’ lyin’ go on in the world . . . they’s a lotta ole bull-crap go on in the world . . . well, a man git high, he see right through all them tricks an’ lies, an’ all that ole bull-crap. He see right through there into the truth of it!”

  “Truth of what?”

  “Ever’thing.”

  “Dang you sure talk crazy, C.K.”

  “Sho’, they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever’body git high, wouldn’t be nobody git up an’ feed the chickens! Hee-hee . . . ever’body jest lay in bed! Jest lay in bed till they ready to git up! Sho’, you take a man high on good gage, he got no use for they ole bull-crap, ’cause he done see right through there. Shoot, he lookin’ right down into his ver’ soul!”

  “I ain’t never heard nobody talk so dang crazy, C.K.”

  “Well, you young, boy—you goin’ hear plenty crazy talk ’fore you is a growed man.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Now we got to think of us a good place to put this gage,” he said, “a secret place. Where you think, Hal?”

  “How ’bout that old smoke-house out back—ain’t nobody goes in there.”

  “Shoot, that’s a good place for it, Hal’—you sure they ain’t goin’ tear it down no time soon?”

  “Heck no, what would they tear it down for?”

  C.K. laughed.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” he said, “well, we take it out there after it gits dark.”

  They fell silent, sitting there together in the early afternoon. Through the open end of the shed the bright light had inched across the dirt floor till now they were both sitting half in the full sunlight.

  “I jest wish I knowed or not you daddy goin’ to work on that south-quarter fence today,” said C.K. after a bit.

  “Aw, him and Les Newgate went to Dalton,” said Harold, “. . . heck, I bet they ain’t back ’fore dark.” Then he added, “You wanta go fishin’?”

  “Shoot, that sound like a good idee,” said C.K.

  “I seen that dang drum-head jumpin’ on the west side of the pond again this mornin’,” said Harold, “. . . shoot, I bet he weighs seven or eight pounds.”

  “I think we do awright today,” C.K. agreed, glancing out at the blue sky and sniffing a little, “. . . shoot, we try some calf-liver over at the second log—that’s jest where that ole drum-head is ’bout now.”

  “I reckon we oughtta git started,” said Harold. “I guess we can jest leave that dang stuff here till dark . . . we can stick it back behind that fire-wood.”

  “Sho’,” said C.K., “we stick it back in there for the time bein’—I think I jest twist up one or two more ’fore we set out though . . . put a taste of this heavy in ’em.” He laughed as he unscrewed the lid of the fruit-jar. “Shoot, this sho’ be fine for fishin’,” he said. “. . . ain’t nothin’ like good gage give a man the strength of patience—you want me to twist up a couple for you, Hal’?”

  Harold spat.

  “Aw I guess so,” he said finally, “. . . you let me lick ’em though, dangit, C.K.”

  Razor Fight

  THE CRAP-GAME STARTED at two o’clock that afternoon, when C.K. Crow walked into the Paradise Bar with a bottle of Sweet Lucy in one hand and $6 in the other. The white boy, Harold, was with him. “Smart nigger can double his money quick,” said C.K., “if he think I ain’t comin’ out on . . . wham!” and he threw the dice. “. . . SEVEN!” Then he lay his head back laughing and tilted the bottle of wine.

  The place was jumping—funky wailing blues and high wild laughter. “Crow suck that bottle like it a big stick of tea!”

  “He do it like somethin’ else I think of too! Hee-hee! Lemme have a taste of that Lucy, boy!”

  “You all wise do you celebratin’ ’fore you puts you money down,” said C.K., “’cause you sho’ goin’ be cryin’ the blues after . . . where them dice!” Old Wesley stood leaning behind the bar, picking his teeth with a matchstick. “Drink of this establishment not good enough for you, Mistah Crow, that you got to bring you own bottle in here?”

  “Never mind that, my man,” said C.K., wiping his mouth, “you establishment don’t carry drink of this particular quality.” He slapped a quarter on the bar. “Gimme a glass.”

  Old Wesley put a large water-glass on the bar.

  “Who you young frien’ over there?” he asked, with a nod of mock severity at Harold, who hung back near the wall.

  “An’ my young frien’ there have a coke,” said C.K., looking around at Harold as though he might have forgotten about him. “Ain’t that right, boy?”

  “Aw I guess so,” said Harold, sullen, looking away, but aware of the two laughing together now.

  In the Negro bar, C.K. affected an exaggerated superiority over the boy which, though it might sometimes be annoying, Harold didn’t resent because he never felt enough a part of the situation to be vulnerable. He had been coming into the Paradise Bar with C.K. for about a year now, whenever they’d be sent to town in the old pickup to get feed, fence-wire, or whatever it happened to be. C.K. had started this thing of stopping off at the Paradise by saying that he wanted to call on some of his people, as long as he and Harold were in town, and this had first involved their crossing over into a section that was known on maps, town-records, and the like, as West Central Tracks, but was in fact spoken of simply as “Nigger Town”—and then driving through the absurdly bumpy labyrinth of dust and lean-to shacks, outside which great charred wash-pots steamed in the Texas sun above raging bramble-fires. Negroes sat hunched along the edge of ramshackle front-porches, making slow crazy-looking marks in the dust with a stick or gazing, with equal inscrutableness, at the road in front of them—driving through, and finally pulling in with the pickup, right into the dirt frontyard of one of these shacks.

  Then at last they would be in the dark interior itself, seemingly windowless, smelling of kerosene and liniment, red-beans and rice, cornbread, catfish, and possum-stew; and Harold would sit in the corner with a glass of water given him and maybe a piece of hot cornbread, while C.K. sat at the table, in the yellow glow of the oil-lamp, eating, always eating, forever dipping the cornbread into a bowl, head lowered in serious eating, but laughing too, and above all, saying things to make the big woman laugh, she who stood, or sat, watching him eat, his aunt, cousin, girl-friend, Harold never knew which, nor cared. And after, on the way out of the section they would stop again, at the Paradise Bar, so that C.K. could “see a friend,” while Harold, saying, “Goddang it, C.K., we can’t fool around here all day,” waited in the pickup, drinking a coke and eating a piece of hot barbecued-chicken or spare-ribs that C.K. had brought out to him. Then he too had taken to going inside, tentatively at first, either to get C.K. out of there or to get another coke for himself, only then perhaps to linger in watching the crap-game a while, or listening to Blind Tom sing the blues—so that in the end all pretense of calling on C.K.’s people or seeing a friend had been discarded; and whenever they were in town now, and had the time, they just drove straight over to the Paradise Bar and went in. And whereas Harold had in the beginning been merely bored by it all, even given a headache by the ceaseless swinging wail of the blues-guitar, and blistered lips from the barbecue so dredged in red-pepper that it brought both tears and sweat to his face, he had finally come to enjoy these interludes at the Paradise, or rather to take them for granted—sentiments which, in a boy of twelve, are perhaps interchangeable.

  “Well, who is it now? Seth Stevens’ boy?”

  Sitting on a stool next to the wall near where Harold stood was a blind Negro of about sixty; he was barefoot and was strummi
ng a guitar in his lap, he who turned his face, smiling, toward the boy at the sound of his voice, asking “Who is it now? Seth Stevens’ boy?” And there was in this upturned face such a soft unearthly radiance as could have been startling—a wide extraordinarily open face, and the expanse of closed lids made it appear even more so, a face that when singing would sometimes contort as though in pain or anger, and yet when turning to inquire, as in waiting for the word, was lifted, smiling . . . even as in the way an ordinary man may cock his head to one side with a smile, this blind man would, but tilting his chin as well, so that with the light falling directly on his upturned face it seemed almost to be illuminated. It was an expression which on an ordinary person, would have resembled that kind of sweet Blakeian imbecility occasionally seen on faces along McDougal Street, but on this sightless Negro face now it appeared very close to being joyous.

  “Who is it then? Hal’ Stevens?”

  “Yeah, it’s Harold,” said the boy, laconic and restless—accepting, yet half uncertain whether or not it was all a waste of time. He sat down with his coke in an old straight chair next to the stool. “How you doin’, Blind Tom?”

  “You voice begin to change, Hal’—I weren’t sure it were you. How’s you gran’daddy?”

  “Aw he’s awright. He’s slowed down a lot though, I guess.”

  Blind Tom always spoke as though Harold’s grandfather were still running their farm, even though the old man was eighty-seven now and had not been active for as long as Harold could remember. It was something which Harold had attempted to explain once, in one of their earliest conversations, and which Tom had seemed to understand, though gradually now the old notion had stolen back into his talk, and Harold no longer tried to dispel it.