“What were they like?”
“Dangerous. Hazards everywhere. One had lights in the living room with naked wires all ready to start a fire. In the living room! Another one had the lights in the basement, but mold in the walls. You wouldn’t believe how some people live.” Amy shook her head vigorously. “Imagine bringing up children in scenes like that.”
I changed the subject by asking about Julie’s toilet training. If I did decide to start growing—don’t unload bales of soil at night, get rid of garbage in small loads, make sure the neighbors can’t see—I would have to be very, very careful. If Amy ever found out what I was thinking of, I might lose my family. I wasn’t sure about Jason. But Amy had seen grow-ops and obviously thought they were evil. Maybe they were. I didn’t know.
In a funny way it was the thought of Amy’s horror that spurred me to make the phone call to Marcus.
8
I waited at the window for Marcus to arrive, expecting him to be late. But no, his old battered truck drew up promptly at nine. I was in a dither, pulling on my ear lobe continually and getting up and down from my chair, unable to settle. Would my basement be suitable? Would he be able to set me up as Swan said he would? But most of all, was this a wise move?
Marcus unfolded himself out of his truck, reached inside for a few things, and started up my front path. He really was a great gawk with his gangly legs and huge hands and feet. He held a paper cup of coffee in front of him as if it might slop down his front, but still managed to walk as if his jeans were too tight for his family jewels.
I opened the door before he had time to ring and said, “Hi Marcus. Come in.” I couldn’t stop myself looking up and down the street before closing the door.
I hadn’t seen Marcus since the day of the fire. He stood, staring at the floor, running a finger round the rim of his cup. I had a chance to study him. An impassive face, clean-shaven except for the soul patch, not handsome but not unpleasant; a face you wouldn’t fall over yourself to greet. He was strangely silent. I had the urge to say, “Has the cat got your tongue,” like my mother used to. Not that he made me feel motherly, but I did want to sit him down in front of a good fry-up to fill him out a bit.
“You want to look at my basement?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Don’t take your shoes off,” I said, though he had made no move to do so. “This way.”
I led him through a door in the hall, down the steep wooden steps into what I thought of as an underground fusty cavern with spiders and other unseen creepy crawlies. It’s a cavern I only visited to do laundry, re-light the furnace when it went out, or find out if the hot water tank had leaked. On the way down, Marcus knocked over a can of paint that was stored on a shelf beside the stairs. He didn’t bend down to pick it up. I did. No “sorry” or comment.
I turned on the two dim lights. Marcus put his coffee cup down on the washing machine and looked around. He inspected the old stone sink and tried the tap, which spat out water in small bursts. “Get this fixed,” he grunted.
Someone had once built a long, shelf-lined cupboard, probably for storing canned fruit and root vegetables but that I used for garden tools and oddments. “Hmm,” Marcus said as he opened its door.
“Will that be useful?” I asked.
Marcus gave the first of many irritating shrugs. He then turned his attention to the ceiling, particularly to the round hole that a wood stove had once been vented through. “Got a screwdriver?” he said. Three words.
My tools were in the storage cupboard and while I searched, Marcus stood on a stool and fiddled with the wooden cover of the hole. I handed him my set of screwdrivers. He selected one and handed the rest back. Although his hands were huge, his fingers were long and agile and the cover was off in a moment. He stepped off the stool quickly as a pile of mouse droppings and black dust fell on the floor. “Know where this goes?” Four words.
“Straight up to the roof, I think.” I had once inspected the various chimneys when I had my living room gas fire installed and had to have the main chimney re-lined.
“Good,” Marcus said.
“Don’t take my word for it,” I added hastily. He didn’t answer but opened the back door leading into the garden, and looked out. “Where’s your panel?” he said as he closed the door.
“What panel?”
“Electric.”
“Upstairs.” I’d have to practice terse sentences if I decided to spend time with him.
I headed for the stairs, but Marcus had produced a tape measure and a used envelope and was measuring the large, empty space that held trunks and boxes. “Move those,” he said, pointing to them.
“Right,” I said.
“Hold that.” Marcus handed me one end of the tape measure. “Against that wall.” He wrote down the measurements on the envelope while I held the tape.
“Will it be suitable?” I asked as he finally retracted the measure. I was half hoping he would say “no” so I could forget the whole idea.
“You’ll see.” He gave a final look around and made for the stairs. I followed. “Panel?” he said at the top.
I showed him the panel in the hall.
“Get another.”
“Another what?”
“Another panel. Get an electrician. And a dryer outlet.”
“Where shall I ask him to put them?” I said.
Marcus had his hand on the front door knob. “Downstairs.”
“Whereabouts?” I called as he marched down the path.
He shrugged.
I wanted to throw something at him, but I went downstairs to turn off the lights and fetch his coffee cup. Even if the basement turned out to be suitable for a grow-op, I wasn’t sure I could handle Marcus on a regular basis. He didn’t seem very competent. And he certainly wasn’t forthcoming. Yet Swan thought he knew what he was doing. Supposing he didn’t? What if he didn’t wire the lights properly and my house went up in flames? Insurance doesn’t cover you if a fire is the result of an illegal activity.
I made myself a cup of tea. I could hardly believe that I was seriously considering a grow-op in my basement. Me—a person who never smuggles things over the border, never cheats on my income tax, always points out a cashier’s error in my favor. I might end up in jail! What would I look like in orange overalls and a little headscarf?
I told myself to stop it; lots of people in Nelson grow marijuana. I would simply be joining a different group. I would no longer call myself a waitress. “What do you do, Jess?” “Oh, I have some growing investments.” Anyway, even if I didn’t know if Marcus could set me up, it wouldn’t do any harm to put another electrical panel in the house. I might be able to rent the space to a potter.
I reached for the Yellow Pages to look for an electrician. Then I had second thoughts. What was I going to ask him to do and why? I didn’t know where another panel should go, or a dryer outlet. And what explanation would I give about why I needed them? I phoned Swan instead and left a message for her to call me.
Swan came round the following evening. This time she had a tuft of blue hair springing straight up from her head so that she looked all the world like a blue jay—a blue jay with a bit of metal in its lip and black around its eyes.
I told her about Marcus’s visit. “He doesn’t explain anything,” I said. “He wants me to put in another electrical panel and a dryer outlet, but where? I can’t ask an electrician to come if I can’t say what I want. Or why.”
Swan tugged at the cuffs of her black sweater, one with arms that would fit an ape, and drew the sleeves over her hands. “Let’s go down to the basement.”
“Hmm, nice space,” she said when we reached the foot of the steps. She turned on the water at the sink. “Need a new tap. One that will take a hose.”
She wandered around and looked in the storage cupboard. “That will be useful. He’ll probably make
the door to the room here.” She indicated the corner of the cupboard. “But I don’t know. Just let him do it.”
“Room?” I said. “Doesn’t he use this space.” I waved my arm round the basement.
“Yeah. But he’ll build a room in it. You’ll see.” She looked at the hole in the ceiling.
“He was very interested in that,” I said.
“That’s where the duct pipe will go.”
“What duct pipe?”
Swan looked at me pityingly and shook her head. “Jess, a grow room has to have several things: lights—big ones—air intake, air exit, and something to control the smell.” She waved at the main space. “This is where the lights will go. You’ve got room for four. I’m not sure where he’ll put the intake duct, but the exit will go through this old chimney. Sweet.”
Swan opened the door to the cupboard again. “Your watering bin will go in here. And your seedlings.” She patted a shelf. “He’ll probably fit up fluorescent lights for them. Awesome. No waiting between crops.”
Swan spoke with such authority I could hardly believe it.
“Don’t let him give you Skunk plants. They stink.” She walked around the space toward the back door.
“I can’t tell a marijuana plant from a dandelion so I wouldn’t know. Do they all stink?”
“Some. A good filter helps.”
By this time I was thinking I’d bitten off more than I could chew. I hadn’t really thought about what was involved. I had imagined a few plant pots in the basement, that’s all, not a whole room, a grow room. Suppose someone came downstairs and saw a room? Jason, or Amy? What would I do when I needed the furnace serviced?
I was about to tell Swan to forget it, I couldn’t do this, when she opened the back door and stepped out. It was dark and she couldn’t see much. “Can you use the lane?”
“Yes. My garage is there.”
“Wicked.”
Back inside, Swan said, “I’d put the dryer outlet here.” She indicated a spot half way along the wall of the main space. “You’ll have to move all those boxes.” She walked over to the furnace and hot water tank. “And I’d put the panel here,” she said, pointing to the wall at the foot of the stairs.
“How am I going to pay for them? I’m broke.”
“Give the bill to Marcus. He’ll pay it. You’ll pay him back at the end.” Swan moved to the middle of the room and slowly looked around.
“What shall I say I need them for?”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I can’t ask an electrician to come and put in a new panel and a outlet without saying why,” I said.
“Tell him you’re reno-ing the kitchen and you need more power. And you’re getting a dryer down here. You’ve only got that old washer, right? In fact, get him to put in two dryer outlets in case you do get a dryer.”
I nodded. I hung out my washing on lines strung across the basement. Maybe I’d be able to afford a new washer and dryer. That would be wonderful.
“Move these but keep ’em.” Swan pulled on a line. “You’ll need ’em for drying the weed.”
I looked at her with new eyes. She’d turned into my teacher, someone to help me with a new way of life, a conspirator. I gave her a spontaneous hug. “Thanks, Swan. I don’t feel quite so lost.”
She hugged me back. “No prob. I’ll come and help you whenever you want. Marcus isn’t a talker, in case you hadn’t noticed. Head injury, you know. Climbing accident. Tragic.”
As Swan was about to leave, she said, “I nearly forgot, Marcus needs a key so he can get in when he wants.”
“You mean he can come in and wander around the house when he feels like it?”
Swan gave me her ‘seriously?’ look again. “Jess, he isn’t going to rob you. Or attack you. Of course he has to get in.”
“Even when he’s finished setting up?”
“He isn’t just setting you up. There’ll be the plants to look after and all sorts of things to check.”
“Don’t I do that?”
“Do you know how?”
I shook my head. “Of course not.”
“You’re going to need lots of help. A back door key would be best. Then he can park his truck out there. Do you have a spare key?”
I found a key and a key ring and gave them to Swan. “Will you be seeing Marcus?”
“Yep.”
She had said he wasn’t her boyfriend, but they seemed to see a lot of each other.
“Call him when the electrician’s finished,” she said as she left. “And you can always lock the inside door to the basement, if you’re worried.”
I leaned on the front door after I’d closed it. What on earth was I doing? I nearly called after Swan “Stop. I can’t go through with this,” but I didn’t. The half of me that was gleeful, the half that I always subdued, took over. This was the most exhilarating thing that had ever happened to me.
In the living room I played Abba. “Take a chance on me,” I sang as I danced around. “Take a chance on me-e-e.”
9
The next meeting of the Crones was held at Ainsworth Hot Springs. Should I go? The entry fee had gone up and I would have to pitch in for gas. To hell with it. I need this. I’ll skip a meal tomorrow.
As usual on outings we met at Extra Foods, ready to be picked up by the two women who had volunteered to drive. Not many Crones drove any more, either because they didn’t feel able, or—more likely—they couldn’t afford a car. It was more a question of who was available to drive rather than who would.
Eva didn’t come on outings. She was too much of a liability, as she tended to wander off. So her poor husband didn’t get the two-hour respite he enjoyed when we had our meetings at the church.
This time there were six of us traveling in two cars, one driven by Maggie and one by Joan. I was with Laura in Maggie’s car and although Maggie tried to maneuver me into the front seat, she was beaten to it by Laura, who simply piled in. This meant that Maggie was the recipient of Laura’s medical news. I was glad to settle in the back so I could avoid conversation. I wanted this break to help me simmer down and think things through, not get worked up over other people’s problems. Life was in control of me, not the other way round, and I was hurtling toward something I didn’t necessarily want.
“Now, would you believe it, my cholesterol is up!” Laura exclaimed. “As if I don’t have enough to put up with.”
“Easily controlled by diet,” Maggie said as she turned onto Nelson Avenue.
“Yes, the doctor says I have to control my diet, but he’s also put me on statins. That should do it.” Laura settled into her seat.
Maggie groaned. “I suppose I’m wasting my breath if I tell you how dangerous they are?”
“My doctor wouldn’t prescribe them if they were dangerous.”
“He wouldn’t, eh?”
There was silence for a while. When Laura realized Maggie wasn’t going to continue, she said, “Why are they dangerous?”
“Statins work by acting on an enzyme in the liver. But they also block important nutrients that you need for a healthy heart. So they’re counter-productive.”
“He told me they would prevent me having a heart attack.”
I couldn’t see Maggie’s face, but I expect she had her “bullshit” look on.
Laura twisted in her seat to look at me. “What do you think, Jess?”
“About what?” I didn’t want to get into that discussion.
“About cholesterol.”
“All I know is that whenever there’s a big song and dance about anything, like cholesterol or bone density, my crap detector starts to vibrate.”
“So you don’t believe in cholesterol?” Laura turned to face the front again.
I rolled my eyes. “Cholesterol isn’t something you believe in. What I do believe is t
hat I’m in charge of my health, not a doctor, and that they don’t know everything.”
“Oh.”
Now, maybe, we could move on. “The lake looks lovely today,” I said. “Almost summery.” I loved the drive along Kootenay Lake and the views of the mountains, that still had snow on the peaks, and the trees taking on their summer leaves. It’s the sort of view that people travel thousands of miles to see in other countries but that we had on our doorstep.
“I don’t want to have a heart attack or a stroke,” Laura whined.
“Neither does anyone else,” Maggie said. “Laura, if your doctor told you to live in a wheelchair to prevent heart attacks, would you do it?”
“No, of course not.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t need a wheelchair.”
“Exactly.” Maggie slowed for road works. An older woman held up a STOP sign. Could it be Nancy? Was she back on the job?
“Jess, how’s the job hunting coming along? Weren’t you going to look into this?” Maggie indicated the traffic controller.
“I did inquire about this job,” I said, “but you have to take a course that costs two hundred dollars. Which I don’t have.”
“You’d want to do that?” Laura asked.
“Not particularly. But it pays twelve bucks an hour.”
“I’d hate it. Standing in fumes all day and out in all weather,” Laura said dismissively.
“We can’t all do what we want,” Maggie said as we headed off again. “Or I’d be a naturopath.”
“What do you need to do to become one?” Maggie had never said that was her ambition. She had studied plants and their medicinal uses and had taken a course in homeopathy, but she hadn’t mentioned naturopathy. Wasn’t she too old now?
“I’d have to go to college for four years. But I’m saving up.” She smiled at me through the rear-view mirror. “One day. Before I’m too old.”
The first step into the delicious warmth of the hot springs made all my cells relax and get ready to enjoy the influx of minerals from the water. A feeling of peace swept over me. I started off in the hottest pool where I could close my eyes and think, while everyone else was in the cooler pool.
Gone to Pot Page 6