Gone to Pot

by Jennifer Craig

  Jane had one arm across her face. “Did you know it’s impossible to lick your elbow?”

  Everyone immediately contorted themselves in an effort to lick an elbow. Thelma even lay back from the bench, her toes tucked under the far side of the picnic table and her head on the ground, trying to reach her elbow that way. Then she couldn’t move for laughing and we all had to heave her back up to sitting.

  We were still giggling when an old and familiar man emerged from down the path toward us. As he came nearer someone said, “Isn’t that Ed?”

  “How did he know we were here?”

  “I did the phoning,” Claire said. “I left a message.”

  We fell silent. It was Ed. He’d come to tell us that we wouldn’t be seeing Eva again. “She went off one night in her underwear. I was asleep and had forgotten to lock the door. It was all my fault.” His rheumy eyes filled with tears. “If only I’d locked the door early. But I didn’t.”

  “Is she all right?” someone asked.

  “The police found her wandering down the highway. They took her to the hospital and she hasn’t been home since.”

  I had a ridiculous desire to laugh at the image of Eva in her undies running down the highway. What on earth was the matter with me? Her plight was anything but funny.

  The old man wiped his eyes with a cloth hanky. “They didn’t know who she was, so they couldn’t let me know. When I woke up and she wasn’t there, I phoned the police and that’s how I found out where she was. It’s all my fault.”

  “Ed, you’ve done a wonderful job looking after her all this time,” Maggie said. We all murmured agreement. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I should have locked the door.” He sniffed loudly. “She’s with our daughter in Chilliwack. I’m going there when I’ve sold our house.”

  “Are you both going to live with your daughter?” I asked.

  “She’s looking for a placement for Eva. I don’t know what I’ll do. I want to stay here and find a home for Eva here. Where all her friends are. Where I can see her every day. Trouble is, nursing homes for someone like Eva are too expensive and the regular ones are so understaffed the care is terrible.”

  The poor old fellow leaned on the picnic table looking the picture of dejection.

  “Have you put her name down for Saint Mark’s?” Joan asked. “I’ve heard good things about it.”

  “It’s got a long waiting list. They all have. But people have to be…you know…mentally…” He wiped his eyes again.

  “Do you need any help, Ed? You can always call on us, you know. We’re not much good at lifting things, but we can help you by packing and making meals, right girls?” Maggie looked around.

  “Right.”

  “You bet.”

  “That’s very kind of you.” His eyes filled again. “I just wanted to stop by and thank you for being so good to Eva. She always had a great time with you all. I’ll tell her you said hello next time I see her.”

  “We’ll send her a card. What’s her address?” Maggie took over to get the details and then she helped Ed to his car as we all waved good-bye.

  “God, I hope I don’t end up in a Home,” Thelma said.

  “I thought you were in one,” I replied.

  “It’s not a nursing home,” she said firmly. “We’ve all got our marbles. And most of us can move. Except George when he can’t get up off the floor.” She tittered. “It’s silly, but I sort of miss him. He was like having a puppy around—you get used to its presence. Now he’s more hang dog than puppy after his little dalliance.” She sighed. “Maybe I should lift him out of his misery. What do you all think?”

  “Poor old bugger needs you,” I said. “At least he’s still romantic.”

  “Nursing homes aren’t so bad if you can afford a good one,” Laura said. “Poor Ed. He loves Eva so much. I wish I could afford to pay for her to come back so the old guy won’t have to sell his house and move to the coast.”

  We had all sobered up after our hilarity. If only I had the money to help Ed and Eva. Maybe my garden would bring me riches?

  20

  Ten days passed with no sign of Swan. When I called I got her voice mail and left a message to say I had the money I owed her. At the deli someone told me she was on vacation. At least she hadn’t gone off because of me. Couldn’t she have told me she was going to be away? Back to her old flakey ways. Just when I was getting fond of her.

  A couple of mornings later, Swan showed up. She breezed in through the front door without knocking, calling out, “Hi, Jess. Howzit going?”

  I wasn’t sure what to expect when we finally met; coldness, tears, anger perhaps, but not carrying on as if nothing had happened. I ran to meet her in the hall. “Swan. I am so pleased to see you. I’ve been worried about you.”

  We hugged and then I held her away from me. “You look well. Really well.”

  Her skin glowed with suntan, her dark hair curled naturally and the lack of makeup emphasized her eyes. I hadn’t noticed them before because she usually used so much mascara and shadow that she looked ready for the stage. They were stunning: light brown that reflected specks of gold and something else; intelligence. Had Swan been playing a part? The part of an empty-headed bimbo?

  “My mother’s been stuffing me with organic veggies and fruit.”

  “Oh, you’ve been home?”

  “Yes. I got the call and I had to go, or else.”

  “Or else, what?”

  “Trouble with a capital T.”

  Swan settled in a chair while I made coffee.

  “You once asked where I was from, but I never told you. I’m from California. Berkeley. Yuck.” She screwed up her face. “The place is full of nerds and geeks.”

  “You’ve lost your nose stud,” I said.

  “My mother made me take it out before she would take me out.” Swan laughed. “It’s great to be back. I feel like I’ve been in prison.”

  I plonked a coffee mug in front of her. “Swan, I’ve been feeling really bad about what I said to you. I am so sorry. You were right. I couldn’t have started the garden without you and I am grateful. I had no cause to—”

  “No worries,” Swan said. “Forget it. You’ve been like a Mom to me, minus the bitching. It’s cool.”

  There was silence for a while and then, “How’s Sam?” I asked.

  “Sam has a severe case of nonexistence. My new BF is more like a human.” She stared out of the window for a while. “But it’s not going anywhere. Anyway, I’ve gotta go home next summer.”

  “How come?”

  “They gave me two years to get my act together. Then they want me to go to school and do something useful with my life.” She said the last sentence in a falsetto, obviously imitating her mother.

  I couldn’t stop staring at her. It was as if she had undressed to reveal a different person, one I hadn’t suspected was there. She had never tried to hide anything—I was the one who had taken her at face value, who had never asked questions to find out who she was, or what she thought. I had just assumed she was a flighty young lass with nowt much upstairs.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked her.

  “I needed time out. Didn’t want to travel, just wanted to live in another place, get away from university geeks.” She sighed. “Guess I’ll have to go to school in the end, but I’ve got a few more months of freedom.”

  “What would you like to study?”

  “Dunno. Not sure I want to go to school at all.”

  “Are you still working at the deli?”

  “Part-time.” She hesitated. “I’m going to start looking after your grandkids two days a week. Did Amy tell you? She wants to go back to work.”

  No, Amy hadn’t told me. Why not? Why had I heard it from Swan when I’d only just been there for Sunday dinner? Bugger Amy.

  S
wan drained her coffee and stood up. “Gotta go.”

  “Let me get you the money I owe you.” I saw her to the door.

  “How’s the garden?” she asked.

  “Second crop. Three weeks into veg. Got rid of the spider mites.” I hesitated. “Tell me something. Is your name really Swan?”

  She laughed at me. “If you met my parents you’d know the answer.”

  My second harvest was due and I expected to have some money to splurge on presents, and as usual I got carried away with imagining how far my money would go. The Crones always had a Christmas lunch at the Hume Hotel and I toyed with the idea of paying for everyone, but in reality, the money from the last crop had only lasted three months of normal expenses and I had very little left. When Marcus wasn’t getting half my earnings, I could splash a bit.

  It was nearing Christmas and time to think about presents for my grandchildren. I had knitted Nicholas a sweater, but that wasn’t much fun for a five-year old to open, so I wandered downtown looking for ideas. The toyshop on Ward Street had me carried away with what I could buy the grandchildren. Julie would love a wooden crib for her doll and Nicholas, now into dressing up, would look a treat as a knight. Farther down Baker Street, I fell for a little picnic set in a sturdy basket.

  I came to a shop I’d never been in before simply because the display of collector’s metal signs, bumper stickers, huge sunglasses and baseball caps was such a mish-mash that I thought there would be nothing to interest me. But recent lessons in not taking things at face value made me wander in to take a closer look.

  Cards with huge-breasted women in lewd poses reminded me of the postcards sold in British seaside towns in my childhood that were considered ‘saucy’ in my family and only to be giggled over at their stand.

  Coffee mugs with pictures of Che Guevara balanced under flags waving peace symbols, posters of The Who and long-forgotten groups covered one wall, and stacks of old records that I used to play on my portable gramophone took up a large section at the back. When I came to the smoking apparatus my interest peaked. Glass cabinets displayed such an assortment of colorful glass pipes and other smoking devices that my eyes blinked. Large hookahs occupied an entire shelf while smaller ones mingled with the pipes, each one a work of art. Then I saw the vaporizers.

  A young lass in an excuse for a skirt asked me if she could help. “Yes,” I said, “I’m interested in a vaporizer.”

  She hesitated and looked at me as if wondering why this old biddy wanted a pot-smoking device.

  I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t the courage to think that it was none of her bloody business why I wanted a vaporizer, so I stood there with my mouth half open like an idiot.

  The young woman smiled. “Did your Chinese medicine doctor prescribe some herbs that he said would be better smoked or inhaled in a vaporizer? That’s usually why people want them.”

  I looked her in the eye and nodded.

  “Ahh,” she said and showed me two or three that worked on that principle. “You put your herb in the small bulb here, turn it on, and allow it to heat up. Then you draw in the vapor through this tube. This is the best one because it regulates the temperature.” She indicated a wooden box with a temperature gauge on it, “But this one is the cheapest.”

  The price meant I couldn’t afford it that day, so I said, “Thank you. That looks just what I want. I’ll come back in a few days.”

  Harvest day arrived. I knew what to expect. The house would stink, but the only hazard was someone walking in on me. I lit a couple of scented candles, as they seemed to mask the smell better than incense, and I wouldn’t answer the door.

  Swan and Marcus came to trim. This was a good time to get to know him better, but even Swan couldn’t get him to utter more than a few words. His long fingers expertly trimmed buds with astonishing speed as he concentrated on what he was doing. What went on in his head? If he couldn’t think straight he wouldn’t be able to function, would he? What a waste of a beautiful young man.

  “When you’re tree planting, where do you stay, Marcus?” I tried a question to get him going.

  “Camp,” he said without stopping what he was doing.

  “Do you have to take your own camping gear or is there a camp set up?”

  “We take our own.”

  “Do you have to cook for yourself?”

  “Camp cook.”

  “Is the food good?”

  “It’s okay.”

  And there ended the lesson according to Marcus.

  Maggie thought it was just his speech center that was affected—that the thoughts were there, but he couldn’t express them. If that was the case, couldn’t something be done to help him? But why do we expect everyone to be chatty, to express themselves, to greet one another? Why should we think there is something strange about silence? Marcus obviously listened to people—why didn’t I accept that as a blessing? After all, few people really listen to each other.

  Swan and Marcus kept the radio on, otherwise there would have been almost complete silence. My hearing deficits couldn’t stand the continuous noise, so I began to spend more time upstairs than downstairs. They didn’t need me to trim anyway.

  Marcus did make one comment of note. “Nice buds,” he said. I thought so too. I had followed Michael’s pruning directions and each plant grew only four buds. These were big, not as big as I had hoped, but they did make the trimming of the crop much quicker. By mid-afternoon Swan and Marcus had finished.

  Swan helped me stack the car with garbage bags filled with expired pot plants and clippings and the next day we set off for the dump. I vowed to keep my mouth shut when we got there and not make smart-ass remarks.

  As I drove carefully down Ward Street, a city police truck pulled out of a lane and settled behind me. “We’re being tailed by a cop,” I said to Swan.

  She looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. Right.”

  I turned down toward the lake. The cop followed. Driving beside the airstrip, the police truck still following, I began to sweat. “What shall I do?” I said. “He’s still behind me.”

  “You’re not doing anything wrong,” Swan said. “Keep going.”

  “I don’t want him following me to the dump. I’ll pull into the hardware store.”

  A distressed splutter from my car solved my problem. Two convulsive jerks and my engine died. Mercifully, it had enough poop left in it for me to glide onto the shoulder of the road.

  The police truck passed me, then slowed, backed up and parked in front of me. Its driver’s door opened. I stopped breathing, frozen to the seat.

  “Quick, get out of the car,” Swan urged as she unbuckled her seat belt, opened her door, and clambered out.

  I did as she said and leaned on the car to support my legs that had lost their will to hold me up. A very large, pleasant-faced, older cop approached. “Are you in trouble? I saw your vehicle break down. Are you out of gas?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the tremble in my voice. “It’s an old car. Tends to do this. But don’t worry, my friend has a cell phone and we can get someone to rescue us.”

  The cop walked up to my door and peered in. “Your tank’s full.” He stood up and towered over me. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes. Thank you so much for stopping. We’ll be fine.”

  As he headed back to his truck Swan pulled out her cell. “I’ll phone Marcus. If he can’t get it going, we can unload into his truck.” She turned to look at the lake. It’s funny how when people use their cell phones they turn their backs on you.

  I opened the car door to get in so I could sit down. The door was locked. In my panic I must have locked it. Ah well, the passenger door would do. It was locked too. Keys dangled invitingly from the ignition. My purse lay on the floor. “Bugger,” I said loudly.

  Swan turned to me. “I can’t get
hold of Marcus. I’ve left a message.”

  “We’re locked out,” I said.

  “What did you lock your door for?”

  “What did you lock your door for?”

  We glared at each other over the car. Swan’s wide eyes and strained face made me want to laugh. “That was a close shave,” I said. “I’m still jelly.”

  We both relaxed and moved over to peer through the mesh fence separating us from the airstrip. “Now what do we do?” I said as we stared across to the lake. “We can’t get a tow truck until we’ve emptied the car.”

  “Marcus might not be long. If he hasn’t called soon, I know another guy who’s cool.” Swan shivered. Her coat lay on the back seat of the car.

  “Let’s walk back to that café back there and have a coffee while we wait,” I said. Then, “Oh bugger, my purse is in the car. Have you got any money?”

  Swan pushed her hands into her jeans pocket and pulled out ten dollars. “This’ll do.”

  In the coffee shop, Swan called Marcus again to tell him where we were and we settled into the warmth. “You could try Maggie,” I said. “If she’s not around I can walk home to get the spare key. If we can dump the bags, it really doesn’t matter how long the car sits there.”

  Although we were both shaken up after the encounter with the cop, there was really nothing to fuss about. Marcus showed up, drove me home for the spare key, took the bags to the dump, drove Swan and me home, and I got the car towed to a garage. End of story. But would my nervous system would ever recover? How much longer could I handle these close encounters with getting caught? Was growing worth it?

  21

  The large buds we harvested took longer to dry and it was close to Christmas before Maggie could come to weigh them. Four and a half pounds. Marcus got two thousand a pound for them that time, so I ended up with nine thousand to split with Marcus. With a light heart I went shopping again and bought the doll crib, the knight costume, the picnic basket, and a vaporizer for me.