Stonedogs

by Craig Marriner

  Mick: ‘That’s leaf as well, though, right?’

  Barry, eyes glowing: ‘Like fuck. I’ve read about the seeds they produce in the ’Dam, man. Those Dutch cunts wouldn’t use leaf to wipe their arses. When they forecast a yield, they’re talking bud and bud alone.’

  Steve: ‘Fuckin’ oath. So this gangster walks through Auckland customs wif a heap o’ these seeds on ’em; up his arse, in his guts. ’E heads down Welly and ’ands ’em orf t’Donk. Only Donk’s not a ’undred per cent sure ’ow best t’ grow ’em — ’e don’t wanna leave fuck all to chance. And by the time ’e thinks ’bout maybe keeping things a little ’ush ’ush, the whole chapter’s ’eard about it and wants the job. Donk doan noe ’u t’ turn to — loyalty doan count faw tu much when yu got plants in the bush worth what these are. Every cunt’s gonna be gossiping, and it’ll take at least a few guys t’ set up the plantation, and even wif threats flying word of its whereabouts might spread …

  ‘Then Donk chats t’ Hemi in Taupo. Hemi knows this bawl’ead from the joint who studied Dutch growing techniques on ’is OE in Europe, one of those mad hippie cunts wif too much brains faw ’is own good, degree in ’orticulture, the works. Grew a shitload ’imself up Norfland before getting busted and banged up. Got busted through a deal, mind: the pigs never got near any of ’is sites; ’e reckons they were watertight. And Hemi says to Donk, “’Old off faw a week, bro.”

  ‘Hemi then tracks this grower cat down, but the dude doan want nufin’ t’ do wif such a quantity. So Hemi roughs ’im up a liddle, puts the squeeze on ’im, threatens his missus and rug-rat, and all of a sudden Woodstock’s ’is nigga.

  ‘Next, Hemi contacts Donk, tells ’im ’bout Woodstock, puts forward a proposal: trust ’im wif the job, and Hemi’ll do it wif just ’imself, Woodstock, and some prospect — a kid ’e can scare senseless, a kid ’u doan ’ave the contacts t’ unload big amounts of pot, a kid ’e can send up there camping when the plants start t’flower, wif a shooter, t’ guard the crop night and day, just in case. Then, when ’arvest rolls round, Hemi’ll ’ead up there ’imself and supervise proceedings. ’E can then take the gear sumwhere and bury it; give Donk directions t’ the grave; the big man takes over from there.

  ‘Donk thinks this over, does his maths, phones Hemi back: “I want a ’undred pounds of seedless buds. You wanna skim some, that’s your business, but if I give yu my seeds and, in six month’s time, yu hand me back less than a hundred pounds of mind-fucking ganja, yu and me’s got a beef that ain’t goin’ away. Pull it off and yaw my new number two. And I want directions t’ the site in case I decide t’ check up on yaw liddle venture.”’

  Barry, breathless: ‘What’d Hemi say?’

  ‘He said, “I’m yaw nigga.”’

  It’s early March: planting time was months ago.

  Barry: ‘So he did it, then?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Mick, ever the cynic: ‘How do you come to know all this?’

  ‘I went round tha pad ’bout four weeks ago, looking t’ get sum grass. Run into sum decent fullas there, ’ad nufin’ t’ do, so I stuck round faw a few. I scored this chick and fucked ’er in Hemi’s room. When I woke up she was gone, and Hemi and anuva patch, Johnson, were whisperin’ away in the corner, sharing a joint. I sleep pretty rough, so ’e musta ruled me out as an eavesdropper. I could tell right away they were on ’bout something confidential; I didn’t wanna get up and walk out in case they started to wonder ’ow long I actually had bin asleep. So I played possum faw safety, listened in to amuse myself. ’Eard pretty much the whole story. Hemi was ’olding sumthing in ’is ’and. ’E flashed it to Johnson once or twice as they were yakking, then ’e kicked ’im out, gave me a good long look, rolled it tight and stuffed it in a hole in the top corner of the room, behind a poster. ’E left, and when I went back t’the party a while later, I ’elped him get well smashed wif a few voddies in ’is beer while ’e weren’t looking. When ’e’d crashed, snorin’ ’is head orf, I checked ’is stash. It was a map — good one, tu. I got some shit together and made a copy, snuck tha original back and pissed orf. I didin’ really plan on doing fuck all wif it, but it seemed like tu good a card t’let pass, just in case.’

  Barry, mesmerised: ‘So you know where this crop is?’

  Flat: ‘I could drive us there in about eight hours.’

  Mick, whispering: ‘Jesus fucking Christ.’

  I’d been too stunned to iron out all the finer points with Steve earlier; think of one now. ‘Why was he letting this Johnson cunt in on the secret?’

  ‘Johnson’s Hemi’s hit-man. He’s a pitbull: just as loyal, just as dumb, just as mental. Wif all that’s at stake, Hemi’s getting a little paranoid; ’e wants sum extra muscle when ’e goes up faw ’arvesting. I guess ’e’s worried one’a Donk’s boys might’ve found out what’s going down, put together a double-cross.’

  Barry, salivating: ‘Let’s fucking do it. Let’s bail tomorr–’

  Mick, sharpish: ‘Calm down, Baz, for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘But …’

  Loud: ‘But if Steve had told us the shit was on planet Krypton, and we’d need to battle mutant pterodactyls to get at it, you’d still be keen as mustard … just for the hell of it. How about letting us rational folk thrash this thing out properly? After all, if we decide to have a crack at this and it turns to shit, there’s three outcomes to choose from: one, we return empty-handed — possible, but not likely; two, some or all of us end up with eyes that don’t blink any more and dirt in our mouths; three, the fucking fascists nab us with enough blow to make Fred West’s sentence look like PD.’

  At times Mick’s innate scepticism is a source of huge frustration to me. Right now, it’s just what the surgeon stipulated.

  Barry: ‘OK, OK.’ Hands up, he makes a show of composing himself … but rapture haunts his gaze like flame.

  Mick: ‘All right, Steve, first things first. So you can locate the plantation. You’re positive of that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What if the map was coded or something?’

  Me: ‘He knows his cousin, man. Trust him on this.’ Without the map there’s a Plan B anyhow, but I don’t want this can opened just yet: Mick must be allowed to cross-examine without bias. Not for no reason is he the Brotherhood’s editor.

  Mick, reluctantly: ‘All right. We’ll take that for granted. Now you’re certain you know when the harvesting gonna go down? It couldn’t happen early, could it?’

  Steve: ‘No chance.’

  Marijuana’s a sun crop. To thrive it needs warmth and long summer days. The astute horticulturist therefore plants his seedlings around early November, or as soon as he’s certain winter frosts are finito for another year. With luck, the plants lap up the sun for a good few months and in time produce flowers — buds — the only section of the plant that counts for narcotic purposes. These should be allowed to develop for as long as possible, but must not be in the open when the weather turns to shit again. Therefore, climatic anomalies aside, harvest generally takes place around April.

  Steve: ‘Hemi’s gone to a lot’a trouble, and anything above a hundred pounds is ’is t’ tax. Yu really think ’e’s gonna ’arvest early and cost ’imself several grand, just t’ be on the safe side?’

  Is he fuck. This guy’s Quenchless Core clearly sucks faster than many.

  After some steady seconds of contemplation, Mick also nods agreement. ‘Here’s the double jeopardy question, then: can you be sure when exactly he’s gonna send his goon up there to stand guard duty? Unless you can pinpoint that exactly, the risks are untenable.’

  Steve: ‘Oh, I noe exactly, all right.’

  Mick: ‘When?’

  ‘’E’s there already.’

  At this disclosure even Barry appears a little put out. ‘So we’re gonna be blundering through strange bush, with a tooled-up prospect hidden somewhere, on land he knows like his foreskin, awaiting all comers?’

  Me: ‘Like fuck. We’ve got a deep-cover
spook on the payroll.’

  Mick, agitated: ‘What are you talking about?’

  Steve: ‘On Hemi’s map there was a phone number. A cell-phone number.’

  Mick stares from Steve’s face to mine. Back again. A flare goes off.

  Reverent whisper: ‘Woodstock?’

  Me: ‘Someone hand this man a big fat cigar.’

  Barry, dubious: ‘Have you turned him already?’

  Steve: ‘We phoned ’im ’bout two hours ago.’

  Mick, almost sneering: ‘And what? He said, “Yeah, you’re right, fuck Hemi”, and threw his lot in with you?’

  ‘’E took a liddle more persuasion than that. I got Gatey t’ speak first: we decided a fellow honky should bowl the first over. ’E opened the door faw me. Then I told Woodstock I knew of ’is predicament and ’ad a safe way out of it faw ’im — “All I ask is that yu hear me out,” I said. ’E agreed. Not only did Hemi blackmail ’im into this, ’e’s also ’ad ’im sittin’ up there night and day since the crop went in, tending it daily, adjusting the chemical balance of the soil, extra waterings ’ere and there, keeping possums in check, trimming the plants, blah blah blah. I knew all this befaw ’and. The first thing I pointed out t’ Woodstock was that Hemi obviously got ’im t’ let a couple of the plants go t’ seed early on. Woodstock confirmed that. Now Hemi ’as these primo seeds coming out ’is arse. I asked Woodstock ’ow difficult it is t’ grow ’em just perfect, and ’e said it weren’t easy, that they needed constant attention from sumone wif the right skills. I then asked ’im ’ow ’e felt ’bout spending every summer camped up there faw the rest of ’is life. ’E said Hemi gave ’is word it was just this once. I asked ’im, faw the sake of a few ’undred grand, ’ow much ’e thought the word of a Rabbler was worth. Woodstock went real quiet for a while. ’E then confessed that, wif all the time ’e’d spent bored shitless up there, ’is thoughts ’ad been straying along these lines maw and maw. Then I pitched ’im the plan me and Gator cooked up this aftanoon … and offered ’im as much grass as ’e could stuff into three rubbish bags.’

  Steve pauses. The sun has disappeared, unnoticed. Red tips of fag ends are almost all that light the garage, reflecting from wired faces. Steve’s gaze travels us all; he milks the tension like an ice-age storyteller.

  Mick’s the first to break: ‘And?’

  ‘… And he said he’s my nigga.’

  It’s me who finally speaks, shifts the counsel forward. To Steve, as I dawdle across to the light switch: ‘I think you’d better give ’em the details of the plan, bro.’

  Steve does, and by the time he’s done my pulse is racing like a sprinter’s. ‘What do ya think, Mick?’

  For the first time today, I spot heat in Mick’s eyes. His voice has the lead of resolve in it. ‘Can we trust this Woodstock?’

  The ‘we’ tolls like a gong to me. Oh, fuck. He’s up for it. At least he will be, given a little more time to convince himself.

  My balls shrink a little further; a fresh charge of excitement — fear — rushing through me.

  Steve: ‘I reckon we can trust ’im. What I told ’im ’bout Hemi weren’t no bluff. Anyone who noes ’im’ll tell yu that extorting sum bawl’ead out of ’is summer every year is something Hemi’d do faw a laugh, let alone faw a few ’undred large. Deep down Woodstock ’ad known this too. I just reinforced it, chased away ’is denial. Until I gave ’im a lifeline, the only option ’e ’ad faw gettin’ ’is life back was t’ disappear wif ’is family, something ’e’s shit-scared of. This way ’e gets the Rabble orf ’is back, and returns to ’is old life no worries. We can trust ’im all right, ’cause this is tha only chance ’e’s got. Even if ’e called Hemi and warned ’im ’bout me, wif this type of money at stake, Hemi’d never let ’im orf as a thank you; Woodstock admitted this ’imself.’

  Mick’s reasoning seems to follow a similar route. After a while he nods gently. ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s how I’d feel in his shoes. And so long as Woodstock’s sweet, it sounds like the solid base of a good plan.’

  Barry, muttering like a kid on Playstation: ‘Ah, man, this is gonna be fucking huge.’

  Mick, the squandered question for Steve, the look for me: ‘What’ll Donk do to Hemi?’

  Barry, grin dripping: ‘Take a wild guess.’

  Steve, soft: ‘Donk’ll ’ave ’im whacked, no questions asked.’

  Me, to Mick: ‘Can you live with that?’

  Steve: ‘If yu can’t then yaw a fuckin’ bleedin’-’earted fool. Nefarious may be the hard core, but Vegas Chapter ain’t exactly saints … and Hemi’s the big cheese. Wif ’is own ’ands — and this is only what I know of — ’e’s put at least twenty people in ’ospital, most of those guilty of fuck all maw than wrong place, wrong time. ’E’s raped at least five chicks in ’is time — that’s actual rape, snatched orf the streets, fucked by guys in masks — and yu’d need a fucking calculator to work out the amount of molls ’e’s pressured onto the block. When ’e’s in the Joint he fucks guys — always white ones — ’cause control turns ’im on. Who noes ’ow many futures ’e’s ruined by gettin’ kids mixed up in the gang culture: “bringing through the new blood” ’e calls it. Nearly all prospects ’af t’ do lags before ’e’ll patch ’em. ’E gives ’em assignments t’ test loyalty and meanness: “Bring me a 4WD before midnight; seek out this fulla, in this pub, and fuck ’im up good; break into this ’ouse, fuck the women and do any guys who give yu trouble.” And I noe faw a fact that ’e’s ordered hits on at least two dudes, both of ’em carried out by ’is boys.’

  Mick rolls his eyes. ‘My name ain’t Gandhi, man. Let’s do the world a favour.’

  Piss on me, will you?

  [While the breathless boatees pack up, tail-lights gay in the gloom, RED eases down from the bonnet. Crossing to nearby trees, urinating on them, he casts malevolent eyes across the line of 4WDs towing their toys back to town.]

  RED [over his shoulder]: With these Armanied pipers schmoozing us all up the gallows, it’s no wonder crime’s on the increase.

  BROWN: Which brings us neatly to our third target.

  RED [almost solemn, zipping up, resuming his position on the bonnet]: The Fiendish Beast. What is it, man?

  BROWN: Given the right conditions, it’s a force that can find a home in us all; in some more easily than others. [Expounding] The Beast is as ancient as survival itself; still rules those tracts mankind is yet to corrupt. The Fiendish Beast, however, is what became of the Beast when evolution swelled the human thought-machine to its present ludicrous dimensions. Because we then had the ‘intelligence’ to invent applications for the Beast beyond its natural role.

  RED: I see. For us intelligence might have made the Beast all but obsolete? Yet intelligence and wisdom failed to evolve in tandem?

  BROWN: Exactly. And so for thousands of years mankind inflicted itself with horrors from which the most savage of the ‘lesser’ animals fled in terror and confusion.

  Yet there came a time when humans were able to believe they had moved beyond this ubiquitous brutality; gained prudence and enlightenment, compassion and tolerance. Not just for one’s own, but for one’s species as a whole. They named this The Age of Reason, and folk drank to peace and love.

  [Grim] But the Fiendish Beast was far from dead. A macabre metamorphosis had taken place. Under edification, it could no longer swagger unmasked at all times, but it remained in many hearts just the same. Skulking. Sniggering. And, as if inactivity had bred in it unknown levels of yearning, when it now found occasion to lunge from hiding — often to the call of god, free enterprise, statehood — its gluttony was more appalling than ever.

  It was the Fiendish Beast who guaranteed Hitler would find millions all too willing to believe his victims were Satan in disguise. It was the Fiendish Beast pulling triggers when the US Cavalry brought genocide to the ‘savage’ Native Americans.

  RED [catching the drift]: It was the Fiendish Beast who insisted that if they didn’t take the initiative, the Serbs
of Bosnia would soon be raped in their homes by people they’d learned to live alongside.

  BROWN: And it’s the Fiendish Beast who ensures that even humans of blemishless pasts are hypnotically attracted to all manner of ugliness.

  RED: There are those crying that, in the West at least, the Fiendish Beast is all but beaten.

  BROWN [frustrated]: And in the West we might have beaten it! By 1945, so revolted were we by its recent … orgies, committed social change may have seen it all but banished.

  But to the powers that presided, the pursuit of capital took priority. And as it built speed, the ‘social Darwinism’ so lauded by the capitalists — the ‘freedom’ to trade without safeguards, to ‘compete’ without regulation — consolidated the privilege of the elite at the expense of the many.

  RED: Most of whom are sentenced to a life of wage-slavery in dehumanised, autocratic workplaces.

  BROWN: Damn right. Now, with this wealth polarisation reaching hateful levels, the fabric of our societies begins to unravel. The working class is left without hope of a fulfilling existence; with feelings of envy, of disenfranchisement. Categorised by the ‘free’ market as commodities — expendable ones at that — they lose all sense of self-worth; come to view themselves and others as less than human. The Fiendish Beast finds these vanquished souls worthy mediums.

  RED: What about in the wider world? To what can we attribute the rising tide of ethnic violence?

  BROWN: Even at a glance, the ‘free’ market must claim much blame. Unhampered capitalism means the monied will naturally defeat less wealthy competition. In a multicultural society, then, as capital concentrates, one ethnic group will come to dominate the others. Those left impoverished grow resentful. Setting flame to these powderkegs is child’s play for nationalist firebrands with personal agendas.

  But on top of this, deeper probing suggests more insidious roots. Because capitalism has never shirked at unleashing the Fiendish Beast in the interests of ‘cost effectiveness’. Just look at the amount of right-wing despotism the West has pushed into power throughout the ‘developing’ world, arming handpicked tyrants, providing them with ‘advisers’, polishing their monsters in training camps, all in the name of keeping new markets and cheap labour pools ‘open and free’. Now we have local ‘elites’ with everything to lose playing lower-class factions against the other, laughing as the competition butchers itself. And, of course, when manipulation flounders, western plutocracy — safeguarding its investments — is only too happy to assist more directly in the ‘pacification’ of ‘evil elements’.