Becoming A Son

by David Labrava

  “I need cigarettes.” Arik said as he walked out of his motorhome.

  The next day was a recap of the first. Not a word spoken as Arik made and pushed bowls, then attached them. I took extensive notes once again, writing every single detail of what I saw complete with illustration. I knew this was it and whatever I learned here was what I took away from this encounter.

  After the last piece was put together and inside the kiln, Sarah looked at my book. It had some crazy drawing of Arik applying a picee of gold for fuming on it. He used almost NO color. All fuming meaning he used gold and silver which he fumed from the flame to the glass in layers to get every color of the rainbow.

  “Read me something you wrote.” She asked me.

  I looked up as high as anyone one man could be and read off a page of what I wrote showing them both the illustrations I had made. They both looked at each other and smiled. Arik looked at me.

  “If you get a torch I will teach you how to do glass art.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah really. No one ever sat here for fourteen hours a day, not moving not talking.”

  “Or took notes like that.” Sarah added.

  52

  I bought a motorhome for two thousand dollars and built a glass shop in the back of it. A lot of glass artists had motorhomes with glass shops built inside them. Arik had one and he helped me build mine.

  I lived in that motorhome for the next year in and around Eugene, staying in parks and driving weed up and down the coast from Bellingham to Eugene. I had friends that would front me forty packs, which is forty pounds at a time. I would drive the pounds down in the right lane doing the speed limit. I never got pulled over once. Even if I did I had a hidden compartment where I stashed the weed. This was after a five hour packaging session. We would use a seal a meal and triple seal the pounds, wiping them down with alcohol in between each seal.

  I would hit Eugene and stop at someone’s house and hand out the pounds and they would get sold by a network of kids on skateboards. I would do glass art in my motorhome in the back of the house while I waited for them to return with the money.

  Wherever I stopped I hooked you up. You always have to hook people up all along the way. You have to pay it forward at all times, that’s how it works. I would spend the money like its going out of style. I figured it was that or it would stop coming to me. That’s how I was taught.

  I was like a money generator. That’s one of the benefits or results of being a junkie. You can be a homeless hopeless human with nothing but a habit, but you will find a way to generate four hundred dollars a day to support that habit. Realistically there are NO benefits of being a junkie. None. But surviving it is another story. I got stronger and stronger every day that I stayed clean off dope. Stronger in my own will each and every day.

  “Whats Up?” I said.

  “You my man. Come on in.” Patrick’s eye’s lit up when he saw me with my duffle bag at his front door. He knew he was going to get paid. Patrick had a big house off thirteenth street with five or six other kids. There where these big houses all over Eugene with kids living in them. This house was filled with dreadie kids. Kids with dreadlocks, white kids that listen the Grateful Dead and are into Psychadelics.

  “I got the super dank. Forty pounds. MTF crossed with some purple. It’s dank.”

  “Matamuskan Thunderfuck? Really?’

  “Yeah. Crossed with purple. Can I bag it up here?”

  “Absolutely.” Patrick said as he walked down the hall. The Dead was playing in three different rooms. We went to the back and I poured out a few pounds and started bagging it up in to quarter pounds. That’s what I mostly worked with. I figured if anything happens, like someone comes back with a story, like how he lost it, at least it would only be a quarter pound that got lost and I could cover it. That way I was comfortable fronting out as many quarter pounds as possible. It’s all about turnaround. Getting the product out there and getting it back. Quick.

  “How much you got?”

  “Twenty pounds. I woulda had forty, but the other twenty wasn’t al the way cured.”

  “Wanna sell it in one shot?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how much profit I can make. I’m certain who ever wants it in one shot wants to pay me way less than I would make working it on the street.”

  “Considerably. But maybe he can make it worth you while. He traveled here from Chicago. They pay four a pound out there. He is looking to pay three.”

  “And what are you gonna tack on?”

  “Nothing. He will take care of me.”

  “And all the weed is going back to Chicago right? He’s not gonna sell it here in town?”

  “No.”

  I thought about it. I was getting pounds on the front for two grand. On the street I was making at least four thousand but it took a week to get that done. Selling that all at once I make a quick twenty grand.

  “Done.”

  Patrick went and got his friend from Chicago who was sitting in the other hitting the bong listening to the Dead. He had all hundreds so after the money and weed changed hands I was back on my way to grab the other twenty pounds. I really wanted to just sit down and do glass art but I had to make a living.

  When you are a beginning glass artist you have to sit down day after day and keep practicing. If you only sit down every now and then you will only get frustrated. I was happy to be making money, but I really wanted to get back to Eugene and practice my glass art.

  By the time I got back up north the other twenty pounds was dry and I bagged it up and headed back. I was in between Salem and Eugene cruising down the highway when all of a sudden my rear axle made a loud crack. It felt like I hit a bump or ran something over. My motorhome came to a screeching halt. I pulled onto the shoulder in the last twenty feet.

  I got out and looked at the smoking rear end and the fifty foot skid mark I made. My brain shifted into high gear. I knew I had to get out of there fast. I also knew I couldn’t leave twenty pounds in the motorhome when I go to get help because a state trooper could roll up on my motorhome and then I would be screwed. I had to work fast. I looked all around at my surroundings. I was in the middle of two exits on the Oregon highway. Not a lot around there. There was a big industrial yard on the other side of the fence about a mile up the highway.

  I went into the motorhome and pulled out the pounds. It was four triple sealed bags together they were as big as a duffle bag. I stuffed them into a green army duffle bag clipped the top shut, locked up the motorhome and went running up the highway with my twenty pound package. It was bouncing around as I ran. It must have looked like it was full of feathers. Or cotton.

  At the exit was the entrance to the industrial park and all the workers were just getting done working. There was a line of cars leaving the plant. I walked up to the first truck I saw hoping I could jump in the back. I had to get to a pay phone and call a tow truck before the highway patrol showed up.

  “How far is it to the next gas station?” I asked the guy driving the truck.

  “About a mile up the highway.” I held up forty dollars.

  “Can you give me a lift.” He grabbed the forty.

  “Hop in.”

  He opened the door and I hesitated for a second. I was going to jump in the back. I didn’t want him to smell the weed. I jumped in his truck with my duffle bag and he took me to the gas station up the road. I called a tow truck and hitched a ride back to the motorhome. The guy in the car kept looking at my duffle bag but he didn’t say anything.

  When I got to the motorhome the tow truck was already there.

  “Axle’s broke. I gotta put it in a dolly.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  He called another tow truck that brought a dolly and they towed my motorhome to their salvage yard outside Salem. They had a repair shop there and they called around to get me a new axle.

  “It’s gonna take about a week.” The guy who owned t
he yard said as he walked up.

  “What is?”

  “Getting an axle for this motorhome. We found one, same year make and model, but it’s in Texas. Gonna take a week to get here.”

  “I live in this motorhome.”

  “Not a problem. You can live in it in this yard till the axle gets here. We lock it up at night, so you will be locked inside the yard.”

  “Cool.” I knew I had no choice. Plus I had to move the new twenty pounds within a week. I called Patrick and explained the situation and he started coming back and forth moving pounds. I sat in the motorhome for a week and practiced my glass art while I waited for the axle to be shipped. It took about five days to move the entire twenty pounds so when the motorhome was fixed I headed back up north to pay off the weed.

  I knew I had to let more time go by. The voice in my head never went away and I knew it never would. I knew I didn’t have to listen to that voice and it would one day quiet down to barely a whisper. The real voice, the one you hear when you close your eyes is your voice. That voice knew I was done with my past. That David died and a new one was here. Now I just had to live. And let time go by.

  I rented a house in Graham Washington and my glass teacher Arik came up there to live with me with his family. We built a two torch glass shop in the backyard. We lived outside a trailer park. Across the street were horses running on the neighbors farm. Next door was a small forest that we grew some outdoor weed in. Life was good. I was driving back and forth about once a month with a motorhome full of weed making good money and melting glass in my shop the rest of the time.

  It was the best possible scenario to live with Arik who was also my pal and have the shop in the back yard. We got liquid oxygen delivered to the house and really got into it. I melted so much glass it’s what I dreamed about at night. Instead of dreaming about getting high.

  I was past the point where if dope was near me I would do it. I knew I wouldn’t do it, but I might go running out of the room. Couldn’t be near it, or talk about it let alone joke about it in the past tense. I wanted to be able to stand right next to it and not want it.

  I was regressing back from the junkie I had become to the hippie I originally was. Psychedelics will make you think. Dope will make you hurt. As time went on it was easier to remember that. I knew I was on the way to taking my life back. I new it was not an overnight process. I knew that it was going to take years to feel whole again. Didn’t matter. I knew I was going to own my life again. Then squeeze every bit of life out of it.

  53

  I heard a loud knock at six am and I thought ‘Who the hell would be here this early?’

  Hoping it wasn’t the cops I looked out the peephole and saw Marcus the old hippie who lived in the park community. I opened the door. Marcus lived in the back of the park with his wife and like six dogs and nine cats. They both had hair down to their ass, transplants from Woodstock and Haight Ashbury, They were just enjoying life quietly. We had become friends over the past couple of years smoking joints and watching sunsets, or on a clear day sitting on the porch looking at the mountain. It was a tight knit little community that lived by the park.

  “You got a hack saw?” Marcus said as he walked in.

  “Somewhere around here. Let me look.” I turned around to get a hacksaw. Marcus was covered in mud. He was holding a PVC pipe sealed on both ends, which was also covered in mud.

  “Got any coffee.?” Marcus always made himself at home.

  “You know where it is. Help yourself.”

  It took me a minute to find a hacksaw. Long enough for Marcus to make a pot of coffee. I put it on the floor next to the PVC pipe.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Open it and find out.” Marcus was smoking a big joint. He sat back to watch. You can bet he wasn’t gonna cut it. He had to be at least sixty five. I think he had retired a few years earlier. Manual labor and Marcus parted ways long ago.

  “Cut it right here.” Marcus pointed to an exact spot on the tube below the cap.

  I took the hacksaw and cut into the pipe. It didn’t take long till I had cut through and A bunch of plastic bags spilled onto the floor. Each bag was filled with really small pills, each one about as big as a grain of rice.

  “What are they?”

  “Hard to say. I buried it in sixty seven.”

  Marcus reached down and picked up a folded piece of paper that was also in the PVC pipe. He unfolded it and read it.

  “Summer of Sixty Seven by the looks of it. Big Brother and Rejoice with the Youngbloods were playing. One dollar per head.” He handed the flyer over. I looked at it closely. It was totally psychedelic, with faded day glow colors. It was brittle but intact. You could see where it had been ripped off of a wall.

  “I bet this is even worth something.”

  “Not as much as that. That is either the cleanest LSD or the finest Mescaline I ever saw. That’s why I buried it for a rainy day. Me and my old lady been thinking about doing some traveling. I figure now is as good a time as any.”

  “And you figure I know where to get rid of it.”

  “That and I trust you. Which is big.”

  “How much?”

  Marcus sat back and smiled and relit the joint.

  “Twenty five cents. Those barrels are made of tigers milk or some other hippie shit. Either way you can see it lasts. Each bag has a thousand in it. Ten bags is a gram. Hundred mics a barrel, ten thousand barrels a gram, twenty five grams. Comes to sixty two thousand five hundred for all of it. And that’s a deal, yes sir.”

  He passed me the joint. I took out a pencil and paper and did the math. He was right.

  “One thing though. You gotta give me the money now. No fronts. I got other people, I’m just giving you the first crack at it.”

  I sat back and thought about how I could get that much cash fast. Marcus pulled out this little black light flashlight. He turned it on and held it over the barrels. They all shined day glow bright.

  “Give me a few hours.”

  “You can have all day, till sundown. Then I’m gonna call my friend Hank. Give him a shot. I’ll leave you one bag as a sample.” He got up and walked to the front door, before he opened it he turned around and looked at me and put his finger up to his lips.

  “Shhhhhhhhh.” Marcus smiled and walked out.

  I knew I had to work fast so I picked up the bag of barrels and took off in my pickup truck. I knew what a big come up this was. There was only one person I knew who could pull this off, my friend Joe who lived about five minutes away.

  “Did you try it yet?”

  “Of course not. I came right here. I believe him. I don’t want to get all twisted up until we figure this out.”

  “The smartest thing to do would be to cover the whole thing in one deal and see what we got left.”

  “Yeah but who’s got dough like that?” Joe thought for a minute looking at the bag of barrels on the table.

  “I got it. One dollar a piece is a steal. We call my cousin Rob and sell him seven grams. At one dollar a piece that’s seventy grand. We split the difference with the rest of that cash and the barrels. Deal?”

  “How do you know he’s got that much cash on hand?”

  “He just harvested his house and two others. He’s got it.”

  “You think he will do it?”

  “If it’s as good as you say it is he will.”

  We jumped in my truck and took off for Rob’s place. It was like twenty minutes away in the next town over.

  “You tried it?”

  “Not yet.” Rob had about six barrels in the palm of his hand. Maybe ten.

  “How you know it works?” Rob took all six. Or ten.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You said it was a sample. I’m sampling. Seventy Thousand is a lot of cash. I’d have to dig it up. Literally. I never buy any fruits or vegetables without sampling them first.”

  “Not a problem.” Joe said. We sat back and smoked a joint. Didn’t take long
before Rob was as high as a kite. We spent the next eight hours digging holes in his backyard looking for his buried cash. Rob laughing and giggling like a little kid with his eyes as big and bright as flashlights.

  “ I think I hit something.” I could feel my shovel had hit something hard. It didn’t take us long to dig out a steel strong box. By now Rob was as high as could be, but incredibly clear.

  “Open it up.” He tossed me the key. I opened it and we all got quiet.

  “How much is that?”

  “Hee hee that’s a cool million. Yes siree bob cat tail yes sir. Been lookin fer that fer awhile now knew I’d find it soon yessir gotta peel off seventy K fer ya then get my barrels you said they come in all colors I want all colors Ok? All colors them some clean barrels yessir gonna peel off that seventy and go get my barrels. Yessir.”

  We passed the box up and walked back up to Robs house. He counted the seventy grand quickly and amazingly accurately. We split to go get the rest of the barrels from Marcus.

  “I told you it would work out.” Joe said. I was figuring this out on a pad with a pencil.

  “By my calculations we get fifteen grand and nine grams each. Ninety thousand barrels each.”

  “That’s correct. Not too bad for one days work.”

  “Not too bad at all.”

  We went back to Joe’s house and split up the barrels and the money. As I pulled off all I could think was I’m gonna get a bike. Seven thousand dollars in cash was more than I had at one time in along time. Plus Ninety Thousand Barrels. My mind boggled at the possibilities. Even if I lost a bunch or gave some away I was for sure going to have enough for a bike. Maybe two.

  There was no way I was going to nickel and dime the barrels out I had to find a one time sale so I made some calls and put myself on the next plane to Miami.