Betty's (Little Basement) Garden (36 page)

“Please stop assuming that because I am not responding in the manner in which you are accustomed, I must be high! How can I get across to all of you that this endeavor is not the horrible thing you think it is? Because of this enterprise, I've met many people who I normally would never have befriended –”

“Peyton!” Renée exclaimed. “Oh, my God! You weren't mentoring him! He was mentoring you on pot!”

Betty turned to Renée. “It was a two-way street, Renée. Trust me. And he's just one of many I've learned from.” She took a needed breath. “I'm a caregiver. That means I grow for various people and make edibles for them. One of them is a doctor. One is a Republican!”

The women collectively gasped.

“And one of them died of cancer last night,” Betty said, her throat catching. “I only knew her a short time, but she taught me a lot. She taught me that fear is wasted energy and that no matter how grim the situation is, there can still be grace and humanity, even as the world seemingly falls apart around you.”

“That's quite poetic, Betty,” Judi remarked. “But you cannot convince me that this weed has any consistently proven medical value. If it did everything they claim it can do, don't you think people would be screaming from their roof tops and demonstrating its ‘healing' effects, so we could all see it for ourselves?”

“Judi, the proof
is
out there! Open your eyes as I did and do the research for yourself! Listen, a lot of people who use cannabis would love to scream openly about it, and some of them do. But most people keep it a secret, because they're afraid of the social stigma, losing their job, losing their family's respect, looking foolish, being called a ‘stoner,' being marginalized –”

“Oh, my God Betty!” Judi interrupted. “You're not just drinking the Kool-Aid, you're
making
it!”

“No! It's true. I'm not working with people who are lazy or stupid! How can I make you understand?” she pleaded.

“Jesus, Betty!” Judi exclaimed. “
Enough
! Have you forgotten what marijuana did to your own son?”

Betty bristled. “I know what pain did to my son. I know what hostility and depression did to my son. I know what ignoring his problems and forcing him to be someone he could never be did to my son. But I have no damn clue what marijuana has to do with any of that!”

“For God's sake, Betty!” Renée contemptuously erupted. “Marijuana is a gateway drug! And Frankie proved that!”

“Bullshit!” Betty yelled. “The way I see it, marijuana is only a gateway drug when the gates are closed at home! And the gates of affection at this house were locked down when it came to Frankie's father!”

“God rest his soul,” Helen dutifully said.

“No,” Betty retorted, “God
damn
his soul!”

“Betty! How dare you!” Judi shouted.

“I mean it! I grew so tired of the platitudes and well-meaning gestures during my supposed mourning period! Strange how I never got any of that thoughtfulness from anyone when Frankie died! Was his death just not clean enough? Was it too embarrassing? Not polite teatime chat-chat?” A fountain of remorse wrapped in rage erupted. “He was my son, goddammit! My only child! And his life, while imperfect, still mattered. His death, while disturbing, still deserved compassion. Doesn't it make more sense to examine why we have so much pain in this world, instead of attacking those who attempt to quell it with whatever is in their reach? I pity all of you. You think the crust is unsightly, but that's what holds the bread together. How lovely it must be to believe you're so much better than everyone else, just because you haven't sullied yourselves!”

“Hey!” Renée bellowed. “I've sullied myself plenty! I've been down that dark hole, Betty!”

“But have you learned anything?” Betty questioned her. “Have you stopped the chatter in your head long enough to ask yourself the bigger questions? Like, ‘why do we choose to do what we do?' I've asked myself that question a lot these past few months. Why do we blindly go about our lives, unconsciously and monotonously creating the same problems and the same outcomes? Do we do it for family? Religion? Our country? Whom do we choose to sacrifice and for what purpose? Do we do what we do because we want to be liked? Because we don't want to be alone? Because we don't want to disappoint? Because to
not
do it would show us to be fallible? I've grown to admire those who choose to stop their own destructive machine. They are freer than the ones who never question. To stand toe-to-toe with your greatest fears, to feel your pain and still emerge from it on the other side in one piece and wiser, is like seeing a new sky and feeling fresh ground underfoot.” She took a meaningful pause. “I'm a much better person since I've gotten to know this plant.”

“
What
?!” Renée exclaimed.

“It's true,” Betty stressed. “I
am
better. I can feel a change inside me. I still have a long journey, but at least I'm on the road. And you know what else? I'm happy.”

The women appeared to glower in unison.

“
Happy
…” Helen mocked. “Happiness is for those unacquainted with the rigor of reality. Good God, Betty –”

“You got a lot of nerve!” Judi interjected, sharply aiming her vitriol toward Betty.

Betty suddenly felt as if she were the only temperate voice in the room. “I'm not clear, ladies. Do you prefer me miserable and disheartened? Is that less of a threat to all of you?”

“Wow, Betty,” Renée stated, “that was nicely put!”

Betty straightened her dress. “I'm tired of being nice. Nice got me nothing. Nice prevented me from saving my son!”

“So…growing pot is your own personal ‘fuck you'?” Renée asked.

“No, Renée. It's my
thank you
. I don't know everything about it, but I want to learn. Maybe I'll be able to teach others to grow it or how to cook with it. Or maybe I can just serve as an example of someone who was born and raised in Texas, always voted Republican, is patriotic to a fault, still believes in good manners, but also happens to have a green heart when it comes to cannabis. I can tell you this much; I will never be the same from now on. And the more I cast off all those tired opinions I carried for so long that didn't belong to me, the less my back aches from the weight. I can tell you this with certainty. There's nothing more liberating than releasing a limiting belief.”

Renée turned and glanced at the cannabis plants blowing back and forth. She looked preoccupied and troubled. “I gotta go call my sponsor!” She raced upstairs and out of the house.

Helen heaved her body out of the chair and headed to the stairs. “You're out of your mind,” she groused.

It was just Judi and Betty and stone cold silence. Finally, Judi spoke up.

“Why is it you suddenly think you can do whatever you want?”

Betty contemplated the question. “Because if I don't do what I want for the first time in my life, I'm no good to anyone. And I'm fifty-nine. I've earned the right to do whatever the hell I want.”

Judi waited, expecting more. “That's it? That's your answer? Is that how you explain yourself?”

“No more explaining. It's simply a statement of fact.”

Judi was at a loss. “Well, must be nice…”

“Oh, it's more than nice. You should try it sometime.”

Judi turned frosty. “Fine. Grow your pot. Just don't expect anyone to cheer you on for it!”

“I don't expect to be cheered on for doing this. I just thought maybe…”

“Maybe what, Betty?” she asked tersely.

“That real friendship wasn't conditional.”

Judi arched her an eyebrow. “Really? You must be smoking a lot of weed if you think that.” She brushed past Betty and trod up the stairs, slamming the front door on her way out.

Yes, right, Betty thought. That certainly went well. She gathered herself together and went upstairs. Ronald was in the kitchen, drinking sideways from his water bowl.

“How are you doing, Ronald darling?” Betty asked him.

He gazed at her with his old, tired eyes. Picking him up, she cuddled him tenderly. “You did a marvelous job pruning our first little clone. I never really thanked you properly for that.” Ronald purred and nestled his head into Betty's chest just as the phone rang.

Setting him down gently, she checked the Caller ID. There was that Private again. “Enough,” she whispered and picked up the phone. “This is Betty Craven!”

“Uh…hi…Betty…”

The male voice was unfamiliar. “Who is this?”

“I…uh…found your stationary with your name and phone number in a basket at the farmers' market…”

Betty grabbed a kitchen chair and sat down. “I see. Are you the one who has been calling me and hanging up?”

“Yeah…right…um, I didn't know what to say on your message.”

“What do you mean?” She felt her body shaking slightly.

“I kind of gathered from your list that maybe…uh…maybe you grew the herb?”

“Well, that's quite the assumption, isn't it?”

“But you do, right?” He pressed. “The reason I ask is, I have a red card and I'm looking for someone to be my caregiver. I wondered if that is something you do?”

Betty's head spun. “I don't…I…This is very inappropriate. I don't know you –”

“I knew your son!” he blurted out.

Betty felt the floor go out beneath her. “What…what do you mean?”

“Frankie? I knew him. I was with him when he died. I carried his body to the bus stop. I think we need to talk.”

His name was Greg Boswell. He lived north of Paradox and worked as manager for an organic farm that supplied restaurants with greens and produce. He asked if Betty could meet him that evening, as it was his only night off. She didn't want to, but she felt a strange pull at her heart and acquiesced. Right before she left at six o'clock, Peyton pulled up in her driveway.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he told her. “I want to check up on Helen.”

“Helen?” Betty asked, her mind preoccupied. “She stormed out of here. Well, as much as Helen ‘storms' anywhere –”

“No, Betty. Helen the plant?”

“Oh. Right. Is there a problem?”

“I don't know. Mind if I check?”

“Of course, not. You have a key. Lock up when you leave, darling.”

He looked at her more closely. “Are you okay, Betty?”

She gathered her senses. “I don't know. Ask me in a couple hours.”

Betty had agreed to meet Greg in a diner north of Paradox. She brought a copy of the medical marijuana patient paperwork, even though she had no intention of formalizing their relationship as his caregiver. And yet, she noticed the more she resisted, the more an unseen hand kept pushing her forward.

She got to the diner just after six thirty. The place was packed and she realized that in her flustered daze, she'd forgotten to ask Greg what he looked like. Just then a tall, beefy man with dirty-blond hair, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, stood up from a booth in the rear of the diner and waved at her. The closer she got, the larger he became. He was like a giant, she told herself, close to seven feet tall, with long arms and huge hands. When he shook her hand, she could tell not only how calloused his hands were from the farm work, but also how much strength he possessed.

“Hi, Betty,” Greg said nervously. “Can I call you Betty?”

“Yes, of course.” She briefly looked around the diner.

“I know it's crowded, but it's okay. We can talk freely. Nobody's gonna hear us.”

She suddenly had a revelation. “I don't care if they do.” She settled into the booth. “How did you know what I looked like?”

“Our farm has a booth at the outdoor market. You buy your arugula and mixed greens from us. But I didn't make the connection between your name and your face until I found the list you left in the basket. I called out your name, but you couldn't hear me because of those women yelling over their megaphone. Same thing happened the other day when I saw you over at their table. I'm glad you finally picked up the phone.”

“Forgive me, but you can't help but stand out in a crowd. I don't know why I've never seen you at your booth.”

“I usually hang around the produce truck, unloading and loading boxes. I leave all the schmoozing to the farm interns who enjoy bantering with customers more than I do. I'm not a real people person. That's why I prefer hanging with my plants.”

She managed a weak smile. “Yes. Cats and plants. A loner's best friend.”

The waitress arrived. Greg ordered a ham sandwich. Betty wasn't hungry but Greg insisted she get something, so she settled on a cheeseburger and fries, figuring “when at a diner….”

“Frankie was a loner,” Greg asserted. “But I don't have to tell you that.”

Betty played with the edge of her napkin. “How long did you know him?”

“On and off, maybe eighteen months. We crashed at a lot of the same places. Shoot up, get high, disappear…you know…”

“You were a heroin addict too?”

“I guess. My D-O-C was Oxy.”

“What's D-O-C?”

“Oh, sorry. Drug of choice. I got hooked on Oxy straight up. When I couldn't get enough from ingesting, I shot it up my arm or snorted it.”

“You didn't stop first at cannabis?”

He chuckled. “No. I went right to the hard stuff. My gateway drug was a shitty life.” He sat back calmly, with a contemplative appearance. “Frankie talked about you all the time. He used to mention about some big tree in your backyard. There was a swing and you guys would sit out there when he'd come over. He never talked about his dad, except to say he died of liver failure brought on by his alcoholism.”

Betty looked at him, incredulously. “Wait a second. His father didn't die of liver failure until
after
Frankie's death.”

Greg shrugged. “That's what he always told me.”

“But that's impossible. How would he –”

Greg leaned forward. “Frankie was really different, but you know that. He told me you were the only one who understood how different he was.” He took a quick sip of water. “Frankie could see things others couldn't. We nicknamed him ‘Sy,' short for ‘psychic.' He thought that was cool. I'll never forget the first time I met him, he said, ‘Happy to meet you again.' I told him I'd never seen him before, and he said he drew me when he was ten years old.”

Betty's heart pounded hard. “Oh, my God. You were the giant?”

“The giant?”

She nodded. “He drew a picture of a tall man with long arms, reaching out to him while he lay in a bed. I assumed it was his father.”

Greg was stunned. “Holy shit…wow…he never told me that part.”

Betty leaned forward, touching Greg's hand. “I have to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth. Did Frankie overdose on purpose or by accident?”

“Neither.”

Betty felt her body begin to shake. “What?”

“Maybe it was more like a conscious accident? He'd been totally clean for three straight days. He went off everything cold turkey, even though we kept telling him it wasn't a good idea. But he said he didn't want to go the Methadone route and that ‘it was time.' But those last three days of his life? They were a kick. The first day, he was at his dealer's house when his dealer got shot and killed. Frankie told me he hid in a closet under a bunch of blankets. That's where he found the boxes full of one-pound bricks of Humboldt's best grade pot. He also found cash. Five grand! So he stole it, along with a brick of weed. I understood stealing the money but not the weed, ‘cause he didn't smoke anymore. But he told me he needed it.”

Betty's mind spun. “He needed it? Why?”

“He said something about having to give it to someone who was going to be really happy to find it one day.”

Betty sat back in the booth. The hair on her arms prickled. “And the cash?”

“That was the best part. We got ourselves a room in a decent three-star motel and stayed there. It sure beat the dives we were used to. I went out and scored some Oxy, and he told me he was going to visit you. I came back on the third day and found him in bed having a seizure. It was bad, but he could still talk and he kept saying, ‘Pay attention,' over and over. After awhile he was barely conscious, but right before he died he got real calm…and then it was as if he thought of something funny, because he kinda smiled and said ‘Cragen.' That was the last thing he said.”

Betty's eyes filled with tears.

“Hey, I'm sorry, Betty. I didn't mean –”

“No. It's okay. It all makes sense now.”

“I guess I just needed you to know your son didn't die on that bus stop. He died in a bed in a decent room, with clean sheets and towels. I covered him in a blanket and carried him to the bus stop bench later that night. I didn't know what else to do. That was the worst night of my life. But you know what they say. You gotta hit rock bottom and then rebuild from there. As crazy as it sounds, Frankie stayed with me the whole time. I could feel him beside me. He always told me I was gonna get clean and that he saw me working with plants. When I went to rehab and did the sober living stint, I interned at a CSA farm. Frankie was right. It made all the difference. Something about being one with the dirt and watching things grow was healing. It saved my life.”

She touched his hand. “I know.” She wiped her tears. “You said you wanted me to be your caregiver? If you're clean and sober, how do you justify using cannabis?”

“I used pot to help me get off alcohol. I couldn't have done it without the herb.” He paused, struggling for the right words.

“Just say it, Greg. You don't have to worry about whether it's right.”

“Thanks,” he said with a smile. “I don't abuse it. For some reason, I don't want to. I'm not in this to get high. I'm just trying to stay sane.”

She nodded. Opening her purse, she handed him the paperwork. “I'd be honored to be your caregiver.”

They sat and talked for three more hours, until Greg said he had to get back to the farm and prep for the outdoor market the next day. When she asked him what strain he wanted her to grow, he wasn't particular. “I don't need my world rocked,” he offered. “Grow me something that takes the edge off and puts the world in perspective.”

When Betty walked out of the diner, the warm summer wind was whipping wildly. Before she was halfway home, fat pellets of rain began to fall until a massive deluge ensued. The Taurus hydroplaned on the waves of water that filled the side streets. Thunder and lightening quickly followed on the heels of another powerful downpour that fell horizontally, making it nearly impossible to see ten feet in front of her car. Branches from the tree-lined streets dropped like toothpicks across the flooded roads, as the wind angrily wailed.

The storm was still raging when she got back to her house just after ten o'clock. She was soaked as she walked inside and headed upstairs. That's when she smelled something odd. It was like rotten eggs and it was coming from the basement. Her mind raced with every possibility, including a fire in the grow rooms. In her frantic rush, she didn't see the note Peyton had taped on the closed basement door. Instead, she flung open the door and was met with a wave of sulfurous fumes.

Boom
!

Betty backed up, feeling the house shake and hearing glass shatter downstairs. The roar of the storm outside was menacing. She ran into the kitchen, grabbed a towel to put around her nose and mouth, and headed back to the basement door. Frantically flicking on the lights, her mind was still not registering what was happening. Through the fetid waves of fumes, she made it into the basement, turning on all the available lamps in the veg room and main area. She could instantly feel moisture hitting her body. That's when she noticed the smashed side window next to the sliding glass door and the enormous trunk of the elm tree punching through it. The wind swirled into the main room, tossing papers and rolling empty plastic pots across the floor. As the chaos continued, Betty's disconcerted mind didn't see the spitting smoke from the sulfur burner mingling with the light on the plants' delicate leaves.

She quickly opened the sliding glass door and ran outside, desperate to inhale fresh air. Her eyes burned and teared. All she could faintly see was her beloved old tree lying across the yard. The surging rain chased her back toward the sliding glass door. It was only then she finally looked inside and saw the sulfur burner hanging from the chain above the plants in the veg room. The lights were all on and the chilling realization hit her that light and sulfur were sworn enemies. Covering her mouth and nose with the towel, she tore back into the basement and struggled to remove the red-hot burner from its chain. However, between the fumes and the heat she couldn't grasp it and had to run outside repeatedly to refuel on fresh air, before racing back inside for another futile attempt. On the fourth try, the smoke was clearing out through the open door. That's when she saw the damage. One by one, the leaves on her beloved girls were curling and turning translucent. She screamed like a mother watching her children die, gathering the pots as quickly as she could, before hustling them outside the sliding glass door. Once they were out of the room, she was finally able to remove the sulfur burner and set it outside to let the rain suffocate the nauseating coals.

It took her almost an hour to completely rid the room of the stench and lingering smoke. She kept the door to the bloom room closed, but she knew the lights were already out in there. As the storm subsided, she walked outside to check her veg girls. It was nothing short of a nuclear holocaust. One by one their leaves continued to curl, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. All the months of careful nurturing and labor were being destroyed in front of her. “Why?” she plaintively asked. All she could do now was return them to the aired out veg room and let them linger in the dark until morning. As she stood in the darkened basement, that familiar tightening in her jaw reappeared. Her neck began to spasm, and as if on cue, her right ear fluttered in that damned syncopated beat. She grabbed her ear. “Oh God, not again!”

It wasn't until she walked back up the stairs that she saw the note Peyton taped to the basement door. “Started sulfur at 9:15. Helen's clones needed it, so all of them in the veg are getting a dose too. DON'T GO INTO THE BASEMENT UNTIL MORNING.” And there was a P.S. “Hung out with Ronald. You need to check on him.”

Betty's heart began to pound, as she raced up the stairs and turned on the light in her bedroom. There was Ronald, curled up on the bed. She stood in the doorway, wanting to move forward, yet petrified of that queasy feeling in her gut. “Ronald?” she softly asked. When he still didn't stir, Betty reluctantly walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. “Ronald, darling?” She touched his head but he didn't respond. Kneeling by the side of the bed, she looked at him more closely. His body was still slightly warm, but he had slipped peacefully from this world. A swell of emotion hit hard, as she crumbled to the carpet. Those familiar walls moved in tightly around her, as the impact of so many losses enveloped her. Finally, she worked up the courage to touch him again. Cradling his limp body in her arms like a baby, she rocked him back and forth. “You were a good cat, Ronald the third. Thank you for being a loyal friend.” Once she got her wits back, Betty found a box and towel, and placed his body inside. She would take him to the emergency vet's office the next day and have him cremated.