The Marijuana Chronicles (9 page)

Was it like acid?

Was it addictive?

Wasn’t it unhealthy?

I dragged on the joint picturing my pink Studebaker filled with boxes of body parts, me and Johnny driving round the Charles River, dropping cartons into murky water and watching them sink while the older guy fed us hash and thanked us over and over for helping him.

Wasn’t it dangerous?
The sophisticated woman with all the gold jewelry gave me a pointed look.

No
, I said, and took one last toke swearing I’d never smoke again.
It only lasted a few minutes. Not enough time to be dangerous
.

PaRT II

DeLIRIuM & HaLLuCInaTIOn

A
BRAHAM
R
ODRIGUEZ
was born June 13, 1961 in the South Bronx. From an early age, he showed a big interest in writing, especially on his father’s large, clunky typewriters. His father bought him a portable when he was eleven, and from then on he began writing stories and novels. His books include
The Boy without a Flag, Spidertown, The Buddha Book
, and
South by South Bronx
. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including
Bronx Noir
and
The Dark End of the Street
.

moon dust

by abraham rodriguez

1.

Report to Commission C

Inclusions: video files, one (1) short story manuscript

Package of: tainted substance, referred to as “green,” “pot,”

“weed,” or, in this case, “Moon Dust”

[WARNING!! DO NOT SMOKE SUBSTANCE.]

Substance will be submitted to the Justice Ministry for examination. It has been weighed and is vigorously controlled. Any misuse will be prosecuted under penal code 717-3 SUPERIOR!!

T
he sun golden-yellowed over tenement tops.

They were up on the roof, looking down on the apartment. It was a chilly morning, and they both had the collars of their raincoats turned up high.

They were laughing. Bobbing back and forth. They were on a stakeout on a cold morning in the South Bronx. They were freezing their asses off. Their clothes were from the freaking 1890s. They couldn’t stop laughing.

“I’m fa-fa-freezing.” Killy’s teeth chattered.

“It’s not even officially fall,” Kelly said.

Killy sniffed his own lapel. “Why do we always buy such cheap suits?”

“Uh-uh. I’m not spending money on clothes I’ll need just for five minutes someplace. We’re doing a lot of time-jumps lately.”

“But we’ll make ourselves cuh-cuh-conspicuous,” Killy said.

“What?!” Kelly stood his six-foot tallness straight, giving Killy an up-and-down look. Black raincoat. Black derby. Killy looked Kelly up-and-down right back. Black raincoat. Black derby. “I think we look quite dapper,” Kelly said, lighting an Amnesian stick.

“Hey! Didn’t you light an Amnesian stick before we left?”

“I don’t remember,” Kelly said, and the giggles started for them again.

Killy turned grim. He regarded the stick in his hand. “This is not from this time. We’re going to have to smoke it all right now.”

“And eat the roach,” Kelly said.

A quick couple of tokes for each of them.

Killy went back to his Thermospecs, again sweeping the apartment from one end to the other. Kelly nudged him.

“Hey,” he said, “what year is this again?”

This investigation began with a report that there was a “time disturbance” originating in the year 1973 in New York. The disturbance in this case being marijuana tainted with iridium, a substance yet to be discovered. Iridium is the classified substance used in the assembly and successful functioning of the time-sequencer device. We suspect a scientist well-known to this commission, Abraham Ziegler, found a way to somehow break down the active properties of the time portal. To synthesize its elements and somehow compress them into tiny bits. This fine, glittery dust is then sprinkled or sprayed onto marijuana buds
.

[See sample. WARNING!! DO NOT SMOKE SUBSTANCE.]

The cumulative effect of smoking the iridium-laced marijuana is limited-experience time travel, “limited” by the amount ingested or smoked. We have as yet acquired no data on duration of the “trips” or what happens when the drug wears off, but we suspect the subject returns back to its own time. This may depend on the amount ingested or smoked
.

The Thermospecs made a weird whirring sound. Killy scanned the apartment. “I’m seeing four people,” he said as he pulled the small gun from an inner pocket. He set the laser sight, and fired. Sounded like sand through a straw. The sonic bomb is about the size of a small kiwi. The term “sonic” is a misnomer, since the blast is not loud, but the effect on the nervous system is severe and instant. There was a bright flash, a muffled thump. More thumps. Glass breaking, something falling.

Kelly checked with his Thermospecs. “They’re all down.” He pulled out a small gun of his own, and loaded it with a glass ball. He sighted with the laserscope and fired the ball through the same window. They could hear it clatter against a wall, roll along the floor.

“Okay,” Killy said. He pulled out a small mirrored disc from a small leather case.

“Portal,” Kelly said. “Follow the bouncing ball.”

There was a flash and a whoosh of some considerable violence. Killy and Kelly found themselves in the living room. Killy first thing picked up the glass ball at his feet and pocketed it.

“Portal recovered,” he said.

The living room: a couch, some cushions, a pair of mattresses on the floor. A couple of tables loaded with scales, plastic baggies, packed weed. One guy was sitting on the couch when the sonic bomb hit, and there he fell, a bent heap, face tranquil with unconsciousness. Another one collapsed by the table in the kitchen, the broken glass around him from the coffee cup that fell with him.

“Fuck! We’ll have to take Mendoza with us,” Kelly said. “We don’t have time for a chat!”

Killy found Jose “Crash” Mendoza in bed. He had fallen onto it, still clutching a smoking bong. The water stained the maroon bedsheet.

“Shit, he was smoking it,” Kelly said, examining the dark residue in the bong.

He searched around for Moon Dust, looking through the thick cakes of weed, the bags of buds and leaves. Killy found a briefcase full of the stuff in the bedroom, Kelly a small leather pouch. Kelly time-jumped with it all back to the safehouse while Killy went back to the bedroom to check on Crash Mendoza. There was still time before these stoners would come to. Killy scanned all of them, checked their vital signs, and had just reached the bed when he noticed he could see the maroon sheet right through the guy. Crash was fading right before his eyes. He quickly scanned what was happening, getting footage of the irresistible moment when he put his hand right through the fading image of Crash. After a few seconds, just a ruffled sheet, an empty bed, the stink of bongwater.

“What happened?” It was Kelly, having returned from the safehouse. Killy showed him on the mini-screen. “Oh crap,” Kelly said. And he rushed out to check on the others.

“I don’t think they smoked it,” Killy said, examining one of the bongs. “Only him.”

“We’ve got to set up a trace and find him,” Kelly said.

“Won’t he eventually come back?”

Kelly was heading to the kitchen when he heard the sound. Killy heard it too. It was a buzzing, familiar. Growing to a flaming sizzle.

“I don’t think …” Kelly said as they gathered up their equipment, “that we’ll have time to find out.”

There was a bright flash. The far wall in the living room glowed as five figures rushed in. Time Control Enforcement Troopers stormed into the room. A number of loud cracks—flashes from particle guns already drawn. Killy fell sideways in mid-dive, folded up like a snail on a stick. More cracks, as Kelly flipped a table over. Troopers tumbled in all directions. Kelly crawled over to Killy, who was twitching, his body glowing strangely.

“Hold it right there!” one of the troopers yelled.

The firing stopped.

Kelly grabbed the twitching Killy in a tight embrace. “Consuelo,” he said.

There was a brief flash. It was a quick blink. The two of them were gone.

“Fuck! They portal’d out!”

“How they do that?”

“McClaren! Set up a trace!”

The one called McClaren worked his tablet just as there came another flash. The troopers snapped to attention with a shout. McClaren, irritated to see the trace wasn’t working, found himself staring into the face of the Regional Commander himself. It was a harsh, battered face, cheek once slashed by a meat cleaver, his glowering glass eye uncovered by his usual patch.

“Damnit,” he said.

2.

Report to Commission C [SPECIAL]

FROM:

TIME
CONTROL ENFORCEMENT [TCE] REGIONAL COMMAND “D”

Colonel Johannes Belasco

As of date 201262-208==

Primary Report:

As Deputy Commander of all TCE Troopers in the fields of time, I wish to place a complaint with this board
.

For the second time this month we have intercepted two commission agents on a “time disturbance” case. I have been briefed that these two agents, Randolph “Killy” Jones and Rick “Kelly” Santana, are working to correct a time imbalance, confirmed by Time Control “K” traces
.

These two agents are operating in restricted jurisdictions. Their actions come up on random traces and of course our agents respond to all violations of the codes. There are no exceptions and TCE REGIONAL COMMAND “D” would never apologize for its agents doing their jobs
.