'Til Death Do Us Part (24 page)

BOOK: 'Til Death Do Us Part
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Oh
,
my babies!

John wailed.


What

s the matter?

I asked
,
looking around wildly.

John sat down heavily by a row of huge potted plants. Correction, huge
Pot
plants. I had only seen plants this size on the news during drug busts.


They

re dying,

he said sadly
as he caressed some of the sticky buds.


John the Tripper, I need to wrap my head around this can you start from the beginning?

I asked.

John looked up and over at me, tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

Well
,
scientists
say that
the u
niverse was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly
...


No
,
man
,
not that far back.


Mesozoic then?

h
e asked clearly confused with my request.


This cavern
, John the T
ripper, let

s start with this cavern,

I clarified, or so I had thought.


Cave
formation
begins when rainwater absorbs carbon dioxide as it falls through



Oh fuck
,
man, you

re hurting my head.


Here smoke some of this,

John said
,
extending his
arm
, a fairly good sized joint in the palm of his hand.

This will help.


Like I need more drugs.

I said sarcastically rubbing my temples. 


Exactly,

John said as he looked in his hand and seemed surprised at what he found.

Did you give me this?

h
e asked. He sparked it up before I could respond, even if I wanted to.

I

ll admit the sweet smell of the smoke was enticing, but I needed to be closer to reality as opposed to the opposite.


Man, this is some good shit,

John said as he took a sharp inhalation.

Where

d you get it?

h
e asked as he pulled the joint away and was looking at the burning end.

Colombia maybe?


I don

t really remember,

I told him;
that seemed easier than trying to reason with him.


You got anymore?

h
e asked
,
taking another toke.

I shook my head negative
ly
as I began to explore our surroundings. Besides the landing hay and the potted pot plants, there were some tailgating fold-out chairs, a small collapsing table
, a bunch of candles and some UV
lighting that seemed to run on a cord that went back up the hole we had previously exited from.

At the far end of the cavern was another hole a little bigger than the other, this one looked like you could crawl on hands and knees, but I was in no rush, the mere thought of it got a quickening in my pulse.


Did you make this place?

I asked John, hoping he would be on a cohesive thought upswing.


It was here,

h
e said with abbreviation as he took another hit.


The tunnel from the cabin
was
here also?


No, I did that. I was pretty sure an alien spacecraft had crash landed here in the

40s
.
So
I rented a
ground penetrating radar set-up.
When
it bounced this hole back up
,
I had to see what it was. Figured the ship would be down here to
o
, it wasn

t.


The
previous
cabin motel owners—
or
Stephanie
for that matter—
didn

t care that you dug a hole in the middle of that room?

I asked
,
pointing back up.


At first I snuck the dirt out
in
my pockets in the middle of the night.


Like
The Great Escape
?

I asked
,
remembering a World War
Two movie my dad and I
used to enjoy watching.


Well I wasn

t re
ally trying to escape, but sure,

h
e replied
,
looking
at me like I was the crazy one;
and maybe in his skewed reality
,
that was the truth.

Then
,
when I got to the cavern, I decided I liked it a lot and I bought the motel

or maybe
Stephanie
did
.


This is all yours?

He was smiling again, whether from the weed or being the proud owner I wasn

t sure.


You

re fucking loaded aren

t you?

I asked.

Like one of those
ü
ber-rich trust fund babies aren

t you!

I said
,
pointing and laughing at him.


I had a friend stole two pounds of dope from me, when he sold it
,
he put all the money into
eBay
stocks. He felt so guilty he gave me
thirty
million.


Dollars?
That

s unreal
.


What?


Wow
,
you

d never know you were worth that much.


I

m not anymore.

I figured he had smoked, snorted or swallowed the vast majority of his windfall.


Stephanie
took the profits and rolled it into Google. I think at one time she said
two hundred and fifty
million.


Holy shit
,
John!

I nearly fell on my ass just thinking about the staggering amount.

Why are you still living in that little house in backwoods North Carolina?


Where would I go?

h
e asked in all seriousness.


Anywhere I suppose.


Why? It was home.


Yeah
,
John the Tripper
,
I guess you

re right. Home is home, that

s pretty deep.


Not really, we

re only about twenty feet down.


I meant the...forget it. Shit
two hundred and fifty
million, that

s pretty impressive.


It

s only money.


That

s
what people who have a lot say.
For
those that are or were struggling
,
it takes on a different meaning.


Want some?


I don

t think it

s worth much anymore.


Right, the funky people. They

ve been kinda of fouling everything up.


Is this place safe?


It

s deep enough that we don

t need the tin foil hats.
The
funkies can

t get here
,
and the government already removed the spaceship
,
so they ain

t coming back. So yeah…
safe as any place can be.


I need to come down
, John.
All
I

m seeing is tracers
,
and the reverberation in here is throwing me off.


Then you

re gonna love this,

h
e said as he snapped some glow sticks.

He started to twirl his arms. The kaleidoscope of colors was mesmerizing. I don

t know how long I watched
,
but the chemical reaction was beginning to peter out when I finally pulled my gaze away.


Come on sit down,

John told me. I had not even known he sat;
the colors were still swirling vividly in front of me.

Smoke this.

He
handed
me a pipe that looked suspiciously like a peace pipe.

I took a long drag, the aromatic smoke filling my lungs, the smell of vanilla wafting around our enclosure.

What is this?

I asked
,
looking at the pipe, realizing that I should probably have asked before taking a hit. With John all bets were off.


It

s a personal blend
.


Your words are not as comforting as I would hope
,
John.


North Carolina tobacco, with
a smattering of Turkish hashish,

h
e told me as he handed the pipe back.

The sweet-
spiced tobacco melded nicely with the tang
y
tickle of the hash. The buzz was pleasant and rounded the edges of the ha
rsh trip. I was feeling better—not normal, not by a long shot—
but at least I didn

t feel like I was going to come out of my skin. Although I figured I had already done that once today and that should be enough.

We sat there fo
r
an
indeterminable amount of time.
I found great comfort in John, for a man so out of step with the

real

world, he was the lord of this domain. I smoked until I couldn

t lift my arms any more. We talked some, for the life of me I can

t remember anything except the profoundness of it. And then John told me to go to sleep.

 

CHAPTER TW
E
LVE

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