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 universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly...”
“No, man, not that far back.”
“Mesozoic then?” he asked clearly confused with my request.
“This cavern, John the Tripper, 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?” he 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?” he 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?” he asked, taking another toke.
I shook my head negatively 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,” he 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 too, 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
“Well I wasn’t really trying to escape, but sure,” he 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 uber-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?” he 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,” he 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,” he told me as he handed the pipe back.
The sweet-spiced tobacco melded nicely with the tangy tickle of the hash. The buzz was pleasant and rounded the edges of the harsh 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 for 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 TWELVE
Eliza and Tomas
“They are gone or they are dead, Eliza, how much longer must we walk around this dead city?” Tomas
