The Financial Lives Of the Poets

old liquid sweeteners.”

Jamie leans in. “That shit causes cancer, yo.”

I look at Dave, who is still holding the pen out to me, and I picture the real estate agent that Lisa and I used to buy our home, a tool named Thomas Otway, his tanned face set in a constant half-smile. Thomas had a funny Australian accent that always seemed phony.

“This is all pretty much boilerplate,” Dave says, another thing our real estate agent used to say, except with his Aussie-r-dropping-vowel-twisting accent-bolah-plite.

I take the pen and begin signing. “Here,” Dave says, removing flagging tape from each section, “and here, here, and here…and one more…here.” Dave puts the signed contracts back in the CONTRACTS folder and then he takes from his briefcase another folder: MENUS.

He opens the MENUS file, takes out one of the sheets and hands it to me. The menu lists what are apparently various kinds (breeds? brands? makes? models?) of marijuana down the left column: AK-47, Arrow Lakes PB, Haze, Purple, Trainwreck, Snow Cap, OG Kush, Canadian Black, Cambodian Red, Schwag, F-1, ChemDog, Sour Diesel, White Russian, Jumping Jack and Northern Lights. The prices are listed in two columns on the right-the price ranges from $35 to $80 for an eighth and from $250 to $575 for an ounce.

I stare at this sheet, not entirely comprehending it. Jamie points out one of the cheaper middle brands-Arrow Lakes PB-and nods. This must be the B.C.-Bud-Nobel-Frankensteined shit that I’ve been smoking the last few days.

Dave goes on: “The blends are italicized, and anything with an asterisk is a name brand. I work mainly with a local grower, so what I tend to feature are locally produced versions of these brands-think of them as knock-offs, but every bit as good, sort of like generic prescription drugs. Not everything is going to be available, obviously, and these prices are subject to availability and other market forces.”

“And you can get me-” I recall I’m not supposed to mention amounts “-enough?”

“First, I’m not getting you anything. I don’t handle that part of it, because of my allergies-I’m allergic to spending the rest of my

life in prison. I introduce you to the grower, help you broker a fair price, that kind of thing, all for an hourly fee, but I don’t want to know how much you’re buying or what you’re doing with it. I assume you have a prescription. After that, you’re responsible for paying for it, and for transporting anything you buy. I don’t ever see dope or dough. I’m simply a lawyer who gets paid for whatever billable hours I spend on various negotiations, contracts and introductions-none of which involves the actual transaction of drugs or money. I am not the person providing you with the product. We’re clear on that?” Dave taps the stack of contracts I’ve signed.

“Uh. Yes?”

“Good.” Dave begins packing up his briefcase. “Then take this menu home and read through it and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

When his briefcase is packed, Dave looks me in the eye, smiles and winks, and once again, I think of Thomas, the agent who represented Lisa and me when we bought our house.

Our house…for another, what…five days and nine hours? Lisa’s inside it right now, bent over the computer keyboard while our boys are nestled in their beds-no idea of the insanity going on around them, foreclosure, affair, dope deal, all that unraveling-and it’s almost as if I can hear our old real estate agent’s phony accent: I’m so bloody ’appy for you, this is the house-a-ya drimes, slick son-of-a-bitch pushing papers like they were made of fine glass, Lisa, Matt, this is the pa’ht I love, papers that chained us to a death ship for thirty years, for the rest of our lives, or until next week, I have a feeling you’re going to be so ’appy heah, and it dawns on me that Drug Dealer Dave’s sales strategy might be a good one for realtors, too, beginning the home-buying process by pretending to want to search your asshole.

Because, honestly, after that everything goes pretty smoothly.

CHAPTER 11

Turns Out There Are Only Four Eskimo Words for Snow, However-

ACE AUNTIE ATSHIT BAMMY banana bash

bart bazooka black-mote block (and) blue-bayou

bobo bone boom brick budda (botanical name:

Cannabis sativa) charge cherat chips chira

chronic daga dope funk ganja giggle grass

grefa hemp jack jane jay jolly juju

(and the deliriously sweet-sounding) kiff.

A loaf a log a lid (which is what we called

an ounce when I was a kid; what they now

call a can) loco lucas ma mak mary-jane

marijuana-(which is Mexican

for something no one can ever agree upon

and then comes the sweet string of-)

meggie moocah muggles numba noma paca

pat pin pot pretendo rat red reefer rye

sen sez spliff snopp stink straw

stack thai thumb wollie what yeh

yen-pop yesca zambi (then back a bit to

end on my own personal favorite)-weed.

“Why are you Googling pot slang?” Lisa asks. I didn’t hear her come in the room and now she’s looking over my shoulder. She is dressed in a tight-fitting black shirt and skirt; she looks great. She’s been dressing up more for work the last few weeks. It reminds me of when we were first married, how it used to break my heart a little every morning when she’d make herself so beautiful to go market the sports medicine clinic and I’d think: wait a minute: I’m the guy who married you. Why don’t they get the sleepy woman in the zero- population-growth pajamas and I get the business babe in the hot suit?

“I think we need to be ready, that’s all,” I say, thinking quickly to explain the list of stoner synonyms on the screen. “Those boys are going to be teenagers soon and when they start sneaking around I don’t want to miss any of the code words.”

“They’re ten and eight, Matt.”

“You want to have your head in the sand, go ahead. I’m gonna be ready.”

Lisa shrugs off the latest sign of what she surely must see as my fatal case of mid-life imbalance. “Curt is supposed to get back to me today about going full time and getting on the benefits package,” she says. When she’s nervous, like now, Lisa bites her bottom lip. It goes white under her teeth. “I’m not optimistic, Matt.”

“I know you’re not.”

“So what should I say if he says no?”

“I wouldn’t say anything. I’ve told you before I think you should look for another job, but you probably shouldn’t quit this one until you have another one.”

“Yeah,” she says, and she looks past me, out the window. She clears her throat and says, “So what do you have today?”

I list off the day’s chronological indignities: (1) Dad’s doctor’s appointment, in which he will be given a routine dementia exam-SATs of senility-to determine the rate of his decline and the effectiveness of the meds he’s on (2) a meeting about the one job prospect I’ve been tending, with a wealthy developer I used to cover who claims to want to start an online newspaper with me as editor (3) a twice-postponed afternoon appointment at the Unemployment Office with my job counselor, Noreen.

What I don’t mention is that I’m also: (4) going on day three without sleep (5) desperately trying to “contact my lender” to fend off foreclosure for another month and (6) waiting for Dave my drug-dealing lawyer to call so I can order nine Gs of primo skank-at least two logs of meggie, or two bricks of block (or is it two blocks of brick?).