Savages

different countries)—he’s sun, not fog, light, not heavy—so he came home to Laguna.

Hooked up with Chon—when Chon was home—and they played a lot more volleyball.

And went into business.

20

Every great company has an origin story and here is Ben and Chonny’s:

They’re hanging out at the beach, Chon on extended leave between his two hitches, and they’re playing volleyball on the court next to the Hotel Laguna.

Ben and Chon are the kings of the court, and why not? Two tall, lanky, athletic guys who make a great team. Ben is the setter who thinks of the game as chess, Chon is the spiker who goes for the kill. They win a lot more often than they lose, they have a good time, and tanned chicks in bikinis and suntan oil stop and watch them do it.

It’s a good life.

So one day they’re sitting on the sand post-match and start speculating about the future—

—what are they going to do—

and Ben brings up that old saw “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Which sounds good to them.

Okay, what do we love? Chon asks.

Sex

Volleyball

Beer

Dope

They don’t want to act in or make porn films, so sex is out. There are only about two guys in the whole world who make a decent living playing volleyball, the whole microbrewery thing is a bust, so . . .

Ben’s been playing with hydro in his room.

A lot of trial and error, but lately he’s actually produced some pretty potent stuff that he and Chon and O have smoked up.

And they love getting high, ergo . . .

Ben has the scientific and business knowledge and Chon has . . .

The baditude . . .

And a pedigree in this sort of thing, given his legacy.

“You were there when the Association tubed,” Ben observed. “What went wrong?”

“Greed,” Chon said. “Greed, carelessness, and stupidity.”

(Qualities that, to Ben, pretty much describe not only the defunct Association but the human species as a whole—greedy, stupid, and careless.)

Vowing to avoid greed, stupidity, and carelessness, Ben and Chon decided to go into the marijuana business. Not as smugglers or dealers, but as growers.

Their goal: to produce the best marijuana in the world.

This was the seed (we’re getting there) of an idea, and, like any great idea, it all starts with the seed.

The best cannabis seed in the world comes from . . .

Afghanistan.

No ocean, no waves

But hellaciously fine cannabis seeds, the absolute premium of which is called—

The White Widow.

Coincidence or fate?

You decide.

21

The wine world is basically divided into red and white. (We ain’t gonna go far with this—wine types are almost as hateful as tweekers. Every great wine-tasting session should end with arsenic.)

The cannabis world is basically divided into indica and sativa.

Not to put too fine a point on it, indicas basically have a higher dose of CBDs than THCs and sativas have the reverse ratio.

Got it?

No, unless you’re a blazer you don’t, so some definitions (and no, there won’t be a quiz at the end because we’re talking about stoners here):

CBD is short for a substance in plants called cannabidiol. THC is the acronym of a substance in plants called tetrahydrocannabinol, aka Delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol.

Unless you’re Ben or Chon you don’t need to know this shit, but to understand Ben and Chonny’s you do need to get that the indica blends of cannabis—more CBD, less THC—produce a sleepy, heavy, tranquilizing kind of high. The sativas—more THC, less CBD—get your brain and genitals really cranking.

Or you can put it in terms of energy:

Indica = low energy. You’re going to flop on the sofa and fall asleep to whatever is on TV because changing the channel requires too much effort.

Sativa = high energy. You’re going to fuck your brains out on the sofa and then invent perpetual motion mechanics, or at least try to while you’re repainting the living room.

So just as wine connoisseurs will yap endlessly about this Merlot, that Beaujolais, grown from this or that fucking grape, stoners will likewise enthuse about different blends of indica and sativa—for their taste, their aroma, but mostly their effect. And finding the perfect blend of indica and sativa to suit the individual taste, that is the art of a master grower.

Just like great wine starts with the grape, great boo starts with the seed.

To wit, the White Widow.

The cannabis produced from the White Widow seed is the strongest in the world. The bud of that strain is 25 percent THC—the old Delta 9 is just about bursting out of it.

Expensive, hard to obtain, difficult to grow, and

Worth it.

So on Chon’s last tour of Stanland he came home with—

A bad case of PTLOSD

A burqa for O to wear on special occasions and

A bundle of White Widow seeds.

22

Giving White Widow seeds to Ben was like giving Michelangelo some paintbrushes and a blank ceiling and saying—

Go for it, dude.

What Ben did was take the White Widow and selectively breed it until it was even stronger. George Washington Ben Carver created a Frankenstein seed, a mutant X-Men seed, a genetic freak of a seed.

This was a plant that could almost get up, walk around, find a lighter, and fire itself up. Read Wittgenstein, have deep conversations about the meaning of life with you, cocreate a television series for