Ever thus.
The worst is when Paqu comes back from rehab or a spiritual retreat. Having fixed herself, she sets out to fix O.
“I’m not broken,” O argued one time.
“Oh, darling,” Paqu answered, “we’re all broken.”
Indeed, O thought, Paqu does spend a lot of time in the body shop. Anyhoo, after a long discussion about O’s denial regarding her “brokenness” it was decided that self-realization was a river that simply couldn’t be pushed and that O would have to remain in the eddy of her own delusion. Which was just fine with O, although she was pretty sure that Delusional Eddy was a guy Paqu briefly dated.
But now this thirty-day thing.
O heads for the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To join the Peace Corps,” O answers.
Or go see Chon.
Which is the
Exact opposite.
16
Actually it was the fact that O had no freaking idea what she was going to do with her life that led Ben and Chon into the marijuana business two years ago because it engendered a discussion of “vocation,” and wordsmith Chon observed that “vocation” is merely one vowel removed from “vacation” yet could be considered an antonym.
That is vocation (n., from the Latin verb “to call”): an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which he or she is suited, trained, or qualified vacation (n.): freedom from occupation
“But,” Ben asked, “do you want freedom from something to which you’re especially drawn? Probably not.”
So, on his next deployment, Chon came home with A Purple Heart
A new set of nightmares and
17
A seed.
The White Widow.
A particularly fine, THC-laden breed of cannabis.
When the seed of an idea meets the actual, physical seed it is
Seminal. seminal (adj.)
1. Pertaining to, containing, or consisting of semen (uhhhh, no)
2. Botany: of or pertaining to seed (obviously)
3. Having possibilities of future development (oh, hell yes)
4. Highly original and influencing the development of future events (well, let’s hope so)
Ben took this seminal seed and, actualizing the potential for future development, developed the hell out of it in highly original ways that would influence future events.
Ben started to breed a new plant.
18
First he separated the male plants from the female plants.
“Awww,” O said, “that’s kind of sad.”
“We don’t want accidental fertilization.”
“Couldn’t we just put tiny little condoms on the male plants?” O asked.
Ben told her that they couldn’t.
O asked, “How can you tell the male from the female plants?”
“The stamens look like balls,” Ben said.
“Well, there you go.”
“We choose a male plant,” Ben explained, “take its pollen, and pollinate the female plant.”
“I might need a few minutes to myself here,” O said.
O found it highly amusing that Ben created an Isle of Lesbos-a virtual Women’s Prison Movie-marijuana farm. She also took a certain neo-feminist pride that the most powerful, juicy, THC-laden buds came from the females.
Anyway, Ben used the seed produced by the pollinated female to create what is known in genetics as the F1 hybrid. Then he grew that plant, took its seed, and bred it back with the parent plant.
“With the parent?” O asked.
“Yup.”
“ Iiiiiccck,” O answered. “That’s, like, incest.”
“Not like. Is.”
“Cue the banjo.”
She came to refer to Ben’s marijuana crop as “L.A.”
Not “Los Angeles.”
“Lesbian Appalachia.”
19
Ben kept inbreeding like a European royal family, generation after generation, until he produced not a Tea Party member or a drooling pink-eyed idiot, but a female plant whose fecund buds veritably dripped (okay, not really) with THC.
Tetrahydrocannabinol.
Aka delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.
Aka dronabinol.
The main psychoactive substance in marijuana.
(For the blazers out there-it’s why you’re too high right now to understand “psychoactive substance.”)
Ben the Mad Botanist didn’t produce a Porsche, he produced a Lamborghini.
Not a Rolex but a Patek.
If Ben’s blend were a horse, it would be Secretariat.
A mountain, Everest.
Michael Jordan.
Tiger Woods
(before).
The max.
The ult.
Cherry Garcia.
