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Land Weed

September 5th, 2006

I’ve got sand in the crack of my ass. I’ve got fucking sand everywhere. Shouldn’t have slept on the beach. I blame Isaac Newton.
Why him?
I blame Newton for gravity. Einstein for nuclear bombs. Pascal for religion. My religion, anyway.
My point is, if I hadn’t fallen down drunk on the beach, I wouldn’t have slept there. Slept, passed out. Tomayto, tomaato.
Anyway, I fucking hate the beach.
Why am I here?
‘Cause without a boat I can’t go any further. I do not have a boat.

The sun was just coming up. Means I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few hours. It felt like it. I felt like it.
-Hey man, what the fuck are you doing out here? It was Al with a couple of beers. I took one as he sat down next to me.
-Drinking a beer, figuring out how much sand is in my ass. The usual.
-Shouldn’t have slept on the beach.
-Thanks.
We finished the beers.

-So it’s good to see you man, and you’re always welcome, but maybe if you tell me what’s going on I can help. Hell, maybe he could. I’ll lay it on him.
-I owe some bad, bad dudes a lot of money. A whole lot of money.
-How much?
-Fifty grand.
-Wow. So you ran on down here.
-So I did.
-Good move. They gonna break your legs or what?
-They all ready tried. It’s why I’m here.
-Looking for you?
-Probably.
-Come on. He stood up and brushed the sand off his ass. –Let’s get another drink. The bar should be open by now.
I didn’t bother to shake the sand off. It was never coming off. Out. Whatever.

The bar was locked up tight. This day blew. The week wasn’t too hot, for that matter. Really the whole month was a write off. If I’m alive next month it can’t help but be better.
-Shit. Fuckers should be here by now, he said. I sat down on the curb and put my head down.
-Man, I could have used a drink. I spit to get a little of the sand out of my mouth. I could feel it crunching in between my teeth. A whiskey would help. It wouldn’t get the sand out (nothing would, ever) but at least I wouldn’t care as much.
I started to moan quietly and rock back and forth. I was a coward. A hung over, sand-in my-ass coward who couldn’t even get a drink.
I heard keys jingle.
-They here, man? I couldn’t look up. I didn’t have sunglasses. I’d never had sunglasses. Curse my myopic ass. And no, I will not wear those fucking clip ons. Clip ons are for fags and old men. And gay old men.
It’s possible that I’m just not that smart.

I looked up and saw Al opening the door, keys in hand.
-You got the keys to this joint?
-I do.
-Man, if you weren’t so butt-ass ugly I’d kiss you.
-Me being a dude has nothing to do with it?
-Well, compared to the ugly, your sex is a minor matter. I wouldn’t kiss a chick as ugly as you either. Actually, would and have, but never so early in the morning or so sober. I wasn’t telling Al about that, though.

We grabbed a bottle and some glasses and found a booth in the back, away from the windows. Al poured.
-So they don’t care that you come in here and drink?
-I’m good for it. Anyway, they like me here.
-You’re doing all right then, huh?
-I get by.
-Got fifty grand? I knew the answer.
-A little closer to five.
-Five grand. That ain’t bad. It was more that I’d ever had.
-No man, five dollars. He poured more booze and we both had a good laugh. The drinks were starting to help.

I must have passed out. I woke up in the booth to lights and noise and a bit of a crowd for so early in the morning. The bottle and glasses were gone. Where the hell was Al?
Some dipshit put Jimmy Buffet on the juke. I wish I had a baseball bat to smash it with. I’d go Michael Jackson on it. Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!! Nothing against my man Jimmy, but playing him on the juke in a beach bar? Come on. I lowered my head and prayed.
I heard a crash. Glass shattering and a slow wind down of the music. Like Hal being disconnected. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do… For a second I thought I did it with my mind. Maybe I have powers. I might be a super hero.
I looked up at what used to be the juke and saw Al swinging a baseball bat like he was fucking Ty Cobb. That man was my hero. Not Ty Cobb, Al. I give a fuck about baseball.
When he’d finished he walked back to the bar, handed the bartender the bat, grabbed a bottle and some glasses, came over to the booth and sat down.
-Man, I said. If the eighties didn’t kill rock, you just did. That was amazing.
-Nothing against Jimmy, you understand, but time and place, you know? Fucking tourists come down to the beach and play that shit to live up some fantasy. Pisses me off. He drained his glass and refilled us both.
-I dig it man, but ain’t they gonna be pissed?
-Do they look pissed? I checked out the crowd, who I do recall cheering during the attack. I’d thought at the time it was in my head, but when the collection hat for the new juke came around loaded with cash I knew. The show was worth it. The bartender had all ready pulled out a radio and tuned it in.
The crowd went wild when The Dead came on. Mississippi Half Step. Beauty. We did a shot to celebrate the success.
The crowd continued to go wild. I felt like Ty Cobb’s drinking buddy.

-Hey, how long’s the sun been down? I just now noticed.
-All night, man. It’s like midnight.
-How long was I out?
-All day, man.
-Wild.

I woke up in a bed the next morning. The sand was still everywhere. I was farting sandstorms. It’ll rip the flesh from your bones. What the hell woke me up so early?
There it was again. A scream. More of a wooo-hooo. A party? What the hell was going on?
Al burst in to my room with the garbage. Big smile on his face and screaming. So it was him. I’ll teach him to wake me up. Motherfucker.
-Get up, baby! Your problems are over! Our problems are over! No more problems for anyone! He ran over to my bed and started dumping the garbage on me.
-What the fuck, man? What the hell are you…? Wait a minute. This isn’t garbage. It was… WEED! Al had a garbage bag full of weed! -Where the hell did you get all this weed, man?
-Get up! Come and see! I followed him out of the room, grabbing shorts on the way. In the garage there were four or five more bags, I assume all full of weed (yep).
-Where the…
-Come on! Keep going! He was practically skipping out of the garage and down the beach. I followed.
After a few hundred feet something looked wrong with the sand. It was covered in seaweed. It looked like it went on for miles. What the hell happened here?
-What the hell is this stuff? I asked him. I reached down and picked up a handful.
This wasn’t seaweed. It was LAND WEED! I mean REGULAR WEED! The beach was covered in WEED! FUCKING WEED!
Al handed me a garbage bag and we both started shoving the weed into garbage bags.
-I got like five or six of these all ready! Your problems are solved! Our problems are solved! Weed from heaven! This is a sign! We’re set for life! Well, at least a month or two. BEACH WEED!!!!!
We got as much as we could before the cops showed up and we beat it back to Al’s place. The perfect crime. Well a pretty good day, anyway.

I was rolling a couple of joints as Al got the beers. –Can you believe it man? We’re set. We must have a few hundred pounds of that shit. We’re SET!
-You got that right. I lit up the joints and passed him one. He handed me a beer.
-Where do you figure it came from?
-Must’ve been a smuggler’s boat, maybe a plane. Either wrecked or dumped their load. It must have washed ashore here.
CHHHHAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! CHHHHAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! I dropped the beer and my joint from coughing so hard. I thought it would never end. What the fuck was wrong with this weed? Maybe it was me. Nope, Al started in on it as soon as he hit his joint. At least he managed to set his beer down.
-Oh my God, man! This weed is fucked up! I managed to yell at him.
-It came from the sea, man. What the hell did you expect? Let’s try and finish these joints and see if they get us high.
-Sure thing, I said. I kept on like the trooper I was. The beer helped.
-Shit man, I’m a little high, but I got one hell of a headache.
-Me too. Me too.
-This weed is terrible!
-Our plan is for shit! I’m still a dead man.
-Yep. Looks that way.
-Shit. I wonder how much of this stuff we can sell before everyone finds out? Al got a few more beers and I rolled a few more joints. I was going out drunk and high. And with a terrible headache.

Land Weed

September 5th, 2006

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