I might have missed the bag, not seen it at the bottom of the laundry basket. A feather weight, so small it didn\u2019t cover the palm of my hand, the leaves crushed to a uniform powder. In my day pot came in actual baggies, folded over, secured with a rubber band and was full of stems and seeds. This tidy little bag with its tiny Ziploc, the pot in a neat green rectangle, could have come from a doctor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
I knew it was pot, even before I smelled it, by the color, a dry green. Natural, we called it. An herbal.<\/p>\n
I figured Jason, my son, would have bought it from one of his friends and I thought I had a pretty good idea of who that might be but I told myself I wouldn\u2019t say anything about that. If I try to tell him who he can and cannot associate with, it\u2019ll just make him stubborn.<\/p>\n
When I was his age, fourteen, I\u2019d been drinking and drugging for two years, but Jason\u2019s not me. Kids his age, even good kids, I reminded myself, are going to experiment. The important thing is not to overreact, make too much of it. Let him know I took it seriously without scaring him. I want Jason to feel he can talk to me about whatever is going on with him.<\/p>\n
It took me awhile to figure it out, didn\u2019t see what you\u2019d do with something ground so fine but then I realized you\u2019d use it to cook something. Edibles. We\u2019d had an in-service at work where they\u2019d told us what to look for when we checked inmates in.<\/p>\n
What worried me, I would tell him, and calmly, because I was motivated by concern for him, was that when you eat it, you can\u2019t be sure of how much you\u2019re getting. There were those people in Colorado who died from cannabis lozenges. I\u2019m not being mean, I\u2019d say. This is dangerous shit, Jason.<\/p>\n
I got worked up, handled it like a fool. I knew I should have talked to Mindy first, not just come out with it.<\/p>\n
Mindy had made spaghetti. The sauce was out of a jar but she\u2019d saut\u00e9ed an onion in the pan first and I guess it was supposed to be nice, a family dinner.<\/p>\n
The attitude was coming off Jason in waves, and, though he hasn\u2019t had much use for me lately, I reminded him I was off tomorrow, asked him if there was something he wanted to do with me.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing comes to mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
I pulled the packet from my pocket then and dropped it in front of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis doesn\u2019t belong to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at me, Jason, and tell me how it got in the laundry basket.\u201d I hadn\u2019t intended to get angry. What if he\u2019d meant it to be found, was asking for help?<\/p>\n
He looked. He wasn\u2019t frightened and I told myself that was fine, I didn\u2019t want him to be afraid of me.<\/p>\n
At his age I was a practiced liar and I thought my son had gotten the basic technique down: stick to your story even in the face of disbelief, stay calm, don\u2019t get defensive and start offering explanations they\u2019ll pick apart. I hadn\u2019t thought of his telling the truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mindy could have reached across the table to take the bag then instead of leaving it in front of Jason\u2019s plate, as if it had been a special gift, concert tickets or car keys. Cut it off, cut me off, before I brought my fist down on the table.<\/p>\n
She shifted in her chair then, as if meaning to stand. I was glad to turn away from Jason. She\u2019d get us back on track, I thought. She\u2019d have something to say about me leaving her out of the loop but we could talk about that later. Privately. At least one of us knows how to talk to him. When I try to be gentle the way she is it feels fake.<\/p>\n
She reached for it and stuck it in her back pocket.<\/p>\n
It must have been comical for our son, watching how long it took me to figure it out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems I owe you an apology, Jason.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease may I be excused?\u201d Mocking me with the nice ways we\u2019d taught him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve had enough to eat.\u201d He gets headaches when he misses a meal. Hypoglycemia. It isn\u2019t diabetes but his skin gets clammy and he\u2019s shaky like someone in insulin shock. I\u2019m good to him at those times, I believe. Patient. I\u2019ll put my arm around his shoulders to steady him, get him orange juice, cheese, peanut butter, whatever he\u2019ll eat.<\/p>\n
I saw the smirk on his face when he left, would have enjoyed wiping it off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen were you planning to tell me, Mindy? Were you going to tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n
She was shoveling spaghetti into her face, didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you buy it?\u201d Mindy sells real estate. They got her driving around town in an orange Kia Soul with her company\u2019s name painted on the sides. \u201cDo you think people won\u2019t notice that ugly car in the parking lot?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sunshine in a bag. It\u2019s 4:20 somewhere. Drop by and say high.<\/p>\n
She swallowed, then twirled more spaghetti onto her fork, plugged her mouth with it. Mindy\u2019s a big girl. Not fat. What they used to call strapping. Busty, long legs. Hair half way down her back. Sun-kissed beachy waves, she tells them at the beauty parlor when they ask her what she wants. There are fourteen agents in her company but it\u2019s her picture in the ads. Mindy in jeans and high heels, looking up and smiling. Let me show you our little piece of heaven.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a sergeant at the jail, take the off-site work crew out in a van to pick up trash. The short bus, the offenders call it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have said something to you first, before I talked to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
I can make more money when I work overtime, but I never make less, don\u2019t have lean months the way Mindy does.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think?\u201d She\u2019d shoved some salad in and I had a glimpse of the green in with the little bits of chewed spaghetti before she snapped her mouth shut.<\/p>\n
They say marijuana isn\u2019t addictive, not like hard drugs, but I couldn\u2019t sleep without it. Couldn\u2019t settle down. This was when I was seventeen. I quit because I wanted to enlist, get out of the house, and the story was marijuana shows up in your pee for more than thirty days after you\u2019ve smoked.<\/p>\n
It was harder to quit than I\u2019d expected. I missed that feeling I\u2019d get when the buzz started. Warm, loose as a goose.<\/p>\n
No matter how tired I was I couldn\u2019t sleep at night, would push myself awake as soon as I\u2019d start to doze off, lie there in the dark and every stupid thing I\u2019d ever done would lie down with me.<\/p>\n
Calling Shelley Nichols Namu, Namu, the killer whale, back in sixth grade. Getting the rest of them to do it too, telling myself someone else would have started it if I hadn\u2019t. Shelley was a natural born target. That\u2019s why God made her so very large, I\u2019d said.<\/p>\n
The special pleasure I took in examining the loose change my father left on the dresser, calculating how many coins I could take before he\u2019d notice.<\/p>\n
I was weak to want the pot. I\u2019d be stronger without it, I told myself, better able to take whatever they dished out in boot camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of example do you think you\u2019re setting for Jason?\u201d It\u2019s only legal for you, I could have said, not him.<\/p>\n
\u201cChrist,\u201d she said, and went upstairs, leaving the dishes on the table.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t need it, Mindy, I wanted to tell her. You\u2019re better than that. Strong enough to live life on life\u2019s terms, same as I do.<\/p>\n
I pictured her with a couple of her friends, big, talky gals like her, getting goofy eating cannabis brownies. Big fun.<\/p>\n
I hate going into Jason\u2019s room. He keeps his clothes, the dirty ones and the clothes I\u2019ve washed and dried and folded for him, in a pile in the middle of the floor. I don\u2019t see how anyone can live like that, I would not be able to keep myself from saying. I\u2019ve, we\u2019ve, done plenty for you. We\u2019re not asking much, just get your room squared away.<\/p>\n
Pick your battles, Mindy says. She\u2019d been excited when we\u2019d set up his room as a nursery, had me hang up a picture that had belonged to her grandfather when he was a little boy. The three little kittens holding up their paws to admire their new mittens, before they lost them.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d think Mindy would mind his turning it into a pigsty but she says let it go, he\u2019s depressed.<\/p>\n
In which case, wouldn\u2019t he feel better if he didn\u2019t live on a garbage heap?<\/p>\n
I rinsed off the plates, put them in the dishwasher, went into the living room, tried to figure out something to do. After a while I heard Mindy go upstairs, knock on Jason\u2019s door. My father never knocked; he\u2019d come into the room I shared with Stevie, my little brother, turn on the lights, and we\u2019d wake from the first deep trough of sleep into the bright room.<\/p>\n
Their voices mingled together. I wished I could hear what they were saying, pictured myself walking in there, inserting myself between them, as if there was nothing unusual about my being there. I\u2019d offer to heat something up for Jason, coax them both down to the kitchen, sit at the table with them.<\/p>\n
I turned on NCIS, watched the one with Gibbs. I don\u2019t like the newer show, where they\u2019re in Los Angeles, as much, so, when it came on, I locked up for the night. It had been a hot day, didn\u2019t get cooler when the sun went down.<\/p>\n
We\u2019d been out at the fair all week. My only good worker is the one female on the crew, Sharon. She\u2019s forty, I think, Mindy\u2019s age, but seems older. Crooked teeth, for one thing. We paid for Mindy to get veneers; she said she needed it done to stay relevant.<\/p>\n
Sharon had been working as a night auditor at a motel. When the guests paid cash for some little item, aspirin or a frozen dinner, Sharon kept the money. Didn\u2019t do it long before she got caught, took maybe three hundred dollars. The owner wanted to make an example out of her.<\/p>\n
I tell her she\u2019ll be out soon and she\u2019ll get another chance but that\u2019s just something to say.<\/p>\n
Sharon keeps her head down, doesn\u2019t like people seeing her in her Fugate County Inmate Work Crew vest. The others on my crew, young men, don\u2019t have that problem and they don\u2019t care about filling their sacks with trash. The tinny music and the stale smells rising off the hot ground made them crazy to get to the Midway, see girls in Daisy Dukes.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d put in some long days this week, spoiling their fun.<\/p>\n
Jason\u2019s light was still on. You have to wonder what they find to talk about. When I was young we thought there was something off about boys who spent too much time with their mothers. Though I might have been a mama\u2019s boy myself if my mom had ever stopped talking about the cat, how she suffered, watching him hawk up those hairballs, but she didn\u2019t know how to make him stop licking his damn self.<\/p>\n
I could just go to bed. When Mindy came in I\u2019d pretend I\u2019d been asleep and she woke me.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s my house. I pay the bills. Most of them. Mindy earns money too, can\u2019t forget that. When a commission comes in she takes us out to dinner, buys stuff. At the end of the year I\u2019ll still have made more and it isn\u2019t just money. I get benefits and Mindy doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I knocked, went in without waiting for them to answer, because who else would it be?<\/p>\n
Jason was sitting on the bed, staring at the floor and I looked down too, at the glasses from the kitchen, smelling of sour milk. If he forgot they were there when he got out of bed he could step on one, hurt his foot.<\/p>\n
Mindy looked at me as if waiting for an explanation. WTF, as the kids say.<\/p>\n
I turned to our son, said I knew I\u2019d already apologized. But, I was going to say next, I want to tell you I\u2019m sorry I accused you of lying. What I hoped was he\u2019d say okay, he could see how it had looked that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did.\u201d The wastepaper basket next to his desk was full of apple cores, pop cans, wrappers from frozen burritos, candy bars. No wonder he hadn\u2019t cared about dinner.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said you owed me an apology but you didn\u2019t apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n
My son talking to me like he\u2019s got the righteous goods on me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re right, of course. I apologize for not believing you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Any kid looks sweet when they\u2019re asleep, but I\u2019d check on Jason when he was little, see those soft curves on his face think oh, I\u2019m never going to hurt you, never, ever.<\/p>\n
Jason didn\u2019t reply. I shouldn\u2019t have let them know I felt sorry for myself. \u201cCut me some slack. Nobody tells you this stuff. My father would have eaten his liver before he\u2019d apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he also beat you with his belt?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
She ought not mock me like that, take advantage of a confidence.<\/p>\n
You had to be there, Mindy.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrandpa says he\u2019d do anything to take it back,\u201d Jason said. I\u2019d heard that before. Second hand.<\/p>\n
My mother\u2019s dead. Why can\u2019t my father just die too?<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says that\u2019s how it was back then. People figured their kid\u2019s butt needed burning up once in a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like my father to say it to my face, tell me he\u2019d been thinking about what I needed.<\/p>\n
He and Jason are buds.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d told Mindy once about how Stevie would get in bed with me when my father left. As if I was of actual help, could do something besides lie beside him, both of us crying and calling our dad names. Shithead, ass-wipe. Bad words I\u2019d collected to use when I needed them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand,\u201d our son said, not looking at me. I\u2019d have liked to cross the room and sit down on the bed with him but there was stuff on the floor between us, more candy wrappers, socks, a math textbook he should have turned in at the end of the school year.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you still want to do something tomorrow, Dad? Maybe we could we go to the fair?\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes, after we\u2019d left off crying, my father would come back into our room, tiptoeing, as if we were asleep, put dollar bills or candy bars on our pillow, left.<\/p>\n
Jason had already gone to the fair with a friend. The day before he went he was supposed to do chores to earn money for snacks and the rides. He didn\u2019t, claimed to have forgotten, said it was hot and late and he needed to unwind or he wouldn\u2019t be able to sleep.<\/p>\n
Mindy said Jason spends too much time in his own head and it isn\u2019t his fault the fair is so expensive. She gave him sixty dollars, asked him if he thought that would be enough.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d seen him there with the other boy, standing in line for the Zipper. I don\u2019t know if he saw me.<\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t saying anything to each other, weren\u2019t exchanging pleasantries, you\u2019ll puke your guts out, as you\u2019d expect, but they were together at least.<\/p>\n
I could have gone over, said hello, asked him if he needed anything, but I was in uniform and I thought he\u2019d be embarrassed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d I said, looking down at him. \u201cThe fair would be great.\u201d<\/p>\n
I darted forward then to pick up the glasses around Jason\u2019s feet. \u201cI\u2019ll just take these. I was going to run a load in the dishwasher.\u201d<\/p>\n
I saw the glances Mindy and Jason exchanged.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get us some barbecue,\u201d I said, holding my load of glasses to me like a girl clutching her purse to her chest. \u201cIt\u2019ll be great.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBring me back some funnel cake,\u201d Mindy said when she opened the door for me. \u201cBring a lot. I\u2019ll put my face down in it and keep it there till it\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sprinkle a little green powder on it, I thought. Make it more palatable.<\/p>\n
\u201cSure.\u201d<\/p>\n
I kept what my father put on our pillows. When Stevie pushed his money or candy onto the floor I picked it up, put it with mine.<\/p>\n
Take what you can get.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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