Savages (5 page)

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.

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 HBO, cause peace in the Middle East (“The Israelis and Palestinians could coexist in two parallel universes, sharing space but not time”). It took a strong
man—or a strong woman, in O’s case—to take more than one hit of the Ultra White Widow.

With that as his base, Ben started to create different blends of
indica
and
sativa
, all incredibly powerful, and he could customize them for each individual custom
er.
Of which there evolved an increasing number as the word of mouth got around. Whatever it was you wanted to feel or not feel, Ben and Chon had dope for you.

One, then five, then ten, then thirty grow houses, all producing primo 420.

They became almost cultlike figures.

There developed such a devoted following with such a religious loyalty that they even gave themselves a name.

The Church of the Lighter Day Saints.

When it comes to the War On Drugs, Ben is a confirmed pacifist.

An Unconscientious Objector.

He simply refuses to participate.

“It takes two to fight,” he says, “and I’m not fighting.”

Anyway, he doesn’t believe that there is a War on Drugs.

“There is a War On Drugs Likely To Be Produced And/Or Consumed By People Of Color,” Ben allows.

White Drugs—alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals—deal enough of those, you can overnight in the Lincoln bedroom. Black Drugs, Brown Drugs, Yellow Drugs—heroin, crack, boo—you get caught, you wake up every morning in your cell.

Chon disagrees. He doesn’t think it’s so much a racial thing as a
Freudian thing. He thinks it has to do with anal/genital shame.

“It’s about hemispheres,” Chon says one fine California day, standing on Ben’s deck sucking on a spliff. “Look at a globe, now analogize it to a human body. The northern hemisphere is like the head, the brain, the center of intellectual, philosophical, superego activity. The southern hemisphere is down there near the groin and the anus, where we do all those dirty, shameful, pleasurable id things. Where are most of your illicit—dig the word, B, “illicit”—drugs produced? In that nasty dick, vagina, and asshole southern hemisphere.”

“But where,” Ben posits, “are most of those same drugs consumed? In your brainy, moral, superego region.”

“Exactly,” Chon answers. “That’s why we need the drugs.”

Ben ponders this for a loooooonnng time, then

“So,” he says, “you’re saying that if we all took good shits and fucked a lot, there would be no drug abuse.”

“And,” Chon adds, “no more war.”

“We’d both be out of work.”

“Okay.”

They laughed for a long time.

Stan and Diane never asked, never ask how their boy got so rich. That, they don’t question or try to analyze. They don’t do the financial forensics on how a twenty-five-year-old buys a four-million-dollar crib at Table Rock.

They’re proud of him.

Not for
that
, for his social consciousness.

His social conscience.

And conscientiousness.

His Third World activism.

Which explains (sort of) where Ben is now.

Okay, Chon doesn’t know exactly where Ben is now, which, with severed heads bouncing around the blogosphere, worries him a little, but—

—the boy does have a tendency to take care of other people’s business instead of his own. Ben has what they call a social conscience. Very aware, progressive dude. Chon likes that about him,
but
—

—bro tends to houdini for months at a time, saving some group of people from something. Wells to prevent cholera in the Sudan, mosquito nets to save kids in Zambia from malaria, observation teams to keep the army from slaughtering the Karen in Myan-myan-myan-mar.

Ben spreads his wealth.

Call it what you want

The Ben Foundation.

The Hydro Institute.

Dope Delivers

Green Is Green

Chon tries to tell him just send the money, let the cash fingers do the walking, stay and take care of business, but Ben is a hands-on kind of guy. Money isn’t enough, he says, you have to commit your heart, soul, and body. Ben puts his money where his mouth is but also his mouth where his money is, so

—every few months he washes back up at Table Rock with

dysentery—

—malaria and/or—

—Third World Heartbreak—

(with which Chon is familiar)

—and Chon and O take him down to the best doctors at Scripps and then get him well until he finds another cause and then it’s—

Gonzo again.

Off to rescue kids with tiny arms, big eyes, and

swollen stomachs.

Now Chon tells him via e-mail that he has a problem right here at home. He forwarded the video clip not to hurt Ben (he hates to hurt Ben), but Ben has to know that there is bad shit happening
here.

People being turned into Pez dispensers.

Ben’s disembodied head

                                      floats in the ether.

Skype.

Blurred background behind the focus on his face.

Unkempt brown hair.

                         Brown eyes.

His lips slightly out of synch, a broken second’s lag behind the sound as he says,

“Okay, I’m coming
         home.”

O is happy

that Ben is coming back.

Ben, her other bookend

The two men—Ben and Chon—

who mean something in her life.

The only two who ever have.

Ben is warm wood, Chon is cold metal

Ben is caring, Chon indifferent

Ben makes love, Chon fucks.

She loves them both.

What to do, what to do?

When O gets up that morning (okay, afternoon), she looks out the window and sees a tall woman with close-cropped silver hair get into a BMW and pull out of the driveway.

“Who was that?” O asks Paqu when she walks into the kitchen to
look for the Cocoa Puffs that Paqu has probably thrown out. (O hijacks the shopping list that Paqu gives Maria and adds items like Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, Hostess CupCakes, self-heating lubricating gel, and Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits. But then Paqu goes on patrol in the pantry and throws these things out, save for the gel, which O whips into her room the second Maria comes back with the groceries.)

“That’s Eleanor, my life coach,” Paqu says. “She’s
won
derful.”

“Your . . .”

“Life coach.”

This is just 2G2BT. This makes O really happy. Her skin gets all tingly as she asks, “Just what does a life coach actually
do
, Mom?”

Sure enough, Paqu gave the Puffs the heave, so O has to settle for Frosted Mini-Wheats, then scans the fridge for real, actual milk, not the skimmed or 1 percent shit that Moms insists on stocking when she’s not completely antidairy, which is apparently now, so O pours the cereal into a bowl and eats it dry, with her fingers, a small measure of revenge.

“Well, Eleanor thinks I have the makings of a life coach my
self
,” Paqu answers, placing some flowers into a tall, skinny vase. “So she’s going to help me actualize that potential.”

The potential actualization of that potentiality gets O even zingier. “So your life coach is coaching you to be a life coach.”

So you can coach other people to be life coaches. O almost hustles out the door right then because she just can’t wait to report this circle jerk of life coaching to Ben (Ben’s coming home!) and Chon.

Paqu ignores the question. “She’s truly amazing.”

“What happened to the skin-care product thing?”

“Superficial, don’t you think?” Paqu looks at the flower arrangement and smiles with self-satisfaction. Then she has a revelation. “Darling!
You
could study to be a life coach,
too
! Then we could be mother-and-daughter life coaches!”

“But then you’d have to come clean that you have a daughter over the
age of ten,” O says, shoveling Mini-Wheats into her mouth.

Paqu peruses her with what O guesses is meant to be life coach–level discernment.

“Of course, you’d have to do something about that hair,” Paqu says. “And the … ‘body art.’”

“Maybe I could start as a ‘life cheerleader.’”

Rah.

Chon sits in the black leather chair and watches the inauguration of the new president of the United States.

Who reaches out a hand to the Muslim world.

Chon gets that—he’s reached out to the Muslim world a few times himself.

It’s good Ben is coming back. The new prez agrees. He’s telling the thousands in attendance and the millions watching on television that the feeding frenzy at the trough is over, the orgy has been put on indefinite hiatus, the Third World is closer than you think, in both time and space.

Recession.

Depression.

Repression.

Whichever word you use, there’s a smaller pie to slice up and the knives are out. (See Clip, Video.) Layoffs, lop-offs, the market self-correcting. Companies becoming more efficient and the Baja Cartel is at the cutting edge (oof).

“How do you think we should respond?” Ben asks in the Skype
session.

“Reach out to the Mexican world.”

“Violence is not necessarily the answer,” Ben says.

It’s not necessarily
not
the answer, either, Chon thinks.

This violent state of mind.

This violent state of mine.

As he watches the old president—aka the Sock Puppet—wave and get on the helicopter.

The last time someone tried to muscle Ben and Chonny’s it was a biker gang. Those boys picked up one of their retailers and beat him to death with a tire iron as a message that Ben and Chon could no longer do retail in the greater San Diego area.

Ben, natch, was off doing good somewhere, so this is how Chon took care of it.

Flashback:

Chon rolls down the 5 in his classic black ’66 pony.

Pointed toward Fun Dog.

Etymology:

San Diego

Sun Diego

Sun Dog

Fun Dog

In the backseat under a blanket sleeps a Remington Model 870 SPS Super Slug pump action, 12-gauge shotgun with a synthetic cantilevered slug and a rubberized pistol grip that “advances deer-leveling
technology to farther reaches and smaller group sizes than ever before possible.”

Right now it’s resting up for the big business meeting.

Chon likes to keep meetings short.

Learned that in a book,
Things They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School.

A short meeting is a good meeting.

He drives down to Dago, finds the house in Golden Hill he’s looking for, and parks on the street. Wakes the shotgun up (“We’re there”), crosses said street, and knocks on the door.

Tire Iron opens it. Big wooly motherfucker, heavy hairy shoulders showing under the wifebeater.

Chon puts the shotgun to T.I.’s throat and pulls the trigger.

Guy’s head goes ballpark.

(
Fun
Dog!)

Something they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School.

“Savages, How to Deal With.”

Savagely.

Continuing in flashback mode:

Chon goes back to the Tuna—

Etymology:

(And, by the way, Chon really likes the word “etymology,” the etymology of which is Greek and means “in the true sense.” Hmmmm …)

Laguna, rhymes with

Tuna—

Holes up with a freaking arsenal, tells O not to come around until the biker gang responds.

They don’t.

He never hears from them again except by word on the California Bongo Drum Communications System that they’ve decided to get out of the herb business and focus their efforts on meth.

A sound management decision.

Do not expand horizontally until you have achieved maximum vertical capacity.

Also: do not fuck with someone until you know exactly who the fuck you’re fucking with.

And then don’t do it.

“Don’t fuck with people at all”

Is a central tenet of Ben’s personal as well as business philosophy.

Ben is a self-described Baddhist, i.e., a “bad Buddhist,” because he
sometimes eats meat, gets angry, rarely meditates, and definitely does consciousness-altering substances. But the
basics
of Buddhism, Ben is down with—

Do no harm

Which Ben articulates as

Don’t fuck with people.

And he doesn’t think the Dalai Lama would argue with that.