Never let it be said that Micah "Grover" Groves failed to hook a brother up. Well, except for that one time but it's hard to hold a grudge against a half ton man when he buzzes H2SO4 at 22:30 on a gloomy Tuesday. "Dude," he whispers breathlessly, "uncle Gordon just came down the thirteen steps and he's loaded."
"I'll be there as soon as I can," I say back while looking around frantically for pants. "Have you called? anyone else?"
"He'll only see you. Grab what you can and get here before he starts getting preachy."
"Right-o, man. Quick like a bunny."
I need cash.
For a guy who only pulls in 75 buck a day, it's amazing how much money I can scratch up in a jiffy. There's $500 jump money in the sock under my bed, a handful of crumpled twenties in my suit coat pocket from the last time I hit the rippers, $245 towards Tyler's rent for next month and maybe another $140 in my bank account. I'll be counting over a grand to Groovy Uncle Gordon for his wares well before the witching hour.
Where the fuck are my pants?
There's a gaggle of local miscreants strung out in front of the bank waiting for the Midnight Welfare deposits. It's only 22:47 by my watch and I wonder how an enterprising young half stud might benefit from the poor downtrodden downtown scumbags.
"Anyone wanna order some 'shrooms?" I ask the crowd at large.
"How much?" comes the desultory reply.
"As much as you want?" I play the question game as well as anyone else.
"At what price?" This from a roughscrabble little punk wearing a Hurley windbreaker and ripped jeans I know as Creeper.
I'm trying to figure what he's good for while performing mental arithmetic. "Buck twenty an ounce, straight up."
He considers the offer for a second and nods. "Gimme five," he says offering me a business card with his cellphone number printed under "C-Note".
"Don't answer the text unless your check comes in Creeper," I tell him matter of exactly. "Price goes up to a buck fifty come sunrise."
He's trying to tell me his name's C-note but I'm too busy huckstering for orders to pay him any mind. I blow a few minds by withdrawing cash before midnight and head to Grover's with 10 ounces on spec and my thousand dollars burning a hole in my pocket.
There's a light burning over the side door and Groovy's old beater parked out front when I arrive. Grover's ma sits at the kitchen table with an untouched cup of tea cooling in front of her when I startle her with the door. "I might have known that you'd be here for my fungus headed brother," she spits.
"Nice to see you too, Mrs Groves," I say before heading downstairs.
There's an earthy smell mixing in with the ever present chronic funk of Grover's basement abode that gets my mouth watering. The big man's in his spot against the wall entertaining a rigid old gent in dirt stained overalls. Uncle Gordon greets me with a wan smile before sipping at the Creemore Springs tall can he's clutching like an escape lever. Story goes that Grover's Uncle Gordon used to work at the Experimental Farm in Ottawa doing hush hush type stuff with psylocibin until he tested a new strain of mushroom on his own system and got hustled off to the Royal Victoria Laughing Academy. That was 1969. He was released about 15 years after his incident, found 1984 to be worse than Orwell had prophesied and cashed out of society to spend his time pursuing the good work in a mountain retreat up the Laurentians somewhere. Three's a crowd with this old cat and I know it's only a matter of time before he starts to bugging.
"Gentlemen," I venture by way of greeting, "it's a pleasure to see you this evening."
Grover snickers at the assumed formality and starts his chins to jiggling. Uncle Gordon shoots him a dirty look and offers me a Creemore. "Good evening to you as well, Mr One-nut. I remember you as a most reverential customer."
Try remembering my real name sometime, you dry fart. "Just wanting to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," I say instead. "What have you on offer for the masses?"
Groovy reaches into the old khaki duffel on the couch next to him and starts removing shrink wrapped bundles of what I have no doubt is finest mush. "The good golds came through real nice and tune right in to His voice," he says grooving into his expert role. "They're reasonably priced to go." And I'm salivating to know what that price might be but he's still going on. "The purple caps are dearer but guaranteed to help you see your god. And then there are my own personal favourites and buttons of my own design." With trembling hands he removes a smaller shrink wrapped bundle of long stemmed fungi with white spotted red caps. "These here are my Sanctum Sanctorum - first incarnation of touching God himself."
I have to fight back the urge to reach out and grab them and they look like little Smurf Houses. Maybe Groovy can see the strain playing on my face because he hands the bundle over into my trembling grasp. "They're beautiful, Mr Groves," I whisper reverently.
"Indeed they are and not for sale I'm afraid." Grover and I both gasp a little at that. "I brought them to show off and share a bit of holiness. You can keep those Mr One-nut and there's another for nephew." He allows a moment of silence to pass and starts talking turkey. "How much money did you bring?"
We settle up quickly and I thank my lucky stars Grover called. I'm walking out with two pounds of gold caps and four ounces of the purples for my thousand bucks. Grover negotiates for 10 times worth with Uncle Gord starting to fidget. The old guy has stops to make yet towards the south lands and wants to get it over and done with. "My research is reaching a critical stage and I have specimen dishes to check," he repeats while Grover's weighing out his purchase.
I down the last of my beer in a gulp and check my watch. Yes, the Welfare Express should have pulled in by now and I have people to see. "Gentlemen, thank you for your time but I have obligations to meet."
"Your patronage is appreciated, Mr One-nut," Gord mumbles around his last tall can. "With your support I can continue on my way towards Enlightenment."
"Any time, Groovy," I say shaking his hand. "Gimme a head start on sales, would you please?" I ask Grover over my shoulder. I'm nearly to the top of the stairs before he answers and it sounds something like "Good luck with that."
Mrs Groves has either turned in or crawled off to die so I don't need to trade pleasantries again. I text Creeper on the move and he answers right away with an attached photo showing an ATM receipt for a $600 withdrawal. I tell him to meet on the corner by my house in 45 minutes to give me a chance to get home and weigh his order. Two more texts to another four wasters waiting in the same dive and I've got the spec sales arranged by the time I hit the downtown core. The atmosphere is somewhat subdued considering that half the scruffs in North Bay just got paid by the government to be idiots for another month. Turning up Ferguson I can see an easy $1200 sales day going up in smoke because no druggy in any frame of mind is coming up my street tonight.
There's a half dozen blazing cop cars parked around the house and spooks with black suits and earpieces diverting passers by. For a second I'm sure Groovy Gordon's new zooms have transmitted a mutant contact high but no, there's an actual helicopter landed at the intersection of Second and Ferguson. The rigamarole in front of Tyler's house is centred around a local police sergeant and the chief spook. They're arguing hardcore and the minions are in disarray so no one's watching the door. My heart's hammering so fast that I don't hear Tyler trying to get my attention until he pings me with a teaspoon. "You've got company waiting."
It's dawned on me already that Creeper didn't beat me home dragging a triple murder charge behind him. There's only one person I know who can cause so much commotion in less than two hours elapsed time and she's waiting in my doorway. "What the fuck are you drawing heat on me for?"
Miss Manon Champlain, Heiress Apparent to the nation's largest shipping fortune and rising star of the international fashion scene gives me the finger and spits at my feet. "That's what I think of your shitty drug dealing life, Ronnie."
"Your little show's costing me all my ready cash," I say on my way past her into my room noting the rank refuse of my bachelor life with more than a little shame. Christ, there are overflowing ashtrays on every flat surface and it looks like every piece of dirty clothing has been used to wipe up dick sneezes. Well, fuck her for barging in on my shitty drug dealing life unannounced. "And you haven't told me what the fuck you're doing here to begin with."
She's flipping through her handbag with familiar huff and I know she's counting money. "So how much do I owe you for showing up unannounced?" Her green eyes are striking sparks off of mine and I can't remember when I've ever seen her this angry. "In a helicopter,Ronald, in case you hadn't noticed."
I can handle this two ways. First, I can take all of her ready cash for some imagined insult and send her packing. Second, I can salvage the situation and chill out with the most important woman in my life while zooming on Smurf Houses. "Judging from the ruckus outside my house, you went through a lot to be here." She stops what she's doing and nods briefly causing her hair to bounce around my face and my heart skips a beat. "So why don't I stop being a complete prick, bid you welcome and enjoy your company for as long as you'll let me."
She has choices now too and I have no fucking idea of knowing which way she's gonna land on this one. Mademoiselle Champlain is dressed casually (for her) but her handbag alone is worth more than my night's projected sales and it kills me a little that I know. Her forest green leather jacket matches her eyes and she's wearing a pair of russet slacks that compliments the low lights in her hair. As always her skin is flawless leaving me to wonder how many species had to die for whatever product she uses.
Manon's on her crackberry telling some poor schmuck where to go and how to do it. My basement shudders as the helicopter spins into life and maybe I hear a gunshot or two over the rising whine but I'd rather mind my own business. When she releases the call I hold my breath.
"So, really, how much did my unannounced arrival set you back?" she asks with a note of concern.
"I'm not taking any of your money, Non-non." She still hates that nickname and she still hits. "Ow! We've fucking talked about that!"
She is characteristically unfazed. "Answer the fucking question, Ronald."
My shoulder's still smarting. "Say fucking please!"
"Please fucking tell me how much cock sucking money it cost you for me being here."
The answer serves up a nice helping of anticlimax. "$1200." She waits. "If everyone actually showed up." Still waiting. "Which was unlikely considering the calibre of company I keep, right?"
As ever, Mam'selle Champlain remains a picture of grace and tact - not. "How does a waster like you come up with that kind of night? You swore to never sell hard stuff."
"Bite shit! I'm trying to unload a measly two pounds of Groovy Shrooms before Grover's network saturates the whole town so I hustled the Welfare Express."
Her face takes on the resemblance of a shaken etch-a-sketch which is to say blank. "I understood maybe half of what you just said but I'm hearing that you bought a shitload of mushrooms."
It takes a few minutes to explain Uncle Gordon and his crusade to meet god through hallucinogenic fungi and a few more to explain the incredible deal I just scored off of the old guy. She's a wee bit leary of the Smurf Houses but Non-non's always been open minded and she has enough repressed Catholic guilt to be curious about what it might be like to be high enough to see God.
"Are they safe?" She'll always be that girl despite the low calibre of company she keeps.
"I've not tried them but Groovy must have and he was none the worse for wear." That I seemed to notice. A brief internal debate over whether or not to tell her about acquired tolerance to poisons and whatnot results in my juggling the bag from hand to hand and saying, " Are you in or what? All of the cool kids are doing it."
She doesn't hesitate and I know that it's because she has misplaced faith in my judgement and sense of self preservation. "Sure. How do we do this?"
Tyler's got this deal called a tea ball that'll hold the Smurf Houses in place when I boil them and I scare up a couple of green tea bags and a half cup of sugar. The carnival's over outside and the other residents are starting to come out of their rooms to see what all the fuss was about. They are fated to remain oblivious as I'm sure as hell not gonna compromise her safety by telling my housemates what the deal is. Any of them would be able to figure that the kind of money one could get from candid party photos of Manon could keep one in modest comfort for years.
I left Tyler examining the mushrooms and he's gazing at them with an uncommon curiosity. "I've never seen you with anything like this before. You've usually got that yellowish blue moldy crap."
"These are special grown by an expert.". I don't even give Tyler the opportunity to know about what these things might do to his head before I make my offer. "Manon and I were gonna get fucked up if you wanna join."
He smiles his little lazy grin at me and shrugs. "What the hell."
Too cool. "So go keep Mam'selle company while I make tea."
Tyler's not too sure about the arrangement and tries a compromise. "But I always make the tea."
"And how many times have you brewed experimental psychedelic mushrooms?"
His honesty doesn't hesitate. "I've never done it."
"Then go chat up the pretty girl while the resident expert gets to a little rubba bubble boiling trouble." He does an abrupt about face like he's marching off to a firing squad instead of keeping company with Canada's most eligible bachelorette. It's easy for me to forget that my buddy's not the most socialized individual on earth.
I'll be honest, my first time working with any new drug gives me big time heeby-jeebies and I can't bring myself to break up the Smurf Houses to fit in the tea ball. So, I abandon the notion and set water to boil opting to brew them whole instead. When the water's reached a rolling boil I lay three of the long stemmed shrooms in and watch. Almost immediately the water turns a dusky shade of pink and five minutes later a deep red. I've never seen any reaction like this and it gives me pause for about a second before I add the traditional half cup of sugar and opt against the teabags. Reducing the heat enough to calm the water lets me see that the Houses are still basically intact if somewhat swollen. I plate them all on a saucer, sprinkle them with sugar, pot the tea, tray it all up with three cups and carry it all carefully downstairs.
In the maybe fifteen minutes since I've been gone Tyler has effectively hidden my shame by dumping all of the ashtrays and stowing the spunked on clothes away behind the bedsheet serving as my closet door. He and Manon are smiling at each other like conspirators and I know that they've been talking about me. "Did she tell you?" is my first question to Tyler because I know he wouldn't have forgotten to ask.
"She wanted to see you is all," he says reaching for the tea tray.
"True?" I ask directly into her eyes.
"As simple as that," she says.
Fuck me. "Well, that makes some kind of sense." Tyler's pouring the concoction into the cups provided and pretending that the dull red tea isn't bothering him.
Manon never did have the best imagination. "I don't know about this, Ronald."
Figured as much. "Well then, allow me to be your own little Altogether Morris." And before they can say a word in protest or otherwise I've taken my first sip of Smurf House tea. Immediately my mouth starts to tingling which sensation flows all the way down into my stomach which starts to quiver in protest. For a moment I'm sure that it's all gonna sick up but no, it's just my tummy vibrating.
Tyler and Manon haven't taken their eyes off of me and anxiety is playing across both of their faces like special needs kids. Manon, as ever, simply has to know. "And?"
"Finest cuppa' zoom zoom I've ever had." Neither moves. "Seriously guys, get yourselves on the outside of that."
It's getting hard to watch them both at the same time but Manon raises her glass by the stem with her pinky extended while Tyler raises his as if the cup didn't have one. I'm watching closely to see if they have the same reaction that I did but the tingling is proving to be a better distraction than frolicking puppies. So I ask. "And?"
Tyler's regular lazy grin is twitching a bit. "It tastes like putrefied ass?" Manon giggles and nods but Tyler needs to elaborate. "No, like actual putrefied donkey meat. I had to eat some once on the steppes."
"Was it this sweet?" is all Manon offers before her second sip and swallow.
Tyler and I are both impressed. "You're an uncommon woman, Mademoiselle," Tyler says with a big shit eating grin. "Why can't you stay with this one, Ronnie?"
"Your guess is as good as mine, brother." It's a safe answer and brief considering that Tyler's on his feet and out of my room before I've finished giving it.
"Door," he says from the stairs.
"Old habits," I tell Manon's confusion and she accepts with a nod and another sip of tea. Meanwhile, Tyler's last question is bouncing through my head with the brain smashing abandon of a .22 calibre bullet. Sitting near her and smelling her is enough to make me want the old jet set days back when we were together and happy and having sex twice a day. The mere memory is enough to start the creature stir and curl around scar tissue.
"You're drooling, Ronald," she advises me with a giggle.
"Et tu est tres jollie." We're close enough to kiss and her lips part when she leans closer.
Tyler's announcement pushes us apart like invisible hands. "A Mr C-Note to see you, Ronnie."
Creeper has changed into cleaner club clothes since waiting outside the bank and he's wearing enough of some musky nonsense to cut through the subterranean murk in my room. He's looking uneasy in his oversized Hurley hoodie, eyes darting from person to person in the room until settling on Manon. "Everything cool?" he asks with assumed charm.
"What the fuck are you talking to her for, Creeper?" I ask to snap his eyes back to me. "She's got nothing for you so let me see your money."
Creeper looks back at Manon. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
"Sorry," she says with a voice that would frost glass, " but I've already seen the world's smallest penis."
Creeper's reaching for his pocket and Tyler's up in a flash with the punks free hand twisted back into an unnatural angle that makes the kid's face drain like he was dosed with liquid plummer. "It's only my roll," he gasps. "Please let me go."
Tyler releases his grip and whispers a few words into Creeper's ear that makes the kid swallow and nod. Manon's sipping away at her tea and looking off into space so I whip out my scale and get to weighing. "You want that in one bag or separately by ounce, Creeper?"
"One's fine ," he says with a glance in Tyler's direction who nods.
Five ounces takes a bite out of the bag but his six hundred bucks feels good in my hand. Creeper tucks his parcel inside his hoodie and seems to see the table set up for the first time. "Y'all getting fucked up on mushroom kool aid?"
Manon smiles after draining her cup and fills it from the pot. The highlights in her hair are doing a colour spectrum shift and I'm really starting to dig the Smurf Houses. She fills the cup again and hands it to the piece of downtown trash. "Take it to go," she tells him icily.
His leer is back in place, a cheap smarmy facade on his rundown house of a face. He tosses the whole cup back like a shot of cheap tequila and drops the cup. "Enjoy your evening, Miss Champlain."
She's outraged and beautiful but doesn't manage more than a squeak before he's gone. The rhythm of his retreating footsteps helped remeber that music is a good thing and would really go down good right now. Tyler hands me a Smurf House. "Don't worry about it, Manon. In five minutes he won't remember his own name."
I'm starting to trip over the thoughts tumbling around in my head and feeling a vibration resonating from my friend and landlord that syncs with the one in my belly. The mushroom in my hand pulses with it's own stored energy and its potential hits me hard in the backbrain, reverbating down my spinal column to flow through my hips.
Where's the fucking music gone to?
Manon's fumbling with the remotes on my coffee table and I show her which one works the music by instinct. She presses the play button and it's something classic rockish with a country influence about taking someone back to the point of his birth and in a moment I'm transported back to another grungy basement looking down a perforated drain cover as a great tower of living flesh above me spasms and screams through childbirth.
I hate this track.
"Give it here." I tell Manon with an expectant hand out for the remote.
"No, this is Grand Funk Railroad and it's sending me back to Memere." Sure enough there are tears in her eyes and it must be nice to remember being brought up in splendour on the St Lawrence River but I was born on a laundry room floor.
She makes me sit through the whole song but then it's "All the Young Dudes" and we both know it enough to dare break out into the first chorus. After that it's singing what we know of the rest to each other while making up the missing bits from nonsense and flashing laughter.
Tyler goes to answer the door again and I have time to notice that I've crushed the boiled mushroom into a goo in my hand.
Without thinking I place a slow soft slap on Manon's cheek and rub a good bit of goo down her face onto her neck. She actually nuzzles my hand in space, takes my hand and hers and licks the palm licking goo. There's another Smurf House in her hand and she crushes it against the chest I don't remember baring and we're smearing ourselves with tingly mushroom guts. Blue and green tracers follow my hands over her body and she's a live flame on my lap when our lips meet and the sweetness on her tongue is still my favourite poison. We bite each others lips and feel each others pain and nothing matters so long as she's with me here in the Smurf Houses.
Here comes the son.
"I'll be there as soon as I can," I say back while looking around frantically for pants. "Have you called? anyone else?"
"He'll only see you. Grab what you can and get here before he starts getting preachy."
"Right-o, man. Quick like a bunny."
I need cash.
For a guy who only pulls in 75 buck a day, it's amazing how much money I can scratch up in a jiffy. There's $500 jump money in the sock under my bed, a handful of crumpled twenties in my suit coat pocket from the last time I hit the rippers, $245 towards Tyler's rent for next month and maybe another $140 in my bank account. I'll be counting over a grand to Groovy Uncle Gordon for his wares well before the witching hour.
Where the fuck are my pants?
There's a gaggle of local miscreants strung out in front of the bank waiting for the Midnight Welfare deposits. It's only 22:47 by my watch and I wonder how an enterprising young half stud might benefit from the poor downtrodden downtown scumbags.
"Anyone wanna order some 'shrooms?" I ask the crowd at large.
"How much?" comes the desultory reply.
"As much as you want?" I play the question game as well as anyone else.
"At what price?" This from a roughscrabble little punk wearing a Hurley windbreaker and ripped jeans I know as Creeper.
I'm trying to figure what he's good for while performing mental arithmetic. "Buck twenty an ounce, straight up."
He considers the offer for a second and nods. "Gimme five," he says offering me a business card with his cellphone number printed under "C-Note".
"Don't answer the text unless your check comes in Creeper," I tell him matter of exactly. "Price goes up to a buck fifty come sunrise."
He's trying to tell me his name's C-note but I'm too busy huckstering for orders to pay him any mind. I blow a few minds by withdrawing cash before midnight and head to Grover's with 10 ounces on spec and my thousand dollars burning a hole in my pocket.
There's a light burning over the side door and Groovy's old beater parked out front when I arrive. Grover's ma sits at the kitchen table with an untouched cup of tea cooling in front of her when I startle her with the door. "I might have known that you'd be here for my fungus headed brother," she spits.
"Nice to see you too, Mrs Groves," I say before heading downstairs.
There's an earthy smell mixing in with the ever present chronic funk of Grover's basement abode that gets my mouth watering. The big man's in his spot against the wall entertaining a rigid old gent in dirt stained overalls. Uncle Gordon greets me with a wan smile before sipping at the Creemore Springs tall can he's clutching like an escape lever. Story goes that Grover's Uncle Gordon used to work at the Experimental Farm in Ottawa doing hush hush type stuff with psylocibin until he tested a new strain of mushroom on his own system and got hustled off to the Royal Victoria Laughing Academy. That was 1969. He was released about 15 years after his incident, found 1984 to be worse than Orwell had prophesied and cashed out of society to spend his time pursuing the good work in a mountain retreat up the Laurentians somewhere. Three's a crowd with this old cat and I know it's only a matter of time before he starts to bugging.
"Gentlemen," I venture by way of greeting, "it's a pleasure to see you this evening."
Grover snickers at the assumed formality and starts his chins to jiggling. Uncle Gordon shoots him a dirty look and offers me a Creemore. "Good evening to you as well, Mr One-nut. I remember you as a most reverential customer."
Try remembering my real name sometime, you dry fart. "Just wanting to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's," I say instead. "What have you on offer for the masses?"
Groovy reaches into the old khaki duffel on the couch next to him and starts removing shrink wrapped bundles of what I have no doubt is finest mush. "The good golds came through real nice and tune right in to His voice," he says grooving into his expert role. "They're reasonably priced to go." And I'm salivating to know what that price might be but he's still going on. "The purple caps are dearer but guaranteed to help you see your god. And then there are my own personal favourites and buttons of my own design." With trembling hands he removes a smaller shrink wrapped bundle of long stemmed fungi with white spotted red caps. "These here are my Sanctum Sanctorum - first incarnation of touching God himself."
I have to fight back the urge to reach out and grab them and they look like little Smurf Houses. Maybe Groovy can see the strain playing on my face because he hands the bundle over into my trembling grasp. "They're beautiful, Mr Groves," I whisper reverently.
"Indeed they are and not for sale I'm afraid." Grover and I both gasp a little at that. "I brought them to show off and share a bit of holiness. You can keep those Mr One-nut and there's another for nephew." He allows a moment of silence to pass and starts talking turkey. "How much money did you bring?"
We settle up quickly and I thank my lucky stars Grover called. I'm walking out with two pounds of gold caps and four ounces of the purples for my thousand bucks. Grover negotiates for 10 times worth with Uncle Gord starting to fidget. The old guy has stops to make yet towards the south lands and wants to get it over and done with. "My research is reaching a critical stage and I have specimen dishes to check," he repeats while Grover's weighing out his purchase.
I down the last of my beer in a gulp and check my watch. Yes, the Welfare Express should have pulled in by now and I have people to see. "Gentlemen, thank you for your time but I have obligations to meet."
"Your patronage is appreciated, Mr One-nut," Gord mumbles around his last tall can. "With your support I can continue on my way towards Enlightenment."
"Any time, Groovy," I say shaking his hand. "Gimme a head start on sales, would you please?" I ask Grover over my shoulder. I'm nearly to the top of the stairs before he answers and it sounds something like "Good luck with that."
Mrs Groves has either turned in or crawled off to die so I don't need to trade pleasantries again. I text Creeper on the move and he answers right away with an attached photo showing an ATM receipt for a $600 withdrawal. I tell him to meet on the corner by my house in 45 minutes to give me a chance to get home and weigh his order. Two more texts to another four wasters waiting in the same dive and I've got the spec sales arranged by the time I hit the downtown core. The atmosphere is somewhat subdued considering that half the scruffs in North Bay just got paid by the government to be idiots for another month. Turning up Ferguson I can see an easy $1200 sales day going up in smoke because no druggy in any frame of mind is coming up my street tonight.
There's a half dozen blazing cop cars parked around the house and spooks with black suits and earpieces diverting passers by. For a second I'm sure Groovy Gordon's new zooms have transmitted a mutant contact high but no, there's an actual helicopter landed at the intersection of Second and Ferguson. The rigamarole in front of Tyler's house is centred around a local police sergeant and the chief spook. They're arguing hardcore and the minions are in disarray so no one's watching the door. My heart's hammering so fast that I don't hear Tyler trying to get my attention until he pings me with a teaspoon. "You've got company waiting."
It's dawned on me already that Creeper didn't beat me home dragging a triple murder charge behind him. There's only one person I know who can cause so much commotion in less than two hours elapsed time and she's waiting in my doorway. "What the fuck are you drawing heat on me for?"
Miss Manon Champlain, Heiress Apparent to the nation's largest shipping fortune and rising star of the international fashion scene gives me the finger and spits at my feet. "That's what I think of your shitty drug dealing life, Ronnie."
"Your little show's costing me all my ready cash," I say on my way past her into my room noting the rank refuse of my bachelor life with more than a little shame. Christ, there are overflowing ashtrays on every flat surface and it looks like every piece of dirty clothing has been used to wipe up dick sneezes. Well, fuck her for barging in on my shitty drug dealing life unannounced. "And you haven't told me what the fuck you're doing here to begin with."
She's flipping through her handbag with familiar huff and I know she's counting money. "So how much do I owe you for showing up unannounced?" Her green eyes are striking sparks off of mine and I can't remember when I've ever seen her this angry. "In a helicopter,Ronald, in case you hadn't noticed."
I can handle this two ways. First, I can take all of her ready cash for some imagined insult and send her packing. Second, I can salvage the situation and chill out with the most important woman in my life while zooming on Smurf Houses. "Judging from the ruckus outside my house, you went through a lot to be here." She stops what she's doing and nods briefly causing her hair to bounce around my face and my heart skips a beat. "So why don't I stop being a complete prick, bid you welcome and enjoy your company for as long as you'll let me."
She has choices now too and I have no fucking idea of knowing which way she's gonna land on this one. Mademoiselle Champlain is dressed casually (for her) but her handbag alone is worth more than my night's projected sales and it kills me a little that I know. Her forest green leather jacket matches her eyes and she's wearing a pair of russet slacks that compliments the low lights in her hair. As always her skin is flawless leaving me to wonder how many species had to die for whatever product she uses.
Manon's on her crackberry telling some poor schmuck where to go and how to do it. My basement shudders as the helicopter spins into life and maybe I hear a gunshot or two over the rising whine but I'd rather mind my own business. When she releases the call I hold my breath.
"So, really, how much did my unannounced arrival set you back?" she asks with a note of concern.
"I'm not taking any of your money, Non-non." She still hates that nickname and she still hits. "Ow! We've fucking talked about that!"
She is characteristically unfazed. "Answer the fucking question, Ronald."
My shoulder's still smarting. "Say fucking please!"
"Please fucking tell me how much cock sucking money it cost you for me being here."
The answer serves up a nice helping of anticlimax. "$1200." She waits. "If everyone actually showed up." Still waiting. "Which was unlikely considering the calibre of company I keep, right?"
As ever, Mam'selle Champlain remains a picture of grace and tact - not. "How does a waster like you come up with that kind of night? You swore to never sell hard stuff."
"Bite shit! I'm trying to unload a measly two pounds of Groovy Shrooms before Grover's network saturates the whole town so I hustled the Welfare Express."
Her face takes on the resemblance of a shaken etch-a-sketch which is to say blank. "I understood maybe half of what you just said but I'm hearing that you bought a shitload of mushrooms."
It takes a few minutes to explain Uncle Gordon and his crusade to meet god through hallucinogenic fungi and a few more to explain the incredible deal I just scored off of the old guy. She's a wee bit leary of the Smurf Houses but Non-non's always been open minded and she has enough repressed Catholic guilt to be curious about what it might be like to be high enough to see God.
"Are they safe?" She'll always be that girl despite the low calibre of company she keeps.
"I've not tried them but Groovy must have and he was none the worse for wear." That I seemed to notice. A brief internal debate over whether or not to tell her about acquired tolerance to poisons and whatnot results in my juggling the bag from hand to hand and saying, " Are you in or what? All of the cool kids are doing it."
She doesn't hesitate and I know that it's because she has misplaced faith in my judgement and sense of self preservation. "Sure. How do we do this?"
Tyler's got this deal called a tea ball that'll hold the Smurf Houses in place when I boil them and I scare up a couple of green tea bags and a half cup of sugar. The carnival's over outside and the other residents are starting to come out of their rooms to see what all the fuss was about. They are fated to remain oblivious as I'm sure as hell not gonna compromise her safety by telling my housemates what the deal is. Any of them would be able to figure that the kind of money one could get from candid party photos of Manon could keep one in modest comfort for years.
I left Tyler examining the mushrooms and he's gazing at them with an uncommon curiosity. "I've never seen you with anything like this before. You've usually got that yellowish blue moldy crap."
"These are special grown by an expert.". I don't even give Tyler the opportunity to know about what these things might do to his head before I make my offer. "Manon and I were gonna get fucked up if you wanna join."
He smiles his little lazy grin at me and shrugs. "What the hell."
Too cool. "So go keep Mam'selle company while I make tea."
Tyler's not too sure about the arrangement and tries a compromise. "But I always make the tea."
"And how many times have you brewed experimental psychedelic mushrooms?"
His honesty doesn't hesitate. "I've never done it."
"Then go chat up the pretty girl while the resident expert gets to a little rubba bubble boiling trouble." He does an abrupt about face like he's marching off to a firing squad instead of keeping company with Canada's most eligible bachelorette. It's easy for me to forget that my buddy's not the most socialized individual on earth.
I'll be honest, my first time working with any new drug gives me big time heeby-jeebies and I can't bring myself to break up the Smurf Houses to fit in the tea ball. So, I abandon the notion and set water to boil opting to brew them whole instead. When the water's reached a rolling boil I lay three of the long stemmed shrooms in and watch. Almost immediately the water turns a dusky shade of pink and five minutes later a deep red. I've never seen any reaction like this and it gives me pause for about a second before I add the traditional half cup of sugar and opt against the teabags. Reducing the heat enough to calm the water lets me see that the Houses are still basically intact if somewhat swollen. I plate them all on a saucer, sprinkle them with sugar, pot the tea, tray it all up with three cups and carry it all carefully downstairs.
In the maybe fifteen minutes since I've been gone Tyler has effectively hidden my shame by dumping all of the ashtrays and stowing the spunked on clothes away behind the bedsheet serving as my closet door. He and Manon are smiling at each other like conspirators and I know that they've been talking about me. "Did she tell you?" is my first question to Tyler because I know he wouldn't have forgotten to ask.
"She wanted to see you is all," he says reaching for the tea tray.
"True?" I ask directly into her eyes.
"As simple as that," she says.
Fuck me. "Well, that makes some kind of sense." Tyler's pouring the concoction into the cups provided and pretending that the dull red tea isn't bothering him.
Manon never did have the best imagination. "I don't know about this, Ronald."
Figured as much. "Well then, allow me to be your own little Altogether Morris." And before they can say a word in protest or otherwise I've taken my first sip of Smurf House tea. Immediately my mouth starts to tingling which sensation flows all the way down into my stomach which starts to quiver in protest. For a moment I'm sure that it's all gonna sick up but no, it's just my tummy vibrating.
Tyler and Manon haven't taken their eyes off of me and anxiety is playing across both of their faces like special needs kids. Manon, as ever, simply has to know. "And?"
"Finest cuppa' zoom zoom I've ever had." Neither moves. "Seriously guys, get yourselves on the outside of that."
It's getting hard to watch them both at the same time but Manon raises her glass by the stem with her pinky extended while Tyler raises his as if the cup didn't have one. I'm watching closely to see if they have the same reaction that I did but the tingling is proving to be a better distraction than frolicking puppies. So I ask. "And?"
Tyler's regular lazy grin is twitching a bit. "It tastes like putrefied ass?" Manon giggles and nods but Tyler needs to elaborate. "No, like actual putrefied donkey meat. I had to eat some once on the steppes."
"Was it this sweet?" is all Manon offers before her second sip and swallow.
Tyler and I are both impressed. "You're an uncommon woman, Mademoiselle," Tyler says with a big shit eating grin. "Why can't you stay with this one, Ronnie?"
"Your guess is as good as mine, brother." It's a safe answer and brief considering that Tyler's on his feet and out of my room before I've finished giving it.
"Door," he says from the stairs.
"Old habits," I tell Manon's confusion and she accepts with a nod and another sip of tea. Meanwhile, Tyler's last question is bouncing through my head with the brain smashing abandon of a .22 calibre bullet. Sitting near her and smelling her is enough to make me want the old jet set days back when we were together and happy and having sex twice a day. The mere memory is enough to start the creature stir and curl around scar tissue.
"You're drooling, Ronald," she advises me with a giggle.
"Et tu est tres jollie." We're close enough to kiss and her lips part when she leans closer.
Tyler's announcement pushes us apart like invisible hands. "A Mr C-Note to see you, Ronnie."
Creeper has changed into cleaner club clothes since waiting outside the bank and he's wearing enough of some musky nonsense to cut through the subterranean murk in my room. He's looking uneasy in his oversized Hurley hoodie, eyes darting from person to person in the room until settling on Manon. "Everything cool?" he asks with assumed charm.
"What the fuck are you talking to her for, Creeper?" I ask to snap his eyes back to me. "She's got nothing for you so let me see your money."
Creeper looks back at Manon. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."
"Sorry," she says with a voice that would frost glass, " but I've already seen the world's smallest penis."
Creeper's reaching for his pocket and Tyler's up in a flash with the punks free hand twisted back into an unnatural angle that makes the kid's face drain like he was dosed with liquid plummer. "It's only my roll," he gasps. "Please let me go."
Tyler releases his grip and whispers a few words into Creeper's ear that makes the kid swallow and nod. Manon's sipping away at her tea and looking off into space so I whip out my scale and get to weighing. "You want that in one bag or separately by ounce, Creeper?"
"One's fine ," he says with a glance in Tyler's direction who nods.
Five ounces takes a bite out of the bag but his six hundred bucks feels good in my hand. Creeper tucks his parcel inside his hoodie and seems to see the table set up for the first time. "Y'all getting fucked up on mushroom kool aid?"
Manon smiles after draining her cup and fills it from the pot. The highlights in her hair are doing a colour spectrum shift and I'm really starting to dig the Smurf Houses. She fills the cup again and hands it to the piece of downtown trash. "Take it to go," she tells him icily.
His leer is back in place, a cheap smarmy facade on his rundown house of a face. He tosses the whole cup back like a shot of cheap tequila and drops the cup. "Enjoy your evening, Miss Champlain."
She's outraged and beautiful but doesn't manage more than a squeak before he's gone. The rhythm of his retreating footsteps helped remeber that music is a good thing and would really go down good right now. Tyler hands me a Smurf House. "Don't worry about it, Manon. In five minutes he won't remember his own name."
I'm starting to trip over the thoughts tumbling around in my head and feeling a vibration resonating from my friend and landlord that syncs with the one in my belly. The mushroom in my hand pulses with it's own stored energy and its potential hits me hard in the backbrain, reverbating down my spinal column to flow through my hips.
Where's the fucking music gone to?
Manon's fumbling with the remotes on my coffee table and I show her which one works the music by instinct. She presses the play button and it's something classic rockish with a country influence about taking someone back to the point of his birth and in a moment I'm transported back to another grungy basement looking down a perforated drain cover as a great tower of living flesh above me spasms and screams through childbirth.
I hate this track.
"Give it here." I tell Manon with an expectant hand out for the remote.
"No, this is Grand Funk Railroad and it's sending me back to Memere." Sure enough there are tears in her eyes and it must be nice to remember being brought up in splendour on the St Lawrence River but I was born on a laundry room floor.
She makes me sit through the whole song but then it's "All the Young Dudes" and we both know it enough to dare break out into the first chorus. After that it's singing what we know of the rest to each other while making up the missing bits from nonsense and flashing laughter.
Tyler goes to answer the door again and I have time to notice that I've crushed the boiled mushroom into a goo in my hand.
Without thinking I place a slow soft slap on Manon's cheek and rub a good bit of goo down her face onto her neck. She actually nuzzles my hand in space, takes my hand and hers and licks the palm licking goo. There's another Smurf House in her hand and she crushes it against the chest I don't remember baring and we're smearing ourselves with tingly mushroom guts. Blue and green tracers follow my hands over her body and she's a live flame on my lap when our lips meet and the sweetness on her tongue is still my favourite poison. We bite each others lips and feel each others pain and nothing matters so long as she's with me here in the Smurf Houses.
Here comes the son.
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