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CHAPTER 1
May 2016 (Six months before California voters legalize marijuana)
When her message came, Vic didn't hesitate. Ripper shook him from a dead sleep, apologetically handing him the blinking phone. He sat up in the darkness and didn't allow himself to think about why Barbara was reaching out. Even though it was pitch black outside, Vic dutifully walked to the only place he could get a signal — a fertilizer sack forty yards from the house. He shivered in the cold, wet predawn air and dialed.
"What's wrong?"
"Why does something have to be wrong?"
As soon as he heard her voice, the vision of her face lit his mind. He missed her. He hadn't realized how much. It'd been too long since he'd seen her. He used to call her his angel of Fulton Street, but he stopped because he didn't want to think about Fulton Street. He didn't even want to say the words. That day bonded Vic and Barbara forever. They both knew that. There was no reason to invoke the name of the street. The Fulton Street Massacre would live on in the imaginations of many, but there were only two survivors — the only ones who knew what really happened — and they'd worked hard over the last twenty years to block that day from their minds.
"Barbara, please. It's the middle of the night. What's going on?"
"It's Jerry. I think he's in trouble."
"Again."
"Yes, again. But it feels different this time. I don't know. He seems scared. He's not usually scared like this."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want him to come up there, stay with you. Just till whatever is going on blows over. He's a good worker, you could use him up there."
"I haven't seen him since he was a kid. I don't know if I'd even recognize him."
"He's the same kid, Vic. And he needs help."
On his way up the 101, Jerry tried to count the aches and pains in his body. An itch above his eye, a lump of scar tissue that had been mashed into his forehead the week before. He'd taken a heel to the ribs that same night. It still hurt to breathe or stretch or cough. His elbow screamed from being twisted behind his back. He thought about all the scars and wounds he had collected over his twenty-five years. All the madness he'd wrought. He didn't have much to show for it.
Twenty-five wasn't old by most people's standards, but Jerry never figured he'd live past twenty-one. It was getting tougher and tougher to bounce back. Not only from a brawl, but from the booze, the blow, the skipped sleep.
Not that he was in the wrong that night. He was right, and he was justified. It'd started out as a small celebration, but it soured. The whiskey didn't help. More often than not these days, when he had a few shots, he ended up in a fight. He wasn't particularly good at it either. The drinking or the fights.
Everybody said it'd be Piper who drove him out of town, broke him. They said she'd get him deep into some short of shit and she'd leave him to the sharks. But they were wrong. Sort of. Things didn't work out exactly as they'd planned, but these kinds of things never do. Sometimes you have to improvise.
The road had gone on for hours. It was mid-morning when he crossed the Golden Gate and slipped out of a fog bank, and he still hadn't checked his rearview yet. From the open fields outside Santa Rosa to the small-scale mountains of Mendocino County, the 101 rolled on, taking him farther and farther from the origin of his troubles. It felt good to be alone and on the road with a Marlboro wedged between his lips. The blacktop narrowed now into a grove of redwoods and he rolled down the window to take in the lush forest air. Only two lanes wound through the wooded patch and RVs, semi-trucks, and hatchbacks overloaded with camping equipment forced him to slow. The highway shoulders suddenly trimmed so thin a passenger could reach out and slap the bark on the huge trees, if they'd wanted. If he had a passenger.
He broke past Richardson Grove and headed over the Eel River. He was maybe ten minutes away from Garberville, the proposed meeting spot. He hit the radio. Static. The scan button served up nothing, rolling on and on, the digits speeding by. Finally, it landed on a scratchy local station. He could barely make out the melody, but there was no mistaking that pearly electric guitar. The fucking Grateful Dead. Perfect. Hippy country indeed. Growing up in California with a name like Jerry had its drawbacks. He punched the power button with his index and returned to silence.
Pulling off at the Garberville exit, he was dumped right into the small town. No warning, no edge, and no residential border, just a short row of grocery stores, gas stations, and bars. And lots of dirty-looking kids. Railroad-hopping, dreadlocked kids. Most of the shops were painted with bright murals and signs in the windows promised deals on fertilizer and dirt and organic options for pest control. He knew it'd be a wait before they came to fetch him, so he pulled into a parking spot and climbed out of the car before pulling his cell.
Leaning back on the warm hood, he reached deep in his jeans and found the scrap of paper with the number and dialed. No answer. He tried again. Nothing. He figured he'd give it a cigarette's time and give it another shot.
"You up here to trim?"
The voice took him by surprise. He was gawking at a pretty young — too young — girl exiting a bar and didn't notice the dirty man come up on him.
"What?"
"Trim. You know, are you hooked up already? Or still looking? I know some guys that still pay by the hour, but, you know, you gotta work. They let you smoke on the job, but no alcohol. That's why they let me go. But I bring somebody good back, they might change their minds, you know?"
The kid was filthy, stinking, caked with dirt. Hair more matted than dreadlocked. There were black spots on his cheeks. Jerry couldn't tell if they were moles or bits of dried food.
"I'm waiting for someone."
"Oh, no, I get it. Everybody's lookin' though. These guys are twenty an hour, old school. None of that pay-by-weight bullshit, you know?" The kid's smile revealed a row of chipped, yellow teeth. He'd taken his share of punches, that's for sure.
"No, man, I'm fine. I'm just waitin' on a ride."
"These guys have it together, dude. They feed you and everything. And if you wanna work all night, they got you." He stood bug-eyed now, waiting for this last comment to sink in. "You know?"
"Yeah," he said. "I get it." Jerry felt the clot of scar tissue above his eye twitch.
"You want my number or somethin'? In case, you know, you wanna hook it up?"
Jerry shook his head, slowly, so his position was clear.
"You got a number or somethin'? They might change their minds about the pay, maybe up it or somethin'."
"If everyone here is looking for work, why the fuck would they up their price?"
"Well ... do you got a smoke maybe? I been smoking nothing but rolled tobacco for days, I'm dying for a tailor-made."
Jerry reached in his pocket, shook out a Marlboro, stuck it in his mouth, and lit it. He blew smoke at the kid's face.
When the kid realized he wasn't going to pass the cigarette to him, he said, "That ain't cool."
"Fuck off." No more. No less. It took a moment for the comment to register, but then the dirty young man shuffled on down the street, hoping to coerce the next stationary citizen into God knows what he needed them for. As he watched him walk away, Jerry noticed the sidewalks were filled with these young kids. He saw them on the way in, but he now noticed there was no one else on the sidewalks. No middle-aged well-to-do types, no redneck want-to-fight types. No elderly errand runners. Certainly no police. Only dirty, sad-looking kids. The kind you see on the sidewalks of Berkeley — or any town that'll let them — begging for change and plotting their next high.
A gruff voice came over the line. It sounded distracted, annoyed. "Yeah?"
"This is Jerry."
"Who?"
"I'm looking for Vic. Tell him it's Juan's friend, Jerry."
No response. The street noise from the Garberville sidewalks made it tough to hear what was going on in the background. He should have made the call from inside the car. He got off the hood and moved to open the door and a sleepy voice came on the line.
"Hello?"
"Is this Vic?"
"Yeah."
"It's Juan's friend. He called you, right?"
"I know who you are. Where you at?"
The voice was dry and most definitely American. Jerry wondered if Vic would have an accent. But the rasp he now heard was Northern as a cowboy's. Jerry said, "I'm in Garberville. In front of a place called the Blue Moon Café."
Vic made a noise like a one syllable chuckle, but it came out as a cough. "All right. Stay there. I'll have somebody come down the hill and get you."
"Should I go in and wait?"
"Don't matter. It's gonna take about forty-five minutes, so if you wanna go in and have a beer, go ahead. Stay at the Blue Moon, though. I don't wanna come looking for you."
"Yeah. You know the place? Is the food any good?"
Jerry heard Vic's bronchial laugh once more and then the line went dead.
"You a cop?"
Jerry hadn't stepped away from his car and another kid was already on him, barely distinguishable from the last. Dirt caked on his neck so thick it cracked like plaster. A cigarette was stuck behind his ear, bent at the middle, damp with the oil from his hair. He kept his arms a few inches out at the side, not quite hanging, so if there were trouble, he was ready to spring.
"No," Jerry said. "I'm not a cop. What the fuck makes you think I'm a cop."
"You look like a cop. You're sitting here looking around, talking on your phone. Plus, look at your ride. That's a fucking cop car. You a cop?"
"Cops up here usually drive rentals?"
"Rental?" The new kid with the greasy blonde hair leaned back and eyed the length of the car, huffing through his nose as though he were appraising it. "Fuckin' rental, huh? That's worse than being a cop. Means you're a cop magnet." He gave Jerry another once over, inspecting him from head to toe, then walked away without saying a word.
The inside of the Blue Moon Café didn't look like a café at all. It looked like a bar. A bar reeking of burned French fry grease and filthy hair, but still a bar. The kind of place you'd usually find old drunks and local geezers whiling away their borrowed time, but the Blue Moon had neither. It was packed with more of the same dirty kids that lined the street. Young men and women who looked like they weren't old enough to be in the place. But there they were, belly up to the copper bar, half-finished drinks and empties collected in front of them. Jerry squeezed through and tried to read the taps, all of them strange off-brand beers he didn't recognize.
The bartender wasn't clearing the bar, only taking orders. He looked overworked and annoyed. "What'dya need?"
"Uh ... do you have an IPA on tap?"
The bartender rolled his eyes and turned to pull Jerry's beer. Jerry looked from side to side and realized he and the barkeep were probably the oldest people in the bar. The bartender returned with his beer and sat it on a napkin in front of him.
"Is it always this busy?"
The bartender shouted over the din, "What'd you expect? It fucking trimming season," and turned down the bar to take the next order.
Jerry took his beer and napkin and worked his way back toward the door. The place was full, not a seat in the house. Tables in the restaurant area, deuces and four-seaters, but those too were filled. No plates of food or people reading menus, only more dirty kids drinking. Jerry stood by the door looking through the smudged glass at the street, sipping his pint as slowly as possible.
"You Jerry?"
He was confused. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the guy was talking to him and not someone behind him. In a bar full of rough and dirty characters, the man in front of him was rougher and dirtier than most anyone there.
"Vic?"
"Nah, fuck no. I'm Ripper. Vic told me to come down the hill and fetch you."
"Shit," Jerry said, "In the nick of time, too. This's my third pint. You parked outside? Do I follow you, or what?"
"We got a few minutes. I don't wanna go back up the hill just yet. Shit, I just got off that mother. Lemme get a pop before we head out." Ripper stepped past Jerry and elbowed his way to the bar. He was sleeveless and dirty and when he brushed by, Jerry caught a waft of his funk. His arms were covered in blurred blue tattoos that looked older than the skin sporting them. Some of the patrons seemed to know him and vied for his attention, but Ripper was focused on the bartender. He called out to him by name and the bartender stopped what he was doing and positioned himself to take the order. "What's that fancy fuckin' scotch I like?"
"Balvenie," the barkeep said without missing a beat.
"Yeah, that's the shit. Gimme two doubles and two of whatever my friend here is drinking." Ripper pointed back to Jerry, but the bartender had no recollection of what he was drinking.
"What'd got, Jerry? What're ya drinkin'?"
"IPA."
Ripper grinned and said, "Two Grizzlies and two of them scotches."
After the drinks were poured and the shots thrown back, Ripper led Jerry to a table.
"So, what'd you think of Garbageville?"
Jerry laughed. The name fit perfectly. "I don't get it. Is it always like this?"
"Fuck no. It's trimming season and all these little fucks are up here looking for work. But shit is scaling back. It ain't the business it used to be." He took a deep pull from his beer. "It's all glutted out and it's only gonna get worse. We're fighting legalization, but it's gonna fucking happen. Soon too. Probably in November, that's what they say."
Jerry took a thoughtful pull on his own beer, but, really, he had no opinion on the shifting laws. He figured there'd always be laws, and there'd always be a reason to break them.
"To be honest," Ripper continued, "I'm not sure why you're here. I don't even know if Vic has any work left. We just had a hungry crew of six up there for ten days. Chicks, all of 'em. Talking sixteen hours a day. A real fucking henhouse. They knew their shit though. Trimmed something like a hundred pounds. Maybe more."
"Oh, I'm not here to work," Jerry said.
Ripper furrowed his brow.
"I'm just here to visit for a bit."
"Visit, huh? Visit a guy you never met?"
Jerry wasn't quite sure how to phrase it. He'd known about Vic most of his life, but didn't remember ever meeting him. His mother told him very little. Mostly stories of his heroics and Robin Hood-like criminal prowess. Vic was a dark mysterious force behind what drove his mother, and he was nervous to finally meet the man. Juan knew him. It was Juan's idea to call him. He was a little envious Juan got to do business with Vic, the legend, but that was circumstance more than anything. Juan was in the same line of work as Vic. Other friends in the marijuana game had met him too.
"I'm like a friend of the family."
Ripper eyed Jerry all over again, like he was seeing him for the first time. It wasn't a relaxed friend-of-a-friend scan either. It was a look of suspicion. Like Jerry brought a dark cloud with him. "One of them deals, huh? All right, I get it. Nice fuckin' shiner, by the way." He nodded his chin at Jerry's bruised eye and smiled. "Let's have another shot of that scotch and hit the road. C'mon. I'm buyin'."
CHAPTER 2
The road up the hill was long and dirty. Deep with ruts and lined close with trees whose branches reached out to scratch and scar the car. Jerry did his best to keep up with Ripper's four-wheel drive, but cursed as he was forced to a near stop over and over by the constant hazard that was the road itself. Must be impossible in the rain, Jerry thought. Then, announced by a high whining rev, an all-terrain vehicle passed him on a tight corner, the kind of ATV that looked like a motorcycle stuck between four ballooned tires. The man driving the ATV wore no helmet, but kept his face shrouded with a black handkerchief to filter out the dust.
"Motherfucker," Jerry said under his breath. He said it to the man with the masked face, to the ruts in the dirt road, to the jarring, failing shocks in his piece-of-shit rental, he said it to Juan for suggesting he come up here in the first place, but mostly he said it to Ripper. He wanted Ripper to slow the fuck down. Several forks and tributaries ran off the main path and he worried Ripper would pull on to one and he'd be lost out here in this spider web of unmarked roads. He'd never find his way back down the hill, let alone the freeway. He did his best to cling to the clouds of dust laid out like breadcrumbs before him.
Near the bottom there'd been gaps in the flora, breathing room where the road hairpinned and opened up into tiny meadows dotted with manzanita and madrones, but as they climbed, the woods became more dense. Redwoods and cedars packed tight with huge prehistoric ferns and blackberry bramble.
He searched for signs of the industry around him. There were no patches of tall green cannabis sprouting up, no guarded greenhouses with shotgun-toting locals standing sentinel. Only fences. Some of them wire, some of them wood. Several with tall planked boards you couldn't see through. No mailboxes or nameplates adorned the openings where two-track paths led into private properties. He saw no more than the dirty mouth of the gate.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "101"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Tom Pitts.
Excerpted by permission of Down & Out Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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