Episode 2: The Nervous Breakdown Part 1- The Crushberry
I cried alone in the darkness.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I had thought I had put it on silent, but it was still vibrating, nevertheless, like a ghost continuing to haunt me.
Will there be no escape? I wondered, as I sat, sweltering; baking alive in ‘the box’. I reached out with my arms, and grasped across my knees, pulling them towards me, as my hung my head down between my legs.
I’m trapped, my heart raced, it’s only a matter of time now.
I rocked back and forth, cradling myself like a baby.
At long last, my much-anticipated nervous breakdown, had finally arrived.
I can’t take it anymore, I wallowed in my misery, I don’t want to talk to Alan or Johnson right now, but especially not, Johnson.
“Gabe?” I could hear Johnson’s voice coming from the house through a window. “Gabe? Are you out there?”
Good luck, on your easter-egg hunt, fuckhead! I cackled, quietly through my tears, as I thought about flummoxing Johnson, even if only for just a few minutes.
I was hiding out in an abandoned storage shed, that was cloaked deep within the underbrush of the backyard. The shed was suspended from a pole, but no longer had a ladder attached, and now, was only accessible by climbing.
It was the only spot on the entire property, where I thought I might have a reasonable chance to disappear and get even one moment, just one small, precious moment, of peace and quiet.
My phone vibrated again in my pocket, startling me, and sending me over the edge instantly into an anxiety attack. I got another buzz to let me know I had eleven new voicemails.
I had to resist the powerful urge to throw my phone as far and hard as I could. As satisfying as it might have been, it could have theoretically made it easier for them to find me. I had to be smart about this, if I wanted to keep them off my trail and prevent them from penetrating through my thin veil of privacy.
I turned the power off on my phone.
Ahh, I breathed a brief, sigh of relief, finally… I shall have a moment of silence.
“Gabe? Gabe?” Johnson’s voice sliced through my serenity, like ten thousand razor-sharp daggers being simultaneously shoved into my voodoo-doll-doubleganger.
“Alan, have you seen, Gabe?”
“No,” Alan sounded concerned, “I haven’t seen him all morning.”
“He’s not picking up his phone,” Johnson said, “shit… now it’s going straight to voicemail.”
“Where could he have gone?” Alan asked.
“I don’t know, but I need to talk to him.”
“Maybe we should split up, and look for him?” The sound of Alan’s well-meaning voice, heralded my undoing.
I’m doomed! I panicked, they’re sending a search party!
I considered my options. Maybe I should make a run for it?
“Gabe?”
Why can’t you just leave me be, for five fucking minutes? Just five minutes, you evil, skullfucking, son of a bitch?
“Gabe?” I heard the screen door open, “are you out here, bro?”
Oh shit, I held my breath and waited in silence as I heard Johnson walk around the porch, and scan the yard for me.
Not only, had I hit a wall in my life, but I had clearly, shattered into pieces against it.
Things had started unraveling quickly last week, on Wednesday morning.
I was running late, and I had to take a shower before I hit the road, but the bathrooms now, were perpetually occupied. There were only two toilets in the house, including the one in the master bedroom. This one was also always in use, early in the AM by Lauren, and was otherwise monopolized by Johnson throughout the rest of the late morning and early afternoon. And even when it was available, Johnson basically ruined this bathroom for others, with his many, disgusting bowel movements.
Meanwhile, we were now living in a work-flop-house that was constantly flooded with people. We were never alone. First thing every morning, a rotating crew of labelers started working at the kitchen table. Unceasing activities of all kinds, continued on throughout the day.
I banged on the door of the bathroom.
“Who’s in there?” I demanded, “are you going to be a long time?”
“I’m taking, a shit!” Teddy shot back at me through the door, “do you mind?”
Teddy was Alan’s friend from Dallas, who had recently moved onto our couch and taken over sales and deliveries in Orange County.
“I trying to get ready for work!” I argued with him.
“What do you think I’m doing, right now?” Teddy parried.
I begrudgingly went into the kitchen and made another pot of coffee. This probably wasn’t going to help with my anxiety, but I felt like I needed a ‘pick-me-up’, anyway.
“I’m going to make a bunch of signs about the treatment of house elves,” I overheard Madison, blathering at the table, “and I’m going to get a time-turner.”
The dining room table was a mess of unlabeled cereal bars, and scraps of paper stock. Lauren sat at the table and was leading a witch’s coven of packagers.
In my peripheral vision, I could see Alan sitting on the couch in the living room. He looked like he was doing his best to ignore everyone, as he worked on his laptop.
Madison and Emma had both been plucked from our social circle of unemployed college friends that had also moved out to LA. I had never met Emma when we were in college, but I had known Madison pretty well, and we had been in a couple of classes together. Madison was short and skinny, with long red hair. She was dating, Reggie, another acquaintance from college, that used to come to our weekly poker games.
“I feel like the ‘Elf-Activism’ will really help sell your character,” Lauren said and then paused in thought, “I think I’m going to be Professor McGonagall.”
“That’s so cool,” Emma said, “she’s my favorite character.” Emma was a tall, skinny blond, that had a familiar look to her, as if she was that ‘one actress’ from that ‘one movie’, that you couldn’t remember the name of.
“I think I’m going to make, a ‘Maurader’s Map’.” Lauren announced.
“Ok,” I finally interjected, “I can’t handle this anymore! What in God’s name, are you people talking about?”
“Come on?” Lauren gave me a dirty look, “Really, Gabe?”
“What?” I asked, not sure what was going on.
“It’s Harry Potter.” Madison jumped in.
“You’ve really never watched, Harry Potter?” Lauren grilled me.
“I think I saw part of one movie,” I said, “but, it happened by accident.”
“And I thought you had some culture,” Lauren shook her head, “I’m disappointed in you.”
“Reggie and I are having a Harry Potter Party on Friday for my birthday. Everyone has to come and dress up as a Harry Potter character.”
“That sounds terrible.” I said.
“Well, you have to go,” Madison informed me, “it’s my birthday.”
“I’ll get you a card.” I said.
“You need me, to label your rice krispy treats,” Madison blackmailed me, “so… you don’t really have a choice.”.
“But, I don’t even know anything about Harry Potter,” I protested, “I don’t have any idea who any of the characters are.”
“It’s fine,” Lauren said, “we’ll assign you one.”
“You can be, Filius Flitwick.” Madison suggested helpfully.
“I don’t know who that is,” I pointed out.
“Google it?” Lauren reproached me.
“I’m not making any promises.” I said, obstinately.
“Hey guys,” Emma acted like she was speaking to everyone generally, though for some reason, she was looking directly at me, “there’s something that we need to talk about it, and it’s a little bit of a touchy, subject.”
“What is it?” Lauren asked, sympathetically.
“Listen,” Emma said, “when we get to the party, please, nobody say anything about Bret’s height. He’s very, very sensitive, about his height.”
“Who the fuck is Bret?” I asked.
“That’s my boyfriend.” Emma retorted and gave me a snooty look.
“Why would I say anything about his height?” I investigated, “what makes you think, that I, of all people, would give your boyfriend a hard time?”
“I’m not saying you would,” Emma pushed back, “just, please don’t mention it, is all. Bret’s very sensitive it, and all I’m saying is, that I would appreciate it, if no one brings it up.”
“Sure, that’s fine, I have no problem with that,” I reasoned with her, “my problem, is that you would think that I would harass your boyfriend in the first place. You clearly must be mistaking me, for some kind of an assh-”
“Hey Gabe,” Teddy interrupted me, “the bathrooms free.”
Need a sherpa for your enlightening business journey?
Frustrated, I put my coffee mug down on the counter and went off to take a shower. I only had ten minutes to get ready before Hanson was supposed to pick me and chauffeur me around on sales calls.
Hanson would surely break my balls, torture me, or worse, if I was late, and I kept him waiting.
I got in the shower, but all of the hot water had already been used up. I tried for about a minute to continue on with my shower in the frigid, icy water. I lathered my hair with shampoo as my head throbbed and burned from the pain of my brain starting to freeze.
After another few seconds, the shampoo began stinging in my eyes, and I couldn’t seem to be able to rinse it out.
Abort, shower! I resolved, and almost tripped and fell, stepping out of the bathtub. Blinded, I stumbled across the cold tile floor, splashing and dripping water everywhere, as I felt my way against the wall towards the sink.
Closing my fingers and hands together into a basket under the faucet, I slowly splashed puddles of bitter cold water into my face and eyes, until most of the shampoo was gone. Shivering, I grabbed a towel from a rack on the door and covered my head and face.
I wrapped the towel around my waste and ran across the hallway to my room, where I quickly changed into clean clothes.
I opened the door from my room and stepped back out into the hallway.
“You’re late, bitch.”
“Oh, hello, Hanson,” I frowned, “how ‘nice’ to see you.”
“Oh, you love it bitch, just admit it,” he snickered, “that’s why you keep coming back for more.”
Hanson was a pathological f**king terror to work with and the bane of my existence.
Hanson had been driving me around to accounts part time, and while he made my life miserable and terribly uncomfortable, on a daily basis, I needed his help.
Not only was I still a pedestrian, but deliveries in LA posed so many challenges related to parking, that it was really a two-man job. Hanson could drop me off at a door somewhere, and then I could call him to circle back around the block, and pick me up when I was ready.
All of the other employees were unfortunately, too paranoid and didn’t want to take the risk of driving around with all of the pot and pot products. It wasn’t worth it to them, for the peanuts that we were paying them.
Sadly, for me, Hanson was the only one that didn’t care. He dressed super preppy, was a good driver, and didn’t even smoke weed. He just, wasn’t worried or nervous about getting pulled over.
Also, as much as Hanson was a huge, huge pain in the ass, Alan had known him his entire life, and he was trustworthy. There was an incredible advantage to working with known people from within our circle. Strangers were dangerous. This was especially true, if we were going to entrust them with large quantities of cannabis and cash.
For all of the above reasons, I was stuck with Hanson for the time being.
“Ok Hanson,” I begged him, “You’re right, I was wrong. Now, can we please, please, just have a nice, easy, pleasant day, today?”
Hanson flashed me an evil, knowing smirk.
“You know I’m going to fuck with you, twice as hard, now?”
“Will you just shut the fuck up, and me help grab some boxes?” I chastised him as I grabbed a large, heavy cardboard box from the table and started heading out the side door of the house into our driveway.
We got into the car and Hanson pulled out and got onto Highway 101, heading towards Hollywood.
“Are you sure this is the best way to go?” I asked him as we came to a full stop in traffic, right away.
“Are you really going to question me, right now?” Hanson grinned sadistically, “are you so sure that’s such a good idea?”
“No sir,” I said, “you’re right, I’m sorry.”
“It’s too late,” Hanson pronounced judgement, “you’re fucked.”
Hanson started making spit bubbles on his tongue and somehow was able to blow them at me while he was driving.
“Can you stop that please?” I implored him.
“Say please.”
“I just did!” I quarreled.
“It’s ok, don’t get upset, dear.”
Hanson put his hand down on my left knee and left it there.
“Please stop touching me.” I was quickly losing patience.
“Does this make you, uncomfortable?” Hanson smiled with delight.
“Yes,” I replied emotionlessly, “very much so.”
“What are you going to do about it?” He asked, “are you going to attack me, while I’m driving? That would be, pretty dangerous.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” I rebuked him, “I meant to bring this up earlier. I’m going to report on the discussion I had with Alan and the committee about your rating. Sorry to say, but you lost another 5 points.”
Hanson withdrew his hand from my leg and drew back into his seat in alarm, “fuck you!” He upbraided me, “what for?”
“That horrible movie you recommended, what was it, Schenectady NY? That was the slowest, most painful, most unwatchable piece of crap, I’ve ever seen. What are you like, negative ten points, now?”
Hanson looked concerned as he focused on the cars in front of him, slowly meandering through traffic and fighting for one inch of road, at a time.
“You’re in dead last place.” I rubbed it in.
“Wait?” He turned to me with indignation, “how did I lose five points? I thought I could only lose three points from one bad movie?”
“You get negative bonus points for the epically bad recommendation.”
“That’s not fair,” he whined, “you can’t do that!”
“Sure,” I can, I gloated, “I made up the system.”
I had recently implemented in our circle a new movie-recommendations point, ratings system, that was extremely punitive and hard to win at. Bad movie recommendations that people made, caused them to lose three points, while good movie recommendations that they made, were only worth one point.
You had to have really good taste to maintain a positive standing in my system. Everyone could chime in on other people’s scores, but at the end of the day, I had made up the rules, and I hated almost every movie, that was ever made.
“Fucking piece of shit, cut me off!” Hanson shouted at the back of a silver Mercedes coup.
“You know what,” Hanson announced, “I’m going to follow these jerks, and fuck with them.”
“You’re on the clock, Hanson,” I scolded him, “we don’t have time for you to stalk anyone for personal grievances, right now.”
“But revenge is much more important, than work!” Hanson snarked.
“Hey Hanson,” I reasoned with him, “you’re always getting pissed off at other drivers, but have you ever thought that maybe, you’re the problem?”
“No, that never occurred to me before.” He said.
“You’re projecting your own motives on these people, and you’re getting angry,” I counseled, “when in reality, you have no idea why they’re driving the way they are. Have you ever thought, that just maybe, that person might have a good reason, to be driving like a maniac?”
“Like maybe they’re high, on crystal meth?” Hanson asked, feigning confusion.
“No,” I clarified, “You just gave a bad example. But just imagine for a second that it was James Bonds, who was driving the car. And James Bond is only driving that way and cutting people off, because he doesn’t have time to be courteous. 007 only has fifteen fucking minutes, to make it to the warehouse, and diffuse the bomb, or the orphans, are all going to explode.”
“That’s stupid,” Hanson said.
“And here you, come along,” I admonished Hanson, “tailgating James Bond through traffic, as he’s racing to diffuse a bomb. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, you’re aiming to cut him off for revenge. How does that make you feel, Hanson? Because now, the orphans are all going to die, because you, held up James fucking Bond, with your petty bullshit!”
“Fuck the orphans!” Hanson declared, as he laid into his horn and changed lanes.
After another forty-five minutes of torment and suffering, Hanson finally pulled into the parking lot of the Atomic Collective.
I had to make three trips, back and forth, to get all of the boxes of desserts out of the car. Hanson couldn’t go inside the store with me to help, because he didn’t have a medical cannabis recommendation.
Hanson needs to get his rec., ASAP! I thought, as I carried the boxes inside by myself,not only do I need his help, but it’s a liability, for him to drive around with weed in his car, and not be a medical cannabis patient.
I brought the last box inside the store and put it down on top of another large cardboard box on the floor, as Tony counted out cash by the register.
We had finally struck a deal, the day before on the phone. Tony had been brow beating me forever to get the $3.00/unit price that he was looking for, and ultimately got me to agree, when he offered to take orders of five hundred units at a time moving forward, split between this location, and another store.
I hadn’t mentioned this deal yet to Johnson, because I knew that Johnson would probably give me shit, and I didn’t want him to try and pressure me, to go back on my word to Tony.
“So how is it, this week?” I made small talk with Tony, as he finished organizing $20 bills, into stacks of five.
“It’s been crazy bro, these fucking Gypsy Wars are killing our busines, bro!”
“Gypsy Wars?” I queried.
“I didn’t tell you about the Gypsy Wars?” He seemed surprised, “it’s been going on for months, shit is escalating.”
“No,” I shook my head, “this is the first I’ve heard of Gypsy Wars, I would have remembered.”
He put all of the money together into one pile and handed it to me.
“Here, double check that.” Tony said.
I broke the bills down into stacks of five, $20 bills, on the glass countertop.
“Bro,” Tony said seriously, “there’s been Gypsy Wars in our shopping center. It’s getting really bad!”
“What does that even mean?” I sniggered, as I scratched behind my right earlobe.
“It’s no joke bro,” Tony’s face was serious, “people are getting hurt.”
“But I don’t understand what the Gypsy Wars are,” I explained.
“Bro, what do you think? It’s a war, between gypsies.”
“So the gypsies, are fighting, each other?”
“Gypsies are very territorial bro. There’s a Gypsy Code that one gypsy clan can’t go into the territory of another gypsy clan. This is a turf war and it’s getting pretty fucking ugly.”
“That’s insane.” I lamemted, “is nothing sacred anymore. Not even the Gypsy Code?”
“Yeah,” Tony giggled, “It is pretty fucking crazy. Yesterday, one of them got hit by a car and then backed over in the parking lot.”
“Holy cow!” I said, amazed at the brutality of this.
“We’ve got the security camera footage, you wanna head in the back, get high, and go watch the video?”
I thought about Hanson sitting alone out in the car, waiting for me. He was probably getting bored and irritated already.
“Absolutely!” I replied enthusiastically.
That evening, when I got back to the house, I confronted Alan, cornering him in his lair, upstairs in the attic.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“What’s up?” Alan seemed peeved that I was encroaching on his personal space.
“We need to have an intervention,” I entreated.
“I know,” Alan nodded. “You’re right… Johnson’s drinking, is getting out of control.”
“What?” I shook my head, “No… I mean yes, that’s true but… that’s not what I meant… I meant, that we need to have an intervention about Hanson touching me inappropriately, and generally, molesting my brain.”
“Oh,” Alan shrugged, “that’s just Hanson being Hanson. There’s nothing that can be done about it. Johnson is the real problem.”
“Can’t you talk to him?” I begged.
“Trust me,” Alan said, “If I say anything, that will only make things worse.”
“Something has to happen.” I pressed.
“I wouldn’t recommend it.” Alan advised.
“Speaking of drinking problems,” I wondered, “where is Johnson?”
“He went to grandma’s house with Lauren again. Of course, not once, has Johnson thought that you or I might enjoy, delicious, homemade, Mexican food. Even if you’re not going to invite us over, at least bring back some leftovers, you selfish, inconsiderate prick!”
I laughed. Maybe it was a coping mechanism, but I found Alan’s expressions of rage towards Johnson to be hysterically funny. On top of this, Alan had a comical voice, and good comedic timing, and he could basically be saying anything, and it might cause me to roll over, because of his delivery.
“It would have been especially nice,” Alan prattled on, “since, Johnson knew that you and I were going to stay here and work, while he went off to get drunk with his girlfriend, again!”
On the other hand though, after a certain point, the anger towards Johnson stopped being funny, and just became awkward.
“I’ve had it with Johnson’s narcissism.” Alan refused to quit, “I think that he might honestly be a sociopath.”
“Why don’t we make a few deliveries,” I suggested, attempting to create an off-ramp for the tension.
“And afterwards,” I slipped in, “we can grab a bite to eat, and/or drink?”
Alan was only willing to spend money going out to eat, or doing anything in general, if we could somehow, incorporate work into the activity. He would shame Johnson and I, anytime we suggested doing anything that wasn’t somehow work related. Thus, I had learned to pitch every activity I wanted to do with Alan, through the lens of a work-related mission.
We could go make some money real quick, and in our minds, and especially in Alan’s, justify, that we deserved to have a nice meal, and God forbid, maybe even a little bit of fun.
I called a few accounts and got them to agree to reorder edibles, and also to take a look at some flowers that J2 had recently fronted us.
Our first stop was a dispensary in East Hollywood. The account took two dozen cereal bars, but I didn’t’ have any luck, pushing the flowers.
Over the past few months, we had built a pretty solid, side-business, selling flowers to dispensaries. This in addition to the shake, was a great supplemental source of low-hanging fruit income, that we could leverage from the stops that we were already making.
This most recent batch of flowers though, was proving to be more difficult to sell, and in fact, hadn’t moved at all yet. Ironically, these flowers were actually quite good, but unfortunately, had the wrong name. This well-known strain that we were selling, was called Grand Daddy Purple. The flowers themselves had a wonderful aroma, tasted great, and packed a powerful, stony punch. The big road block though, was that for whatever reason, there was no purple in these Grand Daddy Purple flowers. This was a problem, since purple was advertised, right there in the name.
We got to our next stop in Echo Park. There was plenty of street parking, and Alan was able to pull up alongside the curb, right out front of the store.
Alan grabbed a box of edibles from his trunk, as I pulled out my backpack, with the flowers.
This shop Urban Roots Collective was a small, retail storefront, way out in the relative boonies of East Silverlake Blvd.
The store had a hipster feel with posters of jazz and classic rock artists. Additional memorabilia, and collectibles adorned narrow shelves, set back against the walls.
The manager, Robby, was a young white guy from Brooklyn. He wore a Yankees cap and had a thin mustache, and a tiny chin beard.
“Hey, it’s my east coast, pals!” Robby said, his accent thick, and bona fide, big-apple.
“Actually,” Alan corrected him, “I’m from Dallas,”.
“Well, we won’t hold that against you, then.” Robby chuckled, cheerfully.
Alan unloaded the edibles order onto the counter while Robby counted out the cash.
“Hey Robby,” I said, “I’ve got some flowers for you.”
“Love it,” Robby said, “I know your shit is fire, what do you have for me today?”
“GDP.” I replied.
“Oooooh sorry,” Robby said, “not this time, look at the board.” He pointed to a sign behind his head that listed their in-stock strains, “We’ve got plenty of GDP.”
“Understood,” I said, defeated.
I didn’t even get far enough, I reflected, for him to discover that this GDP, is missing the purple!
What are we going to do with these flowers? I mused.
“I’ll tell you what though,” Robby said, “I’ve got a consolation prize for you, though.”
He reached over to a shelf and grabbed a bong, placing it onto the counter in front of me. Robby then reached into the shelf of his display case, and pulled out a jar of cannabis that was filed with flowers that were so crystally, and sticky, that the buds glistened in the ambient light, like they were covered in a billion, tiny gemstones.
“Is that, what I think it is?” Alan asked, his eyes aglow with wonder.
“Yup,” Robby nodded, “I was finally, just about to put it out for sale, when you fellas, walked in.”
Robby packed a bowl and extended it to me. “You want a hit?” He asked me.
“I never had a chance to try it,” I said, overwhelmed with curiosity and intrigue, “we sold all of it to you, right away.”
The Sour OG that Robby had cleared us out of the other day, was hands down, the nicest weed that I’d ever seen or smelled but hadn’t tried before. We had shown Robby a sample the first day we got the strain, and Robby immediately offered us almost $5000/lbs right away for everything we had with us in the car, which was all of it.
I looked back at Alan.
“Go ahead,” he said.
I was self-conscious about smoking in front of Alan when we were working together, because I felt like he was always judging me. The problem was, that we were working together nearly 24-7.
“That sounds… wonderful.” I said, and I sparked the bowl that Robby had packed for me, slowly taking in the first hit. It tasted impossibly, even better than it smelled. I burned through the rest of the bowl, savoring it, until I had cleared out the smoke in the chamber.
Robby packed a fresh bowl and presented it to Alan.
“No thanks,” Alan refused, “I never get high while I’m working.”
“Alan’s a real stick in the mud,” I explained, “he’s very, very religious.”
“Oh, what religion?” Robby asked interested.
“Capitalism.” Alan replied.
Robby laughed.
“I will buy a gram though,” Alan said, “so that I can try it later.”
“That’s how good this stuff is,” I said, “we’re buying our own weed back from you.”
“No,” Robby said, “it’s fine, I’ll just give you a gram.”
“Are you sure?” Alan resisted, as Robby proceeded to bag up a gram for him.
“Yeah, no problem, you guys want some pizza?” Robby continued to kill us with kindness, “I just ordered too many pies from Two Boots.”
Two Boots was one of my favorite pizza places in the area and I had been starving before, and now that feeling had been exponentially multiplied by the munchies.
“I will,” I said, “and by the way, did I mention that this is my new favorite store?”
“We aim to please,” Robby said grabbing a pizza box and some paper plates, from a table in a small room behind the front area.
“What about you?” Robby held the box open, tempting Alan. “Want some pizza, my friend?”
“I appreciate it, but no thank you,” Alan turned him down politely, “I’m not a huge pizza fan, and I’m not really hungry right now.”
“Fair enough,” Robby replied.
Stoned out of my mind, I scarfed down two giant slices of NY-style cheese pizza as we left the store and walked out to the car.
I had gotten a chance to try this awesome weed and free pizza from Two Boots to boot, but I was nevertheless still disappointed that I had struck out again with the GDP. It was frustrating because I was pretty sure, that this product probably wasn’t even really Grand Daddy Purple, but most likely was another strain, that had been mislabeled by the grower.
All these strains are bullshit anyway, I thought, discouraged, most of the time, people are just making up the names as they go along, or picking them out of a hat!
We had one more stop to try our luck with the flowers; a dispensary in Silverlake that was one of my best customers, and was almost always, a guaranteed sale of shake, or flowers.
Alan and I got out of the car and grabbed the inventory from the trunk, before heading inside Silverlake Organic.
The receptionist, Nicka, was a young, thin Russian, wearing white-washed, skinny jeans. He recognized us right away.
“Hey, is Pot Butter.” Nicka said beaming, brightly. He buzzed us into the back without bothering to check our paperwork.
Inside the dispensing room, we placed our boxes down on the glass counter.
The manager of the store was another young Russian, Mike, who looked like Val-Kilmer’s ‘Ice Man’ character from the movie, Top Gun.
“Pot Butter,” he stood behind the counter and smiled pleasantly, “you bring, the cookies?”
“Yes sir,” I said, “I’ve also got some flowers for you to check out too.”
“Yes, yes, sure,” Mike said, “this ok, but first, we do the cookies.” Alan opened the box in front of him and started unpacking a dozen chocolate chip cookies.
“Gabe,” Mike looked at me, bewildered, “what is this? I told you, I need the cookies. Where is the cookies?”
“These are cookies,” Alan interjected, pointing down to the chocolate chip cookies in front of him on the counter.
“Yes,” Mike said, “but what I need, is the cookies.”
“These are the cookies.” Alan asserted.
“Yes,” Mike nodded, “but we need, other cookies.”
“What other cookies?” Alan scratched his head, “these are the only kind of cookies we make.”
“No,” Mike said, “You have the cookies, you bring them before.”
“You know, is chocolate cookie?” Mike held up his hands, trying to come up with the right words, “is come in, bar?”
“It sounds like you’re describing, a brownie?” Alan attempted to clarify.
“No, I don’t know what, this brownie,” Mike shook his head and turned back to me, “Can you please tomorrow, bring me, the cookies?”
“No problem,” I smiled, “we’ll bring you, your cookies.”
Perplexed, Alan paused in thought, as he twirled the ginger-colored hairs of his mustache, with the fingers on his right hand.
“Well,” I filled in a blank space in the conversation, “Let’s talk about some, flowers, then?”
“Ah yes, flowers,” Mike said, “now you show me, what you have?”
I pulled an unlabeled ziplock bag out of my backpack and gave it to him to inspect. He opened the bag and took a whiff of the flower’s bouquet.
“Is smell ok,” Mike shrugged, “what is strain?”
“It’s GDP,” I said.
“Grand Daddy Purples?” He asked, surprised.
“Yes sir,” I said, “that’s correct.”
“But there is no purple I see,” he said skeptically, “how can it be Grand Daddy Purples, with no purples?”
“But, it’s great weed,” I disputed, “there’s nothing wrong with it!”
“Sorry Gabe,” Mike said, “I don’t think that this can sell. Is nice though, do you gots anything else?”
This is so fucking ridiculous, I ruminated, it’s obvious that he likes this weed, but he won’t buy it, because of the stupid name!
“Why yes,” I nodded, deep in thought, “I think I may, have just the thing.”
I put the unlabeled freezer bag of GDP back into my backpack on the counter.
“Let’s see,” I poked around inside of my backpack.
“Ok, here we go.” I pulled out the same bag from my backpack, and placed it back down on the counter again.
“This one is called, Crushberry.” I said.
Alan gave me a puzzled look.
Mike picked up the bag and carefully scrutinized the flowers.
“Yes,” Mike nodded after a minute, “This Crushberry, very good.”
“I really like Crushberry,” He added, as he played with a bud, turning it around with his fingers, under a light, “You have more of Crushberry?”
“Sure,” I said, “I have another QP in the trunk.”
“Hey Nicka,” Mike called to the skinny guy at the front counter, and then proceeded to begin speaking in Russian for over a minute. I didn’t understand anything he said except for the word, “Crushberry”, which they repeated back and forth several times.
“I take that too, and anymore Crushberry you can get, Gabe.”
“Absolutely.” I nodded.
I went back out to the car and got the rest of the ticket. Mike and I settled up and then I left the dispensary with Alan. Mike had paid us in cash for the edibles, but the flowers would be on terms of two weeks-net. We had worked with this store for a little while now, and so far, they had been pretty consistent about paying on time.
“Crushberry?” Alan asked when we were outside.
“Isn’t it funny,” I observed, “how much they loved the Crushberry, but hated the GDP?”
Alan lost it, “that was just the GDP, with a different name, right?”
“Dude, are you kidding me? I replied, “Crushberry is the hottest strain in all of Los Angeles, right now.”
“I’m getting hungry,” Alan gestured next store, towards a dimly lit restaurant, that was barely visible, through drawn down shades, over the windows.
“Now, you’re getting hungry?” I broke his balls.
“Yes, exactly. Do you want to get some sushi?”
“I don’t know,” I said cautiously, “I just had pizza, and this is one of those all-you-can-eat places.”
“So,” Alan shrugged, “what’s the problem?”
“At all-you-can-eat sushi restaurants in Los Angeles,” I explained, “they charge you extra money for any food that you order and don’t finish.”
“So?”
“I’m just a little concerned,” I continued, “that since I’m not hungry, we could end up getting stuck with an unrealistic amount of food.”
“It’ll be fine,” Alan said, “we just won’t order that much.”
“Ok,” I said, “it’s just… don’t count on me to eat more than a few bites.”
We sat down inside and to my shock and alarm, Alan immediately started off by ordering a dozen rolls.
“Are you crazy?” I chastised him, “that’s outrageous! Can’t you start with like two rolls, and take it from there?”
“It will be fine.” Alan, contended.
The beers came, followed by tray after tray of rolls of every conceivable variety. I tried to keep up for a few minutes and then abandoned Alan as he attempted to continue to force feed himself.
For another grueling 45 minutes, Alan fought through the sweats, his face pale and pasty, as he paced himself, excruciatingly eating one piece of sushi at a time. Like a competitive eater, this wasn’t about speed, it was about endurance, and taking careful, measured bites.
“Oh God,” Alan put down his chopsticks and took a sip of water, “I can’t eat anymore. This is awful!”
Alan’s cheeks were glowing. He looked sickened; bloated and at death’s door, as his body shook, as if under the spell of a degenerative, neurological disorder.
“You’re pathetic.” I laughed at him.
“Hey,” Alan said, “I forgot to ask you. What the hell was the deal, with the cookies?”
“Oh yeah,” I cracked up, “for some reason, the Russian dispensary owners, call all of the baked goods, ‘the cookies’, even if they’re actually brownies.”
“Why?” He asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, “language barrier, I guess?”
“What about cookies?” Alan asked. “What do they call, actual cookies?”
“Those, are also called, ‘the cookies’.” I replied.
“That’s not confusing.” Alan said sarcastically as he shoved another slice of spicy tuna in his mouth.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I think that I may have ordered too much sushi.” Alan finally admitted, as he looked down at an intimidating amount of food left in front of him on the table.
“Are you absolutely sure, that you can’t eat anymore?” He begged me.
“I warned you,” I rubbed salt in his wound, “remember when, I told you so?”
“I was really hungry.” Alan offered into evidence.
“It’s probably not too late, to cancel the last four rolls,” I suggested.
“Good point,” Alan acknowledged and flagged over our waitress to abort the rest of the order.
I felt a great sense of relief, not only that we were escaping from an all-you-can-eat sushi meal in Los Angeles, without winding up in the poor house, but more importantly, it was really nice to have a friend and business partner out here that wasn’t, Johnson.
“You know what,” I said, “I was nervous about you coming out here, but I’m really glad you did.”
“You need a counterweight to Johnson,” Alan looked at me sagely, “I never realized in college, what a massive prick, Johnson is. Pun intended of course.”
“I did,” I reflected, “I don’t know if you ever heard about it, but in college, Johnson and Crackle, kind of did me dirty.”
“I sort of suspected,” Alan said, “but no one ever told me the story.”
“It’s not worth getting into now.” I said, “but suffice it to say, it happened.”
“Maybe we don’t even need Johnson at all?” Alan suggested. He raised his eyebrow, as he seemed to be feeling me out.
Woah, I thought, is Alan saying, what I think, he is?
Alan waited for me to respond, but instead, I kept my mouth shut and stared down at a lump of wasabi that was dissolving in soy sauce, floating in a white, rectangular saucer in front of me on the table.
It was tempting. I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t sick of Johnson. But, at the same time, did I really think that Johnson deserved to be voted out of the business, even as he had done to me in college?
I didn’t want revenge. I wanted to win by being the better man, and doing things the right way.
Even though I had plenty of compelling reasons to oust Johnson, it didn’t seem right. I felt like I owed it to Johnson, to give him the benefit of the doubt and a chance to come together with Alan and I, as a team.
“I’m not ready to rush to judgement,” I leveled with Alan, “in a perfect world, I’d love to see the three of us, work through this.”
“I’m willing to give it another try, for you,” Allen told me, “but I still think Johnson is a lazy, drunk, piece of shit.”
“I’ll accept that, as a working compromise,” I shook his hand.
“I give up,” Alan finally threw in the towel, a few minutes later, dropping his chopsticks on a plate that still had over two entire uneaten, rolls left.
“I don’t care,” Alan groaned, as he burst at seams, “I’ll pay for it… whatever it costs, I don’t care anymore.”
“Hi ma’am,” I called the waitress over, “Can we get the check, please?”
She put the check down in front of us on the table. Alan picked up the tab to see what the damage was.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Alan asked surprised, “you didn’t charge us anything for the rolls that we didn’t eat.”
“No sir,” she smiled, “we change policy, last month.”
“Well imagine that,” I smiled at Alan, “none of the terrible suffering you endured, was necessary, after all.”
We drove back to the house, as I was lost deep in thought.
I pondered on the points that Alan had made about Johnson.
I wasn’t even sure where my own head was at, but the only thing I that I could say with any certainty, was that we were quickly careering towards a train wreck. I wasn’t exactly sure what the carnage would like look, but I knew, that it was coming soon.
To be Continued…