Baked Read online

  4

  MIRO DIDN’T REMEMBER walking here—the city had become a rainy blur of small streets, bicycles, and bridges—and didn’t know how he had found the place, but the coffeeshop on a street lined with bookstores and antique dealers was on his itinerary and, well, here he was, plopped in a chair by the front window sampling some cannabis called Enemy of the State.

  He could tell right away, just by looking at it, that this was quality weed. He closed his eyes and took a sniff of the tight knuckle of dried bud, picking up a hint of a chemical scent, like cold metal, in the bouquet.

  Miro had a finely-tuned nose for cannabis. He could distinguish between a garden variety hydroponic skunk and a high quality strain like Cherry Bomb—both of which smell vaguely like cat piss to the undiscerning—with a sniff. He could recognize Willie Nelson by its fresh garden scent, and tell if the Jamaican High Grade had been cured properly by noting the earth aroma that sprung from the bud as he rolled it in his fingers.

  The color of the leaves and flowers told him the region and genetic lineage of the plants. The density of trichomes—the tiny silver hairs on the leaves—gave him an accurate measure of the THC content. He could tell if the plant had been raised outside in natural sunlight or under grow lights in a warehouse. He could detect subtle hints of mold on the bud and he could tell if the plants had been harvested too early—not quite reaching resinous maturity—or were past their prime, just by lighting up and having a taste. Which is what he did with Enemy of the State.

  Miro exhaled a plume of acrid smoke, coughing a little—the herb was heavy in his throat—and looked around. The coffeeshop was modern, clean, almost corporate. Like a hip Starbucks with some kind of ambient techno soundtrack ticking in the background. There were a few people in the place, a quartet of British tourists who appeared to be Super Glued to their chairs, and some Euro-hippies who were passing a joint as they strung glass beads on strings, making necklaces and bracelets. Miro smiled at their industriousness.

  He glanced out the window, at the rain, at the gray and shiny streets, and saw a young woman step out of a bookstore holding an umbrella. She flicked her wrist and the umbrella telescoped, snapping open like a parachute, like a condor taking flight, a kind of magic trick. She held it up, over a tangle of reddish curls, and crossed the street. She clutched a small package under her arm.

  Perhaps, Miro speculated, a book.

  He was surprised to see her walk toward him and enter the coffeeshop. He looked up at her, almost as if he knew her, as she stuck her umbrella in the umbrella stand. She put the package down on the bar near him, hung her coat on a chair, and smiled.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  She had an accent but Miro couldn’t tell where she was from. He watched her walk to the counter and place her order. He couldn’t help checking her out. She was beautiful, but not in a typical way, there was something atypically attractive and exotic about her green eyes and pale skin surrounded by a pile of amazing hair. Her prominent yet beautiful nose was punctuated by a piercing, a tiny diamond that seemed to be winking some kind of dot-dash code to Miro. He caught a glimpse of golden silk tunic peeking out from under the bottom of her wool sweater, the slash of color hanging down, just covering the round rise of her denim-covered ass.

  She reminded him of a Chinese peony. He couldn’t say why.

  She came back to the counter carrying a coffee. That’s when he noticed her boots. They looked incredibly mod, with a stylish, squared-off toe and a small heel. Miro realized that you just didn’t see boots like that in Southern California.

  She sat down near him, one stool between them, and looked at his joint.

  “How’s your head?”

  Miro thought about it. He took a mental inventory of his mental health.

  “Good.”

  “What’re you smoking?”

  Miro cleared his throat.

  “Enemy of the State.”

  She nodded and stirred a sugar cube into her coffee. A thin cloud of milk foam floated on top and slowly turned the color of caramel as the spoon circled the cup.

  “Is that a cappuccino?”

  She shook her head.

  “They make for me a style like you get in Lisbon. Pingo.”

  The word resonated in Miro’s brain.

  “Pingo?”

  “Café pingo.”

  Miro nodded thoughtfully, then held up the joint.

  “Would you like some? How can you resist a name like ‘Enemy of the State’?”

  “Okay.”

  Miro handed her the joint and struck his lighter. She put the joint to her lips—Miro couldn’t help marveling at their plumpness and slightly off-kilter shape—and inhaled. She held the smoke in, expectantly, for a beat and then exhaled and handed the joint back to Miro. Even though he was completely baked, Miro wanted his lips to touch hers if only by proxy, so he stuck the joint in his mouth and took another hit. Somehow, the cannabis tasted even better this time.

  “You are here for the Cup?”

  Miro nodded. “You?”

  She laughed.

  “I live here. For a year now. I work at the Science Park.”

  “You’re a scientist?”

  She smiled at him. “I am.”

  Miro thought about that. He realized he’d never met such a cool-looking scientist before. Then he realized that he was a kind of cool-looking scientist, although more accurately he was a guy with an interest in certain scientific ideas and practices that led to better cannabis. He was, really, more like a gentleman farmer. True science, the hard-core molecular stuff, those super-duper-powered microscopes and pictures of genes and swirly double helixes were beyond him. Plants were much simpler.

  As he pondered the divergent paths of gentleman farmers and professional scientists, somewhere in the back of his brain he realized that Enemy of the State could actually live up to its name.

  He watched as she opened her package, the sound of the rustling paper somehow erotic and provocative in Miro’s ears, and pulled out a book. Miro looked at the cover. Um Deus Passeando pela Brisa da Tarde.

  “You’re Portuguese?” He hadn’t meant it to be a question.

  She nodded. “You are American.”

  “Californian. Los Angeleno.” He stretched out the “Angeleno,” attempting to emphasize the Spanish of the pronunciation, but the soft “g” got stuck in his mouth like a wad of gum and flubbed off his tongue, making him sound like he had a speech impediment.

  She smiled. “A very stoned Californian.”

  Miro shrugged. What could he say? It was true. He looked out the window, not sure how to continue the conversation, not certain he should, distracted by a delivery truck in the street and the pattern of the rain hitting puddles on the sidewalk.

  “What does it mean?” For a heartbeat, Miro wasn’t sure he’d asked the question out loud. He wasn’t sure he’d meant to.

  “A god taking a walk for the breeze of the afternoon. It’s by Mario de Carvalho. I’ve always wanted to read it.”

  “I like that.”

  “You’ve read it?”

  Miro shook his head.

  “Taking a walk. For the breeze. In the afternoon.”

  Before he knew what he was doing he was standing, putting on his jacket.

  “My name’s Miro.” He held out his hand, feeling instantly dorky and uncool, like a Junior Achievement student at his first business meeting.

  Miro pondered the difference between flora and fauna. Unlike plants, people were unpredictable, they didn’t always make sense somehow, even if they had plenty of water and nutrients and sunlight. People lied, they had neuroses, they played games, they were hypocrites. People would talk about community, they would say all kinds of stuff about living in harmony with each other and the Earth, but it was just to make themselves feel good about all the destructive things they did to each other and the planet. People couldn’t really be trusted. Plants, on the other hand, were logical, they sunk roots into soil searching for
food and water, they grew up into the light looking for sun for photosynthesis, they converted carbon dioxide into oxygen; they lived relatively straightforward, useful lives.

  Miro appreciated the reproductive strategies of flora; unlike animals who dance and preen and buy each other cocktails and struggle to make small talk, plants bloomed and then waited for pollinators to arrive. Plants got it.

  This Portuguese woman with her Portuguese book was making him feel discombobulated. Or was it the pot? He felt like he was going to fall over. Topple like a statue at an insurrection, do a face plant on the floor right in front of her.

  She rescued him. She took his hand and gave it a squeeze. Her skin felt warm and soft and full of promise and his head instantly flashed with regret. Why exactly was he leaving? He watched her lips form a word.

  “Marianna.”

  5

  “DO YOU EVER get a boner when you’re riding your bike?”

  Elder Collison looked up from his prayer book, startled.

  “What?”

  Daniel sat on his bed, staring at his hands. He knew he was supposed to follow Collison’s example, put on his pajamas and read scripture, but he’d found himself unable to sleep at night, paralyzed by hormones urging him to touch himself, and fear that God would see him and send him straight to hell. He’d spent a week now, lying awake, listening to the cockroaches scamper across the linoleum of their grubby studio apartment until the exhaustion of bicycling all day caught up with him and he’d drift off into a sweaty dreamless sleep. When he woke up, his testicles would ache like they’d been kicked.

  He was uncomfortable talking about sex and his sexual fantasies with Collison, but he’d reached the end of his rope and he didn’t know what else to do.

  “You know, you see a girl on the street or you think about a girl and you know, you get a boner.”

  “That’s when you need to pray the hardest.”

  Collison found prayer the answer to everything. He used the scriptures like an ostrich uses sand, as something to stick his head into at the first sign of danger.

  “I tried that. I pray all the time. But it doesn’t help. I still think about it.”

  Collison stood and walked across their small studio to the only real piece of furniture other than the rickety twin beds: a dresser made almost nonfunctional by repeated slatherings with vibrant red, green, blue, and apparently purple paint. He opened the top drawer and rummaged through a stack of pamphlets from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints before finding the one he was looking for.

  “What’s that?”

  “A guide to self-control. Here. Let me read it to you.”

  Collison opened the brochure and began to read in a stentorian voice, trying his best to sound like the bishop at his church back home.

  “One. Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal toilet processes.”

  “Gross.”

  “Two. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company.”

  “I’m with you, aren’t I?”

  Collison nodded thoughtfully.

  “How about this one? When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror.”

  “I don’t want to do it with myself.”

  Collison looked up at Daniel, momentarily confused.

  “I thought that was the problem. You’re tempted to masturbate.”

  Daniel stood and paced.

  “But I’m thinking about girls. Like that one we saw at the bus stop.”

  “What girl?”

  “The Mexican girl? The one in the pink tank top. Didn’t you see her?”

  He stopped suddenly, a stricken look on his face. “Look!”

  He pointed to his crotch. Collison looked over and saw the problem. Daniel had another erection. Daniel raised his hands in the air, trying to keep them as far away from his crotch as he could.

  “I’m gonna burn in hell.”

  Collison found some strength in his voice. “Remain calm.”

  He quickly skimmed through the pamphlet as Daniel stared at his bulging crotch.

  “Help me, Lord!”

  The pamphlet admonished them to pray, to keep pure thoughts, to find strength in the scriptures and in the Mormon community. Collison scanned the suggestions, speed-reading for divine intervention.

  “This might work.”

  Collison looked up to see Lamb slowly grinding his crotch against the wall.

  “Elder Lamb! Daniel. Step away from the wall.”

  Daniel burned bright red.

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Here. Listen to this. ‘It is sometimes helpful to have a physical object to use in overcoming this problem. A Book of Mormon, firmly held in hand, even in bed at night has proven helpful in extreme cases. In very severe cases it may be necessary to tie a hand to the bed frame in order that the habit of masturbating can be broken.’”

  The two young men looked at each other. Daniel nodded.

  “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Daniel, fully clothed, the crotch of his pants pitched like a pup tent, lay down on the bed and let Collison tie his arms to the bed frame using their clip-on ties. Collison took to the task with ritualistic seriousness. He made sure that Daniel was not going to wriggle a hand free and touch his privates.

  “I’ll pray for you.”

  “Thank you. I’m going to need it.”

  Collison turned the lights out, letting Daniel lie there in the dark, his body on fire with sensation.

  For Elder Daniel Lamb, being bound was a revelation. He had never dreamed it could feel so good. Excited, aroused, and restrained. He let impure thoughts race through his mind. He imagined women touching him, slowly unzipping his pants and stroking his penis. They put it in their mouths. They rubbed it between their breasts. Up and down, the imaginary women stroked and pulled, and sucked and rubbed his cock. No matter how much he wanted to touch them, he couldn’t. He was tied to the bed. It was agony. It was ecstasy. It was enough to make him ejaculate in his pants.

  After that he insisted on being tied to the bed every night.

  6

  TO MIRO they looked like visitors from another time beamed into the middle of a nightclub in Amsterdam; wormhole-warped stragglers, casualties from the Summer of Love who carried a John Lennon song in their heart and wore the stink of patchouli like a badge of honor. They wheeled around the Cannabis Cup Expo preaching the holiness of cannabis, the seven lights of spirituality that matched the seven leaves of the plant. They used words like “epiphany” and “elevation” and “disestablishmentarianism.” For them, cannabis was the peace-inducing herb that was going to save the world.

  Miro hoped they were right—it is an extremely useful plant—and he respected what they had done in the past, they had created the culture, paving the way for people like him, but for an Angeleno raised on a healthy diet of post-punk cynicism, marijuana was less a spiritual pursuit and more of a business proposition. The plant was fun, fascinating, and with real medicinal value for sure, but he wasn’t a hippie and he wasn’t about to build a religion around it.

  Given the nature of the convention he shouldn’t have been surprised by the free-lovesters, but he was surprised by the international flavor of the event. It was like the United Nations of marijuana. There was a European Union of pot-heads from Spain, France, Holland, Germany, Italy, and England; hipsters from Japan snapping photos, Mexican growers seeking to open trade with Europe, Canadians in their snow-boarder vests and wraparound sunglasses, Brazilian samba stoners shuffling to a capoeira-cannabis beat, and a huge contingent of Americans. There were thousands of them. All the young dudes from New York, California, and points in between, shuffling along in groups of four, wearing hoodies, low jeans, and their baseball caps cocked in a gangsta lean. There were housewives from Oklahoma, farmers from Fresno, fans of the herb from Denver, Sacramento, Austin, Washington D.C. Every possible corner of the country was represented.

  Miro w
as impressed. The Powerzone, a massive nightclub that looked like it had once housed some kind of manufacturing, had been transformed into a flower power Disneyland, a counter-culture clubhouse.

  The crowd was hip, happy, and had come to party. The vibe was warm and convivial, as if you were among friends.

  If you enjoyed getting high, this was the place to be.

  Miro checked out the exhibitors on the convention floor. There were booths selling glass pipes and bongs of every size and description, clothing made from hemp, laser beams, and political action groups working to legalize marijuana in various countries around the world. There were vaporizers, grow lights, fertilizers, and informational how-to indoor-pot-farming seminars.

  Miro could easily pick out the few serious-looking cannabis wheeler-dealers. They might be dressed in T-shirts and jeans, but their intent was clear. They understood that cannabis was a business, a deeply lucrative endeavor, and taking home the big prize, winning the Cannabis Cup, would mean a financial windfall worth millions of dollars.

  Miro wasn’t after the money. It would be nice, sure, but he was looking for validation. He had theories about cannabis, and where better to put his ideas to the test than here, among the world’s most sophisticated cannabis consumers, in a blind tasting against the world’s best growers. This was the Olympics of weed, the World Cup of marijuana, and he hoped the outcome would be like the Paris wine tasting of 1976 when the Californians took home the gold. One of his experiments, a strain based on a theory he had about wild plant genetics, had turned out exceptionally well. It was, if Miro said so himself, the best cannabis he’d ever smoked and a political statement against over-hybridization. Miro was for a return —albeit controlled—to the state of nature, to the vibrant, original, old-school type of cannabis plants that were called Landrace strains.

  If he prevailed in this head-to-head—no pun intended —competition with the best cannabis breeders in the world, he would break into the top echelon and could sell his seeds to growers everywhere. He could change cannabis the way Floyd Zaiger had changed the stone-fruit industry.