Betty's (Little Basement) Garden

by Laurel Dewey

  “I’m not going to mince words!” Lynch yelled into the microphone. “This is not about medicine! They tell us that it’s part of our state constitution and that the people want it! Well, I’m here to tell you there are plenty of people in this great Rocky Mountain state who are outright offended by this mockery against real medicine! Medicine that has been approved and used for decades by our physicians and trained pharmacists! This is just a convenient ploy to make marijuana acceptable in our neighborhoods. And when that happens, my friends, the family-centered community we love and have nurtured as a safe place to raise our children suddenly transforms into a gang-infested, rotting hole of sewage. Colorado citizens send a negative message to the rest of this great country when they allow and support the drug dens, the grow operations and the manufacturing facilities that process and distribute this dangerous plant! Do not let your towns go to pot!” The crowd erupted in applause and loud chants of “Say no to pot!”

  Louie returned with a paper bag and turned off the TV. “Fucking idiot,” he mumbled under his breath. Then he quickly looked up at Betty. “Excuse my language.”

  “Not to worry.”

  “I get pissed off when people just parrot whatever they hear without researching the facts. I mean, pot’s only been used as a medicine for thousands of years and aspirin is, what…one hundred and twenty years on record? Don’t get me started. I wonder how many pharmaceutical drugs Lynch is on and how many of those have side effects that include stupidity.” He handed Betty the bag.

  Betty glanced toward the pegboard of photos. “Your children are beautiful”

  “Thank you. My oldest one just turned eleven. She’s got a school pageant tomorrow, and I’ve got to pick up her costume tonight. So I can’t linger here too long.”

  Betty didn’t move. Her heart raced and her mouth went dry. “Yes, of course. Listen, I mean no disrespect given the reason why I’m here, but is this transaction legal?”

  “Peyton said you don’t have your card yet, so technically, no,” he said forthrightly. “And I’m only doing it because I know Peyton, and he said you really needed some help. I don’t turn down people in need.”

  Betty observed him. His face might have been caricatured on a big neon wheel out front, but there was nothing but honesty and a genuineness issuing forth at that moment. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “Here you go,” he handed the brown bag to her.

  She took it and handed him a folded stack of cash. “That’s two hundred and twenty dollars. I appreciate the ’family price.’ Please count it.”

  Louie stuffed the money in his greasy pants pocket. “I trust you.”

  Betty stood frozen. A surge of emotion overwhelmed her and she started to cry. Turning away, she did everything possible to halt the waterworks, but it was useless.

  “What did I say?” Louie asked, concern etching his chubby face.

  “It’s not you. It’s me,” she whispered, desperately trying to get hold of herself. “I’m shaking like a virgin at a prison rodeo.”

  Louie grinned. “Hey, I haven’t heard that one in a long time. You from Texas?”

  His relaxed demeanor calmed Betty, allowing the tears to slow. “Yes. You?”

  “My uncle lives in Dallas.”

  Betty turned back to the photos of his children. “How do you…how do you do this,” she motioned to the paper bag, “with children around? Aren’t you concerned?”

  “I don’t grow it in our house. They’ve never seen the plants.”

  “But they must see the…material…around the house.”

  He scratched his head. “Yeah. They do. And I know what you mean. I have a lot of conflict about it too. Then I think, well, I drink beer in front of them and think nothing of it. So, I don’t know. Until pot becomes completely legal for everyone, and not just medical patients, you walk a jagged line when you’ve got kids in the house.”

  “Yes. I agree.”

  Louie became pensive. “You know, growing isn’t easy. Everybody who’s not involved in this thinks you just throw a seed or a clone in the ground and come back five months later to cut down your crop. It takes a lot of time and talent. The time you put into it is not usually going to equal what you might get out of it financially, especially when you’re a caregiver. You have to love it or else you shouldn’t do it. I do it ‘cause I want to pick specific strains that are known for reducing pain, and also because I have total control over how I grow it without using toxic chemicals. And truthfully, I think it’s kinda cool to grow your own medicine, you know? But in the end, yeah, it’s a lot of hard work. Hell, I probably tack on another three hours a day just keeping my grow going.”

  Betty nodded. “Well, thank you for this and for sharing your thoughts.” She turned.

  “Have you ever worked with marijuana before?”

  “What do you think?” she asked, with a half-smile.

  “It’s just my advice, take it or leave it, but make sure you vent the room really well and maybe even wear gloves when you’re handling that much of it…especially the popcorn bud. The resins can absorb through your skin, and until you get really used to it, it can pack a punch if you’re sensitive.”

  “Thank you, Louie. But I don’t think I’m that sensitive.”

  He grinned a knowing grin. “Okay. Whatever you say.”

  ~~~

  Betty drove home with the paper bag tucked between the two front seats and covered with her sweater. The smell was quite stout, so she opened her windows to let the aroma waft out of the car. The closer she got to home, the more her anxiety grew. She had no medical card and here she was, driving around with two ounces of cannabis in a bag. Once she arrived on her street, her anxiety lessened. That is until she saw a large motorhome blocking access to her home, as it attempted to back into Jerry’s driveway across the street. Jerry was outside the motorhome, drinking a beer and helping the driver navigate his approach. He motioned to Betty to hang on a second.

  Once the driver skillfully backed in and got out of his monolith on wheels, Betty quickly pulled into her driveway. In the rear view mirror, she saw Jerry sauntering over to the car. She got out, standing with her back against the open window of the driver’s door. Betty could smell his heavy scent of beer soaked sweat.

  “Hey, Betty! You’re out late. That’s my older brother, Jack,” he said, pointing across the street. “Hey, Jack!” he screamed, “Come over here a sec.”

  Betty seized up. “I really have to get in and feed Ronald.”

  Jack opened the passenger door on the RV and let out an enormous German Shepard on a lease. Together, they crossed the street. But as the dog moved closer, he began to bark loudly and become agitated.

  “Shush, Arnold! Shush!” Jack demanded, jerking the dog’s leash. But the dog kept barking and bolting closer to Betty’s Taurus.

  “Betty, meet Jack!” Jerry yelled above Arnold’s persistent barking, now mixed with a few growls. “He’s visiting me for a few days from Wyoming.”

  Jack reached over to shake Betty’s hand but Arnold’s lunging prevented it. “Sorry about the dog,” Jack apologized, trying to pull him back from Betty’s car.

  Jerry swigged the last of his beer and turned to Betty. “Jack works for the DEA. Arnold’s his sidekick and drug enforcement canine. Aren’t you Arnold?!” The dog went wild, growling with specks of foam emitting from his bared teeth. “Jack named him after Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ‘Terminator.’” Jerry did his best, worst Schwarzenegger impression through his beer-goggled miasma. Arnold was bordering on ballistic. “Hey, Jack. What’s the ‘move away’ code word for Arnold?”

  “Strudel!” Jack yelled.

  Betty was still backed up against the open window, a forced smile plastered on her face. “Arnold! It’s okay! Strudel!” she said with a nervous chuckle.

  “Strudel!” Jack yelled again, yanking the dog’s collar backward. Arnold slowly calmed down, as drool hung down his mouth like icicles on a Christmas tree. “Damn, I’ve never seen h
im so pumped up!”

  The men shared a laugh and then thankfully started off across the street when Jerry turned around. “Hey, I scanned that letter to the editor and emailed it to about fifty people.” He stumbled over a pebble in the street. “Keep up the fight, Betty!”

  She waited, heart beating wildly, until they were safely out of view before retrieving her brown bag and heading into her house.

  Betty closed every window and pulled each curtain and shade. She carried the bag to the dining room table and sat down. After observing the bag for almost half an hour in silence, she opened it and removed the two plastic baggies. The contents of one looked like small, curled grass cuttings, and it was labeled “Cent. Blueberry shake.” The other was filled with marble-sized nuggets and labeled “popcorn bud/Cent. Blueberry.” Opening the popcorn bud bag, she took a quick sniff and sat back, closing it up quickly. She stared at the cannabis in stunned disbelief. The full effect of the last few hours hit her hard as she slumped over the dining room table, burying her head in her hands. “What have I done?” she mumbled to herself. After a few minutes of fretfulness, Betty turned her head toward the credenza. Frankie’s framed photo was lying on top in the same place she’d left it. Quickly, she got up and sequestered the photo back into the center drawer. She packed the two plastic baggies back into the paper sack and carried them upstairs to the bedroom. Pacing back and forth, she realized she had no idea what to do with this rough plant matter. Peyton mentioned about his cannabutter, but that was Greek to Betty. Dashing to her computer, she brought up the search engine and tentatively typed “making medical cannabis edibles in chocolate.” She quickly got four hundred and forty-nine thousand links. Everyone from “Aunt Mary Jane” to “Doctor Dorothy” had either a blog or a YouTube video tutorial on “medical edibles.”

  After reading six different blogs about processing cannabis six different ways, Betty’s mind spun from confusion. The only thing perfectly clear was that the THC in cannabis had to bond to a fat, because it wasn’t water-soluble. She’d always learned better from watching demonstrations than from reading. Thus, she clicked on the YouTube links. The one from “Doctor Dorothy” looked intriguing, until she realized Dorothy was as much a “Doctor” as Dr. Pepper. Dorothy also appeared stoned off her trotter during her lengthy cooking demonstration. There were long pauses where Dorothy stared into the pot she was stirring and seemed spellbound by the surface bubbles. At one point, Doc Dorothy advised, “You can take this oil subliminally” instead of “sublingually.” Aunt Mary Jane was no better. She was pushing seventy, spoke with a raspy gravel, and wore a turmeric, tie-dyed caftan with long sleeves that kept dancing awfully close to the gas burner on her stove. Aunt Mary Jane also employed a sidekick in the form of her forty-something “nephew” she kept referring to as either “Cousin Timmy” or “handsome.” When she’d lean over and say, “Hey, handsome, hand me the spatula,” and then wink naughtily, Betty got the feeling their relationship was complicated.

  The videos continued for hours, the viewing broken only by Betty dashing to her kitchen to grab some dinner, feed Ronald and then return for another marathon session. She understood the basics pretty much: for every ounce of cannabis, add one pint of liquid butter, olive oil or coconut oil. THC, the main psychoactive molecule in cannabis, needs to metabolize with fat in order to be really effective. Pre-heating the plant material for twenty to thirty minutes in an oven at a strict 225 degrees Fahrenheit, decarboxylates – or the friendlier, decarbs – the THC into a more active form. After that, the resinous buds and sweet leaf are ground up to allow more surface exposure, and then simmered on low heat – preferably in a crock-pot – at no higher than 205 degrees Fahrenheit for up to six hours, stirring regularly. Adding four cups of water to the mixture, Betty learned, pulls the terpenes and chlorophyll away from the oil, producing a cleaner taste in the finished product, while letting the oil reduce more slowly so it can absorb more of the resins and the multitude of cannabinoids in the plant. Since water boils at a higher temperature than oil, the addition prevents the oil and plant matter from burning. Before finishing, some suggested lobbing in an ounce or more of grain alcohol to aid in the absorption of THC into the fat and letting that evaporate off for another hour or longer.

  Once complete, the plant matter is strained through a muslin cloth and then tightly squeezed to get every last drop from the cannabis. This fat and water mix is poured into a bowl and placed in the freezer for at least two days and allowed to harden, so that one simply has to remove it from the bowl and easily break off the frozen water which separated from the fat as it hardened. From there, one could take the oil or butter concoction and add it in specific amounts to baked goods, chocolates and the like. Some skipped adding it to anything and simply ingested this potent green “butter” by itself or in gelatin capsules. Still others used the cannabis-infused oils topically to reduce arthritic pain and muscle soreness.

  From what Betty discovered, there was a dizzying, seemingly never-ending array of methods to incorporate cannabis into one’s body. Ironically, smoking it was the least effective mode to “medicate” since one was “burning up” and losing many of the healing cannabinoids that are responsible for the pain-relieving action. But while edibles were the best overall way to ingest cannabis, Aunt Mary Jane explained that the effect could take anywhere from one to three hours to feel. When it hit, though, as “Doctor Dorothy” counseled, “you’ll be floatin’ on the light fantastic” for up to eight hours.

  Betty checked the time and was shocked to see it was approaching midnight. There was still a pulse of reluctance inside her as she stared at the paper bag, now secured on her bedspread, several feet from where Ronald was sleeping. She began to question herself again and her possibly rash response to the staggering illumination she’d experienced earlier that day. As she’d done occasionally in her life, she decided she needed a sign that all of this was all right. Of course, according to Peyton, the fact that she had a maintenance man named Buddy was enough. But she asked for one, nonetheless. And she sat there, waiting for her answer. Finally, as the clock hit 12:30, she heard the tap-tap of the large elm tree’s branch outside her bedroom window as the wind softly blew through its leaves. She turned back to her computer and perused the long list of educational videos on cannabis, and then quite by accident, found a four-part documentary series on the history of the cannabis plant, its systematic corruption over time, and how cannabis could fit into the medical paradigm of our future. It even featured Doobie Douggie. Betty clicked on the documentary and started to watch it.

  Within less than a minute, she had the sign she was looking for. The documentary was produced, directed, written and narrated by none other than Jeremy Lindholm, her erstwhile first love.

  It had been a long time since Betty had stayed up all night cooking. But this would be the first night she stayed up cooking her first batch of cannabis.

  Chapter 11

  “Don’t worry. You won’t remember any of this.”

  Betty double-checked every kitchen window to make sure they were tightly shut, and closed all available shades. The back door was the only exposed area but the chances of someone coming in the back gate and seeing her, especially at this hour, were few and far between. With her carefully written notes on the kitchen table and a soft adagio playing on Colorado Public Radio, Betty went to work.

  Since her goal was incorporating the cannabis into her chocolates without changing their texture, she figured the best way would be to infuse the cannabis into cocoa butter. But if that didn’t work, to be on the safe side, she decided to also make a batch using coconut oil. Thus, she separated out half the “shake” and half the popcorn buds using a spoon, and factoring the proper proportions of oil to plant material, set about making two batches. All the information she’d read and viewed, strongly advised using a grinder that was exclusively dedicated for the cannabis. Betty had an extra grinder she hardly ever used and it was green, so she figured it would be the perfect choice. S
he spooned the “shake” and popcorn buds into the grinder; some fell out and she hastily collected it. Even though the popcorn buds were bone dry, the resins on the plant were still very much alive and slightly sticky against her fingers. After grinding the first few tablespoons, it was apparent there was a good reason for dedicating a grinder. All those resins adhered to the blade and sides, leaving a green, tacky carpet. Not wanting to use a knife against the metal, Betty wedged her thumbnail into the grinder and scratched out the caked remains. The odor of the Centennial Blueberry strain was like a summer fruit compote, with subtle earthy undertones. After removing as much of the remnants as possible from the grinder, Betty noticed that a line of resin had adhered under her thumbnail. She tried washing it off, but it was stubborn and absorbing into her skin. Instinctively, she stuck her thumb in her mouth, attempting to dislodge the packed resin. Instantly noting the bitterness of the resin, Betty quickly withdrew her thumb and attempted to wash the taste from her mouth. Satisfied it was out of her system, she went about measuring the correct amount of cocoa butter in one crock-pot and coconut oil in the other. While that melted, she carefully laid out the freshly ground popcorn bud and “shake” on two separate cookie pans and decarbed them in the oven for exactly half an hour.

  After ten minutes, the kitchen began to smell like twenty people had just lit up joints. She opened the stove and was nearly overcome with a fine vapor that tickled her nostrils and created a growing buzz in her head. She recalled Louie told her to ventilate the area and wear gloves until she got used to it, but there was no way Betty was going to risk anyone smelling the aromatic brew, and gloves…well gloves were for moving hot dishes from the oven and wearing to church on Easter Sunday. Still, while the cannabis decarbed and the cocoa butter and oil melted, Betty began to feel a little disoriented. She sat down at the table and waited for it to pass, but then a fit of giggles ensued. It came out of nowhere and it grew. The problem was that nothing was funny and everything was funny. Within minutes, she leaned over the counter, convulsing with laughter. The timer went off, alerting her that the cannabis was ready to move from the oven into the oil. She regained control of herself, but still had to stifle an eruption of giggles here and there, as she stirred the herb into the two crock-pots. She added the required amount of water to each brew and checked the time. It was just after 1:00 am. Securing two candy thermometers into the crock-pots under each lid, Betty monitored the temperature as the brews bubbled and the cannabis danced across the surface of the oil. From all the information she’d learned in her short tutorials, she knew the process could take anywhere from a few hours to two days, depending upon which “canna expert” you listened to. Betty figured she’d cook the herb for six hours, so she grabbed a few old gourmet cuisine magazines to peruse in the pursuit of killing time.