Betty's (Little Basement) Garden

by Laurel Dewey

  “Sounds religious,” Betty offered.

  “Nah. It’s spiritual. Everything about this plant is spiritual. And magical. Haven’t you noticed that, Betty? How the magic – all the stuff you can’t explain – tends to seep into your life the more you nurture and use the cannabis plant?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “Actually, I have noticed that.”

  “Isn’t that a beautiful thing? You can’t explain it to anyone who hasn’t had the good fortune of knowing this plant from birth to death. It reminds me that there’s a loving God. I don’t think you can be an atheist and grow good cannabis. I can always tell if I ingest cannabis grown by an atheist. It still might work, but it’s missing part of its heart. Does that make sense?”

  Betty nodded. “Amazingly, it does.”

  In keeping with Peyton’s reverence for his cherished plants, he demonstrated how he brought each one out separately, and before removing the first branch, thanked it for everything it had given him and everything it would provide to others who were in need.

  “It knows it’s about to die,” he whispered to Betty, getting somewhat emotional. “But it’s not afraid, because deep down it knows, from the moment it’s born, it has a noble purpose in death.” He turned back to the four-foot-tall, fragrant, resinous beauty. “Thank you. You’ve been a faithful friend. I hope I’ve been the same to you.” And with that, he clipped several of the lower branches off the rootstalk.

  Betty actually felt herself choking up as his clippers cut through the hard, fibrous stems. There was such finality to it all, but the necessary death heralded a fruitful afterlife.

  They carried the plant upstairs, and seated under the brilliant rays of the summer sun in Peyton’s fenced backyard, they proceeded to patiently trim the sticky buds. First, they removed the larger fan leaves. The leaves closest to the resinous buds often had a generous spray of white “sugar” on them, compliments of whatever the buds spit out. Peyton set those aside, along with the healthy larger fan leaves, for one of his patients, who found that extracting the juice from the leaves and drinking it in shot-glass doses reduced her lupus symptoms. “There’s no high from the juice,” Peyton told Betty. “Even if you juice a raw bud, there’s no high. You gotta use heat to convert the THC into its psychoactive form.”

  The trimming lesson continued for the first hour. There were new terms to learn. A “tight trim” removed nearly all the smaller leaves that protruded from the individual buds, going so far as to painstakingly work the tips of the scissors around each resinous flower. A “loose trim” was more forgiving, leaving the sugar-saturated leaf tips around the bud, while removing any dead or dying growth. Peyton always opted for a loose trim, because he didn’t want to miss any of the strongly beneficial compounds found in the surrounding leaf tips.

  Then there was “wet trimming” versus “dry trimming.” Wet trimming was what they were doing – harvesting the plant and immediately cutting and pruning the buds, as opposed to cutting the plant down by the rootstalk and hanging it to dry, before coming back a week or more later to trim. Peyton had done one dry trim in his life and said he would never do it again. “It’s like trying to cut through a kudzu patch in Florida, in the middle of August. Good damn luck!”

  As with anything Betty put her mind to, she quickly picked up the proper technique and proudly showed off her buds and “their cute little haircuts.” It took them nearly ninety minutes per plant to meticulously trim and hang the stems in an outdoor shed Pops helped Peyton build expressly for drying the buds. They dropped the fresh, healthy fan leaves into paper bags and stored them in the refrigerator for delivery to Peyton’s lupus patient. As the hours passed, one thing became blatantly clear to Betty: it was like working at The White Violet, surrounded by chocolate. At first, you think to yourself how incredibly wonderful it is, and then the reality of making and handling all that chocolate becomes somewhat overpowering and an assault on the senses. She felt the same thing after six plants and nine hours of head-down labor. The novelty wore off fast, and the reality of how much work was involved became clearly apparent. She only took breaks to grab some food, use the bathroom, stretch and remove the brown “finger hash” that accumulated on the edges of her titanium blades and fingertips. Peyton showed her how to carefully roll the brown, gummy concentrate off her fingertips. Then he employed a clean razor blade to remove it off the used blade. Finally, he gingerly rolled the sticky resin into a ball, placed it into a plastic baggie and labeled it. Ingesting or smoking that, Peyton assured her, was not for beginners, as it had a higher THC and CBD content. However, if someone needed heavy pain relief, it was the quickest way to “get from point ‘A’ to hallelujah.”

  Peyton illuminated Betty with the critical final process of drying and curing the bud. After hanging in the darkened shed for up to ten days, the bud was ready when the stem could be easily snapped. The dried buds were then meticulously snipped off the stem, placed in glass mason jars no more than three-quarters full and stored in the dark. “Light and air are two enemies of dried bud,” he instructed her. But there was more. Once a day, the jars had to be “burped,” which entailed gently shaking the dried buds back and forth, and then opening the lid for several minutes to allow any moisture to escape. If the bud was too dry, one could place a single, healthy, fresh fan leaf in the tightly sealed jar overnight. Another option was to put an apple slice into the sealed jar. The next day, the apple would be removed after it had imparted both moisture and a pleasant scent to the curing buds. But nothing was guaranteed until the cannabis was completely cured, which could take up to five months for certain strains, or as few as three weeks for others. “You can’t be sure until it’s dried and cured,” Peyton advised Betty, rattling off one of his original cannabis rhymes.

  “These are so beautiful, Peyton,” Betty exclaimed, bringing out her cell phone. “I’m going to take a photo.”

  “Uh, no way, dude. No photos, ever. No matter how legal you and I are, you don’t want to risk the wrong people finding those photos and hassling you.”

  Betty nodded and put away her phone. His comment brought back the sobering realization that someone out there had her cannabis list and contact information. She briefly considered telling Peyton the troubling tale but refrained.

  “I swear the only people who look forward to trimming these nuggets are old hippies living in the Emerald Triangle,” Peyton related, skimming a sticky, BB-sized ball of resin off his scissors with the blade. “Those dudes live for harvest season every fall. But when you grow indoors and you got your rotation in full swing, you’re trimming four or more times a year, so it’s more like a job.” He took a quick bite of Betty’s chocolate cake. “But then I look on the bright side and see this as an opportunity to get all Zen and let my mind travel.” He held his stem closer to examine the top bud. “You know that saying, ‘if life gives you lemons, make lemonade?’ Well, is the lemonade sweet? Because if it isn’t, why is sour lemonade going to quench unhappiness? And another thing, I know a fool and his money are soon parted. But I think it’s because a fool and his money are soon partied out. And why don’t they have greeting cards for bartenders? Or plumbers? It’s an untapped market. These are the kind of things I think about after a few hours of trimming.”

  After several minutes, Betty piped up. “What do your parents think of all this?”

  “My dad just shakes his head in disgust and disappears into the garage. My mom pretends it doesn’t exist. Just like she pretends I don’t exist. Just like she pretends Pops doesn’t exist.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re different and that scares her. We see the world through cannabis eyes, in different colors and shades, and she can’t relate to it. Pops was always considered an odd fellow, but his inventions gave my mom a pretty decent life growing up. She was always embarrassed by his eccentricities. In my family, the originality skips a generation, so she knew going into it that I had the potential of being just as peculiar as Pops. And when that became o
bvious to her, she didn’t handle it well. If you’re different in my family, you’re considered difficult. You require more attention, and my mom and dad weren’t able, or willing, to offer it. My parents didn’t want me to stand out. They just wanted me to fit in. But I couldn’t do that. I was labeled ‘A-D-D’, whatever in the hell that is. Personally, I think some chemist made up the disorder, so he could score some big money off all the leftover ‘speed’ in his lab.”

  He admired his bud handiwork and picked up the next stem. “So I got to experience all the crazy drugs the FDA allows kids to take – all the ones that dull your senses and make life feel like one monotonous TV test pattern. By the time I was fifteen, I thought that if this was what life was all about, what was the point? Then some dude at school gave me a joint, and suddenly everything changed. I realized I wasn’t difficult. I didn’t have a learning disability. I was as creative as Pops, and if you put the right project in front of me, I was unstoppable.” He put down the stem and turned to Betty. “You see, cannabis just expands who you really are and what you can understand. If you’re creative and clever, it can take you to another level. But if you’re stupid and shallow, there’s a good chance you’ll just be more stupid and shallow. That’s why it’s not for everyone. But when it’s the right fit, like it was for me…shit…it’s like gold. But it came with a price. The more I rebelled against the humdrum, boring life, the more my parents pushed me away, until I said, ‘that’s okay.’ I’d rather live my life honestly, than spend it adapting to what others think I should be.”

  Betty took a break from trimming. “How in the hell did you figure that out so young?”

  He grinned. “I’m different, remember? We tend to understand things at a younger age than others who live inside the box.”

  Betty contemplated his words. “I can’t argue with that one, Peyton. Well, I guess as the old saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

  “I tend to think that whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you bitter and overly cautious. But that’s just me.” He stood up, snipped another stem off the plant and sat back in his chair. “I’ve come to look on myself like a cat, Betty.”

  “A cat?”

  “Yeah. I think there comes a time in every cat owner’s life, when they look at their cat and say, ‘I wish you could do more. All you do is catch mice, sleep, take a dump, drink water and eat. Too bad you can’t lift heavy objects, drive me to the airport or fix me a meal.’ And the cat thinks, ‘I do what I do. This is who I am. This is what a cat is.’ They’re not out to prove they’re anything but who they are. And most importantly, they don’t give a shit what you or I think. They just go along catching mice, sleeping, take a dump, drink water and eat. They’re comfortable in their fur and make no apologies for what they can’t or won’t do. That’s me, Betty.” He turned to her. “And I never thought I’d find another cat just like me. But then you introduced me to Yarrow.” He leaned closer, speaking in confidence. “She calls me her ‘honeydude.’ She thinks like I do. We share some of the same fears, but she’s determined to overcome them. So that makes me want to overcome mine too. I can be myself around her, and it makes me feel like I’m finally home. You know what I mean?”

  Betty’s eyes misted over. “Yes. I do.”

  “If it weren’t for you, Betty. I never would have met her. Thank you.”

  She placed her palm on Peyton’s arm. “No, Peyton. Thank you for giving me a chance to make it right again.”

  Betty didn’t get home that night until after nine o’clock, and after checking on her girls with only the surreal light of the green headlamp, she was ready to head to bed when a car pulled up in her driveway. She peeked out of the front window just as Renée walked across the front path. It wasn’t like Renée to show up unexpected, unless of course, she was the one who found Betty’s list in the basket. Betty’s heart did a little sprint as she opened the front door.

  “You and I need to talk,” Renée curtly said, striding into the house.

  Betty closed the front door and prepared herself for the worst. “What is it?”

  Renée started to speak, when she sniffed the air around her. “My God, Betty! It smells like pot in here!”

  Betty froze. She’d sort of rehearsed what she’d say if this ever happened. And yet at that moment, she couldn’t recall any of her clever retorts. “Pot?”

  “Yes. Pot.” She moved closer to Betty. “Is it coming from you?”

  Many women had a signature perfume that defined them. Betty suddenly realized that instead of Chanel No. 5, her twelve, long hours of trimming bud had obviously imbued her with Cannabis No. 1. She swallowed hard and started to speak, when Renée impatiently interrupted her.

  “Aha!” Renée exclaimed, walking to the credenza. She swept up the complimentary lighter, with the smiling cannabis leaf Betty had been given when she purchased her first clones, and held it in the air. “This belongs to him, doesn’t it?”

  Betty felt that familiar sense of being cornered. It had been awhile since she’d experienced the sensation, and it wasn’t setting well with her. “Him who?”

  “Oh, for chrissake, Betty! You know exactly who I’m talking about!” She moved closer. “Peyton! Your little mentoring project? He’s been here and he’s been smoking grass, and you obviously weren’t even aware of it!”

  Something about Renée’s tone emboldened Betty. “Perhaps…or maybe it’s because I’m growing pot in my basement!”

  Betty tried to decipher the strange look Renée shot her direction. It wasn’t shock, but it wasn’t appreciation either. After what seemed like an eternity, Renée pursed her lips and spoke up.

  “That’s not even remotely funny, Betty. Not one damn bit.” She turned away, lost in her own world. Gradually, she came back into herself and looked around the living room quickly. “Your house feels different. Lonelier.”

  “Really? I think it feels more buoyant.” Betty sauntered to the couch. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “The damn scarf I gave to Helen on her birthday! I don’t understand why you insist on all the passive/aggressive digs.”

  “All two of them, you mean? And I certainly wouldn’t characterize them as passive/aggressive, Renée. I’d color them more like a Texas jab with a pointy tip.”

  She ran her fingers nervously through her hair. “Call it whatever in the hell you want! I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, Betty. I don’t need the added stress of your negativity toward me.” There was definitely an increased restless intensity surrounding Renée. “As I was just saying to Cindy D. tonight at the meeting, it feels like time is speeding up and we’re losing our ability to fully experience anything, because the next thing happens and then the next and so on.” She seemed to be rotating in her own manic orbit. “How in the hell do you process anything anymore?” She looked up at Betty with desperation.

  For some strange reason, Betty felt compassion for her irksome friend. “Maybe you should stop trying to process or experience everything, and just allow it to take its course?”

  It appeared for one brilliant second that Renée was actually considering the idea. But then, her mouth turned down with a peevish expression. “Allow it? My God! That’s it? That’s your advice?!” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I can’t allow it! Life is a fight, for God’s sake. You, more than anyone, should understand that! If you don’t fight, you can’t overcome. And you have to overcome so much. All the shit that crowds inside your head and keeps you awake at night. All those voices telling you that you’re no fucking good? That you’ll never amount to anything?” She stared at Betty, slightly shaking. “You know what I mean, right? The stuff that makes you want to…” She stopped quickly and pulled herself together, as she walked across the living room.

  As far as Betty was concerned, it didn’t appear that Renée’s nearly thirty-years of sobriety or weekly A.A. meetings had made any positive impact. She gave her a chance to calm down. “Renée, do you think it’s possible to be
come addicted to A.A. meetings?”

  Renée turned around. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I was just wondering. Do you think that’s possible?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.

  “No, really. Are you okay?”

  Betty smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  “You’re asking odd questions.”

  “Why is that odd?”

  “I don’t know. It just is.”

  “So? You think it’s possible?” Betty asked.

  “Is what possible?”

  “Being addicted to A.A. meetings?”

  Renée threw her hands in the air. “I don’t even know how to answer that question! I’ll ask my sponsor and see what she says.”

  “You still have a sponsor? Seriously?”

  Renée caught sight of all the photos of Frankie that were on the credenza and propped up around the room. Betty observed, as her friend appeared overcome by them. “Why in the hell do you have all of these out?”