At last he came to rest in the dimness and stood at the opening to the Underworld. He knew his kinship with Achilles, who journeyed into Hades; Jesus, who descended into Hell; Lewis Carroll, who most certainly squeezed through the rabbit hole; and all the shamans who had gone before him in human history.
“I am the woman who sees,” María Guadalupe sang, as she walked with him.
“I am the woman of wisdom, the mushroom says.
“I am the story of the past, the mushroom says.
“I am the child newly born, the mushroom says.
“I am the woman most humble, the mushroom says.
“I am the grandmother who steps into the light, the mushroom says.”
María Guadalupe sang toward the east, Benjamin at her side. Over the rim of the earth, the sun slowly spread fingers of warmth and life, illuminating vast plains, mountains, trees, and water.
María Guadalupe turned her body to the south, humming, clapping her hands. On the southern plain, black clouds heavy with rain touched the tops of mountain peaks, sending water sliding down gorges to a river’s beginning.
She continued to clap and sing, now facing the west. Looking up, Benjamin saw stars and an enormous crescent moon not yet obliterated by the light of the sun. His thoughts spread to touch sun, clouds, and moon, and his body followed, traveling outward beyond this solar system.
María Guadalupe turned again, this time to face north, calling him to join her. Now a wind touched him, blowing at his clothes and hair, sending tingling caresses across his skin.
Again, María Guadalupe turned, once more to the east, to the sun. Four times she clapped loudly, precisely, then stopped to sing to him.
“It is time for you to face the mushroom.
“It is time for you to face yourself.
“You, heavy with wisdom.
“You, chosen.
“Your Guardian Spirit awaits you. Ask for knowledge.”
Without hesitating, Benjamin walked across the plains, the sun full on his face. He strode for some time, looking in each direction for signs of animal life or human beings. Nothing appeared. No stirring. Not even a lizard or butterfly. He sat to rest on a huge boulder, breathing hard, his head heavy with color and thought. Then he heard it, far away at first, but quickly unmistakable—the flapping of wings, huge wings. Hastily, he stood atop the rock staring into the sun, black specks flying toward him.
Eagles! he cried as they came into view, swooping toward him, dipping a wing, soaring in tight circles, two, three, then four of them.
We have been waiting for you, one remarked to him. It has taken you a long time. Come.
With the command, he felt a pulsating in his arms, and as he looked, long brown feathers began to grow, darker at the tips, lines of white running through them.
Come, the eagle called again.
Spreading his long, feathered arms, Benjamin flew upward in small circles.
How clearly I can see, he thought, and pushing firmly against the wind, joined the others.
Ahead, he saw mountains, and among them, crags and towering pinnacles. To one of the uppermost, he flew with the eagle commanding him.
You have made a long journey, the eagle said. You have made it without fear. You have power. You will teach the power to others.
With clear eyes, Benjamin saw an office. He recognized his books on the shelves. But the standard-issue university desk was gone. A carefully restored wooden desk sat near a window, and on one wall was a painting made of yarn, bright and colorful and covered with symbols. He flew out of the room through a hole in the ceiling, below lay a different campus. Small.
Where is this place?
I will guide you, the eagle told him. I will help you to teach.
From a distance, Benjamin heard a bird whistle. The eagle picked up his head and scanned the landscape with piercing eyes.
“Do you hear the birds?” María Guadalupe’s question startled Benjamin. “It is time to return. The power of the mushroom is leaving us.”
With the words, she sucked in her breath, and Benjamin felt himself flying, following the whirlwind back to the tunnel entrance. In another heartbeat, he was traveling upward through the tunnel, without difficulty, passing through the portal to the outer world. Again the sound of birds came to him and quite perceptibly, the sound of yawning. Benjamin opened his eyes. The first hint of dawn lit the room. Morning.
People began to move around the room, stretching. With the dawn, the ceremony ended. Parents brushed off their fine clothes worn especially for the occasion and lifted sleeping children into their arms for the walk home.
Benjamin still sat on the floor next to María Guadalupe. He tried his voice. “How can I thank you?”
“It was the mushroom,” she answered, her eyes lowered. “God spoke through the mushroom. There is yet much to learn. You have only this day discovered your Spirit Helper. Now you must let him teach, as well as protect. Let him lead you to as many levels of the Underworld or the Upperworld as he will take you.”
Benjamin stood, silent, countless questions piercing his thoughts. Questions about the beginnings of human self-awareness. The fruit of Adam and Eve’s tree that had awakened knowledge. The origins of religion. The effect of psychotropic experience on culture. Hundreds of thousands of people in modern society were eating mushrooms, peyote, and LSD. Having equally powerful mystical experiences. What did it mean? What would be the effect of this nation of mystics on humankind?
The possibilities exploded from his brain, causing him to take a step back, to assure his footing. He looked toward the small woman before him. No adornments graced her body. No possessions set her apart. But she was the most powerful person Benjamin had yet encountered in his life.
He could only turn to her and let tear-filled eyes speak his humility, his love and gratitude.
KATHY, DANNY, AND JACOB
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
APRIL 1968
Danny was enjoying San Diego. There was not much to do but lie on the beach and wait. And there was always so much waiting in this business. Promises were made but seldom kept. Times were given, but they came and went. The product that was finally delivered, if it was delivered at all, was a different grade and quality from the sample. But in this case, the waiting wasn’t so bad. Danny had all the time in the world, and that girl … the one in the red bikini …
“It’s in,” Jacob said, throwing himself on the sand next to Danny. He pushed his sunglasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “About an hour ago. I just talked to my runner.”
“When can I have a look?”
“You ready now?”
When Kathy had picked him up on the highway near Tucson, their arrival in Berkeley had been a new beginning for them both. In those first days, Kathy had told him about Larry’s decision to cut her out of her sales to Richard and Alex. She’d also explained why she had been away from the ranch for two weeks—and her promise to Carolyn.
On returning to California with the kilos Jose had sold at his cost, she’d found herself in a peculiar bind. Most of her large market had been filling Richard and Alex’s orders, and they, in turn, dealt smaller key lots to customers they both knew. Now, she had not only lost the main sale to Richard, but had lost sales to others she knew as well. An occasional out-of-town customer, most introduced to her by Andy in Berkeley, paid the bills these days by buying ten or twenty at a time. The rest of her load was being dealt in small lots, singles, maybe fives, and she was often traveling out of town visiting coastal towns and communes in the mountains. Essentially, she was starting over.
Danny had only been in Berkeley a few weeks when he’d begun to piece together rumors about a dealer named Jacob. He’d finally persuaded Belle, a frizzy-haired redhead familiar with the scene, to act as go-between. The answer came back through Belle, “Why?”
“Keys,” Danny answered. “What’s the price for a hundred keys?”
The message was relayed, another answer returned. “Forty pe
r brick … thirty if you pick them up in San Diego.”
“That’s a good ten dollars lower than Larry’s price,” he’d told Kathy excitedly. “And San Diego’s a lot closer. With no state border to cross.”
Danny happily noted the undisguised glee in Kathy’s eyes. At thirty dollars a key, they could match Larry’s price, offering bricks ten dollars cheaper than Richard and Alex could. Although Danny had never met the man, he knew Larry’s deals with Alex had been a blow to Kathy, a betrayal. And Kathy was everything but lover to Danny. She had given him a home, a job, and a family. Danny hustled as hard for Kathy as he did for himself.
Still, they had proceeded carefully. Who knew whether this guy was real? Rumor had it so, but you just never knew. Not until you saw the product.
Danny sent back a message. “Let’s talk.”
And the return. “Before any meeting, let’s see the money.”
Reassured, Danny smiled. They weren’t dealing with the Man. This Jacob was too leery. Sidestepping. He wanted to know more about them.
Kathy passed a paper bag to Danny. “Here’s four grand. Let Belle take a look at it and tell Jacob she’s seen it.”
Even after Danny had met Jacob, and Belle had made her fifty for the intro, and the kilos had been ordered, Kathy still hadn’t been sure she wanted to meet Jacob. Not yet. She would wait until Danny gave a report on the quality of the weed.
Danny was an expert. He’d know its value from the color and smell, whether it was all stems or bottom leaves, or whether it was mostly seeds, maybe picked immature. They both hoped the herb had choice flowers left to ripen in the sun, covered with sticky resin, the buds mixed with only a few stems and leaves before being pressed into bricks. If the sample was good, and a long business friendship inevitable, then Kathy would meet Jacob.
“Use the shower,” Jacob told Danny as they walked in from the beach. “You don’t want to look too loose in San Diego. And your hair. Better to cut your hair if you’re going to be down here.”
“No way, man. I’m not cutting my hair,” Danny informed him. “Not for anything.”
“Then for right now, put it up under your hat. We’ll take my car. Leave your van here and we’ll pick it up later.”
They made quite a pair, the two of them—Jacob older, maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven, tall, muscular, trimmed dark hair, with more experience etched into his face and eyes; Danny slight in comparison, still growing, eyes sparkling with adventure, feeling very formidable with a new mustache, Kathy’s van, and a fake ID that set his age at eighteen.
Jacob’s car made several turns before finally entering an alleyway near the beach. He drove slowly, shooting furtive looks behind him, and finally stopped in front of a house badly in need of paint. He pushed an automatic door opener and drove the car into the garage.
Danny could already smell it.
Without a word, still tense, Jacob opened the back garage door to a living room to find sacks upon burlap sacks of weed piled against each other. The odor was so strong that Danny wondered whether passers-by on the street would know.
For a long moment, Jacob simply stared at the sacks, confused, then finally mumbled, “Matt, this is Danny from Berkeley.”
When he spoke, Matt’s voice was strained, his body tight, his attitude wary, almost as if he were looking over his shoulder. “How old are you?” he demanded suspiciously.
Danny stopped smiling. “Eighteen.”
“Bullshit.”
“Wanna see my ID?”
“Do I look like a bar bouncer?” Matt looked hard at Jacob. “I’m not putting my ass on the line for the mistakes of some dumb kid.”
“It’s cool,” Jacob answered in a low voice. “I’ve asked around. Checked him out.”
Matt studied Danny closely, gauging him. Danny held firm.
“Alright,” Matt finally decided. “Come on in.”
Once again concentrating on the burlap sacks, Jacob asked, “What is this stuff?” He’d expected to find the usual stacks of rectangular bricks.
“Take a look,” Matt answered, his voice suddenly animated, the question of Danny’s age forgotten as he hurriedly unwrapped one of the bags. “I didn’t use our regular source. I was introduced to someone new. This is what I was offered instead of bricks.”
He turned to Danny. “You might as well look, too.”
“It’s loose,” Jacob mumbled, surprised.
“Is it shake?” Danny asked.
“No, this isn’t what’s left over. Look again.”
Danny grabbed a handful and pulled it out of the bag. Tiny resin-covered buds filled his palm. He stared, let them tumble back into the sack, and moved to the next bag, checking, moving from bag to bag, making sure it was all the same. Unable at first to understand what he was seeing, he couldn’t give it a name. This load wasn’t just a few square bricks, with buds and leaves and seeds attached to stems that had to be pried apart, but hundreds of buds—loose, perfect, unpressed, practically seedless.
“Is this as good as it looks?” Danny asked. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Help yourself.”
Danny took out a package of rolling papers from his pocket, and using the dining room table, had a joint quickly rolled. He toked a few times and passed the smoke to Jacob. Immediately, Danny’s body began to change, the light became brighter in the room, colors more vivid, the smoke smooth, and the taste like the tropics.
“The price?” he asked, hoping his excitement wasn’t too obvious.
“Let me talk to Matt for a minute,” Jacob answered.
“I’ll just take this out to the kitchen and roll a few more. Let me know when you’re ready to talk business.”
“What did you have to pay?” Jacob asked when Danny had left the room.
Matt held up ten fingers excitedly. “Ten a kilo! Can you believe it? The same price we pay for regs. These guys were into a price war with our regular people. They wanted our business.”
“Someone’s gonna get shot.”
“At least it wasn’t me. Man, we really scored!”
Jacob couldn’t stop running through the bags, opening one burlap sack after another, as if it was still too hard to believe that the entire load could look like this. “Are you sure every bag’s the same?”
“What I’ve seen. I’m still going through it. There wasn’t time to check it all when they loaded the truck.”
“Where’d you pick up? Jalisco?”
“No,” Matt shook his head. “Michoacán. That was the shaky part of the deal. I had to drive with the bucks to the other side of Lake Chapala.”
“What the fuck are you takin’ chances like that for?”
“Some of the Americans living on the lake knew the new guy. It seemed reasonable.”
“Is that price firm?”
Matt shook his head. “No. Next time the price will double. Maybe move up from there. But once this kind of quality is established, I think the higher price will work—like fine wine. What price did you quote the kid? Where’d you find him, anyway? He can’t be much over sixteen or seventeen.”
“Thirty a kilo, if he picked them up here. Maybe we should stick with it. He and his partner want a hundred. I’ve seen the money. We can experiment with them. See how they react to a price raise on the next round. A lot depends on the kid’s boss.”
“Who’s that?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t met the dude yet.”
“You’re sure about them?”
“Yeah. That kid’s no threat. The Man wouldn’t use an underage undercover cop. Thirty?”
“Alright. But boost the price to out-of-California people. You know what they’ll be charging in Minnesota.”
“How much is here?”
“A ton. About twenty pounds to a bag.”
“Okay. Let’s get out of here. You look like you can use some rest.”
Jacob walked into the kitchen. “What do you think of the weed, Danny?”
“I think I need to get
to a phone and get my boss down here.”
“You’re home!” Danny shouted jubilantly into the phone. “Can you call me back?” He gave the San Diego pay phone number.
“Five minutes,” Kathy answered. She grabbed her purse and keys, bounded to the VW bug that was their second car, and raced for a phone booth. The suppressed excitement in Danny’s voice was infectious.
Good or bad?
“Kathy, it’s not just good. It’s great! Instead of pressed bricks, the guy has bags and bags of loose buds. Something we’ve never seen before. And he’s still only asking thirty!”
“Is it good? Have you smoked it?”
“Dynamite! All mature.”
“How much of it have you seen?”
“Enough. It’s the chance of a lifetime. Not only is the price better than Larry’s, but the novelty of this smoke will push it fast.”
Kathy thought about what Danny had just said. Could anything like he described be real? “Do you think we should do more than a hundred?”
“As much as we can. We should put all our bread into this one. Every dime.”
“It’s eight o’clock now. Suppose I come in the morning.”
“No. You know how these things are. Anything could happen between tonight and tomorrow. They could change their minds. Up the price. This one guy I met today is still real hesitant.”
“Alright. There’s a 9:30 from Oakland. How’s the energy down there?”
“Strained. Lots of cops and patrols. But these guys seem like pros.”
A Nation of Mystics - Book II: The Tribe Page 10
