Grower's Market

by Michael Baughman

  “Italian and Mexican, both?”

  “Why not?”

  Shadow took half a minute to answer. He inhaled three deep drags from his Pall Mall and exhaled the smoke slowly as he thought. He ground out the short butt on the sole of his boot. Finally he nodded his head and turned to look Shrimp in the eye. “Okay. I hear you, man. I could live with that. Yeah, why not? We could call the place Italiano-Mexicano.”

  “Hold on, man. Un momento. Mexicano-Italiano sounds more like it to me.”

  “Yeah, well I figure alphabetical order works, just like the way they seated us in third grade.”

  This time Shrimp took time to think. “Okay,” he said. “Italiano-Mexicano’s good enough for me. We argued long enough. See? We finally figured something out. I got no idea how the fuck it happened but it did.”

  “How long you figure we’ll be out here?”

  “You mean today?”

  “Yeah, today.”

  “No idea.”

  “Want another stout?”

  “Not yet,” Shrimp said.

  From nearby a pair of mourning doves began to call.

  “Those dumb-ass doves should be gone south out of here by now,” Shadow said.

  “They’ll be gone pretty soon. Anyway, back to that plane. Back to what the fuck we’re doing here. The two things are related. Listen up now, learn yourself something. We’ll wrap up this year’s harvest in what, two weeks? Three? Then we’ll be the ones on the planes. Where you figure you’ll head for vacation?”

  “Hawaii. As usual. Charity and me. Sometimes the north shore waves pick up early, right about when we’re done here. I got my best board stored with a buddy at Makaha. A Hawaiian dude. Fuck gins and tonics and tequila sunrises and Irish coffees too. For me on the north shore it’ll be nothin’ but mai tais and some sweet steep awesome waves. And Charity. She boogie boards the shore breaks. She loves it same as I do.”

  Shrimp ground his Pall Mall out on the smooth face of the boulder at his side and flipped the squashed butt ten feet into a clump of deer brush. “Well you just answered your own question, dude. We’re out here right now so we can keep doin’ what we want. That’s all there is to it. Where the hell else could you find a job that got you to Hawaii? That gave you the free time? So where the hell else could you be right now? For me it’ll be Baja. As usual. You should try it sometime. Maybe there’s no surfing, at least not on the Sea of Cortez side, but there’s sure as hell sweet fishing and lots else. I’m talking saltwater fly-fishing. Dorado. Roosterfish. Sierra. Bonito, dog snapper, needlefish, skipjack, cabrilla. I can’t even remember all the species of fish we hook down there. I landed a goddamn sailfish once. That son of a bitch was bigger than me. Took me four hours but I did it. I got that house I rent right on the beach outside Loreto. My boat’s right there too, just waitin’ for me, with an almost brand-new sixty-horsepower Merc engine. Pretty soon I’ll be sittin’ out there on the patio at night after a hard day fishing. I’ll be buck naked in that warm air sipping some premium tequila. Watching the lightning storms across the sea in mainland Mexico. Sometimes I got a sweet senorita buck naked right there beside me. Doe naked I guess it would be. But it ain’t just the fishing and the senoritas. I mean, that sea is flat-out beautiful. The water smooth as glass, the offshore islands, the manta rays and flying fish, whales—blue whales, huge motherfuckers—and dolphin schools swimming along right beside the boat, right in the wake.”

  “Sounds cool,” Shadow said. “Sounds awesome. While you’re at it down there, after you get back from fishing I mean, cook yourself up a big pot of brains, lungs, and stomach. Oh yeah, toss in some intestines too. And a couple tongues. Don’t forget the balls, either. Then sprinkle it with eyeballs and you and your senorita can dig right in!”

  Shadow and Shrimp sat contentedly in sunlight and silence for a while.

  The mourning doves called intermittently.

  “When we both get back we’ll figure it all out about our place, our restaurant. We’re out here now because it’s the only way we could make us enough money to do what the fuck we want while we’re still young. Right?”

  “Right,” Shadow agreed. “Hell, man, the main reason we argue is so we can pass some time.”

  “Right,” Shrimp said.

  “The only reason.”

  “You got it.”

  Shrimp leaned back into the rock and tilted back his head and closed his eyes. He wished he could take Rainbow with him to Baja. She was the one he wanted naked on the patio at night with the two of them sipping tequila and watching the lightning strikes in the black sky a hundred miles away. He might even have been willing to give up the naked part and take Uncle Sam along too if it was possible. Now he finished his stout and placed the empty bottle back in the Kelty and fished another Pall Mall from his cigarette pack and popped a kitchen match with his thumbnail. He lit up and inhaled deeply. “Hawaii,” he said. “Hawaii and Baja. No matter what we eat those’re two damn good reasons why the fuck we’re here.”

  “I guess I hear you,” Shadow answered. “I mean, I know I do.”

  Shrimp reached into his pants pocket and fingered the good luck stone he always carried with him. The stone was smooth and black and almost perfectly round and close to the size and thickness of a silver dollar. He had found it many years ago on a lonely beach on Carmen Island off Loreto. He knew he didn’t truly believe that the stone or anything else could bring him luck but whenever he touched the stone he told himself he believed it.

  “We got it pretty much made,” Shadow said.

  Two rifle shots in quick succession sounded from somewhere far away and echoed off the mountainsides across the valley.

  “You hear that?” Shadow said.

  “Hear what?”

  “Dude, your hearing sucks. Two shots. Sounded like they maybe came from that draw out there by Devil’s Horn. Could be a deer hunter.”

  “No way,” Shrimp said.

  “That draw’s got some humongous fucking bucks.”

  “Bullshit,” Shrimp said. “Too late in the day for a hunter. I’d say we got to be on our fucking toes. I’d say we better watch our asses.”

  * * *

  The retired colonel was high in his new profession’s chain of command and felt sure he would steadily work his way to the top. He wore his gray hair cropped close and sported a thin mustache. He was slim and handsome and his old-style olive drab army fatigues had been tailor-made in a shop on Grant Avenue in Chinatown in San Francisco. Miniature binoculars on a narrow black leather strap hung from his neck.

  The stocky young man with the homely face standing beside the colonel wore faded jeans and a plaid Pendleton shirt. He had served in the army as a sergeant first class and had been awarded a purple heart and a bronze star. In the months since his discharge his dark blond hair had grown to shoulder-length and he wore his beard neatly trimmed. He was twenty-seven years old and unmarried with no criminal record and had come to the colonel highly recommended by a contact in Missoula.

  Recruiting useful employees was a favorite part of the colonel’s job and he was here today both to gauge the former sergeant’s potential and give him a firsthand look at what could happen in the field.

  “So, Robin,” the colonel said, “coming from Montana, you’re familiar enough with this kind of country.”

  “I guess,” Robin answered. “I worked a lot of years guiding deer and elk hunters in fall and trout fishermen in summer. I liked the hunting best. Not much money in it though. This was way up north in the Yaak Valley. That’s some serious country, Colonel.”

  “Indeed it is. This country right here’s no picnic either, and we got up here pretty damn quick. What do you do to stay fit?”

  “Run and lift.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Who is this Crazy Carlos?” Robin asked the colonel.

  “He grows his product a mountain range or two from here. Sells it damn near everywhere. It’s a big operation. Not huge like us but big enough. Today he
works for us. He’s here already. That means we have to be sure our boys don’t tangle with one of his boys by mistake.”

  “Well where is he? Where’s his boys?”

  “They’re here as reserves is all. They’re spread around, all over. We won’t need them. We need them to think we need them, for now. We need them to think we’re on their side is the thing. They’re all wearing red headbands and red bandannas. So it’s easy. We won’t hurt anybody wearing the red.”

  “I heard this Carlos is a nut job. I heard talk about him in Montana.”

  “Who in Montana told you that?”

  “Dingo.”

  “Well Dingo might be a nut job himself and Crazy Carlos is a badass for sure, and maybe a nut job along with it. He still packs his army weapon everywhere he goes. Complete with tally notches. Definite kills on one side and possibles on the other. I’ve been told the stock’s almost full. How’s that grab you?”

  “I think he’s a nut job for sure.”

  “I think you’re right. But today, so far as we know, or he knows, he’s on our side. Today we deal with the old lady’s men. We’ll get the old lady’s product but we’ll leave her and the fat cop alone, for now. We’ll deal with the cop sooner or later. Then next year or the year after it’ll be Carlos’s turn. We’ll run him out eventually. Our battles are incremental. One patient step at a time. Do you think of yourself as a patient man?”

  “I do. For sure. I found most of my patience tracking elk and finding fish. Mind if I ask you something?”

  “I want to find out about you, you want to find out about me. Ask.”

  “What did you do in the army?”

  “I was a battalion commander. And I knew the war was insane from the start. From well before the start. But crazy or not, as a field grade officer I had some opportunities and took advantage of them. Remember when they sent money in, cash money I mean, by the planeload? Billions. It got stolen by practically everybody who could touch it. I took what I figured my share should be, carried it out in my duffle bag, one hundred pounds of one-hundred-dollar bills. A million bucks in hundreds weighs just over twenty-two pounds. Figure it out. That bonus eventually got both of us right here where we are today. Got us started. Look at it this way: a few hundred thousand innocent people died and now millions can torch up their doobs anytime they want in the good old USA. I’m flyin’ pretty high right now myself, which is why I’m talking too much. The war was shit from the start and this is where the hundred pounds of hundreds got us both. Tell me what you think about what I just said. What I just told you.”

  “I think I’m lucky, lucky to be here. I like money too, Colonel. Believe me I do.”

  “And don’t mind what you need to do to get it?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Good. Now listen up. That old lady—Sunbeam they call her, don’t ask me why—she and that fat cop don’t know shit. We have the money, we buy people, we buy the information we need. More than we need. More people and more information both. Anyway, I learned Sunbeam has a son who went to a high-class college back east and makes plenty of money at a respectable job. So if she’s smart maybe she’ll move in with him wherever he is and retire. Babysit her grandchildren. The fat cop? Right now I can’t even remember his name. I think it’s a season of the year. Summer, or Winter. Or a day. Friday, Sunday. Anyway, the crucial thing is they don’t have any idea who we are and they got even less of an idea what’s actually happening. That’s the key thing—we keep anybody we go up against ignorant of what’s actually going on!”

  “I understand that. I get it. Sure.”

  “There’s also a local yokel they call the Big Dude who’s supposed to help Sunbeam and her cohort. But they don’t amount to much. None of these people amount to anything, really. But we still plan carefully for everything. You can’t really plan ahead in a genuine war, but you can in this, so we do it.”

  “What happens when somebody tries to double-cross us?”

  “Good question. Sooner or later damn near everybody in this business double-crosses everybody else, or tries to. But we’re top dogs for now. And the reason we’re top dogs is we always know exactly what’s happening, because we plan carefully, and because we plan ahead. We know what’s happening, but nobody else does. That’s the key. Another key is, we hire good men. How many combat tours did you do?”

  “Four. Two in each shit hole.”

  “Exactly how long have you been out?”

  “Exactly six months and three days. Wait a minute. Make it four days.”

  “It’ll take you a while to get settled into a new life of serious and complicated commerce. It takes more than six months. I think you can work your way up here, but it takes two or three years to get over a war, if you’re lucky. I had the bad nightmares for nearly three years.”

  “I got the nightmares too.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad enough. One fucked up one especially. Want to hear it?”

  “Sure. We have time. Shoot.”

  “It’s I’m walking down some road. In full gear. It’s so hot I’m melting. All my dead buddies are walking up ahead of me down the same road so I figure out it’s the road to fucking death that I’m on. And I’m on it. They’re up ahead and they’re already dead so I know I will be soon too. I’ll be next. You can hear explosions up ahead but it’s too smoky to see what’s happening. You can hear screaming after the explosions. It’s so smoky I can’t see more than thirty, forty yards. All I can see is about two dozen guys I knew, dead guys, walking along. So I yell at them to stop and turn around ’cause they’re going to get it up ahead but they never turn around. They can’t hear me. And I don’t turn around either. I can’t. There’s crowds of guys behind me forcing me along, the way it is on a crowded street. Next thing is I start seeing body parts alongside the road. Hands, feet, arms, legs, heads, even bloody balls and dicks. Then all of a sudden there’s a huge explosion and I’m in it. It’s loud and bright and hot and hurts like crazy and then I’m gone, I’m dead I guess it has to be, and that’s when I wake up and sometimes I’m screaming. I don’t have it too often. Every two, three weeks. Sometimes I go a month. It sucks no matter how long it is though. Fucking sucks.”

  “But you’re dealing with it.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m dealing with it.”

  “That’s the main thing, Robin. All I can do that might help is quote a Norman Mailer character from his Second World War novel The Naked and the Dead: ‘Fugg the goddamn motherfugging army.’ I’m a retired light colonel talking and the Mailer character got it just about right. He summed my sentiments up just about perfectly. ‘Fugg’ by the way was the word Mailer’s editors insisted he use back in the day, before everybody up to and possibly including nuns started saying ‘fuck’ all the time.”

  “Do you still have nightmares? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Why would I mind telling you my worst dream? It’s interesting, a different variety, not really a nightmare. It comes every few months and I never know when to expect it. In mine I have to move to Detroit, an American city I know well and loathe. After I arrive in town realtors show me houses up for sale but every place I look at is more of a dump than the last one I looked at. Day after day it goes on that way. Then one morning when it’s pouring rain I’m supposed to meet a new realtor in a supermarket parking lot. I get there early, so I go inside to shop and when I’m halfway back to my car a jar of blue cheese salad dressing falls out of my shopping cart but it doesn’t break. It rolls away. So I chase it, but it keeps rolling away under cars, pickups, vans, and I have to dodge other people pushing their shopping carts while I chase. But I can’t catch up with the salad dressing, in fact I’m losing ground steadily, and the realization occurs to me that I’m going to have to spend the rest of my life chasing a jar of blue cheese salad dressing through an endless parking lot in Detroit in the rain. That’s my recurring nightmare, Robin. And I’ll admit that it scares the living shit out of me. I don’t even like blue che
ese.”

  “Wow. No offense, but that’s definitely weird.”

  “I grant you it is, son. But now it’s time for us to drop the nightmares and dreams and for you to listen up. See that lone tall pine tree skylighted straight across over there?” The colonel pointed. “Take the binocs here in a minute. Start at the tree and go left to that rock outcropping. Right above the rocks there’s a bunch of scrub oaks. On the right side of the oaks two men showed up. Must be Sunbeam’s boys. One took his shirt off. Talk about tattoos. Right now those two’re lounging around like they’re on a company picnic. Alert? They’re barely awake. When something serious is at stake there’s nothing worse than carelessness, Robin, as I’m sure you know.” The colonel cleared his throat with the sound of a dog growling and then spat a mouthful of phlegm onto the earth and handed the binoculars to Robin.

  CRAZY CARLOS

  These were widely circulated rumors concerning the life lived by the man known as Crazy Carlos:

  It took him only three years to graduate from an Ivy League university with a BA in philosophy and a 4.0 grade point average.

  He worked his way through school by dealing weed to undergraduates.

  Among his fellow philosophers his favorite thinkers were Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard and Spinoza but it had been the novelists Dostoyevsky and Camus and Kafka who most influenced his life. He reread Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment and Camus’s The Stranger and Kafka’s The Metamorphosis at least three times each year and he believed with unqualified certainty that these writers had been correct. There was no god and life was absurd and none of us were anything more or less than overgrown insects.

  A professor he seduced told a porn producer she knew about his oversized penis and this led to a short career in adult films.

  Because porn didn’t pay enough he returned to drugs.

  Through the first six years of his drug career he had personally disposed of rivals by either strangulation or gunshot. Whenever practical he forced his victims to choose between a short length of clothesline or a snub-nosed .32.