Red-Dirt Marijuana: And Other Tastes Read Free Page B

don’t wanta tell you you business, nothin’ like that, Hal’, but if I was you I wouldn’t let on ’bout this to nobody— not to you frien’ Big Law’ence or any of them people.”
    “Heck, don’t you think I know better than to do that?”
    “You ain’t scared though, is you Hal?”
    Harold spat.
    “Shoot,” he said, looking away, as though in exasperation and disgust that the thought could have occurred to anyone.
    C.K. resumed his work, rolling the cigarettes, and Harold watched him for a few minutes and then stood up, very straight.
    “I reckon I could git a fruit-jar outta the cellar,” he said, “if she ain’t awready brought ’em up for her cannin’.”
    “That sho’ would be fine, Hal’,” said C.K., without raising his head, licking the length of another thin stick of it.
    When Harold came back with the fruit-jar and the empty shell-box, they transferred the two piles into those things.
    “How come it’s against the law if it’s so all-fired good?” asked Harold.
    “Well, now, I use to study ’bout that myself,” said C.K., tightening the lid of the fruit-jar and giving it a pat. He laughed. “It ain’t because it make young boys like you sick, I tell you that much!”
    “Well, what the heck is it then?”
    C.K. put the fruit-jar beside the shell-box, placing it neatly, carefully centering the two just in front of him, and seeming to consider the question while he was doing it.
    “I tell you what it is,” he said then, “it’s ’cause a man see too much when he git high, that’s what. He see right through ever’thing . . . you understan’ what I say?”
    “What the heck are you talkin’ about, C.K.?”
    “Well, maybe you too young to know what I talkin’ ’bout—but I tell you they’s a lotta trickin’ an’ lyin’ go on in the world . . . they’s a lotta ole bull-crap go on in the world . . . well, a man git high, he see right through all them tricks an’ lies, an’ all that ole bull-crap. He see right through there into the truth of it!”
    “Truth of what? ”
    “Ever’thing.”
    “Dang you sure talk crazy, C.K.”
    “Sho’, they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever’body git high, wouldn’t be nobody git up an’ feed the chickens! Hee-hee . . . ever’body jest lay in bed! Jest lay in bed till they ready to git up! Sho’, you take a man high on good gage, he got no use for they ole bull-crap, ’cause he done see right through there. Shoot, he lookin’ right down into his ver’ soul! ”
    “I ain’t never heard nobody talk so dang crazy, C.K.”
    “Well, you young, boy—you goin’ hear plenty crazy talk ’fore you is a growed man.”
    “Shoot.”
    “Now we got to think of us a good place to put this gage,” he said, “a secret place. Where you think, Hal?”
    “How ’bout that old smoke-house out back—ain’t nobody goes in there.”
    “Shoot, that’s a good place for it, Hal’—you sure they ain’t goin’ tear it down no time soon?”
    “Heck no, what would they tear it down for?”
    C.K. laughed.
    “Yeah, that’s right,” he said, “well, we take it out there after it gits dark.”
    They fell silent, sitting there together in the early afternoon. Through the open end of the shed the bright light had inched across the dirt floor till now they were both sitting half in the full sunlight.
    “ I jest wish I knowed or not you daddy goin’ to work on that south-quarter fence today,” said C.K. after a bit.
    “Aw, him and Les Newgate went to Dalton ,” said Harold, “. . . heck, I bet they ain’t back ’fore dark.” Then he added, “You wanta go fishin’?”
    “Shoot, that sound like a good idee,” said C.K.
    “I seen that dang drum-head jumpin’ on the west side of the pond again this mornin’,” said Harold, “. . . shoot, I bet he weighs seven or eight pounds.”
    “ I think we do awright today,” C.K. agreed, glancing out at the blue sky and sniffing a little, “. . . shoot, we try some calf-liver