Danny's blog: "Little known secrets..."

Out of This World He woke up, rubbed his eyes, and looked around, wondering where he was, not recognizing anything at all in his view. He seemed to be in a park of some kind. The buildings in his line of sight didn't seem familiar at all, and the sounds he was hearing and the faces he was seeing were alien to him. All of the faces that he looked at seemed to have a surreal aspect to them, and it appeared that everyone was walking in pairs. Odd, he thought. He noticed what looked to be an attractive woman approaching him. She had a rather angelic face with dirty-blonde hair falling past her shoulders. "Hey there. New in town, dear?" She seemed to be familiar to him, yet he didn't know from where. Her smile was disarming. "Umm, yeah... I guess. Could you tell me where I am exactly?" He was still trying to place her in his memory, but couldn't quite seem to do it. She might have been a little taller than average, slight of build, and looked to be in very good physical condition. "You don't know where you are, do you, Danny? That happens a lot." It startled him that she knew his name. Her voice was quite mellifluous. "But where am I? And may I ask how you knew my name?" He was very suspicious, although the woman seemed relatively placid. And quite pleasing to the eye. "And what's your name, if I may be so bold?" "Now, don't be alarmed." It seemed to him that she was holding her head completely still. "You are what is known on Earth as dead. And I'm Delaney." She still hadn't moved her head. Not one inch. "Huh?" He looked at her incredulously, reeling from being told that he was dead, not to mention her allusion to Earth as being elsewhere. "But I'm breathing, I'm talking to you... I feel a pulse!" "If I recall correctly, you very much enjoy coffee, don't you?" She saw him nod slowly, and grabbed his hand softly. "Follow me, sweetie. I know of a coffee shop right around here. I'll try to answer any questions that you may have." Danny didn't protest as he followed along, and found himself admiring this mysterious woman's shapely derriere. 'Heck, even when I'm dead I do this stuff.' He smiled inwardly at the thought. They came to the storefront, which displayed an artistically-painted sign that read Delaney's Coffee, Tea, and Other Fine Potables. He looked in through the window, and saw there was no one inside. Delaney went to the door, and without using a key opened the door and let them in. The café definitely had a "homey" atmosphere, with small round wooden tables, simple chairs, and a small ornate Persian rug was under each table. Incense appeared to have been burned there lately, if the subtle scent of sandalwood was any indication. "I only open the place when I feel like it. There's no real currency here. Familiar with the phrase 'you can't take it with you'? Well, that's more or less true." She guided him to a small table in the corner. "Does Kona sound good to you? Or would you rather have some Kenya AA?" She eerily zeroed in on two of his favorite coffees. When he was alive. "It's your call, Delaney. I can't begin to thank you enough for expediting my acclimation to... umm, this place." He was still trying to get used to the idea that he was dead. "I know, Danny. I know." She smiled enigmatically. She heated the water, and when the water was hot enough, poured it into the press. The accommodating woman allowed it the necessary time to steep, and then poured two hot cups of coffee. "Here you are -- Jamaica Blue Mountain -- I hope it meets to your satisfaction." "So, Delaney; is it just a mere coincidence that you know of my favorite things?" he asked, almost fearful of her reply. "Just how much do you know?" He sipped the much sought-after coffee, and it was quite delicious. "Please don't be alarmed." She took a hesitant sip of the steaming brew. "But I know everything about you." "Everything? Do you know about the time that I...?" "The time that you commandeered that big dump truck at that waste disposal plant in Baltimore, just for the hell of it? The time that you helped transport two thousand pounds of marijuana for fifteen hundred dollars and a few kilos of reefer? That time you told the policeman to 'fuck off' from a hospital bed in Tucson when he was trying to get you to snitch on your suppliers? Umm, yeah, you could say that I know," she told him, grinning coquettishly. "But how? Are you -- dare I say it -- but are you God?" "No silly... I'm you. Only the silent half. As soon as you became aware, I was there. I'm your conscience, Danny. The female personification of your conscience, to be exact." "Damn, if I had known you were there, I probably wouldn't have thought some of the more decadent thoughts that I've had." "No, Danny -- that's what makes you who you are -- you had those thoughts, yet resisted them... well, most of them anyway." She attempted to suppress a smile but failed. "So, where exactly am I, Delaney? And I don't guess I could catch the next plane out of here, huh? And this may be beside the point, but, how did I die?" The last thing that I remember was I was in a convenience store late at night, getting a cup of coffee before I went home." "How did you die? You leapt in front of a robber's bullet to save a cashier's life at one of those 'stop n' shop' places. And you did, too... saved her life, that is. She's okay." She paused to look at the surprised expression on my face. "You're in what is known on Earth as a 'parallel world.' Actually, it's not 'parallel' at all. We have no death here, we have no disease, we have no crime; does that sound very parallel to you?" she asked, pretty much rhetorically. And another pointless act of heroism, he thought. Again with the third person reference to earth. Danny felt that this was getting creepy. No, correct that. Creepy-er. "We can't be detected by any of Earth's instruments, as we are all in spirit form. Ethereal, if you will. You may feel as you did when you were on Earth, but have you noticed that you haven't felt the need to relieve yourself?" She looked at him pointedly. She was right. He hadn't felt the need to go, either way, and as he looked around the coffee shop he noticed there were no restrooms in sight. He did notice what seemed to be a stairway leading upwards in the back of the store. "Who exactly gets here? Does everyone make it? It doesn't look to be all that crowded here." "It's rather complicated, Danny, but I can tell you this: this parallel world is infinite in its limits. It's divided up into roughly three portions. One, for the irrevocably evil, or the rapists, murderers and the like. Two, there are those in that 'gray' area between good and evil. And three, there are those where their good far outweighs their evil," she told him. She looked at him for a reaction. "Would it be beyond good manners to ask which category I'm in?" "This may surprise you, but you're in the good portion of the ledger. Like I said, you had quite a few 'impure', if you will, thoughts, but you rarely acted upon them. You never killed anybody, you didn't rape anyone, you were usually honest, and it was rare when your actions caused someone to be hurt, either directly or indirectly," Delaney told him. "You nearly always had a smile on your face, and were pretty generous with your time. I hesitate to tell you this, but you were pretty good people." It gave him reason to pause when he heard her speaking in '70s hippie vernacular. And referring to him in the past tense again. "So, is this 'Heaven'? That'd be kind of hard to swallow, the main reason being I never really believed in quote/unquote Heaven," he told her. He was still trying to become accustomed to being referred to in the past tense. "Well, it's known on Earth as many different things, but instead of getting into semantics, I think we should merely refer to it as 'here'. I guess I should tell you that the concepts of "God", "Allah", "Mohammed", and the others are merely devices devised long ago in an attempt to keep people in line. It doesn't seem to do all that much good," she commented. There was a tinge of sadness in her voice. He sort of felt like "Grasshopper" on the television show {i}Kung Fu{/i}. "So, I'm here for what we'll call 'eternity'? Or was that merely an illusion as well?" "That's entirely up to you, Danny. If you choose to, you can enter what is termed the 'birth lottery', where you are assigned to a birth mother. Entirely at random, which means that you could end up being the child of a wealthy and happy mother and father, or by the same token, you could wind up the kid of a single-parent crack addict mother. And I should tell you, about 85-90 percent of the inhabitants here go the birth lottery route." She paused to look deeply into his eyes. "Or you could stay here with me. Forever. It's entirely up to you." "But why do they go back?" "Because they seek physical sensation. They want ego gratification. And, this isn't a minor thing, but it has something to do with sexual desire. Most people do. You don't get that here," she told him pointedly. "To paraphrase a distinguished mind, 'they just want to get their dicks wet'." "You remember that one, eh?" he asked. He smiled brightly. "What about women? Why do they go back?" "Women have egos as well. They want to be desired. Women enjoy sex as well, Danny. They want to be pampered. They want to be physically loved. They can't really get that here," she told me with a quizzical look in her eyes. "Finish your coffee. Follow me." She slowly stood up, and gently took his hand in her own. She led him to the stairway he had seen earlier. Danny couldn't help to admire her shapely backside as he followed her up the stairs. When they reached the top, he looked around at the contents of her room. There was an oversized bed in the center of the room, and there were extensive bookshelves lining the walls, with an impressive collection of books lined on them. There was a billowy white diaphanous material suspended from the ceiling, giving it a rather unearthly look. Which, in fact, it was, he mused. Rather unearthly, that is. "Read much?" he quipped nervously. "It's actually quite relaxing, you know. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but you did quite a bit of reading yourself.” “I was just faking it for appearance’s sake,” he joked and smiled broadly. "I would guess that you're familiar with the expression 'you can't love anyone until you love yourself'. Well, I am yourself, Danny... the female equivalent of you. I am the perfect woman in your eyes. I don't take any guff, I am independent, and I am not reliant on you for anything, with the exception of your love. And I'm not bad looking to boot, per your standards." She told him to sit on the floor, and she took off her top, seemingly effortlessly, and joined him. He thought her breasts looked "elegant", for lack of a better word. He was momentarily awed by their simple beauty. "Take off your shirt, Danny. And move closer." "Okay. Now what?" he asked somewhat nervously after removing his shirt and scooted nearer to her. They were sitting in a variation of the lotus position, and now their knees were touching, as they were both in the classic meditation pose. He felt a certain energy begin to resonate throughout his body. "Now, relax your mind. Look into my eyes, Danny. Empty your head of preconceived notions. Let yourself go," she said softly. She took both of his hands into her own, holding them tenderly. He noticed her looking intently into his face. He did what he could do to "blank" his mind, and felt an ambiguous inner peace. He began to stare intently into her mystical blue-gray eyes, and sensed a shadowy feeling of relief coming over him. As he looked into her sparkling eyes, he felt himself gradually being drawn into a swirling vortex of sorts, and was overwhelmed by intense feelings of joy, empathy, elation, and love. He became aware of her mellisonant voice subtly invading his mind, yet she wasn't moving her lips. "I am you, Danny. You are me. We are one. From time immemorial. Relax, baby. I love you. You love me. We are one. We are forever." Delaney was intercommunicating to him by way of telepathy. It brought a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tune to his mind. She slowly took his hands into hers, giving them a slight squeeze, and he felt the energy increase. Delaney was smiling softly now, and was still gazing into his eyes. Suddenly, as he looked in Delaney’s eyes, he began to sense small holographic images of her thoughts. After a time, an image of Delaney kissing him was there for a while, until she finally spoke up. “How ya likin’ the ride so far, Mister?” Delaney kidded him, then leaned forward to gently kiss him on the lips. “Umm, what’s not to like, madam?” “Look at me then.” Again with the note: My take is the conflict that I'll introduce here is Danny's desire to return to the world and physical sensations, and his love for Delaney and his urge to stay with her. Kind of a love/desires conflict. I'm leaning toward having him going back, since he is aware that his conscience will always be with him. I'm kind of going slow with this one...

Reefer Madness I had taken to wholesaling sinsemilla for a couple of Mexican-American smuggler friends of mine. They were also law students. I had started moving weight in law school to supplement my income, and eventually started moving some of the weight to the East Coast, which tended to net a very good profit margin. My smuggler chums and I were pretty tight, and I believe it had something to do with the fact that I had sort of a Cheech Marin moustache at the time. I kept them amused with my sense of humor as well as the editor of this "underground"(meaning we said ‘fuck’ in print) humor/satire rag called Rat Sass. It also probably didn't hurt that they trusted me enough not to rat them out, or "eat the cheese", as we termed it, if I got popped. And I wouldn't have either. It was kind of an "honor among thieves" sort of thing, although we weren't thieves in any sense of the word. We were simply "wholesalers of illicit commodities". Granted, it didn't look that hot on a resume, but it sounds much better than "dope pusher". It's a matter of perspective. Marijuana wholesaling wasn't an easy occupation. Sure, it had its perks, such as more or less working your own hours, and of course, there was a tendency to always have some reefer on hand, which was a luxury most people didn't have. It also seemed like there were more than a few beautiful women drawn to the "outlaw" persona, but I was of the opinion that women and selling reefer didn't really mix. You let a woman get close, and she wants to know what you are doing. All of the time. And she would be the first person the police would lean on while threatening her with a conspiracy charge. I guess an accurate way of describing it is that you could have "relations," but would politely decline "relationships." The drawbacks at least equaled the benefits. From where I sit, the negatives far exceeded the positives. In addition to the threat of getting arrested every single hour of the day, you eventually came to a point where you essentially trusted no one. At least not completely. You were always looking over your shoulder... if you were smart, anyway. There was always the possibility of one of your customers getting busted and "giving you up", in hopes of a lighter sentence or the charges dropped completely. Think about it: when confronted with the choice of keeping your mouth shut and spending 15 years in prison, hell, even one year in jail, or to supply the police with the name of the person who sold you the reefer after they promised you probation, the majority of people chose the latter. I remember the term that persons in the "game", as it were, most often used was "droppin' dime", although phone calls certainly weren't ten cents anymore. It must have evolved from an earlier time of criminal activity and snitches. There was the constant responsibility of carrying a gun. A big gun (I wore a military-issue .45 automatic). And I should mention here that in the three years I carried the gun on my side (it was legal in Arizona), I never once fired it in anger. Not once. The mere presence of a weapon in your possession, especially as one as powerful as a .45 (you could stop a car with the right ammunition), could usually avert any notion of foul play that might arise. It wasn't so much the fear of interacting with your "superiors"; that is, the persons who supplied you, although that was also a consideration. It was the simple fact that you carried large sums of money on you. Many people, including some of your "loyal" customers, considered the possibility of liberating you of, say, ten thousand dollars, with one blow to the back of the head, to be another sad fact of "life in the big city". So much for honor. And there's always the image thing. People have the image of drug dealers preying on children and hawking their wares to people who didn't want them. I imagine some of them do, but the reputable dealers don't do any such thing. And yes, there is such a thing as a "reputable" marijuana dealer. And we provided a service by supplying a product at a reasonable price. If there wasn't a demand, there wouldn't be people supplying the product. Supply and demand is one of the most fundamental economic principles. In a true market economy, it determines the cost of a given product or service. This was especially true with marijuana, which happens to be illegal, and a shortage in supply (a major bust, for example) could produce an excess of demand, and you'd pay accordingly. There are marijuana dealers that have a conscience, meaning honest weight and fair prices. They were rare enough, to be sure, but if you were diligent, you could find one. The moral of this story? I don’t think there is a lesson. If you see one, let me know.

A Tense Night In Tucson The year was about 1983, and I was on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, a town with unforgiving heat and sun, yet is strangely hypnotic at night. It was very tranquil to look up at the sky at night and see literally millions of bright stars, along with an occasional meteorite. Actually, I was just sitting around my house with my cousin Duane, who I lived with at the time. He was a body and fender mechanic for a number a years. The telephone rang, and it was from an "associate" of mine who said that he would be stopping over at 11 pm. It was a surprise to me, but Carlos and I had several mutual interests. In short, we were friends. When Carlos knocked on the door, it was quarter past eleven, and when I opened the door, I noticed that a friend of Carlos, Mikey, had come with him. Carlos was a dark-haired man, about 6'2" and athletically built. He had bronze-toned skin. Mikey was a little shorter, I would say around 6 feet tall, and had lighter skin. We had become fairly good friends in the 3 years or so we had been acquainted. Carlos was carrying a briefcase, which wasn't something he usually did, but in certain circumstances he would. Usually it was for special occasions. I wondered what was the occasion for this visit. We were sitting around, listening to some Nils Lofgren (I believe Cry Tough was playing at the time) and smoking a joint of some good Mexican sinsemillan, when Carlos posed a question. "So, Danny... would you like to make $1500 dollars?" he said with no emotion showing. No emotion at all. Mikey and Duane looked on. "Umm... who do I have to shoot?" I quipped immediately, laughing nervously. The fact was that I had a Colt .45 on my hip, but I was merely being facetious. Shooting someone didn't particularly appeal to me right offhand. "Funny, Danny. Real funny," Carlos deadpanned, then explained, "No, what we'll be doing is going to a garage about 2 miles away from here. It's not that far," he clarified. "How much reefer do you think that we could fit in your car?" he asked, referring to my trusty '68 Cutlass. "I have no idea, Carlos. You know that sort of thing better than I do," I told him, remembering the time Carlos took me to one of those rental storage places, and it was filled with marijuana. He definitely had more experience at this than me. Much more. "Umm, how much smoke are we talking?" "1600 lbs. You got a problem with that?" Carlos said, looking to see me shaking my head slowly as I estimated how much dope that was. "Let's see," he said, calculating the space in the car in his head. "Well, it comes packed in 50# boxes, so I figure we'll be able to fit 14 or 16 boxes in there. Sound about right, Mikey" he asked his close companion sitting on the couch. "That sounds about right, 'ese," Mikey told him and smiled. "Come 'ere, Danny... I have something to show you," Carlos said, walking to his briefcase he had leaned on the wall. I got up slowly, and joined him where he was standing near the wall. Carlos leaned to pick up the briefcase. He then dialed the combination of the lock on the briefcase, and opened it, studying the contents. He turned the briefcase, and showed the contents to me. "Wow!" I said, my wry wit temporarily leaving me as I looked at the contents. The briefcase was filled with stacks of 20, 50, and 100 dollar bills. It was quite an impressive sight. Made me nervous just looking at it, even *if* I was wearing a gun. "Umm... how much, Carlos?" "Enough... ready to go?" he asked, and when he heard me softly say 'yes', instructed, "And don't take that gun. It's a mandatory additional 5 to 7 years if you're caught with a gun in commission of a felony. And this is a felony, I assure you." "$1500, huh? I have to think about it for a while," I told him, then quickly said, "Yeah, I guess so," breaking into a wide smile. "Okay, follow me in my truck. And to be sure you know, don't drive too fast!" he exclaimed in a gentle manner. "Duane, you can ride along with Danny if you want to." Duane nodded eagerly, and the four of us walked out the door to driveway. Carlos and Mikey got in Carlos' truck, and Duane and I got my old '68 Cutlass, which happened to be missing the left front quarter panel. It was like that when I bought it. For $98. We followed Carlos' black truck at a reasonable rate of speed, and it appeared that he was taking some desolate roads to a less populated area of the desert (read:money). We only drove about a mile and a half or 2 miles, and I followed the truck into a long private driveway to what appeared to be a double garage. We both stopped in front of the garage and got out. Duane and I talked amongst ourselves, lighting cigarettes while Carlos and Mikey went to talk to their "people". Now I was beginning to get a little antsy. Carlos, Mikey, and two other swarthy-looking gentlemen went to the garage. I found out later that their names were Jesus and Juan; I thought to myself, 'How appropriate.' After conversing in Spanish and looking sort of suspiciously at the two white males in their driveway, they called me and Duane into the garage. We walked into the garage, and as they considered to speak in Spanish(which I don't happen to speak except for numbers and simple verbs, or yo hablo muy poquita espanol, which means ‘I speak very little Spanish’), and I was overwhelmed. Boxes and boxes of 50 pound lots of reefer were stacked high. Everywhere you looked. And this was a two-car garage. In a little bit, Jesus and Juan left, so Carlos could talk to me. "How's your sense of taste?" Carlos asked me. "It's okay, I guess; Why?" I answered, thinking that was a pretty odd question to be asking at a time like this. "Well, amigo, there are 5 different kinds of reefer here. I'm going to let you pick which one you want. You know, just take two or three hits, get a feel for the smoke, and go to the next batch. You can probably eliminate a couple of them by looking at 'em. They keep all kinds: real good, good, and medium. Come here. How do you think this looks?" he asked as he tore one of the large egg boxes open. "It looks okay... but I'd like to taste it.” We went around to the others, and I evaluated them until only two were left. Carlos quickly rolled a joint from each batch as we went along. I took about three hits from each one, sticking the joints that I put out into my box of Marlboros. I decided which variation I wanted, basing it what I knew to be popular on the East Coast, where the profit margin was much higher. For example, I'd buy 10 pounds for $5000, and I'd send them back to the Coast at $1300-1500 a piece, depending whether or not I liked them. I had to run all over to different post offices to do it, simply so I wouldn't be recognized, but to me a one thousand dollar profit was worth it. If I'm not mistaken, that's over a 200% percent profit. I was, shall we say, "satisfied" with that. Anyway, here's where the work came in. We had to load 1,000 lbs.into Carlos' truck, and another 800 lbs. into my car. Back and forth we went from the garage to his truck and my car. I was pretty surprised to find that 800 lbs. fit easily in the back of my car. Carlos was right. "Okay Danny - I know you're not stupid, but make sure that you stay well within the speed limit. You may think that's a no-brainer, but there's been more than one case of someone being nervous with a 1000 lbs. of dope in the car, trying to make it to their destination as quick as they can, and they get busted," he said. "So stay within the limits, Ace." "Okay... see you at the house," I told him as I climbed into the car. Immediately, the adrenaline was running. I was definitely on edge. Biting the head off a chicken on edge. I followed Carlos out of the driveway, and Carlos told me that it was 12:30, so I figured that there wouldn't be too much heat around, considering the time and the deserted road. Following Carlos out of the driveway, I was just getting adjusted to my lane when I discovered that I was wrong. Dead wrong. A Pima County sheriff’s car was right fucking behind me. I started praying silently that he wouldn't pull me over for a faulty taillight or something, while concentrating on keeping the car on the straight and narrow. 'You could go to prison, not jail for this, you stupid motherfucker... for at least 10 years... I bet your asshole'd be pretty fucking big by then... What the fuck were you thinking," I berated myself silently, desperately hoping that we didn't get stopped. We had about a mile left to go to our turn, and it was very difficult to not just stare mechanically at the rear view mirror. As we approached the turn, I had an overwhelming sense of dread that the officer would make the turn with us, and then pull me over. Of course, I was pretty high, so that really didn't help any. I made the turn, holding my breath and forcing myself not to look in the mirror. When I dared to look, he was no longer in my rear view. I sighed audibly, and Duane started saying things like how lucky we were, while my cocky self miraculously returned . "Fuck those cops!" I said out loud, still silently thanking whatever gods there happened to be looking out for me. We finally arrived at my house. and we unloaded my car, and stored about 800 pounds of somewhat recently harvested Mexican sinsemillan in my walk-in closet in the bedroom (I received 5 pounds for my trouble; I kept the dope there for something like 4 days, and 5 x $1500 = $7500; tidy little sum). After we had the marijuana packed away, we sat down and smoked a couple of celebratory joints, and Mikey and Carlos complimented me on my cool head in a tight spot. I thanked them, then thanked Carlos as he counted out $1500 dollars into my hand. "Hey! I thought you said two grand!" I joked, and we all had a pleasant chuckle, partly due to the high, and partly due to the extreme relief from it being over. After Carlos and Mikey left, Duane decided to go to bed, as he had to work in the morning. I still had jolts of adrenaline running through my body. I was hoping a joint would help, rolling one up, and luckily for me, there were a couple of Beck's that I had bought earlier in the refrigerator. I've always had a certain predilection for German lager. I took the joint and the beer into my bedroom, and even though the closet doors were closed, you could still smell the pleasant aroma of the green marijuana. 'There ain't no hiding eight hundred lbs. of marijuana', I thought to myself, and lit the joint. As I was holding the smoke in my lungs, I took a healthy drink of the German lager. I looked down at the .45 on my side, and remembered that Steely Dan tune. "I shot my old man down in Hollywood... don't take me alive." “I was going to try to take somebody with me; I ain't fucking going to prison for 20 fucking years." I thought to myself. Finally, I started to calm down, thanks to the beer and the joint I had smoked. I took my gunbelt off, but before I laid down, I removed the gun from its holster. As my head hit the pillow, I put the safety on the gun and put it beneath the pillow. That's how I slept. Because if I did my math correctly, I was sitting on $400,000 dollars worth of reefer. And that was wholesale. Retail, it could probably bring in at least 800 thousand. At least. I wouldn't swear on it, because I'm not all that familiar with the retail side of the equation. And had no desire to acquaint myself with it. No desire at all. It didn't take me long to drift off to sleep, but just before I fell asleep, I superstitiously made certain the gun was there and ready. I remember that the last thought that crossed my mind was 'Lots of people would do lots of things for that kind of money.' Lots of people indeed.