The following story is true, unfortunately.

What started as an innocent scientific experiment became a nightmare. And my cousin tried to kill me. We all escaped without any scars, I think.

Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Welcome to

The Weed Story

Or

Fun And Camping With Crick And Hayseed

Back during the summer that I was eighteen, I worked for my uncle’s moving business with my cousin Crick. Long hot days of thousands of pounds of exhausting back-and-forth. Maneuvering gigantic works of craftsmanship between doorways set at the weirdest angles, through the narrowest hallways, and up and down the steepest stairs, all without touching the walls even once. We performed incredible feats of strength and sheer miracles of puzzlemanship every day.

We loved it so much we did it for only $9.25 an hour.

With astonishing frequency, the person we moved was an aesthetically challenged, sexually frustrated 60-something widow who couldn’t keep her hands off one or the other of us. Crick usually got the brunt of that.

Let me give you a brief description of Crick. Stocky build, 5’ 9” or so, with heavy limbs and a bowling ball head. Yellow hair he never bothers to brush. Yellowish stubble grows in patches on his cheeks, giving a werewolfish look to his babyish 20-year-old good looks. He usually looks like he’s just emerged from hibernation. His calf-length shorts are always dirty, and most of his shirts are missing the sleeves. More often than not he’s got a lip full of chew, spitting long brown streamers of tobacco juice into a water bottle or soda can.

And women absolutely adore him.

Crick never hits on them. I don’t think Crick even knows how to flirt. But only too often he’s in for a petting.

I asked him about it one time. “I dunno,” he said. “I don’t understand it neether.”

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I - Cricks Idea

Now, Crick is an outdoorsman if there ever was one. He would live in a camper in the woods if he could. His love for camping, fishing and hunting transcends passion. Especially hunting. Elks ‘n deers, mostly. But, lacking those, anything he can get. Ducks, doves, muskrats, rooster pheasants (or, “Fat ole cocks,” as he calls them. “Gonna shoot me some fat ole cocks.”)

So one day Crick suggested we go camping for the weekend. I agreed eagerly. While working miracles and performing feats of strength is certainly among the most highly rewarding of occupations, it does wear on a guy after a while.

It would be refreshing to get away from the honest work and horny old bags for a weekend.

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II - A Fateful Departure

On the appointed Friday morning Crick rolled up in his old red Chevy, its bed loaded down with every possible camping accoutrement you can think of. His girlfriend Sandy, 16, sat in the front seat. Two nights later she would make a helpful suggestion and then gleefully delight in my suffering, but I didn’t know that yet.

We all exchanged our usual, and Crick helped me find a place for my cooler among the tightly packed luggage in the bed of the truck. It was impossible, but as workers of miracles, we managed to do it.

I was wedged into a tiny space between the stuff in the back seat and we rumbled off. Mom and all the kids came out to watch the spectacle of Chase rolling out the driveway under a small mountain of camping equipment. After all, I might not come back…

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III - Hank Hayseed

Hank Hayseed and his girlfriend Edita were waiting for us in the parking lot of an abandoned restaurant by Highway 95. I hadn’t met them, so Crick introduced us.

As we walked up, Hank was standing outside the open back door of the small camper mounted on his pick-up bed, looking in and talking to Edita, who was going through stuff inside the camper. I heard Hank say, “Edita, you got the bong?”

“Yes,” she answered, flashing a colorful glass object over her shoulder at him.

I had never heard of a bong before. I thought it was some kind of sex toy. I was embarrassed.

Little did I know that two nights later I would have my mouth on it.

Edita was a tiny Mexican girl about 19 or so, quiet and sweet.

Hank (Crick always called him Hayseed) was as tall as me, a scrawny, ginger-blond 19-year old with glasses, a deep baritone voice and slow thick drawl. Later on we worked together on the move jobs, and got to like each other pretty well. He’d moved out of home two years back, and was a pretty easy-going guy, if a little sensitive. He was one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen, and always careful to do everything just right.

One time a few months later we were moving a lady’s stuff back into her house, a real tough old bat who’d given them a hard time before.

I carried a box into the sewing room, set it on top of another box, and went back out to the storage pod to get the next one. I passed Hank just as he came in with his box.

A moment later Hank came out of the house with a grieved expression on his face.

“Chase,” he said, obviously hurt, “Ah don’ uh-preshiate bein’ blamed fer mistakes that yew’ve done!”

Apparently the old lady had come in right after I’d gone out, and right after Hayseed had carefully set his box on floor. She saw the box that I had put on top of the other box—which said, “FRAGILE DO NOT STACK” on it in big unnoticeable letters, and, thinking he was the culprit, turned to Hank and shouted, “HEY… Can’t you READ!” in a very harsh voice.

“I’m sorry Hank,” managed to say in between gasps of laughter.

“Ah know what yer problum is,” he grumbled. “Yuh can’t read Uh-murican.”

(I was Cuh-nadian at the time).

Then we put a small dent in the front of the lady’s huge brand-new shiny black fridge on the railing of her tiny narrow porch as we tried to haul it up into the house, (which she had insisted upon) and she yelled at us and called the office on us, (“My FRIDGE is DINGED to HELL!”).

So both Crick and Hayseed were sober and close to crying for the rest of the afternoon.

I thought it was funny—not the dent, but the complete deterioration of their usual tough-guy composure in the face of such a tragedy—and I tried to make them feel better by cracking a continual stream of jokes at their expense. They rewarded me by making me go get the check from her at the end of the job.

Getting the check was Crick’s responsibility, but he couldn’t face her, his spirit was broken.

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Way out in the hilly back country of southwestern Idaho, where pine trees grow thick and houses grow rare, two gear-laden pickups bumped and trundled along eighteen miles from the nearest paved road. They turned off the main dirt road and wound alongside a stream for another twenty minutes and before stopping in an unmarked campsite down among the trees next to a creek. Bright Slicks Campground, said the driver of one of the vehicles to the squished occupant of the back seat.

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After we got set up, me with my tent, Hank Hayseed with his camper, and Crick with his tarp stretched over the bed of his truck, we relaxed for a bit. Then we got busy.

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We had a prime spot there. Our sleeping arrangements were sheltered by a few stand-alone pines. Right next to us was a stream, and a hundred paces downstream was a small shack with a cement tub in it, which was full of boiling hot water. The hot water trickled into the tub from an ancient PVC pipe that ran down the hill from a spring that surfaced just this side of the dirt road.

The first thing we did was fix that pipe so that it poured faster. Somehow it wouldn’t quite stay fixed, though. The flow would always taper off back to where it had been by the time we came back to check on it in the evening.

The rest of the weekend we spent pretty much like this: Fixing the hot springs pipe, bathing in the hot-tub on mornings (one and two at a time), fixing the hot springs pipe, fishing, riding quads, eating stir fry and whatever edible scraps we could throw together on Crick’s Coleman stove, and fixing the hot springs pipe.

We hiked up into the hills to where the boiling hot springs poured in waterfalls into a cold mountain stream, making warm, clear pools we could slide into on the smooth, slanted stone table that was built into the creek.

It was only three days, but time is slow in the wilderness, and it felt more like a week.

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IV - The Experiment

I think it was the second night.

Five faces illuminated by the campfire, leaned back in lawn chairs. Beyond the glow of the fire, darkness. Crickets chirped under the leaves. The stars were out. Conversations of philosophy and the meaning of life drifted through the firelight.

“Shot me a fat ole cock the other day,” Crick said. “I love the taste o’ them fat ole cocks.”

“Muh tranny’s bin leakin’ fluids lately,” Hayseed said. “Reckon she’s missin’ some pawrts. Might hafta ruplace ‘er b’fore huntn seezn.”

Eventually conversation petered off.

Then Hank mixed some drinks (whisky and 7Up) and handed them around. Eventually the conversation picked up again. Somehow it got around to the weed that Hank and Edita had in their camper.

“You ever smoked weed, Chase?” Edita asked sweetly. I admitted I never had.

“You should try it,” Sandy said eagerly.

“You wanna try it?” Crick said, ever generous with other people’s stuff.

“We got some if yuh wanna try it,” Hayseed said. “Yuh don’t haff to if yuh don’t want to.”

“I think you should,” said Sandy helpfully.

Crick interjected, “I mean, it’s all right if you don’t.”

I waved a hand. “All right, I’ll give it a try. If none of you mind, that is.”

Crick was enthusiastic. “Give ‘im the good stuff!” he said. “I want ‘im to try the good stuff.”

Edita disappeared inside the camper. Sandy kept looking at me out the corner of her eye. I could tell she was excited about this.

Finally Edita re-emerged with the colorful glass implement they called a bong. Now I understood; it wasn’t really a sex toy at all. Much more dangerouser.

She brought it over to me and explained how it worked: hold the lighter flame over the green mulch in the little tin bowl, put your mouth inside this end of the transparent cylinder, suck the smoke through the ice and water in the bottom until the cylinder turned white. Then inhale.

The first time I tried I didn’t quite get it right. Not enough vacuum. The second light, I turned that cylinder snowy with thick smoke.

I inhaled it and held my breath. I deduced that it was long enough when I felt a burning sensation in my lungs, which I noted was very similar to holding one’s breath for too long. That was an interesting coincidence, because I had. I blew it out into the night.

Sandy reached for it and I gave to her. She did it like a pro, but only sipped it in, held it for like two seconds, blew it out. Uh-oh, I thought.

“You feel anything?” Crick said.

“Nope, nothing.”

“Just wait.”

It was really a scientific experiment to me; as you know I’m of a cool and studied disposition, not at all given to extraordinary impulses or wild whims for the sake of recreation or pleasure.

I have since done some research on the effects of inhaling the smoke of the smoldering Cannabis Sativa, and have come across some startling facts that I wish I’d known prior to the experiment.

For example, Harry J. Anslinger, during his campaign against this humble plant in the 1930s, claimed that its common name sprung from the Nahuatl word mallihuan, meaning “prisoner.” However, linguist J. D. Huagen finds no semantic basis for a connection to mallihuan, suggesting the phonetic similarity may be “a case of accidental homophony.”

I find that perfectly understandable. Whenever I say anything homophonic, it’s almost always purely accidental. I’ve always tried to be nice to queers.

I also discovered that there are three main stages involved in the getting-high process.

The first is known as the Buzz. Descriptive words include nice, calm, enjoyable, floaty. Can last from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Second is the High. According to one expert you get funnier, and will have wild and sporadic thoughts. You may experience phases of paranoia. Existing addictions like alcohol, sex, adrenaline rushes, or video games will seem magnified or craved for. Everything sounds like a good idea.
Third. Stoned.

The Plateau. The Destination. The Zone, man. All previous symptoms are intensified. Euphoria, ‘extreme deepness,’ and your limbs feel like a really really fat person is sitting on each of them.

My experiential research, however, revealed some weird affects I have not heard anyone talk about before.

What follows is a chronological synopsis of the progressing stages of inebriation, as experienced by yours truly:

10:00 PM: No unusual sensations, hallucinations, or dizziness upon inhale. “Wait,” says Crick.

10:05: Nothing.

10:10: Still waiting.

10:15: I’m starting to think I’m immune to tetrahydrocannabinol. Maybe the cannabinoid receptors in my cerebellum aren’t athletic enough to bind with the THC this time of night.

10:20: Crick: “You feeling anything?” Me: “A little.” I move over to a chair on the south side of the fire because I’m getting smoked in my seat next to Sandy. I try to walk in a very upright and stately manner, like a king merely moving over to his other throne. However, I realize I’m going to run into the tree behind my throne unless I alter my route by about three feet.

After a moment of contemplating this dilemma, I casually correct my trajectory and manage to end up on my intended target. I sit comfortably for a while. My comfort is short lived, however. Because from this new position, I notice how much Sandy keeps looking at me. Why is she looking at me like that.

10:30: Whoa man I think I’m starting to feel it now man I don’t know I think I love you man stop looking at me.

10:45: Sandy wants me. I see that now; why didn’t I recognize it before? Our eyes lock across the burning flames, sparks dancing in the electric space between us. She’s barely restraining her passion from across the fire, poor thing. I know my manly beauty excites untold feminine agony but I’ll have to let her down gently later when I regain my ability to put a coherent sentence together. After all, she’s my cousin’s girl. That and she’s underage and I wouldn’t touch her with my ten-foot pole. Meanwhile the stars look lovely.

11:00: I’ve left my body now and I’m looking out at the world through my chest. I’m in another world inside my body, man. I feel like the world outside is an ultra-hi-def movie. It looks like a 2D moving picture of Hank and Crick having a fantastically boring conversation about their trucks.

I have ascended the Stone. I am skidding across the Plateau. I am in the Zone. I am at the Destination and it’s a weird place to visit but I sure wouldn’t want to live there.

11:05: That’s it, I’m going to bed as soon as I can move. Then Crick says, “Let’s go for a quad ride.”

“Okay,” I say.

11:06: I’m going to die. The four-wheelers only hold two to a seat and I’m a third, so I’m facing backwards behind Sandy and Crick, with my feet dangling inches above the gravel road and my hands locked like iron claws on the bar rack I’m sitting on. Crick’s got us ripping along the road at a tremendous speed that is magnified by the darkness, my condition, and my backward-facing posture. I’ve never even actually ridden on a quad.

Also, I didn’t know this at the time, but Crick and Hank were both buzzed.

The pines show up as jet black shadows against a starry backdrop. Hank and Edita are right next to us, about two feet away, hair blowing in the wind. I turn my enormous but feather-light head to try and watch in front. The lights on the machines only cast a dim glow on the road ahead. Occasionally Crick spits to the side and my face is spattered with tobacco juice from his lipfull of Copenhagen Long Cut. That’s okay because it’s absorbed by the thick layer of road-dust already covering me.

11:35: Suddenly we take a hard lurching turn to the left and climb a steep pot-holed bank. It’s not even really a trail. If you could see me in the starlight I would resemble a spring being snapped back and forth by some giant idle finger as I’m thrown about on the back of the quad.

Finally we reach the clearing at the top of the hill. The rednecks stop and turn off the engines. There is silence and darkness. Everyone looks up at the sky, and no one notices me collapse on the grass behind the quad. I just lay there staring up at the stars. I’m starting to come down now, a little. I’m still pretty high.

“Where’s Chase?” someone asks.

“I dunno.”

They look around. “There he is. He’s passed out on the ground, haha!”

“I’m perfectly conscious you jerks,” I say.

11:45: They start up the engines to return to camp. I refasten my tail to the bars. Back down the hill, Chase springing back and forth like an over-excited jack-in-the-box. Bump back up on the road. We roar off again. I think I’m going to be fine now, but I’m afraid there’s one last trick my dear simple companions want to pull.

11:48: They turn the lights off. We’re going 50+ km/h, and they just turned the lights off.

Whoever turns their lights back on first loses.

“$#*@%!!,” I think to myself.

“Turn the %*$#! lights @#!& back %#@ on!” I yell. You’ve got to talk to these savages in their language.

They laugh and turn the lights back on. Then off again. Then on. Finally they manage to keep the lights on, either because their IQ raised back up to the double digits momentarily or because one of the threats I’d been shouting into the wind had found a home, maybe the one about recircumcising them in their sleep.

Midnight: I have discovered the result of the experiment: I will never do this again. The scientific parameters are just too broad for a proper empirical evaluation.

The experiment thus taken to its logical conclusion, your inquisitive champion of systematic first-hand knowledge retires, dusty, specks of tobacco flavored saliva on his face, still slightly buzzed and fully clothed, but puzzled, as to why in blue flaming hell anyone would want to enjoy a thing like that with any level of regularity.

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A few days later I was in the kitchen of our house before breakfast. Mom suddenly turned to me and said, “Did you smoke weed when you were camping with Crick?”

My eyebrows raised high for a moment. Then I shrugged and said, “Yes.” I was in for it.

In any case, I was glad to be back in civilization. I was more than ready to get back to performing back-breaking feats of strength and the working of spacial miracles.

And I had been missing the feeling of knobby arthritic hands rubbing up and down my ribs while holding an 800-pound roll-top desk over my head.

There’s nothing like it for cooling you down in the heat of the afternoon. It gives you a chill that just won’t go away.