The Marijuana Chronicles (10 page)

I also request that information be given to this office regarding the nature and purpose of their actions in the time zones involved, so that ultimate effect can be certified by TIMELINE SURVEY. Only then should an investigation be launched, always under the auspices, and obeying the codes and jurisdictions of the TCE regional structure. “Killy and Kelly” are no such thing as private investigators. They are ex–TCE Troopers, thirteen years of service between them. And since washing out of the force, they’ve left a trail of time violations a mile long. Why don’t these “agents” put in for clearances or apply for permits? Why don’t they follow the rule of law with regard to time interference? Why do they feel they can somehow act independently of the TCE and its guidelines? And why has this commission enlisted the services of two suspicious characters instead of relying on the TCE which is already running its own investigation? They are a constant danger to that investigation. It is crucial that the commission share its files and all information pertaining to THE ZIEGLER FILE. If this is not done within the next twelve hours, I will sign a warrant for their arrest. These violations must be addressed, and jurisdictions respected
.

I MUST ALSO POINT OUT that while Abraham Ziegler is missing, there is as yet no evidence that he is behind these recent events, or any reason to go outside code or sidestep TCE investigations which are more than well-equipped to handle the case. I hold the commission personally responsible for any setbacks resulting from this affair
.

3.

The strange smell of burnt toast.

Jose “Crash” Mendoza woke up in a room. A dingy bulb, a tiny window. A room of brick walls and stone floor. His brain was sluggish, his limbs rusty and slow. He stood up and looked around. A couple of tires. An old
cajón
. A dirty old mirror, half covered in a dark cloak. Crash gave himself a good gander in the spotted glass, as if to make sure he was still … “he.” His afro, wild and free, still in effect. His jeans jacket with the Puerto Rican flags on it, his street colors (and that included his prized Young Lords button and that Black Panthers patch). Made him feel good just from looking so wild, resistant, and
Afro-Rican
. It was Funkadelic, it was Hendrix. Reached for his afro-pick in his back pocket. (Yeah, reassuring feel of that plastic handle shaped like a small black fist.) Pulled it out to give his hair some flow action. But what’s with this room? A slow brain, like when he smoked bad weed. Weed, weed … he remembered smoking weed, right? He looked around the room again. There was only that steel door. The way out.

Crash opened the door slow. He was in a small courtyard between buildings. There was a narrow alley through which he could make out street. A line of trash cans. He walked down the alley carefully, the sight of street growing bigger. Through the steel gate, there were people walking along. Cars rumbled by. A bullet-shaped bus picked up passengers across the street.

Stepping out through the gate, Crash recognized where he was. Prospect Avenue and 149th Street. The hardware store, boutique, dress factory, and pizzeria that used to make up the block were gone, replaced now by a … “superette,” an auto parts store, and a restaurant of some Mexican persuasion. (Across the street was the same story. Whole buildings were gone, replaced by houses.) Walking over to Fox Street, he used to see rows of five-story tenements all the way to Avenue St. John. Only right now he couldn’t. Fox Street didn’t have buildings. It had funky two-story houses. Small green lawns. And that was as far as the eye could see.

It was Fox Street. But it wasn’t Fox Street.

“What the fuck?” he said to a woman who paused to look at him. All of a sudden he noticed the people, many of them looking at him as he went by. Black people, and some people that could’ve been
Boricuas
… there were a lot of Mexicans. Their clothes looked big, jeans baggy, clumpy fat sneaks, and then the fucking Yankee caps, so many damn Yankee caps, so many backpacks, it was like a dress code. The cars! What happened to them? They looked swollen, puffy fat monsters, stubby and gray. There was a general sameness about them.

He crossed the street, checked street signs, shook his shaggy head. He was in the South Bronx. But what South Bronx was this? It was home, and not home. It was Southern Boulevard, but with different stores and shops. A cluster of teenagers by a stoop, all wearing the same kind of big jackets and leather baseball caps, reminded Crash of gangs. Savage Skulls? Nomads? No way remotely they would dress like that, but it made him wary. Whatever was going on, this wasn’t his neighborhood anymore.

Back to the corner where the entrance to the subway still was, and there, a few feet away, was a newsstand, a funky metal booth with a guy inside selling newspapers. He picked up a copy and looked at the date:
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012.

Is this a joke? He checked the dates on the other papers and magazines. Words and pictures made him dizzy. Crash closed his eyes, caught his breath. Leaned against the cool metal of the kiosk’s side. Opened his eyes. The mad whirl of buses and cars and people all around him. Not real. Real enough.

Little bits were coming back to him. They were moving the stuff, just to be on the safe side. And Pachuco would take some, and Wage and Daniel and Mike, and then they got into a fight because a few days before, Wage had been packing product for sale and came across the briefcase full of Moon Dust. He figured it was product and that’s how some of it ended up out on the street.

The Moon Dust! The special glittery weed! Crash had started smoking it! He remembered being in his bedroom, smoking the Moon Dust … and then, FLASH … he started walking up 149th Street. Where was Daniela’s Hair Salon, and the
cuchifritería
that used to smell up the block with its fried pork rinds in the window under a lightbulb? PS 25 was still there, but he didn’t recognize anything on the way to St. Mary’s Park. Going there unlocked a whole mess of memories. What kind of stuff was this, this Moon Dust, that made his real life seem like murky images of a remembered dream?

Up the big hill. The spot was still there, the stone steps leading down to the street and the projects, all of it coming to him in driblets. Sure, he had been busted before. Seven ounces was the safe side, and he and his boys did a wild dance with the stuff. It was skill. It was the fucken Puerto Rican
samba
. And he didn’t care what anybody said about it, these
lambe-ojo hijo de putas
—what Jose “Crash” Mendoza was doing was resistance. Was the righteous war. Was a fucken crusade against an unfair, oppressive, and racist system. Being against it was as Puerto Rican as …
mofongo
, damnit. It was an act of survival to sell weed in the devil’s city. He and his boys were a tight band of resistance! Sitting around the pad on St. Anne’s. Hitting Honey Bear bongs and tripping on black-light posters of black Amazonian chicks while blaring the Funkadelic.

This one day they had cleared the bushes twice already and Crash had just sent Mike back to pick up some more product. No cops in sight so they were feeling pretty loose, just smoking cigarettes and talking with some dudes over by the benches. There was this white hippie dude there, popped out of nowhere. Young, long-haired, patched-up jeans. Just when they were clear that they were all on the same resistance wavelength, the guy got down to business.

“I have an offer to make you, bro,” he said. “I represent a select collective of heads who have cultivated a rare and precious weed.”

Now Crash was open to this. He had heard about honkies coming up here to make drug deals. Sometimes they wanted to buy. Sometimes they were offering a new connection as a way to establish a presence in the Bronx, like what happened to Jelly Boy and his crew when they started getting weed from the Jamaicans.

The hippie started by talking about some pothead collective, but ended up going on about “The Doctor” and how he was rich and infiltrating the system from underneath and he was making Crash an amazing deal where Crash would get double the product and make double the bread. And as a sample, the hippie produced a small leather bag … and a briefcase …

Crash unzipped the small leather bag. There, wrapped in plastic, were some of the sweetest buds he had seen in a while. Bright green, looked fresh and hydroponic, but there was something else, something glittery. At first he thought it was the plastic, but no. There was a silvery, sparkly dust on the stuff.

“Hey, wild! What kinda psychedelic shit is that! Whass this shit on it, man?”

“It’s the future. Let’s just call it
super hydro
. Normal weed, you gotta smoke more to get the same high. Moon Dust builds up in your system. It has a trigger effect, like acid flashback. Except,” the hippie started to laugh, “it’s no flashback. It’s a flash forward. It accumulates, it goes farther. Until finally you cross a barrier. You time travel, bro.” The hippie’s eyes were wild and feverish. “You try the stuff. There’s a card in the bag. Call the number. The Doctor is always reachable,” the hippie laughed, “even when you’re smoked. No matter what time it is.”

Words. Slapping of hands. Then the hippie walked off into the bushes, and vanished.

Thirty-eight years later, the place was virtually the same, even the projects were still up. But there were no dealers, no action. There was no group of dudes hanging out on the benches, playing bongos and congas. It was quiet and lonely. A Mexican kid and his father kicked a soccer ball around. People strolling. Crash sat on the hill and looked down on the green stillness. This wasn’t from his imagination. None of it was. It was the Moon Dust.

The Doctor is always reachable
. That cackly hippie laugh.
No matter what time it is
.

Crash stood up, reaching for his wallet.
FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES INC
., the card read. He walked off the hill and headed down 149th Street, toward Third Avenue. He kept looking for a pay phone, but he didn’t see any, all the way to Third Avenue. A busy hub as always; Crash tried to take in the changes. Hearns, the big department store, was gone, giving way to a ton of small stores, including phone shops … phones, those little things are phones!! But they’re so small … Finally found a pay phone there by the subway entrance. He popped in some quarters and punched the number out on the keypad. There was a series of clicks. A strange buzzing sound. A slow set of rings. Someone picked up.

“Future,” a woman’s voice said.

Crash was breathless for a moment. “The Doctor,” he said. “I want to speak to Dr. Robert.”

“What portal are you?” she asked.

“Portal? I don’t know.”

“What was your method of transit?”

Crash thought a moment, and grinned like he was getting it. “Moon Dust,” he said.

“Oh, right, sorry! Hold on.” There was a click. Crash waited, feeling woozy. He was making a phone call while tripping.

“Hello, this is Dr. Robert.” The voice was old and gentle, the kind of voice Crash had heard in an Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice commercial. “And how do you feel right now, Mr. Mendoza?”

“You know me?”

“But of course. You’re the only person in time that has this number. You’ve gone thirty-eight years into the future. Moon Dust is a cheap, simple way of getting people into the time stream. To violate it, corrupt it. Temporary, but effective as a means of infiltration.”

“I don’t understand,” Crash said, his head starting to spin.

“Time travel is strictly regulated and controlled. It’s against the law for people to travel through time. They fear that people going back in time can find a way to put their system out of business. Create a resistance. Fight the system.”

“I’m all for that,” Crash said. “But—”

“There’s so much more to tell you, but right now you have to keep moving.”

“What?”

“Phoning through time is traceable. Take the subway to Union Square. Whatever you do, don’t get arrested. I’ll send someone to you to insure you fade.”

“Arrested? Insure I fade? What? Hello?” There was a clicking, then,
“Please deposit twenty-five cents for the next five minutes or your call will be interrupted.”

“Twenty-five cents?? Hello?”

The line went dead.

The subway station looked mostly the same. Crash always had tokens on him but there was no coin slot. He watched people going in through the turnstile. They were swiping a card. Over by the wall, he saw a lady stick dollar bills into a machine. (At least the dollar bills were the same.) She was touching the screen. Huh!? After she left, he checked it out, even touching the screen, but decided to take his chances with the token-booth clerk. The white-haired black man was hardly visible through the thick glass. Crash got behind someone and watched the guy slip a five-dollar bill in the slot. Five bucks!? What the fuck!? Crash followed suit. The clerk gave him a MetroCard. Took him awhile to swipe it right, but then he was through the turnstile and waiting on the platform for a train whose glimmery lights were already visible in the tunnel distance. The TV screens were new and he could see himself leaning over the platform to look. A train passing on the uptown side. Silver bullets on wheels, not the blue-grays from 1973. And these made a funny howling sound, all nervous jittery.

The roar and blast of subway train pulling into station. The inside of the train was brighter but felt more cluttered. Crash stared wide-eyed at the moving ads, the screens flashing messages. A solitary marker scrawl on the wall of no decipherable message, seemed like the last graffiti in the world.

He sat by the doors. The people in the car were not even looking at each other. Everybody was busy with something. The lady across from him was typing on her phone, her pretty fingers moving nimbly across the small screen. Many people wearing earphones. A girl across the way tapping the screen of a tablet. Everybody was busy. There was not one person staring into space, falling asleep, or reading a book. At least there was one guy at the end there, reading a newspaper. The mechanical voice on the PA:
“Backpacks and other personal belongings are subject to random search.”
The guy reading the newspaper got up and left the newspaper. Crash slid over and scooped it up. It was a copy of the
Village Voice
. The poster on the wall opposite showed a package beside a subway bench. Is that right, so America has a black president?
Beware of Suspicious Packages
. (A strange thrill.)