Drug Abuse

Terry Southern is a social satirist whose closest American literary antecedent is Nathaniel West. His novels, The Magic Christian, Flash and Filagree, and Candy (written in collaboration with Mason Hoffenberg), are wildly destructive, wildly comic attacks on outmoded sexual and moral conventions. Southern believes that the roots of contemporary American existentialism spring from the more realistic, organically oriented values encountered in Negro culture. The following short story illustrates that belief: it is the poor and uneducated (but intelligent, knowledgeable and resourceful) hired Negro ranch hand who first introduces his employer's twelve-year-old son to the pleasures of homegrown "red-dirt marihuana"; it is the Negro, rather than the educated white middle-class father, who "turns on" the boy, who takes on the responsibility of giving him his first instruction in that age-old art of transcendence known today as consciousness expansion.

The white boy came into the open-end, dirt-floor shed where the Negro was siting on the ground against the wall reading a Western Story magazine.

In one hand the boy was carrying a pillowcase that was bunched out at the bottom, about a third filled with something, and when the Negro looked up it appeared from his smile that he knew well enough what it was.

"What you doin', Hal', bringin' in the crop?"

The white boy's name was Harold; the Negro pronounced it Hal'.

The boy walked on over to one side of the shed where the kindling was stacked and pulled down an old sheet of newspaper which he shook out to full size and spread in front of the Negro. He dumped the gray-grass contents of the pillowcase onto the paper and then straightened up to stand with his hands on his hips, frowning down at it. He was twelve years old.

The Negro was looking at it, too; but he was laughing. He was about thirty-five, and he laughed sometimes in a soft, almost soundless way, shaking his head as though this surely were the final irony, while his face, against, very white teeth, gleamed with the darks of richest pipebriar. His name was C.K.

"Sho' is a lotta gage," he said.

He reached out a hand and rolled a dry pinch of it between his thumb and forefinger.

"You reckon it's dried out enough?" the boy asked, nasal, sounding almost querulous, as he squatted down opposite. "Shoot, I don't wanta leave it out there no more—not hangin' on that dang sycamore anyway—it's beginnin' to look too funny." He glanced out the end of the shed toward the big white farmhouse that was about thirty yards away. "Heck, Dad's been shootin' dove down in there all week—I was down there this mornin' and that damned old dog of Les Newgate's was runnin' around with a piece of it in his mouth! I had to git it away from 'im 'fore they seen it."

The Negro took another pinch of it and briskly crushed it between his flat palms, then held them up, cupped, smelling it. "They wouldn't of knowed what it was noway," he said. "You crazy?" said Harold, frowning. "You think my dad
don't know Mex'can loco-weed when he sees it?"

"Don't look much like no loco-weed now though, do it?" said the Negro flatly, raising expressionless eyes to the boy.

"He's seen it dried out, too, I bet," said the boy, loyally, but looking away.

"Sho' he is," said C.K., weary and acid. "Sho', I bet he done blow a lot of it too, ain't he? Sho', you daddy pro'bly one of the biggest ole hop-heads in Texas—why I bet he smoke it an' eat it an' jest anyway he can git it into his old haid! Hee-hee!" He laughed at the mischievous image. "Ain't that right, Hal'?"

"You crazy?" demanded Harold, frowning terribly; he took the Negro's wrist. "Lemme smell it," he said.

He drew back after a second.

"I can't smell nothin' but your clang sweat," he said.

"'Course not," said C.K., frowning in his turn, and brushing his hands, "you got to git it jest when the flower break—that's the boo-kay of the plant, you see; that's what we call that."

"Do it again," said Harold.

"I ain't goin' do it again," said C.K., peevish, closing his eyes for a moment; ". . . it's jest a waste on you—I do it again, you jest say you smell my sweat. You ain't got the nose for it noway—you got to know you business 'fore you start foolin' round with this plant."
"I can do it, C.K.," said the boy earnestly; ". . . come on, dang it!"

The Negro sighed, elaborately, and selected another small bud from the pile.

"Awright now when I rub it in my hand," he said sternly, "you let out you breath—then I cup my hand, you put your nose in an' smell strong . . . you got to suck in strong thru you nose!"

They did this.

"You smell it?" asked C.K.

"Yeah, sort of," said Harold, leaning back again.

"That's the boo-kay of the plant—they ain't no smell like it." "It smells like tea," said the boy.

"Well, now that's why they calls it that, you see—but it smell like somethin' else too."

"What?"

"Like mighty fine gage, that's what."

"Well, whatta you keep on callin' it that for?" asked the boy crossly. ". . . That ain't what that Mex'can called it neither —he called it 'pot.' "

"That ole Mex," said C.K., brushing his hands and laughing, "he sho' were funny, weren't he? . . . thought he could pick cotton . . . told me he use to pick-a-bale-a-day! I had to laugh when he say that . . . oh, sho', you didn't talk to that Mex'can like I did—he call it loua things. He call it 'baby,' too! Hee-bee. Yeah, he say: 'Man, don't forgit the baby now!' He mean bring a few sticks of it out to the field, you see, that's what he mean by that. He call it 'charge,' too. Sho'. 'Them's slang names. Them names git started people don't want the po-lice nobody like that to know they business, you see. Sho' they make up them names, go on an' talk about they business nobody know what they sayin', you see what I mean."
He stretched his legs out comfortably and crossed his hands over the magazine that was still in his lap.

"Yes indeed," he said after a minute, staring at the pile on the newspaper, and shaking his head, "I tell you right now, boy—that sho' is a lotta gage."

About two weeks earlier, on a day when C.K. wasn't helping Harold's father, they had gone fishing together, Harold and C.K., and on the way back to the house that afternoon, Harold had stopped and stood looking into an adjacent field, a section of barren pasture-land where the cows almost never went, but where there was a cow at that moment, alone, lying on its stomach, with its head stretched out on the ground in front of it.

"What's wrong with that dang cow?" he demanded, not so much of C.K. as of himself, or perhaps of God—though in a sense C.K. was responsible for the stock, it being his job at least to take them out to pasture and back each day.

"Do look like she takin' it easy, don't it?" said C.K., and they went through the fence and started toward her. "Look like oie Maybelle," he said, squinting his eyes at the distance.

"I ain't never seen a cow act like that before," said Harold crossly, ". . . layin' there with her head on the ground like a damned old hound-dog."

The cow didn't move when they reached it, just stared up at them; she was chewing her cud, in a rhythmic and contented manner.

"Look at that dang cow," Harold muttered, ever impatient with enigma; ". . . it is old Maybelle, ain't it?" He felt of her nose and then began kicking her gently on the flank. "Git up, dang it."

"Sho' that's old MaybeIle," said C.K., patting her neck. "What's the matter with you, Maybelle?"

Then C.K. found it, a bush of it, about twenty feet away, growing in the midst of a patch of dwarf-cactus, and he was bent over it, examining it with great care.

"This here is a full-grown plant," he said, touching it in several places, gently bending it back, almost caressingly. Finally he stood up again, hands on his hips, looking back at the prostrate cow.

"Must be mighty fine gage," he said.

"Well, I ain't never seen loco-weed make a cow act like that," said Harold, as if that were the important aspect of the whole incident, and he began absently kicking at the plant.

"That ain't no ordinary loco-weed," said C.K.; ". . . that there is red-dirt marihuana, that's what that is."

Harold spat, frowning.

"Shoot," he said then, "I reckon we oughta pull it up and burn it."

"I reckon we oughtta," said C.K. They pulled it up.

"Don't gen'lly take to red-dirt," C.K. remarked, casually, brushing his hands; ". . . they say if it do, then it's mighty fine indeed—they reckon it's got to be strong to do it, you see."

"Must be pretty dang strong awright," Harold dryly agreed, looking back at the disabled cow. "You think we oughtta git Doc Parks?"

They walked over to the cow.

"Shoot," said C.K., "they ain't nothin' wrong with this cow."

The cow had raised her head, and her eyes followed them when they were near. They stared down at her for a minute or two, and she looked at them, interestedly, still chewing.

"Ole Maybelle havin' a fine time," said C.K., leaning over to stroke her muzzle. "Hee-hee. She high, that's what she is!" He straightened up again. "I tell you right now, boy," he said to Harold, "you lookin' at a ver' contented cow there!"

"You reckon it'll ruin her milk?"

"Shoot, that make her milk all the more rich! Yeah, she goin' give some Grade-A milk indeed after that kinda relaxation. Ain't that right, Maybelle?"

They started back to the fence, Harold dragging the bush along and swinging it back and forth.

"Look at the ole root on that plant," said C.K., laughing, ". . . big ole juicy root—sho' would make a fine soup-bone I bet!"

He had twisted off a branch of the plant and plucked a little bunch of leaves from it, which he was chewing now, like mint.

"What's it taste like?" asked Harold.

C.K. plucked another small bunch and proffered it to the boy.

"Here you is, my man," he said.

"Now, it jest makes me sick," said Harold, thrusting his free hand in his pocket and making a face; so, after a minute, C.K. put that piece in his mouth too.

"We could dry it out and smoke it," said Harold.

C.K. laughed, a short derisive snort.

"Yes, I reckon we could."

"Let's dry it out and sell it," said the boy.

C.K. looked at him, plaintive exasperation dark in his face. "Now, Hal', don't go talkin' without you knows what you talkin' about."

"We could sell it to them Mex'can sharecroppers over at Farney," said Harold.

"Hal', what is you talkin' about—them people ain't got no money."

They went through the fence again, silent for a while.

"Well, don't you wanta dry it out?" Harold asked, bewildered, boy of twelve, aching for action and projects—any project that would bring them together.

C.K. shook his head.

"Boy, you don't catch me givin' no advice on that kinda business—you daddy run me right off this place somethin' like that ever happen."

Harold was breaking it up.

"We'd have to put it some place where the dang stock wouldn't git at it," he said.

So they spread the pieces of it up in the outside branches of a great sycamore, where the Texas sun would blaze against them, and then they started back on up to the house.

"Listen, Hal'," said C.K. about halfway on. "I tell you right now you don't wanta say nothin"bout this to nobody up at the house."

"You crazy?" said the boy. "You don't reckon I would do you?"

They walked on.

"What'll we do with it when it's dried out, C.K.?" C.K. shrugged, kicked at a rock.

"Shoot, we find some use for it I reckon," he said, with a little laugh.

"You think it's dried out enough?" Harold was asking, as they sat with the pile of it between them, he crumbling some of it now in his fingers, scowling at it.

C.K. tdok out his sack of Bull-Durham.

"Well, I tell you what we goin' have to do," he said with genial authority," . . . we goin' have to test it."

He slipped two cigarette-papers from the attached packet, one of which he licked and placed alongside the other, slightly overlapping it.

"I use two of these papers," he explained, concentrating on the work, "that give us a nice siow-burnin' stick, you see."

He selected a small segment from the pile and crumpled it, letting it sift down from his fingers into the cupped cigarette-paper; and then he carefully rolled it, licking his pink-white tongue slowly over the whole length of it after it was done. "I do that," he said, "that seal it in good, you see." And he held it up then for them both to see; it was much thinner than an ordinary cigarette, and still glittering with the wet of his mouth.

"That cost you half-a-dollah in Dallas," he said.

"Shoot," said the boy, uncertain.

"Sho' would," said C.K.; ". . . oh you git you three for a dollah, you know the man—'course that's mighty good gage I'm talkin"bout you pay half-a-dollah . . . that's you quality gage. I don't know how good quality this here is yet, you see."

He lit it.

"Sho' smell good though, don't it?"

Harold watched him narrowly as he wafted the smoking stick back and forth beneath his nose.

"Taste mighty good too! Shoot, I jest bet this is ver' good quality gage. You wanta taste of it?" He held it out.

"Now, I don't want none of it right now," said Harold. He got up and walked over to the kindling-stack, and drew out from a stash there a package of Camels; he lit one, returned the pack to its place, and came back to sit opposite C.K. again.

"Yeah," said C.K. softly, gazing at the thin cigarette in his hand, "I feel this gage awready . . . this is fine."

"What does it feel like?" asked Harold.

C.K. had inhaled again, very deeply, and was holding his breath, severely, chest expanded like a person who is learning to float, his dark brow slightly -knit in the awareness of actually working at it physically.

"It feel fine," he said at last, smiling.

"How come it jest made me sick?" asked the boy.

"Why I tole you, Hal'," said C.K. impatiently, "'cause you tried to fight against it, that's why . . . you tried to fight that gage, so it jest make you sick! Sho', that was good gage that oie Mex had."

"Shoot, all I felt besides gettin' sick at my stomach was jest right dizzy."

C.K. had taken another deep drag and was still holding it, so that now when he spoke, casually but without exhaling, it was from the top of his throat, and his voice sounded odd and strained:

"Well, that's 'cause you mind is young an unformed . . . that gage jest come into you mind an' cloud it over!"

"My mind?" said Harold.

"Sho', you brain!" said C.K. in a whispery rush of voice as he let out the smoke. "You brain is young an' unformed, you see .. . that smoke come in, it got no where to go, it jest cloud you young brain over!"

Harold flicked his cigarette a couple of times.

"It's as good as any dang nigger-brain I guess," he said after a minute.

"Now boy, don't mess with me," said C.K., frowning; you ast me somethin' an' I tellin' you! You brain is young an' unformed . . . it's all smooth, you brain, smooth as that piece of shoe-leather. That smoke jest come in an' cloud it over!" He took another drag. "Now you take a full-growed brain," he said in his breath-holding voice, "it ain't smooth—it's got all ridges in it, all over, go this way an' that. Shoot, a man know what he doin' he have that smoke runnin' up one ridge an' down the other! He control his high, you see what I mean, he don't fight against it. . . ." His voice died away in the effort of holding breath and speaking at the same time—and, after exhaling again, he finished off the cigarette in several quick little drags, then broke open the butt with lazy care and emptied the few remaining bits from it back onto the pile. "Yeah . . ." he said, almost inaudibly, an absent smile on his lips.

Harold sat or half reclined, though somewhat stiffly, supporting himself with one arm, just staring at C.K. for a moment before he shifted about a little, flicking his cigarette. "Shoot," he said, "I jest wish you'd tell me what it feels like, - that's all."
C.K., though he was sitting doss-legged now with his back fairly straight against the side of the shed, gave the appearance of substance wholly without bone, like a softly filled sack that has slowly, imperceptibly sprawled and found its final perfect contour, while his head lay back against the shed, watching the boy out of half-closed eyes. He laughed.

"Boy, I done tole you," he said quietly, "it feels good." "Well, that ain't nothin', dang it," said Harold, almost angrily, "I awready feel good!"

"Uh-huh," said C.K. with dreamy finality.

"Well, I do, god-dang it," said Harold, glaring at him hatefully.

"That's right," said C.K., nodding, closing his eyes, and they were both silent for a few minutes, until C.K. looked at the boy again and spoke, as though there had been no pause at all: "But you don't feel as good now as you do at Christmastime though, do you? Like when right after you daddy give you that new Winchester? An' then you don't feel as bad as that time he was whippin' you for shootin' that doe with it neither, do you? Yeah. Well now that's how much difference they is, you see, between that cigarette you got in you hand an' the one I jest put out! Now that's what I tellin' you."

"Shoot," said Harold, flicking his half-smoked Camel and then mashing it out on the ground, "you're crazy."

C.K. laughed. "Sho' I is," he said.

They fell silent again, C.K. appearing almost asleep, humming to himself, and Harold sitting opposite, frowning down to where his own finger traced lines without pattern in the dirt-floor of the shed.

"Where we gonna keep this stuff at, C.K.?" he demanded finally, his words harsh and reasonable. "We can't jest leave it sittin' out like this."

C.K. seemed not to have heard, or perhaps simply to consider it without opening his eyes; then he did open them, and when he leaned forward and spoke, it was with a fresh and remarkable cheerfulness and clarity:

"Well, now the first thing we got to do is to clean this gage. We got to git them seeds outta there an' all them little sticks. But the ver' first thing we do . . ." and he reached into the pile, "is to take some of this here flower, these here ver' small leaves, an' put them off to the side.

That way you got you two kinds of gage, you see—you got you a light gage an' a heavy gage."

C.K. started breaking off the stems and taking them out, Harold joining in after a while; and then they began crushing the dry leaves with their hands.

"How we ever gonna git all them dang seeds outta there?" asked Harold.

"Now I show you a trick about that," said C.K., smiling and leisurely getting to his feet. "Where's that pilly-cover at?"

He spread the pillowcase flat on the ground and, lifting the newspaper, dumped the crushed leaves on top of it. Then he folded the cloth over them and kneaded the bundle with his fingers, pulverizing it. After a minute of this, he opened it up again, flat, so that the pile was sitting on the pillowcase now as it had been on the newspaper.

"You hold on hard to that end," he told Harold, and he took the other himself and slowly raised it, tilting it, and agitating it. The round seeds started rolling out of the pile, down the taut cloth and onto the ground. C.K. put a corner of the pillowcase between his teeth and held the other corner out with one hand; then, with his other hand, he tapped gently on the bottom of the pile, and the seeds poured out by the hundreds, without disturbing the rest.

"Where'd you learn all that at, C.K.?" asked Harold.

"Shoot, you got to know you business you workin' with this plant," said C.K.; ". . . waste our time pickin' out them oie seeds." He stood for a moment looking around the shed. "Now we got to have us somethin' to keep this gage in—we got to have us a box, somethin' like that, you see."

"Why can't we jest keep it in that?" asked Harold, referring to the pillowcase.

C.K. frowned. "Now we can't keep it in that," he said, ". . . keep it in that like oie sacka turnip . . . we got to git us somethin'—a nice little box, somethin' like that, you see. How 'bout one of you empty shell-boxes? You got any?"

"They ain't big enough," said Harold.

C.K. resumed his place, sitting and slowly leaning back against the wall, looking at the pile again.

"They sho' ain't, is they," he said, happy with that fact.

"We could use two or three of 'em," Harold said.

"Wait a minute now," said C.K., "we talkin' here, we done forgit about this heavy gage." He laid his hand on the smaller pile, as though to reassure it. "One of them shell-boxes do fine for that—an' I tell you what we need for this light gage now I think of it . . . is one of you momma's quart fruit-jars!"

"Shoot, I can't fool around with them dang jars, C.K.," said the boy.

C.K. made a little grimace of impatience.

"You momma ain't begrudge you one of them fruit-jars, Hal'—she ast you 'bout it, you jest say it got broke! You say you done use that jar put you fishin' minners in it! Hee-hee . . she won't even wanta see that jar no more, you tell her
that."

"I ain't gonna fool around with them jars, C.K." C.K. sighed and started rolling another cigarette. "I jest goin' twist up a few of these sticks now," he ex-
plained, "an' put them off to the side."

"When're you gonna smoke some of the other?" asked Harold.

"What, that heavy gage?" said C.K., raising his eyebrows in surprise at the suggestion. "Shoot, that ain't no workin'- hour gage there, that's you Sunday gage . . . oh you mix a little bit of that into you light gage now and then you feel like it—but you got to be sure ain't nobody goin' to mess with you 'fore you turn that gage full on. 'Cause you jest wanta lay back then an' take it easy." He nodded to himself in agreement with this, his eyes intently watching his fingers work the paper. "You see . . . you don't swing with you heavy gage, you jest goof . . . that's what you call that. Now you light gage, you swing with you light gage . . . you control that gage, you see. Say a man have to go out an' work, why he able to enjoy that work! Like now you seen me turn on some of this light gage, didn't you? Well, I may have to go out with you daddy a little later an' lay on that fence-wire, or work with my post-hole digger. Why I able to swing with my post-hole digger with my light gage on. Sho', that's you sociable gage, you light gage is—this here other, well, that's what you call you thinkin' gage. . . . Hee-hee! Shoot, I wouldn't even wanta see no post-hole digger I turn that gage full on!"

He rolled the cigarette up, slowly, licking it with great care.

"Yeah," he said half-aloud, ". . . ole fruit-jar be fine for this light gage." He chuckled. "That way we jest look right in there, know how much we got on hand at all time."

"We got enough I reckon," said Harold, a little sullenly it seemed.

"Sho' is," said C.K., "more'n the law allows at that."

"Is it against the law then sure enough, C.K.?" asked Harold in eager interest, ". . . like that Mex'can kept sayin' it was?" C.K. gave a soft laugh.

"I jest reckon it is," he said, ". . . it's against all kinda law—what we got here is. Sho', they's one law say you can't have none of it, they put you in the jailhouse you do. . . then they's another law say they catch you with more than this much. .." he reached down and picked up a handful to show, "well, then you in real trouble! Sho', you got more than that why they say: 'Now that man got more of that gage than he need for his personal use, he must be sellin' it!' Then they say you a pusher. That's what they call that, an' boy I mean they put you way back in the jailhouse then!" He gave Harold a severe look. "I 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"boutbut 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 old 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 grown 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. You wanta go fishin'?"

"Shoot, that sound like a good idea," said C.K.

"I seen that dang drum-head jumpin' on the west side of the pond again this momin'," 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 over at the second log—that's jest where that ole drum-head is 'bout now."

"I reckon we oughtta git started," said Harold. "I guess we can jest leave that dang stuff here till dark. .. we can stick it back behind that fire-wood."

"Sho'," said C.K., "we stick it back in there for the time bein'—I think I jest twist up one or two more 'fore we set out though . . . put a taste of this heavy in 'em." He laughed as he unscrewed the lid of the fruit-jar. "Shoot, this sho' be fine for fishin'," he said; ". . • ain't nothin' like good gage give a man the strength of patience—you want me to twist up a couple for you, Hal'?"

Harold spat.

"Aw I guess so," he said; ". . . you let me lick 'em though, dang it, C.K."

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