Jess Walter - The Financial Lives Of the Poets

I scratch my head, embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of that.

“What if we rolled you? You gonna go to the cops and say you got robbed in a drug deal?” Dave asks. He taps my skull. “You gotta think, man, if you’re gonna work with me.”

“I…I’m sorry,” I say. I glance over at Jamie, who has the look I sometimes see on Teddy’s face when I take him to school, or roller skating, or anywhere: please don’t embarrass me anymore, Dad. “Look, I don’t usually do this.”

“That explains why you seem to think you can just go out and buy two pounds.”

“Look,” I say, “I really am sorry. I’m just trying to make a little money, and I have some friends who I think would buy some-”

“Bup, bup!” Dave says again, and he puts his hands over his ears. “Don’t ever tell me how much you want or what you’re doing with it. All I wanna know is what condition you got.”

“Uh.” I nod. “Okay.”

Jamie leans over and says quietly, “Glaucoma.”

Dave waits.

“I’ve got…” I look over at Jamie “…glaucoma?”

Dave smiles, opens his briefcase. Takes out a tabbed folder marked CONTRACTS. He opens this CONTRACTS folder and sets two short stacks of pages on the coffee table.

Then he holds out a pen and spins the first contract so I can read it.

“This,” Dave says, “is a simple agreement between Party A, which is me, and Party B, which is you, obviously…stipulating that you are not a law enforcement officer, that you’re not in any way or manner working with state or federal law enforcement in any investigatory or information-gathering capacity, either as an undercover agent or as a paid or unpaid informant, and that you will not knowingly provide any law enforcement agency with any material information regarding this transaction.”

Before I can read the language in the first part of the contract, Dave is already on to the second: “This stipulates that you and I have not discussed any intended usage for what will heretofore be known as the medicinal product, that I will introduce you to a grower but if you are planning to use the medicinal product for usage other than medicinal, I have not been made aware of this fact, and thirdly, I have made no promises or guarantees that in any way indemnify you, should you, upon your own actions, outside the basic language of this contract, end up as the subject of any outside investigation for any prosecutable criminal offense. To wit-”

And he flips to the second, longer set of contracts. “This is a series of riders in which you agree that you will not engage in selling the medicinal product within 400 yards of a school, that you will not sell the medicinal product to minors, nor use weapons in any way connected with the medicinal product , that you will not use the Postal Service to mail it, nor cross any state borders with it, nor in any other way, knowingly or unknowingly, commit any material infraction in connection with the medicinal product which would represent a real and severe breech of this contract in any substantive manner and which might violate any and all state or local statutes, as well as the federal Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C., and all its subsections herewith, nor commit any willful act that can be defined as an extenuating circumstance superseding the standard

guidelines as defined by the federal mandatory sentencing laws, which, for the purposes of this contract, shall include any laws now on the books, or any laws passed in the future, in perpetuity, etcetera, in all states and territories, etcetera, etcetera…”

“You’re a lawyer?” I ask.

“There appears to be some question with the bar about that,” Dave says. And then he hands me a final, single contract. “This last one simply indemnifies me, and releases me from all liability, all claims both criminal and civil, should you, knowingly or unknowingly, alter the medicinal product in any real and/or material way by cutting it, or crossbreeding it, or enhancing it through the addition of any artificial stimulants or other substances covered by the Controlled Substances Act or by federal sentencing guidelines or by FDA regulations, those substances including but not limited to, cocaine in all its forms, PCP, heroin, methamphetamine, insecticides, fertilizers, artificial sweeteners, etcetera, etcetera.”

I am staring at this pile of contracts when Jamie holds up the magazine he was reading to reveal an arty black-and-white photo of a nude woman standing in the shade of a doorway. “I like this kind of tits,” Jamie says.

“Pointy,” Dave says.

“Artificial sweeteners?” I ask.

Dave shrugs. “Some people like it sweeter. Most people use honey, but some assholes go cheap and douse it in old liquid sweeteners.”

Jamie leans in. “That shit causes cancer, yo.”

I look at Dave, who is still holding the pen out to me, and I picture the real estate agent that Lisa and I used to buy our home, a tool named Thomas Otway, his tanned face set in a constant half-smile. Thomas had a funny Australian accent that always seemed phony.

“This is all pretty much boilerplate,” Dave says, another thing our real estate agent used to say, except with his Aussie-r-dropping-vowel-twisting accent-bolah-plite.

I take the pen and begin signing. “Here,” Dave says, removing flagging tape from each section, “and here, here, and here…and one more…here.” Dave puts the signed contracts back in the CONTRACTS folder and then he takes from his briefcase another folder: MENUS.

He opens the MENUS file, takes out one of the sheets and hands it to me. The menu lists what are apparently various kinds (breeds? brands? makes? models?) of marijuana down the left column: AK-47, Arrow Lakes PB, Haze, Purple, Trainwreck, Snow Cap, OG Kush, Canadian Black, Cambodian Red, Schwag, F-1, ChemDog, Sour Diesel, White Russian, Jumping Jack and Northern Lights. The prices are listed in two columns on the right-the price ranges from $35 to $80 for an eighth and from $250 to $575 for an ounce.

I stare at this sheet, not entirely comprehending it. Jamie points out one of the cheaper middle brands-Arrow Lakes PB-and nods. This must be the B.C.-Bud-Nobel-Frankensteined shit that I’ve been smoking the last few days.

Dave goes on: “The blends are italicized, and anything with an asterisk is a name brand. I work mainly with a local grower, so what I tend to feature are locally produced versions of these brands-think of them as knock-offs, but every bit as good, sort of like generic prescription drugs. Not everything is going to be available, obviously, and these prices are subject to availability and other market forces.”

“And you can get me-” I recall I’m not supposed to mention amounts “-enough?”

“First, I’m not getting you anything. I don’t handle that part of it, because of my allergies-I’m allergic to spending the rest of my

life in prison. I introduce you to the grower, help you broker a fair price, that kind of thing, all for an hourly fee, but I don’t want to know how much you’re buying or what you’re doing with it. I assume you have a prescription. After that, you’re responsible for paying for it, and for transporting anything you buy. I don’t ever see dope or dough. I’m simply a lawyer who gets paid for whatever billable hours I spend on various negotiations, contracts and introductions-none of which involves the actual transaction of drugs or money. I am not the person providing you with the product. We’re clear on that?” Dave taps the stack of contracts I’ve signed.

“Uh. Yes?”

“Good.” Dave begins packing up his briefcase. “Then take this menu home and read through it and I’ll call you tomorrow.”