Part 3
I drove towards Jackson, Mississippi. The GPS provided the location of all the Lowes and Home Depot stores along the way. Due to their obvious collective purpose, all the items I buy can NEVER be purchased at the same time or at the same store anywhere this side of Mexico.
Taylor had settled into the kitchen and was fixing her dinner. We spoke occasionally, but mostly she concentrated on the higher priority of her hunger.
Homeless children? How could that happen? Global Warming? War everlasting? Gitmo? Banksters? Has the world gone completely fucking insane? I just hope that space aliens land and save us from ourselves. Sure hope they’re fucking vegetarians.
I worked through the process in my head. The 9mm was inside of the house. The opportunity to retrieve it would present itself and take less than five seconds from almost anywhere in the living room. I’ll stand close to it to shorten the time. That short of a period could be as simple as her walking away with her back to me. Even if she sees me and reacts within the last two seconds, it's too late; she’s not Bruce fucking Lee.
Then the biggest test of my life would start. Although agnostic, tonight I prayed there wasn’t a fucking god. I was about to break the big one… smash that commandment like a beer bottle thrown against a wall from a moving car. I’ve never killed anyone before. Last person to bring a gun too close to me got beaten… and they weren't even being threatening, just high and acting stupid. I don't want to be a numerator in some national average. Denominators are safer.
Fuck! Get real. I don't even hunt. The last time I killed Bambi, over 20 years ago, I was grossed out. I think the joint of Colombian I smoked on the way out might’ve accentuated it some… but it only heightens what’s already there. I puked while skinning my kill and couldn't finish the job.
Fuck! I don't even watch gory movies. Who am I kidding? I’m not some middle-aged ganja gangsta. I’m just middle aged! Fuck, fuck, fuck! What would I lose if I just turned around and went home?
Twenty thousand dollars to set up the house + $60,000 in almost finished herb would be the cost of just walking away forever. Nothing is traceable to me. Everything leads to a person of fiction.
But the sweet spot to the houses is the cash flow over a short period. Six months of harvest will net $400K per house after expenses, minimum. Yeah, once in operation that’s $3.2 mill net per year. I was on month fifteen of a thirty month program. This was my final house in Jackson. I already had three operating in other towns, closer to home.
A house takes four months to setup before the harvests begin. It used to take three months, but I added another month for setting up my cover better. I’d be there every night for a week or two, waving at neighbors, using every electrical appliance that I could. The air conditioning would be on constantly, which meant sleeping with a blanket in the summer. Then I’d gradually trail off and bring up the lights. No, I don’t steal electricity; I manage the fuck out of it. Every electrical outlet has a switch on it like in Europe. No background usage, none; I can’t afford it.
Then a promotion at work that requires lots of travel sounds reasonable. Just another middle-aged middle manager who’s been thrown out by the wife after twenty something years of marriage. I fake not remembering the exact number to establish cause.
There’s sometimes a “friendly” neighbor who shouldn't be. Farting in front of them usually works after I explain that I suffer from irritable bowel syndrome. C'mon, this is a very short-term relationship, so pride shouldn’t enter into it. Oops, excuse me, there goes another stinky little devil, that one. I'm so sorry. Amazing how fast a nosey neighbor disappears after you fart and probably shit your pants in front of them. I’ll be getting “poor dear” looks from all the neighbors by the end of the week. Hot, single moms looking for replacement fathers disappear quickly. At the end of the term, I’ll have a tearful reconciliation with my wife, and then I’m gone. Damn, almost forgot about the $10K in cash hidden in the fireplace bricks: insurance money… gotta add that to the total.
Ten thousand dollars is my best guess at the cash price of a pig shutting the fuck up and letting me walk away empty handed and without any new holes. If a lone cop stumbles onto my grow house because he has the wrong address for a 2-11 in progress at Starbucks and finds me at home, cash in pocket. The next day he can do a re-enactment and bust a house full of weed with nobody at home. Prisons are full of numerators.
She dances to the nearest camera.
Taylor: Why are some of the lights red and blue and some are just really bright and yellow?
Narrator: The colored ones are LED lights. They use much less electricity, but might not be as good as the yellow ones.
Taylor: If they aren’t as good, then why do you use them?
Narrator: Because a house that uses several thousand dollars of electricity every month attracts attention. It already looks like a family of seven or eight lives here.
Taylor: Why don't you have them moving on those tracks like the yellow lights?
Narrator: Because if the yellow ones are that much better, then I want to make sure that as many square inches as possible get exposed to their light and optimize the exposure. The movers help with that.
Taylor: How?
Narrator: Think about how your shadow moves and the feeling of the sun on your face during the day if you stay in the same place. The movement of the sun means that more of a bud site gets direct light at a high intensity. And since it’s moving, I can keep the lights much closer without risk of burning the top buds. A closer light is a more intense light and cannabis is a light loving plant.
Taylor: Cool. Bet you got good grades in school.
Narrator: Yes. That and I was too busy to set up another light moving system for the LEDs.
Taylor: Where did you learn to do this?
Narrator: Growing? From my mother's rose gardens. I was her gardener.
Taylor: Child labor?
Narrator: Not as much fun as kicking a can at first. Eventually it becomes interesting, and then it becomes fun, and then I got good at it.
Taylor: But there’s more than just growing plants here.
Narrator: Setting up houses? I learned that from the Project Management Institute while I was working as a software project manager. It's just an organized way of planning and doing things, and I’ve used it for years. It’s always the details. So is this.
Taylor: Like what kind of details?
Narrator: For example, I had to learn some electrical wiring skills because most houses have too many appliances on a single circuit, drawing too many amps. Then I come along and overload it with all the lights. Can't keep the lights on, can't grow.
Taylor: What’s that room with all the long boards at different heights?
Narrator: I was thinking of adding another flowering room, but wanted to try a stadium grow because I may be able to produce significantly more that way.
Taylor: Stadium grow? What’s that?
Narrator: Why just cover the floor with plants if you can cover both the floor and the walls. That’s the basic idea behind it.
Taylor: You were good at geometry, weren't you?
Narrator: I find it interesting. But I changed my mind, and I’m doing that somewhere else instead. It’s working well. I’m shutting this house down and just going to run the pipeline dry now.
Taylor: So what happens tomorrow? What's the plan, mister project man? You gotta have a plan.
Narrator: How would you like to go somewhere else? Escape?
Taylor: Sounds nice to me, as long as you ain’t a perv.
Narrator: All humans are pervs. It’s just the particular type of depravity and the level of achievement that differs. However, you’re not on my menu.
Taylor: Good. But how do I know I can trust you?
Narrator: You can't know for sure.
Taylor: That’s my point. How do I know you ain’t gonna do something bad to me?
Narrator: I’ve put money in your pocket and given you food and a place to stay. So far my record is pretty good, isn’t it?
Taylor: So far. So where are we going?
Narrator: Not we, just you. I was thinking that you’d really like California.
Taylor: Cool… sunshine and surf.
Narrator: A good friend lives out there. We both do the same kind of work.
Taylor: He grows weed too?
Narrator: Yes. My thoughts were that maybe you could go out there, and he could put you to work.
Taylor: Why can't I work here, with you?
Narrator: Because I work alone.
Taylor: You’re a loner, aren’t you?
Narrator: There are only two people who know what I do. Only one of them knows where I am and who I am today… and she can't be forced to testify against me in court. I prefer to keep it that way.
Taylor: What about your BFF? Does he know?
Narrator: No, he thinks I only grow enough for personal smoke, a couple of plants every few months.
Taylor: That's not fair that you know about him, but he doesn't know about you.
Narrator: I don't think he would mind too much. When we meet up, it guarantees he’ll always have better stories.
Taylor: Do you have trust issues?
Narrator: Yes.
The conversation about the business continues on for a few more minutes, and she finishes her meal and cleanes up. She walkes back in front of the camera.
Taylor: You still there?
Narrator: Yep, still here.
Taylor: So, I was wondering… is this what you wanted to do with your life, be a ganja grower?
Narrator: No. I was just putting the skills I possess to use so we can escape the plantation.
Taylor: Plantation? Thought that was a slave farm thing.
Narrator: It was. These days they’ve reinvented it, and it’s called a corporation.
Taylor: But I thought corporate jobs were supposed to be the best kind.
Narrator: No. That’s why I do this, to escape from the corporate fields. What’s your goal in life?
Taylor: I don’t really have one.
Narrator: If you could be anything at all, besides a rock star or a movie star, what would it be?
Taylor: I’d like to work at NASA.
Narrator: An astronaut?
Taylor: No, although going into space would be really cool. I want to be one of those really smart people who figure out how to make a spacecraft land safely on a planet millions of miles away… and come back safely too.
Narrator: Well, that’ll take many years in school. You’ll need a Ph.D. to do that sort of work.
Taylor: Yeah, well, as soon as I get past this bad patch, I’m going back to school.
Narrator: Good.
Taylor: And I’m good at math.
Narrator: Even better.
Taylor: Yeah. Did you know that in order to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, an object must travel at a speed of 11.3 kilometres per second?
Narrator: No, I didn’t know that.
Taylor: I want to be one of the people who work on that sort of stuff. And I want to work on the trajectory required to put a spacecraft into orbit around another planet before landing. That sort of stuff just blows my mind, so I definitely want to work on that kind of stuff.
Narrator: Great. I hope one day there will be a Taylor Oswald Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Taylor: Me too. But I don’t want to do it to be famous. Most famous people are dicks from what I can tell. Soon as they become famous, they think they’re better than the rest of us and start treating people like shit.
Narrator: Yeah, seems like that’s the case all too often.
Taylor: Agreed. I want to be famous for what I do, not how big of a jerk I am.
Narrator: Well, I hope you’re ready for a lot of learning… and college tuition.
Taylor: Yeah, well, that’s why meeting you might just be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
Narrator: Why is that?
Taylor: Well you’re going to send me to ganja growing school, and with those skills, I can make enough money to pay for the best education.
Narrator: True, it can be lucrative… if you don’t get caught.
Taylor: I won’t. I’m learning from the best.
Narrator: Please don’t use cheap flattery on me; it reduces my level of trust in you.
Taylor: Oh ,yeah, I forgot who I was talking to, Mr. Trust No One.
Narrator: Exactly.
Eventually Taylor decides to watch some television. After about thirty minutes, I recognize the mouth fluttering sounds of a slight female snore. Out like a light. Good outcome.
I had decided that there was simply no way I could kill her and that $90,000 wasn't the price of my soul. Obviously, there would have to be some sort of resolution. California was the best option. But then there was the wife. This girl was the perfect age for her since she still needed that motherly help through the final awkward years. Fucking swans!
Oh well, perhaps she could stay a few days until I get everything set for her to relocate. Fuck!