Have Glove, Will Travel_ Adventures of a Baseball Vagabond - Bill Lee [27]
We sat at a wobbly pine picnic table on the back porch of the shack. Both men appeared to be in their early twenties, political science majors who sold weed on the side to help pay for college. They admired Castro, despised Ronald Reagan, hated the upper classes everywhere, and thought the Venezuelan government thoroughly corrupt. In other words, these two men practiced Marxism while using their black-market enterprise to exploit the same capitalist system that they claimed exploited them.
I wondered where they stood in the ongoing dispute between Great Britain and Argentina over the possession of the Falkland Islands, the hot political topic in Venezuela at the time. Jorge immediately revealed his sympathies when he emphatically declared, “You cannot call it the Falklands! That is an Anglo name. It is the Islas Malvinas!” He stomped into the barn. Ramón explained that his friend was sensitive about the Falklands. They both had reached draft age and feared the dispute would soon erupt into a full-blown war between South America and Europe. Neither wanted any part of the conflict.
A few minutes later Jorge returned from the barn lugging a swollen forty-pound gunnysack. He wrestled the bag to the table. His right arm arced high in the air, and the blade came down so swiftly, I had no time to react. The metal stuck deep in the wood near my elbow and vibrated for seconds like a tuning fork at high pitch. A machete. Very large. Extremely sharp.
Jorge smiled. “And what do we call the Falklands, amigo ?” he asked.
“Islas Malvinas.”
“Sí.”
He sliced open one end of the bag to remove a two-foot-square bale of pot about eighteen inches deep. You will not find that much grass covering an eighteen-hole golf course. I bought a pound for $100. While Ramón wrapped it in brown paper, Jorge scraped the gummy cannabis resin from his blade, rolled a joint, and passed it around.
This joint did not hit me like giggly-fit marijuana. They had slipped me Bertrand Russell weed, the kind of herb that turns you introspective at the first toke. My bones melted into the bench. Jorge and I sat side by side engaged in profound conversation. Neither of us uttered a word. Every now and again he waved his hand in some subtle gesture. I nodded. He shrugged. Each of us understood exactly what the other meant. I kept glancing at the pocket watch he wore on his belt. I could hear it ticking. The second hand swept around the numbers unimpeded. Yet an hour passed before 10:00 became 10:01. I finally left with my senses so dulled, it took twice as long to drive back down the hill as it had to come up. Great pot.
I emerged from those mountains on New Year’s Day and wandered into a small bar at the edge of a Venezuelan fishing village. Fishermen just off the bay crowded into the place. They had risen at dawn to fish these waters in ancient, creaking boats using hand lines and nets. Now they celebrated their catches with sandwiches made of crispy deep-fried sardines on hard-crusted, doughy rolls washed down with ice-cold beers.
When I walked in, a young fisherman clapped me on the back and handed over a sandwich and a brew. He did not know my name, or what I did, or why I had come there, and it did not matter. Anyone who passed through that door instantly qualified as a friend. I took one bite of the sandwich and started laughing, the taste gave me that much pleasure.
A few moments later I stood on the dock watching the tides froth under the sun. Giggling children chased each other up the white beach. An old man stood waist-high in the surf whistling something carefree while he trailed his fishing line through the water. A young boy and girl sat arm in arm at the end of the pier, dangling their