[4] Roach Town

[4]

Now, something needs to be understood about small town culture before we continue. Like all things human, there is commerce. Commerce leads to markets. Markets either deal with the needs of a town, or create new needs for a town. Consider a town, like say, Rochester, Vermont. From May to July there is an abundance of rhubarb. Now, for those three months rhubarb is everywhere. So much rhubarb that you can't give it away. And as such, the townsfolk of Rochester, Vermont will do things with that rhubarb. They will make pies, they will make wine, they will can it. Some people will try to sell it. Others will try to give it away. But when July has come and went, the rhubarb season is no longer. And rhubarb is no longer part of the daily commerce. It is very simple. This is true as well with other seasonal things. Things that people sell at farmers markets. And all Summer long and into the early Fall this is how things work. When fall comes there is another thing that replaces the rhubarb, and it is apples. From late August to late October, the townsfolk are inundated with apples. They can't give them away. So they make cider and pies and apple sauce. They can it. And try to sell it. But when October is over that puts an end to apple commerce. It is all very simple. And then Winter comes and the world freezes and commerce slows to a near pause. There is still a market for firewood, but that is basically a year-long commerce anyway, so it does not apply, but the one thing that really explains the social structure of a small Vermont town, say a Rochester-type town, is when in mid-March the weather starts to behave in a way that causes a freezing at night and a thawing in the day. This weather action causes the Maple trees to start producing massive amounts of sap. Now this thing, this sap, is basically useless as it is, but when boiled down it becomes syrup. Which, unlike the rhubarb or the apples, it is so time consuming, so labor intensive, that it is rarely given away. It is also highly regulated by the state. It is a commerce on it's own. An independent commerce that speaks to the outside world, the flat-landers as it were. Where as, people from thousands of miles around desire this product that is basically a local boondoggle that is cultivated for commerce, but also is a simple matter of daily life. An average Vermonter might have a few trees on their land, they may tap those trees, but they will not get very much sap. Which is why this commodity, that is both local and global, bridges this gap between the outside world and the small town esotericism. So much so, that there are crimes committed to make and sell, or even steal syrup and sell it on the black market. Because, no matter the conditions of time, such is the fate of the apples and the rhubarb, time has no bearing on this commerce. The value of syrup does not go down in March when the trees are bursting with juice. Nor does it go up when in May, there is no more juice to receive from the Maple trees.

Drugs in small towns, such as say, a Rochester, Vermont behave as a mixture or these two types of commerce. There is a desire for drugs in all seasons. Whether it is mid-December when everyone is sucking on the barrel of a shotgun waiting for the Earth to tip towards the sun, or in the hottest days of August when everyone is looking back on mid-December like it was the golden moment of life. Forgetting the exact equal and opposite feeling. Through it all, the amalgamation of emotions that any single human being goes through during a year, the desire for drugs remains. But also, like the rhubarb and the apples, there is not always the drug of choice to be commerced. And much like the Maple Syrup in reverse, all the drugs need to come from somewhere else. Marijuana being an exception. That drug falls into both fields quite equally. It both grows like a weed and nobody can give it away, however, there is a desire for it all year long. But the other drugs, the cocaine and the acid and the mushrooms and prescription drugs and the ketamine and methamphetimine, all these drugs show up at different times for different reasons and all of them, are either courted or show up unsolicited. One week there will be so much ketamine in town that everyone is catatonic, getting trapped in a K-hole, and that will be that. Eventually the townsfolk will grow bored of it, and it will go away. The next week it will be meth, and everyone that doesn't have that thing in them that gets an addiction will be high as hell for the week, have to finally get some sleep and then that drug will go away. Or coke, or acid. It really is a farmers market-stye commerce for these things. How they get there, to say, a Rochester, Vermont, is not entirely clear. Mostly they come from New Hampshire or New York. A friend of a friend offloading a stash that didn't sell well in say, Albany, it makes it across the border, then that friend sells it to another friend, who goes to the bar, say, and casually mentions that there are some bags of blow that people could maybe purchase if they were so inclined. And word gets around. And that stash of drugs, coming from who the hell knows where, gets into the blood stream of these folks. And that is how it works. Nobody is out there looking for these things, they just happen to show up, and for those that are looking for an altered state of existence, it becomes an opportunity. It is neither concerted, nor deliberate. Well, it may be deliberate, but like all small towns, the townsfolk can be truly fickle. And that is the nature of the business. If the drugs don't sell in a small town, like say, a Rochester, Vermont, they move on to the next place. Maybe they go to the big towns, like Montpelier, or Rutland, or Burlington. Maybe they go over the border into Canada, or maybe they just sit there in a box under somebodies bed, waiting for the next time somebody wants to do Ketamine. It really is not sinister, it is just a thing. And as such a thing we can return to our story. Because the way that Zone and Gagger knew that the bartender was the one with drugs was because instead of just giving them their drinks and going about their other business, the bartender was not only over-chatty, she was excessively over chatty. In a way that caused the two detectives to push their stools back a couple inches because she was really getting in there. She said:

"Whoa, you two! I haven't seen guys like you in a long time. Where are you from? What are you doing here?" Zone didn't know what to do. He wanted to talk with Gagger for a second and take the shot, nurse the beer, but he was barred from even doing that. It seemed rude. He looked over at Gagger. Gagger shrugged and smiled and did his shot. Zone frowned. He marbled:

"I don't know, we are just like, here." He was reaching for his shot. The bartender put her hand on his arm. Keeping him from getting at his shot. She said:

"The way you talk! HAHAHA!" Then she put her other hand on his other arm. Now he was trapped. "Where are you from? Is that even an accent?" Zone sat there like a prisoner. Gagger was kind of swaying back and forth. Like he was dancing to the music, even though the music was not dance music. Taking sips from his beer. Shaking his head, like it was the most delicious thing he had ever drank. Smacking his lips after every drink. And Zone trapped.

"New York. Brooklyn." Zone was trying to pull away. The bartender was holding on harder. She had an Irish accent. She also had some very large donkey bladders cleaving canyons above her tight onesie. This made Zone think about her crotch. About how she either had to take her shirt off to go to the bathroom or there was buttons down below. Which did or did not intrigue him. He didn't know because he couldn't get his hands loose to have his drinks. She screamed:

"Brooklyn! Oh, I love Brooklyn! I go there sometimes! I have a friend down there. We go dancing!" Luckily the waitress yelled over:

"Siobhan, I need a couple rum and Cokes!" Siobhan let got of Zone's arms. They sprung into the air like an African ButterflyFish. She said:

"One second hons! I gotta little work to do." Then she winked at Zone and went back to work. Zone did his shot as fast as he could. Then he drank half of his beer. Then he put his hands on the edge of the bar. Making sure his arms weren't exposed to more arrest. Gagger thought this was very hilarious. He said:

"Trouble in paradise?" Zone told him to shut up. He drank the rest of his beer. Then he said:

"Outside? We can smoke." Gagger liked that idea. But because of the drugs he said:

"But the drugs?" Zone thought about this. He said:

"She's not going anywhere." The stood up and started walking towards the back. Siobhan caught them on the way out. She yelled:

"Hey! Come back! We're not done!" Gagger responded:

"Oh, we'll be back!" Siobhan winked again. She yelled:

"You better!"

The outside seating was a different scene entirely. People were eating and drinking on tables. There was a fire out in the middle of some grass. Nobody was sitting there. It seemed kind of nice. Zone and Gagger walked over to it and sat down. Gagger said:

"Roughing it, eh?" The waitress came over. She said hello, and asked if they wanted to see menus. Gagger was attracted to her. Zone found this annoying. He wondered if there was a woman in the world that he wasn't attracted to. But then he thought about Siobhan. Gagger was not attracted to her. It didn't mean he wouldn't try to get into her pants if the circumstances permitted, but he was not attracted to her. He wondered what this meant about Gagger, what his motivation for all of his terrible choices were. The list was too long to even consider at the moment. Zone let the thought float away from his head like he had let one million thoughts about Gagger just float away, like a million bad ideas, trapped in horrible balloons, floating around in the air, getting caught in airplane engines. There was no reason to even remember them. It was just too many to count. But Gagger decided to put the charm on. The waitress was not having it though. He said "Two shots of whiskey and two pilsners, my lady. If you don't mind. And some sweetness from you too, if you can muster it."

"Please don't. I'll get your drinks." She walked away. Gagger watched her go. He said:

"Hate to see her go, love to watch her leave." Zone laughed at Gagger. He said:

"Dude, she burned your funk-ass. Drop it." Gagger smiled. Lighting a smoke. He handed it to Zone. He lit another one for himself. He said:

"She doesn't know shit, man." Zone sighed. He said:

"Dude, you already fucked us up at Park House, don't make this awkward too." Gagger said:

"What'd I do?" Zone said:

"Seriously, man, just give me two seconds to clear my head, I don't want to get kicked out of here before we even have a drink, man." Gagger got offended by this. He said:

"Why are always so negative, man, I know what I am doing." Zone said:

"I know that you think that you know what you are doing, but really what you are doing is being a pain in my fucking ass." Gagger thought about this. He said:

"I am calling bullshit. What happened with Bonny was a one-time thing. This waitress, it could be love." Zone wasn't falling for it. He wouldn't engage Gagger. He smoked his cigarette and looked around. The night was very pleasant. They fire made him feel like he was doing something. Taking the cure. It was nice to not be in the City at the moment. Even Gagger's hijinks seemed minimal compared to normal. Almost inconsequential. Zone decided to let Gagger have whatever fun he wanted to have. Even if it was a pain in the ass for him. In the grand scheme of things, what the hell did he care anyway? Everything was a drama. Shit, what they were doing at the moment was a drama. They were about to be assaulted by the state cops coming to get them. To explain the murder scene at the green house. That was not going to be fun. But there was nothing to do about it. Maybe Zone was, in fact, being negative? It was possible. He wasn't so much a kind of, roll with the punches, kind of dude, he really did care about that dead woman in the green house. With the dried blood on her lip, the lying boobs, he was positive about that. In some sort of way. He did want to solve the crime. Even if it meant getting involved while he was taking the cure. He wasn't a nihilist, Zone wasn't. Or at least he didn't think he was. Gagger was a pain in the ass, but maybe he had a point. Zone suddenly became positive. He marbled:

"What kind of drugs do you think Siobhan has?" Gagger didn't think about it. He said:

"Orange Sunshine." Adderall. The new Ritalin. Doctor prescribed. But she was not getting them from a doctor. Zone said:

"Agreed. Shit, that's a hard one to get. You don't really sell those things." Gagger said:

"Yeah, right. It's not like blow, you don't pay it forward as the kids say. Aint nobody keeping a hundred dollar daily thing going by selling twenty dollar pills. Although." The waitress showed up with the drinks. Gagger tried flirting again, but the waitress didn't even stop to chat. She put the drinks down and left. Gagger's words never even left his mouth. As she was walking away he said:

"Quite the weather we are having." Zone didn't bother laughing at him. It was too sad. Gagger said "Well, shit. Win some, et cetera, I guess." Zone felt bad about it. He said:

"Your problem is that you care too much, Gag." Gagger would not hear this. He said:

"Yeah, shut it." Zone did laugh about this. He said:

"You know, when I was your age, I had a friend that I liked, and I thought we were hitting off just right, and one day I went out to play some basketball, I was going to prove how good I was at dribbling, well, you see..." Gagger cut Zone off. He said:

"Dude!" Zone let the emotions neutralize. He marbled:

"Cheers, big ears." They took the shots of whiskey. Then they nursed the beers. They had some things to talk about, but they didn't talk about them. They sat there like weird owls. Watching everything around them. Taking it all in. To no purpose. Or to every purpose. The things they did had both an absolute instruction on how the local world would move forward, but it was also juxtaposed with a global sense of things just being out of reach. At the moment, they were one of five people in town that knew that there was a murder that happened up in the hills above town. That, in the coming days the town would not only have a freak-out about it, but the news itself would be far reaching and detrimental to the community, but for now, nobody else knew about it. Only the two lying boobs that found the body, Bonny, who boned Gagger in the back of her car at the crime scene. Gagger and Zone. The state police were aware of it. But they were not there yet. They would show up soon enough. Drag Zone and Gagger from whatever fun times they were having back onto the scene to explain things. And then what? This was unknown. Zone didn't really care. He was more worried about getting back to the Park House after doing actual work. Whether they could get in or not. Or if they did, and it was late, what the grandmas would do to them for disturbing their sleep. And if they, the detectives were reading too loud. Not to mention Siobhan and the drugs. Things were looking kind of chaotic. The two detectives drank their beers. Got up. Walked back inside. Gagger said:

"I have to slash." Zone sat down at the bar. Siobhan screamed:

"You're back!" Zone sat down on a stool. His arms at his side. Sticking straight down. Siobhan had her hands on top of the bar. Not knowing what to do with her arms. She was like a busty octopus trying to gather sperm into her horny egg pouches. She almost reached over the bar and grabbed Zone, to bring him closer. Zone felt a little tingle down below. He didn't want to feel it, but he did. He liked her accent. He said:

"Hi." The bartender, Siobhan said:

"Don't be so shy! Move on in! What'll it be?" Luckily Gagger showed up. He said:

"Two pils, por favor." Siobhan said:

"Oooh, Spanish, nice. Coming right aki. Right. Aki means "Now," right?" Gagger shrugged. He said:

"I guess, Zone? Do you know? I thought that meant, put your arms on the bar? Like a thing that people say. Like, don't you put your arms on the bar to celebrate? Right, Zone?"

"Gagger, I may kill you." Gagger said:

"What'd I do? We are just trying to figure it out, right?" Siobhan said:

"Yeah, get with the program, man! Wild! You guys are a blast! Here you go! Let's talk shop."

Zone kept his beer at the edge of the bar while they "Talked shop." He was not going to get trapped again. He kind of wished he had a straw so he didn't have to pick up his beer, but that was too much. Even for him. He relaxed after a while. After Siobhan calmed down. After she stopped basically dry-humping Zone from the other side of the bar. Whether it was on purpose or not was a different story. The bartender was either a dog, or just clueless, but she had desires. And sadly, for Zone, her desires were not directed at the always horny, always problematic, Gagger. They were directed at him, Zone. Bunging his blowhole, while the dolphins made fun of his whale. He was an accidental blowfish. The ingrown hair of sea-things. Looking for an exit hole, but instead getting nothing but clogs. Clogs and junk. A real clog-up, that nobody liked. A stiff-one stabbed at the pike. Hard chin on concrete. A real, damn-the-torpedo’s-whoop-de-doo. A real rascal of sorts. And for Zone, it really sucked.