Free The November Criminals by Sam Munson Page A

ritual response. She paused to collect herself. I held my breath.
    “The diarrhea of Anne Frank.” The way she delivered it, in this coy, quiet voice, a conciliatory voice, just destroyed me, that and the fact that we were also pretty stoned, and after I stopped laughing I told her, “Excellent job.” Thus disaster was averted. She’s going to achieve greatness, and this is the proof. Do you know how easy it is to give in to resentment under these circumstances? Everybody does it. Not her, though. She even agreed to come back to my house then, even with the brick of weed stowed under the passenger seat. I was still darting paranoid head turns as I drove. But we made it home unarrested, and I did an invisible celebratory dance on my way inside. Then it was time to deal with the pot. I know I promised to spare you the details of my routine, ladies and gentlemen. But many of you have never witnessed this procedure. So I thought I would give you a glimpse.
    The weed was dense, almost springy to the touch, fragrant. Furred with faint red hairs. Noel has a very reliable and high-quality connection. Fibers from the glans-shaped (think of the head of your dick; glans is the Latin word for “acorn,” I shit you not) nuggets clung under my nails. Now, I had a customer base to maintain. And in this, as in any small business, you have to have something that distinguishes you from your competitors. The weed Noel sold me was always good, and sometimes even better than good. Good enough to justify my 50 percent markup on it. Unjust , you gasp. But that’s what the market will bear. And the pussies who buy from me! They have no other real sources, falling as they do in that unclear zone between middle-classness and true wealth. Actual rich kids can afford to be decadent, can buy in bulk. Poor or desperate kids buy retail. Good stuff, or shwag whose lack of quality is compensated for by additives: low-grade coke, PCP. Et cetera. Sometimes H 2 C(OH) 2 , or formalin, embalming fluid. Sometimes a well-known and popular insect spray, which causes nausea, vomiting, and eventual blindness. I never had to use these, which helped ensure my good reputation. But clean weed is not sufficient. You have to be creative . You have to have an identity . This can reside in your personality or person: Noel Bradley. Or in your quiet, confident scariness: David Cash. But I have no personality to speak of, and my physical weakness is pretty apparent. So I had to resort to cosmetic measures .
    What were they? Orange peels. These, according to the lore of my schoolmates, help to keep the weed moist, which helps to keep it potent. This has always seemed like pure voodoo to me. Don’t they have to dry tobacco leaves before you smoke them? And isn’t dried sage or whatever, doesn’t it have more flavor than its fresh counterpart? At least, you’re supposed to use less of it. In cooking, I mean. My father is very insistent on this fact about dried sage, although to my knowledge he’s never deployed it in any circumstances. But whatever. Every bag I sold came with a little twist of orange peel. I also made sure to use the type of Biggie bags where the little strip of plastic across the lips of the bag turns green when they’re closed. On those weak props was my success founded.
    I’d developed this whole little routine to deal with packages from Noel. I broke it down into eighths, quarters, half ounces, and ounces. I knew from experience that Biggie-brand baggies weigh between .029 and .032 of an ounce, and so I measured, making adjustments as I went. My method was simple: weigh out; add the famous Addison-identifying scrap of orange peel from the bowl of such scraps I keep in my minifridge; thumb the zip-seal 90 percent closed, leaving a vent; roll up the bag, the air escaping through said vent; complete the seal to its full piss-greenness; secure with a tag of invisible tape. And you’re done. The floppy cylinders go back into the safe, to be drawn out,