When it was holding services, the music emanating from the
church featured an electric guitarist who could finger-pick hymns like Chet
Atkins. Wednesday service consisted mainly of music, nice music if you liked old
hymns played with a bouncy rhythm. On free nights, I would sit on the Big Rock
with a bottle of wine, enjoying the music, watching the river flowing “safe to
sea,” and musing upon how far I had come in such a short length of time.
Someone fixed me up with a date involving a woman who worked
for a rival firm. We hit it off as friends, but not as “potentials.” At least,
though, I had someone with whom to attend more formal affairs that arose, though
rarely.
Friend Jackie didn’t fit that bill. As far as I knew, she
didn’t own, or even wish to own, a dress. In fact, I don’t remember ever having
seen her in anything but jeans, ragged jeans at that. What she lacked in wardrobe,
she made up for in other talents. Let’s leave it at that. How I met her was sort
of interesting.
As I mentioned, making a left turn from our apartment complex
was tricky during rush hour traffic. By turning right and proceeding down the
short street called Riverside Drive, one could find a more advantageous route.
So, I was familiar with the stretch of modest homes though I knew nothing about
the people who lived there. I thought very little about them until one morning
I glanced at an article in the Arkansas Gazette and saw that I did, indeed, know
one of the residents.
His name was Cooper Burley, and he had been arrested, along
with an underage girl who was living with him. He hadn’t been arrested for
harboring the young girl. They didn’t get so much involved with that sort of
thing back then unless it was related to something more serious. No, they had both
been arrested because of a small garden they were tending in the flat portion
of their back yard, just before it fell away to the river.
Not, tomatoes, not okra, not corn, not anything edible were
they growing. If I simply say that the crop was for smoking, one can get the
picture. The newspaper account gave the address where the crime had been
uncovered. It was less than a city block from where I lived.
I knew Cooper from college. We had been good acquaintances
then, not what you would call friends, but I had gotten to know him. He would
have fit well into my old neighborhood in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco.
I sometimes missed the frantic peacefulness of those times, so that afternoon,
assuming that any illegal products had been removed from the premises, I walked
to the address.
An old Corvette Sing Ray was parked in the yard. Lights were
on in the house, so I figured that the miscreant had posted bail. I knocked on
the door, saw the edge of a ratty curtain flicker, and then heard footsteps coming
toward the door. It opened, and Cooper stood before me.
I said, “Do you remember me?”
“Hell yes,” he said, welcoming me in. “Did you know they
took my pot crop away?” He used the edge of his hand to push his eyeglasses
atop his nose, a gesture that I remembered from college. He shook his head,
then ran his fingers through long, greasy blond hair. “They took my old lady
away, too, man, her goddam parents did. Have a seat. You want a beer? We’ll
have to go get some. You got any money?” He exhibited not the slightest
indication that he knew it had been nearly six years since he had last seen me.
Thus, I was to become acquainted with Riverside Drive, a
quiet spot on earth that housed mysteries untold.
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| Would it ever become a legal crop? |
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