The Marijuana Chronicles

The hippie started by talking about some pothead collective, but ended up going on about “The Doctor” and how he was rich and infiltrating the system from underneath and he was making Crash an amazing deal where Crash would get double the product and make double the bread. And as a sample, the hippie produced a small leather bag … and a briefcase …

Crash unzipped the small leather bag. There, wrapped in plastic, were some of the sweetest buds he had seen in a while. Bright green, looked fresh and hydroponic, but there was something else, something glittery. At first he thought it was the plastic, but no. There was a silvery, sparkly dust on the stuff.

“Hey, wild! What kinda psychedelic shit is that! Whass this shit on it, man?”

“It’s the future. Let’s just call it super hydro. Normal weed, you gotta smoke more to get the same high. Moon Dust builds up in your system. It has a trigger effect, like acid flashback. Except,” the hippie started to laugh, “it’s no flashback. It’s a flash forward. It accumulates, it goes farther. Until finally you cross a barrier. You time travel, bro.” The hippie’s eyes were wild and feverish. “You try the stuff. There’s a card in the bag. Call the number. The Doctor is always reachable,” the hippie laughed, “even when you’re smoked. No matter what time it is.”

Words. Slapping of hands. Then the hippie walked off into the bushes, and vanished.

Thirty-eight years later, the place was virtually the same, even the projects were still up. But there were no dealers, no action. There was no group of dudes hanging out on the benches, playing bongos and congas. It was quiet and lonely. A Mexican kid and his father kicked a soccer ball around. People strolling. Crash sat on the hill and looked down on the green stillness. This wasn’t from his imagination. None of it was. It was the Moon Dust.

The Doctor is always reachable. That cackly hippie laugh. No matter what time it is.

Crash stood up, reaching for his wallet. FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES INC., the card read. He walked off the hill and headed down 149th Street, toward Third Avenue. He kept looking for a pay phone, but he didn’t see any, all the way to Third Avenue. A busy hub as always; Crash tried to take in the changes. Hearns, the big department store, was gone, giving way to a ton of small stores, including phone shops … phones, those little things are phones!! But they’re so small … Finally found a pay phone there by the subway entrance. He popped in some quarters and punched the number out on the keypad. There was a series of clicks. A strange buzzing sound. A slow set of rings. Someone picked up.

“Future,” a woman’s voice said.

Crash was breathless for a moment. “The Doctor,” he said. “I want to speak to Dr. Robert.”

“What portal are you?” she asked.

“Portal? I don’t know.”

“What was your method of transit?”

Crash thought a moment, and gri

“Oh, right, sorry! Hold on.” There was a click. Crash waited, feeling woozy. He was making a phone call while tripping.

“Hello, this is Dr. Robert.” The voice was old and gentle, the kind of voice Crash had heard in an Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice commercial. “And how do you feel right now, Mr. Mendoza?”

“You know me?”

“But of course. You’re the only person in time that has this number. You’ve gone thirty-eight years into the future. Moon Dust is a cheap, simple way of getting people into the time stream. To violate it, corrupt it. Temporary, but effective as a means of infiltration.”

“I don’t understand,” Crash said, his head starting to spin.

“Time travel is strictly regulated and controlled. It’s against the law for people to travel through time. They fear that people going back in time can find a way to put their system out of business. Create a resistance. Fight the system.”

“I’m all for that,” Crash said. “But—”

“There’s so much more to tell you, but right now you have to keep moving.”

“What?”

“Phoning through time is traceable. Take the subway to Union Square. Whatever you do, don’t get arrested. I’ll send someone to you to insure you fade.”

“Arrested? Insure I fade? What? Hello?” There was a clicking, then, “Please deposit twenty-five cents for the next five minutes or your call will be interrupted.”

“Twenty-five cents?? Hello?”

The line went dead.

The subway station looked mostly the same. Crash always had tokens on him but there was no coin slot. He watched people going in through the turnstile. They were swiping a card. Over by the wall, he saw a lady stick dollar bills into a machine. (At least the dollar bills were the same.) She was touching the screen. Huh!? After she left, he checked it out, even touching the screen, but decided to take his chances with the token-booth clerk. The white-haired black man was hardly visible through the thick glass. Crash got behind someone and watched the guy slip a five-dollar bill in the slot. Five bucks!? What the fuck!? Crash followed suit. The clerk gave him a MetroCard. Took him awhile to swipe it right, but then he was through the turnstile and waiting on the platform for a train whose glimmery lights were already visible in the tu

The roar and blast of subway train pulling into station. The inside of the train was brighter but felt more cluttered. Crash stared wide-eyed at the moving ads, the screens flashing messages. A solitary marker scrawl on the wall of no decipherable message, seemed like the last graffiti in the world.

He sat by the doors. The people in the car were not even looking at each other. Everybody was busy with something. The lady across from him was typing on her phone, her pretty fingers moving nimbly across the small screen. Many people wearing earphones. A girl across the way tapping the screen of a tablet. Everybody was busy. There was not one person staring into space, falling asleep, or reading a book. At least there was one guy at the end there, reading a newspaper. The mechanical voice on the PA: “Backpacks and other personal belongings are subject to random search.” The guy reading the newspaper got up and left the newspaper. Crash slid over and scooped it up. It was a copy of the Village Voice. The poster on the wall opposite showed a package beside a subway bench. Is that right, so America has a black president? Beware of Suspicious Packages. (A strange thrill.)

“I’m reading a paper from the future,” he said, needing to hear the words. The black girl across from him was looking right at him, but she didn’t react. Her eyes were glazed, head bopping to earphones. He flipped through the newspaper again.

“America’s first black president is ru

Crash started to feel weird. He shut the paper, looking up at an ad that showed a Mexican family. Learn English. Oh shit. The train rocked and whined. People were giving him weird looks. Something was strangely oppressive. He got off the train at Union Square, went up the stairs to the main concourse, and spotted a group of people dressed all funky crazy. One was a colorful jester, a black kid with bells on his hat that jingled. There was a jockey, a princess, and there was this pretty blonde in an Alice in Wonderland dress that walked right up to him.