A crick in his back woke up Marty before dawn. He had slid off the aluminum lawn chair sometime during the night, and crashed in the redwood needles. His arms and legs were numb with cold. There was barely enough light to see the house 50 yards away. He stood up and staggered back to the deck, trying to rub some life into his muscles, and surveyed the wreckage from the epic kegger party. The front yard looked as if a tornado had ripped through a recycling center. Cans and bottles were everywhere, with red plastic cups, torn up cardboard, plastic bags, cigarette butts, hats, pieces of clothing, and broken chairs scattered about. He shuddered to think of what the house looked like. It was much darker inside, but he didn’t turn on a light because he could dimly see more than a dozen people sleeping on the floor. Furniture shapes were toppled over, stacked up, or in the wrong places. He edged his way along the wall to his room and turned on the light.
“Turn off the light! Aargh!!” In the quick illumination he saw Mike & Annie yelling at him from their bed, with two other sleepers on the floor. Boobers was passed out on his bed, and Derek was sliding off it slowly. He opened his closet and felt through the remains of three cases of beer and several twelve packs until he found his jacket, then went back outside. Dimly, he could see figures moving around up in the driveway, and gingerly ambulated up to have a look. Hundreds more beer cans and bottles were strewn about, with broken ones here and there. Piles of random cardboard debris and packaging littered the driveway. A few crookedly parked cars remained, in haphazard disarray, like a movie set for a disaster film about the end of the world. Ent and Otter were wobbling around with the muted torpor of refugees, sorting the trash into bins. Marty helped them for a bit as it got lighter, then heard a noise. Three guys he didn’t know lurched out of the bushes far down the driveway, straightened their clothes, and staggered off in the general direction of Fairfax.
“You white boys partied like Injuns last night,” Otter croaked, in a voice worn down from whooping and yelling for hours. He groped around inside a battered twelve pack of Miller Lite. “Have some breakfast!” He tossed a can at Marty, snickering and coughing. He probably hasn’t slept all night, Marty slurred in his head, as the beer can bounced off his chest and fell to the ground. A couple seconds later, he moved his hands to catch it.
It took a week to get the place back to normal. Ent made a point of scouring the entire creek bed to find every can, bottle, or piece of litter left behind. Marty thanked him profusely, but he waved him off. “You don’t have to thank me, really. I get enough gratitude from the forest.” His dark, sapphire eyes sparkled behind his thick glasses. Marty speculated the wily Druid may have found a few mushrooms while he was out there, too. They hauled all the cans and bottles over the hill to the recycling center, and made enough money to haul all the trash to the dump. One of the kegs was found halfway downstream towards the Inkwells, and Mike had to pull it out with a rope so he could get his deposit back. Unfortunately, he and the young bartender were fired when the three kegs were returned, battered and scarred with the labels ripped off.
That unprecedentedly epic party left Marty with serious misgivings about drinking or doing drugs to excess. He reasoned that it felt good to have a few beers now and then, and smoke pot in moderation, but overdoing it did not feel good at all. In fact, it was annoying because then he couldn’t think. He was an artist who didn’t like to lose control over his brain or body. What he enjoyed was the intrigue of getting drunk or stoned; the way it loosened social tensions and brought out the real person inside. Like many teenage boys, he was often embarrassed about the person who emerged from his mind. In that regard, he was lucky that he couldn’t drink to excess very often. Alcohol made him sleepy, and after a certain point it was a race to see if he could drink too much before he fell asleep, and sleep usually won. If he smoked too much pot, he just got a headache and completely lost the enjoyment of the insights it brought. He enjoyed mind-altering substances often, but always in moderation.
Marin County was far from the Northern California marijuana cultivation centers, but pot was always available. West Marin in particular was mostly rural, and folks ranging from farmers to hippies had gardens in secretive places because the crop was so valuable. There were stiff penalties and jail time for getting caught growing weed, but that hardly daunted their agricultural pursuits. Marty even tried growing some in his closet, lining the walls with aluminum foil and installing some aquarium lights from the pet store that were supposed to be good for plants. He wound up with a scrawny-looking weed about three feet tall, with buds that resembled tiny thistles. He learned a lot from the experience; however, he just didn’t have the horticultural knack. Little Billy fared much better with his futuristic hydroponic farm, converting a small space in his basement to a state-of-the-art growing chamber about the size of their little “Federation” clubhouse. He harvested several ounces of good bud from the project, but decided to keep it for himself. He couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else smoking his babies!
Weed was so prevalent in the Valley that the local businesses catered to the burnt-out hippie culture. There was an eclectic emporium in Forest Knolls called “House of Richard” where it was rumored you could buy some tasty buds if you were known to the owner. It was situated in a converted barn, right by the side of the road. Nothing matched in the entire place, giving it the ambiance of a New Age antique store, or a metaphysical yard sale. The panes of glass in all the windows were yellow, which tinted the interior with a groovy, amber glow. A wide-ranging assortment of junk filled every space, resembling exhibits in a museum that had gotten lost in the Sixties. Beads, patchouli oil, tie-dyed shirts, and jewelry dominated the center of the store. Old books, hats, Indian blankets, sandals, and walking staffs cluttered another corner. Off to the side was an apothecary of herbal remedies, spices in mason jars, braided sweetgrass, incense, and hand-carved soapstone pipes. It was that particular department which encouraged the Federation members to believe they could obtain some contraband in the establishment.
“Hey, can we try some of your pipes to see which one we like the best?”
“Sure, if you buy them all first,” said the owner, who glanced up from the Sci-Fi book he was reading. He appeared to be a time traveler from the Summer of Love, who woke up on the wrong side of the hippie bus. Or perhaps he was the brother of the old beatnik who ran the Lagunitas Store. His long, graying dreadlocks flowed like molten silver underneath a Tibetan hat. Rose-colored granny glasses perched on the end of his nose, and a potbelly swelled his tie-dyed shirt. He slouched on a wobbly stool, with a bored, hungover expression, behind a counter full of gemstones, talismans, and crystals.
“Hey man, do you know where we can get some weed?”
He peered at them over his glasses for a long time, as if trying not to smile. “I don’t know anything about that,” he shook his head plainly, and went back to reading his book. It was Dune, Marty noted with some respect.
Party people of any age never actually had any trouble scoring weed. They usually got their marijuana from various outlets around the area. In those days, Lagunitas was a veritable shopping mall for pot, where you could get Thai sticks from a supplier up on the hill, Columbian Gold in a boutique down by the creek, or fine California sinsemilla from a kiosk inside a camper behind the Slodge. Weed was even creeping into popular culture, with movies and comedians like Cheech & Chong. It was irrevocably a way of life, despite the dominant establishment that wanted to ban it. To Marty, and nearly all the people he knew, it was a socially acceptable vice; like smoking cigarettes.
Beer was a different culture entirely. The legal age for drinking was 21 in California, but Marty hardly knew anyone over 13 who didn’t drink. It was too easy to drink beer… the hard part was obtaining it. When Mike got fired from the bar, the Federation lost its easy access to alcohol. Marge or Jimbo occasionally bought up for them, with a wink and a hypocritical nod to indicate they knew what they were up to. Most nights, and especially Friday and Saturday nights, they hung around the Parkade in Fairfax like moths waiting for the porch light to be turned on, and hoped to see some older guys they knew so they could ask them to buy beer. That was not a very reliable strategy, and they needed to improve their odds.
Bart came up with the idea of staging a fake fight inside a liquor store and pulling a “runner,” which was essentially shoplifting as much beer as you could carry and still make a fast getaway. Bart was quite the actor, always pantomiming his stories to coax an irresistible laugh. He coached them on a few finer techniques, and emphasized, “Timing is everything.” After rehearsing down at the park, the merry crew of five pirates piled in the Apollo and drove to a convenience store in another town to pillage and conquer. Marty found a dark corner of the parking lot, and kept the motor running. Bart and Mike went in first, arguing loudly about football. They brought some snacks up to the counter as if to buy them, then got into a staged fight, in which Mike fell to the floor with Bart on top of him. The startled cashier came around the counter to try and break it up, while Boobers and Derek slipped inside, pulled two twelve packs each out of the cold cases, then dashed back out the door and around the corner to Marty’s truck. As they sprinted towards him, eyes wide, he wondered what Fred’s reaction might be if he could see his youngest sons now! The cashier yelled and gave chase for a bit, which allowed Bart and Mike to spring up off the floor and hustle out the door too, and around the other side of the building, where Marty had circled to pick them up. They got away with two whole cases of beer, but thereafter were so haunted by extreme guilt and paranoia that they vowed to never pull a runner again. That was the end of the Federation’s foray into privateering. They weren’t bold or uncaring enough to be career criminals, like the Mafia, or Congress.
Marty plotted a more clandestine plan, in which they would actually pay for the beer responsibly… or one of them would. He had a lot of costume props saved from Halloweens past, and dug through the shed till he found what he needed: a tweed overcoat, white shirt and tie, and a fedora hat. From another box he selected a couple of Marge’s old wigs that he’d saved, and evicted a colony of roly-poly bugs. He washed and ironed all the clothes, cut a piece from one of the wigs to make a beard, and looked in the mirror. A vision from The Planet of the Apes stared back at him. Not bad, he thought. With the right presentation, he might even get away with it. They chose a liquor store in San Rafael where the owner was usually drunk himself. He swigged a bottle behind a cabinet door in a way he thought was discreet, but everybody knew. The four high school boys went in and bought some snacks, laughing and making jokes. A few seconds later, Marty entered, grabbed two cases of beer from the cooler, and walked up behind the teenagers, grunting, “Excuse me!” He was wearing the shirt and tie under the heavy overcoat, with the fedora pulled down low on gray bangs. Most of the wig was used for his bushy black beard, which he hoped was still on straight. Large, dark sunglasses obscured the rest of his face.
All four guys stopped talking and respectfully moved out of his way. Bart apologized, “Sorry, sir.”
The owner never took a second glance at Marty, watching the four teenage boys suspiciously as they lingered near a liquor display with busy hands. The bearded customer had exact change ready, and placed it quickly on the counter, followed by a quick about-face with the cases, and a gruff “Thanks” tossed over his shoulder.
“Wait!” the owner said as Marty reached the door, and his heart leapt out of his overcoat, bounced off the glass door, and splattered on the floor. “You gave me a dollar too much.”
Marty nearly pissed his pants. “Um, keep the change,” he squeaked in a most un-adult tone, and hurried out the door clutching his swag of cold Coors, with his heart beating its way back inside his chest. Technically, the plan worked, but that last look from the owner told him it wouldn’t work again. When his accomplices caught up with him, they were laughing and cheering, and slapping him on the back. The Federation declared the day to be an official holiday, and commemorated the event by replaying their performance over and over again the rest of the night. That was probably the funniest beer any of them ever drank!
