16.2
They went back into the tarp-tent and Bucket removed the lighter tarp hanging from the branch.
On a length of two-by-ten nailed to a relatively horizontal mangrove branch, sat the following items: Two 2-liter bottles, one 1-liter bottle, one 20-ounce bottle, aquarium tubing, needle-nose pliers, a pair of wire snips, a set of measuring cups, a funnel, a lidded plastic container, some baggies, a razorblade, and a packet of coffee filters. There were also several B-Line cold packs, some Drainü, campfire fuel, a 3D ViewLooker, a handful of AA lithium batteries, a 3.78-liter can of Xylene, a shoebox full of 12-hour Sudafeed, iodized salt, sulfuric acid, Isopropyl alcohol, and a gallon of distilled water. All astonishingly clean.
Four hours—and a surprisingly detailed overview of New Thought philosophy—later, methamphetamine lay drying on the coffee filters, and Rupert was mentally exhausted, but rather impressed.
“Did you know . . . ” Bucket began as he peered through the ViewLooker. Rupert noted that it had no reel. “ . . . That Nagai Nagayoshi synthesized methamphetamine from ephedrine in 1893?”
“You don’t say . . . ”
Bucket clicked the lever on the ViewLooker and nothing happened.
At that moment a stone hit the outside of Vailima, the Home of Truth.
“Bastards,” Bucket mumbled. He bent down to the sleeping bag and pulled the box out from under the chair cushion. From the box, he pulled a handful of small, knotted baggies that Rupert knew to be “Dominican knots,” as Bill had once informed him. He was learning so much.
Outside, the sound of kids pierced Rupert’s ears like an ice pick. They chanted:
“Buh-ket! Buh-ket! Buh-ket!”
“Bucket, you wax-face motherfucker!” One exceptionally charming little boy split off from the rest. They all laughed.
Holy shit, Rupert thought. Another stone hit the tarp-tent and he was almost afraid to leave it. But he followed Bucket through the flap and ducked a few more stones. There were six of them, all on bikes, and none could have been much older than ten. One of them leapt from his bike, dropping it, and with a can of Lysol and a disposable lighter ran up to Bucket and lit a massive plume of flame much closer to Bucket’s face than Rupert thought very safe, but he also noticed that Bucket didn’t have much head or facial hair left to lose.
“Get ‘im, Donny! Get ‘im with fire!” one little psychopath egged on.
Perhaps most disturbing was that Bucket didn’t recoil. But little Donny ran back to his bike, and as he picked it up and mounted it, he threatened: “Next time, Bucket. Next time we’ll have a Bucket barbeque!” More laughter.
“You’ll wish you still lived at the bottom of that well,” another kid chimed in.
From one of them another stone flew, cracking Bucket in the back of the head. Again, no response. Bucket then threw the handful of baggies toward the gaggle of heathens and they scrambled off their bikes, each grabbing at whatever he could. When the knots were gathered, they remounted their bikes and took off. One lagged behind and dug into his bulky front pocket, pulled out a crinkled liter-sized plastic bag, and threw it on the ground. Then he pointedly flipped off both Bucket and Rupert before pushing his bike up the bank.
Rupert looked at Bucket, who acted as though nothing had happened.
“What the fuck was that? And,” Rupert paused, “did you just give meth to a bunch of ten year olds?”
“Them? They don’t imbibe. Least I don’t think so. They sell for me.”
Rupert couldn’t respond.
Bucket bent over and picked up the bag the last kid had tossed. He continued:
“Those, my friend, are thought forms. I created them on a bad trip—could have done a much better job, and I regret not doing so, but there they are, and they serve their purpose.” He opened the bag and peered in. “When the way is clear and I’m maintaining my oath diligently, they come. They know to come. They take my enlightening substance and distribute it amongst the unenlightened. They also test my resolve to stay true to the Movement, as you may have noticed.”
“The rock throwing and almost re-setting your face on fire. . . ”
“I never bend.”
Rupert hoped there would be no more yogic feats of dexterity.
“Bucket, how much do you make from these kids?”
“Make?” Bucket asked, confused. “Oh! Money! Oh, I never see the money. I have no idea what they sell it for.”
Bucket put his fingers inside the bag and felt around. It was clear plastic, but Rupert couldn’t figure out what was in it.
“They do bring me these,” Bucket said.
“And . . . what are those?”
“Weaves.” Bucket smiled. “Hair weaves. These I do sell on the black market.”
“There’s a black market for weaves?”
“Remy hair—real hair—from India. Best quality. I don’t know how they get it, and I don’t want to know. But it goes for big bucks. Or, it did.”
Freeze! and Hands Up! came tearing down the bank path, zipped around them, then tore back up.
“Freeze! Hands Up!” Bucket yelled. “They’re good dogs, but they’re full of beans. Yes, the weave market has slowed down quite a bit since the natural hair movement took hold.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Rupert said.
“I was thinking of trying to sell them to one of those cancer things—Malignancy Manes, Tumor Tresses . . . ”
“Caring Curls for Cancer,” Rupert added. “Hmm. I don’t think they buy hair, though. I think they rely on donations.”
“Well, I’ll have to find another way to sell it. It’s how I buy my supplies. Gotta do it before the damn dogs eat all the inventory. I may take up wig making again.”
“Hmm.” Again? Obviously.
Bucket took the new baggie of hair, sealed it back up, and lifted the lid off of a large plastic container behind the tarp-tent Rupert hadn’t noticed. It was packed full of hair weaves.
“You want a coffee?” Bucket offered, which sounded surreal here.
Rupert declined, thinking of the meth drying on the filters in the tarp-tent. As he did, he glanced at the water and saw a duck float by with some tubing and a bottle top sticking out of it. The duck’s bill was half-open, its head flopped to one side.
Alarmed, he scanned across the inlet, around in the bushes, up on the bank path, and across the water again. He caught a glimpse of the man with the fringe jacket and feathers, silently paddling his fluorescent yellow rented kayak out of the inlet and back out into the Gulf, feathers and fringe flapping in the breeze.
“Suit yourself,” said Bucket before he disappeared into his Home of Truth.
Sock it to me...