THE STUDENT COUNCIL

Amy gawked at the sickly pickup truck. “Do you expect me to ride in that? It doesn’t look safe.”

“It runs worse than it looks,” Fred admitted, “but it has seatbelts. I’ll buy a new truck when I get my inheritance in sixteen months.”

Amy sat in the torn passenger seat and secured a bungee cord that held the door closed. “I’m texting my mother to let her know I’m with you, Fred.”

“Good idea. So she won’t worry.”

“That’s it,” Amy mumbled. “So she won’t worry at all about me riding to who knows where in a broken-down truck with an almost perfect stranger.”

“You’re just kidding around, right?”

“Right.”

The eleven-mile drive toward Titusville lasted an eternity for Amy. With every bump and shutter, she expected the truck’s frame to snap or drop a wheel. Unconcerned, Fred talked non-stop about his life with a father that everyone ridiculed as a madman, apparently with justification. After horrific experiences, damaging drugs, or both led to George’s military discharge, he was returned to society on a mental disability pension. He lived the next forty-five years on the family’s seventy acres, farming less than one of them.

“He always wanted to talk to people,” Fred explained, “but nobody wanted to listen. It was mostly gloom and doom with him, the coming fall of our country and chaos.”

Amy nodded. “Not subjects that are near and dear to most.”

“I tried to keep him away from other people these last few years. Everyone laughed at him.”

“Somebody didn’t laugh,” Amy observed. “You have a mother, don’t you?”

“I guess that’s true. I never met her though. She was gone before my first birthday. My grandma raised me until she died six years ago.”

After turning left on what Amy noted as Drake Road, Fred announced his farm was only two miles away. The land was all pastures on the right, dotted with cows and a few horses, and tall cornfields to the left.

A brown critter scurried across the dirt road in front of them. “What’s that?” she asked. “A beaver or something?”

Fred chuckled. “That was Tilly. She’s a woodchuck. I see her all the time.”

Amy was about to ask how he knew Tilly was a female when Fred slowed to turn. The road to the right was marked only by a rust-streaked mailbox that read: WALTZ.

The property was unattended, overgrown by whatever had taken root. A few fence posts stuck up here and there, none standing straight. Fred parked beside a two-story farmhouse that somehow matched his truck. “I’ll show you pictures of what the place used to look like,” he said proudly. “My grandpa was a hard worker.”

“He’s been gone a long time,” Amy surmised.

“Thirty years,” Fred nodded. “Come with me. I’ll show you my problem.”

Amy followed him past the house and a barn so dilapidated that chickens and pigs might refuse entry. He led her to a large green thicket of vegetation.

“These thorn bushes keep deer out of a garden as well as any fence,” Fred said, touching the tip of one of millions of inch-long spikes that protruded in every direction. “George was smart like that. They kept out people too.”

Staring at the massive prickers, Amy took a step back. “They’d definitely keep me out!”

“No problem,” Fred said. He stepped a few feet to his left and stopped in front of a dead gray bush. Handling it carefully, he dragged it away, revealing a clear pathway through the hedge. He waved for Amy to follow.

The hidden garden was a different kind of jungle. Red-leaved plants stood taller than Amy. “What’s this?” she asked. “I thought marijuana plants were green.”

“It’s George’s special marijuana. About fifty plants. I can’t remember what kind it is.”

“How many ounces do you get from plants like these?”

“It’s not much. I think less than a pound from each. I just need to do something about them before I get in trouble. The lawyer for the estate, Mister Augustine, is putting the land up for sale soon. People are going to be walking around out here.

“I’m afraid to burn it. Someone might come to check out the smoke. I don’t want to cut it down and try to move it. I might get caught doing that too. If I get in trouble, I could lose my inheritance. That’s what Mister Augustine said.”

Amy had her iPhone out, searching for answers on the internet. Twelve ounces per plant was a reasonable estimate. Paul told her that Leo Sykes, a local dealer, charged over three hundred dollars an ounce for shitty weed. At that price, these plants were worth thousands each! Were they ripe or whatever? She had no idea.

Amy plucked a small, flowering branch from a plant and stuffed it into her pocket. “I totally understand your concern. Without your father around to accept the blame for this, you could go to jail.”

“I just want it to go away,” Fred exclaimed.

“It will,” Amy said, patting his shoulder. “The next time you drive out here, it’ll be gone without a trace. You’ll know nothing. You’ll be completely innocent.”

Fred grinned. “I knew I could rely on you! I just had a feeling.”

Amy was doing the math in her head. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Maybe even more. The plants were huge, probably full-grown. “Are you sure nobody knows about this?”

“It’s here, isn’t it? If any of the Titusville kids knew, it’d be long gone. They love their pot. George never sold any. It was only for him.”

With even more thinking to do, Amy was anxious to leave. “We should be getting back. I have to cut some grass of my own.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I haven’t shown you the rest of the problem.”

During the walk back to the house, Fred described his life growing up. Two-mile hikes to the school bus stop on the main road every morning. The same long walk home every afternoon. His father wanted him at the farm all the time - so he could protect him from the hectic, failing outside world.

“What did you do out here?” Amy asked. “It seems awful lonely.”

“You ever been to Yosemite National Park?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s in California. I’m driving out there as soon as I’m eighteen. I’m going to visit all fifty-eight National Parks. George said the parks are the only thing our government didn’t screw up.”

Amy warmed to a memory. “My family took a vacation to the Grand Canyon when I was little. That’s the only park I’ve been to.”

Fred grinned. “Grand Canyon National Park. Officially established in nineteen nineteen. Two thousand and ninety miles from where we’re standing ... by car that is.”

“You’ve been there too?”

“I wish! I’ve never been to any of them. The closest is Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio. It’s only a hundred and twenty-five miles away.”

“How do you know all that?”

“You asked me what I did out here. That’s it. I can tell you everything about all fifty-eight. Dates, mileage, landmarks and special features. I can list them alphabetically, by year of origin, or east to west. George made me learn all that. Yellowstone was the first in eighteen seventy-two.”

Amy gasped in disbelief. Was there anything about Fred that wasn’t unusual? “I’d like to hear all about them some time,” she lied.

“That’s awesome! Other kids think it’s stupid for me to know all that.” He took keys from his pocket and opened a padlock on the back door. “The power’s turned off. We’ll have to use flashlights in the basement.”

The entire kitchen was a relic from the past, but Amy appreciated it. Her Oil City home was even older. Fred grabbed a couple flashlights from the top of the refrigerator. He led her through a door and down a narrow staircase that creaked with every step. She tripped over a box at the foot of the stairwell.

“That’s a dehumidifier,” he explained. “George kept it cool and dry down here.”

The beam from his light illuminated rows of wooden and cardboard boxes, stacked from the floor to the ceiling. Words and dates were hand-printed on every one. Peaches. Pears. Apples. Cherries. “These are all cases of mason jars. All full. A hundred and thirty-one cases.”

“You were never going to starve,” Amy noted, “that’s for sure.”

“There’s nothing to eat down here. It’s all marijuana. Two ounces in every single jar. Seven or eight years’ harvest.”

Amy was startled by clattering at her feet. The flashlight had dropped from her hand.

Fred retrieved it for her. After a shake, it flickered back on. “George said the end was coming. Our country would collapse and the dollar would be worthless. Marijuana would become the currency, the only thing that everyone valued.”

Amy found her voice. “Is it still good after all this time? Wouldn’t it rot or something?”

“George said it was fine. He always smoked the oldest stuff he had. All I know is this could get me in major trouble.”

Or make someone rich, Amy thought. “I can make this disappear too,” she assured him. A place in Oil City advertised moving vans for rent. The sign said $29.99 per day. Transporting it all wouldn’t be a problem. But where could she safely store it?

The boy released a big breath. “I’d really be thankful. I’ve thought about loading my truck and taking it to a landfill. Maybe six or eight loads would do it. But what if the truck broke down? I’d be screwed! I don’t even have a driver’s license!”

Amy could only laugh. “Once we get home, you park that wreck for good. No driving without a license. Give me that key to the house and never come back here! Everything will be fine.”

“I hope so. I threw out all the growing lights from upstairs. He used those to start his seeds. There’s a room he built inside the barn too. That was for drying out the plants. I got rid of all the screens.”

Turning her beam to the stairs, Amy asked, “Do you have any plastic bags upstairs? I saw ripe strawberries along the path. Would you pick some for me?”

Fred dashed past her and up the steps. “I think there are bags in a drawer. I’d love you to have some strawberries.”

She followed him to the kitchen, where he found a box of large Ziplocs. He pulled out a couple. “Let’s go. I know where the best ones are!”

Amy collapsed into a chair by the table. “Could you go and fill those bags for me? I’m still tired from last night. I’ll just sit here and wait.”

“It won’t take ten minutes!”

As soon as he left, Amy pulled four more bags from the drawer and headed back down the steps to the basement.

Leo’s Wiener Wagon had once been a Mister Softee ice cream truck. Leo Sykes had removed the soft serve machine ten years ago; it was a pain in the ass to keep running and a bitch to clean every night. Now there was nothing but a Coleman stove to boil water for hot dogs and a propane grill to char them after a two-minute soak. The grill was handy for crisping buns too, but Leo didn’t bother with that. Not unless someone begged. His business wasn’t really about hot dogs.

Venango County was no place to get super rich selling weed, nothing like the big cities or college towns, but it was homey and secure. Everyone understood what Leo did and how he did it. He owned a home and sent his kids to school along with everyone else’s. Even sponsored a Little League team for a few years –until a couple mothers complained. As long as he avoided selling to minors and kept the price reasonable, local politicians and police were agreeable. After all, they were mostly customers too. Even got a discount.

One benefit of a mobile business was the changing views; they made the waiting around more tolerable. He could park along the river one day and on a downtown street the next. His regular clientele had his cell number. They could always call to find out where he was serving lunch.

Late Saturday afternoon, Leo sat on his stool, studying the Pittsburgh Pirates box score in the Herald-News. He munched on a meatball sub from Jerry’s Deli - some real restaurant food. A nervous-looking lady in her twenties walked up to the service window on the side of his truck.

“Carolyn Fox sent me,” she whispered.

Leo brushed whole wheat crumbs from his goatee. “Cool. Tell her I said hi. What’ll it be?”

“One with the works,” she whispered again.

It was a simple code. All the actual condiments were in plastic containers on a shelf outside the window. Customers dealt up onions, relish, ketchup and three kinds of mustard on their own. It was also a silly code, totally unnecessary. Everyone knew what Leo was really serving. Nonetheless, some customers seemed to enjoy the intrigue, so Leo played along.

“What size will that be?” he asked, despite serving only standard wieners.

“Make it the quarter.”

Leo opened an iceless Igloo chest and withdrew a quarter-ounce bag of weed. He dropped it into a brown bag with some napkins, then wrapped a hot dog and plopped it on top. “That’ll be a dollar.”

She handed him five twenties and walked away without even a squirt of mustard. After crossing the street, she tossed the hot dog in a trash can.

When Leo returned to the sports page, the phone in his shirt pocket came to life. “I’m near the corner of Mead and Derrick,” he answered.

“Leo, this is your friend Joan,” a female voice said.

“Refresh me. I’m not placing a Joan.”

“Joan of Arc.”

“Oh, that Joan,” he chuckled, wondering who was messing with him. “I thought you burned at the stake or something.”

“I’m surprised you remember me. There’s a bag on the street behind your left rear tire. Check out the contents. I’ll get back to you in a couple days. Don’t call me.”

Inside a clothing store across the street, Amy put a prepaid cell phone back in her bag. The twenty-dollar cost put a dent in her savings, but caution was essential. She watched through the window as Leo stepped out of his truck, glanced around, then disappeared from view. He returned with the bag and got back in the Wiener Wagon.