Nothing to Save

Appeared in the Atlanta Zine Fest 2014 Yearbook
(The events related in this story did not happen in Atlanta)

This is not an essay, it is a map.

On January 21st 2012 I was fired from my first real job. I’d spent a year and a half writing emails, going to meetings, adhering to dress and behavior codes. I did reports and spread sheets. I woke up early and went home late. I smiled at co-workers, chit chatted by the coffee pot. And for every minute of it I was screaming inside my head. Most people would be devestated to be fired and escorted out of the office while everyone watched, but as I rode that silent elevator to the bottom floor I knew something that they didn’t: That I was never meant to be in that place and that now I had the chance to be exactly what I wanted to be, free.

My relationship with the drug culture had been mostly as a consumer. I first smoked weed when I was 11, laced a bong load with coke at twelve and through high school and smoked opium and hash, college dropped acid, did meth, mushrooms, exctasy, and coke on a regular basis.

With my income suddenly cut off, I went back to the culture that I knew so well. My goal was to not just be a consumer of drugs but a manufacturer. The drug I set to manufacture was psyolcybin. Psychadelic mushrooms. I wanted to push something that expands people’s mental and spiritial horizons in positive ways. And the thing about growing mushrooms is that it’s fucking easy. It’s cheaper and less complicated than growing weed and less disgusting than making meth, crack, GHB or any other home made lab drug.

Most of the hard to find things you need, like mushroom spores and pasteurized manure, can be bought on the internet. Everything else you need can be found in a hardware store: Quart size mason jars, large rubbermade tubs, compact flourescent light bulbs, birdseed and a few other odds and ends and you’re in business.

During my first week of being unemployed I woke up at noon and didn’t go to bed until 5:00 or 6:00 AM. I loved making my own schedule, wearing the clothes I wanted to wear, and eating when I wanted to eat. A welcomed change from the over scheduled and structured day I had become used to while at my job. Throughout the day I did copious amount of research on mushroom growing techniques. I got my supplies and went to work for myself.

I didn’t even question the transition I was making. No permission was needed. No interview. No references. No resume. No forms to be filed.

This is not a story, it is a blueprint.

With the decision of leading an underground, illegal life comes the decision to leave certain people behind, including some close friends and family members. If you are serious about leaving the shit rat race of a nine-to-five job then you will ruin some relationships. Communication with my family was limited and I cut ties with anyone that I thought might have a problem with what I was doing. But I wanted to fade away from the normal lifestyle of mainstream society and didn’t want to have contact with those people any way.

I worked in isolation and told no one that I was growing. I just told buyers that I had a good mushroom connection. A lot of customer told me to tell my supplier that he had the best mushrooms in the city. I always said I’d pass along the message.

As is the norm with living a contrarian lifestyle, you don’t brag about what you’re doing. It’s not just the person that you’re telling about your illegal operation that could be a problem, but they could mention it to someone else, and that person tells someone and so on until it falls on the ears of the people that can give you trouble. I began to feel a constant paranioa that the powers against whom I was rebelling were right outside my door, or maybe on the other end my phone call, text message or email.

But all fears had to be suppressed because fear of consequences would only lead me back to a shitty office job and that seemed a worse fate. So I had no choice but to keep moving forward with growing and selling. To protect myself I used coded text messages. You wanna chill? they’d message me. Yeah, how much time you got? I’d respond. They’d reply with three hours, or seven hours or how ever much they wanted. Then I’d head out the door, drugs in tow. I’d chat for a few, sell them the shit, get the money and go back home and wait for the next order. That’s the shit I was talking about. Making money on my own terms.

But I’d be damned if I wasn’t tired as hell, sweating my ass off, wearing holes in my shoes running alll over the city to sell eigths and quarters. I realized that one big sale to a dealer would be greater than making ten sales to average consumers. I knew to do that I would have put the operation into full swing. In a month I went from one small growing chamber in my closet to six big chambers that filled my entire room. I got rid of my bed and slept on a foam sleeping pad in the corner. I was always in the tiny shared kitchen in our apartment, pasteurizing jars of birdseed for innoculation. My roommates knew what I was doing but were cool enough to keep their mouths shut. To keep them happy I gave them a sample each knew batch. We were tripping every week, drifting further and further from the mainstream world we had all developed a healthy disdane for.

I made contacts with a few busy dealers that bought large amounts and everything was just fine. I paid rent in cash and didn’t have to answer to anyone. There were a few snags popped up here and there, though: First, I’m terrible at math and need a pen and paper to crunch numbers. This was frustrating for my grade school teachers and was frustrating for customers who were good at math and could calculate ounces and dollars in their heads with no problem. I always had the numbers squared away before a deal went down, but if anything changed, they wanted more or less or wanted to get some weed too then it was all fucked up. I would make them write it all out for me, leaving them to ask me if I was retarded or something. I felt like I was smart enough to make my living without having to punch a clock, so I told them to shut the fuck up and show me the numbers.

The other thing that would fuck me up was contamination. Just like in gardering, or farming, one contaminated plant can take out a whole crop. Mushrooms are no different. After a while, mold or bacteria can take over a growing chamber and possibly even spread to the other chambers. When this would happen I would have to trash the chamber, but it would be stupid to put a trashbag filled with contaminated manure and mushrooms outside my building so I’d have to walk for blocks carrying the trashbag inside a laundry bag then put it in a dumpster when the coast was clear.

On top of that, sisions of me being raided and hauled off to jail for a long term prison sentance continued to dominate by waking and sleeping thoughts, but my door was never kicked in. I guess I’m lucky.

This is not a dream, it is reality.

And though some circumstances have changed this is a reality that will continue because people will keep wanting drugs and people will keep needing money and will refuse to go to work for somebody else for it. There will always be the subterranian world of people who can only exist there with their backs turned to everyone else.

It’s up to you to decide where you belong, but no matter where that is please god be exactly what you want to be. Where do you belong? How do you get there?