If the referendum passed—he explained this to Winky—nothing would change overnight. The state would need a year or two to get its act together. Timmy would use the time to his advantage, to make some serious bank.
His plan was to cut out the middleman. His old buddy Wolfman had been growing for years, on a hidden corner of his family’s strawberry farm in Pasco County, Florida. The Wolfman had washed out of basic training, washed out of life in general, but in this one respect he was an overachiever—endlessly experimenting with new strains, gleefully cross-pollinating, a mad scientist of weed. Crucially, the Wolfman was no salesman. At the moment he was sitting on a bumper crop, more product than he knew what to do with.
“The main problem,” Timmy said, “will be moving the weed.”
Pasco County to Boston was fourteen hundred miles, through thirteen states. Timmy would drive the stash back himself—on weekends to avoid the traffic, the soul-killing rush hours in DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston.
Winky blinked. “What about cops?”
Timmy was way ahead of him. Over the years—countless trips back and forth to see his son and fork out child support—he’d made a study of this. Up and down the I-95 corridor, speed traps were everywhere, the Dennis Links of the world plying their trade. The stopped vehicles were usually SUVs, always with Yankee plates. He would need the right car—discreet, reliable, a car that would attract no attention.
This was his thinking last week, when he bought a three-year-old Honda Civic, in cash, from a stranger on Craigslist.
To make the trip worth his while, he’d need to move some quantity. He’d heard about a Russian kid in Quincy who did customizations. For five grand he could retrofit a car with hidden compartments—invisible, virtually undetectable—ideal for stashing product.
“Real James Bond shit,” Timmy said.
He took a final, hopeful drag, but the bowl was kicked. He dipped into his own stash to refill it.
Marcel was right. There was power in having a plan.
5
The storms kept coming. There was a feeling of meteorological unease. The pigeons of Copley Square whuffed their displeasure. At the corner of Mass and Cass—the epicenter of the Methadone Mile—volunteers handed out blankets. Commuters waited for buses that never came.
Schools closed for a day, a week, for two weeks, prompting a citywide childcare crisis. In the Savin Hill section of Dorchester, streets were taken over by boys on sleds.
Boston descended on Star Market girded for battle. Toilet paper, bottled water, frozen pizzas. It was impossible to keep these items in stock. Checkout lines were staggering. Shoppers read the same headlines over and over, the aging starlet who was married again or pregnant again or fat again. They studied the contents of each other’s carts, a stranger’s secret comforts: cartons of cigarettes and extra-sensitive condoms, tubs of ice cream and cases of IPA.
In the neighborhoods, shoveling took on a feverish intensity. Parking spaces were saved with wheelbarrows, with lawn chairs, with recycling bins.
The boys attacked Savin Hill with whatever was handy: cafeteria trays, trash can lids. They raced down the slopes with war whoops, shrieks of terror and delight, because childhood always finds a way.
YEARS AGO, WHEN CLAUDIA WAS JUST STARTING OUT ON THE hotline, the callers’ questions amazed her. For a startling number of people, the basic facts of human reproduction were shrouded in mystery. She answered calls from women who douched after sex, or had sex only while menstruating, and were stunned to find themselves pregnant. More than one truly believed she’d contracted herpes from a toilet seat. And these weren’t teenagers; they were grown women. Teenagers would have known better.
Considering what passed for sex education thirty years ago, in the public schools of Clayburn, Maine, this made a certain kind of sense.
It happened in a single afternoon that fell, in 1983, on the first warm day of spring. In Maine, it is a holiday of sorts: the hats and gloves packed away, the Bean parkas moved to the back of the closet. These are the rituals of a primitive people blessing the return of the sun. At Clayburn Middle School, the sixth-grade boys whooped it up during an extended recess. The girls, meanwhile, were trapped indoors, sequestered in the cafeteria for a Very Special Presentation by a sales rep for the Modess corporation, an ebullient young woman whose entire job was to drive back and forth across New England showing schoolgirls a filmstrip about menstruation. After the movie, she handed out sample packs of Modess sanitary napkins. At age eleven, the girls had no possible use for these items; in 1983, synthetic hormones had not yet reached alarming concentrations in the American food supply, and puberty was still a ways away. Still, most were poor enough that getting something—anything—for free was worth crowing about.
The sales rep showed them how to wrap a used napkin in toilet paper and dispose of it properly. Through the open window they heard the crack of ball against bat, boys cheering and shouting. Someone had scored a run.
Along with the napkins they were given a booklet printed on heavy paper, with a title in curlicue script: Growing Up and Liking It. It looked like a child’s storybook, and in a way it was. The main character was a girl named Patty, whose family had moved to a new city and who kept in touch with her old friends, Beth and Ginny, by writing letters (a quaint notion, even in 1983). The girls swapped news about school and boys, but mostly about getting their periods and using Modess products. They discussed the mysterious requirements of “heavy flow days” and “light flow days,” and whether you could wash your hair or shower during your period.
Who would even ask such a question? Why would anyone think you couldn’t? Even Claudia knew better, and she knew almost nothing. Her information about sex came mainly from Justine, who knew as little as she did, but with greater certainty. From the moment Justine got her period, Claudia wanted one desperately. This was Justine’s superpower. She could make anything—even bleeding from the crack—seem glamorous.
Of course, none of that had anything to do with sex. For that, Claudia turned to television. Vague references to the act—what Bob Eubanks, the toothy host of The Newlywed Game, called making whoopee—were everywhere, but actual information was rare. At least once per episode of The Love Boat, a make-out scene would cut to a close-up of the DO NOT DISTURB sign being placed on the cabin door.
What happened after the door was closed? Answers were elusive. Her mother, naturally, was no help. If forced to speak of certain body parts—for instance, when toilet-training a foster—Deb resorted to euphemism. A girl’s private area was called her princess. This caused a comical confusion in the summer of 1981, when Deb, who loved weddings, woke the whole family at dawn to watch the British royals get married. When Prince Charles made Lady Diana Spencer his princess, the fosters couldn’t control themselves. Their giggling could not be contained.