Tag Archives: william crow

The Meat Nazi

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Posted: September 23, 2022 at 6:09 am

At Place des Prêcheurs, I weaved through outdoor bistros, dodging waiters running between packed outdoor seating and the empty restaurants serving them. Nestled between restaurants was Boucherie-Charcuterie du Palais, aka the Meat Nazi. Streetside, a faded red awning shaded a glass case on casters, full of roasted chickens. But the splendor of the meat display inside was almost indecent. Laid in perfect rows was a yoga class of headless, skinned rabbits, performing sun salutation stretches. There were orderly groupings of magret de canard (duck breast), rognonnade d’agneau (lamb kidney), andouilletes (pork sausages), and fourteen kinds of pâté. Tied in precise bundles were alouettes sans tête (larks without a head), which weren’t larks, but beef stuffed with bacon, sausage and spices. Carol cooked them in a traditional Provençal sauce she perfected.

Some displays were not for the faint of heart. Our butcher arrayed lamb and veal brains, looking exactly like wet, mini, human brain models used in medical school. The brains flanked a cow’s tongue, the shape and size of a football. Who bought the unidentified animal knuckles and feet? There were a bunch of bloody, sweating, grossities left over from some satanic ritual which I didn’t want to look at too closely.

Except for one portly man in a white apron stained crimson and terracotta from nipple to thigh, the butchers were no-nonsense, severe women demanding strict adherence to the unwritten rules governing requests for meat and payment for same. 

I waited at one end of the long, glassed-in meat counter. There was a queue every day. I planned to buy chicken thighs for poulet aux lardons (chicken with bacon), but the chicken was at the far end of the counter; if I couldn’t see the meat I wanted from my place in line, too bad. I was not allowed to leave my spot to look at meat further away. As customers were helped, the line advanced, everyone shuffling along one position. With each shuffle I saw more of the meat display, but once past a section, there was no going back. It was my turn when a butcher, the one with the spiky copper hairdo, doing her best Jacques Brel impersonation, shouted, “Suivant!”

I knew this woman well; when I arrived in Aix, my ignorant meat questions provoked much eye-rolling and shrugging. But she taught me something valuable the previous month, when I asked, “Could I please have one and a half kilos of stewing beef, madame?” 

“What are you making?” 

“Bœuf Bourguignon, madame.”

“When are you making it?” she asked, with sidelong suspicion.

“Tomorrow.”

“Come back tomorrow and buy your meat for tomorrow’s meal.”

I never repeated that error; imagine, buying meat a day early! What was I planning, to keep it refrigerated for a day? Put it in the freezer? She knew I would come back. As my meat-buying skills improved, so did the friendliness of my tormentress. When I asked for chicken thighs that day, she almost smiled, not grilling me about their imminent preparation. Wrapping my meat in brown butcher’s paper with a deft hand, she said her signature, “Avec ÇA?,” shouting the second word, asking if I needed anything else. She kept my package on her side of the counter. 

“I would also like some bacon, cut into lardons, please.”

I saw a hint of a smile. She nodded, knowing lardons were part of the chicken recipe, to be used that day.

Before moving to France, Carol and I took turns patting each other’s backs while serving lean and salt-reduced turkey bacon. What great parents we were, saving our kids from future health issues. In France we were addicted to sizzling hunks of pig fat. No self-respecting French man or woman would ever eat turkey bacon.

Marbled, thick-sliced butcher’s bacon was cut into quarter-inch, bite-sized pieces to create lardons. At the supermarket, several shelves were devoted to pre-cut lardons, in every variation imaginable. How could I avoid buying this? Not only was it bacon, inherently irresistible, but they even cut it up for me! In the lardons aisle of Casino supermarket, I was Homer Simpson, drawing out “baaaaaaaaay-con” in a low, sensuous whisper.

“Avec ÇA?” my butcher said. I hoped she couldn’t hear me thinking about buying lardons at the supermarket.

We continued our dance until she held four brown bundles and I said that was all for today. This is when you think I would receive my packages and pay, but you would be wrong. My butcher traversed the length of the shop, and I matched her step along the customer side of the counter. At the end of the display case, she put my order in a red plastic shopping basket and pulled a plasticized number from her breast pocket. She placed the number in my basket, regarded me solemnly and said, “Thirty-seven.” As I thanked her for my basket, I could see the back corner of the shop. The male butcher was serving people in a line of two or three. I learned later this line was for important people, family and friends of the butchers. So much for égalité.

Basket in hand, I was required to immediately take two steps, and place it on a roller conveyor belt, a smaller version of the one at A&P when I was a kid; at my hometown supermarket, groceries were packed in brown paper bags, arranged in plastic bins and placed on a conveyor which disappeared through the wall. A teenager would load them into our car outside. The Boucherie conveyor was only six feet long, and it was blocked by customers standing beside their respective baskets, waiting for the cashier. In the crush, I could not approach the conveyor to unload my purchases, so I stood there like an idiot, holding my basket of meat. Understandably, all hell broke loose. The lady butchers stormed from behind the meat counter in a race to be first to explain why my foolish actions could lead to the end of 400 years of diplomatic relations between Canada and France. My basket was taken, and several people in the cashier’s line were asked to move, allowing my basket to be placed in the correct order on the conveyor. I felt relieved to be standing basketless, like the other customers waiting to pay.

Each basket inched along the conveyor when another order was rung in. We stood beside our baskets; why couldn’t we stand in the correct order holding our baskets? When it was my turn to pay, the cashier moved my basket to the little shelf beside her cash register. She tossed my number thirty-seven in a pile without looking at it. The number was unfailingly taken from the basket before the meat; otherwise, it was anarchy! The purpose of the plasticized numbers, and the payment system, remained a mystery to me. My instincts warned that questioning the procedure in fractured French could result in banishment from the shop, a risk I was unwilling to take.

The Boy Named Alice

Bill Crow, blog, cartoon, comic, William Crow, writer, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted: May 17, 2021 at 8:16 am

We were lost on a two-lane road twenty kilometers from Aix-en-Provence when Devon said, “Dad, this boy back here is going to throw up.” This boy back here.

         The Boy Named Alice, eight-years-old, had not spoken since he got in the car. A Marcel Marceau fan, he didn’t say he needed to vomit. He poked Devon and made throwing-up motions. I swerved my newish car to the shoulder and Carol pulled a plastic bag from her purse. Too late. A small dollop of puke made it into the bag. The rest splashed The Boy Named Alice, the backseat, the floorboards and the inside of the door. Neither Carol nor I are squeamish about vomit; we’re parents. But this was someone else’s kid, he seemed mute, and we didn’t know his real name.

         “Kcchhhchhh,” said Sophie in the backseat, retching.

         “Ghllghlhl,” said her brother beside her, holding his throat.

         I scooped vomit from the upholstery with a Kleenex. Carol cleaned The Boy Named Alice’s soccer uniform, standing in the ditch. He remained silent, indifferent to the situation or the stranger scraping barf from his shorts. We left the putrid plastic bag and the vomit-slathered contents of a box of Kleenex in the ditch, to lie with the detritus common to the shoulders of French roads.

         “I feel awful leaving our pukey garbage in the ditch, Billy,” said Carol. She looked down, and saw a spot of vomit on her shoe.

         “I don’t like it either, but what choice do we have? I don’t know how much longer we’ll be stuck in the car.” I swallowed back something rising in my throat and gagged.

*

         Every Saturday, Devon played a match for his Aix-based soccer club. The club employed a comical system to get players and parents to the out-of-town pitches each week. If I ran the club, I would send an email to each player’s parents on Monday, asking if their child could play that weekend. I would include the name of the hosting town and soccer field, the time to arrive there, and imbed in the note a Google map. A lawyer’s preparation. Call me crazy, but I imagine that would work out pretty well.

         Devon’s club had a different system. On Thursdays I received a message from an anonymous texter, something like: “come to the stadium on Saturday at 2 p.m.” There was no information about the text’s author, the game time, the opponent, or whether the text had anything to do with my son or soccer. Was it an invitation from a Marseille wiseguy to pick up a suitcase of drugs? I felt like a Luddite, but an email would have been nice.

         Being my father’s son, I had my family at the stadium five minutes early. That was my first mistake, forgetting about le petit quart d’heure (which allows every French citizen to be at least 15 minutes late for everything). Over the next thirty minutes, parents and players would drift into the parking lot. The first time this happened, I ignored the tardiness, and picked the least-late parent to befriend. I targeted a sallow-faced smoking father, held out my hand and said, in French, “Hello, I’m Bill, I’m Devon’s father.”

         The man gave me one of those handshakes which offers only fingers, no palm. “Yes. Hello,” he said, without giving his name.

         “We’re here from Canada. We’re living in Aix this year.”

         “Yes. I know,” he said.

         “Devon is enjoying playing for this club. Is this your son? What position does he play?”

         “Oh, here and there.” The man tossed the remainder of his cigarette to the asphalt.

         That was the end of the conversation. I made similar attempts to engage other parents on other Saturdays, but had the same results. With no parents to befriend, every Saturday we waited in silence for the latecomers, staring into the distance like models in department store catalogues.

         Eventually, the coach told us the name of the town we had to find. I asked him the address of the soccer pitch. Every time the coach replied, “There’s only one stadium. It’s easy to find.” This was patently false.

         The plan was each driver would follow the car in front, and we would arrive at the pitch en masse. Within thirty seconds, all the cars were separated. The soccer pitch was never plunked beside city hall in any of these towns, and was often outside the town’s borders and down an unmarked dirt road. One cannot find secreted and unnamed soccer pitches accessed by unmarked dirt roads without stopping several times to ask indifferent locals for directions. In French. With a Québécois accent. And we were late. Did I mention this scenario played out every week?

         Well, not exactly like that every week – one Saturday had a vomitous twist. Sure, we had the mystery location, lack of directions, and chronic lateness. But as we were leaving our home stadium, the coach pulled me aside.

         “Could you take another player in your car to Peynier?” he asked.

         “Of course,” I said, as a uniformed boy peered up at me. It was his first game with Devon’s team, so I asked him his name.

         The boy spoke to the asphalt. “Ah-leece.” What did he say?

         I didn’t think it polite to ask him again since it was likely a normal French name I didn’t hear clearly. I let it slide.

         “Do you usually play with a different club?” I asked the boy. He looked at me warily and whispered something to his father. They kissed each other on each cheek and the boy silently joined Devon in our car.

         “Thank you for driving Ah-leece to the game,” said his father, strolling away.

         His name couldn’t be “Ah-leece,” I thought, as “Ah-leece” was French for “Alice.” Was it an homage to Alice Cooper, or “A Boy Named Sue” knockoff? I decided to drive this kid to the match without knowing his name. As The Boy Named Alice’s father opened his car door, I thought, hold on, shouldn’t a parent know the name and number of the foreigner driving his son out of town? He didn’t even ask how he would collect his kid when, or if, we returned to Aix.

         “Wait a minute, monsieur,” I said. “Shouldn’t we exchange phone numbers?”

         “Yes. I guess so. If you want,” he replied, retracing his steps.

         “Otherwise, how will you know when to pick him up?” Using a pronoun was a clever way to avoid saying the boy’s name.

         “I was going to come back here in a few hours and wait for you,” he said.

         Waiting, again. The French could plan better, but in France everyone waits for everything; it’s built into every process. This man was content to sit in a hot parking lot with only a vague idea of when a stranger might return his son sometime in the future.

         “I think it’s better if I phone you when we’re close to Aix, and you can meet me here,” I said.

         “OK, if you want to do it that way.”

         Thirty minutes later, we climbed back into our car with The Boy Named Alice reeking of vomit, to continue our tour of Provençal roads which didn’t lead to the Peynier soccer pitch.

         “I can’t sit beside this boy anymore,” said Sophie in English, to spare the feelings of The Boy Named Alice. “He stinks, and I threw up a little in my mouth.”

         “Hang in there, Soph,” I said. “It’s rough, I know, but after a while you’ll get used to it. It’ll become our new normal.”

         “Ewwww.”

         We acclimatized to hurtling down the road in a metal box, the inside smeared with a thin film of puke. I was not surprised that once we reached Peynier, the soccer pitch was nowhere to be found. We approached a local man stuffing a mattress into a SmartCar, and I called to him before we were too close. I thought he would be reluctant to provide directions if he smelled our vomitorium.

         “Excuse me, monsieur,” I said. “Do you know where the soccer pitch is?”

         The man advanced toward the car in a friendly fashion, stopped abruptly and made a face like he had sucked a lemon. He reversed two steps and said, “I hope that’s a rental car. Heh heh. The soccer pitch, yes. Do you want the one beside the school or the new one that was recently built beside Monsieur Beaudrie’s estate?” He pulled a cigarette from where it was wedged atop his ear and flicked it to his lips.

         “I was told there was only one soccer field. Could you give me directions to both? I have a feeling the game will be at the second field we drive to.” Prophetic.

         Both sets of directions were unintelligible. We thanked the man with the sincerity he deserved, and drove away aimlessly.

         “Dad, are we late?” asked Devon, drumming his fingers against the back of the driver’s seat.

            “No, we’re not late.”

            “Are we going to be late?”

         “I don’t know. Maybe. It would help if there was a sign or something to tell us where the field is.”

         “I’m getting worried. I can’t be late, daddy.” Devon’s finger-drumming intensified. “I hate being late for anything.”  Like father like son, like grandfather like grandson, like great-grandfather like great-grandson.

         We crisscrossed the town’s major streets, and chanced upon the school where the deserted soccer field was a stony, hardscrabble playground with rusted goals, the memory of nets blowing in the breeze. That couldn’t be it. We stopped an ancient woman shouldering a straw shopping basket with three baguettes sticking out.

         “Excuse me, madame, but do you know where the soccer field is?” I asked.

         “The soccer field?” she said with a screwed-up face, as if soccer was an obscure sport, like Quidditch or hockey. What we call “soccer” in Canada, and “football” in England, is “le foot” in France. When the French named their national sport, they chose an English word that none of them can pronounce. It sounds like ‘le fute.’ “There isn’t a fute field around here. The only field I know is down that way, about halfway to the next town.”

         “Merci, madame.” This information would have been helpful when I asked the coach where in town we could find the pitch. Devon became increasingly agitated, and bounced his feet on the floorboards. The Boy Named Alice remained silent and unflappable. Scouring the roads between the two towns, we prepared to drive back to Aix when we passed a game of boules, bocce for you Italians. Like all games of French boules, the players were ancient, smoking men, with high-belted pants, ratty cardigans and cock-eyed cloth caps. A serious game for squinty-eyed competitors, mouths set in bloodless sneers. I was deathly afraid of interrupting this crowd with my stupid question in my stupid accent. But I love my kid, and he wanted to play soccer. I mentally prepared my question in French. And chickened out.

         “Carol, I’m driving the car. You go ask them,” I said, looking out the window, away from her.

         “No, Billy, you do it.” Carol crossed her arms. “You’re way better at French than me.” I hated when she said that. While true, her statement extracted her from making linguistic errors in front of car salesmen, immigration officials, doctors, the optometrist, the telephone company, the cleaning lady, the school board, the mayor’s office, and many people working in industries where knowing all the French words related to hockey (as I do) was useless. Carol spoke acceptable French, and was perfectly capable of asking directions. I exited the car to confront the boules players.

         As I approached the group, the game immediately stopped. The players and spectators looked at me, not moving a muscle. Ten people standing still as stone, unsmiling.

         “Hello, everyone,” I said. “I’m very sorry to interrupt your game. I’m trying to find the stadium near here. My son has a soccer game starting in a few minutes.” Blank looks all around. No one was happy I barged into their game.

         “Where are you from?” asked an old woman with a kerchief tied to her head.

         “Aix-en-Provence, madame.”

         “No you’re not,” she replied. “If you were from around here, you’d know where our stadium is.” That witticism garnered laughs all around. “Americans,” the woman added, under her breath. More laughter.

         “Well, we live in Aix now, but we’re from Vancouver. In Canada.”

         A light switch was flipped somewhere as the woman broke into a bright smile and said, “Canada? Céline Dion? I absolutely love Céline Dion! You have a lovely accent just like her!”

         I despaired for my country. Why did everyone in France equate Canada with Céline Dion? Couldn’t we do better than that? I felt it was an inopportune time to mention Céline Dion was my most intolerable public figure, music division, in the world. I had enough of her anguished theatrics when I lived in Québec City.

         “You like Céline Dion?” I asked, faking enthusiasm. “We have the same birthday!” This was true, to my everlasting shame. My disgrace was almost cancelled out by the knowledge Vincent Van Gogh and Eric Clapton were in the same ignominious club.

         “Lucky man,” she said, and gave me perfect instructions to a soccer pitch in the middle of a forest, covered by a Klingon cloaking device.

         Once at the pitch, I was happy to see there was a bar.

         After the game, The Boy Named Alice continued the silent treatment until we returned to our home stadium’s parking lot. The father of The Boy Named Alice was staring at the sky while sitting on a large rock, the kind put in parking lots to prevent French drivers from parking beside fire hydrants.

         “Ah, there you are,” said the father of The Boy Named Alice, pushing up from the rock. “How did it go?”

         “Fine, fine.” I said. “Well, there was a small problem. Your son was a bit carsick on the way there. He vomited a little in the car but he’s feeling better now.”

         “Oh, I’m very sorry about that.” There was genuine concern in his voice. “Is your car okay? Can I do something?”

         “No, it’s all cleaned up,” I said, shaking the hand of the father of The Boy Named Alice. “Don’t worry.”

         As father and son wandered away, The Boy Named Alice said excitedly to his father, “……and we won our first game, but that team wasn’t too good, I was playing midfield, but in the second game, which we also won, they put me at striker and I scored two goals, the second goal was the best, I used the outside of my left foot so it was really hard…….”

         It was considerate of The Boy Named Alice to let me know he could speak French. Sadly, his consideration had not extended to the previous three hours, when he could have said, “please pull over,” or “thanks for the ride,” or “sorry I puked all over your new car.” And the true name of The Boy Named Alice remains a mystery.

TOUGH ENOUGH – KELLY’S NEW JOB

Bill Crow, blog, Kelly Tough, Miss October, Playboy, Playboy Magazine, playmate, William Crow, writer, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted: February 16, 2021 at 6:28 pm

In this excerpt from Tough Enough, my co-author Kelly Tough sinks deeper into a world of drugs and criminals:

For two years I lived with the manager of the Guildford Station, in an apartment above the bar. Continuing to waitress on amphetamines, I was a textbook functioning addict, barely functioning.

Splitting with the Station’s manager required a new address, so at 34, I moved in with Corey, a Guildford Station regular. Not as his girlfriend, but as Senior Director of Illegal Drug Distribution. Or gopher, however you looked at it. Corey was a hefty guy with a mean streak, long blond hair swept straight back because it thinned on top. His hair often fell forward, so he had the constant habit of jerking his head back and combing hair off his face with his fingers. He often showed kindness, setting up a basement suite for me. I sold cocaine and speed from the house, meeting buyers when Corey was out. It was a constant stream of addicts at the door, and many dangerous situations, but I wasn’t worried; we had an alarm and a safe, bear spray and lots of weapons. Not that I would ever use a weapon. I was also Corey’s mule, transporting drug shipments around town. Sometimes, Corey took me along to visit suppliers or watch him intimidate (well, torture) business associates. Corey liked having a Playmate working for him…everyone wanted to see Corey’s bunny.

Looking back, I now understand moving in with Corey was my tipping point. Not long before Corey, I was married, had a proper home, focussed on being a mom. Everyone in Corey’s world sold drugs or was a drug addict. The people I hung out with were criminals, Surrey underworld figures, biker gang members or members in training. These criminals, or people like them, were the type who took me in when Mum kicked me out at 13. These were people I was comfortable with.

I quit waitressing to work for Corey in the drug trade full-time. He didn’t pay me a salary, but took care of whatever I needed, housing, food, cigarettes, whatever. He also supplied free speed and its nasty younger brother, crystal meth, as much as I could handle, insuring I was constantly high. I wasn’t making pension contributions or planning for my future.

*

“Bunny, you’d be good at making clones,” said Corey. “That’s your new job.” Corey clicked a secret lever at the foot of the stairs, and the staircase rose so we could access the clone room, like Batman’s lair. We ducked our heads going in. Stacked trays of baby pot plants, rows of fluorescent lights, a long counter like the one in Mum’s gardening shed.

“We’ll get Sharon to come over and teach you.”

I loved making clones from day one, and I was great at it. They were my babies and I was the mom. In the windowless clone room, I’d talk to my plants, encouraging them to take root. It was warm and calming in there, like in the womb. Not Mum’s womb, but a womb where you felt safe and appreciated. I took cuttings from larger plants and transferred them to teensy pots. I’d turn my babies, lift them, check on them umpteen times a day. Every time I lifted a plant from its pot and saw a tiny curling root I’d say aloud, “Five dollars! That’s another five dollars.” The illegal pot producers bought as many clones as I could grow.

I could have happily lived at Corey’s place and tended baby pot plants until I died. But with all things related to Corey, money eventually became a bone of contention. After two years I was the best clone maker in Vancouver, but Corey refused to increase my pay.

“It’s only a dollar, Corey,” I said. “A dollar more for every clone. You keep raising your prices, but you pay me the same.”

“Look, Bunny, that’s what it pays. You’ve lived here for free, for three years, you’ve got a great deal. If you don’t like it, go get another fucking job.”

“It’s not fair and you know it. Christ, I’ve had enough of guys walking all over me. Just fucking pay me you cheap bastard!”

Corey simmered for a moment, and quietly said, “That’s it, Bunny. You’re done here. You’re lucky I’m letting you leave with all your fingers. Get the fuck out.”

Homeless, again. I immediately called Manny, a drug dealer I met at Corey’s. Manny owned a grow-op in Surrey, so I hoped we could arrange a work/shelter deal. He had a crush on me, so I wasn’t surprised when he said, “Yeah, you can stay at my place and look after my shit. C’mon over.” That was a relief, because I needed a home and someone to take care of my daily expenses. I offered my clone expertise, not my love or my body, and he seemed OK with that.

Playmate of the Month

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Posted: October 11, 2020 at 2:36 pm

In this excerpt from “Tough”, 17-year-old Kelly frets in Vancouver, wondering if Hugh Hefner and the Playboy editorial team will choose her as a Playmate of the Month:

The day of the editorial meeting in LA, I sat in Mum’s kitchen all afternoon. I picked up the phone before its first ring ended, and Mary O’Connor said, “Congratulations Kelly. Your centerfold has been approved.”

“Oh my God, Mary.”

“It wasn’t God who decided. Well, almost. Anyway, we’ll get in touch soon to arrange the rest of your layout shots.”

“Mary, I can’t thank you enough. I’m so excited!”

“I almost forgot. Your money. You get ten thousand when your pictorial is published, but if you want, I can give you partial payment of two thousand now, and eight grand later.”

I’d never seen $2,000 before. “I’ll take the partial payment now, thank you.”

Two days later Federal Express delivered my check, and I told everyone I’d soon move back to Los Angeles to finish my photo spread. After waiting a month, I took a waitressing job I didn’t want. Another month later, those friends happy to know a soon-to-be, real-life Playboy Playmate stopped asking when I would be in the magazine. Instead, they made snide remarks under their breath, just loud enough to hear.

Unsurprisingly, Mum got in on the action. One night when I came home late from work, she was on the couch, watching television. Mum squeezed Otrivin, a nasal spray, into one nostril. She used Otrivin for many years, not knowing she was addicted to its ephedrine. Her eyes looked glassy. “How’s that big job of yours going, Kelly?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I thought it was just temporary. You were moving to LA at any moment.” Another squeeze of Otrivin into a giant sniff.

“I am, Mum. When they call me.”

“It doesn’t look like they’re calling you.”

“What do you want me to do about it? They said they’d call.”

“Did they say that? Or did you just make that up?”

“How can you say that Mum? You know I went to LA.”

“Lots of dreamers go to LA, Kelly. And lots lie when they come back with their tails between their legs.”

“I don’t believe you! Why do you want me to fail? You’ll see.”

“I’m already seeing what I always see.” Mum sprayed her nose once again and raised the volume on the television to end the conversation.

Three months after leaving Los Angeles, I finally admitted to myself Playboy wasn’t going to call. Hef changed his mind, or found someone younger and prettier to bed. It didn’t make sense…he said I was beautiful, flirted with me, and invited me, not anyone else, for a one-on-one. That had to count for something. I thought eventually I’d be Hef’s Number 1, queen of the Mansion, but it seemed he’d forgotten I was alive. That’s why I wasn’t expecting a call one afternoon before I went to work.

“Hi Kelly, this is Micki Garcia from Playmate Promotions. We wanted to ask you something.”

OK, this is it. I’m going to be a Playmate!

“Can you sing?” asked Micki.

I said ‘yes’ without knowing if I could. No one ever told me to stop singing along with the radio, but that didn’t mean I was good. I said ‘yes’ because it was my chance to get back to the Mansion and Hef. I would have said I could juggle while skydiving to return to the Playboy lifestyle.

“Would you be interested in flying down and trying out for the Singing Playmates?” asked Micki.

“Singing Playmates? What’s that?” 

Notorious Outlaw Motorcycle Gang

Bill Crow, blog, cartoon, Kelly Tough, Miss October, Playboy, playmate, Stories, William Crow, writer, writing, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted: January 17, 2020 at 4:00 pm

It was harder and harder to get the chemicals we needed to make crystal meth. Barrels of ephedrine, we used to be able to get them easy, and they were cheap. Something like $500. But the prices kept going up and up, and then there was a big drug bust, so the prices doubled again. The new cost of one big blue barrel of ephedrine was $60,000, if you could get one. This caused things to be a little dry for crystal meth users (me) and crystal meth cookers (also me). So I wasn’t surprised to hear Jamie discuss his plan at his house with Wrench and Mullet Mike.

The three men crowded around a scarred coffee table, covered in empty bottles, cigarette butts and baggies of various drugs.

“The girl needs to be rescued, Jamie,” said Mullet Mike.

“Yeah,” said Wrench. “The cook’s holding her in that house and she has her kids there too. That cocksucker cook’s gotta pay for that.” 

Jamie fired up a joint and let the smoke wrap around his face a bit before answering. “OK, let’s go get her. And since he’s cooking, and we’ll be there anyway, we’ll just take whatever else he has on hand.” The other two men laughed like Jamie made the best joke ever. “We’ll go tonight. And Bunny, you’re driving.”

I often drove for Jamie’s little capers. Not for what I might get out of it, but just because these guys were my friends. I had my own pickup truck, and I was the only one with a driver’s license. Most of the people I knew had criminal records and were careful because of warrants. They were secretive about where they went, what they were doing. Cars and licenses had too many records attached. And cars were a burden to look after; it was just easier to steal one, or ask me.

About 4am I cut the lights of my truck as I drove the last 100 feet to the meth cook’s house. It was a quiet residential neighbourhood with a primary school down the street and basketball nets on driveways. You would never guess there was a major drug operation going on in that house; it had a garden, and a wicker mailbox, and looked just like the others. Jamie, Wrench and Mullet Mike slipped on balaclavas. They openly carried guns.

“Bunny, you stay here.” Jamie waited for the other two guys to go around the back of the house and then Jamie let himself in the unlocked front door. Unlocked?

There was nothing to do in my truck while I waited. I didn’t understand what could be taking so long. There was no screaming, which was good for a change. I expected that after a few minutes they’d come out with the girl and maybe a couple of bags of crystal meth. I must have nodded off and woke with a start to realize they’d been in the house for a couple of hours. After all that time I still wasn’t worried about what might have happened to Jamie. Nothing ever happened to Jamie. He was the reason bad stuff happened to other criminals.

Jamie walked out the front door and came to the driver’s side window. He was sweating quite a bit. “Bunny, open up the tailgate and the cab. We gotta get this shit out of here.” Jamie returned to the house.

When he next came out, Jamie was struggling, carrying a 50 gallon barrel. Only Jamie could carry a 50 gallon barrel by himself. The other guys carried pails in each hand, something spilling out at each step. By the smell alone, I knew it was wet crystal meth. It had been cooked, but was still in liquid form.

“What the fuck? We’re taking all this?” I asked.

“Yeah,” said Jamie. “And there’s more. I figure it’s about a million bucks worth.” Jamie went inside and retrieved three more barrels. When the fourth barrel and several buckets were loaded, Wrench came out of the house holding the hand of a 20-year-old girl. She wasn’t dragged out, but she didn’t look happy to be rescued either. She didn’t look like much of anything, with a vacant, haunted look on her face common with addicts.

“Are you all right? I heard we were supposed to come and get you,” I said. The girl had started crying, and was talking, but it was mostly nonsense. There was something in there about her kids being at her mother’s place, so that made me feel better. The girl looked really worried, and only then I figured out it was an inside job. The story about saving a trapped girl was fake. She was Wrench’s connection, and she must have told him the address and when to come when the cook wouldn’t be there. No wonder the door was unlocked. The girl just realized the consequences of crossing the cook’s boss. 

By the time I pulled away, the sun was up and it was 730 Monday morning. We had to drive the crystal meth to a safe house across town, Pete Woodson’s place, and we were in bumper to bumper rush hour traffic. Every time I came to a stop, some of the crystal meth sloshed onto the floor of the cab. The kind of chemicals you don’t want splashing in your truck: red phosphorus, ephedrine, iodine. The stink was overwhelming and I worried the other drivers could smell it from their cars too. It’s not like we were racing past each other; there were drivers right beside me, sitting still in traffic. If I got caught there, I was in big trouble with the cops. My car, my name, I’m done.

The girl looked like she had been up for days, which wasn’t unusual for a crystal meth addict. She continued to cry, so I said, “It’s OK, we’re going to a safe house, right? We’ll go somewhere where no one will know where we are.” 

As soon as we got to Pete’s place across town, and carried the crystal meth into the house through the garage door so no one would see, I asked Jamie for my cut.

“Sure, Bunny, sure,” Jamie said. “You can have this.” Jamie threw me a small package.

“An eight-ball? All you’re giving me is an eight-ball? I don’t want that. I want money.” An eight-ball is 3.5 grams of drugs, worth about 100 dollars.

“That’s what you’re getting,” said Jamie. “If you want money, you can just sell that.” I didn’t want to complain too much because there was lots of crystal meth in that house, and I knew that by hanging around, I could use it for free. Even though we had all been up all night, we immediately began putting the wet crystal meth in filters and drying it. We’d only know how much we had when it was all dry, which would take a couple of days.

No sooner was it dry, the owner of the stolen crystal meth discovered who had his product. Neither the owner nor the thief were happy to discover the identity of the other.

“The Notorious Outlaw Motorcycle Gang?” asked Jamie. “We stole a million bucks of meth from the Notorious Outlaw Motorcycle Gang?”

“Yeah,” said Pete. He had come to the house because the Notorious Outlaw Motorcycle Gang asked him to be their go-between with Jamie. Normally they’d just kill whoever crossed them, but since it was Jamie, they needed a different approach. “I can tell you they weren’t too pleased to hear it was you, either. You know they’re afraid of you.”

“They might be afraid, but they won’t let me just keep it. What a fuckin’ mess.” Jamie flopped onto the couch and crossed his motorcycle boots on the coffee table.

“I was talking to their guy, and he was shitting too, because it was you,” said Pete. “But he tried to act all brave like, and he said if you just give back the twenty keys you stole, they’ll let you off. They won’t kill you.”

“Twenty keys?” asked Jamie. “They want back their twenty keys?”

“Uh-huh. That’s what the cook said he had when you got there.”

Jaime let out a howl. “Those fuckin’ cooks. They all lie. He had thirty keys. He planned to sell ten on the side, I bet. He probably does that every batch. Sure, I’ll give them twenty keys back. I’ll just keep the other ten, and the boys will never fuckin’ know.”