THE WEEDMEN(THE MARIJUANA SMOKERS) A SHORT STORY BY AUSTIN MITCHELL

The Weedmen (The Marijuana Smokers) by Austin Mitchell Salman took another blow off the chillum pipe. Bully was smoking a long stick of weed. Delly and Mendy were the other men in the group of marijuana farmers. Both had marijuana cigarettes. They were way up in the woods of Lobban’s Ridge, about three miles north of Linstead. All four men had fields nearby where they grew legal crops such as cucumbers, callaloo, pak-choi among others. These they sold to higglers or retailed them in nearby districts. Salman was of medium height and was thirty nine years of age. Delly and Mendy were both tall men. Delly was thirty with Mendy being a year older. “Weed here is good weed,” Salman said, taking another blow off the chillum pipe. They saw Mello approaching them. Mello was about the same height as Mendy and was the same age as Delly. “What’s going on, Mello?” Mendy greeted him. Mello removed the marijuana made cigarette from his lips. “Some men went into my field last night. They reaped everything.” Salman took some more blows off the chillum pipe before giving it to Mendy, who had finished his marijuana cigarette. “I bet you that it’s the boy, Prince,” Salman opined. Mello took up his machete. “I’m going down to his shack right now. He chopped off Welton’s hand already. He stole the man’s weed and when the man backed him up, he chopped off his hand.” Mendy put out the chillum pipe and lit another marijuana cigarette. All the men agreed to go with Mello. All of them were smoking marijuana cigarettes. They all carried machetes. *** “Prince, Prince, where are you? I want to talk to you,” Mello shouted. A woman and a baby came out of the shack. The woman was smoking a marijuana cigarette and wore dreadlocks. She was tall, thin and copper colored. She looked to be about twenty five years of age. “Wait, what are so many of you doing here? So you’ve come to kill Prince? What has he done to any of you? I am not sitting down and let any of you kill my man.” She rushed back inside and returned with a machete. She put the baby on the ground. The baby started crying. “Prince is not here. All of you want to fight me, kill me and my baby.” She scooped up the baby and tried to hush it, but the baby kept on crying. They spied Prince coming down the road. A tall thickset man, he approached them with a machete, a bag and was smoking a marijuana cigarette. “What happen, my sister? What are so many men doing here with machetes?” “You want to know what so many men doing in your yard with machetes. Where is my weed?” Mello demanded. Prince dropped the bag and gesticulated with his machete. “So all of you come to kill me and my woman and my youth?” “Where is my weed? What you did with my weed?” Another man came up behind Prince. He was smoking a stick of weed and had a machete in his hand. He was Prince’s older brother, Webbly. He was a broad shouldered man and at thirty one was two years older than Prince. “What’s happening here so, Prince? What are so many men doing here?” “They said Prince stole their weed and they’ve come to kill him,” Narda, Prince’s woman, replied. “The whole time last night Prince and I were down at Miss Dita’s shop playing ludu. All of you can go and ask her.” “It’s through Prince is your brother, why you are telling lies for him,”Mello replied. Two other men came on the scene. They were Prince’s father, Noah and his younger brother, Dicky. Both men were armed with long machetes. Both were smoking maijuana cigarettes and wore dreadlocks. Noah was a man in his middle fifties, and was short and broad shouldered. Dicky was a tall man in his middle twenties. “What’s going on? What are so many men doing here with machetes?” Noah demanded. “Mello said that Prince stole his weed,” Nerda replied. “Go to hell, Mello!” Noah shouted and rushed at him. Soon the two sets of men were fighting with machetes. They were swinging their machetes at each other. It was machete men against machete men, weedmen against weedmen. Suddenly two other men, West and Lincoln rushed onto the scene. Both were wearing dreadlocks and smoking marijuana cigarettes. “Police just raid Maxie field! They are coming this way,” West shouted. He and Lincoln continued running. They were going to their fields to hide it from the police. The fighters scattered in all directions. Some ran to drag already fallen trees across the road to block the policemen’s progress. Others rolled huge rock stones into the road. The police car had to turn back, much to the delight of the onlookers, many of whom had now gathered to watch the spectacle. In fact the police had accused several of them of being behind the road blocks. They denied this and refused to clear the road on the police’s orders. “The Babylon had to turn back,”Lincoln said the next evening. He was talking to a group of weedmen, who were playing dominoes and ludo in front of Miss Doris’ shop in Lobbans Ridge. “They said they are going to bring a tractor to clear the road when they are returning,” Eastman said. He was smoking a long marijuana cigarette. A group of men were sitting on a wall nearby, participating in the smoking of a chilum pipe and drinking some homeade roots beer. Nearby another group of marijuana smoking youths were busy cooking some food. A dreadlocks was lying on a grass mat, puffing away at a huge marijuana made cigarette. Nearby youths were warning him to put out his cigarette if he felt sleepy. Near the roadside, if one looked down one could see a fast moving river. Dreadlocks youths were diving off the rocks into a pool made by the waters from the fall. Down on the river bank another pot was simmering and breadfruits were being roasted. Meanwhile Mello was down at his field. He was still grieving at the loss of his crop. His friends had lost enthusiasm in helping him to fight Prince. “I still want to do that guy, Prince something for stealing my weed,” he told a group of other weedmen . “Let’s go down to Prince’s yard and let him pay you back, Mello,” a man called Eddie said. “We can’t allow that to happen up here. It’s not the first time it is happening, we have to stamp it out,” another weedman, Welton said. Grabbing up their machetes the weedmen set off for Prince’s shack. *** Prince, a man called Blue, Prince’s brother, Webly, his father and uncle were outside his shack, smoking weed. Other young men were seated on a bamboo bench taking blows off a chilum pipe. Another group of weed smoking youths were peeling yam and bananas and kneading flour dumplings as they cooked some food in a huge pot. Nearby they had breadfruits roasting. “Prince, I want back my weed,” Mello demanded. “I didn’t steal your weed, Mello. I told you so already, so why are you bothering me?” A dreadlocks called Risto jumped off a tree stump he was sitting on. “I know who stole your weed, Mello and it wasn’t Prince. It was some crooked policemen. I saw them in your field.” “Go to hell Risto! Prince paid you to come here with your lies.” The air became tense again and men were about to draw their machetes. “I told you that I saw them. I hid in the bushes. I even wrote down the license plate of the truck. There were five of them including the driver.” “I don’t believe you, Risto. You can go to hell, I want back my weed from Prince.” Suddenly a young shirtless, barefooted dreadlocks youth came running down the road. “Some men are raiding, Dexter’s field!” he shouted. The men ran up a hill from where they could look down on Dexter’s field. “Let’s block the road on them!”Mello shouted. A man named Natty ran to scout out the thieves’ truck. He soon reported that it wasn’t being guarded. The men soon had huge trees blocking the road. They had also rolled huge rock stones into the road to enforce the blockade. The thieves emerged from the bushes with the sacks of marijuana and saw their vehicle blocked in. They let off a torrent of bad words. “Let’s grab some of these boys from around the place and let them clear the roadblock,” one of the rogue cops advised. The other four men agreed with him and set off up and down the road to find men to clear the road blocks. They left the weed on the roadside. Immediately, they had gone a safe distance men ran and carried the abandoned weed to hide in the bushes. The rogue cops returned fifteen minutes later, marching five men at gunpoint. They cursed a lot of bad words as the men cleared the road blocks. They didn’t even bother to look for the weed the villagers had taken away or go for the rest they had left in the bushes. *** Mello still believed that it was Prince who had stolen his weed. The two men clashed a week later. They fought with machetes. Mello managed to chop Prince on his right hand. Prince chopped Mello on his left foot and he fell but just as he was moving in for the kill a police car drove up. Both men were arrested and hit with a battery of charges. At the moment, both are on bail and awaiting trial. The End. Epilogue: The police made several raids into Lobban’s Ridge but were never able to eradicate the marijuana plantations, some of which belonged to some very big people on the island. From my collection of short stories: The Worst is Over Now My email: glengoffe1@vwjamaica.com You can find my books on Amazon, payhip, book fusion If you have any querries about thisb story or about my nbooks please call me at 18765680692.