Tales From the Grow: 24-Hour Lease

The summer sun still crested the October sky on one of those northwest days that brought piercing heat at its zenith and winter cold once it fell into nighttime’s pocket. Mercury ran up and down the thermometer inside the U-Haul as we unloaded the miscellaneous loose clothing and cooking utensils. When the last handful of hangers and winter coats were dumped into the garage, I drove the U-Haul to the nearest depot with my sons following silently in the car. We made it back to the new house dead on our feet, me feeling what could only be described as grim relief and who knows what they felt or thought. The boys grabbed some mattresses and blankets and sawed logs by seven — indifferent to the sunshine still teasing with false promises of temperate days to come through the kitchen windows. Luck was still with us, we found the house in a day, negotiated a lease, packed and unpacked in good time. And, the plants were safe in their cycles.

Over time, zig-zagging around the greater Northwest had become an occupational requirement. We developed a map of safe zones: Idaho and parts of eastern Oregon and Washington marked off limits and Western Washington and Oregon or NorCal were safe. With my babies in various stages of the grow cycle, we couldn’t afford to move too far and interrupt the plant’s rhythm. This gave birth to the Law of the Six Hour Radius. Anything further than six hours away we ignored. Even six hours was cutting it close, but my boys and I could erect a makeshift grow room in no time flat. Repetition breeds perfection, yeah?

There were always two U-Hauls. Plants in one with the youngest seated among them if the trip was two hours or less. Normal move detritus in the other, with the exception of grow equipment right at the door’s end of the truck bed, packed delicately into boxes. Our routine: grow equipment truck first, sign papers, hang up and plug in equipment while the herb truck rumbles onto the driveway and the landlord has left. If the area is secluded, unload immediately, if it isn’t, time the arrival with the dark of night.

Our green room in the new house was set up and the plants looked as pretty as plants do. I had recently taken to laying among my taller girls as the wattage fills the room with near tropical warmth and the leaves ripple in the fan’s wake, drifting into a peaceful half-sleep under the lights. As I lay in the new grow room, I marveled over how fast the girls grew. It felt like just yesterday they were sitting in porous Solo cups, a family of labeled sprouts. A car door slammed outside and I stirred out of my reverie at the sound.

That wasn’t a car door I recognized.

I bolted out of the room and downstairs into the garage. A man in uniform was standing in our garage. Not that type of uniform, the type that makes your body drop into your shoes while your balls skyrocket. His was military; he was the landlord’s son, here by unfortunate mistake of not knowing they had rented out the place. The son from the army was on his phone and looking over a 10-gallon garbage bag that happened to be stuffed with trim (use all of the parts of the buffalo, yeah?). He looked at me like he was well-practiced in the art of justice and was happy to be given a moment to shine.

“Yes sir,” he said into the mouthpiece and then rapped out an address that seemed vaguely familiar to me until I realized it was my own. “Yes, the tenant is here.” He finally acknowledged my presence with a superfluous nod in my direction. The landlords were already coasting down my driveway and piling out of their Oldsmobile with that look cottonheads get when they feel duped. They crunched on the gravel drive into the garage, gazing cow-like at the trash bag of evidence. We all stood like this for a while with our eyes on the trim until the real, Better call Saul, uni’ showed up.

He walked into the garage. The hero and son in one pointed out the trim to him.

“This yours?” he asked me.

“No, it’s my son’s. He goes to school for horticulture at the JC.” This wasn’t entirely untrue. “He, uh, he has medical paperwork for this. Let me go inside and get it.”

“OK.”

I went inside. I found my oldest son upstairs with the plants, barring the entryway to the grow room with a Saturday Night Special. The other one was still asleep, tired from moving the previous day. Oblivious.

“Where’s your authorization?” I said. He went in with our green spectrum headlamp (our babies were in night, not to be disturbed) and fished it out of the grow room. I headed back to the garage, grabbing the lease papers that were still sitting on the counter for good measure.

“Here.” I gave the authorization to the cop along with my son and I’s IDs. He looked over them for some time, clearly unfamiliar with the paperwork in front of him and the tenuous nature of their legality. I cleared my throat and decided to redirect the conversation more within the Finest’s realm.

“Sir?” I inquired and handed him the lease. “I would like you to cite this gentleman for trespassing.”

The hero jolted as I gave him the same indifferent nod he acknowledged me with earlier. He eyed me murderously and the cottonheads seethed palpably, horrified that I could implicate their baby for any sort of criminal activity. Our cop brightened with authority over more familiar territory and began to scan the lease instead of, thankfully, my son’s authorization. Not that the authorization wasn’t legit, but he might disagree with our plant count.

“Ma’am, gentlemen?” said my hero in blue. “He’s right. You need to give him at least 24-hours notice before you step on the property. And your son, since he isn’t the homeowner, is trespassing. I’ll have to ask you all to leave.”

I’ve never seen someone become so enraged that they start shaking; the son veins mottled his purple face, hyperpulsating. The cottonheads dutifully shuffled off and the son stared at me balefully for a few silent moments. I thanked the officer and went inside, closing the garage behind me.

We went back to the U-Haul and rented the same beasts we leased one day prior. I dissolved my lease with the all-too-willing landlords and emptied the house like a bank vault.

“Welcome to the occupational hazards of growing.”