Chapter 50

By the end of the week we were up and running. Well up and limping, Tommy and I had sore muscles big time. Lucinda and Gerome seemed to be just fine, which pissed me off. Not at them, but at my own weak body.

I spent a whole day forcing generic Aleve down my throat. The back pain originated with an old accident in a police cruiser. The sudden increase in physical activity aggravated it.

I also drank a lot of coffee and worked on my plans. We talked in code, when we talked at all about the project. It wasn’t much of a code the three acre plot was the plantation. The ‘stuff’ was the pot. That was the temporary code. I knew we would need to get more sophisticated later.

“So Lucinda are you and Gerome learning all there is to know about preserving the stuff?” I asked just after noon.

“Gerome isn’t much at learning from books. He will pick it up OJT?” she admitted.

“Huh?” I asked.

“It’s a military term ‘On The Job training’,” she informed me.

“Okay, well it is not likely you two will be working at the same time. You can’t both be away from the gym,” I suggested.

“We have a room to preserve the stuff here, but I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she said.

“Something will come along. You are right, that wouldn’t be a good idea. There are too many people hanging around,” I said.

“And they aren’t the types you would trust,” she observed.

“More like they will draw unwanted attention just because of who they are. It ain’t fair, but it is what it is,” I explained.

“I know,” she said.

“We don’t even know what kind of bulk we have to worry about yet,” I further explained. “No one comes to visit me, but I don’t want all that stuff around the cabin either.”

“I can dig it, but we still need a space.” she said.

“I’m looking at spots to use. We might need a spot for a couple of weeks, a month at most. I’m think a couple of hundred square feet. That should be enough to allow us to have a work space as well.”

“You might need to double that. We have enough time to look for something. Just keep in mind that we are on a time line,” she said.

“I’ll do that, and if you see anything let me know,” I demanded.

I took the rest of the day off. Except for a call from Tommy the plantation didn’t come up again. He just wanted to let me know that his cousin had a tobacco curing barn that he wasn’t using.

“I think we could rent it,” Tommy suggested.

“Not right now thanks, but I’ll keep it in mind. The problem is that he will be probably be curious. There just aren’t too many thing other than tobacco and pot that need to be cured,” I suggested.

After that call, I moved outside to working on the worm farm. I did skip watering the stuff.” I just didn’t feel like lugging the tank around, or even leaving the cabin. I went to sleep early because my back hurt. I took to Generic Tylenol then fell asleep. Early the next day, after breakfast, I went over to water the stuff. Fifteen or twenty minutes later Lucinda showed up.