Chapter 32: Mushrooms for Africa!

Jane rang with another SOS as I was cleaning up after lunch. She told me that there was a big storm forecast, and I drove South in the early afternoon to help Michael with some repairs to a shed. I had hoped to spend the night at Leslie’s place, but she was busy and as it turned out, the repair job took longer than expected, so I stayed two nights with Jane and Michael and the kids and we did some more fatherly and grandfatherly things over the next two days.

I returned home in the early evening on Wednesday. The Vaughans had evidently been watching for my arrival, and Stan came over with Butch as I was enjoying the last of the takeaway ribs I had picked up on my way through town. He came straight to the point.

“Can we use the dehydrator? We did alright this morning.” They had indeed done alright. He had a bagful.

“Wow. Sure. Charlie’s place?” He nodded, and we carefully arranged 63 mushrooms of a variety of sizes in the stack of baskets.

“There’s another thing. Will you teach me to fish?” I have to say I was surprised. People usually get the ‘fishing bug’ young, though Pauline was a notable exception. My surprise must have shown on my face.

“Most of my life in the Hawkes Bay. Crap for boating and fishing. Good for hunting.”

“Yep – tide is good for tomorrow morning. Come over an hour before dawn and I’ll set you up with some gear and then we can go out in the dinghy. It will be tight for space, but I’ll get you started.” Stan and Butch went home, I took some squid and berley out of the freezer to thaw, and set an alarm. I drifted between sleep and American politics all night.

The predicted ‘storm’ arrived early. It was actually the remaining ‘tail’ of a tropical cyclone drifting down from the area between Fiji and New Caledonia. In relative terms there was nothing in it. Predicted to gust to 45kt maximum round midnight on Thursday.

But by Thursday morning it was already blowing Northerly at 25kt and building. Stan arrived before dawn and was disappointed that fishing from the dinghy was off – until I questioned him into thinking about what might go wrong. He decided he didn’t want to wind up in the surf break on an open beach 25km down the coast. Neither did I. Been there - done that!

Since fishing was no longer on the day’s activities list, we talked about mushrooms. Stan was excited about the prospects.

“Yesterday morning we got enough for twelve trips!”

“Will there be more there today?”

“Probably.” I had a very faint feeling of unease, but ignored it and encouraged him

“You could go and get some more.” He agreed, but looked very slightly doubtful. I coupled his doubt with my discomfort, and made a mental note to explore both at some later stage. In the meantime, I offered coffee but Stan wanted to go home and pick up his .22 on his way up to the Watts place. I returned the bait and burley to the freezer and went back to bed.

I stayed there most of the morning, dozing and following some of the links Pauline had sent me on Psilocybin and mushrooms, thinking about tripping and what it might be like and what might be making me uneasy. None of that did anything either to relieve my discomfort or to make its cause any clearer.

Until Ryan rang asking what he should do with the seventy odd mushrooms he had gathered that morning. He was wondering how many to keep fresh for a trip in the weekend, and how many he should start drying. I told him we needed thirty average ones for the weekend trip and he should start oven drying the rest because the dehydrator at my place was full. He was delighted at the prospect of having mushies available to trip whenever he wanted. Then I got it.

My anxiety was about abundance and abuse. We had too many mushrooms! Pauline had dried half a dozen trips, there were a dozen in the dehydrator, Ryan had more than a dozen, Stan was out collecting more, and God alone knew what Pauline was currently up to. That was five trips each. So far. And according to my morning research, the mushie season still had weeks to run. At this rate, we were going to have enough mushrooms for everybody to trip very week through the summer.

I had seen this before. Almost all the ‘communes’ the NZ government had helped set up in the seventies had eventually crashed and failed, and unbridled drug use had been the main cause of many of the failures. When abundant psychedelics are available and there are no effective social sanctions on their use, it seems that the result is often an ongoing big party with no one minding the store (or feeding the chickens and keeping the possums and pukekos out of the garden). I gave some thought to how I should raise my worry with my old and new friends, and immediately felt better. Funny that!

My good feelings lasted until Stan and Butch arrived again in the mid afternoon with a rabbit and another three dozen mushrooms. As the dehydrator was full, we spread them on baking sheets in the oven set a smidgeon under 100 degrees on fan bake. Pauline rang just as we finished. Her announcement that she had spoken to Ryan and was not only buying another bigger dehydrator, but was going up Maungatutu with him on Friday completed my descent into the shit. But at least I could talk to everyone without worrying about breaking confidences. I started with Stan.

“I’m worrying what will happen when we have shitloads of mushrooms and do some trips and have a nice time.” Stan looked slightly puzzled, and I hurried on. “Will we be able to control ourselves, or will we want to trip every few weeks, then every week, then every few days?” He eyed me shrewdly.

“That’s happened to you?”

“Let’s say I’ve seen lots of disasters from a distance and one or two uncomfortably close. It’s a slippery slope. Long story. Some other time.”

“It’s never been a worry for me and Sarah. We’ve only ever had them fresh, so mushies have been a seasonal treat – and if we had lots, we used to share them.” He looked thoughtful. “I like the idea of being able to trip whenever we want though. Sarah’s always keen to trip.” He giggled. “And always keen on sex.” I was momentarily distracted by the memory of Sarah’s furry middle, but made the effort to stay on track.

“So would the prospect of gradually slipping into tripping several times a week be a worry if there was no external reason limiting your frequency?”

“Dunno. But you’re right. We do need to think about it and talk about it.”

“Can you and me agree to raise it with the others next time we all get together?”

“For sure! And I’ll check out what Sarah thinks in the meantime.”

“I’ll raise it with Ryan and Pauline and Leslie, but I do think it is something we should all talk about together.”

“When will we trip?”

“Let’s try to get together to talk around Saturday lunchtime, trip Saturday afternoon, and eat together afterwards.”

“That ought to work.”

Stan and Butch went home, and I rang Pauline, who agreed to liaise with Leslie and Ryan about our Saturday plans. Then I paid some attention to the mushrooms in the oven and turned off the heat. I jointed the rabbit and got as far as thinking about a marinade before I got distracted, cooked myself an omelette with silverbeet and cheese, and had an early night.

As predicted, it blew. In the morning, I loaded my battery chainsaw into my SUV and went collecting firewood. There are trees down and branches torn off after every storm, and I can feel virtuous and public spirited by helping to clear them away while at the same time filling my woodshed. A win/win all round. A quiet day with no social contact apart from a brief ‘Hello’ with a couple of other residents of the bay, and another early night.

Saturday was wet and continuing windy, but since the wind was in the Northeast, the temperature was still[K1] comfortable. The dehydrator was full of mushrooms, and as the oven was also full of mushrooms, I was looking for stovetop recipes for rabbit when Ryan and Pauline arrived with a much larger new dehydrator full of drying mushrooms. I tossed up whether to raise my concerns before Leslie arrived, or to wait. I grabbed the bull by the horns.

“I’m bothered about the number of mushies we have.” Pauline looked thoughtful.

“Yup. They’re class A. If we get done for possession for supply, it’s serious.” Ryan looked concerned.