I left California after attending Cal Tech, but I always stayed in close contact with Mickey and Vicky, who never left northern California. They both became pot farmers and both made a small fortune, although you would never know it by the way they dressed or the cars that they drove. Mickey lived with his girlfriend of 22 years, Sharon. Vicky had entertained a string of suitors but had never actually settled down. There was a rumor that she had once been in a relationship with Leonard Cohen, and that the song "Suzanne" had actually been written about her, but I could never get her to confirm or deny that story.
When the feds finally started cracking down on the pot farms in Humboldt County, they both decided to move to Mt. Shasta. They both bought houses on the same street. Vicky opened a shop selling sacred crystals and other healing minerals. Mickey and Sharon opened a coffee shop/herb shop/kennel. How they came up with that concept I never understood but it worked in Shasta.
Over the years we communicated by written letter and then email and then Facebook. For some reason they both rarely talked on the telephone. Something about radium chips and a government conspiracy. When you grow pot for most of your adult life for a living and heavily partake of the bounty, you start to see conspiracies behind every bush.
I started visiting them in Shasta seven years ago. I loved the culture and the laid back attitude. The air was clean and the conversation was always interesting. I learned early on that this was the location that the lost civilization of Atlantis had made its way to when the city had fallen into the ocean. The million or so inhabitants now lived under the mountain in a city named Telos. Jesus supposedly lived there, too.
Sometimes when I was with friends of Mickey and Vicky, strumming a guitar under the starlight around a campfire, they would tell me their stories of visiting Telos. I mostly kept my mouth shut, having learned early on that this was no joke to them. This was the world of Shasta. It was semi magical and mostly mystical. There were faith healers and raki masters and I even once saw a Tibetan monk. There were hippies and yippies and the concept of free love still existed here. Pot was plentiful, acid was available but most other drugs were scorned.
I met Chloe on one of my early visits. Vicky told me that I looked tired and worn down, but she knew just the person I should see. She said that Chloe was an herbalist and a seer. At one time in her life she had been a showgirl in Las Vegas. She had moved from Vegas to New Orleans after some fancy hustler from New York City had stolen her heart and most of her hard earned money.
In New Orleans she had learned the art of voodoo from a Haitian woman who allowed her to live in her flat if she would clean and sing for her. She must have done both very well because she became one of the most sought after voodoo artists in Louisiana. The word was that the hustler from New York came down with a rare disease that left his penis in a state of constant pain with boils that itched and oozed. When the Haitian woman died, Chloe packed up her clothes and her assortment of dolls, herbs and voodoo tools and moved to Mt. Shasta.
When I met her she was working out of a double wide trailer on the outskirts of town. There was no sign and she did not advertise. Her business was conducted strictly by word of mouth. I have asked many people in Shasta about her, and although everyone knew her, they could not agree on exactly what she did. One lady I knew described her as a spiritualist. Sharon called her a witch. The woman who owned the Black bear called her a medicine woman. Mickey just shrugged his shoulders and said that she was the person who could see things that we couldn't and do things that we shouldn't.
On my first visit to her she looked into my eyes with a magnifying glass and told me that I had a problem with my adrenal glands. She asked me if my sex life was okay. Vicky giggled a little when I told her that my sex life was just fine. She said that was good, and asked me if I would have sex with her right then. I stood there stunned. I would guess that Chloe was about forty years older than me the first time I met her.
She laughed and said "Sonny, don't worry. I am only kidding. But just know that if I ever do want sex with you, you will be at my doorstep with an erection so powerful you will feel like King Kong. And the best part is you will come here and leave here thinking that it was all your idea."
She gave me a tincture to take for my affliction which I immediately ignored until two weeks later when I visited my long time doctor and friend in Atlanta because I was so tired all of the time. After several days of tests, he revealed to me that I had a benign tumor on my left adrenal gland that was causing it to malfunction. He gave me a steroid to take that he warned would have some unpleasant side effects. I began taking the voodoo drug instead and within two weeks I was back to my old self. Six months later my doctor friend congratulated himself for fixing my problem so completely. I smiled and just said thanks.
Over the years Chloe had helped to solve several problems for me. And yes, I have had sex with her several times and it was my idea. I am sure of that. I am also sure that she is now only about twenty years older than me.
I hope that she was feeling generous today. This one was going to be the most difficult task yet.
