Traveler
(Part IV: Iowa and Illinois)

Lalo lived with Mimi, our grandmother, for some time while he studied music at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa. Later on he changed to Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, across the Mississippi River; years later, Augustana would commission a piece for their “Music of the 20^th Century” series from him. Acapulco en la Azotea, a quintet for trumpet, tenor saxophone, vibraphone, classical guitar and double bass was premiered the 27^th of October of 1998, the night before his birthday, giving birth to tropical minimalism in classical music.

            Of all the stories Lalo ever told me about his stay in the Quad City area between Iowa and Illinois, the one I most remember is what I’ll now call “The great pot tree incident”.

            Lalo was renting one of the units of a vertical duplex; his neighbor, a girl we’ll call “Sandy” for purposes of anonymity, was incredibly gorgeous, had blond hair and blue eyes, a body to kill for and was adorably sweet… in addition to being a dealer.

            Some friend of Lalo’s had heard a rumor that there was an enormously gigantic marihuana bush growing somewhere in the nearby countryside. One weekend, Lalo and his friends drove out to the country in search of this mythical plant. When they finally found it, they were totally amazed. It was truly enormous!! “The only way you could describe it was as a marihuana tree it was so huge!” he told me.  They enthusiastically cut it down, hid it in the trunk of their car and drove back to Lalo’s house. They carefully took the “pot tree” out of the trunk and decided to hide it in the attic, where they hung it upside down to dry. The thing dangled from the rafters and hung all the way down to the floor. Some time later, when it was completely dry, they tried it. It was the equivalent of smoking oregano. The humongous plant had no effect whatsoever. Not knowing how to get rid of it, they left it up in the attic and forgot about it.

            Now then, something you should know about the attic in the vertical duplex is that one of the walls had a hole that communicated both units.

            Time went by and one day Sandy decided to move out of the duplex. Lalo said that Sandy’s “side” was a lot better than his, so he asked her if they could trade units, as she would no longer be living in hers. She said yes and so Lalo moved all his things into what had been Sandy’s unit. Although she wouldn’t be living there anymore, she told him she would not be vacating a small bedroom on the ground floor. It was secured with a huge padlock and she told him that if anyone should ask, he was to say he didn’t know what was in there; that it had been left that way by the previous tenant.

            Apparently, she must have suspected something was going to happen because one fine day, the police came and pounded on the door. They had some questions. Lalo told them he had just moved in (he didn’t mention where from) and knew nothing of the previous inhabitants. When they asked him if they could search the place, Lalo stepped aside and told them they could do whatever they wanted.

            They immediately asked about the padlocked door, to which Lalo answered what Sandy had told him to say. When the police forced their way into the room, they found part of Sandy’s stash, but not anything significant. They kept looking and, of course, eventually went up to the attic.

            When they saw the hole in the wall and peeked through, there was the gigantic pot tree! They were enormously excited! They went in through the hole, recovered the plant and dragged it down the stairs out into the street, where two officers held it up with difficulty, posing for the photographs that were published in the newspapers the next day, together with the story of the “major drug bust” they had achieved.

            When they finally left, they thanked Lalo profusely for his cooperation and apologized for the mess of leaves and twigs they left on the stairs after dragging the pot tree out of the house. Lalo kindly offered to clean up the mess.

            On their way out, one of the officers said, “Don’t try smoking that stuff, now, you hear?” in a warning voice. Lalo promised he wouldn’t.

Susana Olivares Bari