2.13 “Do you know why I’ll always win?”
Six years earlier–good God, where does the time go–I was at a party sponsored by the mayor’s office that commemorated the achievements of three gaijin living and working in the city. The mayor popped in, gave a bland speech, and, like a scoutmaster passing out merit badges, handed out letters of commendation.
I can’t for the life of me remember what I was doing there or who had invited me. I do remember, though, sitting with Jean on a sofa reserved for “VIP” guests–something that had us elbowing each other in the ribs and snickering. I leaned over to Jean and under my breath said: “My friend, as far as I am concerned, the most commendable thing that any gaijin in this town has done is to import magic mushrooms, sell them in the center of town right under the cops’ noses, and not get busted for it.”
Jean, God love him, had been receiving bulk shipments of dried psilocybin mushrooms from a wholesaler in Holland. You name it–San Isidros, Liberty Caps, Blue Halos, Amanitas–Jean’s shops carried them. He also dealt in limited quantities of peyote seeds, San Pedro cactuses, as well as Ayahuasca bark from the jungles of the Amazon. Thanks to my friend’s entrepreneurial spirit, the disaffected youth of the city were kept in stitches, and out of our minds.
The “magic” wouldn’t last. It seldom does. A few months earlier, a popular young actor, by the name of Hideaki Itoh, had been hospitalized after a bad trip on shrooms, stirring the Japanese media into a frenzy of indignation. How could such things not be illegal? The hosts of tabloid TV talk shows, known as wideshows, wrung their hands through the preamble of sensationalized reports reminiscent of Reefer Madness.
In June 2002, laws would go into effect, plugging up the loopholes through which that delightful smorgasbord of natural psychedelics had been pouring in.
I knew the changes would hurt my friend’s business–he’d been doing some 10 million yen worth in sales a month at The Zoo, alone, not a small portion of which came from psilocybin toadstools.
Never one to let his feathers get ruffled, Jean took the amendments to the law in stride. “It’s a game, Rémy. Only a game,” he said with that familiar insouciance of his. “Politicians change the rules, and think they’ve got you, but, all you have to do is to stay one step ahead of them.”
“And?”
“When they try to change the rules, you change the game completely.”
A few days before the new law would come into effect in June 2002, Jean would get rid of his stock of psychedelic mushrooms, cacti, and Amazonian barks and leaves. And, without missing a beat, he would start selling vials of synthetic hallucinogenic drugs, instead, providing an ever expanding and nominally legal arsenal of designer drugs, with names like Speed Ball and Mellow Water. Cracking down on magic mushrooms only ensured that there would be stronger, more easily transportable drugs available to blow your mind with.
And when shipment of these goho doraggu (nominally legal drugs) started rolling in, more often than not it was Rémy who had the right stuff, who would take that first giant leap for mankind and report back to Jean in Houston with his impressions. Call me a reckless guinea pig, if you like, but personally I considered myself as a trailblazer: like the Learys and Huxleys who had orbited the Earth before me, I wanted to know how far I could stretch my mind before it burst.
“And do you know why I always win?” Jean asked me.
“No, why?”
“Because, my friend, I make more money and have more fun bending the rules than the cops do enforcing them.”
© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.
注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Aonghas Crowe
No.6 