Tangerine Rockets

By Paul McGuire © 2009

Nina banged on the door of the Blue Condo. Muffled music squeezed through the cracks underneath the front door. She knew the sisters were inside, but they were not answering any cell phones and more importantly, they were not answering the front door. She kicked it a couple of times and then decided to try the back door.

Nina snuck down the alley and shuffled past Indica's Mini Cooper. She left the windows rolled down and she peered inside looking for cigarettes. Nina spotted a pack wedged in between the passenger seat and the console. Camel Lights. Alas, the pack was empty.

"Do people still smoke Camel Lights?" she said out loud.

She knocked on the back door and within a second, Indica answered the door. She was holding a red solo cup filled with a homemade Mimosa. She was singing along to "Cherry Pie" which blasted on the stereo.

"Sorry, hon. Didn't hear you," said Indica as she sniffled twice.

Nina slid past her. Indica slammed the door and locked it and Nina followed her into the bathroom.

"I need two bags but all I have is $85."

"You know it costs $50 each," said Indica as she sniffed twice.

Indica was constantly stuffed up from the high volume of cocaine that she shoveled into her nostrils. She cut up a line with one hand while sipping her drink with the other.

"I know, but Tangerine owes me $400 when I loaned her money after her car was towed."

"Fuck me! She never told me. Sorry, hon. Both these bags are on me. I'll call Lennie and he'll settle up with you. Here, have three bags."

Tangerine and Indica were known as the Charlie Sisters. They both lived in the Blue Condo. Their mother was a prototypical West Coast hippie. Supposedly, their older brother was fathered by one of the members in Lynyrd Skynrd who survived the plane crash. That's why Lennie (born Leonard) was considered a golden child. He was literally the luckiest person that they knew. Because he had such an overwhelming predisposition to good luck, Lennie devoted his life to drug smuggling which turned out to be both an exciting and profitable venture.

Lennie's first foray into the drug smuggling business happened when he was 16-years old. All he needed was a kayak and a set of steel balls. He paddled out into the waters around the majestic San Juan Islands in Washington state bordering Canada. In one summer, he picked up 17 loads of marijuana that were submerged from Canadian growers. Even though both the Coast Guard and the DEA patrolled the area, he never got caught. A perfect 17-0 record.

Lennie only went to college in Olympia so he could sell weed. He was making so much money that he stayed seven years in total and earned a master's degree in psychology. All of his education was funded by selling bags of commercial British Columbia nugs. In his twenties, Lennie turned to smuggling ecstasy from Niagara Falls into Buffalo that eventually made its way into the clubs in New York City. He had developed a near flawless method involving old ladies on sightseeing tours as mules, until his partner, an 83-year old Jewish widow from the Upper West Side of Manhattan got too greedy. She got busted carrying 3,000 pills over the border. She was on the verge of ratting out Lennie when she had a heart attack and died in the interrogation room.

Lennie fled North America and ended up on the beaches of Thailand where he started up an English school. He taught prostitutes how to speak English in exchange for sexual favors. The result? An orange-colored discharge leaking from his penis. Lennie quickly left South East Asia, acquired antibiotics to fix his leaky penis, and smuggled Afghani hashish into Australia by posing as a member of BBC documentary film crew.

Lennie migrated to Colorado in his mid-30s. He became one of the most notorious cocaine dealers in Denver and backed by one of the most feared gangsters in Mexico. The Colombians flew cocaine from processing plants in Bolivia up to Northern Mexico. One of the members of the Ochoa cartel in Juarez heard stories about Lennie's exploits, he bought Lennie in as a distribution partner. After all, Lennie was an international legend. His father walked away from a plane crash and passed along some of those good luck genes over to Lennie.

Indica acquired cocaine at bargain basement prices through her brother. She sold $50 bags in the parking lots of bars in Denver. She was a savvy business woman and opened three used bookstores to help launder her brother's drug money. She loved to read and she loved to read while jacked up on cocaine.

Indica and well known in the art circles and cliques all over Boulder. She even dated one of the guys from Octopus Nebula for a while. Her twin sister, Tangerine, was most know for her outrageous outbursts and brushes with the law. As her parole officer remarked, "She has a big heart but she's the stupidest person I have ever met."

He was referring to her asking him if he needed any DMT because she had scored a fresh batch and she was going to sell out within 24 hours because the Disco Biscuits were in town. The result? She was forced into rehab Tangerine was supposed to be completing a program at rehab center in Pueblo, but she broke out a week earlier and had not been seen since.

"When was the last time you two spoke?" asked Nina as she snorted two thick lines.

"Like in conventional terms or other," said Indica. "We last spoke on the phone the night before she busted out of Fresh Start. However, she spoke to me in a dream last night. She's OK but wouldn't tell me exactly where she was. I heard slot machines so I think she's in Reno or Las Vegas."

"What're you talking about? She speaks to you in your dreams?"

"I never told you that, hon? Well sit down, have another line, because we have a lot of catching up to do. Our mother taught us how to speak to each other in dreams. It has something to do with your third eye which is your pineal gland. It allows you to enter a different dimension. That's where we leave messages for each other. I was born first so I had more of the psychic ability. Plus it's very easy for me to concentrate. Tangerine is so scatterbrained that she always loses focus so she needs a blast of DMT to get transported to that special place."

"So can you do that to other people, like could we try it?" wondered Nina.

"It's very hard for people without abilities. But if you can master DMT, then we might have a chance. DMT is the gateway to the heavens. It's the spirit molecule."

"Do you have any?"

"That's the only thing I don't have. I have Special K, ice, molly, hash oil, muscle relaxers, mushrooms, three kinds of painkillers, but no DMT. Tangerine will have some, she always has some. That is if and when she gets here."

"When was the last time you did DMT?"

"Oh Jesus, it's been years. I got too scared. Too many bad trips. I kept seeing the angry aliens sitting on the geometric cubes. My power takes me into the light side of that dimension. It's like the DMT rockets you to the bad part of town. The other side of the tracks. That's where the bad aliens live."

"And where do the good aliens live?"

"Mostly in Boulder and the rest are in North Hollywood."


Paul McGuire is the author of Lost Vegas. He currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.