Chapter 1: Problems Falling From the sky

 

 

    Do not believe the liberal, pro-marijuana, media machine. Weed can kill you. Especially when there are over a thousand kilos of it, and it falls on you from several hundred meters in the air. That shit is fatal as hell, even it is just indica. 

    I didn’t like my cousin much, and I’m sorry if this sounds irreverent, but when all that pot came out of the sky and pressed him into a lizard pancake, it felt like it was just meant to be. 

    Yes, my cousin was a lizard, an Iguana, a Green Iguana to be exact, as am I. My name is Guano, and we’ll get to that unfortunate reality in a second, but my cousin’s name was Alberto. Alberto was the most nervous, paranoid, anxiety-ridden lizard I’ve ever known. He was afraid of friggin’ geckos, and no Iguana in their right mind is afraid of those simpleminded, slimy little lizards. Back when we were kids, I’d sneak up behind him and roar like a howler monkey.  He’d jump and twitch and then run and blab to our grandfather like he did about everything, hence my dislike for the twitchy little turd.

    But it’s hard not to appreciate the irony. A guy who’s afraid of the sky falling on him, strolling down a path, minding his own business, gets splattered out of the blue by a container holding a ton of weed. I wasn't an Alberto fan, but still, that’s a cold-blooded way to die, even for a reptile.

    Poor Alberto’s two-dimensional conversion was only the beginning of the pain that giant fragrant gift from above rained down upon our little New Charleston, for both Iguanas like me as well as for the men who live in our little green oasis between the jungle and the sea.

    There were three containers in all, and it wasn’t just pot. There was a significant amount of cold, hard man-cash as well, and it all dropped from the sky. No one saw it fall, other than maybe Alberto if he happened to have glanced up the second before he was crushed down into the sandy dirt. We heard it, though. And by “we,” I mean myself and two men - a young male and female - who happened to be cutting through the jungle to sneak a little nookie right as my neurotic nerd of a cousin became a green stain on the jungle floor. 

    The man’s name is Shamere, and the woman’s name is Julia. 

    She was named after the actress, Julia Roberts.

    How does an Iguana like me know these things? Being honest, I have no freaking idea who Julia Roberts is or was. I know Julia was named after her though because I heard her mother tell her, so I’m feeling pretty damn good about the accuracy of my information. 

    Iguanas hear all kinds of stuff. We can’t speak, but we understand Creole and English, and most of us have a pretty good grasp on Spanish too. Men who live here have no idea we know what they are saying. We sit in the trees, and they mostly ignore us. Sure a tourist or two will point and take our picture now and then, or one of their annoying children will chase us with a stick. (A quick hiss usually cuts that shit right off. It’s one of my failings. I have to admit to feeling a bit of pleasure in making a man-child cry, but only when they deserve it.) For the most part, however, as Iguanas, we’re virtually invisible to men.

    I have no idea who the hell Shamere was named after. 

    I know many of the facts I’m about to share because I happened to be the only Iguana within earshot of Alberto’s pancaking, which means I am also the only one who witnessed Shamere and Julia discovering the three giant containers of marijuana and cash in the middle of the jungle. And that, and the three stooges of a disaster that followed, is what this story is about.