A voice sounded from above. A man in a military uniform spoke. “Mr. Canales, so glad to have you with us.”

“Who’s ‘us’? Where am I? Why am I here?” I squirmed in the chair, throwing questions in every direction. “You can’t hold me here! I want a lawyer.”

“Well, that may happen. Eventually.” The voice seemed to come from all over. “For right now, you can call me Colonel Thompson. Let’s talk about your attack on the President.”

“What attack? I was nowhere near him. The television coverage will back me up. I went to the garden and that was it.”

“Well, yes, I guess that’s true, but your compatriot was there. And he did attack the first lady, quite deliberately it seems, causing a ruckus and very nearly giving her a heart attack.”

I gasped. “Where is Tony?”

“So, is Tony your rat’s name? We were unsure. You mumble when you speak. And there was a great deal of noise and screaming going on.”

“Yeah, my mother always complained that I mumbled. Big whoop! Where is Tony?”

Colonel Thompson hesitated and then spoke again. “We regret to inform you that your lab rat has returned to his proper home – the lab - and is, at this minute, being autopsied to determine the full nature of his … abilities.”

I could not believe my ears. “Autopsied? You freaks murdered him? You murdered Tony!” I strained to break the handcuffs or the chair with no success.

“Well, Mr. Canales, to murder Tony, as you call him, would have to be human.” The voice laughed. “Lab rats are killed in the name of science by the thousands, every day. Yours is no different. Our scientists are very curious about how he makes his magic breath. Though, of course, they don’t like that ‘M’ word. No magic here.”

There was more talking but I wasn’t paying much attention. I may have had a small concussion. There were times of blurry vision. Mostly I was depressed over the murder of Tony. Whatever the government wanted to call it, it was nothing other than simple murder – the willful killing of a sentient being by another for no rational motive. There were questions, accusations, screaming – the normal routine. They had drawings and pictures and films showing us at various times working our magic across the US.

I was not allowed the lawyer or phone call. There was some fuzzy logic here, something about Treason, Sedition and Conspiracy to Overthrow the Government. I was incommunicado and they were very happy to leave me that way. There was a day, a night, day, night, I lost track. I didn’t care.

One afternoon, after they felt I must be sufficiently broken, I got The Speech. Thompson had been working up to it, working on breaking my will and resolve, wanting to brainwash me in the ways he himself had been.

It began simply enough. Thompson stood before me in his immaculately clean uniform, short hair, and manicured nails. “Are you an American, son?” the Colonel asked. He was standing not two feet away from me.

“Excuse me, but you know that I am. I was born in Oklahoma. I have never left the country.”

“That’s not what I asked. Your birth makes you a Citizen. I asked if you were an American? Do you care for your country, your fellow citizens, for the virtues that make us Americans? Because it sure as hell does not seem that way to me.”

I stared at him, unspeaking.

“You want it all and without having to pay for it. The founding fathers were willing to give their lives to bring this wonderful country into existence. They worked hard to make it viable, strong, and a power in the world. Some of them did give their lives for it.”

“And you want the benefits without any of the sweat and tears required. I see from your personal history that you bypassed Viet Nam. A lot of fine young men died there defending the freedoms you take for granted.”

I looked up at him. “A lot of young men died there because the government decided to fight a war that could not be won, against an enemy that could not be seen or identified, for a cause that was suspect at best.”

“Oh, I see, that got a rise from you. Good, good. It was a rough war, I can agree with you there. But, it was needed. Communism could not be allowed to get a foothold into that part of the world. The Chinese and Russians needed to know that we were not going to let them force Communism down the throats of the world.”

“So, instead, we tried to force Democracy down their throats and they threw it back up all over us,” I said. “We left and they embraced their conquerors whole heartedly the next week. So, were they really conquerors, or actually the voice of the people? Were we the ones forcing our will on them or were they? Did the ‘honored dead’ die for a reason, a valid reason?”

“Of course, they died for a reason. We had to try to stop the rise of Communism.”

“Well,” I said, “we’ve done a first rate job preventing it from taking hold. Our support of Chiang Kai-Shek certainly put the fear in Mao. And Fidel knows that we will not allow Communism in our immediate sphere of influence.”

“Listen, you little shit, we made a stand for our principles.”

“So did Custer and he, at least, had the courtesy to die before he could be court-martialled.”

The Colonel took in a deep breath. “Look, you little hippy freak! You have caused a great deal of trouble to the President and the Congress and the lawfully elected authorities of this country. You don’t care for the millions. You’re a selfish little punk. Interested only in himself and getting high. You don’t care about the country, the economy, the faith of the residents. You are destroying everything. With free drugs everywhere, people will not work. They will laze around and hope that somebody takes care of it all for them. You don’t care about the common good. You want only for YOU.

“I swore when I enlisted to protect America from enemies both without and within. I fought in Europe against Hitler and Mussolini, against the Communists in Korea and Viet Nam. Those were the enemies without. And now I’m fighting here in goddamned Wyoming against a little insect that doesn’t love himself, Democracy or his country.

“If I took you out right now and shot you, I would get a medal. And, Son, I may do that. Depends on you. You are working hard to destroy everything I hold dear. My life, the society I protect, the family units.

“You want to destroy the freedoms we have, to remove any initiative our young people have. By spreading this … weed …you are destroying America. And I will not have that.”

Mentally, I composed my defenses. The freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, which he was currently ignoring. The fact that most people did not spend all day stoned out of their mind. Most, worked at their job. Hard and then at the end of the day, they unwound a little. Sure, some would be stoned 110% of the time, but just as many, didn’t work a day that they could help it. Students studied hard and relaxed just as hard. People, good people, Americans, controlled their vices just like their virtues. We may occasionally blow off some steam, but then it is back to moderation.

“You know, Colonel, when we started this, it was kind of a lark. Me and Tony, wandering the countryside, seeing places we had only read about. Doing a little good. Having fun.

“Then, people started hunting us. Us! We had never even raised our voice to anyone, much less a fist. Were we international bank robbers or Arab terrorists? No! We were freelance reverse gardeners. Instead of removing weeds, we were planting them.

“Yet, somehow, we ended up on the 10 Most Wanted Lists of various agencies. All we did was dream a little.

“I had a dream that one day little children will live in a nation where they will not be denied their rights but will live together in Peace and Harmony. I had a dream that one day every valley shall be planted and every hill and mountain shall be fruitful. This is our hope, and this is the faith that I travel with. From every mountain, let freedom ring.

“And when this happens, when we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of god’s children will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last, free at last

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”

Somehow they let me finish my bit before a guard coldcocked me. I never believed that they would let me finish but they did and I shut up the Colonel before he could finish his Big Speech.

That night I awakened in my cell, mentally and physically weary with a large throbbing lump on my head. I knew they were working their psychological warfare techniques on me, trying to get into my mind, raise self doubt and make me into a basket case.

Truth was, they didn’t need to do much. With the death of Tony I was a wreck. That little guy was the only friend I had in the world. We had been on a lark, having innocent fun, and it had gotten him killed. I wanted to be next.

“Hey, Chuckles, you got any snacks up there? I got a bad case of the munchies.”

I looked around my cell and up at the camera and microphone where they kept track of me. “Man,” I said, “They have finally and totally gotten to me!” I rolled over onto my side on my bunk.

“Watch it, Chuck!” came the squeaky voice. “You gotta be 50 times bigger than me! And I just got my shit all back together. Don’t squash me now.”

There, on the bunk, was a small white lab rat, pulsing in purple paisley colors, tinged with a hint of electric pink. I poked him with my finger. “Tony?” He fell right over.

“C’mon, didn’t we do this scene about 8 months ago? You got any food with you. I’m starving!” The rat moved up near to my face.

“Tony! They told me you were DEAD and Autopsied!” I grabbed him up and hugged him close.

“And you believe EVERYTHING the Man tells you. Jiminy Cricket, Chuck! I got powers you can’t imagine and you give me up for dead almost immediately! Faith, baby! It takes FAITH to do what we gots to do.”

I pointed toward the camera and speaker. “If they see you down here, they’ll come get you. They are very interested in you.”

“I imagine so. But, right now, they don’t see me. What they see is a flickering test pattern that is inducing some epileptic fits. People are keeling over left and right. But, let’s not worry about them, let’s get out of here.”

Before I could even ask, Tony munched on a magic seed and mushroom cap. Laser beams shot from his eyes, melting the cell lock.

“Tony, that’s not possible. How did you do that?”

“Laser eyes. When you’ve had your consciousness transferred to the body of a small rodent, you find that most things are possible. At least, more possible than a walking talking rat with Mary Jane breath. In my time alone whilst planning your escape, I did some experimenting in unreality. It seems that with the proper application of hallucinogens and will power, I can make pretty much anything happen to me. Watch.”

As I watched, he grew taller and his front paws metamorphed into tiny hands. He grasped the bottom of the cell door and swung it open. “Is this cool or what?”

We left Wyoming in a frantic walk and went into the sunset.

We remain free to this day. There were times when we should have been captured but Tony was able to change into something that scared the troops away or made them reluctant to continue their pursuit.

Our goals appear to be in sight. We have spread Magic Seeds in 35 states so far. National Guardsmen have tried to fight it back, with varying success. Mostly we succeed. The Guard is now aligned with the Mob who sees free Super Grass as an infringement on their natural order of business and is working toward our destruction. To date, they have also failed.

We made some converts and sent the seed to Europe and China. Various inroads are being made there. Someday soon, we shall win this war and bring Peace to the US.

I keep remembering the Colonel’s speech. Am I an American? I ponder this every day and one answer keeps coming back. Damn straight I am an American and always will be.

(for Grace and Paul and the pioneers of the weed)

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