The Tobacco Prince

It was not without coincidence traveling past the old red barns everyday, abandoned to the sun that used to make ripe the river valley fields. Crops of tobacco that in modern days became wrappers for foreign cigars. He studied the soil and plants, painting red dots on baby apples to count the pest pressures in orchards to the east.

His study was tedious, longing for ownership of his own farm filled his mind at night in his dormitory. Parallel only to his imaginings of Lucy who had traveled ahead to the west, to the arid desert of Arizona where she sifted sand looking for old bones and her own accolades for a degree.

They kept in touch by letters through the mail, writing and drawing their experiences with youthful vows of companionship in words and pictures. It was not easy, the distance and separateness. Lucy was venturing into other realms which he did not understand as of yet. She described them in her letters, veague tribal ceremonies that she only admitted as spiritual.

She intoned and beckoned him to come join her in the mesas where she described the night sky as spinning-clear of the tall cactus like an ocean. With more colors than she could put into words. He was weary of her colorful descriptions but trusted her completely. Promising to visit during the spring break.

During his grant writing class, a bit distracted, he doodled a business plan for a vast farm detailing the costs of equipment and manpower. He imagined a fiefdom of workers for his ends and chuckled to himself about the scope of such dreams. It was to his surprise that his teacher noted his work, asking simply, “Is this a nonprofit business…how about writing a grant?”. He explored the topic casually and submitted his final project on the subject, an expansive farming business on the old river-valley site.

There are types of people that believe high school to be the panicle of life, and there are others who blossom later when they remove themselves from parents and a hometown. He met Lucy in their first year of college and both fell into the latter category enjoying a freedom that seemed fresh and endless. When Lucy declared her major and left for Arizona in their junior year they had already explored that freedom separately and thought copacetically about their current relationship. He sensed, however, that she was drifting from him. Not really dating other guys, but searching in a way he was not. Searching for something he could not perceive or understand. 

She started to write about abstractions that were above his conscious experience. Themes that made him bulk and hesitate, things that he did not know. The trip was still planned for the spring break, and Lucy mentioned a party that they would attend, but inside him was a reticence. A cautiousness that made him doubt himself. He felt as if he were going towards a wall that he did not wish to see. He felt like he did not want to learn anything more.

When one feels solid within himself it is often a sign of a new path. It is those that give up that often stumble upon an answer. It was said of the conquerors of old about battle that not showing up for the fight is a win. In his case believing everyone tries too hard was his fondest observation. He did not have that problem.

His work started focusing on something Lucy had said, about a tribe that used tobacco for their rituals. He saw the big red barns where in years past tobacco would dry with the sticky dust of summer. The soil once fed by river silt, nutrafied with sediment and water. His ideas codified in expressions in his research, papers and questions about the land and particularly tobacco.

He started planting seeds early in the winter and culled them for his horticulture class. Working in the college greenhouses with plants side by side with his teacher and other students. Roses and vegetables for the field and market. Ornamental plants and houseplants they studied for market value and uses. The margins were often small, and he looked at legality and trends in other so-called medicinals or recreational plants.

But it was with tobacco that he felt a connection to land he thought was waiting in neglect. Strip malls and roads were being formed through the old tobacco fields, and some of the barns were being recycled for the large beams and old wood. He looked closely at the project he had started in class, but had not yet heard from his teacher on the subject. He rasselled with the contradiction between the themes of profit, work, and the idea of a nonprofit business including products considered unhealthy or illicit.

Habits seem to be a place of comfort and repetition but can turn the corner to the point of over indulgence. Habits of mind or action are often deemed to be detrimental because they start to add up and become unconscious. Lucy was expressing the opposite of unconsciousness in ways that he was becoming curious about. He noticed his studies and her letters coinciding in a symmetry he wished to explore. He had no words for this semblance but he equated it to her literally and emotionally.

He quickly submitted his idea for an assignment just before he left for break, a proposal to his professor about the use of tobacco in indigenous cultures, tobacco as a niche product that can fetch an increased price at market, especially if grown “organically”.

She was waiting at the terminal with a big smile and a sign with his name on it. They embraced, swaying in the bright and noisy airport as people hustled by. Outside, the view was tan-brown with gray mountains in the distance. The air was dry and warm, and the place seemed so flat and solemn. 

Her apartment reminded him of her old dorm room except for the colors of new tapestries, a fine feather collection surrounded with crystals, and the smell of sage incense that was pleasant and musty. They immediately went back to where they had left off and found the futon to cuddle and reconnect. He liked the vague patchouli scent on her tan skin, and she enjoyed that he had gained some weight since the summer. They whispered the things of their hearts to each other, and found that time had not separated that which they shared.

Time and distance can be measured in words of description. Between people who are bonded sometimes there are very simple expressions that can have great meaning. We remember someone’s words later and think in many directions about meaning, solidifying memories, and forming invisible bonds. If we don’t go negative with these memories, they can strengthen a relationship. It used to be that people gathered to reiterate and remember their words with the feelings with which they were originally spoken. Somehow over time the words start to be given away to others instead of being kept. Lucy expressed this idea in her own terms and described some of the ways she was learning to keep and propagate bonds with her new friends. They often met and had fires in the desert, she mentioned. They took smoke and some used peyote as well, music was always present.

Distorting time, and with the dancers kicking up dust, the drums formed a cadence like a heartbeat. They had passed a chalice of warm liquid each sipping tentatively. The pipe was long and carved, painted in reds and blacks with feathers protruding from leather wrapping. They stood in a circle around a large pit with a crackling fire throwing up embers to dissipate like the stars overhead. The night was cool and dry, and the party goers all seemed to quiver with the echo of the drums. He tried the smoke and sipped from the pyote, experiencing a buzz like a light-squirrel running in circles in his head. The elders of the group were seated as the youth moved in the circle to the beat, pretending to throw water or reaching for the stars. Often spinning like children until falling in laughter.

Lucy accepted the sprigs of dried sticks with little bulbs on the tops from an old woman who was enjoying the scene. Lucy shook the little pods near his ear. It sounded like a small rattle and he was reminded of an hourglass with the flow of sand tinking on glass. She held the bundle high in the air and started to jump and lift her knees circling the fire in her own rendition of dance. She circled several times with the bundle high in the air, through the dancers with an expression of determination as the fire threw shadows over her face. He marveled at her concentration and beauty. He wondered how she was so light and seemingly unerring. She returned to his side and put the bundle of twigs in his hand. The seed pods were dry and full, he heard again the swooshing and rattle of millions of seeds in the pods at the end of the sprigs of tobacco. Holding the twine-bound bundle looking down on the brown dried tobacco plants, he felt in awe of the earth and Lucy. In his mind and heart whispered a thank you that was akin to the feeling of being home. 

They spoke very little the next day, lounging and holding each other. They slept long into the afternoon before a light meal and more rest. Lucy knew he would be leaving the next day, and he thought he need not mention it. Summer was soon to come, and they would be again together with only one year left before graduation. They both thought of real life afterwards. How to join the world, so to speak. Neither wanted the world so much at the present moment. Lucy was thinking of grad school and she loved his ideas for a business. 

The conception of real life tends to be expressed as a date in the future, after some milestone or age. When people look back on life they find it has happened very quickly. The aged wish that they had more time to experience more, and the youth wish time would hurry up. Some wish life to go on forever and others love sleep and blank unconsciousness. However, it is always after waking that unconsciousness is enjoyed. The fear of death seems strange for the youth, not waking up seems painless, but sad. To wake from a dream and have to go on with the day also can feel sad. That sentimental feeling in the morning that takes a while to wear off. 

He left Lucy with that strange waking feeling, longing and parting. He wrapped the bundle of tobacco neatly for his flight, and collected the seed pods in a baggy. They smiled towards each other and he thought she was glowing a little when she said, see you soon. He departed full of promise and conflicting sadness, feeling happy and silent. A few more weeks of classes and he was free again, with her to explore and experience. To do nothing which was his favorite pastime. He thought it was his deep seated laziness that explained his soaring ambition. He thought he had picked the wrong major.

He returned to his dorm and fell with a thud on his twin bed after getting the mail. The spring break was over and he was convinced he was in the wrong place. He did love to fantasize about the themes in class, but to actually apply what he was learning in reality seemed impossible. He thought that to afford a farm would be like committing to his current impoverished condition. He did not see a way to get the numbers right. He opened a piece of mail that was thicker than the others and read. 

Lucy kissed him on the forehead and grabbed her nap sack for class which was meeting out in the desert to brush dust from artifacts at the current dig site. He smiled and continued to trim the green sticky plants separating the healthiest seed pods for drying, putting the leaves meticulously flat on racks. Although the organic premium for ceremonial tobacco had gone up, and the climate was perfect for the variety he developed, he had trouble with high demand. He thought of training an employee in the cultivation and seed saving of his tobacco. He thought of the red barns back east shuttered and burnt. He thought of the highway through the old tobacco fields.

A niche product, he discovered, was more about the action of creating the product, the process and thought that goes into it. The feeling with which it is produced and used. His ambition had curtailed to a small enterprise with no grants or loans, in fact, no land of his own. The plants were in their fourth generation from the seeds Lucy had given to him, blessed, dancing the night of the party. He enjoyed coming up with artwork for the labels and the process of producing his tobacco. He mused about the energy that the smoke tied one to the earth. This he knew little about. He only really knew the feeling of thanks that stayed with him from the time of Lucy's gift, the same feeling that went into the tobacco meant for special occasions. He loved how it felt as though he was doing nothing but at the same time was fulfilled.