Ditch Rockets of San Bartolo

Part one

Pike Shivers spits in his hands and rubs his knees. Too much wet and you'd never get a good grip, too little and you were grabbing guff. You needed that tack on your fingers. He's parked his gunmetal Dorado on the shoulder. There’s some thorny soybean on one side of the road and what looks like a dwarf phragmites hybrid with amaranth plumes on the other. 

Neither of these crops are of any importance to Pike Shivers. He’s here for the rockets. The good stuff. He leans over, straddling the ditch—his hands out in front—slow and low he creeps along the side of the road. You had to be quick if you were going to have any chance of catching a bucketful. He hears a pop, like the sound you make pulling your finger out of your cheek. Too late though, the ditch rocket flew into the phragmaranth plants. They could fly real far. Probably up to fifty or sixty feet—maybe more if they were really fermented. 

"You gotta creep slower or you'll spook em," says Lanny, who came along to keep lookout.

"Shhzzt. Don't distract me, I'm doing the lords work here," says Pike right before he swoops his hands down to the ground and pinches a green clump out of the mud, "This one is ripe as hell—was just about to fire off."

"Let me smell it," says Lanny, "nice stink on it?"

Pike brings the tubular rhizome up to his nose when his hands slip off the top and the rocket shoots him in the head. The projectile disintegrates on impact and blows its contents all over his face, "Ya, great stink on it Lanny—Gaah." 

Pike pulls a rag from his back pocket to clean up. The rocket juice stained your skin aquamarine, like the color of blubarb if you left it for a few minutes. "Sometimes I think it's more trouble than it's worth you know."

"Catch a few and you'll change your tune when you cash in at Barb's," says Lanny, “but hold up, we gotta bum rumbler comin' up here from the south.”

"Take your positions," says Pike, walking over to the crop line and unzipping his jeans. Lanny does the same.

The truck slows down and pulls over, “You guys know how I can get to San Bartolo?” says a woman behind the wheel.

“You’ve arrived at your destination,” says Pike rezipping and turning around like a dancer.

Lanny adds, “It’s all San Bartolo from here out to Lake Wachewabeka” waving his arms like a tour guide, “who are you looking for?”

"I've got business with Miss Barb at the Faintest Trace Commissary,” says the driver.

Pike and Lanny share a knowing glance. They both think about sending her off into The Clunge on an errant mission to nowhere, but that was a dastardly thing to do to a total stranger. Wouldn't last an hour in that spicy desert stretch. She looks like she was from the border towns down in the valley—healthy and moisturized by eighty percent humidity and leafy greens. Pike and Lanny look like sand rats by comparison—with crusty beards and scabby knuckles. The San Bartolo plateau was a surprisingly harsh place. Windy, hot, cold, dry, and dusty, it was a wonder anything grew so well here. But plants like it hard—especially Verdant Radicals like Ditch Rockets. 

Restaurants and other culinary enterprises sought out the elusive and savory organisms and would pay more money for them than seemed sensible. The Ditch Rockets were jacked with umami. A literal flavor bomb somewhere between truffle and anchovies, the unexploded tubes of fermented plant waste were a rare ingredient. On their own, they were too intense to appreciate and smelled like rotting meat, but a little mix in your marinade or a drop in your sauce, and these sumptuous sacks took your dish to an ambrosial level that was hard to beat and even harder to forget. This side of the lake, Barb was your sole dealer and she protected her sources aggressively.

"She expecting you?" says Pike, prying a little.

The woman notices the bucket behind the truck and watches Lanny eyeballing the ditch suspiciously. "You boys grubbin' the ditch for something?" she asks instead of answering.

"Takin' a leak is all," says Pike kicking a rock in Lanny's direction. The rock skips off the road and into the gulley, knocking a couple rocket tops and setting off a sudden chain reaction. Pop—Papoppop—Poppop—Pappapapapapp—papop.

"Hellalmighty—we got ditch dominos now Pike!" Lanny calls out—trying to run ahead of the missiles going off in all directions like fireworks.

Pike tries to catch a few but they splatter in his hands. The rest wasted in the field or on the road. Bluey stink stains everywhere. Lanny stops running, defeated, it was no use, he'd never catch up and save any. He watches the plants popping off in the distance. "There goes two days bank," he says mostly to himself.

Pike picks up a partially unexploded casing that landed in the grass near his feet, holding it up and sniffing the goomami, he lets the dregs drip out disappointingly.  He knew better than to disturb the ditch. Lanny would never let him hear the end of it.

"Sorry guys, that's a damn shame—especially as I was going to Barb's to pick up some of those stink babies. Any chance you can find me some more and sell direct. I'd be happy to pay premium plus," she says tapping the sidebag under her arm.

Pike and Lanny look sheepish and skeptical. If Barb ever found out, they'd be toasted over the magma pit. 

"Look lady, we've got a business arrangement already, no offense," says Pike.

"And it could take a while before we find another hotspot," adds Lanny.

The woman looked around and presses a little more, "I get it, I really do, but here's the thing—I really only need one, just one little gooptube—I'll pay you triple price and be on my way—Barb will never know a thing."

"Why just one?" Lanny asks. It was an obvious question.

"I'm cooking a special dinner tomorrow night and that stank is the stuff I need to make my signature—Mephisto Moussaka. One bog bullet should be more than enough. It's powerful stuff as you know. It's also a VIP thing and my credibility is on the line—C'mon and help a lady out."

Lanny pokes Pike with his elbow, "Ya—, okay, well, we do have one right here." he picks up the bucket and carefully pulls out the solo rocket they had found before she arrived.

"Perfect that's all I need," she says, opening the leather bag under her arm and pulling out a chipdrive, authenticating credits, "Here, you go, as promised, triple price."

Lanny gives the specimen one last sniff before handing it over, "Damn that's a stink. Happy cooking."

Before she drives away, Pike calls out, "Hey, what's your name anyway?"

"Chef," she says with a wink and a wave, turning her truck around and heading back south.

Before she was out of sight, Pike and Lanny  dump the credits in their wallet and notice she'd added a couple of accidental zeros. 

“You wanna catch up and tell her,” asks Lanny

Pike thinks about it, “Maybe it’s a tip,” he says, his voice climbing hopefully. 

“It’s more than we’d make in a few weeks,” says Lanny, “somethin’ bout her though, gives me the pause"

Pike circles the Dorado, re-stepping in his footprints over and over. Lanny watches and waits. He isn’t going to be the one to decide what to do next.

Part 2 »

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