The Legend of Crowe Grass II

Officer Frances M. Pudney fiddled her fingers for fourteen minutes straight while counting out fortey-one skittles in the bowl sitting in front of her. Not a single one was under a year old. What's worse is that this was her forty-fourth birthday and instead of drinking a beer with her a thirty-two year old 'boyfriend,' she was called in to man the desk while waiting on ten seventeen-year-old high schoolers to come into her station and explain what they had been doing for the past forty-five minutes.

She finally heard the sirens pull up, and watched the first teenaged culprit poke his unusually wide head through the door, leading nine others to a row of unfolded chairs lined up in front of her desk. They sat down, many with their heads buried in their hands, probably wondering if she was going to call their parents.

Oh, you can bet she was going to do just that. She would let herself get wasted tonight. Surely she deserved it, for there is nothing unholier in this precious world than calling parents and explaining to them that their kid is waiting for them at the damn police station for something as idiotic as lifting some weed.

She stood up and walked in front of her desk, and leaned back, while pulling a lollipop out of her mouth. Before she could even begin, the fat one fell off his chair, and kneeled down at her feet….crying.

"Pleeeease!" he begged, tugging at the end of her coat. "Are you gonna call my mommy?"

Frances rolled her eyes and yanked her shirt away.

"Get back to your seat!" she yelled. The boy shuffled back to his seat, and sniffled. "Now," she continued, "Can anyone tell me what the hell happened tonight? Anyone? You with the gray hat!"

A skinny boy with a gray skull cap looked up with his large egg-shaped eyes, a frightened look plastered over his face. "I didn't do it!" he yelled. "It was….it was them!" He pointed to a black teen and the blonde boy with the large head.

"Hey," the black teen looked up at the boy. "Don't pin this on us!"

"Yeah!" the blonde boy continued. "None of this would have happened if it wasn't for you, Sid."

"Yeah!" the fat boy who was crying finally swallowed his tears. "This is all Sid's fault!"

"Yeah!" the rest of the teens joined in.

"Alright, alright!" Officer Pudney attempted to quell the rioting teens. She pointed her cherry lollipop to the persecuted boy with the gray hat. "I'm guessing you're Sid…"

"That's right…" Sid responded, glaring at his fickle friends.

"Alright, Sid," she continued. "I'm gonna ask you one more time: What. Happened."

Sid sighed.
"Well…" he began, pacing back and forth between the line of teens and this icy police officer. "It all started earlier today when we decided to, um...well, we wanted to…."

"To steal some Crowe grass," Officer Pudney finished the boy's sentence.

"Y-yes…" he admitted. "We wanted some Crowe grass."

"This is it, guys," Sid gulped, as he stood between his two confidentes. The three teenage boys shivered against the cold wind, outside a tall towering gate with a an old weathered sign hanging loosely at the door, reading 'The Crowe Estate.'

Just as Sid reached for the lock, the three boys heard the sound of a car door closing behind them.

"See?" they heard a familiar country drawal. "I told you they was fixin' to get some more Crowe grass!"

They turned around and saw their large nosed classmate and his heavier companion with an underbite getting out of a large pick-up truck.

"Stinky?" Arnold yelled.

"Harold?" said Sid.

"Howdy y'all," Stinky waved at the trio as he and Harold rushed over. "We overheard y'all plannin' your big heist during lunch this morning, so Harold and I figured we would accompany you."

"Yeah! I want some weed!" Harold shouted.

Arnold looked over at Gerald, who in turn, merely shrugged his shoulders.

"Alright," Sid responded, in a hushed voice. "So long as it's just you and Harold. We can manage two more people, right guys?" Sid looked over at his original two companions.

"Well, us two and Rhonda and probably Nadine…" Stinky replied.

"You told Rhonda and Nadine?!" Sid shouted, grabbing Stinky by the collar of his shirt.

Before Stinky could defend himself, Rhonda pulled up to the side of the old dirt road in her convertible sports car, with the lid pulled down. Nadine sat in the passenger's seat. In the back sat Peapod kid and…

"Helga!" Arnold's voice squeaked. Gerald rolled his eyes.

"Hope you don't mind!" Rhonda shouted, waving her hand, and removing her sunglasses, tucking them into her thick black hair. "I told Peapod kid, and well, Helga was also there, so…"

"We don't mind!" Arnold piped in. "Right guys?"

"Good…" Helga said, slamming the door behind her. "Sooner we can get to the bottom of this, sooner I can get home in time for some wrestling."

"This is all...terribly, terribly exciting," remarked Peapod kid.

"Uh….guys?" Sid asked, throwing a panicked look over to Arnold and Gerald.

The three huddled together.

"This is a bad idea!" Sid whispered.

"Come on, Sid," Gerald replied. "It's not like more people makes this any less terrible a plan…"

"Gerald's right, Sid," Arnold continued. "Maybe they can help us find the Crowe grass faster, and we can all go home and put this whole night behind us."

"Alright, fine!" said Sid. He looked back at the six new faces now joining him on his lifesaving quest for sacred cannabis. "But stay close. And whatever you do, be quiet"

"Oh, please…" Harold rolled his eyes as he sashayed over to the gate, Rhonda and Nadine following right behind him. "What are you...scared?" Suddenly, a bat flew through the gaps between the metal rods of the gate. "Oh dear God!"

He jumped right into Rhonda's arms. Rhonda angrily growled at him, dropping him on the ground like a hot potato. Harold looked back up at her, smiling apologetically.

"As I was saying!" Sid grumbled, as he pushed aside the foliage collected over the chain holding the gate together, revealing an open metal lock.

All nine of them worked together to pull the two gates apart…

"Nine?" Officer Pudney interrupted. "I count ten of you."

"I'm getting there…" Sid insisted. "As I was saying, it took all nine of us to pull the two gates apart…"

As the sun set, a shadow fell over the entire estate. The nine teens made their way through the fields digging through acres of long weeds that reached the tops of their heads, in hopes of discovering a patch of land filled with the ever elusive Crowe grass.

Arnold wandered off with Gerald through a particular aisle of weed, shivering in the cold air, and pointing his flashlight ahead of him.

"See anything yet?" he asked.

"Nope!" Gerald replied, shaking his head in disbelief that he was actually wasting a perfectly good Tuesday evening trying to find this bigfoot of a plant, when he could be preparing for the debate coming up, or even better...practicing the saxophone.

"Well, I for one have had it," Arnold continued. "That's it! I'm calling a fake. There's no way there's any Crowe grass. There's no legendary high. And there certainly isn't some ghost named Eug-AAAAAH!"

"Arnold!" Gerald yelled, searching for his best friend, before his flashlight finally pointed to him falling to the ground, as though being dragged into dense jungle of wildlife.

"Gerald! It's got me! It's...wait a second."

Arnold's plea was drowned out by the familiar sound of a certain 17-year-old female's sinister laugh.

"Helga!" Arnold and Gerald exclaimed at once.

"Hey don't look at me!" she said, letting go of Arnold's ankle and walking out into the clearing. "It's not my fault you're so jumpy."
"So that was you?" Gerald yelled.

"Of course it was," she scoffed. "You don't actually think there's some ghost wandering around do you?"

"Yes there is!" Sid announced, walking over to the trio, followed by the five others that accompanied them.

Helga sighed.

"Face it, Sid. There's no ghost. There never was a ghost. There will never be a damn ghost!" she yelled.

"Oh yeah?" he challenged.

"Yeah!" she shouted.

"Then what's that?"

All heads immediately turned in unison towards the direction of Sid's paralyzed gaze. A bright flame nearly fifty yards away floating six feet in the air approached them ever so slowly…

"It's the ghost of Eugene Crowe!" Harold yelled, launching a wild frenzy as all nine teens ran for their lives, only to be pursued by their predator from the other realm. They didn't make it far.

"My leg!" The eight other teens listened to the cries of their close friend Harold Bergman, a 250 pound quarterback of the high school football team, as he fell to the ground and began grovelling like a baby.

"Oh please Mr. Ghost, sir. Don't eat me! I-I'm high in...calories!"

"I don't want you!" came a voice from the direction of the flame. It sounded muffled...almost mechanical. The ghost let go of Harold's ankle.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Harold cried tears of joy.

"I want…" the voice continued. The flaming torch approached Sid, whom was perspiring both because of the fire and out of apprehension. "I want you."

"M-me?" Sid stuttered, backing away slowly. "Why do you want me?"

"Because," the ghost replied. "Five days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes ago, you stole something that didn't belong to you."

"Y-you mean the Crowe grass?" Sid said. "I-I couldn't help it! It's only the most euphoric high-"

"Not the Crowe grass!" the ghost responded.

"T-then what?"

The ghost sighed.

"Five days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes ago," it continued, "you were walking out of art class…"
"How'd you know I was walking out art class!" Sid cried.

"Because! Ugh...because I'm a fucking ghost, okay?"

"Okay, geez…" Sid said. "You don't have to have such a temper."

"Will you just…Okay, just...let me finish! God."

"Sorry."

"Anyway," the ghost continued. "As you walked out, you happen to pass by a sculpture of a most pristine design composed entirely of toothpicks. Does that ring a bell?"

"I remember a pile of toothpicks…"

"I thought it was supposed to be a turkey!" Harold interrupted.

"I thought it was some kind of performance art…" Stinky chimed in.

"NO IT WAS NOT PERFORMANCE ART!" the ghost yelled, bringing the flame closer than ever to the group of shivering victims-to-be. "It was a carefully carved out sculpture of Rhonda Wellington Lloyd."

"Me?" Rhonda blurted.

"And then you…" the ghost continued. "Just as I was finished, and was about to present my gift to my beautiful goddess, you...stole a toothpick! Used it to get some bacon out of your teeth, and threw it out! LIKE IT WAS NO BIG DEAL!"

"Wait a second…" Arnold spoke up. He walked over to the ghost.

"Arnold, what are you doing?" Harold yelled.

Arnold bent down and reached over for the ghost. Just then, everyone looked down and noticed a pair of white shiny tennis shoes poking out from its feet. Gerald sighed, and grabbed the torch from the ghost's hands while Arnold lifted the black cloak to reveal someone neither of the nine teens were expecting to be behind all of this.

"CURLY!" they all shouted in unison.

"That's right!" he shouted, stepping back, still speaking into his voice disguiser. "Sid ruined my sculpture, and now he must pay!"

Curly lunged right at Sid, only to be easily repelled by Harold, whom only had to grab his collar and hold him in place. His microphone flew out of his hand.

"Lemme at him!" Curly yelled in his own familiar voice, struggling against Harold's strength. "Lemme at him!"

"Curly," Arnold said, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Were you behind this whole thing?"

"That's exactly right," Curly spat. "I planted the fake pot by the senior lunch table just when I knew Sid would be walking past them. I sent him a text pretending to be the seniors ready to pound him. I dressed up in black, so no one would see me, and...and made you all think I was the ghost of Eugene Crowe! And you know what? I'd do it again if I had to! Muahahaha!"

Before anyone could respond, all ten teens heard the sound of police sirens approaching the estate from a distance.

"But there's just one thing I don't understand," Sid said, as he stood before Officer Pudney.

"What's that?" she responded.

"If it was all just Curly…" Sid began, "then who called the cops?"

"Yeah!" the other teens chimed in.

"I did." A voice came from the front doors.

All eyes fell on a middle aged African American woman of light milky skin walking in, shaking out her umbrella, and placing it in a carrier near the door.

"Who are you?" Arnold asked.

"This here," Officer Pudney spoke up, "is the owner of the Crowe Estate."

"Wait a minute…" Sid interrupted, before the woman could explain. "You're not…."

"She can't be…" Gerald stuttered.

"Darla Fitzpatrick?" Sid yelled.

"From the legend?" Gerald continued.

"Darla Fitzpatrick!?" the woman rolled her eyes. "Boys, do I look like I'm old enough to be Darla Fitzpatrick? No, my name is Virginia. Virginia Crowe…"

All ten teens gasped, before she continued.

"You're thinking of my mother…" the woman turned around and stepped outside. A few seconds later, she came back in with a new companion: an old black woman with silver shiny hair and beautiful creases deeply embedded into her slightly darker skin. She shuffled through the door-one shaky hand used her cane to help her walk, the other rested on the younger woman's left arm. The old woman looked around and surveyed the group of youngsters sitting before her. She then cleared her throat.

"My name," she began in a raspy, fading voice, "is Darla Fitzpatrick. And you kids were making quite a ruckus!"

Gerald looked over to Virginia.

"So you must be…" he began.

"The daughter of Darla Fitzpatrick and Eugene Crowe," she responded, calmly.

"But I don't understand," Arnold pressed on. "I thought Darla Fitzpatrick was supposed to be...well…"

"Dead?" the old woman responded curtly. "Well it appears, young lad, that I am very much alive and kicking."

"But how?" Arnold asked.

"Everyone in this city seems to know the short version of the story," she rolled her eyes. "They all miss the part where I escaped from the barn just as it collapses, and run off with Gene's baby. I was only 6 weeks in at the time," she chuckled, winking at her daughter.

Darla Fitzpatrick walked over to Sid, who was trembling before her with wide eyes. "You son," she placed a hand on his shoulder, "look as though you've seen a ghost."

Sid eye's rolled back and he immediately fainted before her feet.

**A few months later**

It was a cold winter night on the eve of December 25th, when two old women sat by a fire and spoke to one another after several long decades. Despite years having gone by since they last spoke, on that night, they chatted as though no time at all had past. Indeed, when one reaches a certain age, time begins to feel like a pile of crushed up leaves rolled up into a sheet of white paper. Each year jumbles into the next with little to no distinction.

"I still don't understand," one of the two old ladies spoke, "why you didn't just call me that night when my grandson and his little friends came running around your field. You know I would've whipped those behinds raw!"

"Well, Gerty," the other woman, this one with dark brown skin, replied. "You know I've been fighting my own battles since law school."

"Ah yes," Gerty responded, quietly. Then she suddenly jumped up and raised her fist in the air. "Let's go Rosa Park! The fight ain't over and we got bus seats to fill!"

"Oh Gerty," her friend responded, placing a hand on her friend's elbow, and sitting her back down. "I'm not Rosa Park...It's me, Darla, remember?"

"Oh yes…" Gerty responded, sitting back down. "Rosa was one crazy bitch, wasn't she?"

"The best kind," Darla responded.

"Though she was nothing compared to my good friend, Darla."

Darla rolled up a small pile of crushed up leaves on her tray in front of her, and handed a joint over to Gerty before making one for herself.

The two old women sat by the fire on that very cold night, cozied up in warm knitted socks, and enjoying the greatest, most euphoric experience ever known to mankind.

"Merry Christmas, Gerty," Darla whispered.

Gertrude smiled.

"And a Happy New Year..."