Sep 17, 2024 Crime
I met my landlord at work. He was trying to move on after a bad separation, while I was on probation. After a Friday night we spent bitching to each other about how bad our lives were, he suggested I move into his flat. He needed a flatmate and I needed to move.
The night I moved in, we sat in front of the TV stoned out of our minds. He turned to me and softly said, “Can I show you something?” I thought he meant his penis. But he showed me something way worse — his grow room.
A loud hum emanated from behind the door. He opened it and a bright, piercing light blinded me. When my eyes adjusted, I saw the room was filled with ‘tomato’ plants. Meticulously placed tomato plants without tomatoes. Around the perimeter was a large lighting rig, while next to us sat an industrial exhaust fan, the source of the low hum.
He pulled open a folding chair for me while he stood there, mesmerised. If you’ve ever wondered what’s worse than watching paint dry, it’s watching plants grow. A bumblebee buzzed on its back in a circle while I spiralled, too. How was my probation officer going to react? I’d have to serve at least eight months on top of the new charges.
“I’ve got a tournament in Denmark this week. It’s the International Masters.”
My landlord worked in accounts. That was his day job. His hobby was lawn bowls. I didn’t register what he was asking until several seconds later. I hesitated. He reassured me. “It’s just a few days. You’ll be fine.”
Famous last words.
Before he left, he said, warningly: “Any change to the routine will stress the plants out, and that is not a good thing.” Cannabis plants, he told me, change sex when they’re stressed, meaning the thick THC-coated buds from seedless female plants can be inadvertently fertilised into worthless cabbage.
My mornings started early. In the cupboard were the seedlings — those were easy. Keep the soil moist, turn the lights on and off, and keep the cupboard closed. The big plants were more difficult. They were needy. I’d turn the lights and exhaust fan on, and prep them for watering. I couldn’t use just any old water, I had to alkalise the water to the right pH level and then start dunking the plants, one by one.
In the afternoons, I’d go around with the spray bottle just misting them. At first, the job was fun. I’d think to myself, Am I a criminal or am I just really good at gardening? Then, in the evening, I’d turn everything off to give the plants time to rest.
Every night the landlord called for an update. We sounded like parents doing joint custody of an only child. When the landlord said he was extending his stay, I was fine with it. The plants had become my babies.
The only problem was, the more time I spent with them, the more guilt I felt. I was serving a sentence, but at least I got to go outside. These plants were in captivity, growing under artificial light. They never knew the heat of the sun. Rain was just me walking around with a spray bottle. I couldn’t let them stay imprisoned.
So I switched up the routine. I sat them in the bathroom under the little bit of natural sunlight we had.
One afternoon, though, the doorbell rang. I answered it in a panic. The man at the door wanted to read the electricity meter. If he came in, I knew it was game over. I told him he couldn’t enter but struggled to explain why. He countered, saying it’d only take a few minutes and he’d be no trouble. Looking him in the eye, I freaked out. I said I’d left my baby upstairs unattended in the bath. I had to go. He looked at me like I was insane and walked away. I slammed the door and ran upstairs to watch him leave.
My landlord returned, bringing with him a lawn bowls championship trophy. He placed it on the mantel.
Months later, when we were harvesting, the buds fell away to reveal little balls. The plants had gone to seed. My landlord said nothing. I said nothing.
Several years later — I was back in New Zealand at this point — I got a phone call at 3am. “It’s me. Can I call you on this number?”
“No. Never,” I said, and hung up.
When I googled him later, I saw the landlord had been sentenced for growing, distributing and abstracting electricity. I looked at the date of the article and realised he must have called me just before he went to prison.
I guess that’s life. You change, you grow, you break free. You win some, you lose some.
