Why Go to Marrakech?

Well, of course there is a story, and to quote Kurt Vonnegut, "All this happened, more or less." So shortly after I retired, and went on a road trip to America, The Smaller States, about which I have previously written here, I came up with this plan to go to Morocco as part of the Half Way Round The World And Back Tour.  Word leaked out very quickly, and one day I received a phone call from a local PDA, or Prominent Defense Attorney.  I can't really identify him or her, as that would be a breach of privacy.  So let's pretend we are Steve Van Goor, who always refers to attorneys by letters, and call this person "Attorney A."

The PDA, Attorney A, has a long and some say spectacular career as a defense lawyer.  But before Attorney A, who will be referred to hereafter as AA, became a PDA, and even before AA clerked for our local Supreme Court, AA decided to see parts of the world.  This was at a time when the local PoPo liked to get in some stick-time on the noggins of those persons who liked to experience a different space-time continuum through the ingestion of reality altering natural substances via inhaling the smoke.  Or, in the case of those who would later become POTUS, not inhaling but just hanging with homeys in the crib.  Regardless, if you just wanted to become a PDA, and not a POTUS, you couldn't have a drug bust on your rap sheet, so it was considered best if you smoked your dope abroad.

I want to pause and eliminate one person from the list of usual suspects.  I am not writing about Attorney B, who never got to actually clerk for Our Supremes because of the joint in the glove-box found by Customs at the border on the way into Alaska.  Remember, that was not even his joint, it was put there by the hitchhiker who was not present in the car at the border.  Besides, Attorney B never became a PDA, but a Superior Court Judge instead.  He or she now lives in a state of happiness not to far from the border of one of "Those States."  You know, the ones where green vegetable matter is licensed for sale by the State, and everyone, everyone, is "happy."

Back to AA's phone call, which went kind of like this:

"Uhm, Dan.  I hear you're going to Morocco soon.  Is that true?"
"Yeah," I says, "I'm headed out to . . ."
"Uhm, Dan, can you do me a favor?"
"Well, maybe," I replied, "but certainly nothing illegal."
"Nothing is illegal in Morocco," AA said, "and that's the point.  Can you bring back my bong?"
"What?  YOUR BONG??  Have you been visiting Colorado recently?  That's nuts!  I'm not on the best  of terms with CBP right now as it is, and bringing back dope smoking equipment with residue will light off every sensor in the place!  No way, give me a break, etc. etc."
AA countered, in his most jury-appealing way, "But listen to my story, and then tell me no if you can."
I muttered, and AA began in that halting, stuttering manner that persuades most juries to let his people go:
"I was in Morocco, it was a pleasant night.  I was in a little room, in the back of a modest place.  Fragrances filled the air, women, or maybe men, swayed in diaphanous robes, hookahs were bubbling, and there were even a few fezzes around.  Fortunately, they had just taken the monkey out the back, as it had eaten something that disagreed with its stomach.  About a week earlier, I had been at the bazaar and found an ancient, and very well-broken-in pipe.  One of those pipes with character, and it wasn't cheap either.  I can't really go into costs right now, as there are somethings its best you don't actually know."
I wanted to say something, but he was not about to be interrupted.  Good PDAs don't even let judges interrupt them, and AA is one of the best.  No judge has ever actually gotten him to sit down and shut up until AA was really ready to sit down and shut up.
AA continued, "So the bowl was full of some seriously good stuff, the monkey and his stuff was gone, I lit the thang off and prepared for an evening of mellow.  And maybe a late night of mellow, if the price didn't go up.   About fifteen minutes into this dream, strange sounding men speaking a foreign sounding language loudly started banging on doors and windows in the manner universally recognized as that of police on a raid.  They sound the same everywhere, regardless of the language they speak, and I knew my plans were not up in smoke, but to the contrary, they required an expeditious realignment of priorities, not to mention direction and locales (AA doesn't really talk like this.  I spruced up the language a bit because AA was still in his or her "I'm talking to a jury" mode, which can actually put you to sleep.)"

The long and the short of it is, in his or her haste,and an effort to keep the record clean, AA dropped the precious bong.  It has been AA's dream to have the bong recovered.  My mission was to go to Morocco, look for the blue door, ask for Fatima, and, assuming Fatima sell resides there, ask her if she still has the bong.  If so, I am to retrieve it and, using a blind drop double cut-out one-time FedEx number, ship the bong to an address in Colorado where AA has a "friend" who will do the actual hand-off.

I said, "What the Heck, AA, if you can get the Board of Governors to give me a $25,000 grant to go on this motorcycle ride, I will go to Marrakech and knock on the blue door and ask Fatima for your bong.  But no grant, no bong."

Somehow AA talked the Board of Governors into granting me $25,000, and so off I go to find a blue door in Marrakech.  Wish me luck on that, will you?

I'm really surprised AA can remember that far back.  There has been a lot of water over AA's dam, and I thought more had washed away.  I guess not, which proves once again that you just never, ever, ever, really know, do you . . .