Smoke 'em if you got 'em

After the marathon trek from New York City to St. Louis, I needed to take a sabbath day.  I felt like Jerry Lewis at 3:00 on Labor Day.  Not, the young, funny Jerry Lewis.  I felt like the old, heavy, messy Jerry Lewis.  I slept, wrote, went to a Cardinals game and ate.  Busch stadium serves a bacon wrapped hot dog.  Like most over the top sounding fair fare, it sounded gross but tasted great!

I woke up early Monday morning and hustled down to the Greyhound station in St. Louis to make sure I could get on the 7:30 bus to Kansas City, so that I could make it to Minneapolis by evening.  There was a laminated sign on the ropes by the ticket counter that says, "Sold Out: Kansas City, Denver, etc".  It struck me as odd that they would have a laminated sign that said this.  It must happen every day.  It's much more cost effective to tell a passenger, "tough cookies, you can take the next bus six hours from now" and hang a sign up than it would be to dispatch another bus.  I reasoned with the woman at the ticket counter, but she grew hostile and told me to leave.  I just took my ticket for the 1:30 bus over to gate 10 and convinced the driver to let me on.  When I got on the bus, there were about 15 open seats.

I got on my seat in the 3rd row and looked out the window only to see another potential passenger running like OJ Simpson across the parking lot, but the bus started backing out.  "Ha ha, sucker!", yelled and  out a very, very large man with many tattoos.  "We gotta get movin'"  The bus driver didn't stop.  I didn't really feel that guilty that I made it on and he didn't.  Life isn't always fair.

Tyson was the large tattooed man, who turned out the be my new friend for the next 4 1/2 hours.   "Where you headed?", I asked him.  "Out to Oregon.  I've been on the bus for two days.  My brother's out there and he's a care giver."  I later learned that "care giver" is another name for "pot grower".  Tyson's brother has two patients.  He currently grows a total of six plants.  Evidently, people with a medical card can come to Tyson's brother's "clinic" and get enough weed to ease their pain for the week. 

"I'm going to be his third patient", Tyson informed me.  "Do you have some medical problems?", I asked him.  "Oh, hell yeah.  I've got a bad back.  I've had two surgeries and I'm not having any more.  He said I could come out there and get my medical card.  I've got all my records with me, so I should be set.  And, I'm going to learn how to grow so I can become a care giver too.  The deal is, you give half your pot to the patients and get to keep half for yourself.  Then you can sell your half to other people with cards.  Anybody can get a card in Oregon.  I mean, you can't get one if your skin itches or something, but there's a guy out there that got a card because he had a bad childhood.  Post stress or something like that."

Seated in front of Tyson was Gale.  Gale was on his way to Kansas City to pick up a truck.  I have met a surprising number of truck drivers on this trip.  Gale explained that he goes and picks up abandoned trucks from truck stops, impound lots and individuals' homes.  He's a repo man of the trucking world.  He explained,  "I make between $4,500 and $6,500 per run, depending on what's in the truck.  If it's full of stuff, they pay me more.  It's a pretty nice gig.  I'm picking this truck up today and then heading to Dallas.

"Sometimes it's dangerous.  They might pull a gun, but I just call the sheriff.  Usually it's just people who are fed up with it all and quit right on the spot.  They get to some truck stop near home, drop all their keys and shit at the desk and have their family come pick 'em up.  So, I go recover the truck."

Tyson was amazed by this and said, "how can I get in on this?".  There was a long conversation about background checks and felonies and then Tyson said, "well, I couldn't handle it anyway.  My back hurts."

Gale talked for a couple of hours about everything from how Hitler got everyone to buy into the invasion of Poland to the carbon dating of wooden bridges in the Philippines.  He also was an authority on horticulture.  "One time, I had these buds that were so potent that a hornet or bumble bee or some shit flew into the bud and I looked down and he was so stoned that he was just walking in circles around the plant."

This perked Tyson up, who then relayed a story about his miniature Collie that had inadvertently gotten into his "hash balls" and lied around the house for three days.  "He way just laying by his bowl licking at his food.  He crapped all over the house too.  My mom was pissed.  'You're gonna kill my dog".

In Booneville, we picked up a guy who looked to be in his late 40's.  He boarded the bus wearing khaki shorts, a blue shirt, white socks and black shoes.  He was carrying a brown grocery sack, not very big.  Upon overhearing Tyson, Gale and I talking and learning that I was writing a book, he spoke up: "I just got out of the penitentiary this morning.  Do you think that could make it into your book?"  "Wow, it sure could", I told him.  "How long were you in for?"  "8 months", he told me.  "That must have been rough", I said.  "It was rough enough that I don't ever want to cook dope again."

Tyson and Gale educated each other on homemade tips like using cheap dog food as fertilizer.  It's way cheaper than Miracle Grow and it evidently grows healthier plants.  Bo Peep amonia, when applied in a ring around the plant will also help yield a good crop.  They one-upped each other on how to make "good stuff prison-style" the rest of the way to Kansas City.

Tyson devoured a sandwich and complained of being "cotton mouthed" after our 20 minute stop in Columbia.  I'll let you do the math...

Left to Right: Tyson, Mike, Gale