Faster Than a Speeding Bus: Say No to Stealing From Drug Dealers

Minutes earlier an angry, Ace Frehley looking character had been clutching the case as if contained gold bars. We couldn't believe he left it behind. We would soon learn it's contents, major score.

Less than a dozen, more than five.  The number of close calls where I thought the end was surely near.  Twice, the ER Doc grimly informed loved ones, “Don’t get your hopes up.  Far too long without adequate oxygen.”  Always self-inflicted.  Ticket punched.  Wrong side of the grass.  There are dozens of terms for it.  Even books dedicated to the most outrageously dumb methods the humanoid can end up dead.  If I had died, several of the incidents, without question, would have qualified for the “Darwin’s 101 Dumb Ways To Die” book.  Though nothing to be proud of, quite the opposite, such cluster-f***s do leave behind great stories.  Stories demanding to be shared.  Stories that illicit righteous belly laughs, or a sad shake of the head. 

This is a story that surely felt life and death at the time.  Two of my ninth grade buddies and I hopped on a bus for the most common of young ‘burbanite traditions.  Crossroads Mall downtown.  Exciting stuff for small town lads.  Salt Lake, a better selection of everything we sought.  An anticipated purchase maybe, but it’s more about the ladies.

I still have the all black Swatch purchased on this adventure.  It was without incident until within ten miles of home on the return voyage.  There was a stoner giving us the stink-eye the entire trip.  The stoner express, the last two rows in the back.  “Shaggy” really did not approve of the new-wave type haircuts on Casper and Beef.  I was rocking the standard issue mullet.  Business front, party back, which I habitually stroked when I wasn’t fluffing it out for maximum effect.  I was straight proud of my mullet, and not a fan at all of the shaved back and sides, long bleached bangs waver style rocked by Beef and Casper.  I despised the music and the haircuts.  Mockingly arguing “Fisher-Price keyboards and electro-s**t drum machines aren’t f*****g music.”  It was obvious Shaggy felt the same. 

Next to Shaggy, an Ace Frehley looking character carefully holding a double-sided cassette briefcase.  White-knuckle clutching that case as if it were full of gold bars.  Or the nation’s nuclear launch codes.  We were about to find out why.  Ace pulled the cord and gave us one long “f**k you” stare as he passed, exiting the bus.  Looking back at his seat, I couldn’t believe it.  Nudging Casper, “Holy s**t man, that has got to be a bomb.  No f*****g way Ace leaves that thing behind.  I looked around, Casper and I were the only dudes who noticed.  Quietly, but quickly, we stormed like hyenas in dire need of a meal.  Rifling through the case. 14 year old boys don’t get real cerebral about such things.  Or anything for that matter. 

Sweet.  It was on.  Major score.  One gem after another.  A headbangers delight.  Every essential hard rock/metal album since the beginning of time.  Sabbath Paranoid, Ozzy Blizzard and Diary, Metallica’s first 3, AC/DC’s finest, Maiden Live after Death, every single Zeppelin sans Coda, Peace Sells, Stones, SRV, Roth Van Halen, before they started writing hits for HS girls and housewives with Van Hagar.  You get the point.  A raging musical boner for a young MetalHead.  Three dozen or so in that one side alone.  Pillaging and pilfering, I began helping myself, Beef and Casper joined, though less enthusiastically than I was.  Before they could start pawing the goods, I flipped over the case and opened side B.  Not one single cassette.  It was the best news possible.  “Ahhhhhhhh” Angelic Choirs sang, illuminating the contents in soft, golden light from above. Well, that’s how I remember it.  But, I seem to inject the angelic choir/spotlight thing into many memories from my youth.  Packed in tight, stacked high, like cordwood.  Hippy lettuce.  Weed, pot, grass, ganja, MaryJane, the devil’s weed.  However, it wasn’t like anything we had smelled.  The waft of delicious scent reached our beaks.  Potent piney, the crystalline buds visible through the bags.  “Holy MotherTrucker’s F****r!” Casper, speaking far too loud.  “Dude, easy.  Sshhh.  Holy sheep scrotum, Beef, lookie here.  Those longhairs right there would throw down at the drop for such kindness.”   Casper silently gave me a grande toothy grin.   If ever the term “s**t-eating grin” applied, it was here.  Beef was rubbing his hands together as if it were a million dollars we had stumbled across.  32 1/8th ounce sacks.  1/4 pound.  A QP of the kindest, goodies we didn’t even know existed.  The reason Ace was protecting that thing was now obvious to us. 

We couldn’t contain ourselves.  Squealing and giggling like 8 year olds on Christmas Morning.  Our glee would soon be snuffed out. 

“What’s the powder stuff all over it?  Is that coke sprinkled on?”  Beef inquired.  “No idea man,” was all I had.  I had never seen crystalline buddage, some red hair maybe, but nothing like this.  We weren’t exactly procuring quality at the time.  As 14 year olds in small town Utah.  Seedy, stemmy, 15-20 hit s**t is the most apt description.  This was unheard of. Kind I wouldn’t see again for over a decade, and the incredible Amsterdam adventure with my sweet bride.  Beef, Casper, and I began double fist uploading the kindness, into every pocket on us.  Setting the cassettes down beside me.  Feeling generous in our guilt we decided to leave two bags.  Just then Shaggy busted us.  The biggest gnarliest stoner on the back of that bus saw what we were up to.  Fully charging at us, he expected us to drop our treasure and cower.  Beef was a big ol’ dude himself.  Already 6’2” and 190 pounds of muscle.  Always willing to enter any melee to protect his bro’s.  Beef pointed to the two bags remaining.  Implying, “F**k Off, take what remains.”  Suddenly, two more stoners appeared.  “Uh oh,” Casper said.  By now, the driver was checking us out in his rearview mirror.  Quiet compromise was the only solution, I quickly assessed.  “We found this. We’ll give you two each, nothing more.”  Beef nodded, handing out the donations we gave him.  After all, they had no clue there were originally 32 bags in there.  “That driver is all over us.  Hey, any scuffle, the next dude climbing on this bus is a pair of Roscoes (cops),“ I cautioned the group, as the noise level escalated. 
Two, no f*****g way,” Shaggy protested. 

Beef didn’t back down. “More than two, no f*****g way. That means there isn’t even two each for my friends,”  he bluffed.  The other stoners accepted their two gladly and sat back down, not wanting any more attention or trouble.  “Here, one more, and that’s it dude.  We’re not pussing out,”  Beef handed him one more.  Just then, the bus made another stop.  My peripheral caught a flash of quick movement at the rear door, and noise.  Both of my front pockets stuffed fat with 8 sacks of kindness, I was holding a tallboy stack of cassettes with both hands. That’s when it went all wrong. 

The rightful owner had made a dramatic entrance and was suddenly standing before us.  Huffing and puffing.  Ready to blow our s**t up.  Murder on his mind.  I’ve measured the distance since the incident. 1.2 miles.  If there was a Guinness records category for the best lungs on a pothead, MarathonMan would surely take the prize. 

With only two stops since MM exited the bus, forgetting his treasure, he had sprinted down the bus.  And caught it.  Impressive as it was unfortunate for us.  As I was holding the stack of his tunes, I caught his angry eye first.  The Mother of “oh s**t” feelings.  Patting in his pocket what I assumed to be a blade, Ace wasted no time.  “One bag.  I’ll give you punker f***s one eighth.  Far too generous for f*****g thieves.  31 sacks, and every f*****g cassette.  If I don’t get all that back in my hands in 30 seconds, I’ll f*****g saw your head off and s**t down the hole”  Yikes.  I didn’t doubt him in the slightest.  He was a big, angry lad.  Extending the cassettes in handoff fashion, he motioned to put them in the case.  “The f*****g weed.  Now.”   

We now had the driver’s full attention.  He knew there was big trouble on the stoner express.  With the driver slowing and eyeing us, I didn’t want to pull the bags out and hand them over.  Roscoes, not greed, were the only thing on my mind.  I began explaining that to Ace, “Listen, that driver is looking….”  “I DON’T GIVE A MOTHERFUCK ABOUT NO DRIVER!”  Well, alrighty then, copy that.  “I didn’t take….”  I started to explain it wasn’t only me.  He was having none of it. “I don’t give a flying f**k who took what.”  As he pulled out a medium sized knife and locked the blade open. Blocking the sight from the driver’s view with his body.  Beef unloaded his 8 sacks and placed them in the open briefcase.  “I might not carve all of you, but I’ll get two of you before…..”   “Hey, stop!  What’s going on back there?”  The driver shouted as he rolled the bus to a stop in front of a Jr. High School. 

Ace paid no attention.  “I ain’t f*****g around.  You just don’t f**k with another man’s dope.  His business.”   Roger that. I agree.  “I know, but that’s all we took, the music and the 8 bags he already gave you,” the lie passed my lips before even thinking about it.  I don’t even know why.  Greed.  Competitive nature.  I dunno.  Casper and Beef seemed as surprised as I was.  Back then, I fully subscribed to the Billy Clinton school of “Deny, deny, deny.”  No matter what, no matter the evidence piled on the table.  Deny.  Anytime I had witnessed a confession, it ended in worst possible way.  Every single time.  No lenience or benefit of the doubt.  I believed confessions were used solely as a weapon to bludgeon the poor dumb b*****d who believed the authority figure that convinced them confession was the easy option.  Wrong.  If there’s even a fraction of doubt, why remove all doubt, by confessing.  It made sense in my angry teenaged brain. 

So it was that mindset, not even a habit really, a reflex.  As sure as your leg kicks when your knee is tapped by the doctor.  “Hey, you 4, I want you off this bus right now.  I’m calling the cops.  Get off right this second.  I don’t want no trouble.  I don’t know what kinda illegal crap you got going on, but I want you off.  Right now!”   Beef, Casper and I exchanged looks.  I didn’t want to be on the bus, or off the bus, with Ace and his pigsticker.  “Off!” The driver shouted.  We reluctantly shuffled off the bus.  Damn, if something doesn’t happen fast, we are F-U-K-T.  7 of the bags were still on the bus. 

Ace had recovered 10.  Casper and I were the only ones going down with the ship, with full pockets.  Ace now extended the knife closer towards us. I was hoping Beef would knock him out cold.  My weapon was always my smart-a*s mouth, a quick wit honed verbally jousting older siblings since I could speak.  I hadn’t been in a fistfight since 6th grade.  A battle over as quick as it began, with my bottom teeth sticking through the wrong side of my lower lip.  Followed by a long and creepy first aid session one on one in a small nursing station with my 6th grade teacher.  A pederast who was still a few years away from sent to the hoosegow.  He never attempted any fiddling about with me, but it was creepy and uncomfortable in the extreme.  Also, 30 minutes longer than necessary. T hese guys instinctively now who they can victimize and who will use their nut sack for a speed bag.  I was definitely the latter.  He still milked our alone time for as long as he possibly could. 

Ace’s back was to the bus, we were facing the right side rear of the bus. The engine began to rev and I looked up.  Looked up to see our salvation. Shaggy, the badass stoner on the bus, was hanging out of the window. From the waist up, gesturing wildly, grunting and hissing loudly.  Shaking his fist, slicing his throat, then shaking his fist again with his right hand. His left hand was signaling and hissing “ssshhhhh” with his index finger over pursed lips.  I dunno how that f****r didn’t fall right out.  Shaggy’s slow reflexes sealed the deal on our escape.  “Look, it was him!”  I said as Ace spun around and spotted Shaggy mid-gesture.  “He has it all!”  Ace once again was in hot pursuit.  We took off in the opposite direction. By dumb luck, a safe haven refuge was only 1/4 mile away.  “Will Ace ever catch that bus again,” Casper giggled while sprinting towards shelter from the s**t-storm.  We didn’t have to wait or wonder.  The bus began slowing for the very next stop.  Only 100 yards further beyond the School.  We weren’t hanging around to witness the grand finale. 

In the confusion, my dudes didn’t know who kept what.  Beef wondered aloud, with regret, “Did we keep anything?  I at least should’ve kept one. Shiiit.”  Casper and I both began patting our fat pockets, mixing in a little jig as much as possible while running for your life.  “Dude, no way. Both of you kept some?”  “Some?” I asked.  Casper repeated, “Some?  Uhh, negatory ghost rider, every f*****g sack.  A full 8 pack, haha.”   “7 pack here,” I gloated.  Beef released a victory roar that turned heads in the grocery store lot we were now crossing.  “Fuuuuuck Yes,” he added, receiving 100% disapproving looks from the customers going about their business. One Mother tried covering her young daughter’s ears, too late.  Righteous indignation at such vulgarity.  We couldn’t have cared less.  

Casper’s Dad worked Saturdays at the hardware store nearby.  1/4 mile from the Jr. High Bus Stop we had just vacated.  Breathless and dripping sweat, Casper’s Dad was the first dude we saw entering the hardware store.  Confused, yet glad to see Casper, Casper soon began spreading it on thick.  “Casper, what are you doing here?  Hi Guys.”  “Well, we were coming back from the Mall and I remembered you were working.  We’ll have to pay another fare, but I thought it would be nice to pop-in and say hi.  Make sure you’re having a good day.  Maybe run and get some lunch for you or something.  I just appreciate how hard you work for the family, and wanted to say so.”  His old man smiled, clearly touched by the gesture.  A gesture neither completely genuine, nor completely false.  “And your buddies went along with this little detour?  Ohh, thanks guys.” 

Of all my buddy’s Dads, Casper’s was the best.  A legit good dude, who remembered what it was like being a teenager more than any adult I ever knew.  Fully gray by aged 30, with professor spectacles, he looked like a Russian poet or academic.  He was silent, soaking it in.  Clearly appreciative, bathing in the warm fuzzies Casper’s visit brought him. 

For many weeks, we shared the kind wealth with our circle-of-trust bowling league bro’s.  Reliving the drama of that day, over and over, as young wildlings like to do.  My best friend Augie, Redmond Augusto, was on house arrest and mourned missing out on the adventure.  “C’mon, just tell me the story one more time,” and a million questions regarding details. Offering an observation, “It’s crazy how killer this weed is, but kinda sucks, now we know how skanky the weed we get is.  2 hits vs. 20.  Bottom line, this is s**t people write for movies, and I f*****g missed it.”    

As with any retelling, it gradually became exaggerated and supersized. How we had robbed some big time drug dealer who was now looking to whack us.  Placing a bounty on our heads.  Our circle was small, but my nervousness lingered.  That somehow the story would make it beyond the safety our little world and Ace would somehow uncover who and where the perps were.  We never learned how the final act played out.  Ace chasing that speeding city bus once again.  It’s fair to say, stealing a drug dealers stash isn’t a very wise move.  I did feel a little guilt, like we should’ve returned most, if not all of Ace’s product. 

Each time we partook of Ace’s piney treats, “All is fair in love and weed,” was the punchline we thought so brilliantly clever.  “The dude deserved his stash back after running down a bus like that,” I repeatedly admitted.  But, my inner Billy Clinton took over. It was undeniable scum-baggery on our part.  Live and learn, even if we were extremely slow on the uptake when it came to the “learn” part. Stay Frosty and Aerodynamic, until next time.