It must have been 1996, ’97 at the latest. I know I was out
of school, and I was living with half a dozen people or so at my friend’s house
on Selby Ave. in St. Paul. I loved weed, drank occasionally, and had recently advanced
from snorting cocaine to smoking crack, a truly life changing transformation. I
had also recently started growing my own pot in the vacant upstairs bedroom and
a closet in my bedroom. This was going to be a fairly large operation, at least
it was in my head. I had everything I needed to start up: A 1,000-watt Metal-Halide
light and fixture complete with a stolen, rigged up ballast; Several clones of
the best weed in the city at the time; dirt, minerals, nitrogen, etc.… Blah,
blah, blah. I was ready to go.
If you aren’t sure how bright a 1,000 watt H.I.D. (High
Intensity Discharge) bulb is, go stare at the sun and then don’t change
anything. It’s that bright. So bright in fact that I had to remove the hood
because it acted like a focused flashlight beam and scorched the plants quite
badly on the first round. Oops. I wasn’t a very responsible man back then. In
fact, one could discuss that I was quite negligent, careless, rash,
irresponsible, and so much more. Instead of blocking off all of the windows
with cardboard and duct tape, a pushed a mattress up against the street facing
window and left it at that. Even I could see the light through the window in
the middle of the day, I just didn’t care. Oops.
So every other day or so I would take a break from scamming
my way into a crack rock and eat. I don’t mean like have a real meal of food, I
would usually just go to Dairy Queen and get a blizzard. Crackheads love sugar.
One particular beautiful Summer day I was walking back home with my “frozen”
treat and it was so nice out I decided to finish it up before I went back
inside so I sat down on a tattered old black leather couch that had been
through years of weather on the front porch. It was delicious as always. I’ve
always been a peanut butter fan so I get Butterfinger and peanut butter cups. I also tell them to make sure I get full
amounts of each and I’ll pay extra or they think I just want a mix that would
equal one regular portion, like I’m some kind of idiot. Anyhow, I stood up and
realized that I had forgotten my key so I knocked. The door opened up, and a
strange man with a mustache stood there. He gave me a shitty smile and directed
my attention to the gold badge on his belt. I exclaimed, “Oh, shit”. He
continued to grin.
There was no point in running, they already had what they
came for or they would shortly, and my driver’s license said I lived there, so
I went inside where I saw all of my roommates sitting around with muted
expressions. There were three officers inside. They said they were part of a
special task force and that they were just there to do a knock-and-talk. Well,
I don’t remember hearing a knock, but I remained silent. They wanted me to
unlock the door upstairs with the sunlight pouring out from underneath the door
and I stupidly said it just opened up to the outside and he would risk injury
going through. Actually, they thought that was kind of funny, but they insisted
I proceed upstairs with them.
We stood at the threshold, key in my hand, and I unlocked it
and opened up. I said it was a bad idea to go inside with the light on and they
came up with the brilliant idea to, well, turn it off. I accommodated. Inside
were my ladies, all about four weeks into the flowering stage. They were
starting to have a very strong smell, the buds were growing closer together to
form the huge donkey-dick like buds you see on T.V., and even a hair or two were
starting to turn from white to pinkish red. They would be ready in under three
weeks. Most were about four feet tall and had to be supported by wire tomato
holder-upper things. And they were destined for greatness, which is why it hurt
to see what happened next…. To be continued...
