potheadreturns2

Ok well this is really long to be reading on this type of site, so read at your own discretion, and remember it's not yet finished.

1
I got on the Troost Avenue bus stop around seven P.M. With me I had a gray sweatshirt and a pair of pants, stuffed into my newly purchased single-strap backpack. Also, I had brought along my toothbrush, and stolen my dad’s sole supply of AIM whitening toothpaste. I knew he’d care, but I didn’t. I’d be damned if I were going to have bad breath on my venture. In my pocket I had a large kitchen knife, with plastic handle, and 400 dollars in cash. I brought the knife along because of the areas I would soon be in, for I knew I might face danger at any turn. I was taking the greyhound to Texas City. My friend Jared Moble, whom I met on the net, was currently living there. I had just quit my job at a local fast food restaurant, and was fed up with Kansas City. As an alibi, I told my dad I would be spending the night at my friend Jamey’s house, and would not be arriving home until late the next day.
My father’s work schedule was complicated enough to allow me to pull something like this off. He went to his first job at nine in the morning, usually got home around five, took a shower and went to bed until around one in the morning, when he woke up and went to his second job until around eight. By leaving at 7:45, my calculations suggested my dad wouldn’t know anything was wrong until 1 A.M. two days from then.

I inserted my wrinkly dollar bill into the machine, and got my transfer and quickly made my way to the back. I was very high. I had gotten hold of some K.B. while making preparations for my trip, and had rolled four joints out of it and smoked half of one. My heart was racing incredibly fast. I was unable to control it as I sat down in the very last seat of the bus. I was very relieved too finally be sitting, knowing I was on the first leg of my journey. I was also very tired. Not getting much sleep due to chronic insomnia, undiagnosed of course, really took a toll on me. It had gotten to me bad the night before, however. Every minute of the night was a new position, every position a new frustration.
I was scared. I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do when I got into town, or even where I was going to sleep. I knew I couldn’t care though.
Every new passenger made my heart jump. Each one that got on looked at me, I could swear. Suspiciously. Hatefully. I was white, an easy target. That’s why I brought the knife. I knew I couldn’t be too safe. A large black man got on the bus, and was making his way down the walkway, when he suddenly glanced at me, and stopped. He quickly turned around and walked back up to the front to sit down and chat with the driver. I was paranoid, was all. A stoned kid who didn’t know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and liked to let his fears get the best of him. The black man at the front of the bus kept turning back to look at me. Pointing.
It was then that I suddenly realized that the knife had fallen out of my pocket, and onto the bus floor at my feet. This had to be the reason people were looking at me, I thought. I looked as if I was some sort of, teen-age fugitive who had stabbed his parents in a rage over the prestigious slaps he received from his drunken father. I knew then what I had to do. The only option was for me to get out of the bus, calmly leaving the knife on the floor where it lay. I pulled the cord to signal the bus driver to stop. I don’t think the other passengers could have been happier. They all gave me shifty eyes as I stepped off the bus and onto the grass. As I left that knife on the bus, I knew it had a vast future to it. Though it was just a knife, its story would be epic. It would cross paths with many people, each with a history and presence of their own. The bus would be considered the beginning. Someone might pick it up, and take it with them, to protect themselves from me. And the knife would travel, like it has before. From the assembly plant, to the store, to my house, up and down Troost, to a man’s pocket, and then to his home. Eventually it would end up trash. A side-story to the footnote of a parenthesis. Meaningless. Though so will I, and everyone I love. I will end up dead, decaying into dust after 4/5th’s of a century on Earth. No matter how I see myself as the turning point of the galaxy, I will end up no different than that knife with the plastic handle.

2
I stood waiting for the next bus to come, enjoying my high, glad to be away from the aura of untrusting people. It came and I got on. As I fumbled with my bus transfer the driver accelerated and I was thrown off balance in a way that my head met directly with the ceiling of the vehicle. Some girls chuckled while I headed toward the back. I immediately wanted to get off this bus as well; I felt the same level of coldness and mistrust. As an answer to my prayers, I saw the greyhound station ahead. I got off and bid the chuckling girls farewell before making my way down the sidewalk into the circle drive. I passed a group of sad, angry looking people. One kid stuck out in my mind. Maybe it was the young look of his face, or the hot pink golf visor he was wearing, but I felt bad for him. He was surely in a gang of some sort, or prostituting himself to lonely men from around the country, scared of another beating from his sole friend and pimp. I walked past this group trying extraordinarily hard not to make eye contact with anyone. The kid was crouched down smoking a cigarette butt, resting in a corner.
I made my way past the set of double glass doors and into the lobby. There were benches and chairs next to the waiting line, and movie style ropes to show customers where to stand in file. When I got to the front of the line I noticed that the cashier was extremely beautiful. Her hair very curly and her figure rather curvy. She had a gold cap on her top left front tooth, and spoke with a ghetto accent. When she handed me my ticket she also told me what gate I was leaving from, though I didn’t pay any attention. I went to the waiting area they had set up: It was a large room with a hundred or so people in it. The colors and sounds made this a very vibrant room, harsh to the senses. All the people were different. Some children, some senior citizens. There were tired looking Mexicans, and middle aged drunks with long dirty hair, wearing Nascar hats. Arcades were set up alongside the outer edge of the room. I sat down on a bench that faced the computerized pay phones, which were aligned next to the video games, and accepted either phone or credit cards. People stood by these; practically shouting over the noise to talk to their colleagues, associates, and loved ones. Each one had their own reason to be there, in the Kansas City downtown greyhound station. A reason to be on the phone. A story behind them. A story behind the ones on the other end of the phone. They’re all the center of the universe.
While I waited, the same people repeatedly passed by me, wearing baseball caps and mustaches. They seemed as if they were trying not to be connected with each other. When they were conversing I occasionally glanced at them, and they would immediately walk away from one another once they realized I was looking at them. Surely they were undercover cops on a sting operation, possibly to bust me. Everyone in the station knew I was high, knew I had weed on me, and knew I was alone. It was only a matter of time now before I was killed by a maniacal traveler, or arrested for drug trafficking. I had to stay sharp, and keep my wits about me, which is hard to do when your heart’s beating so fast.
It was 7:45. The announcement was unclear and gravelly. I couldn’t make out what gate to go to. I panicked as I saw two different lines form at the same time. I stood in-between the two, close to the gate doors peering at my ticket looking for an indication of door A or C.
“See, Johnny, look at him. That’s what drugs will do to your brain.” I heard her say from my side. A heavy-set blonde woman of middle age, standing with a young brown hared kid about four or five, and a woman similar in appearance, the only contrast being her gray hair. I was positive that I was being used in her perverse lesson of social conformity. I wanted to walk up to her and tell her exactly what I thought. That it’s people like her that make me scarred to go out after a smoke. I wanted to yell and ask her who she was to judge me, but settled for asking her which bus was going to Houston.

While I was waiting in line a drunk man with long unkempt hair and a shabby beard stumbled into me and shouted something unimportant that I didn’t bother to remember. I was very high. Very paranoid. I was the topic of conversation for everyone around me. Every stranger, every other person on that bus that laid eyes on me knew I was high. A slender black man standing behind me mumbled “Man! That kid’s lit up!” I was scared, every one was staring at me, and all I wanted was to find a place to sleep. I was fairly awake, however, even going on a day without rest. I suppose all I wanted was a sense of security. In a few minutes my entire world had been changed. That couldn’t matter though. Not then. I had to do it. For me, for Jared. I had been locked up for far too long. Now it was time for me to learn what freedom truly means, and bring Jared by my side along the way. The bus was very crowded. The few seats that were open didn’t look very spacious. They were also being guarded heavily by the person in the next seat. I got a glaring look from next to every empty seat I passed. I finally decided to sit down toward the back of the bus, next to a middle-aged, country looking man, with a Marlboro baseball hat, and plain black T-shirt on. I hadn’t realized until I sat down that my neighbor chewed tobacco. It didn’t bother me much, but I had never seen someone chewing tobacco before. That was it. I suddenly decided that that man was why I was going to Texas. I had seen so little, and wanted so much to say I knew everything.
As we pulled away from the bus station a security guard ran out, flagging the driver to stop. Oh no, I thought. I was caught for sure. My heart was racing. All my fellow passengers were waiting to see me get pulled off the bus and arrested in the parking lot, I knew. The bus-driver stopped, and got out to discuss something with the security guard. He got back on the bus and we left. As we pulled out from the back of the parking lot, past the front of the station, I saw five or six cop vehicles in the circle drive.
“Slipped by ‘em again.” I said to myself. Just like that, I was off to Texas. I was sure to see things unusual and strange to me. I would come out wiser than if I had chosen to stay home and smoke out my house. And my dad wouldn’t have a clue for two days.

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