Sunday Night at the Weed Dispensary

 Sunday Night at the Weed Dispensary

“I think I have to drive to the Indian Reservation,” Dean moaned, sipping a lime green can of bubbly water. “I’m out of weed.” That the realization occurred on a Sunday made it all the more somber. 

“Maybe you should try the dispensary in Brooklyn Center,” Kylie suggested, looking up from her paperback. They sat in coffee-colored wicker chairs on the balcony, reading while the sunset turned the Northeast Minneapolis skyline pink on one of the last warm days of the season. Thousands of little yellow leaves on the locust trees rustled gently in the breeze. A black squirrel clambered up one of the trunks below them. 

“They actually opened one?”

“I think it opened a couple weeks ago. My sister went. She said the prices are a little high.”

“Well, the prices are high at the Indian Reservation,” he mused. “This would save me hours.”

He picked up his phone, which laid face down on top of his hardcover copy of Tonight in Jungleland, entered the passcode to his iPhone, and opened Google Maps. “What’s it called?”

“I think Rise -- Brooklyn Center?”

“Oh it’s a Rise,” he gushed; he typed the name in and found the dispensary page. “I used to go to a Rise all the time in Michigan.” He read the details underneath the title of the business. “Rise Brooklyn Park,” he corrected her. “They’re open until 8. Can we go tonight?”

“What time is it now?” Kylie inquired. 

“Time to get a watch,” he retorted before answering, “almost six.”

“We could go tonight,” she agreed.

“I’ll buy you a pack of gummies if you drive me,” he begged.

“Okay. Just let me finish this chapter.”

In a matter of minutes he opened up his laptop, found the Rise -- Brooklyn Park website, reviewed the various prices for different strands of flower and different varieties of edibles, and finally placed an online order for 28 grams of Apple Cobbler, a 20.2% THC Hybrid at a cost of $220, plus two tins of lemon lime gummies at a price of $20 a pop. Minutes later he received an email alert on his phone from “Jane” indicating that his online order was ready for pickup. 

Via 94-West, they drove from Northeast Minneapolis to Brooklyn Park. It took about 20 minutes. When they passed the Welcome to Brooklyn Park sign on the side of the road, Dean gasped, "Wow, I can't believe they don't advertise it as the home of Fulton Reed." When Kyle failed to respond, he added, "Mighty Ducks, you know?"

"I know who Fulton Reed is," she contended.

"I think Fulton Reed is the one from Brooklyn Park," he stammered, second-guessing himself. Quickly he typed it into the search box on his phone, surprised at his own uncertainty as it pertained to a subject matter he considered himself an expert in.  "Wow," he stammered. "Fulton Reed is actually from Stillwater, Minnesota. That's where Ms. Norah is from. Lester Averman is the one from Brooklyn Park." 

"Huh," she shrugged. 

"Still," he persisted with feigned outrage "No love for Lester Averman, huh?"

They arrived at 7:00ish. By then it was already dark out, but not too cold, a pleasant October evening of 50 degrees, with most of the leaves turned yellow but still clinging to the trees. Kylie pulled into a parking space outside the front of the Rise dispensary, which looked like it used to be a Pizza Hut. It had the same squat shape with the triangular shaped roof and windows around the sides. From the passenger seat, he saw in the front window a black man punching digits into one of the ATM machines that faced the parking lot. The black man stood out to Dean because he wore a Jason Voorhees jersey, with the hockey masked killer’s face glaring out from the front of the blood red jersey. He also wore a khaki bucket hat and sunglasses. 

Dean exited the car, leaving Kylie in the driver’s seat, where she sat scrolling on her phone while listening to music from the Current at a soft volume. He entered the dispensary front doors to the checkpoint desk, where two twenty-something women struggled to combat technical difficulties with both of their iPads. Dean handed his driver’s license to one of them, explaining that he had a local address, if it mattered, and that he just hadn’t bothered to register for a Minnesota license despite living here for more than three years. One of the girls cleared him without a word. She pressed a button that automatically unlocked a door to the left, allowing him to enter the greater sales room. He entered. To his left were the ATM kiosks, to his right the marble sales counters and digital registers, with stanchions and stanchion ropes creating a theme park-style line in between. He zigzagged through the stanchion walkway and stopped to wait, the only one in line. Another twenty-something woman, perhaps college-age, called him over after she completed a previous transaction with an unremarkable white man. 

“What can I do for you?” she said with a smile that expressed that unique combination of pep and utter misanthropy worn exclusively by service industry employees. He always empathized with them. She wore a name tag that said her name was Karmella.

“Hi, I have an online order to pickup for Dean Halverson,” he tried to say kindly. 

“Dean Halverson?” the black guy in the Jason Voorhees jersey exclaimed in a voice of feigned bewilderment; until now Dean hadn’t realized that he was at the register right next to him. “Did we go to school together?” At this, the saleswoman in front of Dean looked up with an expression of perplexion and concern.

On cue, Dean laughed and retorted, “I don’t know, man, but I love that jersey. I saw that jersey from the car and I was like, wow.” 

“Hey, I’m just kidding,” the man chuckled. “And thank you.”

“Freddy Krueger, right?” the brunette saleswoman interjected. In addition to two earrings on each of her ears, she wore a nose ring and an eyebrow stud. On her arm was a tattoo with a phrase written in cursive that Dean couldn’t make out, with her hands in motion. Dean and the man in the Jason Voorhees jersey both shook their heads.

“Michael Meyers?”

“Jason,” Dean jumped in to help. 

“Jason Voorhees,” the man in the Jason Voorhees jersey finished, smiling. 

“Yeah I just love those movies,” Dean smiled. 

“I’ll be right back with your order,” Karmella said with a swish of her body. He tried not to, at first, then stared at her butt, curvy in black jeans, as she walked away. 

“Where you from in Michigan, if you don’t mind me asking?” the man in the Jason jersey inquired, using a discreet voice now. 

“Metro Detroit area,” Dean answered. “The suburbs.”

“So you down with ICP?” Again the man in the Jason jersey laughed. 

“Insane Clown Posse,” Dean thought, nodding, attempting a joking tone. “Right, you know it.”

“I got some cousins in Detroit, if you know what I mean,” he lowered his sunglasses so that his eyes were visible for the first time. “But tell me, what’d you get here?”

“An ounce of something,” Dean replied. “What strand was it? Ah. . . Apple Cobbler. That’s it.”

“How much that run you?”

“220, I think, for the flower. A little steep. I also got some gummies.”

At this point Karmella, the sales clerk, returns with Dean’s ID and a brown paper bag. She placed it on the marble counter between them. Dean took it and thanked her. 

“That’s a lot bro. Why pay that?”

Karmella looked up, concerned that a customer was criticizing prices at her place of business right in front of her.

“Hey,” Dean interjected, trying to cut the tension, I’m just happy I don’t have to drive to Michigan or to the Indian reservation. I been driving two hours to the reservation for weed.”

“But why?” the man in the Jason jersey persisted. “But why?” he implored. 

“Gotta get weed,” Dean shrugged, to which Karmella the sales clerk nodded her head. “Yeah,” she asserted with empathetic eyes. She asked Dean if he wanted to sign up for the rewards program. The man in the Jason jersey, finished with his transaction, departed the store. Karmella asked, “do you think you’ll shop here a lot?” “Oh yeah, I’ll sign up,” he acquiesced. He never acquiesced, but for some reason he did tonight. 

“What are your plans the rest of the night?” Karmella inquired. Dean wondered if she was flirting with him or just doing her job. It seemed they both felt a relief now that the other customer had exited the store. 

“Well, I’ll probably watch some scary movies,” Dean replied. “Test out this weed,” he added, nodding towards the brown paper bag. 

“What kind of scary movies are you into?” Karmella inquired. 

“I love the Halloween franchise. Just watched Halloween H20. And, of course, the Friday the 13th movies.”

“Nightmare Before Christmas?” she asked. “Or no?”

“Oh yeah,” Dean said. In his head he thought, I used to watch that movie all the time with a girl I knew at Michigan, while we were both drunk, after a night out, but he said nothing of this. This memory, perhaps, ended their conversation. He took his brown paper bag, turned to see the two people in line behind him, then beelined to the exit.

His socialization meter dipped towards empty. To his dismay, he then saw the man in the Jason jersey again, standing outside the open front door of his Aerostar van, two parking spots to their right. 

“Hey c’mere, man,” he said, motioning Dean over. “I wanna show you something.”

Briefly considering the prospect of his own abduction, and finding comfort in the likelihood of a security camera nearby, in addition to Kylie’s ongoing surveillance, Dean advanced towards the van. “Check this out,” the man said, turning his hulking frame to allow Dean to see the front seat, where the man opened up a large clear trash bag overflowing with balls of marijuana, thousands of soft, loamy green and purplish balls of weed. Dean estimated the man had at least 12 ounces of the stuff. If it was meant to impress Dean, it didn’t. 

“Lemme give you my number, man,” the man in the Jason jersey insists. “In case you ever need anything. So you don’t have to be drivin’ out to Michigan or none, if you know what I’m saying. I can meet you right here. Just give me a text.”

“Defnitely,” Dean agreed, already opening his contacts icon on his phone to add a new one. “My name is Dean, by the way, if you didn’t already get that.” 

“Dean, my name’s Willie,” the man in the Jason jersey replied. 

“Alright, I’m ready, what’s your number?”

Willie gave him the number, one with a local area code, and Dean dutifully entered it into his phone, saving the contact. “I’ll send you a text so you have my number,” Dean instructed, anxious to get away, a feeling that had less to do with discomfort than it did his naturally introverted tendencies. “I appreciate it.”

“Wait up,” Willie called as Dean started walking back towards Kylie’s car. “I gotta give you a reason to call me. A sample.” With that, Willie reached into his trash bag of weed, dug out a handful of loamy green nuggets, and dropped them into the brown paper bag, which Dean held open. They fell onto the other contents within the brown paper bag. “Thanks man,” Dean beamed. 

With that, he returned to Kylie, eager to to retell the story of his encounter with Willie. He opened the car door. “Crucified Son” by Charlie Crockett played on 89.3 The Current.