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Johnny Cannabis? You trying’ to be funny, son? Cause I got a lousy sense a humor.” He pointed to the Ranger that had brought me in. “Martin here makes me look like Jerry Lewis. I thought all you Hippie types had learned to stay clear of the Governor’s Mansion. How many heads do we gotta bust before you learn that? Martin, how many did we bust this month?

Martin looked up from the desk where he was filling out paperwork on the case. “Been a slow month, Captain. Only three so far. Course the month ain’t over and we can add a few more to the total if we need to.”

The Captain looked back at Johnny. “Do you think we need to?

I don’t think I want my head busted. I’m kind of attached to it.”

The Captain looked back to Martin. “Martin, what was he doing?”

Well, Sir, he was walking up to a group of school kids who were at the mansion. Had his hand in a bag. Looked like he was going for a weapon or something. Plus this get up he was wearing. I just took him down to get him away from there.”

He plopped the bag on the desk. “Look at this. There’s nothing here but seeds and stuff.”

The Captain looked into the bag and sniffed. He scrunched his nose. “Martin, I do not believe that these are petunia seeds. They have a certain quality to them. Seem to be a part of the hemp family, perhaps even … Cannabis? Is that what they are, Mr. Cannabis? You trying to plant weed in the Governor’s flowerbed?” He slammed a fist down on the tabletop.

Tony, who had been hiding in the seed pouch, crawled out onto the Captain’s desk. “Look here, Martin. This hippie has a pet rodent. Take it away.”

Tony stood up. The two rangers looked at him in astonishment. He breathed in their direction, a small purple cloud of unknowing. “Fuck you, pig! Power to the People!” he screamed. He then displayed his digital dexterity to them just as he had done to me.

While they were giggling, he got their keys and crawled down to open my bonds. “Man, I need opposable thumbs! At least I can make these things work without them but it would be so much easier.”

We left, our initial mission a dismal failure though we did manage to spread a few seeds outside the Ranger station.

That evening we made the news. But they had not gotten my real name. Yet. They had taken my fingerprints and my fingerprints were on file, from when I had gotten my driver’s license years ago. It was a standard thing then. So it would be a small matter of time. We piled into the Green Goblin with some clothes, food and the seed and headed north toward Dallas.


We learned a lot from those mistakes. I practiced my aim with the seeds, hitting dirt in nearly every try. I once tossed three seeds on a sidewalk in Houston near my old Richmond area apartment. The roots broke through the concrete in amazing time. I was reminded of Day of the Triffids where intelligent plants tried to take over the earth.

We got rousted by a cop near River Oaks. The smoke in his face merely made him mad. There were always some people who, no matter how hard they tried, just were not affected by the pot. While he sputtered at us calling every epithet he could conjure with, I got a seed down his throat. Where the smoke had failed, this worked spectacularly. Perhaps too well as, according to the papers, it took him several weeks to recover. We caused as much Chaos scattering seeds and blowing smoke as best we could.

It was while fleeing Houston that we found the Blue Beetle. Our Gremlin, the Green Goblin, was pretty conspicuous. Not very many of them floating around these days. Come to think of it, never were many around even in the day.

So, while we were eluding the cops through the Fourth Ward, I saw the Blue VW bug in a used car lot. I pulled in knowing that the cops would hardly believed that we were looking for a new car instead of running away. For the price of the Green Goblin, a hundred bucks, and a quick easy buzz from Tony, we owned this fabulous car. We soon discovered that a seed in the gas tank did wonders for fuel emissions and efficiency. A quick coat of electric blue paint for the exterior and appropriate body paints to add charm and character and the Blue Beetle was born.


We stopped in DC one night on our way through the eastern seaboard. The TV was going on about some important meeting set for the next day with the Prime Minister of Indonesia. They were going to televise it live when the Prez got up to make his usual inane speech. Tony looked at me. “Feel like crashing a garden party?” he asked.

I don’t think the tie dye T-shirt will meet their dress code.” I said.

Then we must find a suit shop and barber that can work fast and cheap.” So, we went shopping. Amazing what you can get with young kids working retail looking for a great buzz. For the suit, all it took was one good breath from Tony and the guy worked late to get the length fixed right. I gave him three magic seeds and told him how to plant them and cautioned him to not trade them for a cow on the way home.

The barber seemed less amenable so I paid the $5 for the haircut and another $1 for a shave. Back at our room, I checked myself out in the mirror. I looked like I might pass enough to get in.

The next day we took a taxi to the White House gate. Tony worked his magic on the guy checking invitations and we were in. I had a small pocketful of seeds, since the pouch clashed with the suit.

We walked along the edge of the crowd, avoiding interaction with most of the attendees. Guys in sunglasses and microphones kept looking in my direction. I walked over toward the rose gardens, just meandering with no visible purpose. As I reached into my pocket, I noticed that I did not feel Tony riding along.

Suddenly I heard the scream and saw commotion everywhere. A woman (“Oh shit!” I thought. Not a lady, but the Grinning Ghoul herself, the First Lady) was moving frantically, arms and legs akimbo, tearing off her dress. Secret Service guys were drawing weapons. The Prez looked more dumbfounded than usual. Camera guys were following the screaming performance.

I threw my seeds into the rose garden and turned around to see a pistol in my face. “Stop right there!” someone said. “What are you doing back here? Is this your diversion?” he said, pointing at the First Lady, “so you can plant bugs or weapons here? Hands up! Slowly!”

I saw Tony crawl up his suit to his neck. He got to the man’s ear and screamed, “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

The Secret Service agent jerked toward his right, turned back to his left, and ran randomly in multiple directions. Tony hung on and calmed him down with a small puff of smoke.

We walked out while the Super Grass began reaching maturity in the Rose Garden. I heard various exclamations over the general din, several peppered with non-deleted expletives. Obviously we had been somewhat successful. The First Lady was still running around without her dress, using very unlady-like language herself. The Prez was still standing near his podium surrounded by Secret Service agents, oblivious to much of the activity.

What did you do?” I asked my furry accomplice.

He shrugged. “Thought I’d see what he saw in her. Ran up her dress, across her garters and was headed for the Promised Land when she freaked and started ripping her dress off and running around. All on live TV. It was more fun than a Pentecostal revival.”


By now the Feds did not have too much trouble tracking us. We would seed an area of ten or so miles and then move on. They could see where we had been and could try to anticipate our next move. However, unlike our original role model Mr. Appleseed, we were not restricted to just walking. We had the Blue Beetle!

We tried to vary our trips (pun totally intended) to a variety of states. If we sowed the seeds of the kingdom in Georgia, our next stop might be Missouri or Nebraska, after which we tossed a coin – heads we would go West young man, tails we went back to the eastern establishment. Never the same state two consecutive times or even a contiguous state. Except when we knew it would frustrate them.

Following the White House foray, I began to appear on more and more legal radars. We were in the post office in Jackson, MS when I saw the first real WANTED poster. They had taken an image from the television coverage and printed it on the letter size page. They had my name which was shocking to me. It said I was wanted for trespassing, trafficking in a controlled substance, assault, racketeering, resisting arrest, and more. Known associates included a small lab rat of undetermined (changeable) color. Since I had regrown the beard I did not exactly resemble the WANTED poster picture, but the eyes were there. I think they must have “enhanced” the photo. My eyes made me look like Charles Manson’s mentor. When no one was looking, I removed the poster from the wall.

But, of course, someone was looking. Through a surveillance camera. The removal of the poster got someone’s attention and, before long, they had determined what poster had been taken and began to compare the clean shaven face from the poster to the scruffy guy on the surveillance tape. The FBI radar gave a huge “BLIP!”

So we ran daily. We tracked the maps to see if a pattern was developing. For a while we thought of starting from the west coast and hitting towns so that the pinpoints on the FBI map would say THERE IS NO PATTERN but that seemed destined to get us caught. So we employed that most scientific of tools – the dartboard.

This was how we ended up in Laramie, Wyoming.

We were resting in a cheap hotel, munching down on some Kentucky Fried Chicken and planning our next step. We had been in South Dakota two days before making the Badlands into the Happy Lands. No need to let the Feds affect our mission.

Tony twitched his ears and dropped his drumstick. “Run, Chuckles!”

A tear gas canister crashed through the window from the parking lot, filling the room with that potent-but-amazingly-familiar-after-all-these-years smell. Three men carrying M15’s and wearing gas masks burst through the door.

Handcuffs appeared and I was bound over. Tony tried to run under the bed but one of the men grabbed him and held him by the tail. Tony tried to bite him but gloves prevented his small teeth from doing any real damage. Tony was placed in a jar and the lid was screwed on tight.

Through the tears in my eyes, I saw there were no air holes in the jar and tried to point this out. For my efforts I got a kick to the groin and an M15 stock to the back of my head.

I awoke in jail some time later. The sun had gone down. My head hurt. A lot. I went to the cell door but there was no one nearby. I screamed “Guard! Guard! Let me out!” but no one heard or cared. There was no food, no toilet, only a small wooden cot and a small plastic bucket with no handle. I sat there waiting for the next move. It was morning when I finally heard movement and a smallish woman, wearing a gas mask approached the cell and slid a tray under the door. It contained half a glass of water and two saltine crackers. Hell of a time to start a diet.

More time passed. Hours I guessed. I missed Tony. I stared at the wall, tracing the cracks and trying to discern patterns within their cryptic wanderings. I was pretty sure I could identify a piece of The Last Supper and a little portion of Starry Night by Van Gogh. Also a reasonable map of the Mississippi River as it passed through St. Louis. As I stared the patterns moved across the wall, in and out of focus. My head hurt a lot and I finally passed out.

This time when I awoke I was in an office secured to a chair by handcuffs. There was my chair, a large wooden desk and padded chair. Not much else. I rattled the cuffs, but they were well fastened.

 
 
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