Chapter 49: The Mullet

I had continued hanging out with Leo at his grow op and the dungeon on a regular basis. We had become good friends. Problems arose with the grow op when the property owner wanted to raise the rent. Leo had a silent partner who had invested all the money in the equipment but the building itself where the grow op was located was owned by a local gang member/ Realtor. He took a cut of the weed at the end of each harvest as his rent payment.

Leo had put up additional drywall walls utilizing a large empty space to build an additional grow room to increase his harvest and offset the cost of the rent.

One day after everyone left for the evening, the landlord came by for his own secret tour.

We knew because the man was always eating hot Cheetos, and we discovered some on the floor in the new grow room.

When the property owner discovered what Leo had done, he demanded Leo start giving him more weed. This led to a tense meeting where the two ended up arguing.

The property owner told Leo he had a week to either give him more weed or get everything out.

That week was tense. Leo carried his gun on him at the grow op which did not make anyone feel safer. A few of the guys who worked at the grow op started to not show up for work with out warning. Leo called them rats deserting a sinking ship.

Leo might have paid the increased rent if he could. The truth was he needed any weed he had to sell and pay his own bills. His partner did not want to cover the increase and still expected his cut.

Leo was forced to grab all his equipment and store it in a storage unit. He took as many plants as he could to his house but was forced to leave hundreds behind.

Leo’s partner owned a vacant rental house in Redondo, and they were able to store a few of the plants there.

Growing weed was Leo's source of income to support his family.

He owned a nice house in Venice beach with a mortgage and lived a lifestyle that was not easy to afford.

Sara had been making good money off the events. We never expected them to even break even when we started out, so we had never really discussed any sort of split or payment for my part of the work. Sara mainly bought me nice gifts or treated me to expensive dinners as a thank you for my part each month. At first, I was just relieved she had money for her own bills, and I didn't have to pay for everything anymore.

I had actually saved up a bit of money not having to constantly help her financially. Leo's silent investor was scared off after the exodus from the last location and refused to fund another grow op with Leo.

Leo got a part time job working at a grow shop that shared a parking lot with Safehaven.

He was their resident expert that gave customers advice on equipment and grow tips.

Leo became friends with everyone who shared that parking lot including the renters of the building behind Safehaven. The building was rented by an older white man who resembled Doc from Back to the Future with a mullet. His name was Sammy. He shared the building with his Asian wife who ran a food truck business.

Sammy had been an inventor and toy designer for Mattel and many other big toy brands.

Basically, any toy from your childhood this guy probably designed it. He had a display case full of toys that must have been worth a million at least.

His warehouse home was filled with different prototypes and machines for mixing plastics. They lived in a loft above the warehouse.

Within the warehouse was a walled off section with two small offices and a storage area with a large roll up door. Leo was able to convince him to rent out the offices and storage area for $1000 a month. He just needed a partner. I had the extra money saved up and decided to partner up with Leo on his new smaller grow operation. The best part was it was about 100 feet from Safehaven and Club Anarchy.

We began work late December customizing the rooms to suit our needs.

By the end of January we had one main grow room, an office to hang out and smoke, and we were considering turning the storage area with the roll up door into a makeshift dispensary. Since we both worked up front at Safehaven and our grow op was in the back we code named our spot "The Mullet". Business in the front, party in the back.

Chapter 49: The Wanker