Chapter 68: Jason Returns

Jason was my best friend from high school. As I stated earlier in the story, he was living on the East Coast due to some legal issues.

Nine years after Jason moved to the East Coast, he started talking about moving back to California. Under the statute of limitations law, Jason could no longer be charged with his crime after eight years.

 Sara, Kitty and I had recently acquired our apartment, so I invited Jason to come sleep on our couch a few nights a week.

Jason and I had always dreamed of starting a cannabis business together. For years we brainstormed ideas. After my time with Leo, I had come up with all sorts of new concepts. I taught Jason how to make the vegetable glycerin tincture over the phone while he was living in New York.

He had gone a step further purchasing empty beer bottles and a bottle capper to make and package his own weed sodas with the tincture.

Daniel, the man who Jason grew weed and lived with in New York had an ex-wife. Daniel’s ex-wife revealed to Daniel she had terminal cancer. Daniel decided he was going to sell his apartment and move in with his ex to help take care of her.

This abruptly put an end to Jason’s weed business on the East Coast. Without Daniel and his extra bedroom Jason had nowhere to grow weed. Jason and Daniel had a falling out and Jason moved out.

I was able to convince Jason to come out to California by telling him we could start selling the weed sodas at Meen Green's cannabis events. This was the beginning steps to accomplishing a dream we had planned for over 10 years.

Jason traveled back to Los Angeles via train just in case he encountered any legal troubles at the airport. He said it was a lot more boring than you would expect.

The entire time he had lived on the East Coast I told him the weed was better in California and the day he came back I would get him really high. Jason maintained that the difference in quality wasn't that big. He had California seeds on the East Coast, so he believed the gap in quality was minimal.

The quality of weed and wax I smoked had gotten better and better over the years. You can explain this through advances in technology, improved connections or my never-ending quest to get higher and higher.

The night we were reunited, I got Jason so high he fell asleep.

Jason had never technically taken a real quality dab. On the East Coast the closest they came to having good wax was poop soup like Leo got from Charlie B.

I gave Jason his first proper dab and he admitted defeat on the debate whether California was better than the East Coast.

By now I was taking dabs regularly. Good dabs that were golden not black or brown. We had a few consistencies like crumble and shatter.

I only had one rule for myself. I smoked traditional weed before noon. After noon I took dabs. I believed this would help curb my tolerance a little.

Jason was an early bird like me. Possibly a side effect from living on the East Coast for almost a decade. When he stayed over, I had someone to hang out with in the morning while Sara and Kitty slept in. We walked around Downtown Long Beach and explored the area.

Jason even convinced me to start watching my favorite soccer team Liverpool’s games at a local Irish pub around the corner. The games were on in the morning sometimes as early as 4am. Typically I watched them on silent on my phone.

Jason found an Irish pub that opened up and showed games that were on after 7am. We started watching them at the pub and having a cheap breakfast.

When Jason was not staying with us, he stayed with a friend of his mom in North Hollywood or at his sister’s apartment in West Hollywood.

The apartments at the Ambassador were all pretty affordable and there was an upcoming vacancy right across the hall in a few months. Jason and I hoped to start making enough money we could rent it as a place for him to live and possibly grow a few plants.

At first Sara was fine with Jason staying with us but over time it started to become like Leo all over again. I believed Sara was jealous of the time I spent with Jason and our friendship.

I always tried to include Sara in whatever Jason, and I were working on, but Sara was either uninterested or too busy spending time with Kitty.

I had told Jason all about Club Anarchy while he was on the East Coast, and he had to come see it was real for himself. We even got him a gig as the DJ a few times.

Jason had never been a DJ before. Jason used to make hip hop beats on his laptop. I told him to bring his MIDI keyboard he used to make beats and plug it in while he was playing music off Spotify. He didn't even use the keyboard but everyone at Safehaven believed he was some big famous DJ from New York. The keyboard sold it.

Chapter 68: Anarchy is the new Black