Jordynn and I lived in the same shoebox farm town that had long ago curled up and died. There was a 2-pump gas station with a pop machine out front. A bar with an ATM and a post office that was only open 4 days a week. She lived with her parents in a little house that was starting to fall in. Her dad was abusive and often gone on construction work trips. Coming home from a job site just long enough to kick everyone’s ass and then leave again for 2 weeks. Her mom took up amphetamines as a hobby to cope with her marriage. So Jordynn decided to find work to get away from home.
I lived across the street from the bar with my mom, her boyfriend, and my sister, Bethany. Mom’s boyfriend was a pervert, always making inappropriate comments to us. Peeping when we bathed and “accidentally” exposing himself to his girlfriend’s daughters when she wasn’t around. Mom knew but pretended like she didn’t, so I was always looking for a reason to leave and would take Bethany with me.
One day Jordynn invited us over to her new employer’s place in town. She had become an informal home health care giver for a disabled woman and her 17 cats. Mostly Jordynn would clean, run errands, and care for the animals. The first time Bethany and I went over, we walked up the gravel road to a single wide trailer with a little porch on the front. All kinds of wind chimes, bird feeders, and other decorative shit from the county fair were hanging off the trailer. The yard was overgrown with wildflowers and there was a ‘95 Astro-van parked in the driveway. The tinkling of tchotchkes in the wind was so loud that I knocked really hard on the screen door just to make sure they heard me.
Jordynn shouted, “Come in!”
A big lady sitting in a recliner with 2 kitties in her lap and a cigarette in her hand stared at me very seriously and said, “You knock like the cops!”
This was Cass and her “hippie hovel.”
Shag carpet, wood paneling, popcorn ceiling, and black light reactive velour posters. Dolphin figurines and novelty lamps and beaded curtains and Grateful Dead bears and ICP clowns. She wasn’t a hoarder like some of the folks around there were, but her trailer was cluttered. And like I said, she had 17 cats! Probably more! There were cats everywhere, sleeping and eating and fighting and spraying and crying out in heat. Once the smell started to settle on you, your eyes and nostrils would burn from the ammonia. It was impossible for Jordynn to keep up with, as a care assistant. Yet Cass was determined to give every cat a home, despite limited resources. I think that’s the first thing I liked about her, her love for animals. Cass had an impressive computer set up and would scour the bare bones of local forums for assistance vetting her animals and finding them homes. But it seemed for every cat re-homed, 2 more would be found and brought back to the trailer.
Cass also used her online presence as a side hustle. Selling hope to the desperate under the guise of folk healing. She referred to herself as a “sensitive” and peddled prayers candles and blessed keychains. Cass actually sorta looked like one of those talk show psychics, wearing long hippies flower dresses, thick 80s-styled glasses and long, grey-streaked hair. She was also the first person I knew who had a cellular phone. Nobody could afford that in the early-aughts of rural Iowa.
Cass was dangerously charming, she could figure folks out real quick and knew how to talk to them to get what she wanted. A couple of teenage girls from fucked up families were easy money. She’d make you right at home and offer you anything you could want; pop, candy bars,
cigarettes, beer, pot. I had just started smoking weed and was really getting into the 420-culture sold at state line gas stations. So Cass made sure to have a packed bowl waiting for me when I came over. I’d get too high and fall into myself and just unload all the swirling thoughts in my head and heart. I told her about my parents’ divorce and what my uncle did to my sister. I told her about my mom’s boyfriend, my hospital stay, and the pills I had to take. I told her about my friends in Missouri, and the kids at school, and I told her about my zines.
Cass just hung off your every word. She was a great listener, made the right amount of eye contact and said the right things at the right time. She was my friend that wielded the power of being an adult and she made me feel safe. The Hippie Hovel was a sanctuary for my sister and I when our mom wasn’t around. Cass would help me with my Spanish homework and make sure Bethany had supper. I started helping Jordynn with all the chores and would go with Cass when she found a home for a cat, and we’d say goodbye together.
For some reason, the Hippie Hovel and Cass were off limits on weekends. She claimed she “had a schedule,” “things to get done,” “other plans,” and they were all so vague and mysterious. Jordynn and I never thought much of it at the time. Instead, we’d go to the state line to hang with the Mormon University dropouts who lived in an even smaller rural town. Once I had gotten lost on the country roads at night and stopped to ask a bunch of young-looking folks for directions and we got to be friends. They were all little hick anarchists that blew stuff up with firecrackers and huffed gas. They were the wrong crowd, and I was already going to a school for bad kids so why not hang out with the wrong crowd?
This is where Jordynn met Zak, a good looking alt-country boy that was always bumming smokes and hanging around with his brother, Marc. A boyfriend—what an even better way to distract yourself from problems at home. While Jordynn and Zak became an item, always sneaking off into the woods, the rest of us would swim in Harrison County Lake until we were sunburned and tired. Cooling off with truck stop ice cream and smoking weed under the interstate billboards.
Summer weekends were beautiful.
One night in particular, some of my friends took an interest in where I was getting my weed. It wasn’t the regular ditch weed, all dry seeds & stems. It was a fat sticky nug wrapped up in cellophane from a cigarette pack, “kind bud”. Before I knew it, I had become a plug. The thing was, Cass would just give me a little bit of green to take home every now and then when she wasn’t smoking me out at the Hippie Hovel. I didn’t really know jack shit when it came to slinging. Hesitant at first, I brought up the idea of her selling to my friends on the state line. She just smiled and said she’d want to meet them first, to make sure they were cool.
Cool.
So, we started with Jordynn’s new boyfriend Zak and his brother Marc. Like I said before, Cass could charm anybody. She liked all my friends, and they all liked her too. Everybody put their landline numbers in her cell phone and exchanged Yahoo messenger handles, and just like that Cass was supplying everybody with higher quality weed. We had all graduated from pop cans and brass gas station pipes to glass pieces and joints. Sophistication comes with maturity. Some days she’d call me up in the afternoon and ask me if I wanted to ride along to see Zak and Marc. Or go to Savannah’s mom’s place or to Kody’s trailer or out to where Kolton lived. We’d all chit chat, smoke a bowl, they’d do their business, and then we’d drive back to town,
listening to Del Shannon’s greatest hits.
And then pills got entered into the equation, Cass would casually mention she had some Xanax and Vicodin. Then it was Klonopin, Seroquel, and Oxycontin. She’d throw a couple in a bag of weed at no extra charge like a cereal box prize or after dinner mint. Soon everybody started tacking on new items to their orders, and then you got all these fucking teenagers pilled out in farm towns. It didn’t feel wrong, it felt glamorous and interesting.
Then the Astro-van broke down, or at least Cass said it did. She asked me if I would mind driving orders down to the guys. Just for a little bit until she could get her wheels up and running again. Of course, I didn’t mind. It was just like delivering flowers or pizza. All I had to do was not drive like an asshole, visit with my friends, collect some money, and go back to the Hippie Hovel. For my trouble she’d give me free weed and pills or her gas-savers card to fill my tank up. I’d take Bethany with me whenever mom wasn’t around, and it all felt like innocent fun. There’s nothing to do but drive in the countryside anyway.
Never dawned on me that I was driving under the influence, or crossing state lines with illegal substances and a minor. Didn’t think about the danger we were in when I had to go to houses of folks I didn’t know. A lot of times I didn’t even know what she was selling in them tight little packages she’d hand me. It could’ve just been grass and pills, or her prayer candles and keychains. She’d provide the address and a few directions from map quest, and I’d drive to this sketchy area I had never been before. Awkwardly knock on the door with my 9-year-old sister standing behind me.
“Hi, I’m here from Cass.”
One time I was asked to make a run to my friend Dakota. I hadn’t seen him in a while, and he wanted just a regular 8th. For some reason, Cass made a point to weigh out the bag with her scale in front of me. It was like she was trying to teach me drug math.
“A nickel will always weigh .05 and a penny .03, if they don’t then your scale is off.”
I was high and only half paying attention. “Yeah sure,” I said, gathering my smokes, and tucking the bag of weed in my bra.
It was a 20-minute drive across the state line and to the rural farmhouse where Dakota lived with his mom. They were reptile collectors, so you’d get to walk through the house and look at all these tanks of lizards and snakes. Dakota looked like William from Mallrats and he had a haughty temper. I’d seen him flare up over some seemingly benign things before, but I was still surprised when he blew up this time. Unrolling the bag I had given him, it was a significantly less amount than what I had watched Cass weigh out. Dakota’s face turned deep red, and his voice roared, “I’m not paying for this!”
I didn’t understand what had happened and kept replaying everything in my head. Cass weighed out the weed and rolled it up in the bag. Gave it to me, I stuffed it in my bra, and went straight to my car. Was there a chance it had fallen out? Dakota was already ripping Cass’s number into the rotary phone while I hustled back to my car. It wasn’t on the floorboards or in the glove box or back seat. It wasn’t in the console or up in the sun visor or on the dashboard. I sat in the driver’s seat and tucked my head in my shirt. Feeling all up and around under my sports bra, nothing. And there was nothing in the trunk, and nothing in the driveway. Didn’t even know what I was looking for, but it wasn’t anywhere. There was no weed, no crumbs, no nugs, no seeds or stems.
All I could figure is that maybe Cass had handed me a different bag than the one I saw her weigh out on the scale. Dakota’s green-fiend had him about as unpleasant as he comes, and it was enough to make me a little scared of him forever. I was crying little frustrated sweaty tears now and tried to explain to Dakota that it had to be a simple mistake. I promised him I’d figure it all out and headed back to the Hippie Hovel. Didn’t like this feeling of him being mad at me and I was even more nervous that Cass would be too.
I had fucked up somehow.
The nervous burn in my gut made me want to barf, so I took a back road in case I had to pull over. Trying to calm myself down when I knocked on the trailer, but it didn’t work. I was shaking as Cass opened the screen door, the look on her face broadcasted disappointment.
I really had fucked up.
She just kept repeating “I gave you that bag of weed, Krystle. You saw me weigh it out. I gave it to you. What happened to Dakota’s weed?”
“I don’t know!” I’d say over and over.
Cass threw a few things in her purse and grabbed the keys to the Astro-van. “I’m gonna go fix this with Dakota, but you think about what happened to that bag.” Then she drove off.
We didn’t speak for the rest of that summer. With no more deliveries to make, I didn’t really have gas money to visit my friends. Bethany and I avoided being at home the old-fashioned way, walking around town with a bottle of pop. School was starting in a few weeks and I still didn’t know what to make of Cass and the accusations.
I didn’t even realize I had been set up to look like a drug thief. All I knew was that I owed her for the missing weed, regardless of what really happened.
A few weeks later, when it started to get cold out, I got a chat message from soother999 on Yahoo. It was Cass.
[Hey chick, how R U doing?]
[Wanna come over and watch a movie sometime this week?]
[Really been missing my little sis]
The truth was I missed her too. I responded with elaborate emoticons and told her I’d be there in 20 minutes. When I arrived, we carried on as if nothing had happened and never brought up Dakota or the missing bag. Just smoked a stupid amount of weed for a school night, pet some kitties, and watched a movie called Double Jeopardy. It felt good to be at the Hippie Hovel again, even if the ammonia smell had gotten worse. At some point, Cass insisted we go on a snack run; the nearest fast food was 15 miles up the interstate in a casino town. Always accommodating her guests and especially me, her little sis, she offered to pay for McDonalds. We loaded into Astro-van, popped in a Big Brother and the Holding Company tape, and sped off with windows cracked for our cigarettes. But instead of driving straight to the interstate, she took back roads through the countryside and it was getting dark. When I started wondering where we were going, she seemed to sense it. Announcing over the scream of Janis that we had to make a quick stop at her friend’s place.
A lone farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
It didn’t look any particular way in the pitch black of Iowa’s rolling hillside. I had planned on waiting in the van, but she insisted I come meet her buddy while they did business. The mindless zombie that I was, buzzed on nicotine and THC, I followed her into the house.
You can almost hear the theme song for Unsolved Mysteries playing.
Her buddies ended up being a very sketchy middle-aged couple. They were nice enough, friendly, and for some reason just very excited to meet me. Something about that made my skin crawl.
“Cass has told us so much about you,” the husband beamed while his wife asked me a lot of personal questions. In spite of this fairly jolly chit-chat, the room was tense. Their seething eagerness was unnatural and off putting.
Then their son showed up, a typical redneck looking dude. He was stoic at first, appearing to be his mid-30s. He liked trucks and Aerosmith; and he had a lot of energy behind his words when he would talk. Just like his mom and dad.
They tried to pass me menthol cigarettes.
They tried to pass me a glass bowl of weed.
They tried to pass me a water pipe that looked like a devil.
They tried to offer me a mixed drink.
Politely, I’d decline.
We stayed for a real long time before Cass finally got down to her business. She pulled out one of her little packages and her pals opened it together. Only it wasn’t a harmless dime bag or a couple hydrocodone, like I had expected.
It was a chalky, snot-colored substance inside its own tiny bag.
Tucked in a film bottle with other tiny bags of snot chalk stuff.
The husband pulled a different pipe out from a stash box that had been sitting at their kitchen table. It was all clear glass, and he scraped a bit of the snot chalk powder into the pipe. Just a tiny pinch. Then he lit it from under the glass and it melted, filling the rest of the pipe with a
chemical smelling smoke. The family took turns pulling it into their lungs before presenting it to me.
I just looked at it before Cass took the pipe in her hand.
“No, my little sis doesn’t do this yet. Maybe next time,” she said before breathing the shit in too.
The four of them passed it around the table until the residue had turned black and ashy.
Cass eventually got paid and she gave me her car keys. Told me to warm up the van because she had some “business” with her friend. I guess the drug dealing wasn’t their business.
I said my goodbyes, thanked my hosts for everything and floated to the car. Sitting under the yellowing dome light, I started asking myself questions as the tape player resumed.
What the fuck was that?
Who are these people?
What were they smoking?
What were they talking about?
What happened to McDonald’s?
What time is it?
Cass came out to the car and took the driver’s seat. We pulled out of the driveway, and I wondered if I should try and remember how we got to the house. Happy as a clam with unlimited energy, she told me her friends sure did like me and how cool they think I am. As we drove through the countryside, she asked what I thought about them. Wondering specifically if I thought their son was cute.
She told me how he was interested in getting to know me better.
How he wanted to date me.
What did I think about that?
Well, what was I supposed to think about that? He didn’t know me at all, how could he want to date me? Why did these people take such an intense liking to me?
Cass carried on, saying that they wanted to hang out again and I was welcome at their house anytime I wanted to drop by. And she promised to give me their numbers and chat names before I got home that night.
Would I get home tonight?
I didn’t know what to say.
The cassette tape ended, and the stereo ground out plastic sounding clicks as it flipped to the other side. The silence was heavy as we waited for side-b to play against the hum of tires on gravel. And then I jumped in my seat as the opening chords of “The Last Time” filled the van. Cass looked away for just a second to turn the volume even higher.
Just as a large silhouette rushed the front of the van from out of the darkness.
THUD.
We hit it.
Cass jerked on the wheel, sending us swerving before a sudden stop, nearly in the ditch. She immediately jumped out and I followed her into the dust cloud enveloping the scene. The blooming glare of taillights turned every shadow red, and I tripped into the tall grass where she squatted over a squirming mass. It was the largest possum I had ever seen. Breathing heavily and hissing, we just stared at the poor little critter and didn’t say anything.
The din of the whole incident calmed, and we both became aware of the uncomfortably loud volume of the stereo still playing, now echoing over darkened soybean fields.
Janis pleaded to her lover to make it the last time, make it the last time... as we lamented the injury to wildlife.
Cass and I looked at each other.
A subtle rearranging of air passed between us.
Don’t you understand me? Don’t you understand me? Janis screamed in desperation.
I may or may not believe in some fantastical shit, but for certain, I’m open to believing. I want there to be a spiritual order, I want the supernatural to be real. So, I’m always looking for patterns and signs in the world like a cosmic easter egg hunt.
And in that moment, it felt like the universe was screaming in my face. “I say no more! No more! NO MORE!”
Standing up and looking at my friend, I saw her facade fall away. Suddenly I realized the seriousness of my summer running errands for her. The whole time we felt safe at the Hippie Hovel we were in more danger than we could have ever fathomed. How the smell of ammonia wasn’t just cat piss. And the “drug thief” set up, that’s how you get got. These shady people in the farmhouse, the true intentions of Cass, and the reason she had brought me there. All of it hit me at once, sobering me up.
I was afraid of Cass and she now saw that in my face.
She knew that I knew.
“Let’s get you home,” was all she said.
We drove back to town in silence and when she pulled into my driveway, she thanked me for getting out of the van with her to check on the possum. I tried to smile and softly said goodnight.
“Good night, little sis.”
I blocked soother999 on Yahoo Messenger and stopped answering calls. I didn’t want to talk about that night or hang around anymore. Not long after, Jordynn quit working for Cass when he found out from Zak that her mom was buying amphetamines from her. At first, It didn’t really click how Zak knew that information until the following spring. Zak took Jordynn to prom and right after walk-in and photos, he was ambushed by cops in the gym and arrested on a drug warrant. It seems that he and his brother Marc were also little errand runners for Cass. Sadly, a year later the both of them would die in a car accident after being awake for a few days. Jordynn found God and I guess that’s OK because it gave her something she wasn’t getting before. But she got real hateful towards homosexuals, not that we knew any personally. She kept saying she thought Cass was gay and grooming us to be that way too. I never felt that way and thought she was just looking for hateful excuses.
A rumor circulated for a little while about Cass being entangled in a young man’s overdose in the casino town. As far as I know she never got busted for any of the shit she was involved in, but she did lose her trailer to the bank. Bethany and the neighbor girl told me about riding their bikes over to watch when animal control came to remove all of the cats that were left behind. After I moved to Chicago, my stepmother Lucille became a home caregiver for Cass, and they seemed to get along great at first. Then there was an abrupt fallout and Lucille never worked another job again. In fact, her personality started to change about that time. Somewhere in there an opioid addiction developed and it would keep my family in a chokehold for the next 20 years. There’s no proof but I have my suspicions.
I heard in late 2016 that Cass passed away.
I can’t say I walked the straight and narrow after getting away from Cass and the wrong crowd. Over 20 years later, I still have to check myself when I get pain killers from the dentist. And all these memories, good times and bad, kinda just dry up and float away because people get lost or die. And there’s nobody around to remember anymore and these stories don’t even make the highlight reel.
This is just one of them, of course there would be more and other trailer park girls to go ‘round the outside.
back to top
I lived across the street from the bar with my mom, her boyfriend, and my sister, Bethany. Mom’s boyfriend was a pervert, always making inappropriate comments to us. Peeping when we bathed and “accidentally” exposing himself to his girlfriend’s daughters when she wasn’t around. Mom knew but pretended like she didn’t, so I was always looking for a reason to leave and would take Bethany with me.
One day Jordynn invited us over to her new employer’s place in town. She had become an informal home health care giver for a disabled woman and her 17 cats. Mostly Jordynn would clean, run errands, and care for the animals. The first time Bethany and I went over, we walked up the gravel road to a single wide trailer with a little porch on the front. All kinds of wind chimes, bird feeders, and other decorative shit from the county fair were hanging off the trailer. The yard was overgrown with wildflowers and there was a ‘95 Astro-van parked in the driveway. The tinkling of tchotchkes in the wind was so loud that I knocked really hard on the screen door just to make sure they heard me.
Jordynn shouted, “Come in!”
A big lady sitting in a recliner with 2 kitties in her lap and a cigarette in her hand stared at me very seriously and said, “You knock like the cops!”
This was Cass and her “hippie hovel.”
Shag carpet, wood paneling, popcorn ceiling, and black light reactive velour posters. Dolphin figurines and novelty lamps and beaded curtains and Grateful Dead bears and ICP clowns. She wasn’t a hoarder like some of the folks around there were, but her trailer was cluttered. And like I said, she had 17 cats! Probably more! There were cats everywhere, sleeping and eating and fighting and spraying and crying out in heat. Once the smell started to settle on you, your eyes and nostrils would burn from the ammonia. It was impossible for Jordynn to keep up with, as a care assistant. Yet Cass was determined to give every cat a home, despite limited resources. I think that’s the first thing I liked about her, her love for animals. Cass had an impressive computer set up and would scour the bare bones of local forums for assistance vetting her animals and finding them homes. But it seemed for every cat re-homed, 2 more would be found and brought back to the trailer.
Cass also used her online presence as a side hustle. Selling hope to the desperate under the guise of folk healing. She referred to herself as a “sensitive” and peddled prayers candles and blessed keychains. Cass actually sorta looked like one of those talk show psychics, wearing long hippies flower dresses, thick 80s-styled glasses and long, grey-streaked hair. She was also the first person I knew who had a cellular phone. Nobody could afford that in the early-aughts of rural Iowa.
Cass was dangerously charming, she could figure folks out real quick and knew how to talk to them to get what she wanted. A couple of teenage girls from fucked up families were easy money. She’d make you right at home and offer you anything you could want; pop, candy bars,
cigarettes, beer, pot. I had just started smoking weed and was really getting into the 420-culture sold at state line gas stations. So Cass made sure to have a packed bowl waiting for me when I came over. I’d get too high and fall into myself and just unload all the swirling thoughts in my head and heart. I told her about my parents’ divorce and what my uncle did to my sister. I told her about my mom’s boyfriend, my hospital stay, and the pills I had to take. I told her about my friends in Missouri, and the kids at school, and I told her about my zines.
Cass just hung off your every word. She was a great listener, made the right amount of eye contact and said the right things at the right time. She was my friend that wielded the power of being an adult and she made me feel safe. The Hippie Hovel was a sanctuary for my sister and I when our mom wasn’t around. Cass would help me with my Spanish homework and make sure Bethany had supper. I started helping Jordynn with all the chores and would go with Cass when she found a home for a cat, and we’d say goodbye together.
For some reason, the Hippie Hovel and Cass were off limits on weekends. She claimed she “had a schedule,” “things to get done,” “other plans,” and they were all so vague and mysterious. Jordynn and I never thought much of it at the time. Instead, we’d go to the state line to hang with the Mormon University dropouts who lived in an even smaller rural town. Once I had gotten lost on the country roads at night and stopped to ask a bunch of young-looking folks for directions and we got to be friends. They were all little hick anarchists that blew stuff up with firecrackers and huffed gas. They were the wrong crowd, and I was already going to a school for bad kids so why not hang out with the wrong crowd?
This is where Jordynn met Zak, a good looking alt-country boy that was always bumming smokes and hanging around with his brother, Marc. A boyfriend—what an even better way to distract yourself from problems at home. While Jordynn and Zak became an item, always sneaking off into the woods, the rest of us would swim in Harrison County Lake until we were sunburned and tired. Cooling off with truck stop ice cream and smoking weed under the interstate billboards.
Summer weekends were beautiful.
One night in particular, some of my friends took an interest in where I was getting my weed. It wasn’t the regular ditch weed, all dry seeds & stems. It was a fat sticky nug wrapped up in cellophane from a cigarette pack, “kind bud”. Before I knew it, I had become a plug. The thing was, Cass would just give me a little bit of green to take home every now and then when she wasn’t smoking me out at the Hippie Hovel. I didn’t really know jack shit when it came to slinging. Hesitant at first, I brought up the idea of her selling to my friends on the state line. She just smiled and said she’d want to meet them first, to make sure they were cool.
Cool.
So, we started with Jordynn’s new boyfriend Zak and his brother Marc. Like I said before, Cass could charm anybody. She liked all my friends, and they all liked her too. Everybody put their landline numbers in her cell phone and exchanged Yahoo messenger handles, and just like that Cass was supplying everybody with higher quality weed. We had all graduated from pop cans and brass gas station pipes to glass pieces and joints. Sophistication comes with maturity. Some days she’d call me up in the afternoon and ask me if I wanted to ride along to see Zak and Marc. Or go to Savannah’s mom’s place or to Kody’s trailer or out to where Kolton lived. We’d all chit chat, smoke a bowl, they’d do their business, and then we’d drive back to town,
listening to Del Shannon’s greatest hits.
And then pills got entered into the equation, Cass would casually mention she had some Xanax and Vicodin. Then it was Klonopin, Seroquel, and Oxycontin. She’d throw a couple in a bag of weed at no extra charge like a cereal box prize or after dinner mint. Soon everybody started tacking on new items to their orders, and then you got all these fucking teenagers pilled out in farm towns. It didn’t feel wrong, it felt glamorous and interesting.
Then the Astro-van broke down, or at least Cass said it did. She asked me if I would mind driving orders down to the guys. Just for a little bit until she could get her wheels up and running again. Of course, I didn’t mind. It was just like delivering flowers or pizza. All I had to do was not drive like an asshole, visit with my friends, collect some money, and go back to the Hippie Hovel. For my trouble she’d give me free weed and pills or her gas-savers card to fill my tank up. I’d take Bethany with me whenever mom wasn’t around, and it all felt like innocent fun. There’s nothing to do but drive in the countryside anyway.
Never dawned on me that I was driving under the influence, or crossing state lines with illegal substances and a minor. Didn’t think about the danger we were in when I had to go to houses of folks I didn’t know. A lot of times I didn’t even know what she was selling in them tight little packages she’d hand me. It could’ve just been grass and pills, or her prayer candles and keychains. She’d provide the address and a few directions from map quest, and I’d drive to this sketchy area I had never been before. Awkwardly knock on the door with my 9-year-old sister standing behind me.
“Hi, I’m here from Cass.”
One time I was asked to make a run to my friend Dakota. I hadn’t seen him in a while, and he wanted just a regular 8th. For some reason, Cass made a point to weigh out the bag with her scale in front of me. It was like she was trying to teach me drug math.
“A nickel will always weigh .05 and a penny .03, if they don’t then your scale is off.”
I was high and only half paying attention. “Yeah sure,” I said, gathering my smokes, and tucking the bag of weed in my bra.
It was a 20-minute drive across the state line and to the rural farmhouse where Dakota lived with his mom. They were reptile collectors, so you’d get to walk through the house and look at all these tanks of lizards and snakes. Dakota looked like William from Mallrats and he had a haughty temper. I’d seen him flare up over some seemingly benign things before, but I was still surprised when he blew up this time. Unrolling the bag I had given him, it was a significantly less amount than what I had watched Cass weigh out. Dakota’s face turned deep red, and his voice roared, “I’m not paying for this!”
I didn’t understand what had happened and kept replaying everything in my head. Cass weighed out the weed and rolled it up in the bag. Gave it to me, I stuffed it in my bra, and went straight to my car. Was there a chance it had fallen out? Dakota was already ripping Cass’s number into the rotary phone while I hustled back to my car. It wasn’t on the floorboards or in the glove box or back seat. It wasn’t in the console or up in the sun visor or on the dashboard. I sat in the driver’s seat and tucked my head in my shirt. Feeling all up and around under my sports bra, nothing. And there was nothing in the trunk, and nothing in the driveway. Didn’t even know what I was looking for, but it wasn’t anywhere. There was no weed, no crumbs, no nugs, no seeds or stems.
All I could figure is that maybe Cass had handed me a different bag than the one I saw her weigh out on the scale. Dakota’s green-fiend had him about as unpleasant as he comes, and it was enough to make me a little scared of him forever. I was crying little frustrated sweaty tears now and tried to explain to Dakota that it had to be a simple mistake. I promised him I’d figure it all out and headed back to the Hippie Hovel. Didn’t like this feeling of him being mad at me and I was even more nervous that Cass would be too.
I had fucked up somehow.
The nervous burn in my gut made me want to barf, so I took a back road in case I had to pull over. Trying to calm myself down when I knocked on the trailer, but it didn’t work. I was shaking as Cass opened the screen door, the look on her face broadcasted disappointment.
I really had fucked up.
She just kept repeating “I gave you that bag of weed, Krystle. You saw me weigh it out. I gave it to you. What happened to Dakota’s weed?”
“I don’t know!” I’d say over and over.
Cass threw a few things in her purse and grabbed the keys to the Astro-van. “I’m gonna go fix this with Dakota, but you think about what happened to that bag.” Then she drove off.
We didn’t speak for the rest of that summer. With no more deliveries to make, I didn’t really have gas money to visit my friends. Bethany and I avoided being at home the old-fashioned way, walking around town with a bottle of pop. School was starting in a few weeks and I still didn’t know what to make of Cass and the accusations.
I didn’t even realize I had been set up to look like a drug thief. All I knew was that I owed her for the missing weed, regardless of what really happened.
A few weeks later, when it started to get cold out, I got a chat message from soother999 on Yahoo. It was Cass.
[Hey chick, how R U doing?]
[Wanna come over and watch a movie sometime this week?]
[Really been missing my little sis]
The truth was I missed her too. I responded with elaborate emoticons and told her I’d be there in 20 minutes. When I arrived, we carried on as if nothing had happened and never brought up Dakota or the missing bag. Just smoked a stupid amount of weed for a school night, pet some kitties, and watched a movie called Double Jeopardy. It felt good to be at the Hippie Hovel again, even if the ammonia smell had gotten worse. At some point, Cass insisted we go on a snack run; the nearest fast food was 15 miles up the interstate in a casino town. Always accommodating her guests and especially me, her little sis, she offered to pay for McDonalds. We loaded into Astro-van, popped in a Big Brother and the Holding Company tape, and sped off with windows cracked for our cigarettes. But instead of driving straight to the interstate, she took back roads through the countryside and it was getting dark. When I started wondering where we were going, she seemed to sense it. Announcing over the scream of Janis that we had to make a quick stop at her friend’s place.
A lone farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.
It didn’t look any particular way in the pitch black of Iowa’s rolling hillside. I had planned on waiting in the van, but she insisted I come meet her buddy while they did business. The mindless zombie that I was, buzzed on nicotine and THC, I followed her into the house.
You can almost hear the theme song for Unsolved Mysteries playing.
Her buddies ended up being a very sketchy middle-aged couple. They were nice enough, friendly, and for some reason just very excited to meet me. Something about that made my skin crawl.
“Cass has told us so much about you,” the husband beamed while his wife asked me a lot of personal questions. In spite of this fairly jolly chit-chat, the room was tense. Their seething eagerness was unnatural and off putting.
Then their son showed up, a typical redneck looking dude. He was stoic at first, appearing to be his mid-30s. He liked trucks and Aerosmith; and he had a lot of energy behind his words when he would talk. Just like his mom and dad.
They tried to pass me menthol cigarettes.
They tried to pass me a glass bowl of weed.
They tried to pass me a water pipe that looked like a devil.
They tried to offer me a mixed drink.
Politely, I’d decline.
We stayed for a real long time before Cass finally got down to her business. She pulled out one of her little packages and her pals opened it together. Only it wasn’t a harmless dime bag or a couple hydrocodone, like I had expected.
It was a chalky, snot-colored substance inside its own tiny bag.
Tucked in a film bottle with other tiny bags of snot chalk stuff.
The husband pulled a different pipe out from a stash box that had been sitting at their kitchen table. It was all clear glass, and he scraped a bit of the snot chalk powder into the pipe. Just a tiny pinch. Then he lit it from under the glass and it melted, filling the rest of the pipe with a
chemical smelling smoke. The family took turns pulling it into their lungs before presenting it to me.
I just looked at it before Cass took the pipe in her hand.
“No, my little sis doesn’t do this yet. Maybe next time,” she said before breathing the shit in too.
The four of them passed it around the table until the residue had turned black and ashy.
Cass eventually got paid and she gave me her car keys. Told me to warm up the van because she had some “business” with her friend. I guess the drug dealing wasn’t their business.
I said my goodbyes, thanked my hosts for everything and floated to the car. Sitting under the yellowing dome light, I started asking myself questions as the tape player resumed.
What the fuck was that?
Who are these people?
What were they smoking?
What were they talking about?
What happened to McDonald’s?
What time is it?
Cass came out to the car and took the driver’s seat. We pulled out of the driveway, and I wondered if I should try and remember how we got to the house. Happy as a clam with unlimited energy, she told me her friends sure did like me and how cool they think I am. As we drove through the countryside, she asked what I thought about them. Wondering specifically if I thought their son was cute.
She told me how he was interested in getting to know me better.
How he wanted to date me.
What did I think about that?
Well, what was I supposed to think about that? He didn’t know me at all, how could he want to date me? Why did these people take such an intense liking to me?
Cass carried on, saying that they wanted to hang out again and I was welcome at their house anytime I wanted to drop by. And she promised to give me their numbers and chat names before I got home that night.
Would I get home tonight?
I didn’t know what to say.
The cassette tape ended, and the stereo ground out plastic sounding clicks as it flipped to the other side. The silence was heavy as we waited for side-b to play against the hum of tires on gravel. And then I jumped in my seat as the opening chords of “The Last Time” filled the van. Cass looked away for just a second to turn the volume even higher.
Just as a large silhouette rushed the front of the van from out of the darkness.
THUD.
We hit it.
Cass jerked on the wheel, sending us swerving before a sudden stop, nearly in the ditch. She immediately jumped out and I followed her into the dust cloud enveloping the scene. The blooming glare of taillights turned every shadow red, and I tripped into the tall grass where she squatted over a squirming mass. It was the largest possum I had ever seen. Breathing heavily and hissing, we just stared at the poor little critter and didn’t say anything.
The din of the whole incident calmed, and we both became aware of the uncomfortably loud volume of the stereo still playing, now echoing over darkened soybean fields.
Janis pleaded to her lover to make it the last time, make it the last time... as we lamented the injury to wildlife.
Cass and I looked at each other.
A subtle rearranging of air passed between us.
Don’t you understand me? Don’t you understand me? Janis screamed in desperation.
I may or may not believe in some fantastical shit, but for certain, I’m open to believing. I want there to be a spiritual order, I want the supernatural to be real. So, I’m always looking for patterns and signs in the world like a cosmic easter egg hunt.
And in that moment, it felt like the universe was screaming in my face. “I say no more! No more! NO MORE!”
Standing up and looking at my friend, I saw her facade fall away. Suddenly I realized the seriousness of my summer running errands for her. The whole time we felt safe at the Hippie Hovel we were in more danger than we could have ever fathomed. How the smell of ammonia wasn’t just cat piss. And the “drug thief” set up, that’s how you get got. These shady people in the farmhouse, the true intentions of Cass, and the reason she had brought me there. All of it hit me at once, sobering me up.
I was afraid of Cass and she now saw that in my face.
She knew that I knew.
“Let’s get you home,” was all she said.
We drove back to town in silence and when she pulled into my driveway, she thanked me for getting out of the van with her to check on the possum. I tried to smile and softly said goodnight.
“Good night, little sis.”
* * *
I blocked soother999 on Yahoo Messenger and stopped answering calls. I didn’t want to talk about that night or hang around anymore. Not long after, Jordynn quit working for Cass when he found out from Zak that her mom was buying amphetamines from her. At first, It didn’t really click how Zak knew that information until the following spring. Zak took Jordynn to prom and right after walk-in and photos, he was ambushed by cops in the gym and arrested on a drug warrant. It seems that he and his brother Marc were also little errand runners for Cass. Sadly, a year later the both of them would die in a car accident after being awake for a few days. Jordynn found God and I guess that’s OK because it gave her something she wasn’t getting before. But she got real hateful towards homosexuals, not that we knew any personally. She kept saying she thought Cass was gay and grooming us to be that way too. I never felt that way and thought she was just looking for hateful excuses.
A rumor circulated for a little while about Cass being entangled in a young man’s overdose in the casino town. As far as I know she never got busted for any of the shit she was involved in, but she did lose her trailer to the bank. Bethany and the neighbor girl told me about riding their bikes over to watch when animal control came to remove all of the cats that were left behind. After I moved to Chicago, my stepmother Lucille became a home caregiver for Cass, and they seemed to get along great at first. Then there was an abrupt fallout and Lucille never worked another job again. In fact, her personality started to change about that time. Somewhere in there an opioid addiction developed and it would keep my family in a chokehold for the next 20 years. There’s no proof but I have my suspicions.
I heard in late 2016 that Cass passed away.
I can’t say I walked the straight and narrow after getting away from Cass and the wrong crowd. Over 20 years later, I still have to check myself when I get pain killers from the dentist. And all these memories, good times and bad, kinda just dry up and float away because people get lost or die. And there’s nobody around to remember anymore and these stories don’t even make the highlight reel.
This is just one of them, of course there would be more and other trailer park girls to go ‘round the outside.
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