A Stop in Kentucky

I awoke to the sound of gravel crunching underneath the wheels of the Tercel. We had stopped on the shoulder of the road. "Oh fuck," said Jesse, stuffing his rolling papers underneath the seat, and out of sight. "What's goin' on?" I asked him, rubbing my eyes. He was squirming behind the wheel and didn't answer - but I managed to figure things out on my own, when I noticed the pulsing red and blue lights in my side-view mirror. "Oh fuck," I said.

* * *

It was summer, and we had just spent the past four days camping out on a large patch of Tennessee farmland with about two-hundred thousand twenty-first century "hippies."
Jesse's Toyota didn't exactly blend in with the old, rusted Volkswagen vans everyone else seemed to be driving, but we didn't care.
We didn't travel to Bonnaroo all the way from Canada to make friends with a bunch of stereotypes - we were there for the music, which included the likes of Bob Dylan, The Dead, The Dave Matthews band, and any number of lesser-known blues, country, and folk artists. That's why we were there.

And then of course there were the drugs.

The campground at Bonnaroo was absolutely teeming with chemicals. It reminded me of a hive, and the drones were steadily swarming in from the nearby freeway, each carrying his or her own personal nectar.
Jesse and I had stocked the coolers in the back seat with a good quanity of beer, but it quickly became apparent that if we wanted anything else -- anything at all -- we could get it. Within literally five minutes of parking the car in the not-yet-flattened grass, I was offered pot, mushrooms, acid, cocaine, ecstasy, morphine pills, heroin, and peyote.
My friend and I were young, and nearly a world away from home -- we felt as though we were on the first page of one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.

* * *

"Just stay calm," I told Jesse between deep breaths, looking at the highway patrol officer in his cruiser behind us. "If we stay calm, we'll be fine."

It was a little after one in the morning and we had just crossed into the state of Kentucky. The festival was about an hour and a half behind us and we were on our way home. We were unshaven, dirty, smelly, and absolutely exhausted after having spent the past few days indulging in numerous substances, while wandering about listening to loud music under the sun's intense rays. Had we been stopped on the way down, we likely wouldn't have been as worried as we were at that moment. But because our brains were pretty fried, and we weren't entirely sure if we had anything illegal in the vehicle or not, our hearts were pounding hard.



Jesse rolled the driver's side window down as the trooper approached the vehicle, his boots clicking on the asphalt. We each tried to catch a glimpse of him in the side-view mirror as he came closer, but we were forced squint because the trooper shone the beam of his flashlight into our eyes using the reflection.

"How y'all doin' tonight?" the the officer asked, not expecting an answer. "Lah-cence and registration please," he continued, still shining his light in Jesse's face. After checking out his identification, he handed it back to him and politely asked Jesse if he would follow him to the back of the v-hickle.
"I just thought I'd show you why I pulled y'all over," the trooper said as he led him back. I rolled my window down an inch so I could listen in.

The cop then proceeded to explain that in all his years of law-enforcement he had never seen a licence plate that looked quite like the Tercel's, which had been almost entirely eaten away by rust.
"I mean, I couldn't even tell where y'all were from!" I heard the officer laugh.

Jesse forced a chuckle and nervously explained that during the winters in Ontario there was often a lot of salt on the roads, which accounted for the erosion. "I've been meaning to get it replaced, though," he added, undoubtedly hoping that this would be the final word of the evening.

But the trooper obviously didn't have to show Jesse his own licence plate; I understood immediately that he had separated the two of us in the hopes we would contradict one another's stories. This was the old divide and question technique. And, just as I predicted, the trooper then immediately got down to the serious business.

"Now, where are y'all comin' from?" he asked.
"We were just at the Bonnaroo festival," I heard Jesse say. "On our way home to Canada, now."
"That's a mighty long drive," the trooper said. "Did y'all enjoy yourselves down here?"
"Yeah--yeah, we had a good time."

Quit beating around the bush, I thought, tapping my foot impatiently.

"Now, I've got to ask you this," the officer said sternly. "Do you have any illegal substances in the v-hickle this evening?" I held my breath as Jesse paused a moment.
"No, we don't," he eventually stated. "Well, I can't say for certain whether or not James up there has anything on him, but I know that I don't have anything."
"You're sure, now?" rejoined the officer. "'Cause I've got a drug dog in the cruiser back there, and he can sniff out narcotics a heckuvalot better than I can -- even the tiniest ammount. So if you've got anything to tell me, now's the time."

Jesse paused again at this. "Well," he began, "there is a pair of manicure scissors in the glove compartment that we used to cut up some weed a few days ago. I guess those could have traces of marijuana on them."
The trooper said that he wasn't concerned with things like that. What he wanted to know is whether we had any substantial ammount of drugs.
"In that case, no," said my nervous friend.
"Okay, you wait here while I go talk to your buddy," the trooper said as he made his way to my passenger side window.

I then proceeded to repeat what I had heard Jesse say, word for word, about the scissors. I added that we did have a small bit of pot before we left the concert grounds, but we decided it was best not to drive on the roads with it, and gave it a couple of hippies -- much to their delight.

The trooper then gave me the same "now's the time to tell me" routine, which made me pause and think. I quickly realized, though, that any hesitation at this point would almost certainly look suspicious, and since I didn't want to risk having that drug dog poking around, like Jesse, I said that there were no drugs in the car.

The trooper, hunched over, stared hard into my eyes, attempting to read my thoughts. He then stood up straight, glanced back at Jesse and said, "Well, I believe you boys, and I'm gonna let you be on your way. You've got a long drive ahead of you, so you may want to get some coffee at the rest area around the corner."
We both muttered our thanks and told the officer we would take his advice as he walked back to his cruiser. "Y'all drive safe, " he said as he shut his door.

The two of us sat silently in the car until the trooper had driven off. "Holy shit, was I worried!" Jesse eventually said. "Oh, me too," I agreed. "Hey, let's head to that rest area he was talking about - I could go for a coffee."

Jesse then put the car into gear and accelerated down the road. A moment or two later he turned and looked at me, his mouth half open. "Holy shit," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"HOLY SHIT!"

"What! What is it?"

"Man, I totally forgot about that loaf of pot bread I bought!"
"Oh my god."

With our eyes widened, we both turned and looked in the back seat.

Sure enough, there it was, in plain view - the greasy, marijuana-packed loaf Jesse had shelled out a fair bit of cash for two days earlier. Its potency had been verified, since he had eaten a small piece of it on the day he bought it and been stoned for hours.

The amazing thing was, had we not genuinely forgot that there was a goddamn brick of drugs in the back seat, we wouldn't have known what to do! When asked the "are you sure?" question, we'd have likely stammered like an idiots, while sweating profusely. At that point the dog would have been summoned, half-crazed, the scent of drugs in its nose. He'd have located the bread instantly and Jesse and I would have been hauled off to a Kentucky prison, and given the opportunity to call our parents. "Hey, we were arrested in Kentucky - can you drive the 19 hours it takes to get down here and bail us out?"

As we pulled into the rest stop to get our coffee, we immediately tossed the pot bread into the garbage. We then sped off into the darkness, talking at length at how incredibly lucky we had been.