He pulled away from Sierra's house. She lived a privileged life. Her parents were both veterinarians. They were the bohemian type, and like Sierra who smoked cannabis, they used animal tranquilizers and pain killers, which were the same kind of pain relievers humans used. Sierra had done well with her academic career. She was majoring in Biology. She was going to be a teacher or a veterinarian. Maybe, a real doctor. He had a spot for her. She was in Erik's top three.

He was going into the main highway when he dipped into an abandoned ice cream shop. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a sizeable bag of hydroponic pot. It had cost him $50 for seven grams, so he removed his glass piece from the cargo bay that was on the side of his left pant leg. He sat that on top of the center console, broke up what looked like to him to be half of one gram. Then, he smoked it and sat there at the condemned building for only a few minutes before he started to get high. He threw the bag of drugs in the back of the Mustang, turned on his lights and hit the road.

He was driving coherently, but almost got pushed off the road. A lot of people couldn't obey traffic laws, and the guy who zoomed past him was moving too fast and straight to be drunk. One more asshole, Erik thought to himself. The tiny incident made him increase his speed, pushing it another ten or fifteen miles per hour. So, he was intoxicated and speeding... that's when a city cop patrolling the area lit up his blue lights and operated his speaker system and hollered at him to stop the car immediately. [i]Bullshit[/i]... but what? Right away, he knew he would get a ticket for decriminalized possession, but wondered if the policeman would let him keep the chronic. He drove a quarter mile until he found somewhere he could park at. Finally, he pulled into a McDonald's and turned off the car.

The patrolman rotated his wheels and pulled in behind Erik, then also out of the way of traffic flow. He turned off the loud sirens and lights, dispatched what McDonald's he was at, and got out of his cruiser and approached Erik. Erik already had the window rolled down, and did not beat around with the officer when it was stated to him that the odor of pot was obvious. Erik had to get out of the car, and the officer found the bag of hydro in the backseat pretty fast. Erik was calm, and then assured by the cop that it was less than $100 ticketed penalty. Since the man had spent less than two minutes searching the car, he poked his nose back in and found two recreational bags of cocaine in the side pocket of the driver's side. He started to get mouthy with Erik then. He was hollering all about this registration, that unhandled tag, possession of felony drugs, it was the works! Then came Jace.

The police was in the middle of checking for more drugs, possible guns and knives, or even bullets so they could crash the trunk. Suddenly, the cop doing this went flying into the air. He smashed into the windshield of someone's car, and was knocked out cold. Perhaps dead. Erik didn't know what happened when he turned around and observed the silhouette of a short, bulking figure in the dark. He didn't know what to say, or how to act, so he stated that clearly he could shove a kinetically glazed rearview mirror up his ass if he wanted to tango. That's when Jace revealed himself.

"What the fuck are you doing riding around high downtown?" was his question.

"I'm coming from the movies. This girl has the weed. It's her car. How am I gonna throw it out?" Erik told him.

"Shut the fuck up and get in my car." Jace was pissed off, but it stemmed from what he was going up against dealing with the cartel.

Erik got on, and the two hustled at each other for a moment, and then they hit the road. It was mostly a stolen vehicle, but Erik was not one to ask questions about things of that nature. They chatted back and forth for two miles. In the end, Jace come up with $800 and a little bit of an alliance with Erik. After he dropped off Mr. Strong at the bus stop, Erik took his advice and decided to stay low at Econo Lodge, a $600 a month dope spot. He had slipped his mind about whether the hotel was a 24/7 service, but it was. He got a room for a week, costing him $190. He got the receipt, got in Jace's old car, and pulled to room 718. It was an upstairs room, and then he was surprised to find out the roach motel had WiFi. He checked his pockets to see if he handed the drugs, but they had gone flying away with the cop. He went into the bathroom, and prepared and gave himself a shower.