Chapter 28

Most of our time was spent trimming hedges and grass. The kind of grass around house, it got just enough attention to make it thrive. There were no plans to expand any of our operations. Mike and I agreed to allow it to grow on it’s own, without any prodding. What happened was simple, the nurse link proved to be vital to our distribution system and it didn’t need a push to grow. It just took off on it’s own.

The distribution went from a quarter of a key, to a half a key, and then to one key during the small amount of time after we got it up and running. Our distributors realized that they had very little insulation. The patients bought the weed through a loose network of nurses. We were hoping for one nurse in every town, but that hadn’t happened very fast. Almost no one knew about the nurses, and all of us liked it that way.

Mike and I got our hands dirty everyday, and we liked it that way as well. I discouraged the buying of toys with our ill gotten gain. Even so I knew there was going to come a day when he and June would want to get married. It happened for no good reason, but it still happened.

Mike was finished with his first year in recovery when he came to me with it. “Ty, June wants to get married,” he informed me over a fast food take out breakfast.

“So are you going to pull the pin on it?” I asked.

“I think so,” he replied with less enthusiasm than I would have expected.

“Michael, you are a grown man. You two have known each other long enough to find all the reasons not to do this, so if you still want to do it, we will make it happen,” I agreed. My very first thought was that there would be no good time to do it. So we should just continue ahead like a bull in a china shop.

“Okay, what is the first thing on the list for you and I to do?” I asked.

“So, you are willing to stand up with me,” Michael asked.

“Of course I am willing. It doesn’t have to be official, but I’m here for anything you need,” I explained.

Since we had been in the business for two growing seasons, I had made a couple of purchases to manage the dry cleaning of profits. One of them was a small cheap motel which got a quick paint job and a new sign. It was on the highway between Sparta and West Jefferson. For my purposes the Motel had to be down on it’s luck place. The Motel Jefferson was that for sure.

I needed to search for just the right manager for it, but he found me. He spoke very good English, because his daughter had taught him. He was indeed in the country illegally. I interviewed the whole family before I hired him. The motel was the same concrete block construction as the Peace Haven. It even had a third more rooms. Mike took care of getting it repaired, so that we would have a few years to run money through it. While the overseas company granted us the mortgage. Paying it off was really paying us even more money.

Michael stopped by once a week on Saturday morning to pick up the receipts. He also took the cash register to one of the rooms and rang up non existent cash customers. The Jefferson still catered to over the road truckers, and out of town craft type workers. Those customers barely covered the cost of running the place. All the profits were from the sale of products to nurses. On paper we were pouring money into the Jefferson, but in reality we were running dope money through it. A large percentage of our real customers paid with credit cards which I would have preferred not to be the case. Those customers were the ones who paid the bills. Mike walked out with the cash every week. That money at the end of the week had a pedigree. I mention this because I paid four hundred dollars toward Junes wedding dress immediately. I did it since June’s parents didn’t have that kind of money.

Because of the business we were in, I was happy to do it. After all sometimes money was just paper. I was determined to stay in Sparta and live the Sparta type lifestyle. I was not sure that we could maintain our lifestyle, but I sure as hell planned to give it a real try.

Michael and I weren’t even equal to a grain of salt in the stew that was the war on drugs. As long as we didn’t try to grow, or branch out into more serious drugs we would be fine, I figured. We especially didn’t want to make any moves during Michael and June’s wedding season. I wanted everything to run on auto pilot for the next month and a half.

Unlike Mike I got to see what I was paying for, at least in the case of the wedding dress. It didn’t have a long train thank god. June actually had a very conservative dress picked out. I thought it was boring but beautiful. The four hundred dollar budget went out the window when we started shopping.

Our first mistake was allowing Trina along. “Come on Ty you aren’t going to let her skimp on the dress?” she demanded.

“Bet your ass I am,” I said. “It’s her wedding. I told her at the end of this day I would give her whatever change was left from a grand.”

“Then I intend to spend it all on that dress,” Trina said.

June was a sweet girl, and very attractive, but she did not have even an average sized pair of boobs. Yes they were adequate, but would not hold up a heavy dress without help. That is why we all agreed on a more modest dress. Hell it was white, what more could she want. We were defying tradition as it was since June was far from the virgin bride. Don’t get me wrong, She wasn’t a slut so much as a modern woman. She just wasn’t a virgin.

Michael picked out his tux during the last week of his freedom. I convinced him to go very plain, and to let his bride shine. It was her day after all. We went into North Wilkesboro to pick out a couple of tuxedos.

Mike and I put the whole crowd from the Holler up in our newly acquired Jefferson Motel. Almost half of it’s thirty rooms were occupied by the family. I was hurt that we didn’t even rate a police stakeout. I’m just kidding. I hoped that we were not even known to the cops. As I had done when I worked with the Charlotte distributor, I shipped half the proceeds to the islands and the other half got cleaned.