My friend, JN, wanted me to meet him.
We were 16. It was at the now defunct Heritage Mall in South Edmonton.
"He is so coool." he tells me. "His name is Weedeater...."
So I go along and meet him. And as the name might imply, he was a heavy stoner. Wearing a flannel lumberjack jacket, small, slender, perhaps mid 20's with a 5 day growth of beard on his face, greasy blondish hair. crazy eyes. He was a nut. But my friend, JN, liked him, he'd met him at the mall and been ever so impressed.....
When you're 15 you're easily impressed.
Weedeater was going to get us some weapons. Stilettos, switchblades, nunchuks, he had them all.
God knows what we needed weapons for, but the thought of weapons, illegal weapons, somehow excited us...
Weedeater was enjoying his new-found celebrity. So what if we were a couple of 15 year old idiots? Someone appreciated him. He smiled as he peeled the burger off my friends bun, licked the mayonnaise from it and swallowed it whole....
"Didja see that?" JN said later... "He just peeled the burger and ate it ... like he didn't care...."
I wasn't so impressed by that. But I was impressed by the inventory of goods that Weedeater, or "Weed" for short, professed to be able to get. We could start our own gang....
Weedeater arranged to meet us at the arcade in the mall the following week. He'd bring a bag full of Stilettos. $25.00 apiece, they'd cut through a 2X4 at the push of a button...
We met as promised, Weed showed, but there weren't any weapons. There'd been a problem. He'd need some money up front. Maybe $100.00. Trouble at the border. Complications, he didn't want to talk, didn't want to implicate us any more than he had to....
JN was in. "Weed" was his new best friend. Who knows, if we started with the stilettos, we could end up with better stuff...AK47's. hand grenades....
Weedeater nodded knowingly. he could get this stuff too....but he'd need the money up front...
$100.00 was a lot of money when you're working in a mall earning $3.45 an hour. But we were in. We met Weedeater, or "Weed" as JN now called him, outside the arcade in the mall, gave him the money, arranged to meet the following week ....
And that was the last we ever saw of him.