Fear and Loathing leaving Salt Lake

Salt Lake City to Boise has been the most amusing and annoying bus trip so far. I ended up in the back next to four other guys desperate to be as fucked up as possible for the entire ride. Four guys, Stephen Baldwin, the Loan Officer, Chatty and Stoner have pot, beer and this nasty sounding concoction of vodka/cough syrup/ghb to achieve this. They start off by smoking at the first stop the bus makes. They get back on the bus quite happy, flirting with these two girls, talking about how they’ve done time and how they’ve beaten drug cases against them. At one point I have to assure them I’m not law enforcement. It’s all in good fun.

Chatty talks often and quickly but Stephen Baldwin is the leader that sets the topics. Stoner is always stuck packing the pipe. Loan Officer listens for the most part, or tells the story of how he was busted for possession that very morning before getting on the bus. Apparently he and a friend had walked right in front of the Salt Lake county sheriff’s office and lit up in front of the camera. His medical marijuana exemption didn’t work in Utah. His summons was in seven days and he said he had no plans to be there. He just marks Utah off the list of states he’ll visit. This trip hadn’t been all bad, he was the first person to ski in America this ski season at Loveland, CO. This is a guy that only needs two loans a month to subsidize his lifestyle. Stephen Baldwin was just coming back from Texas where he’d had a special package sent to his PO box in Boise. The only serious discussion they had was him and Chatty negotiating a price for a pound.

Enough talk, more drug use. Going an hour or two between tokes isn’t working out. They start going into the bathroom one by one and exhaling through a vent. They start sneaking beer from convenience stores at the stops. Although Chatty was busted once and had to leave it in the parking lot. Most of the time they made it back on. This is still taking too long. So they start smoking in their seats and blowing the smoke into the headrests. This is the nastiest thing I’ve seen on the bus so far. I will never rest my head again. Even this was too much of an incovenience so Chatty exhales right into the cabin. Stoner is freaking out because he’s the one with all the supplies and he doesn’t want to get arrested. But he’s a funny kind of freaked out.

At this point the bus driver smells smoke and coincidentally this is when Stephen Baldwin comes out of the bathroom after legitimately using it. Then in this growling, angry voice the bus driver comes over the PA system Hey SCUMBAG! The SCUMBAG in the last row. and on and on about what a bad person he is and how he’d better not do it again and that SCUMBAGS (yes, he really said it in all caps) will be thrown off the bus if they are caught again. But we’re 11 miles from Boise so it doesn’t matter. At this point Stoner is freaking out and has curled up into the fetal position in his seat. He’s laughing and telling us he’s having a heart attack and that he doesn’t want to be busted.

All in all amusing, but annoying because I leave the bus smelling like I’ve been at an Air concert in Atlanta.