Chapter 4 (finally)

My trip down to Anchorage was for the most part uneventful. Our Hitchhiking Ride dropped us off very near an REI store where I browsed the clearance rack for winter gear. I needed a coat and some pants. I bought a Gore-Tex coat (which I still wear) and a pair of Gore-Tex pants. From REI we perused the want-ads in search of a new used car for a couple of hundred dollars. We found a 1982 Subaru wagon about 15 miles away, we called for a taxi and went over to see the car.
The car was a yellow 4 door Subaru hatch-back with good tires and was for sale for a reasonable price, only problem was that it was a 5 speed. I had never learned how to drive a 5 speed, so Brian helped me get the car back to Fairbanks, on the way home we picked up a hitch-hiker and he camped with us in Denali. He was on his way to a hostel in Fairbanks, and we were happy for the company.
When I got back home to the cabin, Jacques was already at work and had left me an apologetic note. I ignored it, and promptly moved out. I had no where to go, so I slept in my car for a few nights. Brian had this friend who lived in North Pole, Alaska and he agreed to let me stay there and help with house work until I found a place to live. This guy, had a girl friend somewhere and he stayed with her most of the time. Now mind you Brian was still growing pot with Stina up in Gold-Stream Valley. I was still working at Denny's, and Jacques had taken our split pretty hard. He really wanted me back, but looking back on it now, I think he sensed that Brian was a bad apple.
By mid-September the leaves were off of the trees and the weather had turned cold, snow was coming and so was winter, and I still did not have a place to live. I looked in the classifieds each day, finally I found a cabin for rent back in Fairbanks and relatively close to Denny's. This creepy guy was my land lord, and he claimed he would be spending the winter in New Zealand. He gave me an address where I could send my rent, but he also gave me the creepy peepers. The cabin was nothing more than a 12x12 box with a little furnace that left everything black, because it burned oil and then it kind of leaked into the cabin, I would wake each morning kind of sooty looking.
Brian was working on harvesting his first crop and someone shot his wolf. His neighbor up in Gold Stream was tired of the wolf getting into the garbage so he shot and killed the wolf. This devastated Brian and he knew he must get this crop harvested and find another location to grow.
Meanwhile, Stina confronted me and tried to beat me up over Brian. I told Brian to leave. Stina then went up to the grow house and harvested all that could be harvested and tried to skip town. She changed the locks on the doors and when that neighbor who shot the wolf, saw Brian trying to get in, he called the cops. The cops found Brian inside the house and started snooping around, they wondered why there were rooms in this house with locks on the outside, well one thing led to another and they figured out he was growing up there and that led to a call to the Alaskan Drug Task-Force. They confiscated about $60,000.00 worth of pot and grow equipment. Now the ironic part of this is that Stina had gone in before she changed the locks and harvested quite a bit of pot, and was driving around with it in her car. When Brian caught up with her, he was able to re-coup some of the crop, but never made any money off of it.
I was at work the day this happened, Brian was not arrested, but they confiscated everything, and he came over to my cabin where he wanted to live. I kicked him out, I told him I wanted no part of this, and he left. He told me he was going back to Texas to get some money and to give me a break. I should have never let him come back. 2 weeks later I found him sitting on my front stoop one afternoon after work, and he told me he had some money and that he would take care of me. In the time that he was gone I started working for a guy who had a dog kennel who was going to let me live in his handler's cabin and learn how to maintain a kennel and most importantly have a team of sled-dogs. I did not invite Brian to live with me, he was trying all means necessary to get me back. And then I made the biggest life changing decision EVER, I let him come back and live with me.