Weedman's stereo has been stolen. We're walking—not particularly quickly—through Trenton, in the heart of New Jersey's state capital, to get to a pawnshop. Hours have passed since 11 AM, when Weedman—a 54-year-old Rastafarian named Ed Forchion—first took the lighter attached to his belt loop and ripped the morning's inaugural bowl. He's had several hits since, and it's become one of those August afternoons that's so hot and humid somebody's bound to bring up climate change. He's wearing his signature T-shirt—"NJ Weedman," it reads, in a style reminiscent of Superman's "S"—and a gigantic fake nug hangs from his necklace. He's sweating, and his belly often peaks out, hanging above his pants. We can't move more than a foot without being stopped. Bus drivers honk their horns in recognition. Women shout, "I love you," from across the road. Men in flamboyant suits wrap their arms around his shoulders. Construction workers shake his hand.
"The dude belongs in Hollywood," Buck Malvo, a Trenton resident and local photographer, told me earlier this year.
On a street corner, a clearly inebriated man stops Weedman to chat. Another passerby, a young man, gives him a high-five. Rachel Joyce, a local singer, promises to soon share her newest tune with him. It's as though everyone's a character in a novel, plopped there to greet him. One of Jersey's leading pot crusaders, Weedman has just been released from jail, where he had been held for nearly 400 days on charges of witness tampering in a case stemming from an earlier drug bust. Out two months when we meet, it's his first time downtown since. And on the streets of Trenton, he's a fucking superhero. It's as if he's Jesus on his triumphant entry in Jerusalem. He is the city's martyr, mascot, king.