some people call me the space cowboy
some call me the gangster of love
[ meet : rick lipton ]
who’s that? oh it’s rick ‘reefer rick’ lipton. i hear they’re 32 and are known as the basket case around lover’s lake they’re also a dr*g dealer at his hosue (?),. they’re known to be relaxed + charming and spacey + forgetful. some people say they remind them of:
driving down to family video every few days to rent the same three cheech & chong movies
using the warrants on him to roll
the steady burning of incense leaving an ever-present cloud of smoke around the house
the sound of heavily used records skipping every now and then
BASIC INFORMATION
full name:richard lipton
nickname(s):rick, reefer rick, dick
age: thirty-two
hometown: hawkins, indiana
current location: hawkins, indiana
orientation: people he vibes with ig
tw: drugs
rick is often quoted saying that his life truly started on august 15 1969, the day his aunt scooped 13 year old him up to take him along on her vacation. and her vacation just happened to be in some field in new york, where a legendary festival was set to take place. certainly no place for a 13 year old boy but boy, is rick glad auntie simone took him along. his parents were what he liked to described as ‘moderate hippies’, believing in a very free and loose parenting style,but simone was different. she was a cool hippie, she smoked, she talked to him about anything and everything, told him about her ayahuasca trip in puerto rico, introduced him to all the bands he’d later credit changing his life.
so, yeah, his time at woodstock flipped his life upside down. coming back to school after that summer, rick was a changed man. he dressed like jimi hendrix, was super into music all of a sudden, insufferably so, even. and some time later, still way too early but hey, it was a different time, he began partaking in what would later earn him the title of ‘reefer rick’. about three years and various other experiments with various other substances later, he began growing and selling it, too. just plain organic midwestern weed - grown in his parent’s very own greenhouse, organic, locally sourced. yeah, although he’d abandoned some of his parent’s morals and ways, he was still very environmentally concious. it was at 17 he got busted for the first time, for being too naive, gullible, trusting the wrong crowd of people. he went to juvie, came back, repeated junior year. got busted again, graduated at 20. but hey, he got there, eventually.
his time in- and outside of jail, however, earned him the title of ‘basket case’. rick had never gotten bad grades in school, oh no, even while almost constantly blazed he was a straight a student, looking at various college scholarships. revoked the second he went to juvie for a second time. now his 4.0 gpa was basically worth nothing - rick lipton didn’t really have any future to look forward to. he travelled for a bit, mostly around mexico, visiting his family there. took a little trip to europe, didn’t really vibe with the people there, but he hiked through the norwegian wilderness for a while which was pretty neat.
in time, he came back to hawkins when his parents decided to move south into their friend’s commune. definitely something rick had seen coming at one point or another, so he decided to come back, look after the house should they ever change their minds. also, it was a pretty nice house - his parents weren’t too loaded or anything, but the house was big, right on the shore of lover’s lake. with a greenhouse, boatshed, basically self-sustaining, too. and one day, while taking his boat out to the middle of the lake to look at the night sky, he thought that hey, maybe staying in hawkins, continuing his hustle, didnt’ seem so bad after all. so that’s what he did.
selling to kids like eddie munson, various high schoolers and serious businessmen alike. gave them a place to stay, too, to get high, experiment with other stuff, too. nothing was worse than a bad trip while on your own, rick knew from experience, so he made sure that no one had to be alone. it made the house not feel as empty, too. yeah, rick’s pantry was always stocked, his house a safe haven for people looking for a good time and people looking for some peace of mind alike, a safe haven, if you will.
rick went to prison christmas of ‘85, then again the summer of ‘87. but since then he’s made it almost a whole year without another incident. however, he’s picked up on how the air around hawkins has changed. bad vibes, he mutters to himself as he stands on his porch in the morning, looking over lover’s lake. maybe it’s just the weed. or maybe something freaky is going on, for real this time. whatever.
