Fire Starter

Jimmie Oyler's white tent is stocked with Little Dynamite firecrackers, Road Rage artillery shells, rolls of 16,000 Black Cats, Star Spangled Cannons and other celebratory explosives, all lining a 40-foot table. There,"

Along 83rd Street just west of the Lenexa city limits, where the lush sod and lawn ornaments of suburban farmettes border cornfields with stock tanks, a half-dozen banner signs lure drivers: "Fireworks sold here by the United Tribe of Shawnee." Not just because it's the Fourth of July, either: "Sales available all year long."

Just off the gravel parking lot, though, another sign bears a warning:

"State, county and city officials on-duty not allowed and will be in trespass -- Off-duty officials welcome."

Selling fireworks is illegal in Johnson County. But for a long time now, Jimmie Oyler has been arguing that his 20 acres are not in Johnson County. After all, the Shawnee Tribe settled in the area before Johnson was a county, before Kansas was even a state.

"Johnson County is sitting on our reservation," Oyler says. "They are the ones that are trespassing."

Yet Oyler has had to fight for his treaty-granted rights to sell fireworks and cigarettes. "They use taxpayer money to keep throwing you in court," Oyler gripes. "They are racist bastards is what they are."

Assistant Johnson County Counselor Robert Ford says it was nothing personal. He just thought Oyler was subject to county regulations two years ago when he dispatched the county building administrator to write Oyler a ticket. Apparently he was wrong.

In March, Johnson County District Judge Thomas Bornholdt said the same thing Oyler had been saying for three decades -- the county has no authority over his hills and trees.

Jimmie Oyler finally won.

Oyler can sell fireworks. He can remodel his house without a permit. He can open a no-holds-barred strip club. "We could build a skyscraper. We could build a school. We could build a lake," Oyler says.

He could build a 300-foot sculpture of a hand with its middle finger extended. The county couldn't stop him.

Beyond the field near the water tower, a couple of miles west of Kansas Highway 7, Oyler spends his days trading discounted cigarettes for money -- $1.50 a pack, $15 a carton. "The price includes federal and tribal tax," reads a sign on the wall. "Cash only."

Subtract the Kansas sales tax, and Oyler sells a carton of smokes as low as the cheapest generics. And these are good cigarettes, he'll tell you. G-Smoke is made by Star Tobacco and has fewer additives than the name brands. Check out its Web site.

The prices draw a steady flow of nicotine addicts into the tan, panel-board outbuilding Oyler put up himself. They pick by color -- red, gold, green or white -- and by pack, box or soft. The box is better when you are working in the woods, Oyler says. The cigarettes don't get so soggy from sweat.

"What's he been smoking?" he asks a woman who is buying for her husband.

"The cheapest," she answers. "He's trying to quit."

Oyler produces a carton of lights, offering to trade her for regulars if her husband doesn't like them. If he's been smoking awhile, he won't want the ultra lights, Oyler explains. "I got to chew one if I smoke them."

Regulars load up. One woman, buying for her coworkers at the plant, walks out with a rainbow assortment of 25 cartons. An older man drops by, making a similar run for his friends at the senior home -- who are doing fine, he assures Oyler.

Sidearm at his hip, Oyler steps around his old Chihuahua as he pulls stock from adjustable shelves and slaps the cartons down on a salvaged bar top. Decorating the inside of Oyler's smoke shop are framed Native American prints, a couple of bull skulls (one with an arrow poking through it) and a bulletin board papered with his customers' business cards.

"Between Lyme disease, West Nile and the goddamn monkeypox, I don't know what the country is coming to," he tells one man.

To another, he bemoans the plight of a mutual acquaintance who is still drinking at the VFW, despite his doctor's objections.

"He's not looking too whuppy," the customer says.

"He's going to do himself in," Oyler agrees.

"We'll bury him when he does."

Oyler can expound on world issues as well. He claims to read fifty online newspapers a day while keeping his eye on a mounted television tuned to CNN.

In Johnson County, Oyler is known for his longtime antagonism of local and state officials. He doesn't just bombard them with political commentary in caustic e-mails; he's been to court dozens of times, insisting on his treaty-granted rights and fighting off governmental efforts to regulate him.

His victory in March made him a little more legit.

Oyler was born in 1932. He grew up in northeast Oklahoma counties with names like Cherokee, Pawnee and Osage. In small towns, his dad taught high school math and science; his mom was the home ec teacher.

Constantly in trouble at school, Oyler and his friends retreated into the woods, where they shot rabbits and possums. Squirrels got branches blasted out from under them, the stunned animals falling unconscious to the ground, where the boys could dispatch them bloodlessly with conks to the head.