The Wilderness Years - All the Young Dudes

And thus began the year of our lord, 1996, i eased into the brutality of January, February and March, cold and shitty days spent loading and unloading vans full of crap, driving slush filled back lots in all sorts of shit rust belt weather, and while most businesses have ebbs and flows, a busy season as they say the vice business is always booming... on the days when i'd come home and need an hour or two before i could feel my toes there was no way i was going out, i'd let between five and seven people stop by, some of it would depend on supply or how much i made, my first few months had seen me build up a pretty steady and decent sized clientele, good weeks saw me with a $200-300 extra in my pocket after everything was paid off, didn't i tell you it was glamorous? it wasn't getting rich it was getting by...

So those days spent working in the elements only to return to a cold and cavernous warehouse would see me walk that city block home and make a cup of coffee, a hot shower, a check of the messages, i'd peruse the mental files and decide who might buy the most or provide the most profit margin and go from there, i didn't want a parade in and out and in the short days of winter i wanted to be done by 8pm, my lovely transient hood provided cover along with my three unit apartment building, a bit of foot traffic between 4:30-8:30 wasn't gonna raise any eyebrows, being the lazy bastard i am i had finally rigged a phone line that ran all the way around the living room of the apartment, around the corner and down the hall to my room, kept me from having to walk all the way out to the living room and also kept the good Doctor and Jess from having to answer the phone constantly, ninety percent of the calls were for me anyway, after a certain point we'd turn off the ringer and turn the machine down low, i had ground rules and on work nights i let people know that i wouldn't be up all night, that i was like a normal person and wasn't gonna be open 24 hours a day, i'd drink my cup and warm up and between visitors sometimes i'd crawl under the covers and catch catnaps, the radio tuned to the local uni's station, the monotone voices of the cool nerd college DJ's lapping gently against the walls...

Of course there is always a learning curve in these endeavors and dare i say sometimes that curve needs to be learned a good two or three times before it really takes root, this wasn't my first go round on this joyride, technically it was my fourth, the first being my last year of undergrad for about six months, then my first stint in the burgh which lasted about eight months, and then back to Podunk U. again for the ill-fated year of grad school and wheeling the last four months i was there just to survive, though i'm sure i could make a case for each and every entry into the game being a point of survival and i'm sure the squares would say that i was just shirking work but i kinda always thought you take the best work for the best pay and when there are no legit jobs that will pay that and no dad's couch to crash on if you fuck up you do what you can to keep a roof above one's head...

When the weather is cold and your little room is warm and cozy the need to go out is minimal, the most dangerous nights were the really cold ones, weekdays being the worst, i'd make some call backs and set the schedule and settle in for what i thought would be a mellow night, and for the most part they always were, except for the fact that i'd smoke up with all the people who came through the door, there was a coat rack that was built into the wall in the hallway outside my room and people would take off their shoes and hang up their coats, they'd plop down on my mattress on the floor or bring a folding chair in from the hall, i'd always sit in my garbage picked rolling desk chair, it was like the command post, by this time the triple beam sat atop the armoire, in off times covered with a towel or t-shirt, during business hours it sat uncovered and with the grass stashed in the second drawer from the top, easy for me to weigh and bag, the drawer helping to catch buds falling off the scale, on those cold winter days i'd want to close up early but by the time the third party got through the door i'd be a half a dozen or more bong hits in and a few beers would make the way back to the cave, and in general it was all low key and not much if you scored a sack and hung out for an hour or so but if you're the guy selling it that ends up being four or five or six hours and when the last person would leave i'd shuffle back to my room grinning, i'd try and do the books as fast as i could, then i'd crawl into bed a well bit more than half in the bag, read about half a page of a book and pass out stoned and drunk...

And those were supposed to be my mellow nights, it took awhile but i learned of course, learned i couldn't blaze up with every wastoid that came through the door or i'd end up being another textbook failed stoner weed dealer, the good Doctor always liked to watch old movies and he was watching Indiana, Pa's favorite son Jimmy Stewart waiting for his miracle, i was stoned and in the small kitchen washing a pan so i could make some mac n' cheese when i hear the catch phrase and immediately bastardize it, "every time a bell rings, another dealer gets his wings", the Doctor just grinned and shook his head, you are one fucked up individual sir he said laughing, but i believed that shit, i was trying to absorb the right way to run this shit by watching the mistakes, for lack of a better term, my mentors and competition would make, and those nights of mellow excess did at times lead to some minor monetary fuck-ups, nothing major but when the profit margin is really that thin screwing yourself out of $50 cuz you're wasted is not something you want happening on a regular basis, some weeks that was 25% of my take, i could eat like a fucking king with that money...

The winter was good for my wallet, i'd pick my spots to head out to the bar, after working outside all day a lot of times the last thing i wanted to do was walk a block or three, i had a fairly steady business by this point, no kingpin just a fringe player, hell the average shelf life in this business was never long but after a five or six months bringing in an extra three bills a week felt good, i was using all legit money for rent and loans and living off the gear money, it was all still a bit hand to mouth but i was taking care of business as Elvis Aron Presley would say, sometimes it took less than a week to flip the weight and be even more ahead, those weeks i'd usually split the extra, half to fun and half to the funds, stashed in an envelope in a lock box, paranoid delusions wouldn't let me put much of it in the bank, i did of course but in the whopping amounts of 50 bucks here or 35 there, of course over time it adds up but at this point it was nice to see i had a whopping one thousand dollars in the bank, meant i could cover rent and loans for a month or two if shit went tits up, but i had no intention of letting that happen, at least if i could help it, which in this game... sometimes you can't...