The Wilderness Years - The Schemes

 Back to the grind... well i guess one could say i'm using that term loosely cuz how much of a grind can it be when one is stacking money? there were days when i'd make a three or four thousand dollars in the span of 24 hours, hell in the span of four hours sometimes, then of course the phone would go off and i'd head out for the night, hood rich and hood famous, it was a charmed existence really, i can't say that it wasn't but even with all that there were always things to worry about... it's been well documented here at the lounge that there were certain days i would barely sleep due to the fact i had knowledge of the favorite days for the local narc squad to kick in doors, see no matter how tight i kept shit there was always that possibility of someone trading up... the theory? one of my weight crew guys sells a pound or half pound to some muppet, said muppet then gets popped and cuts a deal to trade up, meaning they get a lesser charge for helping the fuzz climb the dealer ladder, which means one of my weight crew goes down next, meaning they now will be given the option to trade up... of course if the first muppet knows that my guy is getting five or six pounds at a time and my guy has let slip that i'm getting a lot more than that and that the supply seems to be endless, well let's just say for as dim as the fuzz might be a little light goes off.... suddenly they don't really give a shit about the ones already caught, don't get me wrong now they'll take their little collars to put on the resume but what they really want it the guy at the top... and i wasn't the guy at the top but i was closer than the ones already on the books dig? 

Now one must remember the times, weed was still viewed by Johnny Law as being the gateway to Satan and heroin and any other number of unwholesome activities... The Clinton Years saw more people go to the can for grass than any other administration... and when one realizes that included Nixon it definitely got one's attention, the "tough on crime" schtick was an opiate for the square masses, pun intended, and so while here we sit twenty some odd years on and dispensaries popping up like so many daisies, back in the day this was serious shit... if they caught some dude in his apartment with 40 pounds of gear there was an excellent chance it was making the front page and the teaser for the local news broadcast... it was the age old question for the hoods... we all swore we'd never rat out our connection but what happens when suddenly one if facing real fucking time, not county for a few months but the state or worse federal joints that were no fucking joke... all the hoods talked tough but the fact was if the shit hit the fan the tough talk went immediately out the window... it was something i'd thought about and hoped i'd never have to confront, you see i was probably looking past the state level to something even more serious, it made the asshole tighten in more ways than one that's for sure... 

My whole system had settled into a pattern, a well-oiled machine as they say, of course there is no yin without yang, no dark without light, no space without solid and no dealer without one or more pain in the asses and the biggest pain in the ass, the kind that would take ages to go away, was that of our friend the Billy Goat... Billy was always behind on his payments and we were now in a pattern of never catching up... but it was around this time that Billy had come up with an even better plan, at least for him... 

For those of us old heads who came of age before the legalization boom the grass game we grew up with was quite different... the kids these days will never know the joys of Mexican Brick Weed, shitty outdoor weed, sometimes packed with seeds, pressed into bricks and shipped north, it was absolute dog shit, got you high for about 30 minutes at best, was cheap and if one lived in certain cities (NYC, Baltimore) was most likely dusted with PCP... getting the high end shit with funny names that is now commonplace these days, (in fact everyone now wants to know what strain is, what the terpenes are, the genetic profile and such) was tantamount to finding the holy grail, if one could find weed that good it was usually short lived so people stocked up as best they could, nothing was fronted, all cash and carry and it was usually disappeared quick... as previously noted i was hooked into a supply of what the kids called Midi's, my hookup was considered good or high end midis, far better than dirt weed but not quite as good as the "kind bud" as we used to say, my shit was close and there were times when it was damn near there hence shitheads like Billy Goat haggling about the price... Billy would often whine a bit when if there was a dip in quality, and yes sometimes it happened, not a huge dip but enough and i too understood how people would bitch about shit though at this point i only had a few who would bitch to me mainly cuz they didn't want to get cut out, of course my standard response to Billy was this, okay how bout this, i'll drop the price now by $200 a pound but when the next batch comes in looking great i'll raise it by $300, that work for you? Billy would sit there staring at me as if i had just shit in his mouth... 

And so it was one fine day Billy Goat called absolutely giddy, he needed to talk to me ASAP, when could he stop by? i told him he could swing by whenever and Billy, who was only ever on time to get gear and habitually late when it came time to pay must have fucking time travelled to my place as it seemed within minutes of hanging up the bell was ringing... seems he just happened to "be in the neighborhood" at a local joint down the street drinking beers and having lunch, the remnants of which i'm sure were nestled cozily in his scraggly long beard... when he arrived he was bursting with excitement about the "big news", ohboyohboyohboy... 

Billy stepped into the office aka the bedroom i worked out of and sat down, he was smiling and giggling and then began his pitch... seems that Billy Goat had ran into someone who could get him large quantities of Beasters... a bit of pot history here... back in the early aughts, there was suddenly this mass growing, from what most believed was Canada where the laws were a bit more sane, of what many people considered "kind bud", the street name was Beasters as in B.C. bud from British Columbia and while it was pretty good, and to be honest it was slightly better than what i was getting but not quite as good as what one can get in any dispensary today, for those of us in the selling department it tended to be a bit overpriced, we're talking $3300-4000 per pound, which when broken down doesn't sound too bad but when one is looking at the bottom line, and in my case a bottom line that didn't need much improving, was it worth it? not really... but it seemed our Billy Goat here had a great fucking deal for me, i'm talking a fantastic fucking deal... so i sat back and waited for the pitch... 

The story was that one of Billy's minions had run into a guy who had a line on the Beasters, a single pound was around $3500 but if "we" got ten pounds the price would drop to three grand apiece, of course the cash would have to all be up front (so yes we're talking $30k) but just think of the profits "we" could make at that price... the key word in there is "we", you see this is a bit like being a mob boss, the foot soldiers from time to time will come in with one of their brilliant plans, with info or a line on something great, too good to be true, which many times it was or even worse just flat out fucking dumb... i sat back and nodded and listened to Billy Goat ramble about how this was a great opportunity that "we" should just jump at... i sat and patiently waited for him to stop his excited rambling... so whaddya think he finally asked... 

I sat there mulling over his pitch, running the numbers in my head while also keeping mind the business aspects of things, which in the grander scheme of things is what Billy never fucking did... see i had a great connection with Stiv, no reason to fuck up said connection by taking on extra gear from a different supplier, not having any idea who this new supplier was or how steady and reliable the supply would be, no previous relationship with said supplier and the fact the go-between or the guy who had to introduce me to the new people was easily the biggest pain in my ass currently on the payroll... there was much to consider for someone sitting where i was and most of what the head and the gut told me was "not a fucking snowballs chance in hell to i get involved in this scheme"... but i entertained the thought and asked a few questions... 

Firs thing i said, as i smiled at him, was that's a pretty interesting deal, are you gonna take it? i could see the big smile on the Billy Goat's mug begin to fade... "what do you mean?" he asked... i then briefly explained my view, my excellent connection, the fact i didn't need to fix what wasn't broke, and then i added how was this a great deal for "us"? would he be kicking in any money cuz at the moment he currently owed me a few grand to which i would like first before he ran off and jumped at this deal... to his credit he kept trying to smile and convince me with his nasally whine... so i then stated the obvious... seems you want me to put up the 30K correct?... he said, well yeah... i nodded my head, what makes you think i have that kind of cash lying around? and second if i did and put it up that makes it a great deal for me, not you, as it's my money... his smile was getting tougher to hold by the minute... he then stated that since he had the hookup he thought he could get two pounds at cost... i actually laughed out loud at this point and stated he thought that i'd just put up the money, let him walk out with $6000 worth of product on the front and get absolutely fuck all out of it? Give the Billy Goat some credit, he had some balls... yes he said... he then stated i'd have eight pounds at a great price to make a lot of cash... 

It was at this point i decided to point out the gigantic fucking elephant in the room, that he still owed me money, in fact roughly $4000 and change and what in his delusional fucking mind led him to believe i'd tack on another six grand, without making anything off it, so that he could have two at cost? what cost? my cost? it was my money that was being used therefore the way the system worked is i got a cut, somehow some way... welcome to capitalism chubby stinking fuckwit... of course Billy always had a counter, that expensive education under that golden dome came in handy, you see Billy thought that by doing this he'd be able to get back on even terms with me aka out of debt so that it would be in my best interests to go along with the plan... i looked at Billy and asked, am i a cunt? do you really think i'm this fucking daft as to go along with this bullshit? i take all the risk monetarily speaking while you pay nothing while i wait for you to get back to me with my money? i told him i believed it would be in his best interest to get me the fucking money he already owed me instead of pitching ideas which involved the money i made... one does not tell the boss to do the minions job, shit rolls downhill, always has always will... 

It's safe to say the Billy Goat left more than a little dejected that afternoon, his genius masterplan bunged up cuz the boss had told him to take a fucking runner, how this clown thought i was going to be willing to pony up 30K and then charge him nothing due to the fact he had "found" this connection was mind blowing but not in the context from where it came, the Billy Goat always had some fucking nonsense ready for me when it came time to reup and he was short, always an emergency that needed taken care, his girlfriend's rent, a friend needed help, a fucking Phish show he just had to see, his grimy toenails and filthy beard practically mocking me and now this half-baked bullshit and his borderline indignance of my refusal... the fact is if wanted to risk that much cash i'd take it to the track or invest it, the last thing i needed to do was get in a deal where this fucking bonehead had any sort of power... cuz that was the game, we all had our roles, all had our own territory, mine was vast and increasingly powerful as i had the hook up... on both ends, i had the supply that i needed to expand and run shit on the street while with Stiv i was the guy with all the minions moving the gear, i was poised delicately but nicely in the middle of it all, yes it was also a risky place to be but that's why i didn't even think about deals like the one Billy had broached, granted i'd listen and sometimes take advantage of people always bringing me offers, (see being able to get mushrooms and other goodies) cuz the hoodrats knew i had the juice... 

The things that separated success and longevity was the ability to understand that the reality of the game was that fact it was a business, if one didn't run it like one said dealer was fucked, they were out of the game fast usually owing money to someone or they got popped... yeah these half-assed white boys i dealt with all thought it was champagne and strip clubs, being able to toss money around like a player but the real story was one didn't do that shit until one had the capability, the spendable income, the play money that wouldn't be missed.. the difference was i knew how to handle my money, i was squirrelling cash away, paying off the student loans and the money i partied with was just that, if i ran out i'd wait until i made more, much like in the early days of slinging, these days the truth was i never ran out, it flowed like water from a mountain spring... muppets like the Billy Goat blew it as fast as they got it and then some, they didn't understand that i wasn't a bank, that if i called in the note and they didn't have it there ass was in trouble... that this was a business predicated on connections, business acumen, people skills and fucking cash... like the Wu-Tang said...