The Wilderness Years - Steel Trap

 The media loves to spin it's yarns and when it comes to the drug business there was always a clear narrative, that no matter what the substance, drugs were bad, real bad, they pushed DARE and Just Say No and all the other marketing campaigns to indoctrinate the squares into believing every Class A was gonna kill you (even when some things shouldn't have been Class A's at all)... granted the powders and pills of the world can most certainly do just that and having got acquainted with all such things i understand it perfectly, we Gen X kids were of the ripe old age of late teens to early to mid twenties when that first wave of high quality smack rolled into the country, no longer needing to shoot it the kids all got into "doing bumps" and "chasing the dragon" and i can't say i was immune to such things... i was not... but when it came to smack i had the utmost respect for it, Bill Burroughs had schooled me well in the pitfalls of dabbling in the Black Arts (as i called it) so i was more than cautious when it came to my investigations... fast forward a decade and Big Pharma would help the local dealer by fast tracking and lying about their wonder pill and the opiate epidemic was born... granted i didn't have nearly as much respect for that other powder, this one white and speedy, which would come up and bit me on the ass on a couple of occasions... the first being well covered when our friend Hippie Jack introduced our hero to rock... there are things now i prefer to not think about... mainly cuz i could have easily been pushing up daisies due to my stupidity... 

(It's always been interesting that two of the most harmful drugs on the ever present guvment list of substances, both health wise and societal in general, have been readily available at every corner store in America for decades, yes we're talking about cigarettes and alcohol... and while Liam and Noel may have sung their praises it's a proven fact these things cause far more damage to people and society than those bits of fungus and dried flowers that have been demonized for so long though now have began gaining traction due to their "medicinal" purposes... and the fact that for the last few years when the bureaucracy publishes it's annual findings, psilocybin and cannabis rank one and two as the least harmful "illicit" substances out there...)

Which brings me back to the media and the sensational stories they loved to spin about the drug world... the nightly news loved to show a white guy being led out of his trailer or a black man being arrested in the projects on an almost nightly basis (mainly the latter with the former being tossed in now and then for what's termed "fair and balanced" coverage)... having studied this shit i knew the score, make the fucking Wonder Bread crowd fear for their wives, husbands and children from the evil clutches of dealers pushing things on mean streets of small town America... it was bullshit... most dealers didn't push fuck all, the customers found them, always have, always will... that being said the story line was that the dealers were ignorant or stupid, that they lacked the skill and determination, the drive and work ethic, to succeed in society, they wanted a short cut to wealth... what fucking non-sense... yes there were some out there who may have thought that but the selling of illicit substances is nothing more than Business 101, people want something and someone provides it... it's capitalism (sadly) and the only reason the guvment doesn't like it is they don't get their cut... (which is interesting cuz most corporations pay zero in taxes yet we must remember what they forgo in taxes they make up for in campaign contributions)... if it's done right, dealing is hard work, i'm not standing in the pulpit and saying it's all noble work, slinging smack and crack destroys people, i'm not some fucking idiot, yet other more civilized countries have realized that demonizing and prosecuting, pushing people into the black market to find things, isn't really healthy for anyone... i won't even delve into the disparity that arises from the color of ones skin and how said person is treated and prosecuted but it was not lost on me that being a "white guy" had it's advantages when it came to the game.. hence why after talking to some guy in a bar who told me he had seen me at X, Y and Z i went home and the next day chopped off the dreads... being easy to pick out of a crowd ain't exactly a positive thing and being a 6'4 white guy with big dreads made me just that.. 

The quick version from the media conglomerates was the average dealer was lazy and stupid... but what about the above average ones? (once again) going back to what the poetry writing cop once said in the local free entertainment paper years ago, there are enough dumb dealers to keep law enforcement busy, the good ones we'll never see unless we get lucky... which brings us to the all important keeping of records in the black market... which basically boiled down to two things, how to keep track of the money and how to keep track of the phone numbers back before the world was all Snapchat and Instagram... of course writing this now i realize i'm a fucking dinosaur, the world i came up in was fraught with superstitions and paranoid delusions, the mob mentality of don't talk on the phone, the code words used for "hey i need some weed"... yes now and then some fucking moron would say something like, "hey man could i swing by and get a half ounce?" to which i usually replied, "what are you talking about? i'll be at the bar later if you want to talk"... to which said moron would get fucking dressed down and told if they ever fuck up again it's time to find a new connection, their North Oakland privileges being revoked for their fucking stupidity... 

As one might recall, the fashion faux pas known as the cargo pant was used to keep track of inventory for the on the go dealer, which then doubled as an accounting tool when the money came in and the product out with the cash going into various pockets, like separate accounts all in one pair of army surplus pants... of course once back at the office the money would be divided up into the proper place, some going into my personal accounts (see profits) while the rest went to the correct batch of gear due to the fact sometimes, especially at the end of one batch and the pick up of another, there was some crossover, sometimes it would be put aside for Stiv or it would be put back into my "savings" if i covered it myself if Stiv was being a pain in the ass, which was pretty much a regular occurrence... on the days i was short i'd usually get a pissing and moaning diatribe from Stiv about having to cover it to which i'd feign interest while thinking to myself, "shut the fuck up you whining prick, i'm out there dealing with everyone under the fucking sun and you're dealing with one guy, the guy who used to sell  you fucking ounces so you could upcharge some schmuck and through nothing but dumb luck you've fallen into a great hookup while simultaneously overcharging me until you fucked up and let slip how bad you were fucking me in the ass so fucking cover it with your fucking money... you cock!"

Back at the office after a night's work i'd put the cash in the proper place and then do the books... this being the weed business i was always fronting shit to people, there were a few guys out there who i would front pounds or half pounds or quarter pounds which was always easy to keep track off without much notation, usually just a number, no dollar signs or names, and often i'd write as just a single number, 6 for $600, 10 for $1000 but when it came to the nickel dimers it was always a bit more challenging, then i'd usually write the whole number on separate page, funny thing was the nickel dimers were for the most part the people most worried about not paying, they'd hide or disappear if they didn't have the cash and the ironic part was it didn't make a difference to me, of course i didn't want to get beat but some pooh-butt skipping out on and eighth or quarter really was nothing more than a write off, hell i gave away eighths and quarters for fun by this point in the game... and while i'm sure had the G-men ever found this notebook they'd have hemmed and hawed at all the scribblings and numbers, always scribbled over to be illegible after payment, the fact was there wasn't much to go on... 

Phone numbers were something different... the myth of the lazy and stupid stoner is just that and while i'll admit the last couple years in the game i kept smoking to a minimum that was more due to the paranoia of moving enough weight to get my ass tossed in the can for looooong time... i knew more than a few guys who fucked up the accounting end and wound up out of the game so that was the first bit... the second bit was phone numbers.. to refresh the memory, all calls used to come to the apartment phone in the early years but as business expanded and i needed to cut down traffic at the gaff i got a beeper and told people to call that instead, it also gave me the ability to leave my place without losing out on sales, even though that meant most of my time walking the streets of the East End hoods i was always holding... it wasn't long after that i graduated to a cell phone, then at one point two cell phones for some reason, then back to one with the final "dealer" phone being the beloved Star-Tac... but what about remembering all these numbers? 

Oddly enough when it came to remembering numbers i discovered i had an unusual talent... it seems i could somehow remember hundreds of phone numbers without writing them down (not sure phones even had the capability of storing numbers way back when, lol! and even if they did the responsible hood wouldn't store any)... in fact i still can remember some of them today for what use i have no idea... back then though it was like a fun party trick, people would ask if i wanted to write down their number and i'd say no, just give it to me... this often brought that look of "this guy is never gonna take my call" but i'd tell them not to worry, it was a neat trick, sometimes when people would ask if i really remembered all the numbers and i'd say yes, they'd ask me their friends numbers (also customers), and i'd rattle them off and people would laugh and say damn... one of the residual effects of this trick was that people confused this ability with intelligence and i've learned that for some reason if people think you're smart they won't fuck with you as much, why? that's a question for the shrinks but i believe it has something to do with authority... intelligence gives one authority be it earned or otherwise, the appearance of said trait does the same thing... so when it came to phone numbers all was sorted, there was a Rolodex in my head... which also meant if you fucked up that number was definitely remembered... it was an excellent tool to possess in this business... 

The Wilderness Years - Chess not Checkers

 Looking back and telling stories it's both amusing and baffling to think about all the things that happened, the experiences, both positive and negative, that came from spending all this time living outside the boundaries of decent society as some might say... there was a point and time, before things really took off, that a guy i sold to brought over his boss, the guy i knew ran a store on the South Side, a store i believe might still be there all these years later, back then it made most of it's profit by being a head shop while also selling shit all the cool kids wanted, for those of us Gen Xer's think something like Spencer's in the mall only hipper, it was a hipster shop before Hot Topic came along and commodified the subculture but before i run off on some grad school like tangent i'll get back to the point... 

The guy i knew apparently had told his boss about my skills in the art of slinging grass, the guy i knew, we'll call him Wayne, would often stop by and pick up an ounce or so, sometimes i'd break it up for him as he usually was helping out a few friends, we'd bullshit and he'd often ask if it was cool to bring his boss by sometime... i had no problem with that as Wayne was fucking cool, a tall skinny guy with stringy hair, a bit of a geek but he knew the score and was probably overly paranoid when it came to scoring weed but i'd rather someone be overly paranoid than a fuck-up like Disco Dave... so Wayne brought his boss Randall over a couple of times and on one of those occasions Randall, who was one of those up his own ass cool guys who liked to talk about his time living in NYC, explained that he actually worked for or was somehow connected to High Times Magazine, of course his store sold it (he was the owner of the place Wayne worked) and he stated that after meeting me a few times, discovering i had an interest in writing, often perusing my makeshift bookshelf made of stolen cinderblocks and boards from a local construction site, wondered if i might be interested in writing a column for High Times about the business of dealing... being an overly paranoid dealer i asked if i would be paid and if so how would that work as the last thing i wanted was my real name affiliated with any of this... he explained i'd obviously have a pen name in the article and that the checks would be mailed out an since HT was part of some larger company no one, at first glance, would really know who i was or what i was doing, i'd be paid like a freelancer so to speak and he had already pitched it to the editors who thought it could be an interesting bit... 

Thinking back now i often kick myself because i could have had the checks mailed to his store and picked them up there but the fact is i still had to deposit them and even if i used the corner check cashing place i needed to show an ID... somehow i just never really felt comfortable with it and finally declined the offer but stated that when i was out of the game someday i'd gladly do it... Randall being the pompous prick turned his nose up a bit and though he claimed to understand my concern i could sense he thought i was being a paranoid stoner... granted it wasn't his ass that was looking at jail time but once his ass was his tune most definitely changed or should i say his outlook on things did... 

The colossal failure known as the War on Drugs has only been good for the prison industrial complex, law enforcement budgets and muppet politicians looking to score points with white bread chickenshit motherfuckers... fact is, like the wise cop once said, there are enough dumb dealers out there to keep us busy, the really good ones? we'll never see unless we get lucky... but back in the late great 90s and early aughts the war was in full swing, the Clinton Administration put more people in jail for weed than anyone before or after (if i'm correct) and i was operating right in the middle of it... not to mention who came after but one understands my point... fast forward past this conversation a year or two and we have an up and coming Christian conservative fed prosecutor working this area who decides to crack down on paraphernalia... immediately Randall's store is raided and he's on the hook for a slew of criminal charges related to selling smoking devices, which while they could be used for weed don't necessarily have to be... said prosecutor is the same woman who would famously entrap Tommy Chong when after months of badgering his son they sent a shipment of goods to good ole' Pennsyltucky... Tommy had nothing to do with it other than his name on the company but since he made better press than arresting his kid he took the fall... 

Randall was in the same boat... his store had been popped so he had to stash all the bowls and bongs and then went to court and explained that the bulk of his business, what made his business profitable, was the selling of paraphernalia and wouldn't the city rather have a viable business than an empty storefront? of course the legal-prison-industrial complex was unmoved by his pleas and while Randall was told he could keep his stock he would be prohibited from selling it and so he was stuck or would have to sit on thousands of dollars worth of product... the way around that was to get in the same game i was, not selling gear per se but the gear to smoke the gear... he told me to let anyone who was looking to buy a pipe or bong to stop by and talk to Wayne, they had stashed the paraphernalia in the empty store next to his store and would sell it out the back door... literally... i actually bought a nice bubbler and matching bowl (which i still have) and turned some business his way because Randall had stated he'd listen to offers because while he wanted to make something off the stuff he really just needed to recoup the money he laid out... which brings us back to the Disco Dilemma.. 

After the hiccup with Disco it did dawn on me that i needed a place to stash some cash and some gear... having it all in one spot meant that if anything happened i'd be proper fucked and so i set about thinking about how to solve this problem... being "the man" has both it's pros and cons, people are ripe to do you favors and also just as quick to fuck you over... i needed someone i could trust but who also was just far enough outside the business to keep them off the radar should the shit go down... which led me to my old roommate... a solid dude five years younger than me but who now lived by himself on a third floor of a three story walk up, a place i'd hang every Friday when i took the night off (for the most part) and kicked back, relaxed, drank beers,, played foosball and then sometimes headed out which usually meant ending up at the strip club... for obvious reasons... 

It was a one bedroom apartment that had an excellent walk in closet right off the kitchen, it was big enough for me to stash a small trunk which would hold 10 or 15 pounds of weed and an extra safe, the trunk would be locked and the safe would be locked inside the trunk, i'd hook my friend up with free weed and a little cash, call it a rental fee, it wasn't as if i didn't have the money at this point as that was not a problem... (like that famous line from Scarface) "was what to do with all the fucking cash"...  so out i went to get a trunk and another safe... then one Thursday afternoon, one of those afternoons where the squares of the world aren't really paying attention or thinking about the criminals of the world, i lugged the trunk up the steps and then went back down and grabbed a smaller box which held a small safe, i stashed the trunk in the back corner of the closet and told my boy that if possible he should stack some shit on it, make it look like it's been there for storage or moving but make it easy enough for me to move the stuff and have quick access should i need it... once it was all set i left a half ounce on the table and hit the door... 

I'd stash about 10K in the trunk to start with, i called it emergency funds, just in case, the most i ever stashed was around 15K, yes things were rolling and sometimes i'd sit on the floor of my apartment office/bedroom, door closed counting the bundles of money, $20s or $100s and $50s gum banded together in $1000 bundles... thinking back to buying tickets for the footie match in merry old England and mentioning how much cash i had squirreled away it had now almost quadrupled, i was paying off the student loans so fast that every month i would receive my bill saying that i owed $0, the bankers wanted their interest but i'd be damned if i was fucking going to give it to them, the only balancing act i had was not paying too much and raising a red flag, i could have written a check and paid the shit off at this point but i knew better... i never told my boy how much cash was in the safe, i did let him know there might be between 10 to 15 pounds of weed in the trunk, these days every time i grabbed the 40 or so for reup i'd run through about half of it in the first twelve hours i was home, for the time Tuesday's were fucking hectic, get home from work, count the money, head to Stiv's, load the gear and get back so that by 5pm or so i could get the weight crew in and out before heading to the bar... hell at this point there were times when i would sell pounds out of the trunk of the car cuz i needed to keep the foot traffic down in the apartment... healthy paranoia... one can never have too much... just ask Randall...

The Wilderness Years - Hiccup

 Like our old drunk friend Hank (as in Bukowski, who truth be told i become less impressed with as the years go by) i reserve the right to re-hash, re-tell, re-issue, re-package the stories spun here on the lounge, mainly because i've often been much too unorganized to get it all straight... then again this is the sort of conversation i should be having with myself not you dear reader but just bear with me as we sort through this as we briefly review the moron that was Disco Dave... 

It was at this time that Disco and i parted ways mainly due to the fact the Disco was an idiot and the best way to keep one's ass out of the penitentiary is, to quote Bill Burroughs, avoid all fuck-ups... and Disco Dave was a fuck-up, mainly because he was a trustafari, a rich kid with a rich family who was the beneficiary of a class action suit brought in his name by his rich grandaddy... so while Disco liked to parade around like some club kid scraping by the reality was he was getting a check from the trust fund in his name monthly, granted his mom controlled it so Disco wouldn't blow through it all though from what i understood of the situation it would have taken decades of wild spending to do that which gives us an idea of the size of the settlement...

Disco was in the habit of getting half pounds of grass so that he could pretend to be a dealer, he could act cool and play the part and it provided him with enough of a head stash to be hot shit at the club or the after parties... (we'll recall how this fucking nitwit thought he had the game to approach the lovely Veronica to which she laughed him off)... to be fair Disco did a fairly decent job of moving product, he would usually show up every week roughly, hand me the money and then get another half pound on the front... so when Disco disappeared for a couple weeks i was wondering what was happening... the beauty of having done this for so long is that my customers were like a big network, like some weird and wasted southern family, all second and third cousins who would hang out so when someone flaked on something getting information on said person was never that difficult... so when the sexually ambiguous hairdresser Chad showed up one day i began to ask some questions about his AWOL friend and my missing bag of cash... 

Chad was a good guy and he and Disco were introduced to me around the same time by a friend of a friend's girlfriend... see how that works... and while there was always a strange vibe from Chad he was cool... in fact one fine Sunday afternoon while the waitress was at work, Chad and Disco showed up to my apartment with a small tank of Nitrous Oxide, aka whippets or hippie crack or what your favorite dentist doled out when one sat in the chair... we then proceeded to inhale balloon after balloon for a couple of hours until the Waitress came home from work none to pleased at the scene in my office/bedroom, she also informed us that one could hear the fucking tank going off from outside and suddenly i got that lovely feeling of the nut sack tightening up... it's the very kind of stupid shit that could get one caught for no other reason than dumb luck, a neighbor getting fed up with the noise... luckily the apartment full of techno/raver clowns below me didn't concern me nor the chubby girl upstairs but the neighbors on either side might get a little tired of it especially after a couple of hours... realistically it was daytime so there wasn't much one could do about noise but it i still understood this was probably not the smartest move... with the arrival of the Waitress, who as we could tell was none too pleased, the vibe had changed and Chad and Disco made for the door... Chad, being the lovely chap he was, would help me procure a couple more large tanks of Nitrous Oxide so that me and the crew could spend a few Friday nights gooned out of our gourds... (one may recall one of the first nights i hung with Veronica and the Little Blonde was at a tank party at my old apartment...)

Back to the business at hand... i questioned Chad about the whereabouts of his friend and though i detected a bit of bullshit to Chad's answers it was mainly a balancing act of trying not to piss off his dealer while also not selling out his friend... Chad stated he hadn't really seen much of Disco and that it had been roughly a month since they hung out, he stated he heard some things about him hitting a little snag but the snag was rather vague and non-descript... i told him he should tell Disco to answer his phone when i called and that i appreciated the info, i tossed a little extra into his bag and sent him on his way... 

The message must have gotten through as shortly thereafter Disco gave me a call... i could tell from the get go things were amiss, Disco sounded nervous and unsettled and he began by telling me that he had gotten popped, busted in a gas station parking lot by some fuckhead friend of his who had rolled on him because she had gotten busted with something else previously (see little stamp bags of brown powder)... i told Disco to sit tight and that i'd call him back, not from my number but from a new one, and so i grabbed my coat and walked down the street to the mini-mart which had a pay phone outside of it... looking back it's one of those times i'm glad i came of age before the tech revolution, the last thing i wanted to do was talk on a cell and maybe i'd seen too many gangster movies but the fact was the idiot trustafari that was Disco Dave just informed me he got busted and now wanted to talk on the phone... i needed info but had to balance that with being careful... so into the gray and blustery afternoon i went.. 

I put the coins in the payphone and dialed, i studied the myriad musings of delinquents and graffiti artists that decorated practically every inch of the phone and it's stand, it rang a few times and then Disco picked up... i didn't even say hello, i growled "what happened?"... thus began Disco's tale... seems Disco being the fucking cool guy had met said junkie narc looking to save her own skin in the parking lot of a gas station, he stated that this was unusual but that she needed to meet him there and that she was being a bit weird and nervous when he showed up... now had it been my ass standing there i would have bolted, never shown the gear or offered to sell it cuz if the fucking fuzz want to collar you there all they get is simple possession and as we all know they love to make the papers, the boys in the dope squad were thinking big and figured Disco, selling an ounce at a time, was the way to move up the ladder to bigger and  better fish... but what did Disco do? well he claims he felt something was up and told her he didn't have it but would get back to her but she apparently told him she really needed it, that it was to help her and her friend kick or some such sob story and so he said okay and handed her the ounce... before he could even ask for the money there were a gaggle of cops around him and Disco, of the expensive and ugly sweaters and trust fund was busted... 

They dragged Disco down the station where and proceeded to do what cops do, mainly lean on him and explain that they thought he was the kingpin and that it wouldn't take long to get a search warrant and blah blah fucking cop talk blah... luckily for Disco and myself, what the fuzz didn't know was that Disoc's mother was a well-connected lawyer whom Disco had called straight away... the strategy of the local boys in blue now changed to trading up, as in this could all go away, or more correctly almost go away because Disco would not walk without some sort of crime, this is America after all and the prison-law enforcement-legal complex needs their money, all he needed to do was roll over on the higher ups, something they giddily bragged about when it came to Disco's junkie pal, she rolled like a boulder downhill as soon as she was nabbed and now here he was (remember this was the late 90s -early Aughts and grass was still a schedule 1 drug lumped in with smack and crack)... Disco explained all this in a shaky voice stating that the pressure was immense and the even his mom advised him to give a name but that he did not, he said he knew selling an ounce was still a slap on the wrist misdemeanor and with no prior violations he knew it was nothing more than a fine... i told Disco that was about the only smart decision he'd made in this whole fucking fiasco... 

It was here that i told Disco to shut the fuck up and listen very carefully... the first thing i asked him was this, "you got popped selling an ounce correct?" yes was his reply to which i then asked, "what happened to the other seven ounces in the half?"... not that i wanted him to bring them to me, in fact if i never saw Disco again it would be to soon but i wanted all the info on this shit show... Disco did a fair amount of stuttering and stammering while explaining he gave the rest to his brother to get rid of while emphasizing the cops wanted him to roll and he didn't and didn't that deserve something? to which i replied it did, he did a good job in making sure he wouldn't walk with a limp the rest of his days or talk funny from the shattered jaw that awaited, Disco knew too well of some of my associates, one of whom i helped find a wayward soul who owed him a large sum of money, these were ranking hoods, the kind of guys who were always strapped but who liked and respected me cuz i was a righteous white boy who could get high end weed... i stated that if i so much as smelled fuzz, that if there was a strange car parked on my street, that Disco wouldn't even see it coming, that i'd be nowhere in sight but that my "friends" would take care of things for me... granted i didn't want to call in a note like that, mainly it was a ploy in case something like this happened, like some warped insurance policy, i'd made it this far  never carrying a gun or resorting to any sort of violence when it came to the business, that shit just drew more attention to what one was doing and the less attention the better... but the truth was it was always a useful card to have in the deck... 

Standing at the payphone watching the traffic go by on Ellsworth Ave. my stomach was doing somersaults, after explaining to Disco what could happen if he did open his mouth i then explained what would happen next... that Disco and i would call it a day, like Marcellus Wallace i was revoking Disco's North Oakland privileges, we were done and it would stay that way, there was nothing more to discuss and he was not to call me or try to contact me in any way, if for some reason i needed to speak to him i'd get a message to him through his pals, i could fairly see Disco nodding dejectedly on the other end of the line, his player days, at least for now, being over, i explained his debt was cleared, that was his reward for not rolling and that was that, i gave a quick reminder as to the previous things discussed and hung up the phone... 

I walked slowly back to my apartment, i needed to keep a level head and think this thing through, i began to think of an idea of a safe house, a place where i could stash some of the gear and some emergency money, things were rolling so well now it was hard to think about stopping but the fact was i had to put some trust in a shitbag like Disco... did i trust the trustafari? Disco had an idea of the weight i was moving and realized this shit wasn't a game on my end.. getting popped with an ounce was nothing, fuck what Johnnie Law was telling you any half-assed criminal defense lawyer could tell you it was a slap on the wrist and a fine especially for a first offense (though i'd find out later it was actually his second as he'd previously gotten a simple possession charge), for some people, mainly those who weren't white kids with trust funds that would be a problem, for Disco it was more of an embarrassment for him and his momma... i didn't give a fuck about his social standing i was more concerned with the state of my ass... meaning the amount of weight involved bumped this out of state jurisdiction and into fed territory, i was under no delusions at all how i'd fair in a place like that so there was a definite part of my thinking that made the asshole clench with fear, no other word for it, inside i'd be Disco and except my name wouldn't be Dave it'd be Betty, as in someone's bitch, that's not exactly the future i was thinking of... 

There was a lot to ponder on my slow walk back to my place... do i tell Stiv? my gut said no, he was paranoid enough not to mention high strung, no it was best to keep this close to the vest, information was a valuable asset, i'd make sure i touched base with Disco's friends, the last thing any of them wanted was me getting popped, they'd have to find another dealer then and i knew they didn't want that, risk and reward... i knew for the time being the risk would be higher than what i was comfortable with especially considering the amount of grass involved but currently the reward was too much of a lure... the money was pouring in, i was wrapping multiple thousand dollar bundles in rubber bands and putting them in my safe every week, i just had to think, keep a level head, be on the lookout for anything out of sorts and trust the hoodlum's intuition... fucking rich kids...  

I Am a Tree

 So while i'm on the topic... i've been getting some things in order for my imminent demise, not that i'm planning on checking out any time soon but then again no one really knows when their number is up or their card is pulled either naturally or unnaturally residing here in the large and unhinged asylum known as Merica... so in order to make it easier on the boyos when that time comes around the BW and i have started the process of wills and what to do with our bodies when we have left this mortal coil and gone back to the organic matter from which we sprang... 

There has always been a debate around these parts on how and what to be done with the "remains" as they are so lovingly (snark) called... cremation was always the first option but the more i delved into the idea the more i wasn't so sure... not that i wanted one of those "proper and religious" type things, being a card carrying heathen that didn't really jive with my liking either... and so various bits of research was done and what both i and the BW had come up with was something, that i, a tree-hugging hippie in grunge clothing would love... the new wave in monetizing one's demise by the death merchants (or what i'm sure the marketing boys have dubbed the Post Life Accommodations) meaning the environmental burial... what is the environmental burial you ask? I'll explain... 

In a nutshell? it means that one day i'll be fertilizer... the premise is that since we are organic matter we'll be put in the ground organically so that as the elements of our body break down they can be used to do something other than taking up space in an expensive casket that is keeping us "preserved" or whatever the term is, in our Sunday best so that when we get to the pearly gates we look presentable... since i don't give fuck all about the pearly gates or any other gates for that matter and understanding that every part of my body was made and born of stars, i'd prefer to put what's left of me back into the system in a way i see fit... meaning i'm gonna get stuck in the ground and they'll plant a tree on top of my dead ass which in turn will use me, or the former or physical part of me, as a source to grow... so i'll be a tree, sort of, and instead of an expensive piece of rock in a field of other expensive rocks there will be a small marker and a tree growing... and really, how fucking cool is that?  

The BW has already splashed down the cash and it seems there are roughly 33 or so of these places in the States and a more overseas (say if i up and fuck off to Portugal to finish off my days or maybe head south to Costa Rica) which means i can be a tree pretty much anywhere i happen to expire... having agreed to be a tree i'm not sure what sort of tree i'll be, i'm not sure if you have a choice or if the joint takes a look at you and decides... hmm, he's tall and in relatively good shape, i'd say oak or maple... of course i'm sure they won't be planting blueberry or strawberry bushes on my dead ass due to the fact i'm sure the living would be skeeved out be the fact the plants were sucking the last useful nutrients out of me... which is fine, either way i'm somewhat back in the universe i just won't be me... but as Alan Watts often points out, what were you before you were born? 

There is that wonderful picture on the cover of Pale Blue Dot, the book by Carl Sagan, where Carl talks about the tiny blue dot in the photo taken by Voyager 1 that shows our insignificant little dust particle drifting through the universe, how every human every born has lived and died on that dot, billions of them, how odd it is that we have this need to mark where we put these people, they are gone, they live only in the memories of those who loved and knew them, we'll all get there sooner or later, how in a generation or two we'll most likely be forgotten... i was listening to a guy speak (doom scrolling kids) about how all the stuff we buy in the mall is useless junk that is meaningless, he points out the exact same thing, how we'll be remembered for a few years and then drift off, who knows the name of their grandfather's grandfather? so instead of perusing the malls of commerce use that same cash to do something, love a little, live a little, even if that means fucking off from the job and laying in the grass and staring at the clouds as the drift by or sitting on a porch and listening to the rain, modern life has become one long race of consumption, when i look around and see all the useless shit, the race for expensive cars and bigger houses and social status i think why? yeah maybe i'm getting old and mellowing in my old age (or maybe not) but still it's all a colossal waste of time and energy... 

There is a part of me that would very much like to end up in some warm locale, a tiny house, a record player and some records, some books to read or reread, close enough or near enough to walk to an ocean, a few cats, maybe a dog, a goat, some chickens, walking barefoot on baked ground in the dry season and a big pair of rubber boots for the rainy season, of course i'd have to look into whether i could be planted in the ground like i plan but i'll figure it out, of course i could say there is time but we never know how much of that is left... and what is time anyway? a way for humans to count, a way for many of us to worry about what day it is or the number of times we've circled this very average star in a minor part of the universe (now i'm stealing from Hawking), maybe i'm just understanding, more now than in my wasted youth, to enjoy the ride, the good bits and the rough bits, cuz eventually that ride will be over... and i'll be a tree... or at least i like to think of it that way... 

-----

Yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of the day my father died... i got in the pool and did my laps, ran all over the place getting ready for Disaster's hoop tournament, stopped and gazed at the clouds, laid around for a bit with my cat... and i'll repeat the thing i once said about him... he was the most intelligent and compassionate man i have ever known, he was a gem, an absolute fucking gem... and i miss him. 

Pedro - March 2008-April 23, 2024

 Over the last few years i'd taken to calling him Old Man Pedro... he was enjoying these last couple years, he had slowed down but still had those moments where Pedro the Kitten would come out, usually around 10pm where we'd hear him meowing loudly and making all sorts of noise only to find him playing with his favorite green mouse, happily tossing it into the air and chasing it, pretty spry for a cat in his mid teens... other times we'd let him out on the back deck where he'd find a nice warm spot in the sun or if it was too hot, in the shade, so he could sprawl out, occasionally lifting his head to the wind to sniff at something only a cat could sense, then he'd lay his head back down and you could almost see him take a deep and relaxing breath, that was the essence of my boy Pedro... laid back... 

The spring of 2008 was a rough spell for the BW... in the span of a two months she lost her mother and then her beloved Pablo... Pablo was a brown and black tabby and was her baby and so when Pablo finally passed she said she needed to find another cat like him, a few days later she found a couple at a shelter and we went and checked them out, one was a bit skittish but playful but didn't purr, Pedro on the other hand played and jumped in your lap and purred loudly, the BW was smitten and so Pedro had a new home... granted i tried to warn her that Pedro was not Pablo and that he was his own cat and though even though he looked like him he was not... she knew that as well but i think she wanted him to be the same, a bit unfair to Pedro and it took a bit of time but before long things had worked out between them and he was always ready to nap and curl up next to her wherever she might be sitting, she called him her special boy and he was even though he was very much a cat of the people... Pedro was the last of our cats to move, from our old house to the new one, he dug everyone and if we had workmen in the house he was the only one i'd have to chase away, he'd walk right up to them, rub up against them, watch them... the furnace guy was a cat lover and he always told me to let him go, that he liked that he was around and wasn't in the way (even when  sometimes he was)... Pedro was cool.. 

16 years... close to a third of my life at the moment... when Pedro arrived here the I-mac was just short of his second birthday and Disaster was but a twinkle in his daddy's eye (as they say)... we watched his whole life and it was a good life... ample treats, lots of love, time outside on the deck with his humans, strategically placed kitty condos for bird and squirrel watching, even birthday treats in his golden years, Pedro fucking loved donuts, i mean loved them, he'd jump up on the counter and get his head in the box and drag one out, attempting as best he could to run away with his donut, same with cupcakes, Pedro and i both had a sweet tooth and so i always made sure to give him a piece or two, yeah it might not have been the healthiest thing in the world but he was in good shape his whole life so why not a sweet treat now and then... 

About a year ago we thought there was something wrong and so a harried trip to the emergency vet ensued, the I-mac losing his shit and screaming we had to do something, he demanded to come along with me and i told him this shit isn't fun (it's always fallen on me when it came time to say goodbye to our cats) and so we drove and waited, they took him back then came back out and told us he was okay and that it would take about five hours before the vet could see him (which meant around 4am, so much for emergency treatment) but basically they stated we could take him to his vet in the morning if we wanted... next day we did and after an exam and some bloodwork it was discovered he had a thyroid issue and so he was given some medication and was much better... he had been a bit off the few days before the ER trip but once the meds started he was back to his old self... besides the pill was wrapped up in chicken or turkey, also very high on the list of Pedro's favorites (though if he got wise and didn't want to take his pill a glazed donut remedied that problem quick)... but in no time he was back to his old self...

It was somewhere around the turn of this year that our boy started to show his age, he was still healthy and sweet as ever but we noticed he'd lost his hearing and he also couldn't jump up on things any more, we no longer found him on the counter or stove licking any pans that may have been leftover from the previous night's dinner (one of Pedro's favorite pastimes), he couldn't hop up on the bed either and so a set of kitty steps were bought for so he could amble up, we know now that he had arthritis in his back, two spots both near his front and back leges, but he was still doing pretty good... when things turn with cats though they tend to turn pretty quick and it was no different with our boy Pedro... 

On Monday i snapped a picture of him lying on the floor, head in the sun, i remember thinking i need more pictures of my cats (see photo) but by Tuesday things began to go awry... he wasn't really eating and seemed to be lethargic, what followed was multiple trips to the vet in the next week... they discovered he had a fever, a very non-specific symptom in cats, and was a bit dehydrated, some fluids and an antibiotic and they said he should be on the mend... unfortunately that didn't happen... he stayed the same, ate less, was barely drinking, the vet stated that research had produced thousands of pages on cats and fevers that all stated we really have no idea why they get them and that we could spend thousands of dollars on tests to get the result - inconclusive... we kept him comfortable hoping he'd bounce back, he still made his was to the litter box but when i saw him i'd carry him up and down the steps, it was tough to watch him get weaker, Pedro was always such a vibrant, playful boy that it broke my heart to watch... by the following Monday he had hadn't eaten for a couple days, he did drink more but still he wasn't getting any better, in fact on Sunday he had peed in his cozy spot and so i set about cleaning it up and making it comfortable again for him, i spent most of the weekend trying not to break down but knowing... 

At the vet again Monday morning and she finally said what i knew was coming... that it might be time... i told her i thought it was but that i needed to talk to his momma, i wiped tears from my eyes all the way home... the BW has trouble with this... she kept thinking that he might get better but at 16 i told her he's had a good life and now he was deteriorating fast, she knew it, we all knew it, she didn't know if we should yet, we had an appointment for Paco on Wednesday, a checkup, and she said if he wasn't improving by then we'd take Pedro in instead... 

By the next morning he was so shaky and weak i told the BW we shouldn't wait, i called the emergency vet and asked some questions and they said all we needed to do was come in if we thought it was time... the BW kept going back and forth until i finally stopped her and said, i'm not about to let him die in a corner by himself, i love him too much and we owe it to him, when he goes it should be in his mom or dad's arms knowing how much he was loved... we told the boyos and they said their goodbyes... then we put him in his carrier for that one last ride... 

My boy Pedro passed around 7:30pm August 23rd, held by his momma while his dad scratched his beautiful head and told him he loved him... he was a brilliant cat, laid back and playful and full of love... when i asked him if he had a good life he gave me a slow blink, i knew what that meant, he was only three months old when we adopted him and had spent his whole life with us, i watched him go from playful kitten to rambunctious teen to mature and dignified adult to my old man Pedro... each time i lose a cat it seems like a lose a little part of me, a brightness, a bit of happiness, i know the cats i've lived with have had good lives which brings some solace but man does it still hurt... there is a word in Hawaiian, kahu, it means honored attendant and guardian, i've never owned a cat but i've been a kahu to nine... and i was honored to be Pedro's kahu... i love you buddy... (a photo of the last three cats i've lost, Claudia, Sydney and Pedro)

The Wilderness Years - The Masterplan pt. 2

 Monday nights under the new masterplan became lovely evenings... the first part of my night was spent hanging at the Little Corner Bar, it was always a slow night up the Ave, as the kids liked to say, and the bartenders would grin with delight as i entered, usually opening a beer and setting it in front of my free of charge as they knew that their tip jar would be much fatter with the appearance of El Kono... and it was... my customers knew to tip and were expected to, i usually left a twenty on the bar at the end of the night if not more and the reality was i rarely paid for a drink in this place, between my clientele and the bartenders i was never wanting for booze... which was funny as i was making more money than all of them but it came down the the street, the respect, i'd been doing this for so long that the nickel dimers who met me at the bar had seen the expansion of the business, had been told that due to high weed sales volume that most of my smaller bidness would be moved to the boozer, i was so reliable when it came to having not only product but usually good product that there were no complaints, every bag was fat and the clients all understood that the bar was cool, particularly the Little Corner Bar, a nondescript bar among the dozen that dotted this neighborhood... 

By 10pm or so most of my business would be wrapped up, it was Monday after all, then i'd have a casual beer and bullshit with the bartender, half the time the bar closed by midnight on Mondays, i'd sit and finish my beer and then slip out the door, jump in my $400 car and head down the Bully (also as the yinzer kids liked to say), usually to Anthony's Lounge aka your perverted uncle's basement... it was usually a slow night unless it was football season and the beloved Stillers were playing... the sad sack crew were always there, this place being like their church and being good followers of the nudie bar they made sure to attend every service... these days i always knew who was working, mainly because they told me, seeing as i had tax free money to spread around i was like the patron saint of the working girl... I'd hang out and talk and pass the weed money out to the dancers, i was smart enough to know the game, whereas the sad sack crew were marks, suckers who would dole out cash thinking they were going to get something for it, i was passing out cash mainly because i could, besides i was already getting something for it though that's not entirely true, the funny thing was once i started hooking up with them they didn't want the money anymore... yeah some of the guys who dated the dancers got taken for a ride but i'd been hanging about long enough that these girls knew the score, i knew the streets and i knew the games and i wasn't afraid to move on the next, the whole Veronica to Red escapade had already illustrated that point... 

I wouldn't close the club but i'd stay out late and usually drink more than i needed to, the next morning i'd wake up and try to shake off the hangover, hop in my car and head over to Red's, roughly a 20 minute drive and sometimes i was hungover enough that i was wondering if i was going to make it... the mornings at her place went one of two ways... if we both weren't recovering from the night before we'd play house, i'd stroll in and she'd make me breakfast, adding to the long list of women who felt the need to feed me, then we'd end up screwing in the kitchen or on the couch, on the living room floor, didn't matter really, she was not shy and why would she be? she worked out and was built like that old proverbial brick shithouse as the saying goes... if we were both recovering from the night before i'd roll in and up the steps to find her in bed naked to which i'd promptly get undressed and slide into bed next to her, amazing what two hungover nymphomaniacs can get up to, usually it worked better than aspirin and after a bit of fun we'd both pass out for an hour and then do it again before i'd get up and head out the door while she lay there half asleep... i rolled out the door with my shit-eating grin, freshly fucked and laughing at all the suckers of the world... Tuesday morning in the universe... then i'd drive home and count up the money and head to Stiv's to reup the supply...

After hitting Stiv's place i'd come home and field call's from the weight crew, the Billy Goat would practically be waiting at my door by the time i got back, it was always urgent business when it came to him getting more grass but as we know the getting me my money was a whole different thing... Ginger Mike would hit me after he got off work, same with Metal Jerry who was a bit amazed at how i'd rigged shit in my favor at the old warehouse, by the time it was all said and done roughly half the stash would be out the door, between 15 to 20 pounds of gear, with my new arrangement with Stiv, the five pack, as we called it, would net us both $1000 every time one went out the door, we both took less, me a little him a lot but as i pointed out to him we were moving gear faster and making more, less sitting on it and waiting for the crew to nickel and dime their way to the next pound now they had the ability to move some weight as well... and they did... the average Tuesday would put a few grand into my pocket... good work if you can get it... or as Billy Pilgrim would say, so it goes... 

The only real problem i had was what to do about the "real" job... the fact was i could only milk the injured back for so long before i'd have to see an actual doctor or worse yet the company would send me to their doctor to assess my actual injury and while my back to did ache on occasion it wasn't enough to convince an actual professional and i didn't want to keep putting my chiropractor friend on the spot, he was basically doing me a favor and i couldn't keep asking him to write up things that weren't exactly true, yes my back was a bit wonky but nothing that really necessitated the time off... i had about a 4 to 6 weeks before i'd be back to full-time grunt or get the axe but when the sun is shining out of your behind (stolen from one Steven Patrick Morrissey) fate has a way of smiling on you... and these days i was riding a hot streak, hell it was more molten hot, but of course things can change, New York minute style especially in this business... but for now the ship was set on cruise control... even better? Red was doing anything and everything to keep me interested (not that she really had to try) and entertained... i was learning it is quite fucking good to be king... 

The Wilderness Years - The Masterplan

 --- Yes dear reader sometimes i get distracted, i realize it's been almost a year since the last installment of the Wilderness Years, which ostensibly is what this whole blog was set up to document so many moons ago and so now yours truly will make a concerted effort to get on with this tale as i have to finish it sometime... so going back and perusing the archives we will pick up where we left off... ----

When we last saw our hero he was dealing with the delinquent accounts of the Billy Goat while simultaneously reveling in his recent bedding of a svelte and large breasted dancer, Red... once again it was the old yin-yang as the universe loves to keep things in balance, never letting the scales tip too far one way or the other... the year  had just clicked over to 2001, things were rolling along, my orders to Stiv kept getting larger, i had three guys on the payroll at the warehouse, i had the Billy Goat and Ginger Mark as card carrying members of the weight crew and soon i'd add Metal Jerry to that list as well, those three would form the core of the guys who would move a substantial amount of gear for me going forward even if the Billy Goat was a consistent pain in my ass... now having the ability to sell as much weight as possible i began cultivating more worker bees who might be able to help in that department... i always had guys asking me i they could get pounds or half pounds, i had nickel dimers who knew someone who wanted to get a pound, as usual i explained they had to vouch for said newcomer as the last thing i needed was a headache, an up and coming narc squad member somehow getting a foot in the door, having been at it now for almost six years straight (and close nine total) i had things pretty well sorted but the cold, hard truth was it only took one fuck up to fuck me up... 

Red seemed to be well up for a bit of fun the only problem was our schedules weren't exactly conducive to "hanging out", the life of a stripper is predicated on sleeping most of the day, getting up in the afternoon, getting ready for work and then working until 2am, afterwards, depending on the night of the week, it was  a trip to one of the after-hours clubs that were tucked away in various neighborhoods, two of which were in mine, the Castle and the BSC, places that never tired of letting drugged up, drunken strippers in to make sure that a gaggle of drooling knuckle-draggers in Roc-a-Wear track suits and Von Dutch t-shirts while rocking the new millenium version of acid wash jeans... in short a shit show... granted i usually wore cargo pants, something universally maligned at times, but this was more functional than fashionable, the fact was i had a lot of weed on me every night and didn't want to roll into bars with a backpack full of it though somehow pockets full of it was okay and at this point the only bars i worked out of protected me anyway, still it was easier for some clown to come running from behind and grab a backpack off a shoulder than to actually take me down and empty my pockets... besides as the pockets emptied with grass and filled up with cash i used the various pockets to separate which money went to which fund... i used cargo pants as an accounting tool... 

One of the things i've often stated in my quest for... erm, knowledge? is that the most difficult thing most males have to overcome is their own dick.... thinking with it mainly, thinking about it, thinking what they're going to do with it, i've watched it control any number of men that i've known be it their dick was fixated on one woman or many, didn't matter, it was the control it rendered over them... and in the brutal honesty department i was no different and sometimes probably much worse than the average idiot, i was an exceptional idiot and when one tosses in money and drugs and power one will lie to themselves that they are not thinking with their Johnson, if fact they will believe that it is some birthright, the divine right of the idiot king... and so there i was, skirting the line of cliche, the weed king who now had his pick of strippers, all the sad sacks at the club who would toss money around and cack in their shorts if a dancer touched their leg were rather envious of the tall and wasted maniac who did nothing but was showered with attention, when word got out Red had taken a "liking to me" after the whole Veronica affair, it bordered on the comical, the universe was an unfair place... 

Being beholden to no one is a beautiful feeling... the facts were plain and simple... i could now live outside the system if i so choose, i didn't need this fucking warehouse job anymore so why was it that i kept getting up, usually hungover, sometimes terribly hungover, and drag my ass to work when i didn't need to? having studied Cowboy Dan and Hippie Jack i knew the perils of becoming a full-time dealer and in the back of my mind it's what kept me getting up and driving into work, though a few times i had to pull over in the Strip District on my way to the North Side so i could throw up, probably still technically above the legal limit to be operating a motor vehicle but then again that's what happens when you play hard and close the bar on a Tuesday... the warehouse gig was basically paying me $400 a week before taxes, the real job was making five six seven times that per week and was only expanding, the fact that i really enjoyed sex with Red didn't help the cause, i called off once or twice early on just to roll over and spend the morning back in bed but i understood i couldn't keep that up or i'd get shitcanned... did i care? yes and no... 

There was part of me that didn't want to become Cowboy Dan or Hippie Jack or worse yet Cocaine Mike, not that $400 a week was doing shit for me, i could have donated my fucking check but the real truth was i needed to look like an upstanding citizen, a tax-paying type with a job, it solved certain problems especially as the real business exploded, in my head it kept me straight though i was as far from the straight and the narrow as one could possibly get... besides that Mr. John Thursday, a nickname stolen from one Henry Miller which referenced his dick, was doing all the thinking and his thoughts were we should be naked with Red every chance we got... what to do what to do? and so i went to see my chiropractor friend, a guy i'd known since he was in college and lived across the street, a roommate of Granola Keith and an all around good dude... at the time i'd been going to him to keep my back in shape and i asked if it would be possible for him to work something up for the job, a diagnosis saying i should cut back on the hours a bit, say maybe only work three days a week? that would give me two days to "relax", for lack of a better term and so the plan was hatched and within a week i had the paperwork to show the manager, mind you i had already began prepping him the week before with talk of my back being a bit off and my doctor advising me to watch before it really went out... even with bullshit it's all about the foundation... 

Being chronically underemployed has it's advantages, my job was easy, easy enough mentally to do horribly hungover though the physical part posed a bit of a problem, mainly just being exhausted and these days by the time i got home my phone would already be buzzing non-stop... i needed to sell the story to all involved, the boss at work, the waitress at home, though she knew a good bit of it was bullshit and i believe she also worried that i'd slide down the rabbit hole into full time dealer without any W-2 to show come tax time... the crux of the problem was not to get shipped to the doc by the company, i didn't want their workman's comp doctor having anything to do with my ruse, i had my own and his recommendation and so one day i rolled in and asked to speak with my boss... i explained the situation and began shoveling the bullshit quick and fast, explained that i still needed to work but that every night i was suffering from back issues and that my doctor advised i dial it back, work every other day, and so for the time being i'd need Tuesday and Thursday off every week... in a very sly and subtle way i was saying this as statement, i wasn't asking, this was how it was going to go... being able to sleepwalk through this job and still do it better than 99% of the grunts out there helped... he didn't want to loose me (not that some other lumpen-prole wouldn't show up soon enough to take my place) but he also could smell a bit of the shit i was shoveling... 

While i always liked to believe i kept things wired tight i know how the warehouses of the world work, hell workplaces in general, white collar or blue, are pretty much all the same, people like to talk... i may have had three guys on the payroll from the warehouse but i knew people knew, how much they knew was debatable and not all of them knew but some had their ideas and i'm sure even the guys who bought from me may have dropped hints about me while not implicating themselves in any way... it's just how it works... and so i walked out of the meeting and explained to Bruce, the receiving supervisor, a short and round bald man with wire glasses though he let his hair grow long around the sides of his bald pate, what the deal was... Bruce was never all that fond of me to begin with and i could tell had even less use for me now... i'll give him credit though, he wasn't stupid and knew i had worked this out... Buzz, my other co-worker in receiving, worked for me as well so what could he say? his job might be a little tougher two days a week but that wasn't my concern, i was fronting him a pound at a time, at the warehouse he had seniority but the fact was i was his boss... and so began my stint as a part timer... 

It's amazing what the male of the species will do to get laid... it borders somewhere on the comical and the sad, the cock leading the way while the rest of the body just follows behind, i ostensibly had engineered a three day week all so i could fuck more... really that was all there was too it... i couldn't stay out all night during the week and wait until Red got off work so i had to figure out the next best thing, when one is beholden to no one the confidence, what some might even label cockiness, oozes from the pores, i presented my plan as fact, my managers seemed dumbfounded with what to do about it other than let me do it, i've learned that a good vocabulary can go a long way when chronically underemployed, the higher-ups get a bit skittish when one uses "big" words in a coherent way, it frightens them in a multitude of ways and one of those is if they think one is "smart" said employee might pose a threat to their exalted position, not that i wanted to advance up any ladder corporate or otherwise, i was my own boss, i didn't need this job and that is one of the most liberating feelings this lumpen-prole could ever have... (to be cont.)