The Dealer

I worked at an urban clothing store in downtown Detroit It was called The Hub One time this large black fellow came in browsing He was a regular customer He mostly bought merchandise off of the clearance section and did not look like much of a spender but this time it was different he came in and started looking at the Red Monkey jeans that were $500 a pair I plainly eyed him in pity thinking that his ability to buy such merchandise was a mere fable He degradingly hollered at me
Hey you there how much is deeze Red Monkey jeans
I took him for an idiot for the price tag was clearly visible in front of him and it was clear that he was trying to be ostentatious seeming like he is able to afford the merchandise Regardless I hypocritically and dramatically approached him and held out the tag on the jeans and said that they were five hundred dollar jeans and suggested a cheaper pair of jeans
What ***** you don’t think I can afford dis ****
No I just figured you were browsing and I was just showing you a variety of what we have
I got money *****
He reached into his pocket and took out a rubberbanded stack of one hundred dollar bills I was flabbergasted I quietly reached for a pair of jeans and smiled at him
Smartass ***** Better watch yo mouth next time
Sorry about that What else can I get for you I said
I need a fur coat fool Shukrie told me that yall sell dim I wuz here last week and I aksed him for one he told me that he was gonna order me one
I wondered how he knew about the fur coats and why Shukrie told him that we have them in stock if he knew that the moron was broke most of the time then again I had not been at work for the past week I took a break for I had the flu At any rate I decided to go along with the pretender
What color are you looking for We have brown and black and there is a white one
I don know Why don’t you take me to da back’ n show me what you got
I grew apprehensive I had no idea what Shukrie was doing He must’ve been insane to tell this man that our fur and mink coats were in the storage room unless he wanted to get robbed I took the flamboyant fool to the back to show him our collection well not exactly a collection we only had four coats left two brown ones and a black and a white He practically hallucinated over one of the brown ones which was entirely brown except it had a thick brown collar blotted with white fur The cuffs of the coat were of the same fashion it was a $ 3000 mink coat The other coats were solid in color although they were thicker and appeared to have a finer texture
How much is dat he said pointing toward the white-blotted coat
It’s three thousand dollars man
He tried it on and I thought that he looked ridiculous He however was jovial and content with his drastic appearance
Okay I’ll take it seal it up fo me
Yes sir I said with a meek smirk on my face that he was ignorant to display his instantaneous wealth it would raise suspicion No one can get that wealthy in such a short period of time
I thought that a man in fur looked absolutely absurd I took thirty-five hundred dollars from him in hard cash No tax In my entire days working on that job I have never seen somebody pay that much money in cash And what was even more shocking is that it came from a cretin like this I folded the cash then bound it with one of the rubberbands around my wrist I was eager to learn how he came up with such an amount of money in such a short span of time so before he went out I asked bluntly
How the hell did you come up with that much money I took you for a broke scoundrel
I don know what dat mean he said but I started trappin and beniss is a boomin
What the hell is trappin
I sell dope ***** I bake dat **** n’ sell it on da streets and dem White niggas is desperate for some good caine he gleamed
I was aware of the fact that some of the store’s wealthy customers were drug dealers but I have never seen someone rise so quickly most of the other customers never spent more than a thousand on a couple of outfits but this incredulous fool surely set a new record
I want to trap too How can I do that I asked
You wanna trap eh Aight I tell you how I jus hope you aint no snitch snitches die like a ***** Wait for me outside da mall at nine I come pick you up
Alright I’ll wait for you
He took his merchandise and left the store like a boisterous peacock By nine o’clock and when the sun was setting in the middle of a May that shall live in infamy he rolled in his neon green Cadillac with the stereo blasting vulgar and profane music that I abhorred the same music that Shukrie played in the store to delight the customer’s shopping experience the dealer wore Rasta braids that crawled onto his back and the vehicle smelled of perfuse marijuana
Your car smells like weed man
Yea Purple-haze my ***** That ****’s the best weed in town I’ll give you some when we get to my crib
Okay never tried that specimen before
Quit using dim big words dawg Anyway I can tell you is new to dis beniss
Yea man I need to make some good money that ten to nine that I’m working doesn’t make ****
We pulled up to a large white two-story house and the backyard had two pit-bulls vulgarly barking at us like some new prey There were three black girls playing jump-rope at the frontyard they seemed to be the man’s children The Cadillac parked into a spacious parkway We got out and my body shivered to the beep of the car alarm and lock of the car doors
Aight dawg Thas it thas my house Big-*** crib huh
I got into the house and it had a very gaudy and austere interior he had leather LaZ Boy couches and chairs and a magnanimous Sony flat screen television as big as three full-sized football players placed together I thought that he was an idiot for displaying his instantaneous wealth but I’m sure that the authorities had their eyes on him He took me to his kitchen that was spotless clean except for a counter that was contaminated with white dust I thought that must have been where he cooked his cocaine and methamphetamine
He elaborately showed me how to cook the drugs the portions the ratios most of which was by eye-balling I keenly watched and listened It was like my college chemistry course except the professor didn’t know any scientific definitions or equations Ghetto schooling He gave me two packs of cocaine and a stack of twenties a thousand dollars and showed me his selling district on the city map the delinquent kept on surprising me with odd coincidences and he told me that he gets forty percent of my revenue and I agreed
Dis is to get ya started Take it I betta not catch ya on my sellin district If I do I’ll cap yo *** Now take a hit of dis ****
I aint snorting no coac man
He took out a Glock-45 out of a scabbard on his side and pointed it to my head frowned and yelled again
Take the hit fool
I assorted the cocaine with the razorblade as I saw Travolta assort the heroine on Pulp Fiction and I snorted the powder First I felt like sneezing My brain grew foggy and clouded and I began to feel dizzy began to have doubled-vision I held my nose and strongly inhaled and my eyes began to tear up and my eyes’ vessels bulged and reddened
What the hell is this man I exhaled
Hahaha I knew dis would’ appen to you You got’ ta know how it feel It’s an incentive fo you ta sell dat **** he said
Incentive I thought it was a big word for an ignoramus to use At any rate I started trapping as he would say and the money started to pile-up but I did not show it I still lived in the same one room apartment that I have although my appearance drastically changed for the better I believe I started wearing Armani Versace Ralph Lauren and other designer wear that I hadn’t wore before I started wearing vintage suits to work but Shukrie told me to stay casual to help endorse the store’s merchandise He commented to me about my expensive taste in clothing hinting to the fact that I don’t make enough to be clothed in such garments but I corked his lips when I told him that I started investing my money in stock although I knew that he wouldn’t believe me but that’s okay he had his own mischievousness
I was making good money selling cocaine and meth to poor desperate folks but the forty percent that I had to fork-over to the dealer began to give me an itch and I needed to launder my money to not appear suspicious so I opened a small Italian restaurant in New York City That I visited New York to manage every three months and I did start investing my money into the stock market as I tried to slowly traverse from selling drugs However having to give out this forty percent out of the hard earned clean money that I make began to aggravate me I left Detroit to go to Atlanta Georgia A big city A new start
I was done with selling cocaine meth and marijuana after mainly my succession on the stock market and having the restaurant to manage on the side was a good excuse for me to visit New York often I made my last drug sale on June of 2012 for a hundred thousand dollars I told the dealer that that was my last operation and that I was done with selling dope I gave him his forty-thousand and told him to leave me the hell alone He said that he wanted fifty percent since this was my last job as a debt I owed him for schooling me
Go to hell I told him over the phone something that I came to regret after it was too late It appeared that I have made the dealer furious and gravely he had his connections in Atlanta
I was on my way out of the piano lesson from my Jewish mentor Benyamin Goldman one of the best music mentors in the country I was ambushed in front of his apartment by the black mafia apparently Benyamin tipped the dealer about my apprenticeship after being threatened about kidnapping his granddaughter Just as I blossomed into a businessman the dealer rose from being a meager clearance-rack shopping twit to a seasoned gangster
I was shot-down by mini semiautomatic machineguns I fell unto my knees and started gurgling blood I laid in my Armani suit on the concrete when my white Versace button-down started to turn red from the abdomen I started breathing quickly and coughing blood The last C sharp that I played still lingered in my ear but then I heard The Cadillacs vanish into the large metropolis and my unvindicated soul started to chase after them searching for a vendetta….

Sherif Mohamed 2016

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Interesting news bite, Sent. Thanks,

tommo

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Sent,

There just trying to exact certain rules here. They're ok. You'll get to like them. Trust this in me. You'll grow to like them. They mean well. Just don't cotton to harshidies is all. They'll tell you. I've been told.