Northern_Lights_2017

34 An Excerpt: Thief in the Night Sean Landrock As I wait for the next call I sit behind the blunt in my mouth to see my mind’s eye. What’s going to happen next? In this life you never know. I guess that’s why I stay thuggin’. With that thought I notice the ash fall from my blunt and into my lap. That is all it takes to snap me out of that train of thought. Better not to think about that type of shit right now. What good is that going to do for someone like me? It’s time to handle business and go get this money. So with that last thought I check my phone, grab my pistol and my sack, and hit the door. I step outside to see the same old gutter-ass scene that welcomes me with each morning I wake. Not that it really bothers me. I just wish it wasn’t so dreary all the time—like an old fifties black and white movie it is. Where did the color go, and the laughter? What happened to all the kids that used to run and play along the block? Then I think to myself, No wonder it’s not like that anymore—we are grown now. With growing up things change so quickly. It’s no longer popsicles, candy, and squirt guns. The only candy we got out here now is that real powder pack, the only guns we tote now shoot real bullets, and have extended clips on them. The fact of the matter is in these streets we are no longer safe. It’s now a warzone. Bodies lie bloody and discarded, dope in almost every house on every block, bullets ripping through homes. In a place like this, some people do not make it home. Welcome to Nap-ghanistan, a little place I call home. This day is a slow day. The phone calls and text messages are not coming in like they used to. This has got me thinking. Got me thinking about who out here is copping my business. Who is it out there that my people are going to? Oh, well, I’m not too worried, though. It just means Christmas came early for my clientele. So I send out that first-come-first-served discount message, to let them know I got that good for the low that they need. Don’t take long after another blunt’s burned through and a little bit of UGK has been played. I get that message I’ve been waiting for finally. First sale of the day and they want it all. I’m not tripping though… saves me the extra trips I would have to make hustling off some little amount of product. All I can do is laugh and go collect my cash. So I hop off the porch, get into my shitty little bucket that lets me move around the city incognito. As soon as I turn on the car I hear lil boosie almost blow out my eardrums. I must have been jamming out last time I got out and forgot to turn down the damn stereo system. I adjust the volume to the level I like it. Pull out of the driveway and head towards west Washington Street. The current sack I have to drop off is for those old but faithful dope fiends I hate but love all at the same time. I’m headed east down W. Washington, take that right that puts me on Lynhurst. I see the Speedway gas station on my left so I bust that left, and head down the way until I arrive at my destination. I hop out the whip and they’re already on the porch waiting. I walk up, say what’s up, and look everybody in their eyes. It’s not a joke when they say the eyes are the window to the soul. Through those windows I know what’s up; I can read these streets like a book. Everything seems good, so we go inside. He hands me my money, so I drop the dope on the table, and then jet. In situations like this it’s best not to stick around, or you will get stuck. I don’t mean stuck as in you can’t move, either. I mean stuck as in stabbed up. With everybody going through your pockets while you bleed out. I guess depending on how you want to look at it, you are kind of at that point stuck even in the sense that you cannot move. That’s enough right there for me to just keep it moving. So I hop in my car and, like I said, “I jet.” Time to go re-up now since that was the last of that type of stuff. So I head down the way to the undisclosed location of my plug. He is like family to me—he puts work in front of me when I need to eat. It’s lunch time, folks, aka crunch time if you fuck with what’s on my plate. This is just how the game is. So it is what it is. Anything I need he got, green, white, brown, purple, yellow, red. It’s like he got a giant grab bag of whatever I need. So I fuck with him because it is always good business when your people keep it all the way real. I’ve known my plug for over ten years and through all those years I never thought I’d see the day I’d entered the business. This is the second year I’ve been coming through. At first I told him, “I’m cool, bro.” I’m not trying to fuck off a good friendship over some money, because when money is involved, people change—you never know. That is why as a hustler I learned really quickly you can’t eat with everybody. Some people’s hunger is never satisfied. Those are the people you need to be wary of here out here in these streets. No such thing as a friend out here—you’re family or nothing— and even family is not always enough. You can still get your issue. Loyalty is the quality of the true G’s and hustlers. Out here they imitate to seem like they the type that intimidate, but I see through that fake shit. So miss me with that shit or like I said, “You can get your issue.” No need to worry right now though. I just got rid of the rest of what I like to call that Taliban—sometimes it even comes in china white. That’s enough dope talk though. Honestly when it comes to that shit sometimes I don’t even want to fuck with it. It is one thing to move a little weed and pills, but once you step into that dope game it is a whole different environment. A place where people are ready to die. That’s why it is important to keep eyes in the back of your head and keep your mouth shut. Along with keeping your circle small and only doing business with people who do good business. People you can trust. Number one rule: Never get high on your own supply. We all know this. Let’s just say a lot people are breaking that rule nowadays. The fact of the matter is that no one’s getting paid while a dope fiend is on top. You got these slummy cockroach wannabe gangsters running around. That’s why I fuck with people who keep their nose clean and know how to handle business. I only have a couple people I can turn to if shit ever ends up going down, but I will say this: those people are the right ones. That is all that matters.