Mark took over as resident expert on matters relating to marijuana and broke open the bigger vacuum sealed bag. He pulled layer upon layer of tightly condensed nuggets apart from each other until he found a prized one to examine. The buds were green and now we could all smell the fragrance. Mark’s expression looked excited, and that was making me excited. It felt like I’d just struck gold.
Mark made his conclusion. “These are the Mexi-Indi’s, they’re very rare. Some of the Mexicans are getting smart and cross breeding their Mexican weed with Indica and coming up with this. It’s way better. The Mexican weed is brown like dirt, it’s seedy and full of stems, it’s packed like a brick and when you smoke it you get all burnt out and you’ll end up with a head ache. You only smoke that swag when there’s nothing else to smoke. This stuff right here though.” Mark pinched his prize bud and smelled it. “This stuff is going to sell like hot cakes. This is the best Mexi-Indi I’ve ever seen.”
Hearing Mark talk about my product like that was music to my ears. He filled me in on pot dealing 101 and I was a sponge. I was so grateful to have met Bill and been afforded this opportunity that the big Mexican with the badge didn’t seem as important.
Mark explained that the Mexi-Indi’s hadn’t been around for a year. Someone who went by Gumby was the last person to have it. He sold his from $900-$1,500 a pound. I did the math on what I was holding and asked Mark what he thought mine was worth.
Mark broke that pot into parts and explained as he worked. “I can sell this eighth of an ounce for $30. There’s eight of those in an ounce so that’s $240 if we sell it all that way. That would make your quarter pound worth $960. You might not want to sell it all that way though because it would take too long and you’d have to deal with too many people. Once I start making some calls there will be people lining up for quantity. We’ve got to decide on what kind of break we’ll give on quarter ounces, half ounces, ounces and larger. If I was you I’d call your business man and ask him how much is in stock so you know how to break it down. How much will you sell me a quarter ounce for?”
My mind was racing with excitement. I had a thousand dollars worth of product dropped in my lap and a bunch of new doors opening up for me. I told Mark, “I’ll give you that prized bud you’re holding and the rest of a quarter ounce for $50.”
I studied Mark’s expression to see if I was off to a good start and he reacted positively and got on the phone and showed me his marketing ability.
“Hey, bro! You should see this Mexi-Indi I’ve got my hands on! It’s so stony I can’t believe it… I’m smoking a joint of it right now.”
I heard the other end of the conversation asking questions until Mark continued.
“Yeah I’m sure it’s the Mexi-Indi! Come on bro, you know I know my product. It’s got that lime green color, it’s not all seedy, and when you pinch it, it has that skunk smell.”
I was a sponge taking in Mark’s marketing style. He kept making calls and the buyers started arriving.
The first guy to arrive was the first guy Mark had called. He immediately explained he was a good sized dealer, told me how popular he was, that he ripped at surfing at all the right surf spots, had all the right sponsors, was in all the surf videos and on and on. Mark had explained to me earlier that he was spoiled rotten and lived in a mansion where the Nixon estate used to be. I studied the perfect looking guy that should have been a girl with his perfect skin and blond hair. He studied the product and tried to take over as the resident expert.
“Hey bro…This is the Mexi-Indi. I haven’t seen this stuff in years.”
I watched his real expression of interest change to a more controlled one so he could barter for a better deal.
“It’s not quite as good as the Mexi-Indi Gumby had a few years ago… I think his were going for $900 a pound if you bought one and down to $700 a pound if you bought ten or more at a time. I moved like fifty of them for him and we did some good business together. What are these going for?”
I stopped looking at him and looked at Mark so he wouldn’t try to do business directly with me. I didn’t like how he dropped Gumby’s name like that on the airwaves so carelessly. He had an attitude that said he only cared about himself. Mark had explained to me that Gumby’s product wasn’t as clean as mine was and it was more expensive than the pro sponsor had just mentioned. He took over and handled it like a champ.
“We don’t have a price on pounds yet and we don’t even know what’s available. I can get you off and running with an ounce for $150 to give you something to showcase while we check on the numbers.”
The pro sponsor gave the snottiest look I’d ever seen. I interpreted it to say we were a serious inconvenience to him and we better get our shit together! Mark handled him like a champ and he left with the ounce.
Over the next couple of hours Mark dished out the rest of the product in smaller increments. All I had left was a few buds to use as a sample or what Mark called a picture of the product and $900! Now I had power and control in my life by having something that everyone else wanted! Now that it was gone I had to call Bill for more.
I made the call but wasn’t sure how to talk business on the phone. “Hey boss… Excuse the interruption sir. It’s Benny and I need to talk to you about an account. I came across a pro surfer who is looking for sponsors. He’s talking about a far and wide ability to reach people so I need your assistance on how to showcase the product.” The message was so spontaneous that I just hung up and thought about it. Did I even tell him my name? I knew I forgot to leave Mark’s phone number because I didn’t even know it. I left another string of messages that associated my name with the McDonalds along with Mark’s number and a bunch of thank yous. A couple hours later after stressing, Bill called back.
“Hey youngster it’s Bill. I got your messages.”
I was so apprehensive I interrupted. “Were my messages alright? Did I mess up at all?”
“Those messages were perfect! I listened to that first one three times. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders kid. I even had a couple of my associates listen to it to see how it’s done!”
Hearing this praise made me feel so happy that if I had a tail it would have been wagging. After hearing all of the degrading comments about our Mom, my brother and especially me, it felt good, like I’d arrived. The rest of the conversation covered business and Bill got an idea of what I might be capable of. He gave me the rundown on how to market the rest of the flavor being showcased. Bill was even adopting my lingo!
CHAPTER 22
Over the next two weeks I forgot everything Bill had taught me. I was consumed with chasing money, stacking it and making it multiply. My brother was the eagle eye who with Mark found the clients at the beach surfing. The next guy they met that became integral was Charlie.
Charlie was your standard issue beach kid with blond hair and blue eyes but he had substance to his character you could see. Maybe because his Dad Kent was a provider of pot who also dealt in trash sized bags also? When Charlie saw the Mexi-Indi’s a meeting was set.
Kent had blond hair and blue eyes also but had a bigger blockier bone structure that looked like Barney Rubble in the Flintstones. My first impression of Kent was that he was local and kept it real. Like Bill he practically lived in the harbor on boats and had the same kind of fatherly advice. Since my brother was pretty much living at Mark’s, I moved into Kent’s garage. Since Kent was so good to me I told him exactly what I was getting product for. He bought ten pounds and let me make $50 a pound. Five hundred dollars was a rad profit but my greedy mind told me I could have made four times that since my prices were so low. I could see how this quantity thing could work out nicely. I wondered if I could find a hundred pound buyer from a distant land further from Mexico to make $100 per pound.
CHAPTER 23
Over the next three months I obtained a Chevy S-10 truck and over $10,000 in cash and that much in product. My focus on buying a house consumed me, and my business bumped heads with Kent�
�s business. His clients would come over and hear my story and I got the sympathy vote. Kent would allow me to sell some of my product to his customers. That got old fast. He had a bigger family with more mouths to feed and more bills to pay so he tried to pierce through my delusions of grandeur that it was possible, if you were miserly enough, to grow a nest egg of say $40,000, then continue to double and even triple that up until you’re in a house cash with $40,000 on the side to keep parlaying. He told me if it was that easy he’d be doing it. In my hard head I was saying, ‘you’re just not hustling hard enough sir!’
Kent explained that it was time for me to live like the rest did and get a job and rent an apartment. My brother was running out of room at Mark’s at the same time. Kent helped us fill out a couple of rental applications and we got into one in San Clemente. It was a two bedroom apartment right off the freeway next to a grey hound bus station. Now that we had our own place we got creative with the space.
We filled my closet with a marijuana garden. We bought self help books to teach us to rise up our cash crop and remove us from having to rely on our dealers. It wasn’t that we weren’t happy with Bill and Kent, it was that even the big timers ran out of good product at times. We went through a few dry periods where nothing worthwhile was on the line for a month or so. Up to this point my method of miserly living where I put every last dollar into investments had us just barely lasting. I treated the business the right way, I bought low and as much as I could of a hot commodity and sold as high as the market would allow without disrespecting anyone. With our first go-round trying to be green thumbs we weren’t very successful. Our seed stock sucked, we over fertilized, provided too much light and not enough C.O.2, and our cash crop barely covered the cost of the operation, but it was fun to nurture something.
By now I was not only breaking every rule of Bill and Kents not to do business with just anyone, I was an absolute bottom feeder. I would deal with people right off the street, bus stops, liquor stores and any other place my buyers might kick it so I could sell, sell, sell! There were three other large sized marijuana dealers in our immediate area we’d hear about from our customer base. We’d hear about how cool this one was with his prices, or what kind of attitude this one had and we were happy to take on their overflow as equal opportunity providers. Along the way we listened to our instincts and advice from Charlie and Kent that it was time to move to another residence. My careless behavior had blown up our first spot.
This time we rented a two bedroom house with a backyard down by the beach. We got a couple of puppies from the pound to play with, bought a video camera and sat in our own laps of luxury doing it our way. The Mexi-Indi’s were such a hit with their low cost and high quality that the market came to us. One such bold individual did his homework on where the Mexi-Indi’s were coming from and came from some inland Mission Viejo area with an offering.
He went by Tripper. He was in his thirties, with dark hair, dark eyes that darted around on a head that swiveled to see what was around him. My brother and I looked at him like he might be a threat and sized him up. He didn’t look big enough or athletic enough to be one physically if we got to him before a weapon was involved. He felt our scrutiny and offered something about a mutual acquaintance and “I’m a like-kind individual and sometimes sheer boldness is necessary.”
We didn’t budge so he looked around again and reached for something in his jacket pocket. I almost sprung at him on instinct but caught myself short from impact as I saw his hand come out with a plastic bag of product. We pulled him inside and inspected it. It was a golf ball sized nugget of lime green fluffy stickiness without seeds or stems. We went from skeptical to familiar pretty quickly after that. It turned out that Tripper had his own agenda. He said, “Now that you see what I’ve brought to the table, where are the Mexi-Indi’s? I’ve been looking for those for years.”
My brother and I had a conference and decided the make of Tripper’s brand was copasetic and entered him into the fold. We did good business with him for months.
CHAPTER 24
The squad cars parked a street away and around the corner from our house at six in the morning. We were eating cereal and watching our puppies growling at each other over their bowls of food. The pounding on the door was so loud that adrenaline shot through my veins and I sprinted to the front door to look through the peep hole. I saw a tightly bunched group of law enforcement officers. My brother ran into his room to see the same travesty through his window. He grabbed his backpack full of flavor and money and ran into my room to the bedroom window that faced the backyard right behind me. I had a heavier backpack with four pounds and $20,000 on the line. The backyard was clear and freedom was only one fence from being hopped. I slid the window open and pushed the screen out right as Sheriffs in bullet proof vest and jackets filled the yard. At the same time at the front door a final warning was yelled and the front door exploded.
With our exit strategy ruined I faced the front door and saw a pyramid of officers pointing nine millimeter gun’s into all angles of our house. From left to right, one was crouched down on a knee, the next one was semicrouched, the middle one was standing in a shooter’s posture, to his right another one half crouched and then another one on his knee. I saw the two detectives that looked like they were in charge of the operation with Sheriff Jackets over plain clothes and a set of hand cuffs in their hands.
“Get down!! Get down on the ground!!” He pointed to the ground like it was necessary.
We tried to comply but our puppies chose this time to rush at the intrusion. As valiant as they were they were still teething and tender and their barks were met with kicks and turned into yelps. The lead detective yelled, “Control your dogs or I’ll shoot them!!”
My brother and I dove on our dogs and covered them up. The Sheriffs in uniform managed to save the dogs from getting shot and put them in the backyard.
I sat on the couch in cuffs looking at my brother’s devastated scared face and listened to the narcotic detectives discussing that my brother would go to juvenile hall since he was only sixteen and I’d be going to jail since I just turned eighteen. The narcotic detectives stepped outside to get something and I realized all of the felonies were in my room. I told the Sheriffs everything was mine and could they please let my brother off? They saw the pain in my eyes and mercifully agreed! The narcotic detectives came back in and put a halt on it. I watched them search the two bedrooms and was sick to my stomach. They both looked like they had chips on their shoulders from not being able to fit in at school or something. They both had beady eyes and looked like bullies that enjoyed other people’s pain and the power they had to instill it.
I read the name plate of the one who had threatened to shoot our dogs. Detective Pincher. He announced, “I’m the lead detective in South Orange Counties narcotic division and we’re not going to cut either one of them any slack! We have intelligence from hundreds of hours of recon that shows both of these two are partners in a significant criminal enterprise. We are charging both of them with health and safety code violations of possession of a controlled substance, possession for sales, cultivation, cultivation for sales and paraphernalia.”
A couple of the Sheriffs were shaking their head in irritation.
Detective Pincher pulled those two aside but I could still hear him. “I found a glass bong in the sixteen year olds bedroom. That shows culpability and knowledge of what was going on in his brother’s room and out of the house.”
I read the other detective’s name plate, Marks, just as he pulled my brother up from the couch awkwardly in handcuffs and walked him out of the house on his way to juvenile hall and my heart broke.
Detective Pincher, still within hearing distance, said to the two Sheriffs, “We want to pressure the older brother into being an informant. You can see how much it hurt him to see his brother in handcuffs on his way to juvenile hall. I think I can play off that protective love and offer him and his brother leniency with the D.A. if he cooperate
s with us and sets up three other dealers with controlled buys. With as much weight as these two were pushing we might catch us some whales!”
One of the two Sheriffs shook his head and asked, “Can you even authorize that with the district attorney?”
Detective Pincher sized up the older Sheriff like he shouldn’t have to explain all of this. “No… Not really… But I write the report and file the charges. The district attorney wants their conviction rate to be impeccable and right now in Orange County it’s at ninety nine percent so they’ll get convictions. But if I tell them they were cooperative they’ll plead out to a reduced sentence. They’ll probably get six months to a year in the county and have a four year prison sentence suspended and hanging over their head for probation to deal with. If you think we’re hard on them you should see how petty probation is! It’s as if they’ll lose their job if they don’t send a big enough percentage to prison… Hey California keeps building prisons, so we have to fill them!”
I watched Detective Pincher go back into my room with a scale and a camera he had in his hand. The two Sheriffs that had showed compassion continued to shake their heads.
The younger one said, “Remember when the only crimes people were sent to prison for was murder, strong arm robbery, rape and child molestation?”
The older of the two Sheriffs responded, “When I was a rookie it was like that. In this kind of situation with these youngsters we would have just confiscated all of the marijuana and called their parents. End of story.
I can remember as a rookie I didn’t even think that was enough. I thought we should have dug into their background to find out what kind of circumstances or conditions led them into the lifestyle so we could try to find a way to shepherd them in a better direction rather than just leave them worse.”
ROLL CALL ~ A Prison List (True Prison Story) Page 8