Chapter 3: The Plug
As the past couple chapters have implied, my dealers were two guys named Jeff and “Black”. Black was high up on the drug dealer food chain. He was dealing in kilos and had a handful of dealers working under him. Jeff was one such dealer, but Jeff was also Black's nephew, which meant that he was a lot more trusted than the other dealers that worked for Black. He was essentially Black's right hand man, but they were most definitely not partners – Jeff worked for Black, and Black never let him forget it. That said, despite being a scary looking drug dealer who often reminded his dealers that they worked for him, Black took a liking to me rather quickly. Black did prefer to handle certain customers himself, especially if it was to fill a large order, or a first time customer. I soon came to find out that Black was personally responsible for putting out a very large portion of the entire heroin supply in west Philly. This became obvious when I saw him and Jeff personally cutting and bagging kilos of heroin into stamp bags they had stamped themselves. Those same stamps were soon all over the area, very clearly dominating the local heroin market. I knew Black and Jeff had been selling heroin since I met them, but I was only buying Oxycontin for the first couple months that I did business with them. I should to make the following clear: there is absolutely no way that my customer base would have dealt with Jeff or Black on their own. Jeff and Black were relatively nice dudes as far as drug dealers go, but I was selling primarily to students, trust fund kids and yuppies/young alums, whereas Jeff and Black were straight out of the hood. That said, Black was a person who I would describe as a drug dealer with a heart of gold. Perhaps it was because I was not the sort of customer he typically dealt with that he took an almost instant liking to me.
Andy had been buying OC80s from Jeff for a few months at that point, but it was strictly for personal use. Andy was making enough money dealing coke that he didn't really need to sell oxy as well. As far as I know, he would typically call Jeff around once a week after going out to the bars, and would buy a handful of pills, most of which he'd end up snorting that weekend. On the other hand, I was not bringing in money the way I used to when I was a student – moving around 10 lbs of weed every couple of weeks between my roommates and I, and a few thousand dollars worth of liquid xanax vials. I simply couldn't keep up with the volume and was reduced to selling only about a pound of bud every couple of weeks. Without my former roommate's access to incredibly precise scales, I also no longer felt comfortable moving vials of xanax, and decided it would be best to simply keep a small amount for personal use. I did (honestly) have issues with anxiety and insomnia anyhow, and figured it was likely to come in handy at some point.
The first time I met Jeff and Black, I bought 25 OC80s for $1000. Andy said he would introduce me to Jeff, though he didn't realize Black would be coming as well. Andy was typically spending a couple hundred dollars each time he saw Jeff, so I'm guessing Black wanted to make sure everything was legit with the significantly larger order Andy had asked for. Andy had also let Jeff know that he was going to bring me along and make an introduction.
Andy's phone rang.
“I'm outside man, come on.”
“Be right there,” Andy replied.
Andy and I exited out house, walking quickly to the corner, where an all black Tahoe with tinted windows pulled up next to us. The window rolled down.
“This your boy Andy?” Jeff asked, gesturing to me.
“I'm Reese,” I said, extending my hand to shake Jeff's, and noticed Black staring at me from the driver's seat, not saying a word.
“Get in,” Jeff said, without shaking my hand.
Andy and I hopped in the back seat and the car rolled down our street. Black introduced himself to both Andy and I, but told us that most of the time we'd be dealing with Jeff. He was just there to make sure everything went smoothly.
“So whatcha'll need? 25 right?” Jeff asked
“Yeah...” I replied.
“Aight well, look, this time we just gon' do the 25, but next time you call, I'ma let you cop the 25 and throw you another 25 on the arm,” Jeff matter-of-factly stated. He obviously knew I was planning to sell the shit. I would've appreciated being asked rather than told, but as I said, I wasn't bringing in money the way I used to, and wasn't opposed to taking a few more pills on consignment, especially if that reduced my cost per pill.
“So what you do anyway?” Black asked.
“Me? Oh, I do computer stuff, right now I'm trying to get my company off the ground – we make software for phones,” I explained. Mobile apps were not yet commonplace as they are today.
“It's your own company?” Black asked.
“Uh, yeah - me and my partner. We've got a staff of about 6 right now and a small office over on Market Street. Nothing too fancy.”
“That's wassup though man, you a smart nigga for real, I got instincts about this shit,” Black said, glancing at me from the rear view mirror. I smiled at the compliment.
“Hey, is you Muslim, Reese? I was finna say salaam but I wasn't sure. My whole family converted like 10 years ago.”
“Oh ok... Yeah, I've got Muslim family.”
From then on, Black always greeted me by saying As-salamu alaykum. Despite not being Muslim myself, I always replied with “walekam salaam” as a sign of respect. The next few weeks passed relatively uneventfully, with me calling Jeff/Black every few days to pick up more Oxycontin. First I was buying 25 pills, typically increasing my buy each subsequent time. Before I knew it, my “standing order” had jumped to 200 pills at a time. Except for that first time, it was always Jeff who came to serve me, without Black.
The next week, I got a phone call from Black, about something totally and completely unexpected to me. He wanted me to help him pick out a computer for his son and daughter, and help him “program it up with a few games and all that, nahmean?”
I knew he would likely throw me a couple hundred dollars worth of pills, so I had absolutely no problem spending the afternoon with him – picking out a reasonable desktop computer from the local tech store in west Philly and then helping him set it up at his house. I was a little surprised that he was willing to bring me to his house, where I met his wife, son, and daughter, only a couple of weeks after meeting me. That said, he saw me as a nice, respectful kid, and knew I wasn't any sort of threat. We had also done a fair amount of business at this point, all of which had gone smoothly. Black was around 20 years my senior and had been in the game for a long time, so clearly he had learned to judge people's character pretty quickly.
Over the next few hours, I got to know Black quite well. He was a former addict himself, having used heroin for around 10 years, then ended up going to prison for 3 years on a drug charge, and had been clean ever since. His wife worked a modest office job, but he was the primary breadwinner of the family, supporting 4 people in his own household, along with often helping out his "fuck up of a little brother". I honestly don't know how he was able to have multiple kilos of heroin around him and not be tempted to use. The guy obviously had incredibly strong will power and deep convictions about what he saw as his responsibility to family. We traded stories for a couple of hours while looking at a few desktop computers. I did my best to explain the differences between each one and he eventually settled on an HP desktop, monitor, and printer, that came bundled together for around $500. We loaded the boxes in to the back of his Tahoe and took off towards his house.
“Reese... you know you can't tell nobody I brought you to the crib, right? Not Andy, not nobody else. That's home, you feel me? Fam only.”
“Don't worry, I got you. It ain't no thing man.”
I noticed Black relax a little after that. He was clearly a little apprehensive, though obviously I had no intention of doing anything but helping him setup his new computer.
There are essentially two kinds of drug dealers, in my experience. Those who are in it to make money fast, with the intention of making as much money as possible before it becomes clear that continuing will lead to either prison or death; and those who just want to make enough to support themselves and/or their family. Dealers in the latter category are generally much, much more careful as they would prefer to run their operation for a much longer period of time. Dealers in the former category usually want to stack as much money as they can in a short period of time, and then get out – with hopefully enough saved up to last a reasonable amount of time. Black was the sort of dealer who just wanted to take care of his family. Despite controlling such a large network of dealers, he lived a fairly modest life. From the way that I saw him interact with his loved ones at home, he was a family man. Drugs simply happened to be his job.
After getting his new computer and peripherals setup, I quickly realized we wouldn't be able to download certain necessities, like Windows updates, since the house had no internet access. I called Comcast for Black and his family and set up an appointment for a tech to install their new internet access the following week. I assured Black that I'd come back at that time to make sure it was working properly with the computer, and to download and install a few more software packages that I figured would be useful for them.
“So what you gon' charge me for all this shit, Reese?”
“Um, well...”
“Listen dawg, I know you normally get OC80s from me and Jeff, but if you want I'll throw you a couple bundles of dope. Better deal, but it's up to you – if you'd rather just have three pills that's straight.”
“I'm good with the bundles.”
“You cool though, right? I know Andy been doing this shit forever, but you still kinda green around the edges, Reese, you feel me? Go ahead and snort one of them bags just so I know you ain't finna OD on the shit or nothing. I can see you sweatin', you must be getting sick.”
Black was right – it had been several hours since I last dosed and was starting to get sick. Two things crossed my mind at that moment – either he wanted to make sure I wasn't a cop or other law enforcement by asking me to snort hard drugs in front of him, or he was just genuinely concerned that my tolerance might be a little too low for his heroin. Nonetheless, I was getting sick and did need to put some opiates in my body sooner rather than later. Black pulled out 3 bundles of heroin, each waxpaper bag meticulously double wrapped in glasinine and then rubber banded in groups of 13 (bundles in Philly are usually a “baker's dozen” - though you only get 12 in most other east coast cities), and tossed them to me, one at a time. What struck me immediately was that despite being incredibly naive to heroin, I recognized the stamp on the bags – it was the same one adorning the bags when I tried heroin for the first time. I did notice, however, that the stamp was in a different color ink.
“Yo I think I've seen these bags before... I've had this 'Playboy' stamp but the ink was a different color.”
“Oh ok, we stamped some of them bags red and some blue, same dope in both of em though.”
“So those were your bags?”
“I mean, most likely, especially if you got 'em in west Philly.”
“Some kid traded them to Andy for coke, no idea where he copped though.”
At that point, Black proceeded to explain to me how the black market economy in which he dealt worked. At some point around 10 years earlier, the major dealers in the city of Philadelphia had essentially divided up the city between roughly 10 dealers, save for an area of north Philly that was referred to as "The Badlands" and was basically one huge, open air drug market, with dealers from all over having their bags for sale somewhere in the area. Black (and his network of dealers) were responsible for everything from the 30th Street bridge, extending west until around 72nd Street. This territory gave them control of the “University City” neighborhood, consisting of three college campuses. They had wanted to capitalize on that market for some time now, but without an insider, getting access to that group of customers is nearly impossible. On the other hand, a young alum who looked like students, spoke like them, and knew the area well, was a gold mine to dealers like Black and Jeff. There were a handful of customers like Andy who were buying OC80s at a fairly regular rate from Black/Jeff, but they knew there was far more money that somebody like me could potentially get them access to.
I ripped open one of the bags that had been handed to me and poured it out on the computer desk in front of me, that I had just helped set up. I chopped it up quickly with a credit card and drew it into three lines before rolling up a dollar bill and inhaling. Yeah, it was good. The first line instantly took my sickness off, and within a minute after snorting the other two lines, I felt a comfortably numb warmth begin in my abdomen and slowly spread throughout my body. It was at that point that I realized the stigma surrounding heroin is largely bullshit and that it's not much different than OC80s. I began to seriously consider switching my drug of choice from OC80s to heroin, though at the time, I was selling enough OC80s that I had no trouble funding my habit. I also found that I enjoyed the high of OC80s slightly more. While all opiates are very similar, there are certainly subtle differences – one being that oxycodone is less sedating than other opiates and actually provides users a “jolt” of energy. Nonetheless, I had heard a lot of talk around that time about the supply of OC80s drying up soon, and I was relieved that a similar alternative was easily available to me. Only later did I realize that I should have taken the opportunity to simply quit at that time.
Things continued as such, with the days and nights blending together in some sort of surreal, opiated dystopia (or was it euphoria?) for quite some time. I was selling both Oxycontin and heroin, but my Oxycontin supply seemed to get smaller every week, and at this point, both myself and a few of my customers had switched to heroin, and were satisfied with the fact that it provided “more bang for your buck.” Things didn't really change until Andy and I essentially got “promoted” in Black's organization. Unfortunately, it wasn't just a promotion. We had been promoted because Jeff fucked up somehow and ended up getting arrested. Black called me the night of the arrest and told me very clearly what was going to be expected of me. The first thing I was going to need to do was post Jeff's bond the following morning. I was incredibly inexperienced when it came to situations like this, but I was determined to get it done without looking like a sheltered idiot in the process.
Up next - Chapter 4: The First Arrest...