It was just around eleven p.m. when I slid up in apartment B-4, at 2733 Holloway Street. “The Grays,” the complex was nicknamed. Directly across the street from “The Key.” Two infamously known, out of the way get money spots in Durham. A lotta Caucasian cliental. But we’ll get to that later. Inside the apartment there was no T.V, no bed, no personal items of any kind. The only furniture in the house was a large round table in the kitchen area. The bag I now carried read Gucci on its side. On the inside, was nine ounces of raw heroin, and twenty thousand cellophane baggies; Black, with the words “Black Magic,” stamped across the front in white. I admit I got the idea for the name from Frank Lucas’ “Blue Magic.” If you remember, Frank had the best heroin in the country at the time. A large flour sifter and digital scales were in the kitchen cabinet. To her dismay, I’d instructed Latifah to drop me off. Her job was finished, for now. I sat down at the window so I’d have a good view of the parking lot when Bubba pulled in. My only faithful girl, Ms. 357, was by my side as always. That’s why I loved her so. She was always down for her man. From the kitchen drawe, I retrieved an ounce of “Loud,” some Dutches, and a pint of Hennessey. The “Loud” I was smoking, was called “Gorilla Orange Willow!” Tamia’s homegirl Neese had brought it back from Cali. She’d stayed in L.A. over the summer wit some cat who was supposed to be an up and coming rapper. During her stay, she’d went and gotten herself a medical marijuana card for her “severe back pain.” Go girl. Now, “Loud” was her hustle. She kept the best shit on deck! Even I, an ounce a day pothead couldn’t smoke more than a half a blunt of that legit shit. To put it shortly, that shit was fire! I took it easy on the tree and the Henny. I wanted to mellow out, not fall out. Twenty - five minutes later, I was high as a motherfucker as I watched Bubba’s charger pull into the parking lot. He called me four times. I didn’t answer. Fifteen minutes later, I hit his phone and told him what apartment.
“Damn nigga. You on some deep cover shit like a motherfucker aint ya?” Bubba smiled as he walked past me into the apartment, followed by Jack and Jill.
“First of all, the nigga in Deep Cover was a pig. I’m not. Secondly, yeah; I’m on some shit, cause that’s how it’s gotta be. Ain’t nobody gonna love me like me.” I told him sternly.
“I feel what you saying bru, but I’m yo nigga if you don’t get no bigger. You can trust me dog.”
“Nigga, if I didn’t at least somewhat trust you, then you wouldn’t be standing in front of me. Now get that morphine out and bring it to the table so we can get started.”
“Gotcha dog.” Bubba laughed as he reached into his North Face booksack and brought out the morphine. It was packaged inside a small black trash bag then wrapped in plastic. The first thing I did, was walk to the kitchen, get the scales and weigh it. It was five hundred and three grams. “You satisfied now dog?” Bubba asked.
“So far. But the night is young. Open it up.” I told him as I watched the hunger sparkle in Jack and Jill’s eyes. My hand rested on my trey pound underneath my shirt. As soon as Bubba had fully unwrapped the morphine base, the smell almost choked me. Bubba laughed like a motherfucker.
“Yes sir. Virgin lungs. You’ll get used to it after a while bru.”
“Yeah, whatever nigga.” I said as I reached into my Gucci bag and came out with the nine ounces of raw boy. The smell of the dope was even stronger than the morphine. Reaching back into my bag I produced four dust masks and four pairs of latex gloves.
“I don’t need none of that.” Jill blurted out pointing to the masks and gloves.
“Me neither.” Jack volunteered right behind her. All I could do was laugh. Dope fiends to the heart. Using a table spoon, I dipped in the bag and weighed out seven grams of the raw boy, bagged it and put it in my pocket. Even with the mask on, I could still smell the dope.
“Aight. Go ahead and do your thing. You fuck my shit up, or if anything seems funny, I’m killing everybody in here.” I announced as I pulled out my 357 and held it at my side.
“Damn dog. What’s up!” Bubba looked at the gun in my hand.
“Nothing personal homeboy. But if this don’t work out to my liking, then nobody leaves here alive but me. If your people as thorough as you say, then you aint go shit to worry about. Right?”
“Yeah, I guess so man. But damn. You gotta have that big fucking gun in your hand? You might make em nervous.” Bubba kept looking from me to my gun.
“They’ll get over it.” I looked over at Jack and Jill, and didn’t know which was the cause of their “deer in the headlights” wide eyes. The sight of all the raw boy, or the size of my 357. Keeping my eyes on everybody, I laid my ratchet down long enough to weigh out 84 grams of the dope and push it to the middle of the table. “Aight go ahead and do ya thing.” I told Jill as she stepped closer to the table.
“Let me put a one on it and see if it can stand it?” Jill asked, still focused on the heroin even though I held a loaded weapon in my hand. One; meaning to cut the dope with the morphine, gram for gram. Say ten grams of morphine for every ten grams of heroin.
“The Haitians said to put a three on it at least. What the fuck you talking about a one.”
“Haitians!” Jack blurted out from across the table.
“Yeah Haitians. That’s who I been fucking wit. Rawest shit on this side of the country. You fuck this up they’ll murder me, so I’m gonna murder you first so my death won’t be in vain. You starting to feel where I’m coming from?” Now everybody’s eyes left the table and focused back on my gun.
“Just chill out baby. I’m forty - one years old, and I been shooting dope since I was sixteen. My mama turned me on. We used to shoot up together. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. We gone cut the dope right sweetie, we just gotta take it one step at a time, okay?”
I looked around the table and everybody was still staring at the gun in my hand. It’s amazing how something only a fraction of the size of a human being demands so much attention. “Aight. That’s what’s up. But put a two on it at least. I’m telling you the shit raw. No more talking, do it. Times wasting.”
Promptly Jill weighed out (7) seven grams of the heroin, and (14) fourteen grams of the morphine. With a sifter and a spoon, she grinded the compressed heroin mixed with the morphine through the screen, until a neat pile lay underneath the sifter on the table.
“I’ll test it!” Jack jumped up like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.
“I don’t give a fuck who test it, but the shit better be right. Bubba you sure it’s good to cut this shit wit morphine?”
“Better than good. The best.” Bubba smiled. From parts unknown to me, Jack whipped out a syringe and began preparing his works. Taking the silver spoon, I scooped a small amount up on the tip, and poured it onto the table in front of Jack. Hurriedly he dashed to the sink and filled the cap of his Old English 800 forty -ounce bottle with cold water, before racing back over to the table. We watched as he mixed and fixed the dope to his liking inside the cap, drew the mixture up into the syringe, then pushed the needle into his vein. Slowly he pulled the stick of the syringe out as we watched it fill with blood, before he eased the stick back in, as the blood left the syringe, disappearing back into his arm. Jack grunted, rocked back and forth, then suddenly his eyes rolled to the back of his head, before he fell face first into the floor, the needle still dangling from his arm! His body shook uncontrollably as if he were being electrocuted! Thick, white foam started to gather at the corners of his mouth and his bowels broke loose, filling the room with the smell of defecation! “Oh shit!” Bubba yelled.
“He overdosed! Get me some ice! Please!” Jill shouted as she fell to her knees beside jack, unbuckled his pants then yanked them down around his ankles! Not wanting this nigga to croak up in this apartment, I rushed to the refrigerator, and luckily there was a tray full of ice! Quick as lightening I returned with the ice and handed it to Jill. “Pour it on him!” Jill screamed as she continuously smacked the shit outta Jack trying to keep him from going into that forever sleep. Reluctantly I dumped the ice onto Jack’s genitals. Immediately Jill lifted Jack’s nutts and started rubbing the ice underneath and around them! “Come on baby! Come on back!” Jill smacked him again as the foam at the corner of his mouth thickened. All that was visible were the whites of his eyes! “Wham!” Her smacks became harder when he still failed to regain consciousness! Fishy smelling, watery shit was oozing out from underneath him. “Wake up now!” Jill smacked the shit outta Jack with one hand and rubbed ice around his balls with the other. Wait! A sparkle! A twinkle in his eye showed itself to Jill, and she smacked him upside his head so hard, and so many times, that knots started to form around his right eye! Slowly he started to come back around, as the vomit that spewed outta his mouth, rolled out and down the side of his face in pink slimy chunks. A long deep breath, then a shiver, and suddenly he closed his eyes as if sleeping, his face showing the happiness of a dope fiend in his nod, although he was still laying in vomit and shit. “Thank god. He came out of it.” Jill stood and wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her hand. “Yeah, you were right. I shoulda put a three on it, cause if you put that out there you gone kill somebody! A body or two is okay. But you start overdosing people in masses, them boys’ wit the three letters on the front of their shirt coming out! And I damn sure aint talking about USA! Jack been shooting dope longer than me. I aint never seen him go out! If it took him down through there like that, that shit is a killer! Cut it again. You’ll still be the boss.”
One look at Jill’s man laying in his own shit and vomit, persuaded me to take her word for it. “Put another half on it. Not a whole. My people said put a three but fuck it, two and a half sounds just as good to me.”
“That’s what the fuck I’m talking bout bru! I hope you ready to get rich dog, because this shit you got right here, is that Grim Reaper! Ay yo, did you see that nigga shit on hisself! Damn who gonna get that nigga up?”
“Nobody right now. Jill get back over to the table and do your thing. Fuck that nigga on the floor, he living. Now I’m trying to live. Get my shit right!” My patience was growing thin. We were in an apartment complex, in East Durham, that was known for producing major paper. Fed time for sure! Drugs “and” weapons! The sight of my pistol as it re-emerged, snapped Jill back into action! She finished in record time. Now came the bagging. I had twenty thousand bags. Pulling out raw dope that I’d separated before cutting it, I bagged up five bags. “Black Magic,” the five bags read across the front. We bagged dope all night after that. It was my first-time bagging heroin, so I really didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. But round about daybreak, I started to get in the groove; of the scoop, dump, and seal the bag method. We stopped at 500 bundles. The sun was coming up. It was Saturday so I didn’t have to go to work. “Aight that’s good for now. Bubba hold down the spot for me till I get back, and get that shitty nigga up outta my floor. Jill, you come ride wit me.”
“How long you gone be gone dog?”
“A couple hours maybe. Why? You got somewhere you trying to slide off to?” I answered his question with a question, with obvious suspicion in my tone.
“Nah nigga. Just wondering how long I gotta sit up in her with all this dope.”
“All what dope! Nigga this aint shit, man the fuck up! You screaming you ready to get rich, but you ain’t willing to put in the leg work to get there! I thought you been getting money nigga!”
“Look man, I’m on my shit. But no I aint never been around this much dope at one time. Not to mention the fact, that I’m up here in The Bull City. Unknown territory. Shit nigga, for all I know, my crazy ass baby mama Shica might be setting me up for you to blow my shit out! You got questions for me, I answer. But damn bru it looks like I keep being the one left hanging out on a limb.” His story sounded weak but yet I knew he meant it. I read people easily. A gift and a curse.
“Nigga just stay here till I get back. If you leave, you know I’ll have to hunt you down and kill you. I’ll be at yo mamas house before you get back to Wilmington.”
“Come on bru. You aint gotta talk about my mama. I aint no snake nigga.”
“I’m just joking nigga.” I smiled. But I was dead fucking serious.
“Man, just hurry up back.”
“Yeah. Now get that nigga up outta my floor.”
As soon as Jill and I left the apartment, we headed out on a mission. The only thing I had with me, were the first five bags I’d bagged up. Raw. I pulled one out of my pocket and admired its craftiness. “Black Magic” the bag read. The only black bag with white writing in Durham, I’d investigated and confirmed in the streets. This guaranteed that nobody could try and duplicate my shit. It would take them entirely too long to find this type of bag. Jill’s assignment for the night was simple. Find the fiends, hand out one bag of the raw boy, then get ghost. Our first stop was
in North Durham. Heroin central. Calvin Street to be exact. Which was right around the corner from the infamous Canal Street. I dropped her off, circled the block watching as she interacted with the people of the night, then swung back around and picked her up. We made four more stops that night. McDougald Terrace Housing projects, the West-End, right off of Kent Street. Hoover Road over in East Durham and a small shooting gallery on the Southside. When we finished, we hightailed it back to the apartment, and packed up all the shit. I gave Jack and Jill three bundles a piece, and broke Bubba off two stacks straight outta my pocket. I told Bubba to leave his car, and I put them in a cab to the Red Roof Inn on Guess Rd. “Don’t ask me no questions, I’ll hit you tonight Bubba, just be ready.” As soon as they left I called a cab of my own, and headed to my stash house on Ross Road. I’d rented it from a friend of Tika’s. A man. Young. White. I didn’t ask no questions, and neither did he. This house held a living room suit, a T.V., and a bed in one of the two bedrooms. King size. I smoked a half a blunt while watching House Wives of Atlanta, with the Gucci bag full of tomorrow’s destiny lying on the floor beside me. I fell asleep with the blunt still burning. Luckily it was a Dutch and put itself out. I was tired as fuck.