It may not have been a foolproof scheme, but as long as no one acted like a fool, it might as well have been. Or so said the Pontiff, who promoted his business with a cheekiness bordering on the absurd—not even his most addled customers could forget the toll-free number he provided to them: 1-212-GET-WEED.
My new job.
“I’m a drug dealer, Tana. No one wants to hang out with their drug dealer.”
“Good point,” she concedes, curling into another yoga position. “I guess you’re destined to be friendless and alone, except for me.”
“You’re going back to school.”
“You could always get arrested. Three words for you: Hot. Prison. Sex.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” I say, sliding off the desk. “Speaking of work…” I toss her a gentleman’s quarter. She opens it and inhales the bouquet. “For your uncle Marvin. Don’t pinch too much.”
“Uh, I’m leaving tomorrow morning? I’m not exactly going to see him before I go.”
“Then give it back.”
Tana’s face goes pouty. “You don’t even like weed,” I say.
“I don’t. Usually. But Glenn said something about wanting to get high….”
“Why didn’t you say so? Consider it my donation to your erotic well-being. I’ll get Marvin another bag.”
“You see that?” she says, slipping the grass into her makeup bag. “That, my friend, is good karma. You just sit back and watch. The universe is going to reward you.”
4
NOT MEETING PEOPLE ISN’T THE ONLY THING standing between me and a social life. There’s also the fact that I’m still living at home.
My parents drove to Niagara Falls to pick me up from the hospital. We returned home in relative silence, which was fine by me; at least there weren’t any questions about Daphne. By the time we were pulled into the driveway, I’d decided that I could tolerate a week or two under their roof. Just enough time to get me back into the game.
But what game? As my wounds healed and my restlessness grew, I made two disturbing discoveries: (1) the U wasn’t in any hurry to take me back, given how badly I’d slacked off during my last semester there; and (2) I was an untouchable, at least as far as Nassau County’s food service industry was concerned. The events at Hempstead had turned me into a local celebrity. And while many free drinks flowed my way, the job offers did not. Only my old boss at Carvel, where I worked my senior year in high school, took mercy on me when I agreed to work for minimum wage. Which wasn’t going to rent me living quarters that didn’t have the name “Projects” attached to it.
I quit Carvel the night I returned from my orientation with Rico. In a couple of weeks, I’ll have enough saved up to find a place of my own. Maybe even in the city, like I’d boasted to Marvin.
But I need a story to tell my parents. Too risky to lie about a restaurant job—the city’s close enough for a surprise visit. I decide to tell them I’ve found steady work as an office temp. Which means smiling a lot while my mother, bursting with joy at her newfound ability to use “my son” and “office” in the same sentence, drags me to the mall and forces a whole new wardrobe upon me. And she wakes up early Monday morning to make me breakfast, meaning I damn well have to wear it. I’m pretty sure I will be the only weed dealer in the tristate area rocking business-casual.
By the time I get to the city for my first day flying solo, the pager’s already buzzing. “Pick-Up’s at the Fifty-Ninth Street Station, near the newsstand. Meet-Up is at the Engineers’ Gate, Ninetieth and Fifth Avenue. Young lady. Look for Lycra.”
I think I’m going to like this job.
The problem, when I get to the gate, is an embarrassment of riches. Every third or fourth person is a woman under thirty wearing Lycra, Upper East Side runners toning their glutes on the loop around the Central Park Reservoir. My eyes finally settle on the one who isn’t running.
She’s a few years older than me, maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven. Fair skin, short blonde hair, and breasts that, while not huge, still demand attention. Expensive running shoes. Maybe a young lawyer. A kept wife. The schoolteacher-daughter of some captain of industry.
In any case, my first customer.
“Are you him?” she asks.
“I hope so,” I reply, making a mental note to thank my mother for getting me out of the house in something other than jeans and a T-shirt.
“You don’t look like a drug dealer.”
“Who said I was a drug dealer?” Never admit you’re a dealer, Rico had warned me. You let them establish intent to sell, and you might as well be handing them the keys to your cell.
She sighs. “No, no, yes, no, yes.”
“What’s that?”
“The answers to the questions you’re about to ask me.”
“You’ve done this before.”
“Yes,” she says, bouncing impatiently on her toes. “Have you?”
“Can you tell it’s my first day on the job?”
“Congratulations. Can we get this over with? I’m expected home.”
She pulls the money out of her shoe. I hand her the bag. She slides it into the back of her pants and jogs away. So much for meeting new friends on the job.
MY NEXT MEETING IS ON Wall Street, a straight shot down-town on the 2. Joseph slithers past me on the train between Chambers and Fulton, slipping a bag into my jacket. I emerge from the station into a light rain with ten minutes to spare. Taking shelter in a doorway, I watch the thousand-dollar suits, water beading and rolling off their gelled hair as they yammer into portable telephones. I root for lightning.
Ten minutes past the appointed meeting time, I notice a kid my age who could have been me. A much douchier version of me. His hair is slicked back like the rest of the Yuppies, but his suit gives him away: It’s an off-the-rack version of the standard uniform. He tries to make eye contact with me, so I give him a half-nod.
“Hey,” he says. “You looking for Danny?”
“That depends,” I ask. “Are you Danny?”
“Maybe. Why?”
“Because then I’d know that I wasn’t looking for you,” I say. “Guy I’m meeting’s supposed to be wearing Armani.”
“Take it easy, Dockers,” he says, insulting the pants my mother bought for me. Now I really don’t like this guy. “Danny’s in his office. He told me to come find you.”
I angle myself toward the subway, ready to run—another one of Rico’s suggestions. “The proxy is like a red alert,” he told me, surprising me with his use of the word “proxy.” “Nobody is so lazy that he ain’t gonna pick up his own shit, you know what I mean?” On the other hand, the police, in Rico’s experience, were more than capable of “these kinds of subterfuges.”
I tell him that I don’t know any Dannys.
“Danny Carr,” he insists. “He said there’s a Benjamin in it for you if you come up to his office.”
Oddly enough, the offer of extra money is actually a positive sign that this isn’t a setup. Another Ricoism: The police can’t make a case against someone they bribe into committing a crime. “Why would I want to come up to his office?”
He holds out his palms and shrugs. “Working for Danny means doing what he asks you to do when he asks you to do it. Or as Danny says, why is not a component of my job.”
“My heart bleeds for you. But I don’t work for Danny.”
“Neither will I if you don’t follow me back up there. Come on. A hundred bucks for, like, ten extra minutes of work.”
I look for any other suspicious signs. Like I’d know. “Are you a cop?” I ask per the standard script.