One Day In The Life Of A Drug Dealer (well, pot)

At 9am I’m writing a screenplay about this girl named robyn smith who witnessed a murder as a child then found out her boyfriend was the gay lover of the sheriff’s son, the sheriff’s son she swore had committed the murder she witnessed as a child in Lake Charles Louisiana, and that her boyfriend had only been dating her for two years to find out how much she actually remembered of the murder to protect his gay lover… the sheriff’s son.  That’s what my screenplay was about…

KNOCK KNOCK

I put my coffee down and unlock the door and in comes this dude that I don’t know his name.  All I know is he came highly recommended by a usual of mine.  He walks in with a pricey suit, a goofy smile and a bag full of stupid jokes.

“Anyway… I’m only here for a couple days till I head back to Prague so I don’t need that much.”

He plops down almost a thousand dollars.  Two days?  You need a thousand dollars worth of pot for two days?

I broke out my jars, opened the lid of one of them, held it upside down… none of the pot moved or fell out…

And this, is Silver Haze.

Then to the next jar, I pull out a christmas tree nug and held it up like the lonesome pine tree–

And this, is Northern Lights–

–I’ll take that, that nug.

This is my display nug.  It’s not for sale.

[laughing] you’ve got a display nug.

[serious] yes.

It made you wanna buy it, didn’t it?

You won’t sell that?

Nope…. It’s my display nug.

I put it on the scale anyway.  It’s 1.5oz. So it would be roughly $900.

[for everyone that has never bought an ounce of pot… $900 is a TREMENDOUS markup… but those were my prices]

Here’s a thousand.  For your display nug.

I can’t man.  I need this nug.

I’ll be back.  I come to New York every month.

It’s not that…

Here’s a $1,100.

Sold.  To the man who offered me over one grand for one nug.

Before he left he said to me… Oh.  I’ve got another friend in town.  He’s a really good guy.  can I give him your number?

Does he have a job?

Yes.

Does he look presentable?

Yes.

Is he married?

Kind of.

How old is he?

Forty-two.

Sure, give him my number.

So some other dude calls me.  He’s at The Ritz Carlton on the 23rd floor.

I put a few jars, Silver Haze, Sweet Island and Northern Lights, into my backpack and put on a collared shirt and comb my hair and grab my ice coffee and head out to third avenue to hail a cab.

The doorman let’s me in.  I speak to no one as I walk past the concierge.

Does this kid have a room here?

Nope.

I get in the elevator… don’t come in don’t come in don’t come in… and fuck.  Someone else gets in.  I’m now officially that guy in the elevator that obviously has pot but we speak nothing about it.

Have a wonderful day I demand him to have as I exit the elevator to the 23rd floor and wander down till I find room 2308.

KNOCK KNOCK.

An immaculate man greets me to his immaculate room and his immaculate British wife… who turns out to not be his wife.  Everything is immaculate.  There is a glass bar by the king size bed.  It looks like a scene from Pretty Woman.

Welcome!  I’m Todd, this is Samantha.

Hello.

Hi there.

I look around.

So uhhh…. you two on vacation?

He looks at me with vigor and delivers a powerful line…

We’re on a World Tour Bender.

Silence..

Smiles.

Pause.

What the fuck does that mean?

What do you drink? [as she is already prepping my glass]

Umm… scotch.

Give him that smoky blend, you like smoky?  Five trillion dollars a bottle…

and she places a glass in front of me.  It’s 11AM.

So what’s a world tour bender?

WE JUST SOLD A COMPANY!  Do you want some food?  Cocaine?  Water?

Umm… Sure.

So here I am sitting with a line of coke, some chocolate cherries, expensive scotch and a glass of water on the 23rd floor of the Ritz Carlton in a fabulous room with a couple that is on a World Tour Bender… whatever the fuck that means.

So you two are from England?

Oh no.  She’s from London but lives in Switzerland and I live in Shanghai.

Oh.

So what’d you bring?

I lay out my three jars.

Holy shit!  Wow.  I remember back when I was… Jeez… Where’d you get this stuff?  Oh wait, that’s not an appropriate question, right? Sorry.  How much?

How much do you want?

He spreads out over two thousand dollars of fifties and twenties all over the glass table my cocaine, scotch and water and chocolate cherries are on.

I’m there for about an hour talking to them about life while sniffing cocaine, celebrating their world tour bender with them then I leave with another two grand or so.

I hop in another cab.

East Village.  13th and 2nd.

I get to a door.

KNOCK KNOCK

A flamboyant gay artist opens the door.  His apartment is flooded with ironic but not ironic art installations.  He hates small talk, and hates decisions.  He wants to know all about the different qualities each strain has, then he wants me to make a decision for him.

Well, you’ll like them all.  Cause they are all the best pot in New York.  But just to diversify your portfolio, take one ounce of Sweet Island and a half ounce of both Silver and Northern.

Done.

Deal.

Bye.

Gone.

I hop in another cab.

TriBeCa.

I get to a high-rise building.

I take the elevator up pretty high and arrive at a Silicon Valley-esque office with about twenty employees and two kingpins.  The CEO has invented two websites that everybody knows about.  He’s a fucking asshole and tells me to sit at his desk.

When is everyone going on lunch?

Oh they’re fine.

Are they?  Let’s just keep this quick.  What do you want?

Just one.

I’d give you my presentation… but I can’t right now.  Not with everyone here.

Give me something good.  The best shit you have.

I’ll give you Sweet Island.

What’s that?

Pot.

Whatever, how much?

$600.

No way.

We have this conversation every week.  I told you I’d shave off a hundred bucks if you came to me.

Aright fuck it.  Just give it to me, but this better be fucking incredible.

I hand him a pre-packaged, vacuum sealed ounce, take his money, and leave his arrogant office.

I hop in another cab to go back home and eat lunch.  It’s 2PM.  The coke high is gone, I’m still a little buzzed and I’m hungry.

After I make my lunch there’s a knock at my door.

In comes a bald man in his early forties with a leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet.

Just sold EVERY SINGLE BRITNEY SPEARS TICKET.  EVERY FUCKING ONE.  DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THAT MEANS? $700,000 GRAND.  OFF ONE FUCKING DEAL.

The guy always talked a mile a minute.  I wasn’t in the mood.

Awesome.  The usual?

Yeah.  And package it better this time man, I was meeting with Randy Phillips and— you know Randy Phillips?  CEO of AEG?— anyway, big fucking deal, dude’s huge… runs Madison Square Garden and every other fucking major venue you know, anyway— what was I saying?

You were saying I was awesome.

Right.  Just pack it good.

So he leaves and I eat then head to the bar across the street from my apartment, where I’ve assemble five people that all wanna meet at the same time and tell them all to meet me at a bar and put the money in a manilla envelope.  None of them know about the other, they all think we are meeting alone.

So I get to the bar and sit down at a table for seven and one by one, each person shows up.  The owner of a retail store.  A stock broker. An animator for Sony. A civil litigation attorney and an old waiter/actor friend of mine that just got off work.  I waive them all over to the table.

Hey guys.  So everyone buy one drink.  You don’t have to drink it, but you have to order it, one person has to stay and have a drink with me, I’m gonna put five envelopes on the table, they each have your order and your first initial on it, and you place your envelope with the money in it on the table at the same time, we all take our respective envelopes and act like it’s business as usual.  Got it?

Cool.

The stock broker says

I’ll get the round, what’s everyone want?

I end up with another scotch.

Everyone eventually disperses and I head back to my apartment to dump money in the safe and re-up my supply.

Then it’s back to a cab.

It’s 5PM.

Stuyvesant Town please.

Where?

Like 14th and First.

So I enter an apartment that has been converted into a full fledged photography studio.  This guy never wants me to leave.  I think he’s hitting on me.  But I was never sure.  Anyway-  He brings over a bottle of scotch, as he always did since he knew I loved scotch and he loved scotch and he loved hosting and he never wanted to talk business for at least an hour after chit chat and he kept topping my glass off and eventually by 6PM I’m fuckin drunk.  I sell him the pot finally and stumble to a cab.

128th and Fifth please.

So I enter Harlem.

I get out in a fairly intimidating part of town and go into a shitty apartment. Ironically, this is my biggest client.

I walk into a disgusting room with bongs everywhere and five dudes playing video games.  I lay out two pounds of pot.  He’s one of my wholesalers.  There is a stack of money laying on the table, which is covered with leftover diner bags and sodas and joint roaches and all sorts of sticky disgusting shit.  I grab the money.

It’s short two hundred but I’ll get it to you… I don’t know.  Next week.

Cool.

What’d you give me?

A pound of Sweet Island, a half pound of Northern Lights and a half pound of Silver Haze.

So the Sweet Island is the worst?

Dude was onto my tricks.

Nah.  It’s lighter.  For a breezier day.  Smells wonderful.  Lots of orange, everyone’ll love it.  I just figured everyone has Northern Lights and Silver Haze… this suits you better.

He knew I was full of shit.  Sweet Island was absolutely the worst.  But it was still awesome.  Anyway, I leave his place and it’s dark out.

I’m not in a good neighborhood.

I’m looking for a cab but there are no cabs.

Fuck…

I walk down to another avenue… which is a far walk when you are a walking robbery target.  A black car pulls up… one of the Lincoln cabs.

Where you goin?

How much to get to 35th and third?

Oh. Nah.  Goin to the Bronx.

And he peels off.

Fuck.

I had to go to the next avenue heading South, the ave I was on was Northbound.

I walk into my apartment around 8:30PM exhausted and drunk.

Five more texts come to my phone.

It would be 3AM by the time I was done with everyone.  I had to be in Jersey City at 10AM the next day with two more pounds for my other wholesaler.

For years I lived every day like this.

Every five weeks I went back to that small town in Colorado to grab another bunch of pounds.  Every day between those five weeks was filled with days like this.

I started a concert promotion company to launder my money, got so strung out I moved all the way down to Midwood, a small town in Brooklyn.

Finally, I woke up at 4AM one day in a heap of sweat.

I needed something to change and I needed it to change fast.  I had put together around $80,000 in cash, stashed in a small safe in a massive apartment which I occupied all alone in Brooklyn and certainly did NOT need.

I bought a one-way ticket to San Diego, packed a backpack, grabbed a couple grand, got in a cab at 4:45AM and headed toward the airport.  I had no idea where I was going to stay or what I was going to do or why I was going.

I just needed to change my life.

But how did I even end up here?  

First, Read The Prequel…