on his heels.
“What I tell you about walkin’ in my crib like that, huh?” asked Wink.
“I ain’t try’na hear that shit. What’s up? Y’all niggas ready to hit the rock?” asked Krazy, walking around Wink.
You could look in Krazy’s eyes and see where he got his nickname. He tried to live up to his name every chance he got. He was always down for everything.
“Why you not dressed, Wink?” asked Willie.
“He says he’s not going,” informed Trey.
“What? Why not?” asked Willie.
“He wants to be the next Butch Jones,” Trey said, hitting up on the magazine.
“Now, this what we ’pose to be doing,” said Krazy. He picked up one of the rocks. He was all too familiar with the sky-blue clear pack. He had found a thousand empty ones just like it lying around his house. His moms was strung out on crack.
“Not you too,” said Trey.
“You know how much money these niggas is out there making? All the other crews gettin’ money except us. We the only ones still runnin’ around doing the same shit we was doing last summer,” said Wink.
“You ain’t gotta tell me, my nigga. I already know the business,” said Krazy.
“Can we kick it about this later after we come from the picnic?” asked Trey.
“Y’all go ’head. I gotta take care of something,” said Wink.
“Yo, Wink, I’m with you, my nigga. Make sure you put me down,” said Krazy.
“Me too,” said Willie, always one to follow along. There were leaders and followers. Willie belonged to the latter group.
“What about you?” Wink asked Trey.
“I’ma see what’s up,” Trey said, not wanting to seem soft in front of the crew.
Wink walked them to the door and gave them all pounds. “Tomorrow, come through and we gon’ chop it up on how we gon’ get this money.”
“Stay up, my nigga,” they all said.
Wink watched as they piled into Trey’s mom’s Civic and peeled off. He hoped Trey would eventually come around once he saw how easy it was to make the money. Trey was his best friend, and Wink wanted him by his side, making money too. They were both spoiled rotten by their moms. Only difference was Wink had more heart. He was willing to try his hand at new things, while Trey just wanted to continue being spoiled and ride around flossing in his mom’s car. But Wink felt it was time to grow up and start holding they own nuts. So, in order to get them up and running, he’d have to be the one to show his crew the ropes. The only problem was he had to learn the game himself.
Wink looked across the street at Ms. Bowers’ house. All her grandkids were drug dealers out there pumpin’ for J-Bo, and in return, J-Bo would hit Ms. Bowers off with a cut of the money made. Her crib sat in the center of the block, directly across the street from Wink’s house. Ms. Bowers’ crib was the central office of all the drug activities. Her grandchildren would stand in the driveway, making sales as customers pulled up. They stashed their dope sacks on the sides of houses in empty potato chip bags or under any other garbage, so if the raid team pulled up, nobody would be found with drugs in their possession.
Wink was catching on quick. It was time to test his hand at pitching. He went inside the house to grab the ten dime rocks he’d bought from Ms. Bowers’ grandson, Cedd, the night before. Wink was trying to buy some weight, but nobody would sell him any. They knew he was green to the game, so Cedd made him pay like he owed the game. He charged Wink one hundred dollars for ten dime rocks, no deal, no nothin’. Straight up dollar for dollar. Wink couldn’t argue because he didn’t even know what type of deal he wanted, and all he had was a little over a hundred dollars to his name. For real, Wink didn’t care about making a profit. He just wanted the experience of being out there on the block, pitching. The money would come later, he told himself.
Hope, Wink’s mom, was at work and would be until midnight, so he had all day to scratch the block. He locked up the house and started down the stairs. Crackheads were pulling up on the block left and right, copping and going. Cedd and his brother, Small-man, had the block on lock. Cedd would line the cars up like it was a fast food joint. He’d wave each car forward, taking the money first, then hand signaling Small-man their order. They had the shit moving like an assembly line out that mothafucka.
Wink already knew posting up in front of Ms. Bowers’ crib was out of the question. He had to find his own spot to set up shop. Wink walked up the block while watching the constant traffic. The majority of the customers were white people coming all the way down from the suburbs to get those little white-and-yellow rocks that everybody was going crazy over. Wink wondered exactly how much money each one of them crackers was spending. For them to drive a country mile, he knew they weren’t spending no ten or twenty dollars.
At the corner of 7 Mile and Charest sat an old automotive shop. Out of all the years Wink had been living on Charest, he had never once seen the shop open, so he figured it would be the best place to set up shop. He dug inside his pocket and pulled out the quarter-size bag of ranch Ruffles where he had the ten rocks. He scanned the side of the shop for a stash spot, then put the bag inside the aged mailbox and walked up to the bus stop. After watching the traffic for a few days, Wink knew every customer by face and car, so it wouldn’t be hard to spot them when they drove past.
A matter of seconds passed before he recognized a battered burgundy pickup. Wink flagged the white man down before he could turn the corner.
“Woo, I got you right here. What you need, my man?” asked Wink.
“Since when y’all start doing things up here?” asked the older white man as he suspiciously looked Wink over a few times.
“Things change every day. You coppin’ or what?” Wink shot back at the man while leaning inside the passenger-side window.
The man unfolded a fifty-dollar bill and said, “I don’t want no funny business.”
“You gonna get the same stuff you been getting. Just pull over in the alley right there.” He raced over to the mailbox and poured five rocks into the palm of his hand. He tossed the bag back inside the box and rushed around to the back of the shop.
“Here you go,” he said, handing the man his order.
“Looks the same. A’ight, see you later,” the man said, pulling away.
Wink was so geeked that he had to take another look at the fifty-dollar bill. His first sale in the game, and it was for fifty dollars. He thought about having it framed ’cause he knew there’d be plenty more where that came from.
Two more cars turned the corner. Wink let the first car pass and flagged the blue Fiesta down.
“Pull in the alley,” Wink said, waving his hand.
“In the alley? You bet’ not be try’na rob me, ’cause I’ma fight ’bout mine’s,” the no-teeth, nappy-neck woman said before she buzzed into the alleyway.
“What you got, baby girl?” Wink asked, leaning into the driver-side window.
“Twenty. Make sure they’re two nice ones,” she said, handing Wink a sweaty twenty.
He looked at the faded bill on his way to the mailbox and wondered how many hands that same bill went through already. He tucked the money in his pimp pocket on his Guess jeans and then raised the lid on the box. He hadn’t seen J-Bo approaching the block, coming from Gallagher Street. Wink closed the mailbox and walked around back to the alley.
“Thank you, baby,” said the woman. She didn’t waste no time packing her pipe and taking a hit right there in the alley.
Wink watched the woman’s reactions like a first grader at the zoo. Her eyes bucked the size of silver dollars, as she held the smoke in for as