I Open My Own Candy Store...

This digression coincided with my engagement to Cheri. I was saving up to buy her an engagement ring but it was taking a long time. I wasn’t a math genius but I knew more from less. I could buy a pound of pot for $130, divide it into 16 ounces, sell the ounces for $15 each and make $100 on top of whatever I smoked. So… I took the ring money, bought a pound, and discovered a few things very quickly. First, 15 ounces were gone as fast as I could weigh them. Second, my $130 was suddenly $220. Third, the stuff was much better than anything Tom had been smoking. A week later, I had Cheri’s ring, my original $130 and more smoke than I could use in a month. From little things, big things are born.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html

Okay… getting back to 1969… So I was working at the paper, engaged to be married to a terrific young woman, smoking my way through a happy little life when things started to come apart. I had the ring, was doing a good job at work, and suddenly a lot of things stopped making sense. I was making nearly $20,000 a year which, in 1969, was actually a lot of money for a 22 year old kid from Astoria. The rent on the apartment was only $85 and I was splitting it with Tom. I had bought a brand new, bright yellow, little Fiat 850 Spider for $2100. I had gotten my BA in June. And then there was a change of philosophy at the Times. Instead of promoting from within the ranks, they began to hire laterally, bringing in prize-winning talent from other papers. This meant that I was an extreme long shot to become a reporter at the Times.

Now the New York Times was then and probably still is the pinnacle of printed journalism. They had the highest pay scale and the most respect of any newspaper in the world. In the normal world, an aspiring journalist would start at a small town paper and work his way through the ranks, gaining experience and following a career path. But this wasn’t the normal world. I had started working there while I was still at City College and been promoted several times. I was writing the weather, the Sunday society blurbs and the obituaries on occasion. But now the promotion to reporter was unlikely. As Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters were hired from other papers, I realized that I was looking at a long-term future as a News Assistant. And I looked around the newsroom, seeing a host of disillusioned people. There was a good reason why most reporters kept bottles of scotch in their desks. The world was passing them by, both literally and figuratively. They were at the center of the most renowned newspaper in the world, working for more money than they could ever hope to make at another paper. Those who were married with families were basically locked into dead-end journalism jobs. There were more copy-editors at the Times than most papers have reporters. Hell, there were more Editors at the Times than most papers have on staff as reporters. If I wanted to become a reporter somewhere else, it meant moving out of New York, making less money as a reporter than I was making as a News Assistant, and leaving the New York scene.

And as the weeks went by, and I became more and more involved in the after hours scene, it became harder and harder to come to work each day so I could edit the casualty lists. The people I was hanging out with were just as interesting as the ones in the newsroom.

So I gave Cheri the ring. We set a date. And I just kept partying on. In the back of my mind, remembering Beanie, I really wanted to go to Jamaica for a honeymoon. Sure… whatever you want Steve… We’ll have a great time…

In the meantime, Tom and his friends kept asking me to get them smoke. Even though there wasn’t a drought anymore, they wanted my pot for a simple reason; it was just better. Before I knew it, I was bringing home a pound from school, heading off to work, and would eventually come home to a small pile of cash. Tom would weigh it, give it to his friends and leave me a little bag with an ounce and a few hundred bucks to boot. A month later, I was making the same $350 a week at the Times but making another $350 for basically doing nothing.

I remember the first time I drove home a pound. I went up to Kenny K’s apartment in the Bronx. Walking in, I saw people hanging out in a smoky daze all over the place. Kenny brought out a duffle bag, dug in, and filled a bag with the stuff. He had an Ohaus Triple Beam Scale and when he hit 454 grams, he sealed it up and gave it to me. “Look around.” He said. “This stuff is much better than anything you’ve ever had.” And I looked around, and saw that everyone was dazed. “This stuff came back from Nam.” And “Don’t smoke too much at once.” And “It comes on long after you stop.” And “Don’t smoke it now because you have to drive home with it.”

So I paid Kenny, slipped out for the drive back to Astoria. I put the bag in my trunk and get into the car. The second I pull out of the spot, a police car comes down the block and is behind me. I’m freaking out. Oh my God… Oh my God… Please don’t bust me…

And, when I got to the corner, turned right, the cops kept on straight. Now all the way home, I’m thinking about this. If I don’t tell anyone that I have something in my car, what are the odds they could figure it out? Have I ever been stopped before? No. Why should I be stopped now? No real reason unless I screw up. In other words, I was in charge of what happened. It wasn’t about the cops, it was about me. Just be cool and this didn’t have to be dangerous…. After that, I stopped taking the stuff home on the subway.