Jesse Torres, Schmoo & Foot...

When Tom and I were living together, Tom had a wide circle of neighborhood buds... and as the older folks began moving out of our building, one by one, the apartments were taken by younger single-types... one of Tom's friends, Jimmy C took the apartment directly across the hall from us and was sharing it with another guy, and that was Jesse... More on Jesse when I have time... but Jesse was Cuban and provided the direct connection into that culture.

As for Schmoo and Foot, I became friendly with a dude, Paul, who worked in the New York Times Sports department and he was getting his smoke from Schmoo & Foot. I laid some really special stuff on Paul and before I turned around, he had turned them onto it and they wanted to meet me. Schmoo was a gambler-type, who was into the track and poker... Foot was more of a laid-back doper who was a basically just a real nice guy... But these guys became a connection with yet another circle of 'involved' people...

So... Without getting too deep into it, just take it from me, Jesse was a serious dude with a serious business model. He wasn't the usual hippie-type dealer but was more of a 'do what you say or i'll do what i say' type of guy. In other words, you did not fuck with Jesse. But, on the other hand, he was 100 percent dead-on honest. He always did what he said. He also was one of the most careful people I met in the biz... He was never easily found except when he called you and set up a meet. There was no easy way to reach him so everything was done on faith. And, like most of the characters in this story, he was both a connection and a customer depending on the deal and the situation. He also wasn't a stranger to weapons... I remember him going on trial for murder and getting convicted for some lesser crime. When he came out, about a year later, he had taken on some odd religion and wore only white clothing for the next few years. Did he do it? I never asked him but I never doubted it for a moment.

Schmoo was a big dude. He was probably 6'4" and weighed in around 275. He had a Jewish afro, meaning his hair was red, overgrown and frizzy. Over the years, we made a lot of moves. I remember flying up on National Airlines out of Miami into LaGuardia with Samsonites filled with Columbian Gold. I'd land, get picked up, get dropped off to his place, get paid on the spot and get driven back to LAG with empty suitcases for another run. Now, there was a serious risk involved in these moves and the profit was sort of justified by the risk. I'd be buying the stuff for like $250 a pound down south and getting $325 or $350 up in NY. A suitcase would comfortably hold about 60 pounds so each trip with two suitcases would jump up the cash stash by anywhere from 10-12 grand. When the loads were happening, I could make these trips a couple of times a week. Schmoo & Foot were a real easy exchange both financially and geographically. The place was 10 minutes from the airport. The math worked real well since suddenly, it seemed like the only limit was on the size of the cases.

This was nothing remotely like what happens in an airport today. Back then, you could show up at the airport like 5 minutes before a flight, literally run to the gate and they would practically hold the plane for you. There was no security whatsoever. You didn't even have to show ID. You could pay in cash... Hell... I remember actually not having time to check the bags a few times and the stewardess put them in the front closet of the plane. It was nuts. One time, we were doing something in a small town in Ohio... I put together a group of about 5... spent a grand on luggage, crashed the gate at JFK about 15 minutes before flight time... flew into Dayton, drove to the town which was halfway between Dayton and Columbus... found out the stuff had been sold before we got there... got back in our cars, drove to Columbus... crashed a gate there too... and got on another plane... this was a weird one that I remember because we were 5 people with a bunch of empty suitcases... The flight attendants were all smiles, and possibly knew what was going on... but the cases were empty... we were all flying with phony names... and they just stored them in the closet and off we went. I do remember this particular trip though because one of the stewardesses stopped at my seat about 20 minutes into the flight and seemed all confused... She was like "I could swear I've seen you on one of my flights today but it would have had to have been in Dayton... How could that be?" I just smiled and told her that stewardesses weren't the only people who got around.

Later on, before flying became undoable, but after they started using dogs, we had to be much more careful about how we packed the bags... using dozens of layers of plastic and talcum powder or corn starch... and roll on deodorants between each layer... But eventually, the limitations of suitcases forced the move to cars, trains... and eventually, trucks...

Schmoo had a long-time kidney problem and passed away one night when his only remaining one failed unexpectedly. It was a real lousy ending for a really gentle and beautiful guy. Foot, whose real name was Seth, wound up with MS and I don't know if he's still alive today. It's been 25 years since I heard from him.