4.

  Johnny was standing on his backyard’s patio, holding a bottle of champagne he grabbed from his parent’s wine rack, “Is everyone having a great time?” Johnny said as he popped the cork of it with his boy scout pocket knife. The cork flew through the air citing a cheer everyone cheered and the bubbly rained down over Johnny. He brought the bottle to his mouth and tilted it up, taking at least three gulps as he made his way across his lawn. Everyone was at his party, well, not everyone. Tabby was busy at some shitty Sophmore party. The most potent stuff there, save for Johnny’s weed, was probably a six pack of Camper Lite some kid lifted from his parent’s fridge. This was a senior party, and seniors knew how to party. The wine and weed flowed free at Johnny Vincent’s. Eddy was able to get his hands on two bottles of Luksusowa, the big ones. Danny brought his standard minimum of two twelve packs of Camper Light, Kenny came with a big plate of brownies, enough for everyone interested to enjoy. Thanks to the social networking of the biggest pot dealers in school, the party was very well stocked in the movers and shakers of Reagan high, and a good deal of women. Johnny continued to take glugs from the champagne bottle as Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand boomed on his boom box.

  Johnny looked over the moderately impressive social circle his little business venture had been able to cultivate for him. He saw Tracy from Mr. Bergman’s class, talking to one of the baseball players. After she was finished flirting with him, Johnny approached her.

  “Tracy? Holy shit! You’re in that crazy business class with me.”

  “Johnny! Oh my god how are you!” she said, clearly already drunk and also high, “Have you had one of Kenny’s brownies, oh my god, they taste so good, you can’t even tell there’s pot in them!”

  “I did,” Johnny said, “They were delightful,” Johnny said, laughing with his classmate.

  “This is an awesome party, almost as good as Baseball team rager,” Tracy said.

  “Thanks,” Johnny said, begrudgingly accepting the compliment of comparison, “Hey, is umm, that Gretchen girl here? With the glasses, and the bangs, you didn’t happen to tell her about this, did you?”

  “Gretchen? The square? No way, she would hate this,” Tracy rolled her eyes.

  “I think it would good for her, she looks like she could use a chance to unwind,” Johnny said, “She would probably be cool if she just unwound a little,” Johnny said looking away.

  “Oh my god, do you like Gretchen?” Tracy slapped Johnny’s shoulder.

  “What? I mean, come on, I mean, she seems cool, like bookish and smart and, umm, yes, yes I do like Gretchen, don’t tell her, please god don’t tell her,” Johnny said.

  “Oh, I’m going to tell her,” Tracy said.

  “What! No god, please don’t!” Johnny said.

  Tracy laughed, “Relax, I’m not going to tell her, why would I care, you do whatever you feel like you want to do,” Tracy’s speech was slurred, and Johnny hoped she would have enough to drink tonight to forget that entire conversation. Luckily it was interrupted by Rob collapsing into the pool.

  Danny yelled, “Holy shit!” as he watched some other guys from the football team pull him out of it. Johnny ran to the pool and saw Rob’s eyes rolled into the back of his head.

  “What the fuck is wrong with him?” Johnny asked Danny.

  “It’s okay, It’s okay,” a member of the team reassured him, “He’s just on ecstasy,” Danny said.

  “Who the fuck brought ecstasy?” Johnny asked.

  “Shirtless Ron,” Danny said as he looked Johnny and shrugged.

  “What the fuck is Shirtless Ron doing here?” Johnny asked.

  Shirtless Ron graduated from Reagan high in the previous year at the tender age of twenty. Before Johnny had emerged into the market, if you wanted the good shit, you came to Shirtless Ron. He was called Shirtless Ron because anytime anyone had seen him outside of school, he wouldn’t be wearing a shirt. He was proud of his modest abs and nipple piercings, and he wanted everyone to know it. People still talked about the time that shirtless Ron showed up to class in a mesh tank top. The faculty tried to get him to go home, but by using loopholes in the binary gendered school’s dress code, he was able to game the system and prove his attire was allowed. While they still made him change into a UCLA sweatshirt from the lost and found, he made a compelling case and became a legend amongst the female students who always felt oppressed by Reagan High’s fascist dress code.

  “Eddy invited him. I’m sorry, we all thought he would just bring some weed, we didn’t know he would bring E.”

  “Well, as long as no one drowns and the police don’t get involved I don’t think I can get angry,” Johnny said smiling at Danny, “Hard to get angry at a party this great.”

  After a few hours, the party died down. Near the end of the night, Johnny found himself smoking a bong with Eddy, Danny, Tristan, Teddy, Kenny, Alex, and Hector. All of them were at least familiar with one another, as most people in the same line of work usually are. Except for Teddy, these were the biggest collection of pot connections in Reagan high.

  They sat at the glass patio table across from Johnny’s pool.

  “Man, this is some good shit Johnny, you got the best shit man,” Eddy said.

  Johnny took a drag off the bong, “That means a lot man, especially coming from you, your shit is great,” Johnny said after exhaling a line of smoke.

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  “You’ve smoked my shit?” Eddy said.

  “Oh yeah, you don’t remember, I needed some stuff one night, and Colorado takes a fucking week to get supply to me, you helped me out man, you don’t remember that? That weekend my parents went to Cabo, my dad signed some girl who was in some show, so they celebrated, I was still waiting on a delivery, and I was out of stuff, and you fucking delivered right to me, that shit was awesome man.”

  “Glad to help,” Eddy smiled, “Just wish I could have brought some of this shit too you, probably could have charged more.”

  “Yeah you probably could have, you could have,” Johnny laughed, “You know what, My contact can get me more shit, maybe I could like sell that to you guys, and then we could all have the good shit I get.”

  “Everyone would love us if we did that,” Danny said.

  “They would,” Johnny said, “I mean, all of us combined, are probably supplying more than half the school. We should all like, get together, all get the best shit and combine our forces and take over the market. Danny, you go to detention all the time, you got your market there, Alex, you’re in with the goth kids they smoke a ton, and people go to them to get a connection to you, we could take over the whole market, and Tristan, Hector, I say this in the most politically correct way possible but you know all the other at-risk kids, and they all smoke a shit ton don’t they?”

  Tristian nodded his head, “Yeah they do, I can’t take offense from something true,” he said.

  “What if we all worked together, bought in bulk, got our prices down, we could probably make a lot more money,” Johnny said.

  “What are you saying?” Danny asked.

  “I’m saying that we can have the best product, control the school, the market, and reap the benefits. What we’re doing now may get us some extra spending money, and that’s fun enough. Why don’t we see if we can make some real money doing this,” Johnny said.

  “I could use some real money,” Tristian said, “You think this could work?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Johnny, what are you talking about?” Danny asked.

  “I’m saying that we join forces for the betterment of all of us,” Johnny said, having a fleeting thought of his first lesson from Mr. Bergman’s class.

  “That sounds pretty shady,” Danny said.

  “Oh, it’s very shady,” Johnny said, and smiled, “It’s called a cartel.”

  Hector almost dropped the pipe and started coughing up smoke as he busted into laughter at Johnny’s mention of a cartel.

  “A cartel? Like a Mexican cartel? You mean we’re going to kill people?” Danny asked, concerned.

  “Yeah man, that sounds like some bad karma,” Tristan said.

  “No, fuck no, it’s a business word, no one is going to fucking die, trust me,” Johnny said, “I think we can create something we would have a really good handle on. We could make thousands of dollars for all of us,” Johnny looked at Danny, “That means PlayStations,” he looked at Eddy, “That means getting harder drugs,” he looked at Tristan, “That means bond money, no offense,”

  Everyone looked at Tristian, “He’s right, my cousins are hot messes,” Tristan nodded at everyone.

  “I don’t know about this,” Teddy said.

  “I get it, you’re not in the drug game, we must sound crazy to you,” Johnny said.

  “You do,” Teddy said “I saw that newscast about Prop Four-Twenty failing, they said it’s still a felony,” Teddy said.

  “It’s only a felony if you’re a minority,” Johnny looked over at Tristian, “Again, no offense man,” he said, putting his hand on Tristian’s shoulder.

  “None taken, whitey is fucked up,” Tristian said.

  “Whitey is fucked up, isn't he,” Johnny said nodding at his only black acquaintance, “But for innocent, lily-white children like us, getting caught would be a slap on the wrist, maybe we’d have to pick up some trash on a Saturday. My birthday is in October, I got to vote in the last election, no one was more in favor of Prop Four-Twenty then me, but as high school students most of us can’t fucking vote. That’s fucked up, this is an issue about something everyone fucking needs, because of the society that people who get to vote have created for us. They said, we can’t smoke weed, and that sucks. But, just as with prohibition, they have created a secret market outside of their purview. They’ve created a market that we can jump on. It’s probably going to be legal next year anyway, but for now, it’s not. So, we may have the last chance that anyone will ever have to seize on this opportunity. Our state has a great economy right now, and the students of our high school alma matter have a good bit of disposable income. Let’s jump on it while we have the chance. Every law creates a market.”

  “This sounds dangerous,” Teddy said, “I mean, you’re talking about being real drug dealers. The only drug deals-” Teddy made finger quotes with his hands, “-I’ve made have just been picking some stuff up for some people, I don’t think I can be a drug dealer,” He shook his head.

  “We’re not making fucking deals in Columbia man,” Johnny said, trying to reassure Teddy, “No one’s getting thrown out of a helicopter with their shoe flying off, or getting a shotgun blast to the back of the head, we’re just going to play some money ball. It’s a small market, think big fish in a tiny pond. I remember in Jr. High you qualified for advanced algebra, but you didn’t take it,” Johnny said, “I know why you didn’t take it, why get a C in advanced Algebra, when you can make an A in regular algebra by shining amongst the scrubs,” Johnny looked to the group, “We’re going to be that, we’re going to be the very best, in a small market, we can wrangle control of it by all working together.”

  “I don’t know, man, sounds fishy, I don’t think I want to be in on this,” Teddy said, shaking his head.

  Johnny held his hands up, “No judgments if you don’t want to do this,” he looked at Teddy, “I know that you don’t sell weed, this is all basically Chinese to you,” he looked at everyone else, “But, gentlemen, we can build something, we can make money, we can make money for college,” Johnny said, looking away.

  “I haven’t gotten into any schools yet,” Danny said.

  “I’m going to the Art Institute next year, going to do Graphic design, it’s like twenty grand a year, I could use all the money I could get,” Eddy said.

  “College, woah man, I was going to go to L.A. Community, maybe transfer, you think the kind of money you’re talking about could help?” Tristan said.

  “It could,” Johnny thought about his Friends situations, and he thought about his position. Wheels began to spin in his head, “We can do this, we can all make enough money to fulfill our dreams, our dreams of school, our dreams of the future, our dreams of survival,” he looked up, “It’s all there waiting for us, all we have to do is work together,” Johnny put his hand in the middle of the men around him.

  Danny smiled, “Unlike the song says, I believe more money, fewer problems,” he said, putting his hand on Johnny’s.

  “Those minority scholarships only go so far in this town,” Tristian said, putting his hand in.

  “Twenty-thousand-dollar tuition, let’s be honest, no one has ever paid back a loan for an art degree, I’m in,” Eddy said, putting his hand in.

  “You guys are crazy, but I will buy from you,” Teddy said, abstaining from joining the circle.

  “Long live the cartel,” Johnny said as they all brought their hands together and made their pact.

  “So how do we start?” Danny asked.

  “Well first off, we tell absolutely nobody about this, a pact of silence, a pact of silence” Johnny repeated as he pointed to each of his compadres.

  “Just lay low, keep selling as normal at regular prices. I got to do some research, figure out the best strategy for us,” Johnny said.

  “How are you going to do that?” Kenny asked.

  Johnny clasped his hands and looked over to Kenny and sighed, “I’m probably going to have to use some algebra on this one.”