7.

  “Gentlemen, I thank you all for coming,” Johnny stood on his house’s patio in front of one of his parents deck chairs, sitting on the other three of the four set were Danny, Eddy, and Tristian. Hector, Kenny, and Alex were the last three to get to Johnny’s for the meeting so that relegated them to the folding camping chairs that Johnny’s parents would fish out for barbecues and other friendly gatherings.

  “So, I know some of us had a certain conversation at my party, even though I was high, drunk, and fucked up, I want you to know I was serious about it. I think that we, the seven biggest pot dealers of Reagan high, have a real opportunity to seize profit here, the profit we can get if we are willing to work together,” Johnny said, standing over his chair.

  He continued, “Each of us has a niche, each of us has a market we’re currently penetrating, now said markets are just like any other market,” he pointed to each of the men in front of him, “You’re all weak to that ever-looming specter of competition,” Johnny said.

  “Competition, what are you talking about, we’re just selling weed, people get it wherever they can,” Tristan said.

  “You’re right Tristan, they do get it wherever they can,” Johnny smiled at him, “But what if they could only get it from one place,” Johnny said, smiling.

  “What are you talking about?” Kenny asked.

  “An organization, I did some math, and I figure that by my calculations all of us together conservatively have an eighty percent share of the market of Reagan High, almost everyone who has a good time at a party, is having a good time because of one of us, that’s a very powerful asset to have,” Johnny said, “If we worked together, we could increase our supply, push the other dealers out of business, be the only supply of controlled substance to the school, and once we have that, we will have control, we would be able to charge whatever we want, our profit margins will skyrocket, it’s called a monopoly and monopolies were responsible for building this country.”

  “What about the kids who don’t do weed? What about the kids who like acid and shit,” Alex asked, raising his fingerless-gloved hand.

  “Number one, anyone who wants acid also wants weed,” Johnny said, “Number two, when McDonald's started, they only sold one thing, burgers and fries,” Johnny said, feeling so smart.

  “That’s two things,” Kenny interjected.

  “Shut the fuck up Kenny,” Johnny said, waving off Kenny, “What I’m trying to say is that when you’re starting you do one thing, and you do it better than anyone and run them out of business, then we can offer the McChicken, acid, or the Garden Salad, mushrooms, we have to establish our power first, then we can expand into that shit too. But for now, I say we focus on weed, we have enough capital, together, to run everyone else out of business.”

  “What do you mean?” Danny asked.

  “We buy all their supply, we lie,” he looked at Tristan and Hector, “We coerce, we go on a buying spree getting every sweet nugget of pot that our school has to offer, we gain control of the supply, we gain control of the market, and once we have control we can charge whatever we want. Everyone knows I already have the best pot connection in the school, and I will graciously extend this connection to you, my people. There may be other people who can risk life and limb to get a few ounces here and there and sell it to their friends, but my contact is capable of getting me a consistent, quality supply, a supply I want to share with all of you, and anyone else who wants to join our…family,” Johnny smiled before reaching to the small table on attached to the grill for a small cylindrical roll of paper.

  He rolled the paper out on the table revealing the layout of Reagan high, “Gentlemen, this is our economy,” he said as he put two rocks on either side to keep the paper open.

  “Wait a minute, is this one of the emergency escape route maps from the hallways?” Danny asked.

  “Holy shit it is!” Kenny said, “There’s a fucking red line on it and everything,” he looked at Johnny.

  “Relax, everyone in that school knows where every exit is already, trust me,” Johnny said.

  “That’s fucked up man,” Danny said.

  “We’re organizing a marijuana cartel, all of this is fucked up,” Johnny said.

  “Did you say Cartel?” Hector asked.

  Johnny looked at Hector, “Okay, I know that word might have a certain meaning to you,” Johnny put his hands up defensively.

  “Oh what, cause I’m Mexican?” Hector said.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “I thought you were Ecuadorian,” Johnny said, remembering the 11th-grade social studies class’s diversity day he shared with Hector with almost lighting like reflexes.

  “I’m just fucking with you,” Hector smiled, “So far you’re making a compelling argument, keep going,” Hector said.

  “Excellent,” Johnny said, “Now Danny, I know you hang out by the bathrooms in hall C, that’s a good area. It’s the electives hall. Lots of seniors, lots of Juniors, people we want to focus on, they have part-time jobs, they have disposable income,” Johnny pulled out a row of colored highlighters and took the blue one coloring in the Hall C area, “You will become the primary dealer of that section of the school,” Johnny said before turning to Alex, “Now Alex with your, let’s call it integration, into let’s call it, the Alt communities, I think you could have great reach for our organization,” Johnny said with up-most sincerity.

  “What are you talking about?” Alex said.

  “Alex I know you’ve had fun with your group, you got your market, the goth kids, but what about the emo kids, the Dungeons and Dragons players, the doctor who fans, and I know you’ve hooked up with at least one twilight girl.”

  “Two,” Alex said, looking down, “Don’t judge me,” he said defensively.

  “You can stretch that, those girls into Harry Potter, Lord of the rings, you know, the general nerds. Nerds and Goths have a very close relationship that we can take advantage of,” Johnny said.

  “You mean the posers, those fags?” Alex said as disgruntled as a guy with eyeliner could be.

  “Hey, inappropriate,” Johnny pointed at Alex, “Those fags are our customers,” Johnny said, “Just for that, I’m going to section off your part of the market with a purple marker,” Johnny said as he took a purple marker and carved out Alex’s territory of the left side of the lunch room all the way to the English hall, where hot nerd girls read The Once and Future King and had all their ideas about fantasy destroyed, and hot nerd boy read it and had their lives changed forever.

  “Look, dealing weed is like running a bar, if you get women in your customer base, the guys will follow, because the women will love the weed, and the guys will want to give them weed. So I’m asking you, Alex, this is business, check your fucking cynicism and Columbine nihilism at the door, and get girls into it and you will get the male customers I promise,” Johnny said putting his hand to his chest, “This isn’t about principals or values, this is business, this is about revenue generation,” Johnny said. He reached for the green marker and carved out his own territory, “I’ll primarily be in the senior court, that’s where I’ll have access to our highest income clientele,” he said hastily coloring it in before exchanging the green marker for an orange one.

  “Hector, Tristan, what I’m about to ask you two isn’t very P.C. but being trusted in a community is the cornerstone of any small business,” Johnny said.

  Hector and Tristan looked at each other and rolled their eyes, “Let me guess,” Tristan said, “Were you about to use the brown marker to color in my area?”

  Johnny paused for a second, “I was, but just by coincidence I swear, the point is that you guys have access to certain demographics of the student body that we can use to our advantage,” Johnny said.

  Tristian spoke in a mocking Jim-Crowe tone, “Oh yes boss, don’t you worry about selling to no Negros I’ll work that angle for you,” he said looking at Johnny, then laughing. Everyone joined in the laugh. Tristan was fucking with him, “Yeah man I know what you mean, it’s a good idea actually,” he said.

  “My man,” Johnny said, reaching his fist out to bump Tristan's.

  “You got it cracker,” Tristan said, giving the group another laugh together.

  “Eddy, my man, you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re our guy outside of the school, you’re critical to our organization, and you’re taking a bigger risk. I know you charge a delivery fee for your services. That’s totally at your discretion and will be not be counted in the group's revenue, you can keep all that gravy for yourself,” Johnny said as Eddy nodded.

  “Now if we’re going to make this work, the product needs to be consistent across all, let’s call them, franchises,” Johnny reached into his bag and pulled out seven small digital scales and passed them around, “We need to make sure each measurement is as exact as possible, mostly for accounting reasons,” Johnny said.

  “What did the guy in the store say when you bought eight digital scales at once?” Danny asked, looking at his.

  “Didn’t come up, guys who work in stores that sell these are paid not to ask questions,” Johnny said, “I find myself in a situation where my parents are out of town indefinitely so my house will serve as the headquarters of our operation. If you find yourself uncomfortable with the amount of product, or money, you have on you, you can store it here no problem,” Johnny said.

  Johnny took a black dry erase marker and pulled out a small white board, “Now let’s talk about price,” Johnny began to draw out a crude math problem on the board, “Now if we increase the price by ten dollars, which is 33% of current market value, while buying in bulk and reducing our average cost by 25%, we can see that on an average bundle of what was a hundred dollars in gross revenue,” he looked up, “Gross is how much you make before you factor in the cost of the product,” He finished writing out the equation on the board, “So my strategy can lead to an initial nearly doubling of our net profits, what we make after we factor in the cost of the weed, and that increase can only go up as the economy scales and we can buy more for cheaper and increase our hold in the school economy,” Johnny said, writing out what was beginning to look like a very complicated, but still easy to understand, math equation.

  “Wait a minute, dude, I think that’s a fucking derivative,” Danny said, pointing at the equation.

  “What?” Johnny asked, looking down at the whiteboard, “Holy shit,” Johnny looked up, “It does have real-world applications, I think I owe Ms. Raymond an apology,” he said.

  Johnny put the board aside and reached into his bag, pulling out a bottle of Crown Royal, he got some plastic cups and poured some glasses for his cohorts. Everyone took a drink and smiled, raising theirs into the air as Johnny did.

  “A toast, to our enterprise, to profit, capitalism in general, and the beautiful ignorant boomers who decided to keep this shit illegal,”

  “Here here!” everyone said before taking their shots together.

  “There's one more thing I cannot stress enough,” Johnny said before pointing to the circle of men around him, “No freshmen, no freshmen, no freshmen,” he said, “They’re just kids, we do not want to be responsible for getting kids involved in something like this.”