9.

  After some intense calculations followed by a cigarette and some more thinking, then just saying fuck it, Johnny decided that the price for a pen of weed needed to rise to thirty bucks. Each pen would contain exactly half a gram of product, and this amount would become the universal unit of measurement for the cartel’s best-selling product.

  Johnny had created the false scenario of a supply shortage squeezing the southern California suburban teenage drug economy. He went over it and worked out scripting for the other dealers in the cartel to use with the clientele of they ran into any resistance about the fifty percent price increase. Johnny got the idea from one of the many lessons he had been learning in Mr. Bergman’s class. Word quickly began to spread through the school of an alleged weed shortage. It took no time at all for Johnny’s lie to become common knowledge. It also had a bonus benefit of increasing the demand for product out of fear that the event of the school running out of it could happen at any time. This fear grew the cartel’s sales even more. Kids who maybe bought weed occasionally for special events, three-day weekends, birthdays, dates, parties, felt that they needed to get their hands on some product while they still could. After a month of this, the dealers had each seen almost a thousand dollars more net profit then they had in an average month before their devious incorporation.

  The elasticity of marijuana’s price in the Reagan High economy proved to be very low. Most of the kids paid the new margins with no trouble at all beyond now having to grab an extra ten from their mother’s purse before heading to school. Some kids did have problems with it, and when they found out that no matter what dealer they went to, the price had been fixed over the entire market. While some were upset, they also needed weed, and buying from someone you trust is always better than some stranger on craigslist.

  At least, almost everyone thought that way.

  Doug was a somewhat regular customer of Johnny’s. Doug didn’t buy often, but a three-day weekend was coming up, and he wanted to relax. He approached Johnny outside on the senior patio during lunch period. His two crumpled tens in the palm hand. “Johnny Vincent, what’s up man,” He said, giving Johnny a quick, handshake as they both looked around to make sure none of the faculty was around.

  “What can I do for you?” Johnny asked.

  “Can I get a pen, blue,” He said.

  “No problem, but they’re thirty now,” Johnny said in a casual, matter-of-fact way.

  “What,” Doug’s shot open, “Are you serious, thirty, what the fuck man?” Doug said.

  “I’m sorry, things are getting tighter, after Prop two-forty failing it’s becoming a little harder to get, everyone’s having this problem. I’m just trying to keep enough supply.”

  “I’m not paying thirty for a dime bag, most of us only paid you twenty in the first place because of the convenience,” Doug said.

  “Convenience and a high standard of quality,” Johnny said, correcting him.

  “Fuck you, come on, I only got twenty on me, just hook me up man,” Doug said.

  “I hook you up, then I have to hook everyone up, and then I’m left with no pot and no money, I’m trying to keep the good students of this school supplied with a product they desperately want and need, at a fair and comparable price in tune with market forces.”

  “Market forces? What the fuck are you talking about?” Doug said.

  “Look if you don’t like my price, you’re free to buy from anyone else,” Johnny said.

  Doug rubbed his eyes and then looked back at Johnny, “You know, I think just might fucking do that, I am never buying pot from you again,” Doug said, before flipping Johnny off and heading away from the patio.

  ***

  When Doug got home, he decided he would take Johnny’s advice and try someone else, namely Eddy. Eddy was awesome because he would deliver to you, everyone loved Eddy for that. There was one catch to Eddy though, to get the five-star service of a delivery you couldn’t just buy a dime, you had to get a whole eighth, usually fifty dollars. It was a pain to scrounge together, but Doug found the money. He gave Eddy a call and was answered right away.

  “Yo?” Eddy said.

  “What’s up man, it’s Doug 624 Evermoore lane, can you swing by tonight to get me an eight?” Doug said.

  “Sure thing man, I can do an eight for seventy,” Eddy said.

  “Seventy? What the fuck? When did weed get so expensive?” Doug said.

  “Hey man, I had to pay more for this,” he didn’t, “It’s getting tight everywhere, everyone’s having problems,” he said, repeating the scripting that Johnny had prepared for Eddy and his colleagues.

  “You know what man, forget it. This is bull shit,” Doug said.

  “Sorry, but if you ever need a hook up I’m your guy, I’ll be more than happy to help, while I still got the supply that is,” Eddy said, peppering in another little bit of fear that the supply may be draining soon.

  “Yeah sure you are,” Doug said before hanging up, “Fuck,” he put his hands to his temples and rubbed his face.

  ***

  By Friday, Doug was getting desperate. He did not want to go through this weekend without pot, especially if the rumors everyone had been talking about were true, that the stuff was getting harder to come by. Between third and fourth period he spotted Danny next to the bathroom stuffing some cash in his pocket. Doug approached him, “Danny, what’s up my man,” Doug said.

  “Sup man?” Danny said.

  “You’re holding, right?” Doug asked.

  “Hell yeah,” Danny said with a grin across his face.

  “Awesome,” Doug let out a sigh of relief, “Can I get a dime?”

  “Absolutely man, I got plenty,” Danny said.

  Thank god for Danny, Doug thought as he pulled out two ten-dollar bills.

  “You got thirty, right?” Danny asked.

  Doug’s jaw dropped, “Are you fucking kidding me? Et Tu Danny?” Doug said.

  “Sorry man, you’ve heard what everyone’s saying, we’re all having trouble getting our hands on supply, we had to raise prices, I’m sorry,” Danny pulled out a black Bic pen, “But this cost thirty now, that’s just how it is.”

  “Wait a minute, what do you mean we?” Doug looked at the pen.

  “Umm, I mean, the umm, the royal We, the one that means all of us,” Danny said.

  “Us?” Doug asked, “And that pen, that’s one of Johnny Vincent’s pens,” he said, as two and two slowly started to come together in his mind.

  “No man, this ain’t his, it’s a just a good idea, lots of us have been doing this,” Danny said, getting a bit defensive.

  “Us, there you go again, we, us, like, like you’re all a group or something,” Doug looked up, and his jaw dropped as he made the realization, “Holy shit, you mother fuckers, you’re all working together aren’t you, and you’re all working for that piece of shit Vincent!”

  Danny quickly looked back and forth seeing if anyone else was around them, “Hey man I got no idea what you’re talking about, I got to go, now do you want some stuff or not?”

  “Fuck all of you! What is this supposed to be, fucking the Standard Marijuana Trust,” Doug said.

  “What’s a trust?” Danny asked.

  “What you are doing, right now, at this very moment! It’s called a trust, I learned about it in Civics, you were in that class with me!” Doug said, “I don’t have to take this shit, You know, this is a small school, and it’s a big town. You can find pot outside of it, I’ll fucking find someone else to get my stuff from, and they’ll give it to me at a fair price.”

  Danny put his hands up as he began to walk away, “Hey, it’s a free country man, be my guest,” Danny said.

  “I’m never buying from any of you fucks ever again!” he said before flipping Danny off and making his way to fourth period.

  No one had ever been so determined to save ten dollars on a bag of weed. It wasn’t even about getting high at this point. For Doug, this had now become a matter of principal. If Johnny Vincent thought that he could be some fucking high-school king-pin, Doug was going to knock him off his throne. He would find a pot connection, a good connection, and show everyone in Reagan High that they didn’t need to put up with the economic abuse that Johnny wanted to subject them too.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  So, Doug took the world wide web. Craigslist namely, he went to the L.A. craigslist, namely the Farm and Garden section, Doug figured if anyone were selling this most sought-after plant, that would be a good place to check. He made his post,

  Looking for some green plants at a fair price, hook me up, and I can hook you up with a lot more business, 404-XXX-XXXX.

  “And now we play the waiting game,” Doug said as he put his phone on his desk and leaned back, grabbing his remote and turning on the T.V. The OC was on TBS on syndication.

  He was halfway through the theme song when the phone rang.

  “Damn that was fast,” Doug quickly muted the TV and picked up his phone, “God damn, I fucking love Los Angeles,” he said.

  “Hello? Yes, Yes, how much? Oh, fuck yes, yeah I’ll be there tonight, no problem man,” Doug scrambled for a piece of paper and a pen, ironically a blue Bic pen he bought a few weeks ago from Johnny Vincent himself. He scribbled down the address and thanked the kind salesman again before hanging up. “Fuck yes,” he picked up the paper, “Oh,” he said to himself reading the address, it was on Martin Luthor King Boulevard. Martin Luthor King Boulevard street was in the wrong part of town, a very dangerous place. Especially dangerous if you were white. It would be fine though, Doug told himself. What could happen, it’s going to be fine. He kept reassuring himself as he got his keys and put his shoes on.

  He drove into the wrong part of town, noticing the buildings getting worse and worse in relation to how much government funding was put into them. He found a parking spot by a sleeping bum next to a trashcan. Doug was feeling a bit intimidated by the state of the neighborhood he found himself in. He had to walk four whole blocks to get to his destination. The Zachary Taylor Projects, one of the most dangerous, and darkest hoods in the wrong part of L.A.

  Doug walked up to the stoop of the projects. Sitting on the side of it was a stuttering crack head. He had a scruffy salt and pepper beard, and some unsightly sores on his face. Doug made very sure not to make eye contact with him as he walked into the first set of double doors. He looked at the scribbled note on notebook paper he wrote the number of the apartment on, apartment thirteen. He was oblivious to the foreshadowing that number had. He hit the buzzer and the intercom, built in 1998, the voice that came from the other side was full of static and hiss.’

  “Who this?” the voice said.

  “Umm, are you Jay-on?” Doug said. Jay-on’s name was pronounced Jay-Dash-on, but it was spelled on his birth certificate with a hyphen, to save time.

  “Who’s asking?” he said.

  “It’s umm, it’s Doug,” Doug said.

  “Doug from the collection agency?” he said.

  “No, no, Doug from Craigslist, we spoke on the phone earlier, about a deal,” Doug said.

  “Oh shit, come on up, apartment F,” He said, his tone getting much friendlier.

  Doug turned to the second set of double doors as he heard the loud, aggressive buzz of the projects buzzing system opening the door for him. He entered. The building was dilapidated and in desperate need of more of Denero county’s tax dollars. The last election had increased the funding for the Marcy projects, but it certainly wasn’t showing yet. Doug pulled the rack in front of the elevator and got into it, seeing the lights of the floors dimmed, before he pulled the rack back and closed it, then seeing the buttons light up. He reached forward and pressed thirteen and heard the creaking of the gears rolling the steel ropes up as the shaky elevator ascended. He reached the thirteenth floor and stepped out, walking down the hallway and following the letters of the floor’s apartments, A, B, C, he walked down the hallway and took a left and continued until he got to apartment 13 F. He knocked on the door and waited. It took much more time then he anticipated for the door to be answered. There he was Jay-on. He was about 6’5” 236 pounds. If he didn’t drop out of school, a school that ironically could have been Reagan High if his parents won the school choice lottery, he could have been the biggest linebacker on the football team and maybe help them win a game for a change. He was in that weird limbo cops on this beat have to judge, looking like he could be sixteen or twenty-two.

  “What’s up man,” Jay-on said, as he put his hand out for Doug to grab. Doug did that typical white guy responding to a black handshake bluff and grabbed Jay-on’s hand with an open palm and thumb out.

  “One love,” Jay-on said as he turned and led Doug inside.

  Doug looked around. There were two guys playing Madden on PlayStation, one guy smoking from a crack pipe, and another guy using a whetstone to sharpen a samurai sword. All of them were African American, but Doug was in no position to be prejudice.

  “So, you want a dime? half of an ounce” Jay-on said.

  “Yeah, twenty bucks, right?” Doug said.

  “Yeah man, fuck yeah, fuck yeah, no problem,” Jay-on said as he grabbed a large vial of Marijuana buds and started to take bits of them out and load them on a digital scale that looked very out of place with the rest of the decor of Jay-on’s apartment.

  Jay-on finished measuring the sale out, cutting a small bud with his pocket knife to get the measurement precisely right. He gathered the weed into a plastic baggie and then twisted it into a knot. He pulled out a lighter and held the knot of the bag above it as he lit it up and melted the end of the bag to seal it for, for freshness.

  “You say you can get me more business?” Jay-on asked.

  “Yeah, all the dealers at my school are assholes, they charge so fucking much,” Doug smiled as he looked at the bag of goods he was getting at a 33% discount. “Fuck them. Do you think you can hook my friends up.”

  “Mother fucker, I can get as much shit as they need,” he said, smiling, “Especially for white girls,” he grinned.

  “You haven’t had any trouble getting product?” Doug asked.

  “Trouble, this is fucking America, everyone smokes pot,” Jay-on said.

  “Make America great again Mother Fucker!” The black guy sharpening the samurai sword yelled.

  “Don’t bring that Kanye shit in here mother fucker, that mother fucker ain't been shit since Graduation!” Jay-on said.

  “Man fuck you,” the sword sharpener said.

  Jay-on turned back to Doug, “I got some good shit for you,” he handed the baggie to Doug.

  Doug quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out the two crumpled tens and proceeded to exchange them for the baggie, “Awesome, thank you man, thank you,” Doug said, “Let me ask you something? Have been having trouble getting product the past few weeks?”

  “What? What are you talking about?” Jay-on said.

  “I’ve heard it’s been hard to get stuff lately,” Doug said.

  “Nah, Nah, the shit flows freely as it ever has, I can get you and your friends all the shit they need,” Jay-on said.

  “Really?” Doug said, “That is very good to know, everyone I know is going to be very happy about that,” Doug smiled.

  “Send them my way,” Jay-on said, reaching up and sharing a very urban handshake with Doug, “No problem,” Jay-on smiled.

  Doug left Jay-on’s apartment. He was satiated, he was satisfied. He found a weed connection, a good weed connection, that charged a fair price for product. He knew exactly what he was going to do when he got back to Reagan High Monday. He would tell everyone that there was a perfectly good dealer waiting in the Zachary Taylor projects, one who would be more than happy to get them as much weed as they wanted and sell it to them at a fair price.

  He made his way through the ghetto of L.A. much less fearful then he was when he first came there. It was fine, he kept telling himself. It wasn’t so dangerous here. They were just people who wanted to do business. Doug was about to teach Johnny a lesson in business that all those fancy business classes that Doug knew Johnny took couldn’t teach him.

  As Doug made his way to his car, a young African-American boy no older than eleven rode past him on his bike. The young boy took one hand off his handlebars and put it to his mouth as he mimicked the sound an owl makes, “Woo-woo, Wo-woo,” Doug stopped and watched as the boy rode by him. He shook his head and let it go as he continued to his car. As he turned the corner, his car in sight, a man came out from an ally.

  “What’s up man,” he said, towering over Doug, on hand in his pocket, the other reaching out to hold Doug’s shoulder.

  Doug hesitated, very intimidated by him, “Nothing man, just leaving,” Doug tried to smile as fear filled him.

  “You ain’t going nowhere, white boy,” he said.

  “Come on man, just let me leave,” Doug begged.

  “You were leaving Jay-on’s place, you got shit on you,” the man grinned, “I need shit,” he said as he pulled his hand out of his pocket, revealing a small switchblade.

  “Oh shit!” Doug said, instantly regretting not paying Johnny Vincent an extra ten dollars.

  It happened fast, Doug took nineteen stab wounds to the chest and lower abdomen. The guy got his weed and his wallet. Ironically all he had in his wallet was the extra ten dollars he saved by coming here. The guy who stabbed him didn’t give a fuck how much was in it, he just grabbed and then he was gone.

  Doug was left on the side of Martin Luther King Boulevard, bleeding out. His body was found on Sunday by a beat cop hoping just to catch some kids who stole some Nike’s from the good part of town’s Footlocker.

  That Monday, the flag at Reagan high was held at half-mast. A student had died, another victim of gang violence. Not the most typical victim of gang violence, but he was a victim none the less.

  During first period Jhonny Vincent sat next to Tiffany and Greg as the morning announcements played on the TV. Amy and Zack went through the usual news about what club was meeting where and what teacher was sponsoring what. At the end of the announcements, Amy got a little emotional.

  “And we all want to talk about the tragic death of Doug Whitman. His death is a reminder to us all to be safe. He was just an innocent boy who found himself in the wrong place, at the wrong time. We’ve all been touched by the tragic death of our classmate, and we’re all going to have a moment of silence for him,” she said before she and Zack put their heads down, and then said nothing for sixty seconds as the kids watched the TV. “And now, the A.V. Club and some of Doug’s friends got together and made a touching tribute in honor of him. We want to play that now,” she said.

  The students of Reagan high watched as the screen went black, and the name Doug Whitman Birthday-Deathday appeared on the screen, as the opening guitar riff of GreenDay’s Good Riddance, The time of your life, started to play.

  Baby pictures provided by Doug Whitman’s parents appeared on the screen. The pictures moved to him in his childhood, playing with soccer balls and squirt guns.

  Pictures of him that were taken more recently appeared. Laughing with his family, selfies he took of himself at the Grand Canyon. They were followed by photos his friends took of him, partying, having the time of his life.

  After the announcements class continued as usual, though there was an air of being bummed out throughout the student body, after class, Johnny walked through the hallway before Tracy called him over.

  “Johnny!” She called out.

  “Yeah, what?” he asked.

  “You seem to be the best guy to buy stuff from, do you have any? I know me, and a lot of us, could use some after something like this,” she said.

  “Yeah, yeah I got some stuff,” Johnny said.

  “Awesome, everyone knows why Doug Whitman got killed, he was in the ghetto to buy drugs. I don’t want to end up like him, none of us do. I know it’s a bit more expensive buying it in school, but it’s just so much safer. I’d much rather buy here, where there’s a cop with a gun, than go to some sketchy neighborhood and take the risk,” she said.

  Johnny looked up, and for a minute, he felt a twinge of guilt at the idea of using a classmate’s death to improve the prospects of his business, “Yeah, you’re right, we all got to be safe, if Doug Whitman can get killed, any of us can,” he said.

  “So, it’s thirty, right?” Tiffany asked.

  “Yeah,” Johnny said, reaching into his backpack to pull out one of his Bic pens.

  “Awesome,” Tiffany said as she made the exchange of cash for product with Johnny.

  Johnny and the rest of the Cartel had seen a bit of resistance to the price increase that had come over the school’s market. After Doug Whitman’s death, though, no one had any problem paying a premium for safety.

  Johnny felt somewhat guilty that a classmate’s death had led to profitability on his side. He kept telling himself it was Doug Whitman’s own damn fault for going to that part of the neighborhood. No sane person would ever put any blame for Doug Whitman’s death on Johnny’s doorstep.