YNs

1987

Her Fila sweatshirt struggled to bely the breasts that protruded like torpedoes. She had just returned from the Bahamas and possessed about thirty kilos of cocaine which she hid in the ceiling of her Wilmington, Delaware home. Tanned and giggling at the video game she played, her mirthfulness, her playfulness didn’t match her fifty-eight years on this planet. She felt tickled at the thought of the three million dollars she stashed in a safe and forgot the combination.

Her lieutenant drove a Volkswagen Passat. Blue with tan interior, it held a secret compartment for the guns she would use in battle. She went by the name Wis. Aside from the speckles of gray hair in her head, she also had a Coke bottle shaped body and skin the color of the streets her couriers roamed.

By remembering her stance on keeping the drugs and money in different places in the house, she also recalled the lesson she had just been taught by going to the archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean. The turquoise waters provided a gateway into her brain to make her actions even cleaner and quicker to evade the police. She loved the police. She ensured that her street warriors never engaged in shootouts with the cops and just went to jail.

For all her knowledge and game, she knew just how to duck the detectives so she would never have to be caught up in the whole practice of going through the legal system. More chuckles arose as the Nintendo gaming console provided her entertainment and sparks of joy. The door opened.

“We have to address this,” Rhodes Branston said standing in front of her. He remained her top earner pulling in at least twenty-thousand dollars a night. At twenty-years-of-age, he possessed porcelain white teeth and light skin that contrasted hers when he transferred the money over to her. She grasped it and stuck it in her bra, an eye aimed on the game in front of her. It was about a thousand dollars in tens and twenties.

“Say, boy, when are you going to come and get this honey?” she asked, her eyes fixed on his figure then back to the game. They held in them a lustfulness that belonged to a prowling puma.

“C’mon, Wis.”

“I’m serious, you need to come and get this at some period in time. I’m not going to be here forever,” Wis’ tone lowered a few notes. She flashed her own set of teeth with gold fronts and diamonds drilled into her incisors.

“That’s alright. You’re going to be crawling for it,” Wis reminded Branston.

“Anyway…what was your trip like?”

“Ahh…” she waved a hand in a rejecting manner. “It was too humid. I couldn't stand it. I know I’m saying this is the beginning of March, but I just couldn’t take it.”

“The business?”

“You already know. Two million’s under the floorboard.” She spoke in a furtive certainty. Her words seemed to dangle out in space. Branston already suspected there to be more money stashed somewhere but he didn’t push it.

“I’m going back out there.”

“You don’t need a coat. It’s thirty degrees and you won’t get sick from dampness and cold. Just bacteria and viruses. Though body temperature does regulate and allow for you to be better protected from the elements. So, yeah. Throw on a sweater.”

Branston had already prepared to place his 1911 pistol in his waistband. He expected to keep his piece as chilled as the winter air.

“Keep the game going. You’ll capture a flag at the end of the segment once you save the princess,” Branston announced while going out of the house.

Wis allowed one of King Koopa’s flames to touch her and the game ended.

“Goddamnit!”

As he roved around in his blue machine, Branston felt the power of his placement in his world but got stuck with questions. Will I see my graduation from New Sweden University? Will these Wilmington streets finally swallow up my body and mind? What is the deal with Wis?

He pulled into a lot littered with junk like a cluttered mind, the wind swirling up dust and papers into a small cyclone. He parked and brushed off his air Nikes and looked at his sweater that Wis had suggested. The burgundy with gold stitching complimented his icy white sneakers. By hopping out of the vehicle with such intent and purpose, he turned some heads. Most of them had been waitresses, law clerks, salesmen and women. Now, they craved for a white rock or some powder that Branston had been proud to serve to them.

He met up with a man reading a newspaper named Nil Chestman. He had skin the color of a sequoia. A role as a marketing executive at Diamante Bank before he started using drugs enveloped his life. When he had cashed in on his earnings and decided to just use drugs for the rest of his life. He still had his mind. His role as Branston’s eyes and ears remained a constant companion. Like a loyal dog, he was fed, rather, in powder cocaine. In all of the dealings, Branston counted him as the best one to pay attention to on the street. He wore a brown tweed jacket and beige trousers with grey loafers. A scarf wrapped around his neck. Grey hairs surrounded his chin and mouth. He was fifty-two.

“Just like the Wilmington Stock Exchange, my friend. The prices are up and down again.”

“Alright.” A few flakes fell from the sky.

“We’re both atheists, so we know no God had anything to do with this. It’s simple economics. The fiends––”

“Don’t call them that, Chest.”

The clients are stocking up and getting higher off of the saved stashes,” Chestman brought a slim smirk to his face. “It’s slowing your movement out here. Once they cop, they quickly save it and then wait for the next wave. After they surf, they do the same thing all over again.”

“Okay, so now we have to switch up the entire situation. We’re going to have to still sell but in smaller quantities. There’s still a quota that Wis is going to want.”

“Wis? Tell her I asked for her. She got the––” He pantomimed ample bosom.

Branston smiled. “Yeah she does, whatever. Let’s get back to the numbers. I know there were more clientele on these corners.” He withdrew a small map from his back pocket. It included the various locations where he hid the product. Chestman pulled down a pair of glasses from atop his head. The lamp provided just enough light to guide their brown fingers over the locations.

“See, right there,” Branston pointed out. “There used to be three spots right there. Now, there’s just one.” He looked Chestman straight in his eyes and frowned.

“Okay, so what we have is a way to keep our product flowing. All we have to do is keep the customers coming and they’ll be here. Like I said, they build up their own stashes to sell on their own. They’re not even getting high the same way out here anymore,” Chestman sounded like a sergeant major to Branston’s first lieutenant.

“I’m going to need you to keep the patrons on the streets near the stash places without them building up on the work. Instead of three, I want five people on these blocks. Each one,” Branston mentioned with emphasis. He looked like he surveyed military coordinates for a new expedition. Even through the cold weather, small beads of sweat congregated at his temples. Tiny flakes began to grow larger. The snow looked like flour that covered the streets, the cars, the stash places lightly.

“Roger. I’ll put my young ones on each of these corners to entice the buyers. They’re going to be coming in droves. As long as you’re young ones whip up that goodness, that’s when we can get this glow. You’ll get paid and I’ll get my own piece of the product.” Branston shoved his hands in his pockets. He felt glad that Wis had suggested the sweater. He could’ve used a coat but remembered that he wasn’t going to get sick by the weather dropping. Chestman patrolled the small area in which they stood and pulled his own jacket up to cover his neck. He recalled the old school where pneumonia was supposed to infect you if you didn’t wear the right attire. Debunked as this theory had been, it persisted nonetheless.

Branston looked at his chainless, ringless, neck and wrist, respectively. He never wore jewels, never even in the party scene or anything like that. Chestman on the other hand wore gold rings and a Figaro chain with diamonds in it. Because he regulated his intake of the powder, he knew that he could still dress and be clean.

“What was Wis wearing today?” Chestman asked.

“I don’t know. Gray shirt. Something.”

“You know she and I go back like baby formula?”

“I’m aware, you only remind me every chance you get,” Branston snickered.

“Yes, we’ve had our time together,” Chestman beamed. As the snow started to pick up, they looked at the time and the inclement weather began to grow a bit frostier as temperatures plunged. Branston thought about the snowflake idea, how every one had been totally different despite them looking the same to the naked eye. Another scientific observation like how no two objects could occupy the same space, notwithstanding quantum mechanics.

Chestman brought his hands up to his mouth and blew out the vapor. Condensation appeared right before both of them and Branston hawk spit phlegm in the street. “You know, next decade, we’re still going to be doing this. And the dumb ones are going to be sent up to Boxwood or Featherman’s parlor. Not us. We’re too smart for all of that,” Chestman asserted.

He kept the smirk as a man walked up to them on the corner of the street.

Branston gripped up on his pistol. The figure looked gaunt and dusty. In the dusk, the lights from the street lamps combined with further snowflakes. The man wore all black and possessed a staggered gait.

Upon his approach, Branston and Chestman looked at the man with quick suspicion.

“What’s your name?” Branston asked. He held out a stiff arm indicating to the man to keep some distance.

“I’m Housely. I know what’s going on in the streets. From the East Side to the South Bridge there’s been a hunger for the sand. People are stockpiling it on purpose.” Branston and Chestman exchanged glances.

“Okay, so what do you want?” Branston queried.

Housley stepped back even further, slowly in an awkward way and brandished a .22 caliber pistol.

Branston slapped the gun from Housley’s possession and pulled for his weapon and got close to the figure. He placed the gun close to Housley’s ear and discharged his firearm. The deafening noise rumptured Housley’s ear drum and he fell to the street. He writhed in pain and knew he had very little time to get to the emergency room to try to save his hearing. He also knew that would be impossible.

“The next one goes to your temple. Get out of here, now!” Branston commanded. Housley stood to his feet and gathered himself and scurried away from the two men, weeping and shrieking.

Chestman shook his head like they had just escaped a fiery car collision.

“You know the smokers will do that to you,” Chestman observed with the sobriety of a neurosurgeon. He looked around as the snow fell.

“You haven’t been on the stuff for some time have you?” Branston mentioned, his breath slightly elevated. He replaced his firearm which warmed his groin area.

“I’ve not been messing with it for a week. All this reconnaissance. I’m earning what’s coming to me.”

“We’ll join up again when the weather gets nice. Remember to put the youngsters on the corners,” Branston reminded Chestman.

They dapped up and then walked away from the scene.