I probably shouldn't be here

It’s 12:42 AM on a Saturday night. Most people are out with friends enjoying a few drinks or already on their way home with their girl or a one night stand. But some were just getting started, and some of them wanted to keep the party going. Those were my people. My clients, my friends, degenerates I had to deal with, and homeless but somehow always having money, people.

The calls continue to roll in. One after another. I line them up, and knock them down. $60 here, $100 there, $280 here, back for another $100…. it’s getting late but buddy needs $200 before I shut down for the night. Lap after lap, the pain in my lower back continues to creep up my spine. I realize I’ve been in the car for nearly 13 hours at this point. I open my centre console and damn, there’s probably about $4000 in there. Should probably stash some of the bills and load up on some more bags. But that will have to wait, I’ve got another call.

Hopefully I don’t get pulled over. Puking up over a half ounce of product was painful last time and I blew my blood vessels wide open in my eyes. I looked baked out of mind for weeks. And I didn’t even get every single bag out of me. Thankfully my digestion has always been weird. I shit out entire blueberries and pieces of lettuce, a few bags of cocaine should pass as well.

The first few times you swallow the stash can be nerve racking.

Am I going to die?

Do I even care if I die?

How fuck else am I going to make money?

Soon it subsides. And you’re left feeling like Patrick Bateman, doing laps of your city all night, dropping off coke and crack to every soul that calls your number.

Your own soul? You see such a different part of the world.

Raw. Unfiltered. Unsheltered. On the other side of the fence.

People with too much money to spend, and people with literally nothing at all trying to give you their last few dollars. Normies getting ready to head to work or start their day, opening their car doors at 6:45 AM on the street. While you cruise past them with one of their neighbours in your front seat who is on the cusp of entering day two of their bender.

How did I wind up here? Im not sure. Hopefully the next $1000 bender doesn’t kill me. I’ve had too many people around me die already.

I remember when I tried to go back to school to quit dealing. The first people I became friends with? Building a coke phone for a well known local supplier. Before I knew it I was knee deep in shit again, ripping rails, running my own phones while my peers made pointless PowerPoint presentations. Well, I guess they weren’t completely pointless. They all graduated, and I dropped out half way through that waste of time to chase money. Oh well, at least I tried.

I’m fucking exhausted. Holding my head in my hands at my desk, I look up at my puke green cubicle. Cup of shitty coffee to my left that’s already giving me heartburn, and a mess of supplier invoices to the right I still haven’t had the time to touch this week. I let out a deep sigh. Fuck sakes. Some days it feels like I walked myself out of one cage and right into another…

The monthly invoicing is behind.

The client won’t approve a change order.

We had the third incident this month and we’re shutting down for the day. So much money wasted. The budget is nearly blown already.

Not exactly my fault, but management will forever bear 100% of the responsibility regardless.

My heart keeps racing. I continue to take deep breaths. I should probably cut back on the coffee and nicotine. And then out of nowhere I realize… and it kinda makes me laugh.

Straight up fucking giggle.

What the fuck am I stressed about?

Remember driving around with enough drugs to earn a 5-10 year sentence?

Or what about that time when there were cars full of people hunting us down to rob us?

Or how you felt when you figured out how cheap it really was to get someone shot?

And I’m sitting here worried about things like some bullshit spreadsheet that isn’t working. Cozy in an office.

I probably shouldn’t be here.

But here I am.