This was about my third day selling drugs at work, and the money was coming in pretty good. I’d already made at least $300 before the week was over. All the dudes on my shift didn’t really care as long as I broke them off with some of my remaining shake. As long as I met my estimated quota, we were good.
Michael gave me 17.637 ounces, which is exactly 500 grams. If I managed to sell all of this this month, that would be $10k right there.
Wait, let me stop right there before my brain goes full retard again. Why do I keep struggling with basic arithmetic when I’m literally going for a Master’s in computer science?
In my head, I originally calculated Jacob’s 40% at $4,000, Michael’s 20% at $1,200, and my share at $4,800. But if the split is 40/40/20 on $10,000:
Jacob’s 40% is $4,000.
My 40% is $4,000.
And Michael’s 20% is $2,000.
Yeah, that’s the actual math. I don’t know why my brain tried to tax Michael an extra $800 to give myself a 48% cut, but honestly, I should’ve just kept my mouth shut and pocketed the extra cash. It’s a little testing phase right now anyway. He gave me this much on good faith, so I just need to make sure I push my quotas until I get that much. It may not be the $8,666.67 I want right now, but it’s something.
But let me tell you about this dude named Caleb. Caleb was one of my coworkers, and he was a real NPC head-ass nigga, for real. Me and him didn’t talk much. When we did, we were either roasting the shit out of each other or passing over snacks we bought from the Dollar Tree next door.
One day during the afternoon shift, this nigga decided to press me over something stupid. I was wiping off the counters near the register when Caleb walked over.
“Yurr, what up?” I said.
He just stood there, staring at me.
“What up?” I asked again.
“So look here,” Caleb said. “I was in the front smoking a cigarette on my break, just chilling. And some random-ass dude walked up and called me a Jamaican pussy fart.”
“Okay...?” I looked at him. “So he called you a queef. What the fuck does that gotta do with me?”
“My nigga, that’s one of your jokes.”
“Once again,” I said, speaking slowly. “What the fuck. Does that gotta do. With me?”
“You were down here telling people I’m a Jamaican pussy fart, bruh?”
“So the fuck what?”
“Motherfucka!” Caleb raised his voice. “How many times a guy gotta tell you this shit? You are not funny, my nigga. Like, at all! With your whole pubic-brush-looking head-ass. Over here looking like a homosexual-male-only, booty-scrubbing hairbrush.”
Oh, so he thought he could roast me? Bet that shit up.
“Nigga, you’re one to talk,” I shot back. “With your big-old-chimichanga-looking ass. You look like Fat Albert’s ‘hey, hey, hey’ face ass nigga.”
“My nigga, you look like a confident third nipple,” Caleb said.
I couldn’t help but start laughing. That shit was so trash.
“My nigga, you are so fat I can cup two hands together on your stomach and draw a whole entire face on it,” I said.
“Nigga, you look like a disowned nut rag,” Caleb countered.
“Oh, yeah?” I leaned forward. “Well, tell me this: when was the last time you actually used one? Because I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen your own dick, my nigga. You so fat you can’t even find your shit. Somebody’s gonna have to go on a search party just to look for it for you.”
That one landed. I could tell because his ass didn’t have a good comeback ready.
“Bitch, you look like a... like a... bitch, you look like a circumcised flamingo erection,” Caleb stuttered.
“Bro, that was not funny,” I said, giving him a flat look. “It was so not funny I have to give you a pity laugh. With your super-duper-sumo-looking ass. I bet you stay winning championships. Bitch, you’re so fat you look like Fat Gum from My Hero Academia, but the only difference is you can’t absorb any energy—you can only eat them bitches.”
“Man, fuck you, nigga!” Caleb snapped, turning around. “I’m going back on my break.”
“You know what they say, my nigga,” I called after him. “‘If you can’t handle the heat, get the fuck out the kitchen.’ Soft-skinned head-ass nigga.”
Right after Caleb left out the door, a customer walked up to the register.
“Good afternoon, sir. How can I help you?” I asked, putting on my standard customer-service smile.
“Yeah, what’s up, man?” the dude said, leaning over the counter. “I heard you had that maryjahozzy.”
I blinked. This dude was so fucking dumb. He literally just said that out loud right in front of the cameras hanging all over the ceiling.
“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t sell ‘maryjahozzy’ here,” I said, keeping my voice low. “But if you’re here for what I think you’re here for, we do have the Wyald Special, if that’s what you’re after.”
“Bet. Can you do me a favor, though?”
A favor? What the fuck kind of favor was this man about to ask for?
“Which is?”
“I’m probably just being paranoid,” he whispered, looking around, “but I need to make sure you’re not a narc.”
He could not be deadass. Every fed I know makes way too much money to be working at a KFC/Taco Bell register for extra cash. I had to instantly drop the corporate personality on this nigga.
“Nigga, do I look like the fucking feds to you?”
“Like I said, I’m probably just being paranoid.”
I let out a long, deep sigh. Lord have mercy on my soul for having to deal with people like this.
“What exactly do you need me to do to prove I’m not a fed?”
“Lift up your shirt. I need to make sure you’re not wearing a wire.”
“Nigga, Mi scusi?!”
“Bro, it will only take two seconds.”
This white boy was way too paranoid for me.
“What’s option number two?” I asked. “Because I’m definitely not lifting my shirt under all these cameras.”
“Um... I got this roach from earlier. You could probably hit that a few times to remove my suspicion.”
“You want me to smoke a fucking blunt... at work? Have you not been paying attention to anything I’ve said?”
“Cops get drug tested,” he reasoned. “If you smoke that, that’ll be all the proof I need.”
“First of all, your logic makes zero sense because they drug test here, too. And second, what’s option three?”
This was getting way too repetitive. He’d better order a lot of product to make this worth my time.
“Uh... supposedly, if a cop is not in danger of his life, he has to tell you that he’s a cop. So you could just say you’re not a cop.”
“Why the fuck—” I caught myself before I yelled too loud. I took a breath. “I’m not a cop.”
“Thank you. That’s all I needed. That’s a big relief.”
You definitely need to ask Santa to put some IQ points under your tree, because you deadass sound retarded right now. And I’m using that word in the correct, medical way—stupid and foolish. There had to be something physically wrong with his head.
“Three Wyald Specials, please,” he said.
“That will be sixty-two sixty, flat.”
“Hold on, I thought it was—”
“It comes with the food,” I cut him off. “The extra is for the food.”
“Oh, okay. My fault.”
He handed me the money, and I gave him the cheapest thing we had on the menu, which was just a Chicken Little. Thank God he couldn’t have left the store any faster.
But then, another random nigga came through the line, and I had to put my customer-service mask right back on.
“Yo, what’s good, my nigga?” he said.
“Welcome to our store, sir. How may I help you?”
“Yeah, I heard you guys got edibles.”
Oh, my fucking God. I finally saw why Michael didn’t want to deal with these stupid-ass niggas. I already didn’t want to deal with these dumbasses either.
“Yes, sir...” I said through gritted teeth, forcing a smile. “Our food is very edible. But the particular ones you’re talking about, we don’t serve those here. But I can give you a Wyald Special.”
“Yeah, with the chicken and burritos and shit, right?”
“No. It’s not directly infused into the food. It’s in a gravy container next to the cheapest item on the menu. We’re trying to keep it low-key. Sometimes I have to put it at the very bottom of the chicken bucket, or wrap it up with the burrito or the taco, but it’s still separate.”
“Exactly, it’s with the food,” he insisted. “That means it’s edible.”
“No, nigga, didn’t I just tell you this? It only makes it an edible if I actually infused it into the food itself. It is still separated from the main food by a baggie. I don’t know what you’re not understanding, bro. You literally just have to take it out of the bag and smoke it. It’s that simple.”
“Nigga, chicken and burritos are edible. So if you put any type of drug in the food—”
“We don’t put any drugs in the food, bro,” I said, gesturing at the camera with a subtle tilt of my head.
“You know what I’m talking about, though. It’s still edible.”
“So, hypothetically speaking,” I said, leaning over the counter, “if I put crack inside the chicken, it’s edible crack?”
I was so confused. I had never heard logic like this in my entire life. Who the fuck taught him how to think?
“If you put crack in anything, it’s still edible crack,” he said.
“For real? You ever had a crack salad, huh? Never tried crack cobbler? It’s a peach cobbler, but with crack. Your logic is so flawed it’s making my head hurt, deadass.”
“Nah, I’m allergic, actually,” he said. “But hypothetically speaking, it would still be edible. If you put anything in your food, it’s an ingredient. And what are ingredients? Edibles. Your logic is the one that’s flawed, my nigga.”
I needed to hurry up and engage with this nigga before I lost any more brain cells.
“Whatever, bro. You can have that. How much do you want?”
“I’ll just take the one Wyald Special.”
He handed me the cash, and I gave him the food bag.
This was the dumbest motherfucker I have ever talked to in my life. I think he’s even dumber than people with actual intellectual disabilities. I’ve never seen that level of stupid before. I didn’t even think it was possible.
Whatever. At least that motherfucker was gone. It had only been a few days, and I was already completely done with this shit.
“Retarded ass nigga,” I said to myself out loud.
Right after that headache of a customer left, a girl walked into the restaurant. She was a short white girl, about 4’11" or some shit. She looked like one of those goth girls—not the heavy makeup type, but she had that acidic dark lipstick, slightly color-tipped hair, and barely any eyeliner. I told myself she wasn’t even my type for real, but something deep inside told me she was kind of fine.
I couldn’t help but think to myself,
I hope to God she’s not here to buy weed. I’ve been dealing with too many dumb fucks today to keep my composure.
But I took a deep breath, forced my customer-service mask back on, and smiled.
“Welcome to our store. How can I help you?”
“Err! Hi! Yes, I would like, uh... um...”
She sounded incredibly nervous. I took a closer look at her face.
“Juliet?”
She gasped. “Huh?! You know my name?!”
“Yeah,” I said, leaning on the counter. “It’s an easy name to remember. At least for anyone who’s read
Romeo and Juliet
. We took that ethics class together, remember?”
“Oh... yeah. I just... you never really talked in class, so I’m surprised you even know my name, let alone recognized me.”
“I’ve never been good with names,” I admitted. “I kept forgetting our teacher’s name every single time I went to class. Hell, I still don’t know it to this day.”
“You mean Mr. Garuca?”
“Yeah, Garuca,” I laughed. “The motherfucker with the strong Native accent. I had to ask him to write everything down because of the language barrier. But anyway, what brings you to my job? You ordering food, or did you just come to see me?”
Her cheeks flushed. “Yes, and no... I did come to order some food, but also I heard you were... you know.”
I looked at her, surprised. “You? You never came off as the type to be into that stuff.”
“I’m not!” she said quickly. “I’m just... asking for a friend. She got kicked out of here and trespassed.”
“The fuck did your friend do?”
“She told me not to tell anyone,” Juliet said, looking down. “Can I just get the stuff, please?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “How much do you need?”
“Just two, please.”
“Bet. I got you. Did your friend tell you that you also have to buy the food that comes with it?”
“Ummm... no,” she stammered, checking her pockets. “She only gave me forty bucks.”
I felt a quick flash of annoyance, but not at her. My mom used to do that shit to me all the time. She’d hand me cash thinking it would cover everything plus tax, leaving me at the counter looking stupid. I hated that shit.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told Juliet. “Just get whatever you want off the menu. I’ll pay for it.”
She started waving her hands in a panic. “No, no, no! You don’t have to do that! I can just go to my car and get some more money.”
“I know you don’t have to,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “But I want to. So don’t feel bad about it. Just get what you want, and you can be on your merry way.”
“Wow...” Juliet stared at me.
“I didn’t know you were this nice. The way the rumors talked about you—I mean, never mind. Forget I said that.”
I couldn’t just forget about the rumors. I was the high school crash-out and the number-one shit-talker. If someone came at me sideways, I’d come back ten times worse. Plus, the reputation of almost killing a grown man in tenth grade followed me everywhere. Everyone on campus had seen that video.
“I see,” I said, narrowing my eyes just a little. “Just because a guy fights a grown-ass man in the tenth grade, that automatically makes him a psychopath, huh? You think if you talk to me sideways, I’m just gonna crash out and try to kill you?”
Juliet’s eyes went wide. “NO! I mean... uh... I didn’t mean to insult you like that. I’m sorry! I really didn’t mean to—”
I couldn’t help but laugh at how flustered and embarrassed she got.
“Relax, Juliet. I’m just fucking with you. No hostilities over here.”
She pouted, her shoulders relaxing. “Don’t do that, you jerk! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“My fault,” I smiled. “That’s going to be forty dollars, please.”
She handed me the cash, and I went to the back to pack her a twenty-piece bucket. I slipped the baggies into a gravy container at the very bottom.
I walked back and handed her the bucket. “Everything is at the bottom of the bucket, alright? You stay safe out there, Juliet.”
“Yeah... you too... bye.”
As she turned to walk out, I noticed she was wearing long sleeves despite the weather. Last semester, the campus rumors said she’d been going through some deep depression and was cutting herself. She didn’t really have any friends, and no boyfriend either, last I checked. It didn’t make sense—she was a very pretty girl.
But the way she said
bye
... it didn’t sit right with me. She said she was buying this for a friend, but something about the finality in her voice bothered me.
“Juliet,” I called out.
She stopped and turned around.
“I don’t say goodbyes,” I told her. “Goodbyes feel too final. ‘See you later’ works better.”
Her face lit up a little, a genuine smile breaking through.
“Oh... well... see you later, then.”
“One more thing.”
“Hm?”
“I get off in about three hours,” I said. “Are you free around then?”
“YES!” she blurted out, before immediately covering her mouth. “Ahaha... I mean... yes. Yes, I am.”
“Cool. Meet me here when I’m off.”
She walked out of the store, looking happier than she had when she walked in.
I stood there by the register. Was I hanging out with her out of pity? Or was it just curiosity mixed with my deep desire to hang out with a goth girl?
Eh, why can’t it be all three?
Either way, I just had to get through the rest of my shift and pray to God I didn’t get any more dumbass customers.