Odd Jobs (17 page)

I arrive at my apartment to get some much-needed sleep. I used to live in a group of dilapidated apartments located at the top of a hill on Cox Street. These clusters of apartments provide the barest existence and are less-than-affectionately called Cox Boxes. For the tenants, who are students trying to get by, there’s never any sentimental appreciation for the place. People hardly even know their neighbors. It’s hard to be social when you can’t fit a six-pack and enough friends to share it with into the place. You’re not in the dorms with freshmen, but you’re not really living in an apartment, either.

That’s all behind me now. My buddies and I changed apartments recently when things started going well. Spring Valley Lakes is a four-tower, high-rise apartment complex complete with an amazing health club, tennis courts, clubhouse and restaurant. It’s where all the parties are.

Spring Valley Lakes is practically its own ecosystem. The core seems to have developed from the new breed of lawyers being created. Besides NY State’s highly rated law school, there are all sorts of young lawyers spilling out from the Albany State Building. As the capital of the state, there is plenty of politicking that goes on, and therefore, Spring Valley Lakes has also drawn its fair share of lobbyists who need to bully and sway state officials on policy making. Good or bad, you can say what you want about the lobbyists, but the one inarguable fact is those dudes can throw a party.

The group that tends to irk me the most at The Lakes is my peers from N.Y. State. There’s a fair share of N.Y. State Gorillas living here, jocks who are not as smart as their namesakes. The few times in the past that I was able to maneuver into a party at Spring Valley Lakes were always mind-blowing experiences. It amazed me that some father would pay for his little darling to live in one of these ridiculously expensive places. I understand a father not wanting Pumpkin to live in a Cox Box, but holy shit, why spoil your kid this much?

At the end of the day, it appears many of the daddies are doing more than indulging their kids; they’re setting the table for themselves. Daddy came through with rent, BMW, furniture and plasma TVs for a reason. Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of women who are busting their asses in school. Plenty of girls are getting good grades and studying for their LSATs or MCATs and are determined to make it in corporate America. But those girls ain’t living in The Lakes.

The guys are worse. Forget earning a living and forget all the hotties they spent the last four years chasing. Why bother if you can hook up with a porker whose father has a business waiting for you? A lot of these missile-seeking budding socialites live above me, below me and next to me.

Obviously, I don’t like them, so why do I want to live among them? That would be a very reasonable question; after all, I don’t view myself in the same bucket as them. I’m no angel, that’s for sure and I have issues that none of these clowns could even dream about. So I know I shouldn’t be judging anyone.

But the main reason I’m at The Lakes is because of Glenn Bessen and the fact that I’m a bookie, among other things. First of all, Glenn Bessen is a senior who thinks he is God’s gift to the world. His dad thinks so too, and had this apartment — my apartment — outfitted for him. Glenn also thinks he can gamble, which he can’t, at least not very well.

I took over this bookie business awhile ago when a guy named Andy Lyss approached me about running it. It was an up-and-coming business with a full list of clients, but Andy couldn’t run it effectively. The biggest problem was that he couldn’t collect from guys like Glenn Bessen. Andy couldn’t use force because Bessen, who comes from private-jet type hedge fund money, claimed to have influential friends and yada yada. As a bookie, you need to collect, but you are a little limited in your methods. It’s not like in the movies where you have big thugs breaking thumbs. You want to make a point but you don’t want anyone running to the cops.

I was just getting involved in sports handicapping at the time, which, by the way is legal. I figured what the fuck. Any opportunity to make money. I bought out Andy and in return got his phone numbers, clientele and his willingness to transition his customers into a new voice: me. Glenn Bessen was one of those clients, a real prick, a rude, condescending deadbeat. In the end I had to beat the shit out of him to collect. I know I said it’s not like in the movies, but sometimes either a situation warrants it or a guy is begging for it. As a bookie, you have to be able to collect, and setting an example is good for the business. Turns out he didn’t want his influential friends to know he was an inveterate gambler, and a bad one at that, because he never ratted me out. Funny thing is, he wanted to go on playing. He couldn’t go a day without making a bet. Eventually he reached the end of the line, though; Daddy must have figured out what was going on. I had to close him out, and that’s how I got this great apartment with the leather couches, artwork and expensive entertainment system. In exchange I gave him my Cox Box. Fair is fair.

My apartment is on the 24th floor, and even before I put the key in the door I hear Loot and Carey arguing over something. I can’t make it out yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a debate on existentialism. I need my sleep and when these guys get going, winding them back down is challenging. Don’t get me wrong, I’m lucky they’re here, I don’t know how I’d get by if they hadn’t moved up from Hempstead. Loot was working at a dry cleaners and Carey was a busboy, so I didn’t ask for a huge sacrifice in having them come up here. They seem pretty happy and honestly, I’m more balanced with them around. At the end of the day, Loot and Carey are the closest thing I really have to family. I got a lot going on now, and I really need them. Right now though, all I need is sleep. The door opens to them arguing and the subwoofers whomping along with the not-so-soothing sound of Whip It Out’s hip-hop rampage. The storming rap music is causing the apartment to shake. I assume the neighbors have been feeling it for hours.

These morons don’t even see me. Loot is in a frothing rage. He’s in his bathrobe in front of our 52” plasma TV and he is bouncing up and down on my black leather couch. His dark skin and black silk bathrobe nearly blend in with the couch. Loot continues bouncing and singing the same verse of a song. He is trying to sing Whip It Out’s song but changing the words to: “Biatch, pay me that 200 bucks now!” Usually, Loot’s hair is tied tight in cornrows, but when they’re untied, like now, his hair is one huge mountainous Afro that could almost tip him over the edge of the couch.

Carey is shaking his head, probably because there is no end in sight to Loot’s trash talk. I glance at the TV and see they are playing some combat video game. Next to the couch, on the floor, my friend Ray is spread out on the carpet, passed out next to a nearly empty bottle of Paco Tequila. Most of the other friends I have at Albany State are a little put off by Loot and Carey and their less-than-suburban demeanor, but Ray just likes to get wasted. Carey sees me and shrugs.

I look at Carey and say, “What’s up with Loot?”

Carey answers, “Damnedest thing. We were playing since four in the morning when all of last night’s action was over. I was up $2000, but he wouldn’t let me quit. Finally I get him to agree to a time limit. We agreed to play until 10 this morning so that we can get at least some sleep. He thinks he just won the Super Bowl.”

I glance over at Loot and he’s still dancing, singing, “Biatch, pay me my 200 bucks.”

I turn down the music and face Loot and Carey. “Fellas, I got no zzzz’s last night. We burnt it hard but we put up good numbers. We’ll do a full accounting later, but I gotta sleep now.”

Loot stops dancing, and the place is suddenly peaceful. “Not a problem,” he says.

“Hey, can you guys throw Ray on the couch before you go to bed?” I ask.

Carey shrugs. “Yeah, we always do.”

I don’t bother washing up and plop down in bed. I mush around and try to find the comfortable position that will ease the burden of joints that are throbbing from a lack of sleep. Just as I start drifting off to sleep, my cell phone rings. Fuck, I forgot to shut the damn thing off. There’s no way I’m gonna answer this, but when I recognize the number I take the call. “Yeah,” I say into the phone.

“Hey, man, I’m ready for more,” Barry says. He’s one of my best customers. “I need eight boxes of shirts.” For some reason, we have developed a code where eight boxes of shirts means eight pounds of pot. I say okay, I’ll call him later.

I shut the power off on the phone, flip it closed and then find that comfortable position in bed almost immediately, probably because that last call is helping me ring the register again. As I start to float off toward sleep, somehow I get nostalgic and think of Speed Dial Pizza. How are pot and pizza connected, and not just through the munchies? Well, it wasn’t that long ago that I was struggling to get by, and one of the several jobs I had was delivering pizza for Speed Dial Pizza. Yup, Speed Dial Pizza, of all places, got me my first real weed customers.

Speed Dial guaranteed your pizza delivered in 30 minutes from the time you ordered or the customer gets the pizza free. So I’m practically running sprints all night. I’m driving 80-miles-an-hour in an asinine purple pizza uniform that’s soaked through with perspiration for shit wages and sometimes the only tips I got were bong hits. Which combined with the next 80-mile-an-hour delivery was not a brilliant combination. I did get a good view of the stoner landscape, so I came up with a plan to earn bigger bucks and get that much closer to creaming Balducci. See, I knew a dealer in Arizona who had great quality and his price blew away what was here. Locally, I was able to either supply shit to them at a better price and quality or put them out of business. The guys on the pizza circuit were just the start of my clientele. Once I got in, it was easy to carve out my own niche, especially at Spring Valley Lakes. The lobbyists, lawyers and NY State privileged students in this asshole factory make the greatest customers.

At some point I drift off to sleep. I wake up startled by the sight of Zog the Cellophane King standing above me, covered in dirt from the Camp Fondle You baseball field. I’m relieved to realize that it’s only a dream. I wake up but then I’m pissed because it’s almost four in the afternoon. Then I remember, Carey did wake me, but I rolled back over. Fuck, I’m behind now.

I do some reading for my advertising and marketing class and head out to HQ around
5
p.m. I’ll spend a couple of hours at the office and head back to The Lakes for a party that could be productive.

I enter the apartment with a couple of guys I don’t recognize. The music is blasting and the air is so thick with the sweet scent of pot you can practically eat it. I’m not even sure who is hosting this party. It’s a nice enough apartment and the music is kind of cool. An eclectic new-wave beat is pounding through the room like a train.

There’s an interesting tone starting to develop at these parties at The Lakes. A new set of “haves” and “have-nots” are forming. The “haves” include those who are sitting on a job offer or an ugly girl’s family business, those heading to law school or lobbyist training grounds. The “have-nots” are those who want that situation. There is a swagger in one group and a feeling of heaviness in the other. With the final semester around the corner, the conversation always moves in that direction when there is a room full of upperclassmen. Me, I don’t give a fuck, because I’m the only person in this room who knows where my future is and where I will be when school winds down, and there’s a fair chance I won’t even be breathing.

Whoever our gracious host is, he has set up a bar in the furthest corner of the room. Nothing too elaborate, it offers a few different brands of vodka, some tequila, some 12-year-old Scotch, a few bottles of wine and some bottles of beer. I drop some ice into a cup and start pouring in some vodka. I can use a couple of Absolutes to help me loosen up a bit. I don’t really want to be here tonight. I’ve got a big, big shipment coming in from my friend Al in Arizona, and I’m getting a little antsy about it.

I start scoping the room and take inventory of who is here, but I don’t see many fresh faces. Pretty funny how you walk into school as a freshman and get lost in a flood of 50,000 students. Then each year the cliques develop and grab their members. The stoners down this river, frats and sororities down that stream, real academics follow this trickle and jocks down that brook until everyone has made the school smaller with their own sub-groups. So here I am at a party with practically the same people from the last party. Where are the other 49,900 students? What else can we say to each other at this party that’s different from the last?

As expected, I notice a ton of familiar faces. On the unusual-to-see-here-side, I see Rocky Campbell standing by the other wall and talking to some people. This party at The Lakes is probably an experiment for her. Rocky is wearing brown cowboy boots and a tight pair of blue jeans. The pants are on a long winding road that continues up her lengthy, tight figure. The horizon of her low-cut jeans is met by a tight tan tank top. The tan shirt complements her wavy auburn hair, which tumbles sensuously down her back.