Mark D. Goldfinger
Spare Change News
Read A Controlled Dangerous Substance Act Part I
(Dean, Brenda, Billie & Chrissie have just been set up by Mickey & Viola, who they thought were drug buying friends. Detectives Irish & D’azeo, two of Orange, New Jersey’s most corrupt dicks busted Mickey & Viola and had them call Dean to bring over two hundred Quaaludes. Promised a little extra money, Dean complied and Brenda, Dean’s wife, and their friends Billie & Chrissie came along for the ride. They have just been surrounded by police on Mickey’s street.)
Suddenly the pills in the pants of Brenda were a lot bigger than they were before and it was the hole in her stomach opening wider than the space it was in that made her chest pull together and the shouting and lights caused her to shut her eyes.
“All right, all right, who’s got the pills?” said the man with a t-shirt on him that said, “Beep Beep your ass.”
“What pills? What are you talking about?” squeaked Dean who was so frightened that he actually felt like he was going to vomit but he knew he could pull this off because they didn’t have a warrant to search them. He was wondering how there were so many cops all at once on the street and how they knew to ask for pills. Suddenly it was all quite clear but it was much too late for revelation to be of any good.
“Listen to this,” said a big swarthy dark-haired cop with a black leather vest over a white dress shirt without a tie, as he waved his gun in the air, “what pills, he says, har har har” and he pulled out a bag of marijuana and threw it onto the dashboard of the car and shined a flashlight that was in his other hand right on the green herb in a plastic bag.
“Look here,” the dark-haired cop yelled. “Possession of marijuana. Let’s take ‘em out, book ‘em and search ‘em.”
A big black cop jerked open the door of the car and grabbed Dean by the neck and yanked him out with Dean’s mind stuttering like his mouth wanted to do but he couldn’t make a sound with his tight throat and Brenda started crying and Billie was yelling as they cuffed him and Chrissie saying, “Jesus Christ, we just went along for the ride. That’s all, just along for the ride.”
The thought of the charges of possession of heroin down at Seaside Heights kept chasing the bravado from Billie’s mind. As the police pulled him to the Judas car he remembered the scene on the beach like it was yesterday. The wind had kept blowing out the matches as he tried to cook the heroin in the spoon and Dominic was supposed to be keeping the peek and finally he had gotten it cooked, drew it up and stuck the spike in his vein. His life in the dropper as the red blood sprayed up the glass tube was the only thing that mattered and he looked up when he heard a sound and the two dicks were looking at him and Dominic, who was cooking his own dope instead of watching, and the guns in the police hands. There was only one thing to do and he squeezed the bulb on the pacifier hard and the rush hit him just as the cop kicked him in the side of his head and he spun into the sand face down. There was a ringing in his ears and the sand in his mouth was mixed with blood. Billie thanked God that he had been able to get the shot into his vein and the last thing he saw before the darkness spit into his eyes was the two cops kicking Dominic as he lay on the sand.
When Billie woke up it was night and for a minute he thought he was blind. Three weeks later they let him out on bail that his father had put up and he and his father drank beer together the entire drive home.
Dominic’s parents took him to the Synanon therapeutic community in California after the arrest. After two years in Synanon Dominic had come home and talked about being “cured” of his addiction there. One week later he was shot into death by overdose in the doorway of a condemned tenement in Newark, New Jersey. The needle hung, filled with dark red clotting blood, from Dominic’s arm.
Billie knew it was going to be one hell of a show in front of that Jersey shore hanging judge with pill charges added to his head too. If he ever got out of that court.
The swarthy dark-haired cop leaned into Dean’s face and said, “well, Mr. What Pills, how the fuck do you like this, huh asshole? You are going to jail and whoever has the pills better hand them over right now or that person will take the heavyweight even though we know the pills belong to fuckface here,” pointing to Dean.
Dean turned to Brenda. “Pull ‘em out and give ‘em to me and I’ll take the weight,” and he loved her more than his freedom in that moment. She reached into her spot dry with fright now and pulled them out and Irish grabbed them and turned to the dark-haired cop and said, “Well D’azeo, it looks like paydirt for us and prison for these assholes.”
D’azeo turned to them all and said, “Well I guess you all go down for possession with intent to distribute and that’s that. Bring ‘em all in and process them for Newark Street Jail.”
Irish turned around and said, “Well, you know, I hate to send these sweet girls to that jail. Now if we could get a little co-operation from Dean here, well then, things could be easier on his friends.”
They put each of them in separate police cars and they scattered into the night. Four cars, two cops and one culprit in each car. Alone in their heads with the mystery of the darkness pissing fear into the wild monkey terrain of their minds.
At the station they lined them up at a desk with cardboard and ink in front of them, unsnapped one cuff and pulled their hands to the front of their bodies and re-snapped them again and then fingerprinted each of them making sure to twist each finger to the maximum expression of the joint.
Snap off cuffs. Wash hands. Lock up. Men in one cell, women in the other. Cells facing each other.
“We got the records on Billie here.” The big Irish cop stood in front of the cell with D’azeo, who smiled with big teeth stained by tobacco. “I guess you’ll be going away, eh boy? Unless you can talk your boy Dean into turning a trick for us and giving us his connection.”
The cops looked at Dean. “See. You got the fate of your friend Billie in your hands. Eh. You can keep your mouth shut and Billie goes for a long time for your drugs and his girl and your wife go to. Or else you can give us your man and we’ll let Billie, Chrissie, and Brenda go with a slap on the wrist. Just a get out free card from us to them. And you’ll be the only one charged with possession with intent and then we’ll be sur and let the judge know you helped us.”
Dean felt the snakes turning in his head. He did not want to be a rat, but he felt the world was tilted off its axis and they were offering the best he could get. He didn’t know what to think. He felt his honor was on the line.
He thought back to a week ago at the pharmacy. Old Sam the pharmacist had come out with the bottle of pills and showed him a picture of a big fishing boat.
“What do you think of this boat?” Sam had croaked at him in that familiar frog voice as he stood there behind the counter with his little gun and holster strapped to his belt.
“Nice boat, Sam,” Dean had said.
“Ya know how I got it?” Sam growled with a big grin on his gnarly face. “From you guys. You bought it for me. I’m gonna retire early on the money I make from you junkies.” And he laughed and laughed and the empty spot in Dean’s stomach pushed at his ribs and made his lungs small. Dean pushed them money over the counter and walked out with the drugs.
“Maybe we should let these assholes alone so they can think, huh?” said Irish.
“You give these guys a lot of credit,” D’azeo turned to Dean. “See you in five, fuckface.”
And they left the cell area slamming another barred door that double-locked the cell space. Dean, Billie, Brenda & Chrissie began to discuss their dire situation.
Marc D. Goldfinger is a formerly homeless vendor who is now housed. He can be reached at junkietroll@yahoo.com and via his web page Marc D. Goldfinger. Marc also has books on www.smashwords.net that can be downloaded for $2.99.
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