Lightning Rod wrote:OP is dead now, I can tell stories about him. He's beyond the statute of limitations.
OP was an amphetamine salesman. He did a bumper business in dime and quarter bags. His phone was ringing 48/14 (speed freak time.)
One day we were in the grocery store and he picked up a pound of epsom salts. Magnesium sulfate heptahydrate. He said, "See this?. It costs a dollar and a half and it will make me ten thousand bucks." He called epsom salts 'hamburger helper.' He used it to cut his crank.
His phone rings again. "Yeah?...Yeah, I'm workin'. Tell you about it? Ok, the count is bad, it's cut too much, and it's overpriced, how many do you want?'
After all, it was a seller's market.
Op and I moved into this duplex off Lower Greenville after my Grandmother's house was sold at an alarmingly low rate by her son, who hated me for tending his mother on her death bed and allowing her (at her request) to die at home with dignity.
We were in the duplex one morning when I heard the doors slam. I knew what that meant: badges by the dozens headed towards our little piece of the world. "They don't close the doors quietly," OP said, "they want to rattle you."
I wasn't rattled and was actually quite ready for the visit. OP visited the bathroom and I sat by the door to open it at the knock I expected. It didn't come when I expected it. It seems the locals, Feds, ATF and Bomb Squad hit the other side of the duplex. I was in hysterics. The two girls that lived there had called in on us and had been hoisted on their own petard.
The MAN finally came to our door and escorted us to the lockup. They meant business. We were before a judge in 15 minutes with a bond of 1.5HK each and fingered, printed, messed and mashed in another minute and a half.
OP and I compared some notes and decided we were going to get sprung quick - lack of ANYTHING for evidence and we started calling EVERYONE we knew and feigned fear and loathing. Between outburts of laughter that had the boys on our block worried we were THE whacko's their mother told 'em about, we managed to call about 20 people before the floor meister caught on and yanked us.
Sure enough, we were "set free" within a few hours. At least I was, OP had an outstanding for double parking or something in MY car that he had borrowed for over a week without my permission. When he finally returned it he asked me if I was mad. I said, "No, but you'll get paid back."
As I was getting processed, he asked me to bond him out. I wasn't about to do it. He owed me big time for the car, so I left him in until Brenda came and picked me up at a bond office I had walked into down the street (they nearly shot me there because I still had the block bracelet on and I was barefoot).
Outside, later that week, OP nearly let his fists get the better of him. He was really mad I had left him in the stew for another couple of hours. I casually mentioned his car routine and the problems he had caused me. He looked at me like I was a sicko and said something about it being different - there wasn't a cell between worlds without my car. I got right up in his face and said, "Oh, REALLY? Think again, Burt. There isn't too much difference between here and there now, is there?" That shut him up for months.