Represent-Feature Story

My Summer Hustle
I played the game, and lost

By Anonymous

(All names have been changed).

I was walking in the park one day in June, looking for some weed, when I bumped into a guy named Henry.

“I got Arizona,” he told me.

Now, I prefer Green. So I looked at him with a smile to hide my disgust and told him, “I only smoke Green.”

“Smell, smell,” Henry insisted, so I did to calm him down. His weed smelled good.

“I’ll buy it.” The exchange was made, and we were two satisfied black men.

That day the pieces were set. The game began.

About two weeks later I saw Henry again in the park. He started telling me his plans. “Look, there are so many weed heads out here I could make a killing. Money is right underneath my nose and everybody else is letting it pass by,” he said.

A Brand New Player

My summer seemed then like it was going to be an average summer, nothing to do but the same thing I did the summer before. Then Henry asked me if I wanted to sell weed with him. I figured he wasn’t a bad guy, and it was only weed, a God-for-snaking mister-meaner. I’d sold it before. So I said yes.

Henry sold me a dream, or tried to. Henry’s dream was to own the park. He was talking all kinds of bull, but at the time I thought his plan could be done. All we had to do was get the guys working in the park on our side. I didn’t see it as a problem, I saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn from a great hustler.

Now, I didn’t think that selling drugs was cool, and I damn sure wasn’t trying to make it my life’s profession. But I had nothing to do and no money to do it with. I wanted to play, but the game swallowed me whole.

Learning the Game

Henry was 46 and had been around. He taught me the drug game and how to watch my own back so I didn’t get caught. He also introduced me to a guy named Spider, who took me under his wing.

Times were slow at first. Nobody was really buying. I was complaining to Spider that the bag was too small and not enough money was coming through. Spider told me that to become a great hustler, I needed to have patience.

I learned on the job. I used my people skills while I hustled. I acted polite and kind-hearted, but my plan was to be just enough of an enforcer that I didn’t let people walk all over me.

My Friends vs. the Game

Once I began to deal with Spider and Henry, my friends weren’t feeling me. They thought I was changing for the worse.

Free pulled me to the side when I was at my job site (the park) and said, “Yo, P, I’m not really feeling your style. You’re not being you. Not chilling with your boyz no more. You made new friends and forgot about us.”

I told him that we will always be cool, I just got a new job that I need to focus on if I want to keep my head on my shoulders.

Free and my other friends thought the game would take control of me. I was sure it would not. I told them, “This is my choice. I said yes to being a dealer, to the whole package of it, and I got to go with the flow. I stop now, the whole river will swallow me.”

As they kept on trying to talk to me, I didn’t listen. I thought, “These people are always on some negatives,” and I started to get pissed off. Listening to them tell me I was doing wrong to my life was like hearing nails on a chalkboard. It was very upsetting.

Henry helped me to calm down. “You gonna realize that they talk nothing but nonsense,” he said, and I felt he was right.

Henry Blows Up

For a while, everything was going smooth. But then Henry started to really piss me off. He gave me a phone for business. It was prepaid, but every time Henry called he acted as if I had unlimited minutes and would try to talk to me for hours. Then he was bitching about me not having enough minutes on my phone.

He was always giving me life advice and trying to get me to start hurting people, especially women. That conflicted with one of my principles (don’t mess with a woman’s heart or emotions, it’s like asking for death), so I’d usually just change the subject.

But I was getting the impression that Henry might be trying to take control of me. I don’t respond well to control.

One sunny morning I was chilling with some friends, just freestyling and letting the time go by. I was enjoying myself. Henry called me on the phone even though I could see him nearby. I did not pick up. I walked over to Henry and he started telling me what to do with my phone and where to stay.

“Why you calling me when you could’ve just walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention?” I told him.

Henry started to get in my face, telling me I didn’t know how the game was played. I mean, he really blew up. I gave Henry his cellphone back and told him, “I am done with you.”

Friends and Partners?

Now, my intention was not to fight Henry. I wanted Henry to acknowledge that hiring me was a good decision and that I knew my game. I was always on time, I sold what he gave me and I looked out for him. I couldn’t understand where his anger was coming from and I damn sure didn’t understand why he was directing it at me. I felt he needed to respect me.

Two days later Spider told me, “Yo, P, you need to apologize to him.”

“I aim to, but first Henry needs to understand that nobody controls me and He needs to stop trying.”

Spider kept on insisting that I apologize, though, so I did. I pulled Henry to the side and said, “Look, Henry, you’re a good guy and I have nothing against you. I would like for us to remain friends and business partners.”

“Cool,” he said.

Trouble

A week later, maybe two, another connection I had gave me a fifty bag and told me to see what I could do with it. I wanted to smoke with my friends so I asked Henry to hold on to it for me until I was done. When I got back, he was gone. I was heated.

Later on that night, I saw Henry and asked for my weed back.

“You got to wait.”

“Why do I have to wait?”

“Because I flipped it.”

“Who gave you permission to flip my sh-t?!” I said.

More useless words were said and Henry was getting mad because he knew he was wrong but he couldn’t admit it.

“I’m about to gut you,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

No More Dream Selling

That was my cue. I punched him twice and he hit the ground and I punched him two more times while he was down. Henry got up and I saw the fear in his eyes, but I didn’t care. I felt he had a lesson to learn and I had to teach it.

I thought, “No more dream selling. No more cheating me. No more trying to control me. How could he believe he could come at me like I’m nothing?”

I have a lot of anger and hate in me toward my father, who beat me and made me feel like his slave, controlled me and held me down. For a minute, I felt like he and Henry were just the same and I was going to get my revenge on them both.

I told Henry that he couldn’t stay in the park until he gave me my money. Then I cracked him with a broomstick to let him know I wasn’t playing.

I was so hurt and disappointed in him. I hit him so he would feel some of my pain.

Finally, someone stepped in to stop the fight and I walked off. Later Spider got him to pay me my money back and it was done.

Mad and Confused

After what happened between Henry and me, I was feeling sad, mad, depressed and very confused. I never thought that I would be feeling that way, but I felt like I’d beat up my grandfather.

Everybody was coming up to me asking, “Did you beat up Henry?” I was not excited about beating up a middle-aged man.

To be honest, I was really mad at myself, and the more people that asked me about it the madder and more confused I got.

It took me a while to understand why I felt so strange. Then I realized that beating up Henry was like taking down my real father—a powerful, terrifying man who tried to control me and ended up sick and broken before he died, when I was 9. Henry was really hurt. And I was hurt, because I’d lost another father figure I desperately needed.

I was so scared of what I was feeling that I just let it slip out of my mind. Instead, I blamed my upset state on the drug game. I’d always been told that drugs tear people apart, and I decided that had happened to me. I vowed not to get those feelings again over drug money.

Trying to Quit

After the situation with Henry, I wasn’t feeling the game. Plus, things were changing too fast. The park was getting overrun with crack dealers, and some of them were real hotheads who were selling wolf tickets with my name written all over them (that means they were lying about me). I figured more trouble would be coming my way.

Then my girl made it clear to me that I would have to give up being a hustler if I wanted to stay with her. I balanced it out and saw that my boo was way more important than weed—even if it meant giving up money and power.

Once I decided I was out, I thought it was going to be easy, but it wasn’t simple to stop. I’d fallen in love with the game and it kept on calling my name. For a while, I kept on coming back. Every time I decided to leave, I’d wake up the next morning and start doing the exact same thing I was doing the day before.

I was in love with the power. I had the best goods out there, so there was no comparison, and with Henry out of the way I was my own boss. There was nothing nobody could tell me.

Giving Up the Name and the Fame

But my girl put the bug in my ear. She kept saying to me, “I’m too young to be visiting a man behind bars.” I started looking at the competition and how they all fell. They all got greedy, they all bit off more than they could chew. Even Henry, who sold me his dream of becoming king of the park, got laid low in a minute.

Finally, I took into consideration my confusion and my sadness, my love of my girl, my fear of jail and my fear of the damage I could do to myself and those close to me.

One morning I woke up and did not start up the game again. I gave up my hustler name and everything that came with it. It was fun seeing the reaction on people’s faces when they came to me for weed and I said, “I ain’t got.”

I gave myself a new name—Mr. Poet—and put all my focus on my girl, Mrs. Poet. That’s how my adventurous, powerful, near-deadly and finally overwhelming summer of hustling came to an end.