Saturday, February 21, 2009

BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

Early this morning I woke and as I reached for my glasses on the night table so that I could read the clock that turned out to indicate 3:30, I recalled a dream involving a group of men and one woman who came to the drug store regularly to send Western Union Money Transfers. At the time, there was a government regulation that transactions of $10,000, and more should be reported to a government entity--which one escapes me.
Each of the transactions brought to me by this group were under $10,000, usually between $8,500 and $9,500. After the first few transactions I realized that this must be a group of drug dealers, probably marijuana, but then I really wasn't expert enough that I could discern the difference between marijuana dealers and heroin or cocaine dealers.
The money would always be brought by a single member of this group of four or five people, and after a while I decided that it would be safer to accept the cash only at the bank, where I would deposit it before actually sending the money transfer. The group readily accepted this arrangement, as they (or their leader) understood the danger to which I was exposed when I kept the money in the store and brought it to the bank.
These transactions were very profitable for me, bringing me commissions of $130 to $150 each. There would be three or four transactions each week, and they were a factor in the on-going success of my store. By success I mean the ongoing prevention of failure or bankruptcy.
In time I discerned a pattern. Always there would be a transaction on Monday afternoons. The others would be made irregularly but never on Sundays. After Mondays there would be two or three more. I became very interested in or perhaps intrigued by in the group, and wondered what they were actually doing,--were they wholesalers, what was their product, who was actually in charge, was the person in charge one of the people who brought me money? I wondered.
A time came when I was at Estrella de Ponce a bar on Broadway in Bushwick, at that time one of the seedier parts of Brooklyn, much more so than the part of Williamsburg in which my store was located.
I knew the owners of the bar, as they were my customers at the drug store. Their names were Tonto and Luis, and they were trying to interest me in a real estate deal, which, of course, I passed on; but which, of course, would have made my life much easier to day. Tonto now lives in Sands Point and Luis and his wife live on Riverside Drive. So you can understand what kind of partners I might have had. I led them to my friend Ruben, the architect, but as far as money was concerned, he was already over his head due to his attraction to cunt, cocaine, and cognac, and he passed also. -- Only one of many mistakes for both of us.
While I sat at a table with Tonto and Luis, three members of the group entered the bar. They sat at the bar and ordered tequila, and seemed very happy about something that had occurred that very day. They spoke in Spanish far too quickly for me to understand, but Tonto, a perceptive man if there ever was one, understood that my attention had been diverted, that it had left the table at which I sat, and that I was carefully watching and attuned to the men at the bar.

Tonto cautioned me not to watch so closely. "Why not?" I asked. He explained that they were very dangerous men, that they controlled the neighborhood and that they were not to be toyed with. Two thoughts immediately came to mind. First, that I had nothing to fear from these men, as I was one of them. Second, that my innocent naivete would continue to protect me--as it always had.
In my mind, there was never a question of reporting them. When I began to write to write this piece I described it as a "dilemma" but a dilemma occurs when there are difficult choices to be made. In this case, there were no choices--I knew that I would continue my service to the group.
Should I have used the phrase "my part in the crime," instead of "my service" to the group?