Genesis

Chapter 3 OR The Perfect Percolation of Psychological Poison

Chapter 3 OR The Perfect Percolation of Psychological Poison

I had known Ben for about ten years by the time we got to high school. He hung out with the more redneck crowd, with their dirt bikes, ATVs, and muddin'. I tended to hang out with a small group of nerdy guys that stuck to playing Minecraft and Dungeons & Dragons. Despite the different paths we took, we were still what I consider close. He lived about two houses down the dirt path and secretly had a deep passion for video games. The few times he actually did convince me to go outside, we explored the wooded area behind our houses. Once we got a bit older we started to use that same area behind our houses to make pipe bombs, napalm, flash bangs, and even homemade pistols. The first time I even saw an illicit drug was in those woods.

We lived in one of the most impoverished parts of the country, heroin and meth addiction was running rampant, literacy was well below the average. You couldn't even find a job at a fast food joint. A lot of the kids we went to school with turned to selling drugs or gang banging. Fighting in school was practically an everyday thing, metal detectors at every door, and drug dogs would do a sweep about once a week. It felt like what I imagine prison feels like. A complete lack of freedom and a very severe pressure on your neck.

I would always joke with Ben about joining a gang and finally making some money. Hell, I even knew where most of them lived. Most of them were related to me in some way or another. We usually just used them as a means to get the various narcotics we could afford after school. The thought of selling drugs had always crossed the both of our minds, but it never really sat well with either of us. Not that it was beneath us, it just seemed like something you do if you wanted to start a rap career or wanted to stay in your hometown selling that one drug forever.

I would jest, "If I am living here five years from now, I'll kill myself."

Ben was constantly on the prowl for some scheme to get him from his abusive father's clutches, and eventually Ben would fall victim to dealing drugs. That is how he came to be voted most popular two years in a row, being all the popular kids' drug dealer.

And one day, Ben came up with a self-pronounced genius plan. In my youthful naivety, I even agreed.

He knew that one of his wholesale dealers had about 500 thousand dollars in some run down shotgun house in the east part of the backwoods town we are from. They had really grown to trust Ben with large amounts of product, since he was white he was far less likely to get hassled and subsequently searched. They had him over for several parties, so he knew the layout and exactly where everything would be at.

He told me the only thing we needed was a distraction, something to ensure that every single person was elsewhere. He told me I had to handle that since I was family with some of the girls the dealers were acquainted with.

I concocted a genius caper involving rallying one of my cousins to get them all over there in the ruse of free liquor and sex, and even bankrolled it. What she didn't know was I evenly distributed a thirty-day prescription for my Ambien into about four half gallons of Hennessy. They would be passed out before midnight.

Ben bought some BB guns and spray-painted them black, just in case the house had any stragglers.

I also thought of the brilliant idea to burn the place down after we leave, since drug dealers tended to not call the police about their narcotics and drug money burning, being lost in a house they were renting in the first place.

I must admit, the plan went off without a hitch.

We couldn't buy anything extravagant, of course. People would notice something like that, but it did soften a few financial edges.