The Jersey Wars

Chapter 3 - Death From Above

June 1988

There's an old adage about April showers bringing forth May flowers, and as it turns out that saying happens to be very true. In April we showered New Jersey with our bootleg cassette and video tapes which saw May bloom big profits for everyone involved.

The first thirty days of our new business venture netted us a $3,600,000 profit statewide. Net. That means that even after we relinquished product in order to expand our distribution, the fact that we were collecting a mere 1.5% of the other crews' total profit pushed our profit margin over 250%.

Our other business enterprises of drugs, prostitution, and credit card forgery were also up, as well as our legitimate operation Garden State Visionz, which specialized in automotive detailing and modification. All in all, it was a good time to be from North Jersey. Sadly, that would all soon change.

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Paulie Costanzo and his brothers Petey and CeCe loved to party, and with their finances now flush with proceeds from North Jersey's bootlegging, they did so like rock stars. The only problem was that they were bored with the party scene of the Jersey shore.

On this particularly humid Saturday in June of 1988, Paulie gave his entire crew the night off while he and his brothers made their way north to a livelier partying atmosphere in Manhattan, but first a stop in Newark to cop some of JDC's choice cocaine and then drinks before heading to the city.

There was a major drought in the Jersey Shore due to Paulie's main supplier being busted by the D.E.A. two weeks prior. Paulie didn't feel too bad about it due to the bootlegging profits more than covering the losses incurred by not having any drugs to sell, it only hurt him personally since Paulie Costanzo put about $300-$400 worth of his own coke up his nose daily. He'd been sending different people up to Newark for the past two weeks to cop that booger sugar and even Paulie had to admit it, those North Jersey boys had some good shit.

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Takeera Stone had no complaints about her life. The 5'6" brown skinned beauty had a successful career that she loved, two beautiful sons, and she was married to the love of her life DeAntre. Yeah, Takeera Stone considered herself blessed to have what she felt was the perfect life.

On this particular Saturday night, she was having dinner with two of her girlfriends at Romano's Italian Restaurant & Lounge in Bloomfield. Missy, who was a dead ringer for the singer Pebbles, and Karen who was a 5'2" 140 lb. redbone of the thickest proportions, had gone to Hillside High School with Takeera and they'd been The Three Musketeers since freshman year.

The reason for the dinner was to celebrate Karen's promotion to Head Maternity Nurse at Columbus Hospital; which ironically was only five short minutes from where they now sat. Being that Tre was in South Jersey with Jason and Jamison on business, Takeera had gotten a babysitter and allowed herself a rare night out with her longtime friends. Being that they were all married with children, nights like this one had come few and far between in recent years.

"We need to do this more often y'all." Missy said as she downed her fourth glass of Gaja Barolo Langhe Sperss red wine.

"Maybe we could," Karen replied with laughter. "If Teddy would let you get out of bed to come up for air every once in a while."

This brought even more laughs from Takeera and Missy, who came back with, "You're just jealous because Michael doesn't have that kind of....staying power."

The ladies all laughed heartily as Karen countered, "That's because I got that whip appeal, BabyFace wrote a song about me."

"Oh snap!" Takeera said as the laughter brought tears to her eyes. "She took it there Missy!"