DeVon Sterling controlled all the reggie in Trent Court. Reggie for those of you unfamiliar with marijuana slang stands for regular, and it is the cheapest pot you can buy on the black market. In order to establish himself with this position Von, only his mother called him DeVon, had to make a few examples of people who tried selling reggie in his neighborhood by stabbing these people who dared to cross that line and considered him to be weak because of his continual smile and diminutive stature. He was barely five feet tall and weighed 100 lbs soaking wet. Trent Court was the type of neighborhood that had no problem keeping secrets. He only sold by the gram and each gram cost five dollars. I was introduced to Von by a mutual friend named Benjamin Walker but went by the name Ralph and we knew each other from riding the bus together. I was the only white kid on the bus because my parent’s did not send me off to Parrot Academy, a private school. All the other kids who lived in downtown New Bern went to Parrot. Both my parent’s were self employed, my mother taught piano lessons and my father remodeled houses. We were neither poor nor wealthy because remodeling and teaching piano was very dependent on the economy and my father could only afford to keep his license for four years because my sister got sick and the cost of cancer treatment bankrupted our household. I bought the marijuana to help with the leukemia treatments and for myself although the treatments eventually killed my sister. Because Ralph introduced me to Von I was never afraid of him and occasionally we would all drink Icehouses and smoked weed and I learned how Von came to control the reggie market and learned that Ralph controlled the crack market. I never once judged these men for how they made a living and I can’t give you a good reason why. Ralph worked in a lumber yard and had to feed three kids and Von had two kids of his own. If I had to guess on the reason of my moral flexibility I would say I was lonely.

        My sister’s death left me jaded and I hated nearly everyone for a long time and the transition my family made from middle class to poverty did not help matters. My parents got a reverse mortgage to stay afloat. I got in a fight with five men at a bar for no reason other than their smugness and I lost but this fight only added to my anger at the world. I was never angry around Von nor Ralph and enjoyed hanging out and finishing each other’s cigarettes, and enjoy the blunt Von would roll from his own supply. I also enjoyed the look of fear all of his customer’s had on their face when they rolled up and bought weed or crack. Ralph was also skinny but he carried a glock on him that would put holes the size of golf balls inside his victims. Ralph never shot anyone in front of me but he would often bring the gun out if he was drunk enough and describe how effective his particular firearm was. One time I kept Ralph from using his firearm on a homeless woman because he was pissed drunk and the homeless woman stole his beer when he went to buy cigarettes from the gas station. Ralph kept trying to get me to go to the other side of Trent Court and I refused to move because I knew what Ralph intended.

“I will buy you a beer.” I said with tears in my eyes.

“That isn’t the point, the point is she stole from me, she disrespected me. I can’t allow that.” Ralph replied.

“Just go, let him do it!” the homeless woman interjected.

I stood there motionless until Von came outside his apartment and told the woman to leave.