The Wilderness Years - One Car Parades (part 4)

Now i'll bet you'll never guess what Cocaine Mike decided to do once he got me on the team and got things running smoothly? anyone? now if you said something like, i bet Cocaine Mike took Mr. Big's money and started buying cocaine with it in order to flip it before he had to pay Mr. Big big back for fronting him the grass, if you said that i'd be pointing with one hand while tapping the tip of my nose with the other, cuz you'd be right, cuz you don't get the name Cocaine Mike by selling weed obviously and the profit margin on powder is so much higher than grass, that is of course if you don't like to shoot a bunch of that blow like our resident psycho Mike did, or as he put it, ain't nothing wrong with a little IVC, which was his way of saying he liked to shoot blow...

The back story on Cocaine Mike was that he was an army vet, one of the first guys to hit the ground in that little exercise we called Grenada, would show you his hand and his half missing pinky that he lost on the beach there,  he was once married and had three daughters but had done a good job disappearing out of their lives and was currently seeing the mother of his son, a white girl from the hollers of West Virginny who he claimed was fucking a brother in order to piss off her family, she of course had a predilection for a different powder and when visiting his apartment you'd see guns, ammo, syringes, baby formula, toys, more guns and more ammo, sitting on his couch and looking around was such a colossal mind fuck that all i wanted to do was get my shit and split but suddenly Cocaine Mike thought i was his best friend, i didn't have the balls to tell him i thought he was a thieving, psycho fuck who fucked over Jack, mainly cuz he'd kick my ass and then probably shoot me, who knows?  maybe he just enjoyed our conversations...

And so Mike told me how he had gotten the deal of the century, five ounces of flake for five grand, it was pretty good shit and by the time he was done cutting it he'd have close to six and a half ounces, after he took his half ounce of personal out of course, so he'd step on his stepped on coke and would hit the street, he'd cut it up in grams, teeners and eight balls and head to the bar where he'd unload an ounce or more a night, his claim was that he'd have Mr. Big's money back in no time and would be reaping in the cheddar... and he was right, he was moving right along and flipping it before Mr. Big ever knew a thing, he had pulled it off twice, and what was that saying? third time's the charm...

On his third go round of loaning himself Mr. Big's money Cocaine Mike came back to his humble hovel and promptly got in an argument with his West Virginia Baby Mama, and for some inexplicable reason Cocaine Mike left his apartment and went to the bar while he and his Baby Mama cooled off... except she didn't cool off, in what one could describe as karma coming back to bite Mike squarely on the ass his Baby Mama tore open the stereo speaker where he stashed his coke and left five empty baggies lying next to the toilet, the baggies had white residue and there was a note taped to the wall that said, "I hope Mr. Big kills you."  And there it went down the shitter, (not that i believed for a second that she was fool enough to flush it) Baby Mama even took his money effectively leaving Cocaine Mike broke, like flat fucking broke, he had the money in his wallet and that was it, of course Baby Mama didn't realize Mike wasn't the only one she screwed, he called me that night in a rasping mix of sobbing and seething, he read me the note, he called her bitch and whore and contemplated trying to find her in those hollers and shooting her and her whole damn family, rasped that when Mr. Big came he'd be fucking ready, i was already planning on laying real fucking low, the last thing i wanted to be was caught in the crossfire, i was sitting on a pound and a half bought and paid, i'd need to stretch it and hustle for something knew, that was the plan...

The next day i walked in the door from work, my pager had a dozen pages from Cocaine Mike and though i wanted to ignore them ignoring them made me nervous, especially if i bumped into him, particularly because he was a bit unhinged, i walked to Joe's Bar and used the payphone, Cocaine Mike asked for money, he wanted to borrow $300, that he'd get me back, i wasn't about to piss away three bills so i told him i didn't have it, that rent and my loans came due and that i was hustling just to make that, told him i'd meet him and give him what i could spare and so an hour later i walked into Mitchell's and saw him sitting in the back, smack dab in the middle so he could watch both doors, i handed him sixty bucks, said it was all i could swing, he nodded and smoked as his eyes darted, he genuinely thanked me as he told me that if Mr. Big came he'd ice the fucker, he was carrying two 9mm under his jacket and another gun on his ankle, whispered how he wasn't no fucking punk and knew how to use these things and that he'd come correct if the time came, i drank my beer and thought what the fuck am i doing here? i wanted to piss my pants, i wanted to pat Mike on the back and say have a nice life and then get the fuck out, but i finished my beer and had one more than made an excuse to leave, Mike said he was leaving too, and then of course he asked if i wanted a ride, i declined and Mike slipped out the back while i went out the front, i listened for gunshots as i walked back towards Joe's Bar, they never came, and that was the last time i would ever see Cocaine Mike in the flesh...

A few months later, not long before i traded in the pager for my first cell phone, i got a page, it was an out of state number with a message, MIKE CALL, i called the number and there was the old familiar rasp, he was down in Florida, he had scraped together a couple hundred dollars and left a day or so after we met at the bar, threw what he could in his gold Chevette, sold what he could, walked out of his place in the middle of the night and headed south, he had a new girlfriend, she was deaf but Mike knew sign language, how or why i never found out but he said it was going really good and that i should come down and hook up and we could do shit, i wanted to laugh and explain that he's psychotic and a fuck-up and that i was trying to weed those people out of my life but i just chuckled and said i didn't think i'd make it down, he asked if anyone had asked about him and i said no, there had a been a whisper or two but i didn't want to tell him that he wasn't exactly missed by anyone around these parts, he said he was working as a mechanic and living with his new girl, said i could get him at this number, after another minute of small talk we hung up... and that was the last time i heard from Cocaine Mike...