Trap House Economics Part One(b)
The Great Highway Robbery
If you missed (a) side of part one of Trap House Economics, you can find it here. Or you can read this first, like Kill Bill and catch the first half after, but you’re definitely gonna wanna read the first half. Thank you so much. JLC, TFM.
In The Trap
To us at this time. We were totally disconnected from the realities of the trap, and the people working in the trap. To us, these people were celebrities. A class so far above the people waiting in line to get served, day in and day out, that when people that we knew from the line, went on to work in the trap we felt like they had made it.
We’d watched Steven on a daily basis, go from selling points to us from a gram bag that he’d bought for a hundred bucks trying to turn a profit, to buying pounds at a time, having 20-20 employees under him, testing, bagging, and serving the dope, rebuilding properties, traveling all over the world, having three children, all off the backs of this trap house on Bank Street. We ate up the culture of this place like we were part of The People’s Temple and Steven Cockerell was our Jim Jones. So, when Steven called offering one of these premium jobs inside the trap, it felt like we’d made it. But, since this is “Trap House Economics,” let’s talk about the economics, first.
It took years to beat out all the kinks in his little system, but by 2014 it was working like a well-oiled machine, except it wasn’t, at least once a week Steven would call Angie and I down there to have us pick up a half gram and “Try it out” and tell him if it had too much cut, if it was the same stuff we’d bought earlier, he was constantly at battle with trying to make sure his employees weren’t tampering with the product, stealing from him, setting him up. After they got busted there was a story that some girl was accusing them of kidnapping her and holding her hostage for three days.
See, El Chapo’s employees would never tamper with his product, he’d kill ‘em, Steven didn’t have that same “rule by violence” type of control. He was a businessman. In another life, born to another family, he’d have been a shrewd, hard hittin’, successful entrepreneur, but born to the Cockerell’s on Bank Street in Portland Louisville, this was the business.
So, Steven paid $400 for 24 hours in the trap. During which he didn’t care what you did but he’s calling every hour to check in with you and every three hours one of his people came to check the money, and the weight of what was left of the dope. Who would get a weight to money ratio to make sure you weren’t fucking nothing up and/or stealing any of the money or dope. Steven was also known in a rather Elon Muskish way for berating his employees, especially there at the end.
Back to the Message
I said, “Like in the trap?”
He said, “Yes, where’re you at?” Oh, back to reality. I gotta explain where I am at.
I tell him, “I’m walking up 26th Street. On my way back home.”
He said, “Stay there. Billy is coming to get you.”
I tell him, “Alright, I’ll be walking up 26th Street. I wanna raise the gap between where I am and where I just came from. I just got robbed in Dino’s parking lot. I appreciate this, Steven. Thank you. I won’t let you down.”
He said, “Just don’t rob me and you won’t.”
Just then Angie calls. I answer. She says, “Jordan, they want us to work in the trap tonight.”
I say, “I know.”
I was exhilarated. I’d went from the worst night to the best night. I felt like we’d finally made it. Like, all my hard times had finally paid off. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Billy picked me up at 26th & Market Street, we stopped by the house, picked up Angie, and headed to the trap to begin our lives on the other side of the train tracks.
When we got down there, the guy we were relieving seemed a bit unnerved. We figured he was just ready to get outta there.
There were three raids that brought the Cockerell’s down. This period was between raid #1 and raid #2, but ever since the first raid happened everyone seemed a bit jumpy by the time their 24 hours was up. Everyone knew time was short and no one wanted to be the guy on the inside left holding the bag.
When we got there, we were there to relieve Patrick, AKA Pat.
Billy came in with us and asked Pat if he’d “stay a couple hours longer to show us the ropes.”
Patrick obliged and told Billy, “Do you wanna pick up this money? I got $1500 here, separated, counted, and ready to go.”
He said, “No, not yet. I’ll come and get it all at once in at the next drop.” And he left out.
Patrick was white, ginger, you know red hair, freckled face, short hair. Not super short but not lanky either. Thin, but you can tell he works out a bit. Seemed almost too clean and well-dressed for…this.
After Billy left Pat expressed distress about Billy not taking the money with him. “Will you make sure they get this. I’m not worried about it being in y’all’s hands, but it’s the money I’m responsible for. It’s $1500 and anything could happen. I don’t have it to replace, and I need this job.”
Angie and I reassured him, “We’d protect it with our lives.”
We kinda knew the deal, but what he did teach us is How to get well on the boss’s supply without upsetting the boss. If “we needed to do a couple points—as he was sure we would—we’ll shorten the next couple serves by a bit. Just remember to make sure it’s not so short they complain, and don’t do more than we can make up before the next count and money drop.”
He also explained to us that any amount the bag was over we could take out, and if we don’t take it out the higher-ups will give it to us, so we’re not doing anything they don’t agree with.
“If someone orders a .1, give them a .08, if they’re obnoxious, make it a .06, if someone orders a half gram (.5), give em a .35, unless they’re someone like, well, like you two, who’ve been coming here a long time and have an inside connection with Steven, short anyone else, if you want of course, but I would, because let’s be honest, the heat is on you. If anything happens, they might get arrested but you’re the one facing the most time. Make it worth it.”
That was his parting pep talk, and off he went. We let him out, locked the door behind him, now it was just us, left to our devices.
I must mention, that by this point one of the rules of the trap is “no one is allowed inside the trap.” Not even the family. And definitely not Momma Jenny, but we could never tell her no. If anyone is supposed to be there they will call, otherwise you do not open the door for any other reason, but while Patrick was there with us, a few shadowy figures stopped by. I only knew one of them, he went by the name “Black.” We knew him from hanging around the trap, he seemed to bounce from one trap to the next and get away Scott free when shit hit the fan. We met him at a rival operation that got their business purely off of location. I can’t remember their names now, but it was a lady and a guy who claimed Steven got his connection from them and would circumvent customers looking for Steven’s into their place with a promise of the same H, with no cut. They were also known for sitting on dope until Steven’s would shut down for whatever reason, such as someone making false alarms to the trap phone to get them to “panic close” and poach their customers as they went up the alley, since their house was right at the entrance to the alley.
This caused them to alienate everyone around leaving no one to warn them when their place was being raided. For this they were the first one picked off by the FEDs and Black had moved on to bigger things, like haunting the trap up the alleyway looking for a come-up.
I remember the day they got raided, I turned my bike down 28th Street on my way to Steven's and seen three unmarked Dodge Chargers that I’d never seen before parked right before the entrance to the alleyway. I stopped and called Steven, “Hey, is everything alright?” I said, in a bit of a panic.
He said, “Yea, come on through.”
I said, “Dude, there's FEDs sitting on the alleyway.”
He said, “Hold on.”
A minute went by… He comes back to the line. “Yea, I don’t know what that is. I see em on my camera. Come through the front.”
That was their solution to everything. When the front looks dicey, come through the back. When the back looks dicey, come through the front. Jeez!
Once Pat left and we were officially on our own we decide to do a little ice and another point of H. I try to give Angie a shot, but she’s dehydrated so I can’t get a vein, I also have to pull it off in between customers so that’s an added stressor.
The trap phone rings, it’s Black. I answer the phone, and he says, “Hey, I’m at the door. Let me in.”
This is our first night, we don’t really know who is cool and who isn’t. We tell him, “Sorry, bro. No can do, Steven gave us strict orders not to let anyone in.”
He says, “Yea, but that doesn’t apply to me.”
I say, “Hold up. I’mma call Steven and ask him.”
He says, “Okay cool, but let me in while you are calling him. I’ll talk to him myself—”
“—No. Sorry, bro. Can’t do it—.” He hangs up the phone. Steven answers the other phone, which Angie has been calling him to ask on.
He says, “Dude. That motherfucker is never allowed in that house. Ever!” And hangs up the phone. Jeez!
I call Black back to tell him, he doesn’t answer. He must’ve known. I have no clue what all that was about. I peek out the curtain. It’s as empty as can be.
Angie says, “Did he hang up?”
“Yes.”
“Okay… Hurry, up let’s get our shots in before someone else shows up.” She says, with a note of desperation in her voice.
I understood. I was feeling the same way.
“The Trap” refers to one of five houses—at this time in space—that are owned by the Cockerell’s, be it Steven, his Uncle Timmy, or his father Ernie. This one specifically we spent more time in than any of the others. When we first started coming here this was Ernie’s actual home, it’s a nice house, one bedroom in the back, by then it was completely empty, except for that one bedroom in the back where we are at. The front door is boarded up so no one can come in that way. The Backyard is surrounded by a wooden privacy fence with a garage/large shed at the edge leading into the alley where business used to take place. But several robberies, hundreds of close calls with the law, and for some reason a DEA that allowed what we’d call today an open-air drug market two blocks away from the police station. The back door was made of square glass panes, right next to the glass door was the bedroom window, with a window seal about three foot off the ground, and a cinder block under the window, where customers—like me usually—would place our order and sit, waiting for it to be passed out the window from behind a gray curtain. Only hands in view.
On the inside the floors were carpeted, with carpet that could definitely use a shampooing. Against the window, flush with the window seal, almost like an extension of the seal was a mini fridge, upon which we’d use as a table to weigh up, bag up, and count the money. Inside the mini-fridge we’d, most of the time, keep the drugs and money with an upright living room chair on one side and a fold up chair on the other, the only furniture in the entire house, straight across the room from the window is the door to the bathroom with a toilet, that still sat shattered into pieces from the first raid, where the FED’s shot the dog in the back yard, shot a flash bang in through the back door, busted in and caught Anthony “Red” Kessinger attempting to flush the drugs down the toilet, unfortunately the bag was too big and slowed the flush giving the “Goon Squad” time to shoot out the pipe in the back of the toilet in time to stop the drugs before they went down. This was maybe two weeks before we sat in the same chair carrying out the same job that Red was incarcerated, awaiting trial for.
I finish my shot right as the next customer shows up. It’s the 2nd shift swell, the group that gets off work at 11PM, by the time we get one customer served we peak around the curtain and there is five more. It’s 11:45PM, this continues for the next three hours, no real excitement, just bag up, go, bag up, go, then Billy shows up to do the checks.
He’s real cool about it. We’re over by a half gram so he takes it outta the bag and gives it to us, clears out the money, we gave him $1450. We tell him, “What about the $1500 down here from Pat’s shift?”
He says, “I don’t wanna count it right now. I’m ready to go. I’ll get it next time.”
He leaves out. When he leaves there is one customer outside, I lean down to the window, “What d’ya need?”
She says, “three points of H and two points of ice.”
By now we have a system worked out. We take turns taking the orders, she bags up the H and I do the ice, and we take turns passing it out the window.
While we were taking care of this the trap phone starts ringing. Before we could answer they hang up and start calling Angie’s phone, it’s Steven. I answer, “What’s up bro?”
He starts yelling, almost inaudibly, “Why the fuck is no one answering the trap phone?! I just got numbers back, you’re $800 behind!? What the fuck is going on?!”
I answer, in complete confusion, “B-Billy just left, he said everything was perfect. He even gave us a half gram because we were over.”
This was the wrong thing to say, he bellowed out, “Over! How could you be OV-ER! Maybe I made a mistake with you two. Count the money, give me a count and weight right now. Don’t accept any more calls until I have this!” Click. He hangs up the phone.
Me and Angie, in complete disbelief start arguing about this then start scrambling to count the money. There isn’t much money to count, Billy just picked it up, so we get a good weight, just then Angie pulls a stack of money out of the mini-fridge. It’s the $1500 Pat left.
Angie says, “do you think this is what is happening? He’s not counting this money.” I thought the same thing.
The phone starts ringing again. It’s Steven again. We brace for impact before answering, take a deep breath, “Yes. We got it—”
“Hey, my bad. Billy just got here. Y’all are doing a great job. Keep it up. Talk to ya in a few.”
Relief washes over like a warm bath.
I put the phone down, look up at Angie. As if to be reading my mind, she says, “I need another shot after all that.”
It’s now 2 in the morning. I start fixing another shot. Another customer shows up. Angie takes care of them.
The phone rings, it’s a customer. Angie is busy at the window, so I answer, the voice on the other side, small, mousy, woman of a certain age, she says, “Hey this is Amanda. Is Steven there?”
Weird question. Everyone knows this is not how to get hold of Steve. “No, he’s not. D’ya need something?”
“Ummmm…. Is there clear in right now?”
Clear is a codeword for ice. Although Steven keeps an abundance of H, he always had trouble keeping ice in. He’d sell out as fast as he could get it in.
“Yes, sure do,” I reply.
“Does he cut a deal on weight?”
“I…Don’t know. How much are you looking for?”
“It depends on the price.”
“Well, I don’t have the price on anything higher than a gram for $55.”
She says, “Okay, but I’m not paying gram prices for a quarter ounce.”
“So, you need a quarter ounce?”
“Do you have that much?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, yes.”
“Lemme get a price and call you right back.”
“You have to call me back?”
“Yes, I don’t know how much that runs.”
“Well, maybe I’ll just go somewhere else.”
I’m getting irritated and have an all-over bad feeling about this.
I tell her, “Good. Call someone else.”
I hang up and reiterate that strange convo to Angie. By the time I do this she’s calling again. So, I hit the “F-U” button and give Steven a call.
Steven answers, “Hullo?”
“Hey Steven, it’s Jordan. I got somebody calling wanting a quarter ounce of ice.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I needed to call you first.”
“Okay, you got a pen?”
“Hold on I’ll get one.”
I reach around looking for a pen, found one under the door to the mini-fridge.
“Yea, I got it.”
“Okay, write these prices down. Gram $55. 8 ball (3.5 grams) is $150. Quarter ounce (7 grams) is $300. A half is $550. Anything bigger you’ll have to call me. Chances are you won’t need anything bigger than that, but if you do I need to know because it means I’ll have to get more.”
“Ok, cool. I’ll call her back and let her know.”
“Alright, what’re we looking at like right now?”
“Do what?”
“What do we got left.”
“Oh, I—Do not, give me a minute to check, I’ll find out and call you right back.”
“Alright, but next time know it.”
“I will.”
I hang up the phone and Angie, whose been listening in says, “I got the weight. There’s 48 grams of H and 28 grams of ice. We just gotta count the money.”
We’re both sitting in our respective seats on either side of the mini fridge.
Fridge against the widow. I reach in the fridge and pull out the money and start counting. The trap phone starts ringing, I hear five heavy thuds, and my whole world explodes into dust, glass, and chips of wood. It’s so loud my ears are ringing, my vision is spinning, my eyes can’t focus on what’s happened, I’m too close to ground zero to see. The window has exploded into us, I finally get a focus on Angie, who was across from me, but is now on her feet, she grabs my shirt and says, “Come on! Let’s get the fuck outta here.” I’m moving as quickly as I can away from the window, I look back to see a hole where the window once was and a dark figure climbing in, I see the glare of a gun in one hand, now I don’t look back. We run to the front door of the house, all I can think is, They’re coming for us! They’re going to kill us. Vaguely I remember the words a wise man told me; “they’ll kill ya so ya can’t send someone to kill them. Stay out of that game.”
It’s every bad dream I ever had in my life manifesting itself in reality, we get to the front door, Of course! It’s boarded up! There’s a side door, I know there is, but we have to go back towards Them! Whatever. Whoever. Is there!? Every evil deed I ever committed. They’re all coming back for me. This is my time.
The front door… how well are those boards on there. I’ve got to give it one more try! I unlock the deadbolt, turn the door handle and pull like I’ve never pulled before. The door flies open so easily my own force knocks me down. Angie grabs me and says, “Get UP!”
We run out the door, straight across the street. Angie doesn’t knock, she opens the door and bounds through, still in a full run, to the back of the house, we are now in Ernie, Steven’s father’s house. I stall a little because I’m also afraid of running into people home’s unannounced, Angie is off and running to the back. She’s trying to wake someone up. I spot Ernie asleep on the couch, not asleep now. He’s wide awake now.
I say, “Ernie, we just got robbed. They took everything.”
Ernie says, “Slow down, take a breath, what happened?”
Angie’s now there in the living room and we try to explain. “We were working at the trap, across the street. We got robbed, they hit the window with…Something—”
“—A cinder block.” Angie says.
“Oh, a cinder block?” I say. Finally understanding what caused the explosion next to my head.
“Yea.”
“Okay.” Ernie says, “Go back, and lock the front door. Did anything make it out?”
We both shake our heads, no, now realizing I still have money in my hand I say, “Oh, this.” I count it out to him, it’s $34.
“How much was left?” The drugs, God the drugs.
I say, “28 grams of ice and 48 grams of H.” A silence settles over us.
Then Ernie blows up, “Fuck the drugs, fuck the money. Someone could’ve gotten fucking killed. Now, this is starting to be bullshit! I’m shutting this shit down. It’s done. Can y’all get back home? Do you feel safe with that?”
We nod our heads, “Yes.”
“Go lock the door and go home. Business is through tonight.”
We leave Ernie’s, Angie says, “We have to go back in. Both of our phones were in there.”
“Damn.” I so do not wanna go back in there. But we do.
We walk back to the back room where it happened. Where I was sitting there is a straight line of $20 bills across the floor, I say to Angie, “They missed the money. Let’s take it back to Ernie.”
We make eye contact, as if transferring thoughts between our eyes and start stuffing money in every pocket we could. I take my shoes off and put money underneath my insoles. I guess I thought I might get searched by someone, or something. I do not know. What we did know: We know damn well Steven isn’t paying us for this, and this is the end of our employment on Bank Street. This is that $1500 that everyone tried to get Billy to take, and he never did. We risked our lives, our freedom, and got cussed over the phone for it. It was almost like God had left that money there for us.
Thank you for reading.
This has been a Non-Fiction account of my life, in the fast lane. This is Trap House Economics.
By
Editor-in-Chief ofGod gave me a stern intervention
Now I'm on the verge of redemption
But it's hard to let the past go
When the past is always the first thing mentioned
Will the birds still chirp if the sun don't rise?
Will the plants all die if the sun don't shine?
How can we see but we run 'round blind? I'm just askin'