A note from the author
This is a story about my time spent in the Trap. "The Trap" refers to an underground economy as important to domestic output as any legitimate industry. It is fast disappearing as the century-old experiment of prohibition comes to end — but in its heyday, the Trap was one of the great wealth-generating activities in the modern history of capitalism.
This is one man’s story set in the final days of the Trap.
The events which occur in this book were made possible by the things I have heard, seen, and — in many cases — participated in directly. It is a "novel" only in the sense that I have altered and embellished names, dates, and select instances for the sake of continuity and dramatic effect — and to protect the criminals who still haven’t been caught.
It is written in a language meant to capture the spirit of the time, which is to say that it is colloquial, crass, unapologetic, and — by today’s standard — offensive. I can live with that. The Trap is not a nice place, and neither is the world.
This book is dedicated to all the hustlers of earth, who would prefer to die standing on their own two feet.
-J.M, 2020
Party Over
This game is a motherfucker — listen up and I’ll explain. Whoever said illegal was the easy way never had their wrists wrapped in steel, you can bet that. Bet they never moved work across the greater forty-eight, or made coke stretch during the drought, or got cleaned for their stash by some stick-up kids with a loaded .38 pointed at their head. It didn’t feel easy living on the run, or hearing the gavel fall, or watching that man bleed to death on the yard. You see, the Trap is like a casino — you might hit a hot streak, but in the end it’s the house that always wins. Better believe every dollar you earn in this game you pay back threefold.
It only looks easy now, as I soar high above the clouds.
2010 in the Pacific Northwest — a special moment in time no doubt. Blink and you’ll miss it. While the rest of the country starves, we can’t finish our plate. Walk down the street, and hundred-dollar bills can be plucked from the trees like Florida grapefruits. From the Mendocino mountains to the cul-de-sacs of northeast Portland, a miracle is taking place. It’s as though God finally opened the rain clouds over a drought-scorched land, watching while his children slurp down every last drop. Like the mob of ’20s prohibition or the Colombians of the early ’70s, this is our moment in history — our chance to feast. Planes, trains, and automobiles are how the dope moves east and the money gets ferried back west. Pounds of high-grade from the Golden Triangle are fetching double-up wholesale prices in almost every state across this fair land, creating new millionaires overnight.
I am but a minnow in this feeding frenzy, but in this racket even a minnow can gobble down $20,000 a week, free and clear. Like Viet Cong guerillas on the Ho-Chi-Minh trail, so too does my merchandise follow a clandestine route from Humboldt to Portland to Jersey and on up the Eastern seaboard. Bricks don’t even touch the scale anymore — they just come in through the front and leave out the back, moving with the speed and efficiency of the FedEx trucks that transport them. I don’t touch them anymore, either. I let my soldiers take the risk while I count up the spoils.
Still can’t believe my dumb luck. In less than a year’s time, I’ll be the owner of a million dead green guys and a hotel on the Colombian coast. Not that I didn’t earn it — some folks enter the dope game with a silver spoon in their mouth. I got my start bagging out dime sacks in my parents’ basement. Weed, coke, shrooms — whatever was winning. And up the ladder I clawed, surviving police raids and home invasions and my Dad flushing the product down the toilet, until finally, at twenty-four, I’ve got life by the back of the hair — skirt hiked up, thrusting with all my might. Criminal, or good American? Perhaps they’re one and the same. I’m just carrying on tradition, from the Roosevelts to the Kennedys to the Genoveses — getting it while-the-fuck it’s good.
Focus now, big fella — you haven’t crossed the finish line just yet. There’s still work to be done. Gotta stay alert — paranoia is a pusher’s best friend. Trouble is, this money will lull you to sleep.
Seems like they always come for you when you’re at your weakest. Like today, annoyed and hungover, my courier calls me while I’m still in bed to tell me he’s sick, so now I’ll have to make the collections myself. I’ve got two packages arriving from the East Coast in a few hours, and I still haven’t packed for my flight to Cartagena this afternoon. Maria will throw a fit if I miss that flight — might even put out a contract on my head, quite literally. She’ll think I’m cheating, and since I’d prefer my body not be riddled with bullets by some twelve-year-old kid wearing a soccer jersey on the back of a Ninja bike, I have to act fast. I lean over to the naked broad lying next to me and rustle her awake.
“Hey, time to go.”
“What’s the rush?” she groans.
“Colombians are coming to kill us,” I say, ripping off the covers.
“Huh?”
She’s a wreck alright. I hustle her out the door like a security guard on a shoplifter. This is Betty, the neighborhood squeezer — they say she could teach the wind how to blow. Poor gal. She’s probably been shooed out of more apartments than a starving raccoon, but at least I let her see the sun come up this time.
“I can’t do this anymore, Betty,” I say. “I’m in love with someone.”
“Yeah alright, whatever,” she says, stuffing her bra inside of her purse. She turns around to look at me, smiling with last night’s lipstick smeared on her two front teeth. “Should I call you sometime?”
“Definitely.”
I kiss her on the cheek and slam the door shut.
Freedom at last. My head is throbbing as I hurriedly stuff clothing into a suitcase and shower off last night’s improprieties. My place is all drug dealer — nothing but a king-size bed and a coffee table furnishing this thousand-square-foot penthouse overlooking the Willamette River on Portland’s northeast side. I could live in anywhere in this city — have a loft in one of those douchey glass eyesores sprouting up all over the place like dandelions, but fuck that. I’m loyal to the soil. Northeast is my home — the only neighborhood in America where doctors and lawyers raise their kids next to crack houses. A true melting PIREX pot.
I grab my keys and light up last night’s reefer. The medicine eases the fog in my brain as I watch the sun breaching the clouds, reflecting brilliantly off the downtown skyscrapers. Me and my kind are the last of a dying breed. Ten years from now, the Trap will be all but extinct. Weed storefronts will sit legally in every strip mall from Seattle to San Diego, and nationally, the underground wholesale market will be reduced to a sliver. The game is entering the bottom of the ninth, and I’m in scoring position — a million dollars just ninety feet away at home plate. This money will alter the course of history, setting the table so my heirs and generations beyond can eat.
All I need to do is not fuck it up.
Two Hours Later…
I fucked it up. Someone’s been snitching alright, but a real boss never blames a snitch. He expects it, in fact, for man is weak and his loyalty flimsier than the paper on which he gives his sworn statement. Just hope it’s not who I think it is — if that’s the case, my whole empire is in jeopardy.
The pounding on the door is so loud it shakes the apartment, and in the distance, I hear the faint chop of the helicopter
