Chapter Seven

By the age of fifteen, the dealing was on, wide open. It took plenty of money to support my habit. I was a full-fledged dealer-growing, selling, and smuggling pot. Normally, I only smuggled marijuana, thinking that the sentence would be easier if I got busted. I occasionally smuggled Roche-2’s and pasadrene, Mexican valium.

I went to Florida, Texas, and Mexico. I was always going somewhere. Florida and Texas were easy, as drug smuggling goes, but Mexico was a totally different animal; you’re no longer under United States jurisdiction. You can be killed in Mexico, and no one back home would ever know. And if you wind up in Mexican prison, well that’s really bad. You’ll need family to bring you food, or you’ll go hungry.

I’ve smuggled with many different people, both friends and relatives. I’ve smuggled with the best. We’ve done it many different ways. Sometimes, we’d swim bails across the Rio Grande River at night. We’d wrap the bails in plastic and have Mexicans swim them across.

They’d have a bail under each arm. Other times, we’d rent a U-haul truck and drive six or seven hundred pounds of pot across the border. You could make a ton of money, $300 per pound, but; it was highly risky. We’d wait for a storm, a flooding rain, then just drive through. The adrenaline would really be going. We would sell large quantities in Texas, right over the border.’ We had money running out of our ears.

We usually dealt directly with the Mexican police. They would smuggle it for us. We’d go into Mexico, meet with them, examine the pot, and then return to Texas. They would load it on large produce trucks and drive it across the border. We’d take possession in Texas, then return to Louisiana to sell it. They would send a guerrilla with us to protect their interest, the fronted dope. I’ve been into Mexico many times, but always preferred partying in McAllen, Texas while someone else drove across the border.

The method of smuggling always depended upon whom you were dealing with and the connections they had. There were many different ways of doing it. I’d normally bring 100 pounds back to Louisiana, sell it over a period of about 10 days, then go back. I primarily bought cocaine in Texas or Florida, and sometimes Louisiana. We were big-time. I’d make $10,000 in 10 days.

Smuggling is like playing with a rattlesnake. The question is not whether or not he’ll bite, but when. There’s a certain rush that goes with smuggling; I’d get that rush just thinking about it. It’s probably similar to the rush that a gambler gets at a casino. It’s a demonic thing.

I stored pounds of weed in the attic of my parent’s home. You’d never catch me without pot. During the “Day of Rock and Roll” concert, I rolled a quarter pound of weed into one joint and took it to the Super Dome. A security guard searched my football satchel at the gate. He put his hands right on that big joint. I was tense. I was prepared to hit him in the mouth and run. He knew it. He let us go.

We went to our seats with that big doobie. I cut a coke can in half and shoved it up on one end for a mouthpiece. It took 17 lighters to light it. We passed it around, and everybody got high. I was the center of attention, the guy with the big joint. I was always blowing money like that, either mine or someone else’s.

My cousin, Danny, and I had set up shop in Covington. We had been working with two Mexicans, Peppie and Louis, for a long time and were doing well. We had sold a lot of pot for them, and they were beginning to trust us. One time they

brought in a 150 pound lot, some good dope. They needed to get back to Mexico, so they left us with the 150 pounds on a front; there was no sitter. That pot was worth a bundle, a 150 grand.

They were gone nearly three weeks, a long time for us to be left alone. We sold most of the pot, but we didn’t have the money. We had blown it doing drugs, drinking expensive liquor, and eating expensive meals. We had free-based a bunch of coke. We were short, forty thousand dollars short.

One morning Peppie and Louis showed up. They wanted their money, all of it. We had a good story prepared for them: “Guys, we got busted. Dusty’s dad found 40 pounds and burned it. There was nothing we could do!”

They were hot, “You lie! You lie! You lie! You do cocaine! You free-base all our money!” They pulled their guns, “Let’s go! Let’s go! Come now! Get in car! We take a little ride!”

They drove us across the Causeway. “Ha! Ha! Ha! You crab bait!”

I knew they were serious. They had kidnapped us and were surely going to kill us. We were petrified. I just knew that they were going to stop any minute, shoot us, and throw our bodies

over the side of the bridge. My mind was racing. What can I do? I had to say something. “Peppie,” I nervously mumbled. “We didn’t free-base your money. We told you the truth. I’m serious!”

“Right! You dead, crab bait!”

“We’re no good to you dead! Look, if you let us live, we can make you some money, big money!”

“Sure dead man.”

“Look Peppie, I know a guy that makes crystal meth. He’s got a lab and everything.”

“Where?” he asked.

“West Feliciana! I can hook you up with him! With your connections, you could make some big money!” I knew this would be enticing to Peppie. It had to be. It was our only chance.

“How you know this guy?” he questioned.

“He’s an old friend. We go way back. I know him well. He’s been looking to move!” I pleaded.

“OK! We make deal! Get your guy. Move lab Denver, Colorado. One more thing. You move it! Personally! Things go smoothly, you live. If not, crab bait!”

I knew two guys that had a methamphetamine lab in West Feliciana. They had recently blown up a house making the stuff, and the heat was really on them, big time. I felt confident that they would go for this deal; they needed to move. It would work great for them. After all, I was the one that was going to have to smuggle the lab to Denver.

Peppie and Louis called in Pete, a hired killer from Mexico. He was hired to make sure that Danny and I moved the lab. I hooked Peppie and Louis up with the guys in West Feliciana. Fortunately, they went for it. We made the deal, it was all set. The only thing left to do was to smuggle that lab to Denver.

Pete was a nervous little guy who seemed to enjoy his work. He was constantly waiving his gun around. He made me nervous-he made us all nervous.

I explained to him how I felt, “Pete, if anyone winds up missing around here, it’s gonna be me and you. You need to understand that. I’m not playing. Mess up and you’ll never make it out of these woods. We’re gonna keep our end of the deal with Peppie and Louis, so you keep that pistol holstered. Understand!”

Pete just laughed, “I’ve got a 55 gallon drum of hydrochloric acid. Your bones will be gone in 3 days.”

I laughed. He had understood me; that was easy to see. Peppie had warned him about me. I was nobody to play with, and he knew it. We didn’t have any trouble out of him.

The big day finally came. It was time to move the lab. We disassembled it, put it in two cars, and headed out. It was a nasty thing: the magnesium stirrers, the SAPA metha-ketone chemicals, the two way flasks, and a lot of other smelly stuff. It stunk bad, but at least we had escaped the “crab bait” scene. It was a long trip from south Louisiana to Denver, Colorado, a two day trip. Pete led the way, and Danny and I followed with the lab. We were each in a separate vehicle. Pete had instructed us to stay behind him so we did.

It was a smooth trip. The only close call was in Kansas. We were on a long, straight, flat highway. You could literally see for miles. Up ahead, I could see the blue lights. Oh no, it’s a road block. I was terribly frightened. I knew that Pete would kill anybody that got in our way. It was—nauseating. What can I do? How can I stop him? The tension was really building up inside me. As we got closer I could tell that it wasn’t a road block; oh thank goodness, it was only a stalled vehicle.

Denver was a pleasant sight. We had made it and were going to live. We delivered the lab to Louis and Peppie, but they didn’t let us go. We had to hang around as collateral to make sure that everything worked out between them and our guy. It took three weeks to get the lab up and running. We worked with their chemist, and Pete hung around to keep an eye on us. Finally, after about a month, they let us go.