The Lotus Crew

by Stewart Meyer

  “I dumped the Jag. Got a rented car—”

  “Good. Meet me in Brooklyn. You know that cemetery where your father is buried?”

  “Sure. Caton and McDonald—”

  “Right. One hour from now. Be there.”

  “Unc—”

  “How the fuck did I let so much money ride on your wild ideas?”

  “Uh, Unc … can’t you think of a more cheerful spot to—”

  Click!

  The Chevy topped a hill, and Tommy could see a multi-stratified set of dimensions. Directly below was his father’s grave, set into imposingly beautiful landscape. The marble structure of the family plot was awe-inspiring. There was a space for him there. His eyes moved up, and he could see beyond the park, across Brooklyn to the water. The breathtaking complexities of the view distracted him until …

  The chauffeur-driven Buick pulled up below. Ominous forms moved behind smoked glass. T’s eyes took in a place of the dead. His father was dead, and who’d ever had more life than the old man?

  Unc’s driver got out, checked around until he spotted T, got back inside.

  Triad was also dead. Somewhere in the depths of his subconscious this seemed untrue or at least impermanent. No matter how shitty things seemed, at his level recovery was possible. He was Tommy Sparks!

  But for now, best act on the tip it’s dead. His brainchild. No funerals. Just a fade, like when a day is over. The sun has set. The day is gone … like Furman D. Whittle. Once he liked Furman, but that part of Tommy was long dead as well.

  He was in silent harmony with the rows of graves.

  They spoke briefly in the back of the Buick. Tommy dropped his half-buck, stacked out neat in an attaché case on the seat. He promised more soon.

  “They have to show class, too, Unc.” T looked down. “They all know shit fell on me.”

  “They’re afraid you’ll pack it in or get killed. Then what?”

  “I’ll be cool.”

  “Or get busted. I don’t know about you, Tommy. You had to run it to the ground. You could’ve done it a little less formal, you know, where you’re on and off with material. Work a week, skip a month. Guys get rich doin’ that, and the cops are always lookin’ for the other crews, the ones that keep it up steady. Why’d you have to set up ongoing and permanent?”

  “Worked a long time, Unc. How many times I double cake for you and your bozos?”

  “Don’t be cute, Tommy. There’s no play here. Cool the debt in forty-eight hours or we’re both dead men. I’ll help if you can’t pull it. Only way to keep either of us alive. But I can’t turn up cash like that without some frantic inconveniences, to say the least.”

  “Then let’s split, Unc. Let’s take what we got and pull out! We could live a lifetime on combined cash.” He pointed to the attaché case.

  Uncle Satano’s eyes bulged in anger and outrage at the suggestion. Tommy didn’t have to be told it was unthinkable to walk away from the power and position of one’s own empire, even if things did turn around. Was it stubbornness, pride, ego? Uncle Satano had killed to etch himself a place in the moneylending game. He’d done time, bought and sold connections, favors, cops, judges and juries, businesses and people. He had been—until this unfortunate incident—a major force in his circle of dons. No walking away from that. Forget it.

  “Break cupcakes, kid. But take care of it. Get up that cake. We have forty-eight hours. Call me every three or four hours. Goodbye for now.”

  The driver’s thick form appeared outside the car, opened it for Tommy. Nothing else left to say but …

  “Unc—”

  “Just get it up … or we die!”

  He got it up. Most of it, anyway. Uncle Satano laid out half a buck, and T got the rest. His thank-you was:

  “Good luck, kid. I don’t wanna see you for a while. Almos’ gave me a fuckin’ heart attack. You really set me back with my people, Tommy. We’re paid off and clean, and you don’t owe me nothin’. Get lost … right?”

  “Right.”

  T watched his uncle get into the rear of the Buick. It drove off. He stood by his father’s grave for a few minutes, then looked up at an angry sky.

  He felt clean. He’d bailed out all his boys and advanced good lawyers a set sum to keep them all out of the can. That took most of his cash and personal possessions. To raise cake for Unc he had to dump all his heroin below cost to the few dealers who’d go near him. Most considered him too hot to touch.

  He had three grand and an ounce of cut commercial heroin to his name. The Jaguar would bring in another few grand. But he still had debts and his resources would not come near the final number.

  He stood over the family plot and hoofed a large pile of powder off a hand mirror. Next to his parents’ grave sat space for his own. He stared at it a long time. Well, is it no, not yet, I have things to do? Or is it yes, I’m ready? Be so easy to do a few more snorts and just lie back on the grave. Be a warm soft pleasant death. No more problems or loose ends to torment over.

  But wait! Not time! Whew! Of course not! He was still Tommy Sparks!

  That afternoon Tommy returned the rented Chevy and took a modest crib in Brooklyn. The obscurity of Bay Ridge would cover him for now.

  Wind blew fiercely through arteries and conduits of junk turf. There was ice on the street. On Eldridge and Houston a bright nightfire burned from the heart of an old oil drum, a crew of lotus ghosts shivering around it as they waited for customers to relieve them of their day’s material.

  “Dr. Nova is smokin’, poppa!”

  “The Doctor is in!”

  “Fan out yo’ cake!”

  T stepped up just as a line was forming and had to wait his turn. The guy before him bought two bundles and cleaned out the bagman. Tommy waited ten minutes in the cold while the crew boss sent a runner to reup. He shivered, cold and junk-sick, praying he’d score before the police came.

  Word was Nova was the smoker lately. Somehow ShyWun had survived the sweep. Others too. Who knew how or why? Since he lacked capital and credit, there were no lines of communication open between Tommy and ShyWun.

  “Four,” he said as the bagman opened a fresh package.

  T dropped his last forty bucks into the counter’s hand and scooped up his bags. He had just enough change for a subway back to Brooklyn. That left no cash for morning.

  Alone in the dark stillness of his dim Brooklyn crib, T clamped and unclamped his fist until the mainline stood out like a purple rope. He booted two bags. Already some scar tissue was forming. No need to be discreet. For the moment, he could track his arms all he wished.

  The Emperor’s eyelids descended calmly as he felt the lotus soothe his ravaged mind. “Heavy blood in you,” Alvira once said. “Got to live up to your father and uncle. Me, I have nothing to live up to. I’m free.” A smile crept onto T’s lips. Alvira, as an infant, had been found in a garbage can in an alley behind Alvarado Street in L.A. The Mexican woman who discovered him sold him to a family of New York Jews.

  Tommy prepared a backup shot out of the other two bags. He tapped the air out of the cylinder, capped the tip of the weeper, placed it carefully on the bed next to him.

  Maybe one day he’d see Alvira again. Maybe one day he’d be with people who knew who he was.

  Glossary

  This glossary is written with the ear and is entirely phonetic.

  Agua: (Spanish) police

  B: brother; bro’

  Babanya: (Italian) heroin

  Bad company: informer or undercover

  Ba hondo: (Spanish) police

  Bean: brother; bro’

  Blanco: (Spanish) white

  Bleed: nonblack

  Blood: black

  Bundle: ten dime bags

  Burn: beat for money; a tattoo

  Button: made man

 
Cake: cash

  Chill out: detox; calm down

  Chinaman: opium

  Chinga: (Spanish) sexual intercourse

  Cooker: bottle cap; spoon to cook fix

  Cool: no sense talkin’ about this word

  Cop: to score; police

  Cura: (Spanish) fix of heroin given to crew workers

  De nada: (Spanish) thanks

  Dinero: (Spanish) money

  Dope: heroin

  Double D: strong heroin

  Downtown: heroin

  Dread: (Rasta) dreadlocks

  Drop a dime: inform; make a phone call

  Ease off: taper dosage down gradually

  Embalao: (Spanish) hopelessly addicted

  Esta bien: (Spanish) all clear

  Fao: (Spanish) detective (literally, ugly)

  Fows an’ bows: blow harmonies

  Ganja: (Rasta) marijuana

  Gimmick: hypodermic

  God’s own: heroin

  Goodness: heroin

  Gram: one twenty-eighth of an ounce

  Heat: police

  Heroin: God’s own

  High: stoned on God’s own Rx

  Holdin’: heroin on person

  Hole: hole in boarded-up building to pass cake in and dope out

  Iron: pistol; motorcycle or car

  Jesus jizz: methadone

  Joint: marijuana cigarette; prison

  Jones: dope habit

  Junk: heroin

  La hara: (Spanish) police

  Long: big American car

  Marimay: (Romany) dirty informer, person to avoid

  Material: what crew workers and bosses call heroin

  Maytagging: cleaning money

  Membrane: unhip person

  Mometta: (Spanish) hot female

  O: opium

  Off: not using, clean

  On: using, high

  On the money: quality heroin worth the price

  Pick up: score

  Play: extra bag for buying bundle

  Poppa: what touters call customers

  Program: methadone program

  Reefer: marijuana cigarette

  Schmeck: (Yiddish) heroin

  Schmooz: heroin

  Score: cop heroin

  Short: small foreign sports car

  Sick: junk withdrawal symptoms appearing

  Smokin’: high-quality heroin

  Sound on: suggest

  Spliff: (Rasta) thick joint of marijuana

  Taken off: robbed

  Tapped out: no money

  Taxed: robbed

  Tecata: (Spanish) heroin

  Tip your mitt: reveal

  Ven acá: (Spanish) come with me

  Vendador: (Spanish) heroin dealer

  Vig: loan shark’s interest rate

  Weeper: hypodermic syringe (usually number twenty-five)

  Yen: need for heroin

  Crew Hierarchy

  Crew boss: Holds money. Serves as bank. Directs workers. Calls all shots on the street. A boss will split every hour or so to deposit money and pick up material.

  Moneyman: Takes and counts cash. Passes it on to the bank or boss, counted and with bills facing same way. Will not take singles.

  Bagman: Holds bags and makes actual pass. Will not take cash. (No marked money on him.) The bagman takes most direct risk.

  Stashman: Feeds bagman. Hides and reclaims packages: small brown paper bags containing fifty-four dime bags (five bundles, four extra for play).

  Protectors: Armed and mean backup lurking around to protect crew (and customers because muggings are bad for business.) Protectors earn $200 daily just hanging around, as no one in their right mind would take off an organized crew.

  Steerers: Hawk a brand name and lead or point you to it (tip you to it).

  Touters: Same as steerers.

  Lookouts: Outer perimeters of a crew’s op. Far corners, rooftops, points of usual police entry into junk turf. Lookouts’ whistles and cries of “Ba hondo” (police), “Fao” (detectives), and “Esta bien” (all clear) ring through the street like a frantic, lyrical calypso spirit.

  (This structure is by no means a rule but represents a highly evolved professional op in midregime.)

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to acknowledge my parents, for the first breath; Bill Burroughs, who “scratched the surface,” and the following friends whose faith sustained me: Howard Brookner, Roy Burman & Giselle, Ann Moradfar, Jacques Stern, Herbert Huncke, James Grauerholz, John Giorno, Dr. Joseph Gross, Lance Spano, and Harris Glasser.

  About the Author

  Stewart Meyer was born in Brooklyn, New York. At age twelve he discovered Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer in a used bookstore on Flatbush Avenue and decided to become a writer. He attended the City University of New York and audited William S. Burroughs’s lecture series on creative writing. This led to a lifelong friendship with Mr. Burroughs and to an opportunity to observe a master writer going from draft to draft.

  Meyer’s first novel, The Lotus Crew, was originally published in 1984. He is currently at work on a second novel, The Heist Broker, and a memoir, Memory Chips and Reconstituted Pebbles. He lives in New York City.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1984 by Stewart Meyer

  Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

  978-1-4976-8521-5

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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