THE DEALER

Marquis sat at the computer in the store in South Central LA. He was trying to figure out how his money had increased to over seventy-thousand when he had only put two in initially. He had not made enough through sales to justify this increase. The owner of the store, Jon, noticed the look of confusion on Marquis’ face.

“What’s up, man?”

“My account has too much money in it.”

“We should all be so lucky.”

They both laughed. Jon looked at Marquis’ account on the Silk Road website, a place where “anything can be sold”, even illicit narcotics. Marquis had been selling weed, molly, and booger sugar to the thirsty fiends online. As a young man he had embraced this technology when he first heard about it, months before. Being a low-level dealer has its limits, but the Silk Road allowed for a great expansion in his distribution method. He had put only a couple thousand into it in January, but even though he had sold a lot of drugs his Bitcoin value was up by an incredible amount. Jon diagnosed the problem.

“There’s nothing wrong with your account. Your Bitcoin stash is solid, but the price has shot up over the last few months. The Bitcoin you had saved in your account has gone up 3000%. Lucky you.”

“What the fuck you talkin’ about?”

Jon explained that Silk Road uses only Bitcoin for its transactions (allowing for anonymous or encrypted accounts to be used; untraceable if used properly). Because of the development of the Silk Road, this had led to a substantial increase in price for the cryptocurrency. It started 2011 by reaching its all-time-high of a dollar (up from its previous ATH of eight cents). Now in March, the revolutionary electronic cash had gone all the way up to thirty-three dollars, making Marquis a hefty profit on top of net. Jon explained that because a lot of people are using Silk Road, a lot of people are buying Bitcoin, causing the price to skyrocket.

“Should I just cash all this out?”

“That’s up to you man. I would HODL.”

“HODL?”

“Hold on for dear life. It’s a term us Bitcoin enthusiasts use for saving your coins in a cold storage account. A lot of people think the price is going to go up even more in the future.”

“How much more?”

“I have no idea, and anyone who says they do are only speculating.”

Jon advised Marquis that if he put his 2500 BTC into a memory stick or offline laptop, which would be impervious to hackers (called “cold storage”), he could be a millionaire in about ten years. But Marquis wanted to do some spending. Jon convinced him to put half into cold storage and spend the rest. He did exactly this.

Marquis had about twenty-five grand to spend, after buying more product to sell of course. He had never had this much money in his who life. The amount was about what his mom made in a year. She had brought him and his wild brother up by herself. His brother was up in Taft on a weapons possession beef. Thinking about his family made him want to spend some money on them. He bought his mom a gold and diamond necklace, and he put five thousand on his brother’s books. He still had fifteen left. He decided to go to Vegas.

Marquis drove his lady’s Chrysler through the desert while she slept, thinking about how fortunate he was. He felt like he got away with a crime. Not just the crime of selling controlled substances, which had never really felt like a crime to him. But he felt like one of those white-collar white criminals, the kind you hear about in the news, making millions by embezzlement or insider trading and getting minor sentences at minimum security prisons. But he knew the man would fuck him if he had the opportunity. Luckily, he had the perfect teacher in Jon. Looking out at the empty landscape he remembered when they first met.

Marquis wandered into the computer store on MLK boulevard, wondering what it was. Jon approached. “Is this one of those video game cafes?” Jon looked puzzled. “You can play video games. But I mainly started this business to fuck the system up on a technical level.” Marquis laughed. “Are you one of those ‘Occupy’ mothafuckas?” Jon grimaced. “Hardly. I have found that you can do way more damage to corrupt organizations by acting instead of protesting.” From here the conversation turned to Bitcoin, then the Silk Road. Marquis was intrigued by the concept of selling online. He dove right in and immediately started making money.

They stayed in North Vegas, where the cheaper rooms are. They were less apt to be hassled by security or metro cops. Not that Marquis planned on committing any major crimes aside from sampling his product. He knew that cops focused on his kind, the young black man with relatively nice clothes on, flashing a wad like his. This is why he brought his lady (one of them) instead of his boys. A group of young black men is even more suspect.

They wandered the casinos of Fremont street as the molly and coke kicked in. Marquis fondled the young woman whenever he had the chance, turned on by the pure MDMA and turned up by the uncut cocaine. They hit a few slot machines, waiting for the complimentary alcohol, then moving on when the waitress delivered. Marquis had just over fifteen thousand in cash on him. He also had his 22 pistol and his lady hid his 25 in her purse. They came to craps table at Binion’s. He put down ten grand for chips.

“New shooter.” They tossed the dice his way. He put all his chips on pass. His lady gave him a look that could have cut a man’s heart out. “Wish me luck baby girl.”

She blew on the dice and he threw them. The dice came up three and four. Instant win. Marquis threw his hands up as the crowd cheered uproariously. His lady was even more excited, jumping up and down, attempting to hug him while doing this. She almost knocked Marquis over. He tipped the dealer and pit boss a hundred each and took the rest to the cashier. They went back to the hotel and fucked for hours.