I spent the next week or so going about my business, no word from Mundo at all.
I occupied myself with conducting some local reconnaissance, sussing out who was holding what, figuring out which laundromat attracted the least amount of crackheads, learning by trial and error where best to get my morning coffee. Strolling the streets. Basking in the Brooklyn glow.
Just as I was starting to despair, Mundo randomly stopped by early one morning- he wanted to link me with folks. I’d almost given up on ever seeing him again, but it felt good to know I hadn’t been forgotten. He told me to come downstairs. When I was downstairs he told me to get into his car. Cabrón was not with him. Mundo was driving.
We pulled up in front of a semi-detached one-family home- small, aluminum sided, slightly raggedy looking.
“Welcome to HQ,” Mundo said as we got out of the Volvo.
The crew’s center of operations was located on the border of Prospect Heights- Classon and Pacific. It was less than a ten-minute drive from my apartment but back then, crossing Atlantic Avenue felt like entering a completely different universe.
The guy who owned the building was named Garfield. He looked to be in his late thirties. If I had to guess, I’d say Garfield’s parents bought the building in the late Sixties and, unlike so many people in that corner of BK, held onto their home. And then when they died, they left it to their son, who didn’t seem very interested in preserving his parents’ legacy.
Garfield had a job with the MTA. I wanna say he supervised crews doing track work. Something like that. Whatever it was, it was a city job with steady hours and a pension plan.
Garfield’s weaknesses were expensive cars and young girls, and that’s where all his city job money went. Definitely not on his childhood home. By the time Mundo struck a deal to rent out the basement apartment[1], the building was pretty fuckin’ rundown and the front yard was trashed out. But headquarters didn’t need to be fancy. As far as the guys were concerned, things were a-okay as long as it had a functioning bathroom, room enough for a kitchen table to bag up product and count money, plus a couple of couches and a futon to crash out on. And our customers didn’t care if the yard was dirty, as long as our product was decent quality and readily available.
The money Garfield made on rent was enough for him to cover property taxes and no one ever asked him to fix anything, so it was a win-win for everyone.
My first day in that raggedy little basement HQ, I was under the delusion that the guys focused mainly on flipping dimes and twenty bags of ganja stoop-side, with a miniscule side hustle in coke and dope. Man, I was dumb.
Later on, waaaaaay down the line, I would learn that the bulk of their profit stemmed from moving weight for Mundo’s uncle down in Panama- Tío Bolo had a distribution point for product coming in from Colombia and a pressure-tested connect at Port Newark who kept hot cargo from getting flagged. Side hustles included juggling illegal food stamps and EBT PIN numbers, with occasional dips into phone card scams. I got the vibe that Cabrón was the one who led the charge on those ventures.
One-offs constantly came around, attempting to offload stolen goods at bargain basement prices, but, unless there was an immediate need for a like-new car stereo system, we just waved them off. That type of activity ran the risk of putting too much heat on us, and the money made flipping light weight was more than enough to keep the HQ afloat.
I learned pretty quickly that Mundo’s crew structure was fairly relaxed and the daily schedule was pretty loose. Headquarters was a hive of non-stop activity. That basement was NEVER empty.
There was always someone crashing out on a dusty, old couch.
There was always someone washing their pitbull in the bathroom’s mildewed shower stall.
And there would always be a customer outside, looking to score a bag.
Non-stop.
I loved it all.
[1] Cabrón was actually the one who located the space and secured an informal lease.
