My Name is Jade

I never wanted to be a boss, well sort of… I mean, I wanted people to know who I was in a way that they knew I was about business and someone you didn’t want to try and take advantage of, but I wanted that without the other things that come along with it; things like people knowing what kind of business I was the boss of. There is not a boss in this country, rather legit or not, that someone is not eying that man’s spot. Let’s face it, people are always willing to cut the man to take the man’s place. So how to you run things without ‘running’ things? Well unfortunately you kind of assign ‘fools’ to foolish assignments. When you are a shot caller there will always be someone willing to do foolish things to please you. It’s quite amazing when you think about it. Look, I’m not calling anyone foolish per say, but looking back on some things I’m dumbfounded at how willing people become when asked to do certain things.

I had the face and personality of the nice guy who was sincere and genuine. I was all of those things, but I just ran a different kind of business that was dangerous at times. I mean as I’ve stated, I’ve been shot and I’ve had many guns pulled on me. I should be dead, but that’s for another chapter coming later. I remember going to pick up some ‘work’ with a partner of mine and something told me to be on alert. I sort of blow the concern off because the person that we were going to see wasn’t anyone new, as we’d done business several times before. Only this time would prove to be different! We showed up with our usual amount of cash and asked for our usual ‘work’. Everything was going well, until our supplier made this comment which I’ll never forget because to this day I hate when someone asks this question and that is, “Is it all there, or do I need to count it?” Now you’re probably thinking, what’s the problem with that, but if you know me you know I wouldn’t short you on money and if I did I’d let you know in advance. So what in the hell would someone I’ve been ‘working’ with ask a question like that for? He didn’t know that that question would be the end of his ‘working’ relationship with me, but that was the last time he would be in a position to ask a question like that to me.

I knew that I needed to make some changes in the way ‘work’ was being conducted and the first change I needed to make was no longer seeking ‘work’ but I needed the ‘work’ to come to me. Now by this time, I’d been in the business for about 5 years or so and had made several connections with many people. Many of which I got work from. I looked at them as my boss’ or companies. While I wanted to have my own ‘company’, I didn’t necessarily want everything that came with it. Everyone one of my boss’ got to be boss’ because they had to go through many things to get there. Some of them had rap sheets 20 pages long. Some killed their way up. Some of them inherited their way up (if you can believe that). Now understand, I wasn’t afraid of jail but it wasn’t a place I was trying to get to like Miami or something and I knew that murder was a crime that does not have a statute of limitations so I wasn’t trying to go there unless absolutely needed. So what was I to do? I mean the time had come for me to get my own ‘company’. I had to start thinking like a boss. I mean, I carried myself like a boss already. The people I had around me followed my move and looked to me for answers and direction. Finally it hit me! The partner I took with me to make our pickup would need to do me a favor. It was a simple one though. All he had to do was trust me. I called him over to my house and told him that I wanted him to go make another pickup, but this time he was to go alone. Going to a pickup alone is never done. Of course he declined and after I told him what I wanted him to tell the ‘boss’, he damn near shit his pants. I told him that I wanted him to go to the ‘boss’ and make a pickup, and knowing that he’d be asked why he was alone, I told him to say, “You offended my man, and that’s a big no no”. Now you can imagine what must’ve been running through my partners head, but it was becoming my job to get him to buy into my plan. I knew the ‘boss’ would ask for a sit down, or at the very least come see me. I told my partner that he would have nothing to worry about because the ‘boss’ would be more interested in delivering a message back to me. I told him, he’ll be so pissed and ready to find me that he’ll send you back to me with a strong message. It took some coaching, but in-the-end he bought into my plan. Long story short, my plan went as expected and the ‘boss’ called a meeting with me. What I’d just done was extremely dangerous, so walking into this meeting; I truly had no idea if I’d be walking out of it, or carried out. Either way I was sticking to my plan. The plan was to………

This is my story and my name is Jade