Usually I know the cost of things

I was talking to a buddy yesterday, one of the other English teachers, and he asked me if my guy is coming soon. My guy is the guy I procure hemp products from who apparently is known for providing much more. At least that was how he was introduced to me way back when. I only have one particular interest, so I have never inquired as to other items available. Anyway, my buddy asked me if my guy could get coke, and not the drinkable kind. I told him I supposed so since his nickname is "a little bit of everything". Then he asked how much it cost. I had to laugh, "How should I know, I don't even know how to refer to the quantity. But I know an eight-ball is a lot." Then I told him the story of the eight-ball of coke.

I must have been 20ish when after working an evening shift at the Hyatt, some workmates ended up at my place having a few drinks. One of the guys there that night was David, a busboy with a strange tale of how he had become a moonlighting drug dealer. It seems he stumbled upon fifty grand worth of crystalmethamphetamine in a bag in an empty phone booth out in Palm Springs. Instead of turning it into the police, he moved to a different city (ours) and sold it to live. He made connections and became a dealer. He worked as a busboy, he said, as a cover - he really didn't need the job. Thinking back, I'm wondering if it was all bullshit, but this is not where the story ends. We drank a few, everyone left, and I went to bed.

The next morning, I went out to get the morning paper and there on my doorstep was a bag of white powder. A pretty decent sized bag at that. (Later, I found out it was an eight-ball, a quantity I am still in the dark about. Visually though, I remember the size of that bag of powder.) Well, I knew who that must belong to, how could David be so careless? We'll see what he says at work today. I brought the little bag into the house and put it in a drawer. The whole day at work, David didn't say a thing and didn't seem to have a care in the world, so I didn't say anything either. After work, I called my on-again off-again boyfriend (8 years of that nonsense) who had quite the nose for such things and told him of my windfall. I may have still been blabbing to him on the phone when the front door opened. He had come right over to check it out. It took us two days, but we did it all. Both of us bloody-nosed and gnashy-toothed out of our minds. I'm sure we had some rockin conversation as that's how I used to poo-poo the drug. "What, you pay $50 to have a good conversation?" Even so, the whole event has achieved a patina of misery around it, indeed, I have never purchased coke since that event. It's kind of like rum, I can't drink it due to it being the first alcohol that I got sick from. I've had a line or two offered to me over the years, and that has been fine, but I told my friend that I had no idea how much it costs these days, and now he knows why. As do you.