Regular People, Saints & Scum I Grew Up With

 

Click and Meet Pablo Escobar

(El Magico: One who makes something from nothing, self made man)

No, I never met him. My only connection to him on that distribution chain was street level during the mid 80's in parking lot in Slater Park called the One Way. I've spoken of the One Way before. To refresh your mind, it was an open air pharmacy that ran for about ten months before the cops shut it down. All that managed to do was move it to Pascale's Lot about 300 yards north-east of home plate at McCoy stadium. Look from home plate to the right fielder and past that...right there. That one lasted nearly just as long too.

I live in a very compact yet diverse area. I'm all of half mile from the expansive quiet woods, lakes and rivers in Massachusetts and I'm about two miles from the shacks in Central Falls. In the early 80's, Central Fall's population experienced a huge influx of illegal Colombians. There were 9,000 of them, mostly from Bogota and Medellin. Why Central Falls? It's always been the first stop for immigrants coming to Rhode Island. We Irish used to be forced to live there in the 1800's. The factories (Corning Glass, Koch Jewelry, etc) brought the Colombians in as cheap labor.

The FBI eventually called Central Falls the Cocaine Capital of New England. A kilo of it landing in Central Falls went for $10,000. By the time it made it to Boston, the price would have jumped to $20,600. The Colombian dealers in CF weren't dumb enough to flash around nor live large. They were happy enough to live in their three-decker tenements, though their income was in the six figure range. Also, law enforcement was way behind the ball when this started. The trade was allowed to grow and improve as nothing was molesting it.


I never wanted to hang out in CF. I was way too Irish and white. But, there was Stanley's Burgers on Dexter street. Stanley's had the best "grease burger" recipe around here and cheap too.  In 1984, I used to work in Walpole, MA and would get home around 11:30 at night. So some nights I'd get off exit 30 on Rt 95 south to get my greasy snack.  I can remember one night, as I was walking past a parking lot full of Colombians, they started chanting, "Yoo hoo! Federale! We seeeeee you...Federale!"  Any lily white Irish guy with blondish hair walking on Dexter St around midnight,could be, might be...mistaken for some sort of narc/law enforcement to these paranoid guys.

 

At the One Way on Saturday nights, there were about 50-100 of us teens and young twenty-somethings there, hanging out, getting drunk, high...chasing girls. I never judged what was going on. When you see so much of something, like open air drug dealing, you see nothing wrong with it. There wasn't just two or three dealers, but maybe twenty. They were offering everything under the sun like an organic farmer's market. But, to be truthful, we didn't know of anyone yet addicted, shot or in jail either. This was in it's infancy and in a perverse way, innocent.

In Pawtucket, there were three main dealers, two of whom I'll never speak a word. All three could be found at the One Way. But one Jimmy St Jacques (Read up on this Piece of Work) was one I can talk of. He's dead has a coffin nail now. All three were younger than me at the time. I do have to admit I did have this reservation about the young dealers at the One Way, they were all richer than us. We'd see sixteen year olds driving the new IROCz's that came out of then. Along with their ridiculously hot girlfriends.

In 1983, us boys wanted this car!
 

I'm going to digress but so what, I can. This will explain how money can be an aphrodisiac.

When I was in second grade, a new kid came to our school. He was frightening. He had been a burn victim. A few years earlier, he had been caught in a gas station fire in North Kingston which nearly killed every one in the family car. He survived. Unfortunately, he looked like a melted candle, with sparse outcrops of blonde hair on his head shooting up like cowlicks and two-knuckled stubby fingers. At seven years old, I found this very disconcerting. I never got to know him. I'd see him in the hallways, playground and in the higher schools, hanging out here and there. Then for the longest time I never saw him.

One night, this car pulls in to the One Way with guess who, our burn victim friend. When he stepped out of his car, people shook his hand and slapped his back like he was royalty. You could see the deferential treatment he received. Then, this dewy, dripping hot girl gets out of the car next. She reminded me of Miss Stephanie from the 80s sitcom Newhart. I had asked a friend how the hell can a guy disfigured like that get such hot jailbait? I was told because he's rich. His riches came from investing in the pot trade. So, there was a life's lesson for me. No matter how ugly, screwed up or what-have-you, some girls will overlook this. If your seventeen and driving that year's Bronco and have cash coming out your young ears.

 

 

 

Miss Stephanie!

Now back to Mr Jacques. He lived the old 30's gangster motto: “Live Fast, Die Young and Leave a Good Looking Corpse.” I'd see him on occasion at the One Way, holding court like a monarch. I later heard he was a nutjob as he took his car down onto the flatlands by the pond and ran over the Canadian geese that return each year to that spot. He was brought up on charges for that one and pretty much got off.

Other times I'd be sitting at a red light waiting to cross Newport Ave. Newport Ave in Pawtucket is flat, wide and straight for about two miles. I was sitting there, waiting for the light to change when I hear the very loud sound of a motorcycle revving up, switching through it's gears till finally a guy hunched over on it, would fly by the intersection at 100mph. You barely could make him out. Yet, there was no need to. The only one crazy enough around here to do that was St Jacques.

“Live by the sword, die by the sword” the Bible says. Well, St Jacques died by his sword. He had, we found out later, orchestrated three murders in our area. He was getting rid of informants and those who talked too frequently and loud. As with any crime, the trail isn't always clean and others out there have enough information to let the Feds piece together a case. St Jacques decided he wasn't going to live in a Fed pen for the rest of his life and took his own.

I was in my late teens then, sooo long, long ago. The One Way and Pascale's lot are now what they once were, parking lots. The drug trade is run by Caribbeans now, still out of Central Falls. I'm sure they've had to upgrade their craft to avoid the DEA since they've caught up to the game.

Jesus, the things that go on in life!