Thankfully, this trend reversed itself in the 1990s, and through the new millennium New York has enjoyed its lowest crime rates per capita since the
1960s. New York was known as one of the safest big cities in the country, and if you live here or came to visit, you could walk down the street feeling safe.
After the atrocities of 9/11, New Yorkers banded together to create a safer city. One that reclaimed its place among the grandest in the world. The virus that infected us twenty-five years ago had long been forgotten.
To my horror, though, recent developments have proven that this virus was not extinguished, but had rather been lying dormant, in remission, waiting for a catalyst to revitalize its poisons.
That catalyst has finally found us. And it is not a terrorist, or a crooked financial institution. It exists in the tiniest form possible: a small black rock.
Though the human eye might not register this tiny specimen as anything more than a pebble, a piece of gravel, something that might even pave a driveway, the properties that exist within it threaten the very sanctity of the city we have fought so bravely to protect.
The culprit? A simple black rock that dissolves on your tongue as fast as a breath strip.
Nobody is quite sure where the Darkness came from, who manufactures it, or whether this drug has spread to other states. Crack began in primarily metropolitan cities. New York. Los Angeles. Washington,
D.C. Cities with large urban populations. Cities where there was enough poverty to turn the need of a cheap hit into gold for the men and women whose lack of humanity drove them to produce it.
As of press time, the police had no leads on who deals the drug. A high-ranking member inside the
NYPD did comment, off the record, stating,“We are fully preparing for another epidemic similar to the rise of crack cocaine we saw in the 1980s. Though privately, we’re worried that this one will be much, much worse and have a potentially more devastating impact considering that our infrastructure is already damaged.”
So what’s the harm in a little black rock, you might ask? Why should I care about some idiots getting high?
Because increases in drug production and consumption lead to increases in crime. But here’s where this drug differs: a normal crack user will find successive hits of the drug granting decreasing effects. The hits, as they are, are not as potent.
With the Darkness, however, some insane chemical genius has figured out a way around this.
The human brain produces a certain amount of dopamine, a neurotransmitter often associated with pleasure. Dopamine is released through many pleasurable experiences, including food, exercise, sex and, of course, drugs. Simple crack cocaine releases a larger amount of dopamine than the brain is accustomed to, so when the user takes a second hit before the brain can replenish dopamine, a lesser amount is released.
Yet the Darkness circumvents this by causing the brain to produce more dopamine. This means that each successive hit will have the exact same impact as the one preceding it, making it more addictive than nearly every drug on the market.
It’s no wonder the cops are nervous. They’re facing streets about to be teeming with a drug that’s cheaper, more plentiful, and delivers, pardon the expression, the best hit money can buy.
God help us all.
26
Friday
The call came close to midnight. Morgan wondered what the hell had taken them so long.
He didn’t recognize the voice on the other line. It wasn’t
Chester, and he didn’t think it was Leonard. Not that it mattered much. He assumed there had to be more to the operation than the two guys he’d met. There were twelve other men in that room-well, eleven after the accident with Jeremy-and they’d all been recruited like him.
Leonard had said that they’d each been recruited by a different person, as Leonard had been brought in by this guy Stephen Gaines. If each new recruit was brought in by a different guy, a la Chester, that meant at least eleven people on Chester’s level.
Morgan wondered just how many people were a part of this organization. Then he wondered how long it might take before he could be promoted, and how much money he’d have to bring in. Didn’t matter. He’d do it.
In his mind’s eye, Morgan could see Jeremy’s lifeless body sliding down the wall, clumps of his blood like egg yolk on the wallpaper behind him. Morgan wished he felt remorseful, wished he felt some sort of sympathy for
Jeremy, but as hard as he tried he simply could not.
When Leonard described what the job entailed, it was a zero sum equation: either you had the sack for it or you didn’t.
Jeremy didn’t.
It was clear from the moment the mission was explained. Morgan had seen that look before. He found it a little funny, considering he’d gone so far in business because of his ability to spot men like Jeremy. Men who wouldn’t take the extra step, who worried so much about teetering on the diving board that they couldn’t even see the riches hidden beneath the water’s surface.
Morgan saw it all. He had a knack for it, could see deals before they materialized. That was the rule of thumb: first one in, last one out. See the profits before everyone else did, and stay longer than everyone else who got cold feet.
That look in Leonard’s eye said it all. New product.
That’s when Morgan knew he had to jump in.
When you introduced a new product to the marketplace, you didn’t trust it to people who couldn’t sell it, who couldn’t get the job done. A new product has an extremely narrow window of opportunity to work, and while that door is cracked open, you needed to wedge everything but the kitchen sink in there because once that sucker closed up, it wasn’t cracking open again.
Morgan sold to people. Plain and simple. He sold them investments in their future. He sold them the belief that if they did not trust him then they were putting their family’s stability at risk.
Was this any different?
Morgan had done a few lines in his day. A night out at the strip joint with his buddies, a bump or two in the bathroom to make those lights flicker just a little faster.
He didn’t quite have the taste for it, though, felt if you needed an external force to get high you were simply doing the wrong drugs.
Not that he judged them. Most people were simply not born with the same drive and instincts Morgan had been.
His parents were blue collar all the way, but had good enough credit to get him a decent financial aid package.
Morgan knew a lot of kids from his hometown that weren’t so lucky.
They were the ones who filled up his tank at the gas station. They were the ones who sprayed perfume on his mother when she went to the mall. They were the ones who needed something to take the edge off the real world, because if they spent too much time with their own life and their own thoughts eventually it would occur to them what they had never become.
So this new product, Morgan guessed, was just one more thing to take the edge off. And that was fine. He trusted these guys. Jeremy was a message. Like no limit hold ’em, you’re either all in or you fold.
Jeremy folded. Morgan’s stack of chips wasn’t as high as it used to be, but what was that great line from Rounders?
Kid’s got alligator blood.
Morgan liked the sound of that.
When the caller told him the address, Morgan was a little surprised at first. He’d actually been there once before, a few years back when he’d first started dating this
French model named Claudia who was in town for some photo shoot where she was supposed to pose in a pink tutu atop the Brooklyn Bridge.
Morgan never really understood art.
She’d insisted that they go to the Kitten Club, the rationale being more along the lines of it being a trendy hotspot rather than a place where actual enjoyment could be had.