TIME FLIES WHEN

Look Up

Sometimes when Charlie and Cam would have a stretch where they would go a little hard things would get a little crazy. For this instance the two of them were doing one of their walks up Monarch Avenue around 2 AM one morning.

"Babe, that's the third third tree we've passed that's had multiple pieces of fishing line hanging from it." Charlie told her.

"Congratulations Charlie, What are you getting at?" Cam asks sarcastically.

"I don't know just a simple observation." Charlie replies.

Cam and Charlie used to love going on walks around Central City in the early hours of the morning. During the day the city was packed with doctors, lawyers, salesman, baristas, junkies, tour guides, and tweekers. In the early morning you wouldn't find but maybe a security guard or two out in front of a bank or maybe the mall. The homeless all migrated to the cut to be close to the dope. Charlie and Cam never ended up in the same spot. They never planned their nights they just got high and adventured. As much as they loved being at the hotel at getting high all night in the bathroom, they loved to adventure just as much and Fudge loved being outside too.

"Charlie, let's go get high at the little park?" Cam asked.

"Ok, but I'm seeing more and more of this fishing line." Charlie replied.

"Babe, can we put the fishing line obsession down for the night?" Cam asks.

"Ok babe, but I think I'm on to something babe."
"Sure you are."

Thirty minutes later the two of them were loading up a couple of goofballs on their blanket in the park. Avenue park at 3 AM on a weekday was the most quiet, strangest, but safest place you could be at that time. Cam, Charlie, and Fudge were laying on the blanket under a tree and something caught Cam's Eye.

"Charlie, there are multiple pieces of fishing line hanging from this tree right above our head." Cam says.

"Yep." Charlie replies.

"Babe, holy shit!" Cam jumps up and yells.
"What babe?"

"Everybody looks down, nobody looks up. These motherfuckers are stashing up not down! I'm gonna catch one pulling from a tree and then rob his ass!" Cam say excitedly.

The next day Cam and Charlie were in the park getting some sun while laying on their blanket. No shit, go fucking figure one of those Ecuadorians was pulling something down out of a tree on the other side of the park.

"Babe, told you so. Nobody looks up, everybody looks down." Cam tells Charlie.

Prior to this all the Ecuadorians would bury their dope in the ground in flower beds and the hot spot was the flower beds that surrounded the arena where Central City's NBA basketball team played. There was enough dope in those beds to get the entire valley high for a year. The only problem was that there was always Ecuadorians circling the entire building all day long so you couldn't take a chance at diving into one of those beds.

Cam and Charlie at night would walk throughout the entire park to look for clues on what these mother fuckers were up to. Steve had already robbed them of probably $10,000 of black tar up a few blocks below the Capital. There was a set of stairs that ran down the mountain to the tops of the park where the would stash their dope on the side of the wall that ran down the left side of the stairs. Steve hid out in the woods one day and saw them stashing their dope there. Probably about 6-7 of those mother fuckers and he hit them harder than ever before and it was "Party Time!" This was a term that Charlie would use when one of the guys made a huge score by obtaining a large amount of heroin and crack cocaine.

LB and Chicago Bulls had just been arrested and the park was flooded with all their stashed dope. Charlie and Cam were the first to arrive on the scene. Charlie went to work while Cam went on the prowl to find all the buried treasure. The first spot was obvious up on the hill there was a bench the mother fuckers would sit on all day. Behind the bench there was a very large and deep flower bed. These guys would always leave a mark above where they buried the treasure. This time there was a half buried spoon. Cam went straight down about 18" and found another marker which was a hot wheel. Connected to the little car was a piece of fishing line. She dug down another foot and found a golf ball sized balloon with 40 smaller balloons of black tar heroin. This was only the beginning of what was to come.

Charlie came back from work around 5 PM that day after picking up some "Cat Piss" meth which was the fire. He and Cam got got high and it was on. Up, down, and all around they were finding stashes everywhere. These guys would tie a piece of fishing line to the bottom of a bush and connect to to a stash and drop it in the creek. It was a strategy of who could outsmart who. Cam was determined and Charlie's job was to keep the crew at bay. Everyone down at Avenue Mall wanted to know where Cam was for these three days and Charlie would just say she was sick and couldn't make it out today. Truth of the matter she was digging up buried treasure and fishing for it by pulling the lines down out of the trees. She had literally torn up the park top to bottom. But at the end of the day the the majority of the party came from up in the trees and this was all because Cam decided to look up.

A few weeks later Charlie and Cam were out on one of their adventures around 2 AM on a Sunday night when two Mexicans walked by with three Doberman Pinscher dogs. These guys were very well dressed and it was very odd to see them out at this time in the morning. The gentleman were very polite, said hello, and continued walking south on Monarch Avenue.

"Holy shit babe, these mother fuckers are standing on the flower beds and it seems they are tossing something up into the trees." Cam says.

"I ain't getting shot by those guys and they saw us so fuck that." Charlie replied. "Those aren't Ecuadorians those are straight up Cartel."

In Central City the Mexicans were the suppliers and the Ecuadorians were the puppets who would go out and take the risk by selling dope right out in the open. The Mexicans were obviously fed up with getting robbed because the junkies were digging up stashes in the neighborhoods all around The Cut. The Ecuadorians simply got lazy so while everyone was looking down the Mexicans came in and started planting stashes right out in the open up in the trees. All anyone had to do was stop looking down and simply look up.