Us & Others

The Quest: Seth Candice

 I am not just a drug dealer. I'm a hustler-an entrepreneur of sorts. Not the con artists you see on instagram selling tea and protein shakes. Unlike them, I don't rely on other people's insecurities to turn a profit. That's boring, unoriginal, and mad overdone. It's easy to con a dum fat man. At least one's gonna fall prey to the shit. It's hard to con a smart fat man. Greedy men care less about the size of their waistband as much as they do about the waistband of their pockets. Now, swindlin' a smart, confident, and greedy(and in turn wealthy) fat man: that's the juice. Actually, that's what I was doing when I met Connie.

My mother owns a catering company, Candice Caters, that I occasionally volunteer at-usually when I'm hunting for new moves to make. This round, it was a Sunday brunch for Mayor De Luna's campaign donors. I couldn't miss out on such a generous crowd. Once the food was set, the band was playing, and prior to the Mayor's "thank you" speech, I snuck out of the kitchen. After a quick and clanky change out of my uniform into a nicer button up and khakis inside of a broom closet, I snuck into the festivities.

Now, every artist must know their canvas, and I couldn't paint someone a fool if I didn't know them. I did some quick recon. I wasn't in the mood to seduce a sexually unsatisfied middle-age housewife or a so far trapped in the closet, he was one with the hangers, father of four, so instead I searched for a sleazy, upper-middle aged man with a barely legal sugar baby. I found this Asian doner named Jason Wu of Wu and Co. Wu and Co was the parent company of Yaz Electrics and Knightly Cable Company;both companies held a monopoly on the region. He wore Yeezy's with his freshly fitted suit, a tie stamped repeatedly with his company's logo(which was just [Wu & Co.] in white block letters), and a De Luna for Mayor button pinned to the right of his chest. His hand proudly draped around some blonde bitch-the miss America type ( ya know, the type of girl who thinks the crisis in Turkey is the lack of stuffing). Based on the fact that he wore a standard watch with his smart watch, which he clearly struggled to use, proved he wasn't some tech genius. He just had money to hire tech geniuses. His whole fit was a sad PR front for "hip with the times." I waited for blondie to run off to powder her nose or some shit before slithering in.

"Mr. Wu. Big fan, big fan!" I stuck my hand and my teeth out to greet him.

He took my hand, "why thank you-"

"Andrew Klecker. But you can call me Andy, sir."

"Thank you, Andy. It's nice to see young people interested in the tech industry," he boasted. Someone needed to bring this emperor some clothes.

"Of course! My friends and I dream of having such huge investments in the tech game-as you sir,"

"Well I tell ya what son, if ya continue to work hard, you can be just as successful as me some day. Heck," he let out the manliness of man laughs, " you might even be in the same meetings as me. If I'm not too old." He continued to laugh as he knocked his elbow with my shoulder. This fucking asshole...I just laughed along.

"Um...actually, sir. If you don't mind, I'd love to show a project some of my friends and I've been working on. We go to the university a few miles up the road, and we were working on this app for our final project. If it's not too much of an inconvenience, I'd love some feedback." I stared at him like a lost pup searching for jesus. He fell for it real hard. I don't think any woman has made him feel more like a man than I did in that moment.

It didn't take long before I was pitching him my dumb app idea of the week. I can honestly barely remember as all spiels felt more or less the same. Add a "next level coding and a "data processor" and sprinkle in a little bit of "competitive" and a spank of "Apple and Microsoft will wish they got in sooner," and I've got them in the palm of my hands. I've never made an app in my life, but I can use a buzzword like a motherfucker. I think it was either the "puppy patrol" self walking dog app or the "speedy pedal" cyclist dating app. In the end, Wu dropped a solid half a g on it and used the change exchange app to do it, proving just how trendy he was.