Lesson 1: Typical Saturday Afternoon for Juno

Things were going smoothly so far. Juno looked at the list on his notepad and crossed out another name from it. Two more stops and he would be done collecting for the day. He looked at his watch. 3:35pm. He figured he would be done by 5, 5:30. Angel had given him until 6pm to get back to the club with all the pick-ups. This was a big break for Juno in the Cartel and he didn’t want to let Angel down. If he showed Angel he could handle the responsibility and not fuck up, he would trust him to do more work. Better work. Real soldier type of work. He was also hoping he might get the rest of the night off. Maybe he could even take Carmela out to the city. He needed to try and mend fences with her after their big blow-up this morning. Juno was thinking all this as he rolled up to the next pickup point.

He pulled up to the curb a few houses away from the brownstone where the pickup was. He didn’t know this crew. He had heard from Shorty that they were always a little short with the money, always had excuses, and took forever to pay back any loans. They did eventually pay up and supposedly they were good earners. How good? Enough that they earned the Cartel’s protection. No one could touch them.

The crew was headed by a very entrepreneurial and gutsy gay guy from Guatemala named Gigolo. The crew operated a five block radius in Jackson Heights between Roosevelt and 37^th Aves. They called themselves the Papi Chulos and they were an unapolegitacally gay, but very vicious rag-tag group of thugs. Unfortunately, Gigolo’s drug habit was becoming a bit of an issue, as that usually led to short money problems.

“Hola Gigolo,” Juno nodded his head at the leader, addressing him as he walked into what looked like the most enourmous living room he had ever seen. “Que pasa?” No response from Gigolo.

Although Juno was the new pick-up guy for Angel, he had the clout of being a member of the infamous Black Hand Cartel. The very same Black Hand Cartel that controlled most to the clandestine world in Queens, Brooklyn and parts of New Jersey. That meant that Juno had clout, and he wasn’t one that was afraid to flaunt it.

Juno had seen Gigolo around the club a couple of times, and as most straight men did when they met Gigolo for the first time, they dismissed him when they figured out he was gay. It wasn’t a hard fact to pick up on. Gigolo flaunted his gayness at every opportunity, and used the word “faggot” like the Blacks use the “N” word.

“Let me tell you something, faggot,” for example. “Shut-up, faggot!”, “Let me introduce you to these two faggots,” and “What are you faggots drinking”. Faggot this, faggot that. There were so many faggots in his stories, you would think they all took place in the East Village.

So no handshake for Juno, just the verbal greeting. Shorty had told Juno that Gigolo preferred two kisses. One on each cheek. “Like the Lebaneeeese,” he teased. Juno told Shorty flatly, “I ain’t fucking Lebanese, bro. It ain’t happening”. He knew Shorty was just breaking his balls, but he had made a mental note of this whole greeting business.

Gigolo looked up from what he was doing, pupils dilated, mouth twitching uncontrollably. He looked back down to the white powdery substance he was cutting up on a piece of broken mirror. He quickly nodded at Juno and went back to work on the white powder, adeptly making two perfect, symmetrical lines. He snorted up one of the lines quickly with a rolled up, crisp, bill and offered it up to Juno.

“Fuck,” Juno thought. He knew he couldn’t refuse. Gigolo would see it as a dis, and it could cause issues with this crew. Juno knew the one thing that Angel hated was unnecessary problems.

“Unforced errors,” he called them. “We have enough problems, we don’t need to be creating new ones.” It made sense to Juno.

So here he was, with time running out, a line of cocaine in front of him, and he’s having to walk on eggshells because this coke fiend is a fucking diva and he can’t fuck this up. Juno thought that he could just snort the line, collect the cash, and get the fuck out of Dodge, but Gigolo had other plans.

He pointed at an empty arm chair across from the sofa where he was sitting, indicating for Juno to take a seat. Juno reluctantly obliged. Gigolo placed the broken mirror with the perfect line of cocaine in front of Juno and handed him the bill.

“Salud!” Gigolo said mockingly.

Juno looked at his watch and saw the time. 3:55 PM. Not too late, but can’t waste much more time. He stuck the bill in his nostril and vacuumed up the powder in one snort.

“Way to go, campeon!” Gigolo clapped for Juno and then melted back into the sofa he was sitting on. He looked at Juno with a satisfied grin.

“Now that we got that out of the way, can we talk business?” Juno asked expectantly.

There was a center table in the middle of the living room filled with all types of drug paraphernalia. Pipes, bongs, screens, straws, razors, empty beer cans and Chinese take-out boxes, some crawling with roaches. No one in the room seemed to notice or care about this nasty mess. Juno’s skin was crawling from seeing all the roaches, but he nearly jumped out of his skin when he noticed, suddenly, that he was surrounded by figures sitting all around him, in the shadows of this large room.

“What business are we talking about?” Gigolo asked playfully.

Juno was not prepared for this bullshit. Everyone had been informed that he was the new pick-up guy and that he would be coming around to collect today. Juno figured Gigolo was just yanking his chain, so he kept his cool.

“I’m here for the weekly pickup. I’m the new guy.” Juno answered matter of factly.

“What happened to the old guy?”

“Don’t know.”

“You don’t know or you don’t want to tell me,” Gigolo was toying with Juno.

Juno, sensing he was being fucked with, started to assume a more assertive tone.

“Listen man, I came here to collect the money you have for Angel, and I can’t leave without it. So, can you do us all a favor and bring me the money. Please?” Juno spoke calmly but firmly and looked at Gigolo directly in the eyes when he said it.

Gigolo blinked first. He gestured into the darkness of the room, and a small figure emerged with a silk satchel filled with rolled up bills. Juno took the satchel from the small figure and looked at the rolls of bills.
“How much is in here?”

“Five Gs”

“You’re five short, G,” Juno replies with a bit of sarcasm. “That’s not a little short. That’s half. No bueno, amigo.”

Gigolo, still melted into the sofa, licks his lips as if about to respond, but instead, he closes his eyes and starts to laugh. “Hahaha! I’m just messing with you, chulo! I have the money. Don’t worry.” Gigolo tries to sound reassuring to Juno, but Juno’s not buying it. He peeks at his watch. 4:10 PM. Fuck. “But first, we do one more line, ok? One for the road, like the gringos. Hahahaha!” Gigolo sounds a bit unhinged and Juno is getting more frustrated by the moment. The caution he was feeling before is starting to turn into anger, which only gets fueled by Gigolos constant fake laugh.

Juno needed to figure out a way to get the rest of the 10 Gs that Gigolo had somewhere in this brownstone, and then get the fuck on. He had one last stop after this one, but he had already spent more time at Gigolo’s than he had intended.

“No, man. No more for me. I’m on the clock. Can’t be partying while on the job, right?” Juno was sure Gigolo couldn’t care less about work ethic and doing the right thing, but that’s what he was going with.

“Andale. Tranquilo. Un poco no mas,” Gigolo insisted. Juno’s patience was wearing thin and his good-guy act would hold up a little bit longer.

“Mira, Gigolo. I have other stops I have to do after this, so if you could just…” Juno stopped mid sentence as Gigolo held up a finger telling Juno to be quiet. Juno’s eyebrows shot up in incredulity. Juno’s patience had run dry. Instinctively and without thinking, he reached out and wrapped Gigolo’s finger in his fist and he yanked down hard. The sound of the breaking and Gigolo’s bitch scream were simultaneous. By the time he had Gigolo by the throat, there were half a dozen guns on his head. Things were suddenly not going so smoothly anymore.