Free Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bro by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Page B

him to Rikers Island; while he visited a friend, she napped in the parking lot. George sometimes stayed with Miranda, but Miranda soon discovered that he had another girlfriend—who was pregnant—and she kicked him out. George’s other girl, Vada, lived with her mother in Rascal’s building. George moved in and Vada gave birth to a son. George named him Luciano. Another girlfriend, Isabel, gave George a second son, but George considered Vada his main girl—his wife.
    Meanwhile, Joey Navedo exposed Boy George to other features of the good life. They visited Great Adventure, a New Jersey theme park. Joey introduced George to Victor’s Café, the Cuban restaurant where he would later take Jessica and Lourdes. Joey also hooked up George with his jeweler at Norel’s, a store in Chinatown. The boys sampled the seats of the exotic cars at car shows and inspected the fine custom work on other drug dealers’ expensive cars. They practiced shooting at a firing range in Mount Vernon. They skied the Poconos. George paid attention. He said, “Like a lint brush, I pick up.” From Joey, George learned to anticipate the sudden opportunities that characterized the drug business and to be prepared to act decisively. Joey’s preferred managerial tool was fear. George picked that up, too.
    “It’s like a fisherman with a little boat, that’s the drug dealer,” George later said. “I want to catch the whale. I want it big. I don’t want to go through the steps. I want it big because I know I can handle it. Where’s the fisherman gonna fit that damn whale? He’s gonna have to tug it! But he wants to bring in the mother lode, the catcher, everybody eats, everybody’s happy, we can relax. I didn’t need a high school diploma to do whatI did. I did what most people are too scared to do, and that’s to take control of something very powerful.”

    In June 1987, the Drug Enforcement Administration, in conjunction with the New York Police Drug Task Force, brought the Torres brothers down. Boy George moved swiftly. Instead of delivering $65,000 to his connection, he set up a processing mill. He bought heroin, mannitol (a dilutant), a glass table, six chairs, a triple-beam scale, and glassine envelopes. Then George, Miranda and a friend, Rascal and one of Rascal’s girlfriends, and an older Jamaican man named 10-4 gathered around the table and settled in. The next day, 166th and Washington reopened for business with Boy George’s new brand. He named his heroin Obsession. The Obsession logo, stamped on the glassines in red ink, was a miniature king’s crown.
    10-4 handled the administrative details of the expanding operation, including payroll and personnel. George had met 10-4 during his tenure with a brand called Checkmate. 10-4 drove a livery cab. Before hooking up with George, he had shuttled another well-known Bronx drug dealer on his rounds. Drug dealers often used cabs to make deliveries because livery cabs—a common mode of transportation in the ghetto—were less conspicuous than pricey cars. George had been one of 10-4’s biggest tippers. 10-4’s war stories impressed George, and whenever he needed a cab, he requested him; 10-4 was his dispatcher code. Sometimes George kept 10-4 on hold for days. 10-4 worked the relationship. A seasoned hustler, he supplemented his income running welfare schemes. Before driving cabs, he’d been fired from the post office for stealing envelopes with donations to religious charities. 10-4 had a knack for helping Boy George with what he needed—phony guarantors for leasing cars; friends in real estate who’d rent apartments under other people’s names, to be used for mills; fraudulent business certificates. It was 10-4 who bought Boy George his stamp for Obsession. Shortly after George launched the brand, 10-4 became the organization’s right-hand man.
    Business grew steadily. Boy George and Joey Navedo stayed in touch. George appreciated that Joey treated him as a peer. Joey provided