The shady

The only earnest conversation I've ever had about criminal activity was an exchange upon a casual Friday. I had just bought some gas at the Chevron a mile from my house on the way home for lunch. My hair was spiked; I was unshaven; I was wearing a black shirt and blue jeans.

A young man about my age but a foot taller approached me. He was unshaven, wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, too. He looked as though he had run a brush through his amber, shoulder-length locks, probably investing hair time comparable to mine that morning. I suppose he thought I was a peer.

"Hey, man," he began, not too loud, "do you know where I can score some black?" he finished, decreasing volume with his distance from my ear. He was fidgety, but I didn't notice until I thought about it later.

"No."

I didn't know what he was talking about, but he enunciated carefully enough that I was perfectly certain I had heard him correctly. I went home and checked the Urban Dictionary to discover that I had been hit up for heroin.

My friend, Datesh, when he was attending Touro University for his medical degrees, had a somewhat similar experience. His girlfriend, Pritika knew a fellow by the moniker "the shady." He looked like a normal guy, but he always talked about shady activities and never refuted the title. He did not claim to have done anything illegal or even questionable, but he would always ask the most interesting leading questions--the kind that made you wonder what he was up to. The shady asked Pritika what Datesh was studying--it was something relating to phlebotomy that month--and wanted to know if the text books were very expensive. Pritika had no idea, but she was on the way to meet Datesh and me for lunch anyway, so the shady came along.

Datesh hadn't met the shady, but he recognized him anyway. "What's up the shady" he monotoned.

"Datesh, I'm glad to finally meet you. This girl is in love with you, man," he said, pointing to Pritika. The shady waited for a response. All he won was a moment's patience from Datesh.

"Datesh," he continued. It looked almost like the shady was resisting the temptation to put his arm around Datesh, which would have been an uncomfortable, archetypal semiosis.

"Datesh," he continued again, this time establishing a spiel. "How's school goin'? You got a ton of classes--something about blood, right? Man, those books--people say they're wicked expensive."

Datesh was not amused.

"Anyway, I think I might have a few for sale pretty soon because my girl just gave up school and I wanted to know if you could use some of her leftovers, you know? What classes are you in besides phlebe? You doing anything with X-rays?"

Datesh recited his schedule for the shady.

"Nothing in the scatter lab, huh? You're not doing anything involving the x-ray machines right now or have access to them?"

Datesh caught the curve. This wasn't about selling him a book about x-ray technology at a discount. It sounded like the shady wanted access to an x-ray lab for some reason. Given some of his purported connections, this could be a very, very bad thing.

"The shady, I'm not going to get you into the x-ray lab for any reason. I don't know what you're after, but I'm not going to help you."

The shady feigned disappointment. "Oh, Datesh, come on, man. I've got four textbooks coming to me about x-ray tech and I wanted to know if you've got any need for them. Come on. Do you know anyone else who does, then?"

Datesh would not soon forget "or have access to them" and stonewalled the troll. He took the hint and moved along, leaving us to our tonkotsu ramen.

Pritika called Datesh a week later, laughing, after the shady was implicated in a scheme to steal University books by smuggling them out of the library in a lead vest.