09-28-2014, 07:36 PM
To wrap up the story, the security guard where we are staying tells me he saw something on my business partner's bedroom table that looks like a small pile of ashes. Not being familiar with drug culture, I believe it is something like cocaine, but the description is a little too vague for me to be sure. I am driving around looking for business, and he is on foot. Our paths cross a couple times a day, and I believe he does not notice me as he is usually standing beside one Rastaman or another, hands a blur making another bracelet. I assume he is selling the bracelets to these middle men, and I feel pretty good because ten percent of that is coming my way. Tree House was very pleasant to deal with, but they tell me they have all the suppliers they can handle. I decide to try a place that is a bit off the beaten track, and make a trip to YS River Falls. Mrs. Brownie looks at the samples, and I tell her I can also supply bracelets with a more naughty message. She says she doesn't care for naughty messages, but will take ten dozen total of the standard 'one love', 'irie', 'Jamaica', 'no problem' ones. I thank her, and make my way back to Negril and find Hoodlum to give him the good news. He announces that he cannot accept the payment per unit that he told me, and wants more money. This is the price he gave me. Mrs. Brownie was OK with it and did not quibble. Did he expect me to drive back to St. Elizabeth and ask to renegotiate the deal I had agreed to? I could have cheerfully strangled him then and there, but instead I explained that a deal's a deal, and could we settle up and go our separate ways? He agrees, the tells me he only sold three bracelets all week. It would seem that he is a bad businessman, and he takes me for a fool. I revisit plan A, strangulation, but again I put it out of my mind, and leave in a huff. He packs up and leaves, and tells my aunt that I am a very bad man. And that is how the story ends. In the years since, I can't say that I have seen his style of bracelet around Negril. It is made by wrapping thread around a plastic strip usually cut from a bleach or pop bottle. No regrets though, I believe he lost more than I did.