“I was 13 years old when I first got arrested for stealing cars,” says Pyke, who chooses not to reveal his name. Now, at 18, his profession is drug dealing. Busy on the phone all the time with his loud raspy voice, Pyke doesn’t waste time saying hello or goodbye.
Pyke, who claims that he makes over $3,000 a week, races around the city in a red car, using his cell phone as an office phone. He found refuge in drug dealing after realizing that stealing cars was too dangerous. Pyke admits that selling drugs is also dangerous but explains that he feels safe with his drug supplier.
Pyke was raised in the Ironbound neighborhood in Newark. He finished eight years in Lafayette Public School but dropped out of East Side High School during his sophomore year. Pyke was born in Newark after his parents migrated from Portugal in search of a better life. Pyke’s parents are now separated, and his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. In a loud tone Pyke says, “If I didn’t make the money I make, how would I help pay for the hospital bills?”
Pyke’s opportunity in the dirty business came early in his life. “I sold anything—marijuana, coke, crack, diesel, heroin, methadone and ecstasy—all the time, unless I was sleeping,” he says. He admits using some of those drugs growing up but never got hooked because of the loss of profit. Today, Pyke tries to stick to pot, only to resist temptation.
I asked Pyke, “Why the life of crime if discipline is so important to maintain the business?” He answered, “It is all I know, it’s all I’m good at, and it is all about the money.”
I asked if he likes his job. Pyke, with a smirk while holding a blunt like a cigar, says, “It pays the bills.” Meanwhile he asks his friend in the backseat, who goes by the name of Two Pulls, to give up $5 for the weed they are presently smoking. Pyke seems to be all business, but, he says, “the people who ride in my car are always my friends.”
Chorao, a customer of Pyke’s who met us by the Lady of Fatima church on Jefferson Street, says, “I buy drugs from Pyke because I’d rather see money in my friend’s pocket than in some thug’s.”
“I don’t do the Ironbound by myself,” says Pyke. He claims that there are hundreds of dealers in the city of Newark alone. Pyke says some dealers sell it from home, others sell on a payphone, and others, like him, move around.
While driving around, Pyke points out the drug-dealer spots around the city: the Pathmark parking lot on the end of Ferry Street, the corner of Wilson Avenue and Garrison Street, the Burger King parking lot on Market Street and the projects on Orchard and Tichenor streets.
“Do any other dealers from these places try to bully you around?” I asked.
“Yes,” Pyke said, “mostly the old junkies that don’t have a clientele the way some of us do. But all they try to do is scare us, the younger ones.” He said, “I got to step up to them at first. If I know I can’t handle it, then I call my man.” Then what? He said, “Let’s leave it at that.”
What about problems with clients? “Once this group of Brazilians didn’t have or lost their money,” Pyke said, “so I borrowed the video game, TV and VCR. I told them I’d give them back when they give me my money.”
Pyke has never been arrested for drug dealing, but he has been arrested for stealing cars and for other infractions. “Once I paid for a bag of shrimp at the supermarket but the security guard thought I didn’t, and so I hit him after he tried to pull it away from me.” The other time, he said, “I lost $500 worth of purple haze, which is very potent pot. I then lost my mind, and I started kicking the mirrors of the cars that were parked. A cop saw me and arrested me.”
Pyke is one drug dealer out of hundreds in the city of Newark. Growing up learning the street business is the future for many kids in Newark. It could be the money, the attention or the innocence of not knowing how dangerous it is.
I asked Pyke if he sees himself doing this for a long time, and he says, “Maybe another year or a year and a half,” adding that if another opportunity for making money came along he would leave the dealing life “in a heartbeat.” But what if no opportunities come along in the next year and a half?
“Well,” he said, “then I guess I’ll just keep on hustling.”
Raul Stancov is a journalism and media studies major at Rutgers-Newark.
