This is Jockel podcast number 400 with Echo Trolls and me, Jockel Willink.

Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

With high school out of the way, I was off to the races.

I quit the sneaker store, teamed up with a hustler.

I met along the way named Roderick, and we started selling drugs.

My grandmother lived in Washington Heights, and in our younger years,

Bayo and I spent many days and nights at her apartment.

Having spent a lot of time in her area, I knew it was where the Dominicans had control

of the vast drug market.

So that's where I built relationships and brought my work.

But soon Rod and I realized that with the Dominicans controlling Washington Heights area

down to the southernmost border of the Bronx, gangs running the Bronx drug trade

and the Queens and Brooklyn territories too risky and unfamiliar to impose upon,

we had to find a less saturated and safer place to sell.

We were just a two-man operation.

There was no way we were going to go to war with anyone over a corner.

So we did the next best thing.

We jumped on the metro north and set up shop in upstate New York for a few days at a time.

One week we'd be upstate.

The next week we were back down in the city, replenishing our inventory or tending to other hustles.

After a while, we decided to expand our operation by bringing in an old friend from the hill, Ricardo.

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