Pedro and Marques Take Stock

by José Falero

Genres: General Fiction; Hispanic & Latino

Synopsis

"[A] vibrant and punchy novel . . . Through Falero’s lovable characters, readers will meditate on violence and respectability within the death-trap of runaway capitalism. Head-on against the grim indignities of an unequal world, Falero’s poetic novel embraces humor and empathy."
 —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A modern picaresque novel and vivid satire on social mobility where the lives of two Brazilian supermarket stock clerks are upturned after their small-time marijuana business takes off.

In the favelas of Porto Alegre, Brazil, marijuana is hard to come by. Supermarket stock clerks Pedro and Marques spend their days unloading trucks, restocking shelves, and dreaming of a better life, of breaking the cycle of poverty that has afflicted their families and their community. Well-acquainted with the drug dealers in their neighborhood and seeing an opportunity to earn a little extra cash, they decide to start a weed-dealing operation. 

The economic hierarchies of Porto Alegre are turned upside down as, almost accidentally, the two men build a thriving enterprise and get rich, quickly. Distribution grows from dime bags to kilos, and Pedro and Marques begin to plan for a future where low-wage work will never again be a necessity for them and their families. All too soon however, their operation starts attracting outsider attention, and cracks in their carefully crafted and seemingly untouchable world begin to show, culminating in one final, lethal showdown.  

A witty, voice-driven, and electrifying portrait of poverty and a canny examination of the ethics of drug dealing and low-wage labor in the underbelly of Brazil, Pedro and Marques Take Stock is a contemporary picaresque novel of class and crime.

Release date: November 7, 2023

Publisher: Astra House

Print pages: 304

Sample

10. The Weed Guy

For weeks the heat had been unrelenting, and on Saturday, February 7, 2009, it was no different. There wasn’t a single cloud in the Porto Alegre sky, and everyone did what they could to get out of the sun. Downtown, crowds elbowed each other below awnings, steering clear of the open street, as if fleeing a biblical rainstorm. But there was excitement in the air too; it was Saturday after all, and most people didn’t work Sundays.

That was also the day Marques and Pedro were going to begin selling weed, and at a fairly uninspiring pace, it had to be said. As incredible as it may sound, even though they’d spent all week planning out every last detail, they had failed to account for one obvious factor: that they spent most of the day stuck in the supermarket, leaving them virtually no time to sell weed. When they clocked in around one that afternoon, Pedro had ten miserable reais in his pocket, or one-hundred percent of the money they’d made so far from their weed operation, possibly the only money they would make all day, seeing that neither of them could start selling until their shift ended at 9:20 p.m., and after a thirty-minute walk to Lupicínio Rodrigues, plus an hour-long bus ride to Lomba do Pinheiro.

Ten miserable reais. A pathetic amount in Marques’s anxious opinion, especially given they owed four hundred to his sister and another four hundred to Fabrício, all due in a month’s time. In Pedro’s level-headed opinion, on the other hand, they shouldn’t read too much into the figure, it being the result of a single, unplanned sale between Pedro’s house and the bus stop, not of their ideal operating model.

Earlier that day, Pedro had bumped into a friend on a corner of Vila Nova São Carlos and heard him pointedly complain about how difficult it was to find decent weed. Remembering he had a few grams on him, Pedro pulled the grass out of his pocket and held it out in his cupped palm. Based on the powerful smell and firmness of the bud, his friend decided the stuff merited buying ten grams on the spot. As Pedro did the math now, he felt optimistic. He’d managed to sell ten grams in a matter of minutes: How long would it be before he sold the rest of the kilo, if he worked at it every day for several hours at a time?

Marques hadn’t managed to sell a single gram, even though Lupicínio Rodrigues was as promising as Viçosa and Nova São Carlos put together, as he explained to Pedro. The neighborhood was actually small and the demand per capita middling, but its prime location meant people came through there every day looking for drugs. There were the hundreds and hundreds of playboyzinhos from surrounding neighborhoods who usually sourced their weed from other playboyzinhos—rebels without a cause known in the colleges and bars of Rua General Lima e Silva. Every now and then, whenever their official suppliers ran out, their little friends in Menino Deus and Cidade Baixa were left with no choice but to pay vagrants to check for weed in Lupicínio Rodrigues, too frightened to go anywhere near the neighborhood themselves. There was also the sea of people who streamed in from all corners of the city to the shrinking shores of Guaíba River, right next to Lupicínio Rodrigues, many of whom stopped at the neighborhood to buy weed before going out for a stroll, or a bike ride, or skateboarding, or on a date, or just to watch the sunset.

“We’ve got to stop working here so we have time to sell the product,” Marques said as he helped Pedro organize the stockroom, which they did every Saturday.

“Nah, we can’t stop working here, man,” Pedro countered, yawning. He’d barely slept. His mother had turned in late, and he had to wait for her to go to bed before he could start trimming and packaging the weed, which kept him up until sunrise.

Marques, on the other hand, had it easy. With nothing to wait for, he got straight to work the second he walked through his front door. On top of that, he had help from Angélica. It took them no time at all to trim and package their half of the product, which meant he was able to get a good night’s sleep.

“What d’you mean we can’t stop working here?”

“We still need the money. We’ll be needing it for a while, to be honest. See, to start, anything we make selling weed has to go toward buying more weed. It’s gonna be a while before we can use it on ourselves. We’ve got to grow the operation first, until we can balance our offerings with the demands of the market.”

“Grow,” “balance,” “offerings,” “market”: Marques wasn’t really following.

“Hunh?”

“Let me . . .” Pedro yawned again. “Ahhh . . . Let me explain. We got the weed yesterday, on a Friday, yeah? Cool. Now let’s pretend that, by some miracle, we manage to sell it all by Monday. The next delivery isn’t until next Friday. Which means we’ll be out of product for the rest of the week, hemorrhaging hypothetical cash. That’s why we have to buy more weed, enough to last us all week. Every delivery we get has to keep us busy till Friday, in time for the next delivery. Once we’re set up, once we’re selling as much weed in a week as we can, then we can split whatever money’s left over. After we pay for the next delivery, natch. Make sense? That’ll be our profit.”

“And how much d’you think we can sell in a week?”

“Pfft, beats me. What we got to figure out right now is how to move the product while we’re on the job.”

“Only way is to get someone to sell for us.”

“And that’s what we’ll do. Tomorrow’s Sunday, and the two of us still gonna be busy, even if we’re not working here. Me slinging weed in my hood and you doing the same in yours. On top of that, we’ll have to find a couple of folks we trust to start dealing for us starting Monday, while we’re at work. I’ll find a prosthetic limb for me and you’ll find one for you. They can work the streets while we manage behind the scenes.”

“They gonna be like our employees or something?” Marques laughed.

“No. Not employees. More like business partners.”

Marques had a sinking feeling.

“Hold up, hold up. What d’you mean?”

“The two folks we tap to sell weed are gonna make the same as us, brother. We’re gonna split the profit four ways.”

“Jesus fucking Christ! I can’t believe it. You’re gonna screw everything up with your dumb-ass ideas!”
Pedro sighed.

“Shit, Marques. It’s about more than just ideas, brother. Remember when you came and told me you wanted to sell weed? Well, what would you have thought if I said I’d be making more money than you? Fuck, man, I’m trying to make a better life for myself cause I got to, right, and you want a better life too. So, like, how could I offer you less money? How the hell do I justify something like that?”

“Well, I guess, if you wanted to make more money than me, that’d be cool and stuff, whatever, I wouldn’t kick up a fuss. I just wouldn’t take you up on it. Period.”

“Right, so you’re not willing to earn less than me, but you still want to pay somebody else less than you. And that’s cool, yeah? Look, if something don’t feel right to you, Marques, then don’t expect it to feel right to somebody else. Imagine we find somebody interested in selling weed for us, and for less money. How much can we trust this person? Before you know it, they’re selling us down the river, all because they want more money, and, honest to God, I wouldn’t blame them. Pretty soon, we don’t trust this person and they don’t trust us, and fuck, man, that’s when stuff gets ugly. Trust, dude. Trust. That shit’s gold. Trusting that the other guy won’t try and screw you over. That’s how it’s got to be. That’s what we’ve got, you and me. Isn’t it? Well. That’s how it should be for everybody.”

“Right, I see what you’re saying. But wasn’t the plan for us to make money? To have a better life and all that? Fuck if I want to get mixed up in this crap for chicken feed.”

“Me neither, man! Yeah, the plan was to make good money. It still is. I’m telling you there’s gonna be enough to go around. Believe in me, man. Trust. You never agreed to sell drugs in Tuca with your brother, your own flesh and blood, but here you are selling drugs with me, cause you know I do things right, you know I got good ideas. So relax, cuz, and let me do my thing. We’re gonna make mad coin. You’ll see. Don’t worry about it.”

“Cool. We’ll do it your way, then. But don’t forget, man. The money comes first. We’re in it for the money.”

“Trust . . .” Another yawn. “Ahhh . . . Trust, the money comes first. Yeah . . .”

All day, Pedro was so tired he felt soft like butter. As he dragged his body around the store, the only thing he could think about was his bed and lying in it. Every minute felt like an hour. He didn’t even have the energy to pretend he liked his coworkers’ stupid jokes. Worse than the terrible jokes were the cheerful customers who went out of their way to have long conversations with every employee, just so they could sleep at night without feeling like a bunch of snobs. Bougie motherfuckers. They could go to hell for all he cared, thought Pedro, smiling at them with pure contempt. He regretted not having one of those jobs where the boss walks over and magnanimously says: “Take the rest of the weekend off, man. Go home and get some rest. I’ll see you Monday.” Did jobs like that really exist, or did that only happen in movies? They must. There were probably even better jobs out there too, ones where people went ahead and gave themselves a break: “You know what? I think I’ll take the rest of the weekend off. I’ll start again on Monday.” Unfortunately, neither situation applied to him. The best he could do was give Sr. Geraldo some attitude and go home early, as he had plenty of times before. The issue was that Sr. Geraldo docked every hour he didn’t work from his paycheck, and he was already several hours short. So he put up with it. With the exhaustion and the backbreaking work, with the “funny” coworkers and chatty customers. When it was finally time for him to punch out and go home, he could hardly believe it.

As Pedro stood on the crowded bus and nodded off amid dozens of other tired workers, his mind drifted out of habit to the fact that tomorrow was Sunday; meaning, he could sleep in. But then he instantly remembered that tomorrow was actually going to be his first chance to sell weed; meaning, he couldn’t sleep in. The sooner he woke up and got the ball rolling, the better. The thought of devoting all day to this task was comforting. It wouldn’t be like working at the supermarket. No, it was the dawn of a journey that he could only hope led to money—real money. He wanted to get started right away and see how things panned out, so he could make predictions and plan, then reassess those plans . . .

As soon as Pedro stepped off the bus, he popped the usual cigarette in his mouth and lit it. It wouldn’t be long now. He’d be home in ten minutes. In the bathroom in fifteen. In thirty, he’d be eating dinner. In forty, he’d be asleep. The streets of Nova São Carlos stretched darkly before him, busy with people walking around, children plopped on the curb, cats and dogs racing this way and that, and cars parked bumper to bumper outside bars. Front doors and windows were flung open, heaving a breath of fresh air. Now and then you might see someone making dinner in the kitchen, or watching TV in the living room, or brushing their hair in front of the bedroom mirror. Pedro greeted the occasional acquaintance as he walked. Then, turning a corner, he heard an alarming murmur rising ahead of him.

“Look, everybody, it’s him!”

“Here he comes! What’s up, Pedro?”

“Yo, it’s the weed guy!”

“You got ten grams, man? I’ll take ten.”

“Me too.”

Five men stood in an alley, just a few meters ahead. It was clear they’d been waiting for Pedro to get home.

Pedro walked up to the group, lips curled into a smile and brow knit. How did they know he was selling? The guy who’d bought ten grams from him earlier that afternoon must have said something . . . Yes, that had to be it; Pedro couldn’t think of any other reason they would know. He was the only one who could have told them . . . No, that wasn’t exactly right either . . . Valdir knew Pedro was selling pot in the neighborhood too, as did his son Lucas, and Renato. Any of those four men could have been responsible for spreading the news.

The culprit was someone else altogether. Apparently, the men had gotten his name from the friend who ran the corner store, the one who’d loaned him the precision scale the evening before.

Pedro sold the group forty grams of weed and then continued walking home, down Rua da Guaíba. From there, at the very top of Vila Nova São Carlos, Pedro had an excellent view of the area. Down the hill, in the future Vila Sapo, shacks upon shacks crowded together, and another jumble of huts lay farther ahead, in Vila Viçosa. There were houses aglow all over the neighborhood, countless lights that together seemed to want to make the stars jealous.

Pedro wasn’t sleepy or tired anymore. Instead, he felt . . . important . . .

“Yo, it’s the weed guy!”

It occurred to him that he was assuming a role dozens of people had been waiting for someone to step into for a long time, and it was a small boost to his self-esteem. Thanks to him, potheads across the region would no longer have to scour the city for weed. Though it may not be the cleanest situation Pedro had ever been in, at least this time he got to play the lead instead of a supporting role.

In that moment he didn’t feel second-rate, unlike at the supermarket, where he killed himself taking down mountains of boxes, packages, and crates in the stockroom to get at the products that needed restocking, only to put back together the mountains of boxes, packages, and crates and slide the items onto their respective shelves, from which customers could comfortably retrieve them and toss them into their shopping carts, without giving any thought to the sweat spilled or the enormous amount of energy wasted just so every item would be there, at hand, and especially without giving a single thought to the obscenely low wages attached to that labor, which barely covered a person’s basic needs, yet always ready to complain if a single price tag was out of place, if a single item was out of stock, while all he could do was lower his eyes, because, at the end of the day, the customer was always right.

No, in that moment, he didn’t feel second-rate. In that moment, he wasn’t even thinking about all the terrible things the supermarket represented. In that moment, he wasn’t Pedro, the calloused, sweaty stock clerk who had no choice but to break his back. He was Pedro, the salesman, with a world of possibilities ahead of him, and a future that transcended the present. Right then, in that moment, he was Pedro, the weed guy.