Hustlin the hustler

This story takes place in a Dunkin Donuts on Fulton Ave in Brooklyn NY. The area is slowly but surely becoming gentrified, but it doesn't seem to be quite as there as other, hipper parts of Brooklyn. The street was bustling @ about 1:00pm, but most of the white people I saw were college-age kids on their bikes obviously just passing through the neighborhood, not residents. I was the only white person in this particular dunkin donuts. I like the contrast of this neighborhood because having spent a fair amount of time in Manhattan over the past few days, I'd been getting a steady dose of the rich and the famous-type NYC lifestyle. I'm getting off a tangent though, this story doesn't have to do with race, it has to do with the hustle.

I see the hustle quite a bit considering the line of work I'm in, and I'm getting good at spotting all different types, right off the bat. It's how a lot of people in poorer communities get by, and it's inherent in the welfare culture. In this instance, the hustle involved the selling of goods of a questionable origin. You've seen this before if you've lived in a city atmosphere; it brought me back to the days of going to shows @ Showplace Theater on Grant St. After these shows it was customary to walk to Mighty Taco at the corner of Grant/ Amherst. A small group of white kids out @ night looks like a really easy mark, and if you made the mistake of standing outside too long, you were inevitably hit up with the offer of jewelry or other various goods. Being teenagers from the 'burbs, it was easy to get fast-talked by these hustlers and even if you didn't buy what they were peddling, it was intimidating and a little scary.

This was roughly the situation today; man comes in and walks up to a table of middle-aged black girls. "Hey you wanna look at these crosses? Real nice stuff." The game begins as I drink coffee and tune in to the encounter directly behind me. "Where'd these come from," asked one of the women.
"Long Island."
"Long Island, like where Long Island?"
"Long ISLAND...."

The woman drops it and the man can already tell he's got something going on. He tells her $30 for the cross. They talk a bit more and I can't hear them for a minute, I think they're just bullshitting with the other women at the table. Another piece of jewelry is then brought into the equation; the hustler wants $80 for this one. The woman scoffs, "Oh hell no I ain't paying no 80 bucks for that, that ain't worth no $80." The hustler I can tell is a bit taken aback, I think he thought he had her biting on the first cross. He says "Hey, that's just what I was told to sell it for, that's all I know. Eighty bucks, it's a nice one, beautiful. A cop then walks in and the conversation doesn't stop but it does quiet down a little. They then talk about how many police are out and about in the neighborhood today, wondering what's going on (I'd noticed this too; I'd seen at least four groups of two cops each since I'd walked the two blocks and sat in the window for 20 min) The cop leaves and the women continue to bust on the hustler, giving him a hard time, stringing him along. It was funny to me to hear some one give him some of his own medicine, make him feel self-conscious but not wanting to fuck up the sale. Another man walked in that the hustler apparently knew and they all starting talking, which is when I got up and left. I never did find out if he unloaded any of the jewelry, I just got a kick out of the whole encounter; the set up, the exchanges, the haggling. Street life never stops and it's consistent from city to city.