After watching The Corner and The Wire, I think I’m pretty well versed in drug jargon and know how to buy drugs in Baltimore. In fact, I love the jargon and imagine conversations in my head using only street slang: “Hey girl, you up?”
“Whatchoo got man?”
“Red tops and spider bags.”
“Any blue tops?”
“Nah, man, all out.”
“I be needing them blue tops today. Ya feel me?”
“Just red tops and spider bags.”
“Ah-ight. Gimme one on one.”
While The Corner makes heroin look so fantastic, I’ll actually refrain from trying some. But, if I were a dope addict, where does one get heroin in Pittsburgh? I’ve never gone through a Pittsburgh neighborhood and heard people shouting “WMDs! Yo, I got your WMDs over here!” or have had someone ask me if I’m up. Does Pittsburgh have an open-air drug market? Where? Dave and I think if we drove up to Garfield and asked someone if they had any WMDs, we’d probably just get beat up.
If Pittsburgh doesn’t have any sort of drug marketplace where people line up to buy drugs in the open, do other cities? Or is it just Baltimore? I can’t help but laugh every time I remember Dave and I driving, unknowingly, through the Baltimore projects looking for Edgar Allan Poe’s house and hearing people shout “cracker, go home” at us. I think we were probably driving through a scene straight from The Wire, especially because there is one episode in season three where dealers make fun of middle-aged white folks who were driving by looking for the Poe house, to which the dealer told them: "These be all po' houses!"
PS: This is my last entry about The Corner and The Wire. I promise.
