Trill O.G Presents: Happy Hula

By Gavano

About the Book
Trill O.G. Presents tells the story of three friends embarking on adventures as wild as their friendship. In this installment, join Gavano and his friends Bread and Lambo as they journey to Hulaween hoping to make quick cash and possible connections, only to experience something completely unexpected.
Based on true events, Happy Hula celebrates the exciting side of life—and those you take along for the ride.

About the Author
Gavano began writing after working/attending his first festival, Bonnaroo. While there, the events that transpired were so crazy, he felt compelled to write them down. Though he never intended to be a writer, and after hand-writing Gavanoroo in a very chaotic environment, he never wanted to write a book again.
But, after people began complementing his work and as more crazy events relentlessly happened on a regular basis, Gavano decided to invest his life savings in furthering his adventures and continuing the series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Company
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798886837513

Book preview

Gavano_Title_Page.eps

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

All Rights Reserved

Copyright © 2023 by Gavano

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, downloaded, distributed, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without permission in writing from the publisher.

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ISBN: 979-8-8868-3173-3

eISBN: 979-8-8868-3751-3

Happy Hula

So, every good story starts at the beginning. While I have never been one to toot my own horn or call my writing good, this one is no different. I write these for myself as well as well others to share the lessons I learn. Hopefully, they can observe my mistakes and don’t have to go down the same road themselves. I must apologize if this one isn’t as detailed as usual. I am starting exactly a month after the events occurred. I typically try to write stories like these between one and two weeks after the said events.

In my defense, I have already written part three and had to live through the other two parts. I took the best notes I possibly could. Most of this is going to be solely from my own ideas, and recollection which is never the easiest task. I am not using this as an excuse, but more of a disclaimer. I am still going to give you my absolute best effort to give you the greatest story I can provide, so let’s begin.

Let’s Begin

It was another calm day in Virginia. I just moved back in with my parents,  doing my best to adjust. It was a much slower pace here. I started on an 80-day plan to improve my life; working on it 10 hours a day, whether it be on drawing, writing, meetings, or self-improvement videos. I was able to knock out 500 hours in the first 40 days. This made me feel like a new man as I was barely recognizing my motivation or energy levels. I was hoping for a nice vacation, and to be able to get 50 to 100 pages out of it—nothing too serious, but as a journalist, you always want something to happen.

I had one thing to do first: pick up and serve 11 Ps from Michigan (my plug). I haven’t done this for a while and am a little skeptical since it has been a year since I have seen him. I guess the greed was getting to me. It is not that I am out of cash, just not bringing any in. If I do, it is still nowhere near the rate I used to. My expenses are outweighing my earnings (what little they were). I set the deal up, so we could meet at my buddy Chris’s house.

I am 90 percent sure that this deal will go well. Of course, I would never disrespect my parents and set it up at their house. I used Chris’s house because I recently let him borrow a K, so I figured he wouldn’t mind helping me out. Him and both his roommates are struggling with losing their jobs, poor credit, and family death. They almost lost their apartment, could have, if it wasn’t for the financial backing, others provided them the previous month.

It is ironic because I used to look up to Chris. As a kid, he was the leader of our clique in high school. He was, by far, the funniest out of all of us. He would joke the shit out of me, basically saying that I wasn’t going anywhere, and I was the last one in our friend group who would ever be successful. It’s ironic Chris is now asking me for money. Another conversation that had always stuck with me...

In high school my friend pulled in front of my house after giving me a lift home and, says out of the blue: Man, how does it feel?

I said, What?

He said, Knowing you will never be as successful as your parents.

This was 10 years ago, so I was only 17 at the time, and asked him what he meant.

People’s idea of success is having a bigger house and a better life than their parents. Your parents already have an enormous house and great lives. You will never be able to top them.

I told him, You never know.

Yeah, he laughs. You can win the lottery or something. He now works as a maintenance guy and cleans other people’s shit for a living. I guess it pays well, so who am I to judge? My parents barely believed in me at the time, but I used it all as fuel for the fire to make me the man I am today.

Granted, everything that everyone saw in me had merit. I graduated something like 472 out of 477 in high school. Two people behind me dropped out. Ten years later people owe me over $100k, and the dream is to make enough money so that I never have to get paid back, granted, the gesture is always appreciated.

Final Push

It is the day before I am going to Hulaween. I’d love some quick extra cash. Everything is lined up. I have one guy getting six and two splitting the other five. It should be a breeze, in and out with no issues. The single reason I am nervous (and have been dreading this all week) is the amount of time that has passed since Michigan and myself have conducted business.

I have only seen Michigan one time in the last year and that was to get a sample from him. The sample was so loud! So loud when I went into Dairy Queen, the lady at the register started to breathe heavy and cover her nose. I don’t know what has come over me. I busted out one small sample at my parents’ house, and the whole thing reeked, as if I were living in a dispensary. I had to get individual lectures from my mom and dad, but they have really shown me unconditional love throughout my trials and hardships. If I only sell one book, I will give the profit to them, to help them through the tough times they currently find themselves in.

The type of character my parents have shines through their actions. My aunt got really sick and collapsed the same day I was making this deal. My mom immediately planned a trip to go and see her that weekend. She left the day after I did, driving 400 miles just to spend time with her and help clean her whole apartment. They always do stuff like this for people, and this is one of the reasons why I try to help people. Life is a struggle. We all deal with tough situations every day. One of the hardest things to do for some of us is ask other people for help.

Now I have all these thoughts in the back of my mind, as I am trying to make this deal, which isn’t exactly what I want, but I trying to maintain my professionalism. Whenever I do something like this, I always run through every scenario in my head just in case anything goes wrong. I would rather rot away forever, than to get someone in trouble for something that I did. This is why I hide people’s names when I write. The names are not important; the actions, lessons, morals, and stories are what can help teach people.

So, Chris and I are catching up in his living room, since Michigan is a little late. It is hard to judge an exact time a 14-plus hour drive will take, but he should be here in 30. I use this time to explain exactly what is going to transpire over the next couple hours to a T. I tell him that Michigan is going to drop off 11 total, six and then five.

I have one person who needs six. He is going to come through. Then one needs three, and one needs two. I am only going to make $600 off the first six, but profit $900 off the next three, and $400 off the two. If everything goes according to plan, I would be walking away with almost $2k, which I could really use because I have not made any money in two months. I might have even have lost some since I hired a typist, but having her is 100 percent worth it.

This should be an easy, quick, four transaction process. I am virtually coming out of retirement like a prize fighter who needs money and signed up for one last fight. This is a most vulnerable time where they are susceptible to get knocked out and sustaining major injuries. Often their head is no longer in the game, neither is mine.

Michigan pulls into the parking lot at Chris’s apartment complex and asks me for further directions. I already have my first client downstairs, who wants to be in the bathroom. Since Chris and his roommate, Exile, are already in the house, I did not want to alarm or sketch them out.

FLASHBACK: We are going to die out here!

Michigan was dropping off 15 pounds to me. I was collecting money from everybody in order to pay him in full. Matt and Lambo were living together in ECU, three hours away. I had been fronting them three P’s on a regular basis. They had the money for me, so when I got the new batch, they were going to come up and get three more.

My boy, Fletcher, was driving me there in an old, beat up, blue van from the eighties.

Michigan was on his way to my house, driving his regular14-hour distance and did not want to be waiting around. The way I planned this was to have a two-hour gap to relax before he got to my house (which first required Fletcher driving me six hours).

I got the last 6Gs I needed from Lambo and Matt. As we were driving back, a freak snowstorm hit us halfway through North Carolina. We kept driving and all you could smell was burnt wires. I asked Fletcher if his car normally smells like this.

No.

After 10 minutes of driving, it is hard to even see at times. In these severe weather conditions, the van craps out on the side of the road in front of a house in the middle of nowhere. His heat stops working, and we could feel the cold air start to rush in. We both don’t know what to do, so far out in the boonies neither of us have service. Not knowing exactly where we are, and only witnessing one car pass us in 20 minutes thing weren’t looking good.

I say, I’ll go knock on that person’s door. It looks like there is someone home. I see a car.

As soon as I got out of his beat-ass minivan, my foot was instantly engulfed in water, having been submerged over a foot deep. I had broken some thin ice, hurried and ran to the front door. It must be 20 degrees outside. I politely knock a couple times, and there is no answer. I ran back into the car and told Fletcher no one is there. Overdramatically, he replied, No! We are going to die out here! The road was pitch-black with no streetlights in sight. We are stuck out there for three hours in blistering cold before we were able to flag someone down.

A random old man was very skeptical about letting us use his phone at first, even though it was an old flip phone. Eventually, we won him over. Luckily, his phone had service, and we were able to call a tow company that could take us back to Virginia. Only question now was if he was going to be able to find us. We saw three cars during the next hour and a half, always thinking each car might be him. We prayed each time, but our hopes got ran over by the cars driving right past us as if we were nonexistent.

Finally, our savior came, and my phone was dead. Concerned about what Michigan is doing after not contacting him in over five hours, and what this means for our future interaction. Not only that, but I was also stressing over what was going to happen to Fletcher’s van and how much that will cost me? We get everything we need out of the van and jump into the tow truck driver’s cab.

He attaches Fletcher’s piece of shit minivan and was joking around with us the whole time, laughing, asking if we needed to go to the store as we were smoking cigs together; it was great. Halfway back the driver said, You know, it says here that I am supposed to charge you guys $270 because we are going state to state. If ya’ll made it another 40 miles, it would only be $120. Seeing the condition that your vehicle is in, I will only charge you $120. I will never forget this. It is not like you guys have pockets full of money or anything.

We both said with much appreciation, Thank you so much.

He dropped Fletcher’s car off at the mechanic, and us at Fletcher’s house after an hour and 20-minute ride. Luckily, the cab had an iPhone charger, so I was able to get in contact with Michigan. I told him how extremely sorry I was for being unable to contact him to explain the situation over the last five hours. He was giving me a lot of one-word answers. I could tell he was pissed.

I got to Fletcher’s house after paying the pick-up driver $120. I chilled with Fletcher for about 20 minutes before my Uber arrived. I tell him to let me know the damage on the van, so I can help pay for it. (That ended up costing me roughly $1,000—probably the same price he bought the van for)

When I met up with Michigan and finally got to plea my case in person and tell him how sorry I was. (It would have helped if this wasn’t the second or third time that I had caused an issue in our past transactions; I was over an hour late for one of them, and another time one of my friends order an extra 15 pounds before backing out of the deal at the last second. Michigan had to make a very sketchy drive twice only making half the money he intended to.)

He was bitching me out now.

Why the fuck are you late? You chose the time. I just drove 14 straight hours, and then you don’t even answer or call me for five? I am sitting here down the street tweaking out, thinking I could get robbed or that you are trying to set me up with the cops. What the fuck is wrong with you?

I tried to tell him my situation about grabbing the money.

You should have been had that shit ready, he said.

Deep down, I knew I couldn’t say much because he was right.

He continued, I was about to run into your house with my gun and shoot you because I thought you were setting me up. We don’t play around with this shit. There is a lot of money involved here.

After having one of the hardest discussions in my life, we still made the deal.

Once I weighed it all out, he shorted me 3.5 Ps, which was going to cost me 7k. After realizing this, I call him. He said, Yeah. I know I did because you were not respecting my time putting me in a sketch situation, so this is you paying for that.

Knowing that I am not going to get this back, and probably deserve not to, this was a real travesty. I went from profiting 4k, to losing the same amount in the matter of a day. This was one of the last two times I did business with Michigan.

END FLASHBACK

Michigan says he will meet me at apartment G but gets lost. I go downstairs to wrangle him in. I bring him upstairs, and he has a duffle bag. Now, he has already given me the heads up that it was a two-trip process. He had the first load, but his partner has the second. I thought this was stupid, to be frank with you. I don’t know why you would double the risk; plus, they never been precocious in the past, openly smoking in the whip with paraphernalia out for the whole world to see scattered throughout the car. They are from Michigan and understanding that the laws are very different, I warned him about Virginia one time. Not to risk sounding like a broken record, I sparingly brought it up after that.

When he came through, he opens the bag and said, I only got five the first time. This makes no sense to me because he said he would have six. I arranged the whole thing so I could make the six-deal first. It is not the end of the world, but a slight complication. I counted the money in front of him after already pre-counting it and hiding the rest in Chris’s room. I was not sure if I could trust the situation, so I brought five. I wondered, Was one more even that big of a factor? We make the exchange, and I walk him out.

I ask, When should I be expecting the rest? I don’t have their house