Once someone makes the existential choice of substance abuse, next is the practical matter of financing this new lifestyle. Since in Jersey City PG (Pre-Gentrification) rock stars and heiresses were few and far between, adventurous locals had to rely on their own ingenuity.
One imaginative fellow somehow got hold of an expensive looking suit and a late model Cadillac. He then proceeded to a Journal Square jewelry store and made certain that the clerk saw the car parked nearby. After being shown a diamond ring, the director and star of this little drama simply grabbed the pricey item and ran out the door, leaving the car behind as a puzzle for the police. Wending his way to the North Bergen cliff-side home of a dealer in rare powders — one known as T — he exchanged the glittering stone and its gold band for $225 worth of cocaine.
T — always wanting to impress the ladies with his prowess (intellectual or otherwise) — related to a female companion that he’d very quickly sold the ring for thousands of dollars. As luck would have it, the pretty Miss also knew the original acquirer and told him the tale. A feud ensued, Hudson County’s own little ring saga of the gutters, that ended with both T’s and the thief’s arrest.
