THE PERFECT BUSINESSBy Carlos Iniestra

I´m Billy “Opium Junior”, I was born in Missouri in 1830. Oh I remember 1800s. Life in the Mississipi was simple in those days. We had a family of slaves taking care of our necesities and our barges where constantly transporting the things we used to sell.

We were one of the richest families in those times. The opium drug dealing was the perfect way of making money. We became the first family to sell opium in all the United States.

At the beginning only one small laboratory was full of slaves we had bought talking care of our opium brought from China to Mexico and to my family.My family started transporting the drugs in the barges with a lot of normal mercancy on the top so that it wasn´t suspicious. When my father Jimmy “Opium Father” decided to make the business bigger we bought new boats and we put two more laboratories. With ten slaves in each laboratory things looked awesome for us. We felt like we were at the top of the world.

But one day our rivals at the other side of the Mississipi, the “Mississipi Papis” armed their boats and destroyed all our barges and the mercancy they were transporting.

My father took a boat to cross the river and talk to them but their leader was with him aboard and he didn´t loose the opportunity to kill him.

I decided to leave the business, but first I was going to finish them. I always had a good relation with slaves so I told them to stop working on the opium and come with me. I armed them and we went on a barge between mercancy so we could have the surprise factor against them.

When we arrived we shoot all the people we saw in their territory. We won that small war and I know my father was proud wherever he was.

Life returned to how it was and we started living in peace with all Mississipi people. And I worked then only with the barges, transporting things from other people.