Wednesday 23 December 2015

Pepsicane

For many years, drugs have become the domain of a seedy underground that had been fueled by miscalculations made by doctors striving to better the world and junkies who wanted to find newer ways to harass their senses. As perverse as that world is, its logic is more solid than the crack pipes that warp it. It is the science that twists the minds and the twisted that take the science to its limits. So rarely though do you encounter that what eventually ends up being sold in the streets came from the rusting vending machines where the dealers scrunch behind to sell their product. But man, the 70s were a wild time.

In 1971, the 25 year-old CEO of Pepsi Co., Larson H. Simwadd, had found himself on the cusp of a new era for the soda business as Coke sales had begun to plummet from their previously enormous sales. Being eager to prove himself to his associates, he had launched an aggressive campaign to capitalize on their competitors failure. For the next 7 years, Larson got as many celebrity sponsors that he could buy in the hopes of finally becoming the beloved cola of the USA. As his efforts grew to be more extravagant and detailed, the stress caused by the immense paperwork grew larger than the percentage that the sales increased. Larson found himself in a snag that many corporate heads found themselves in; the stress of a job too big for their idealism to handle. Realizing that there was no point to try anything cleaner, Larson went straight into snorting cocaine.

His first taste of the nose sugar was something that outright disgusted him. Sure it gave him the energy to continue running the company, but the sensations it gave he absolutely despised. He figured that there had to be some way to give a drug with such potential the proper kick for the young soul. He sent his remaining bag of cocaine to some of the scientists in the Pepsi Co. plant and gave the order to reinvent it. J. Esvar Bradham, the head of the scientists, took it upon himself to change certain elements in the drug and combine it with the Pepsi secret formula. After an explosion that resulted from some careless mixing, the recently one-eyed Esvar managed to create a cola-brown powder dubbed pepsicane.

Pepsicane was identical to cocaine in method and in sensation, but in flavor, pepsicane was beyond addictive. It's texture was so delightful that Esvar lied compulsively to Larson over the process of the altered yeyo. It wasn't until a night in December of '75 that Larson stumbled upon the motherlode in Esvar's office. He had become increasingly agitated after the board members yelled at him for how his decisions have actually started to cost the company a substantial amount of money (but not enough to get them bankrupt because that's just preposterous). Larson took from Esvar's stash and upon tasting it found himself in the greatest state of euphoria that no amount of Asian hookers could ever bring. He grabbed Esvar and ordered him to make him a suitcase full or else he'd be fired. Esvar had no choice but to comply, but with the energy that pepsicane gave him, he was able to make enough for the two of them.

What Esvar was unaware about was that Larson was spreading the pepsicane all over the meeting tables with his associates and the naked bodies of the underqualified but exceptionally buxom secretaries. Along with the white-collar clusterfucking, they were coming up with the various ways to name the drug and sell it to the underground clubs and circuits of the nation. Anywhere you heard cola crystals, colastals, brown nose sugar, Big P, pepsika, sika or dark coke, you were near the presence of the drug. Some of the vending machines in the ghetto found themselves dispensing the drug stuffed inside a crumpled can of Pepsi if you pressed the buttons in a certain order. Pepsi may have not been able to finally overcome their competitor head on, but they were still able to make more money that they could ever dream of.

Larson had made a name of himself for those previous strategies and more that helped distribute the product and was able to afford the finest that life could be with illegal money. His methods were spectacular in catching the young eye as the packaging of the drugs suited their rebellious side just enough to embrace it with a good line of pepsicane. Celebrities had become hooked too, and had taken upon themselves to go with the practice of saltpeppering which involved the mixing of the two drugs. While the high was getting him to heights beyond comprehension, the lows dragged down with thrice the power.

Firstly, the drug's side-effects from long-term use took effect and struck just as hard as cocaine. Some other effects included dehydration, bad posture, blackened gums, yellowed blood veins and "syrup piss", the latter three which Larson experienced quite painfully. Secondly, Esvar demanded his cut from the immense amount of money that came from this deal in '84 with a loaded shotgun. Thirdly, the same year the cocaine dealers sent a message to Pepsi Co. from their secret deals with the dreaded Pepsi Incident with Micheal Jackson. Pepsicane was soon the be connected to the source and Larson had done enough to create that divide so the cops wouldn't start sniffing around his place. He resigned from his position after the months of damage control from the "accident" and begun to clean himself.

The 80s saw a shift from the company to remove any indication that they had anything to do with pepsicane, even going so far to fire employees who believed otherwise. By this point Esvar had retired to enjoy his days in a remote island in the Carribean and the original board members of Pepsi Co. during the Pepsicane era either found themselves working for Coke, a start-up soda company or overdosing on the product on lucrative business trips in Las Vegas strip clubs. Meanwhile the wars between cocaine and pepsicane cartels grew to be bloodier each time that the two met. The conflicts reached its apex when in '89, members of the Sika Squad and the Kokas had a firefight that claimed 6 innocent bystanders.

The FBI was under strict order to rid pepsicane from the streets, which they figured they could so since it didn't have the same complicated strongholds that cocaine thrived under. D-Siskane, the leader of the Sika Squad did not want to be weaseled out of such a fruitful business, so he sent a group that tracked down Esvar to ask for the recipe with as many guns as crime could by. Esvar told them that Larson was the one with the recipe, and that he had stolen it from Esvar just to spite him for the cut that he received. The group then went to find Larson which took three years after the Sika-Koka Conflict. Once finding him, they raided Larson's house finding his recipe and then pelting the man to death with tons of Coca Cola bottles since they had used up all of their bullets on a Koka gang that ambushed them.

Upon getting the recipe, the Sika Squad created a variant of pepsicane that looked more like cocaine, which they dubbed crystal pepsicane, but sold it as regular cocaine. This somehow managed to calm the feud between the Sika Squad and the Kokas for a few months until it became an issue of territory. It was also found that the Sika Squad would still sell the pure pepsicane with the code "Sika Classic", which managed to be revealed by a subliminal message hidden in a work by Travis Charest. The scarcity of original pepsicane only continued to a point where if one were to find a dealer of the product, they would venture into corners of the world they would never want to encounter again.

The demand for pepsicane hasn't changed though. In all the dingiest and desensitized alleyways and crackhouses, there is speak of the illustrious brown nose sugar. Dealers still wish to obtain the recipe which by now is only in the possession of Esvar after making a deal with the Sika Squad, the few members that survived and did not convert to Kokas (including D-Siskane), a member of the Kokas through sheer dumb luck and a prostitute-pimp in Eastern Europe for some reason, whom all of which have made it their mission to keep their operations on the down low. They sell only to those with the money and the eccentricity to follow through with a drug that was to be the choice of a new generation.

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