going to loan him a hundred, and
he’s going to give us back one-
twenty at the end of the week.” I’d
say okay. Then the guy would come
back and give us 120 rand. Then we
did it again. Then we did it some
more. We started to double our
money, then triple our money.
Cash gave us leverage in the
hood’s barter economy as well. It’s
common knowledge that if you’re
standing at a corner of a main street
in the hood, somebody’s going to
try to sell you something. “Yo, yo,
yo, man. You want some weed?”
“You wanna buy a VCR?” “You
wanna buy a DVD player?” “Yo, I’m