I finished Jones Men last night. It's a very effective book
about the heroin trade in Detroit, circa 1974. Author Vern E.
Smith was (maybe still is, at least was as of a couple of
years ago) a Newsweek reporter who had then recently done a
big story on the biz, so he knew what he was talking
about.
There were two bits of slang that were new to me, though. The
first was
"P" for heroin, or "heh-rawn" as his characters say it. Does
the P stand for pure? At some points it does seem to refer to
the quality of the drug, but at others it just seems to mean
the drug, alone.
The second phrase was "selling wolf-tickets." I was easily
able to understand through context that it meant "fronting,"
or as James Brown put it "Talkin' loud, but saying nothing."
But where does it come from? What exactly is a "wolf-ticket"?
Anyone know?
Mark
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