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In the case of Josue James, that hustle could be interpreted quite literally.
I’m sitting with Josue on the second floor of the Danilo Perez Foundation and he’s telling me, in no uncertain terms, that the hospital where he was born is a total mystery.
From what he can remember, his early childhood story begins in Mananitas, a rural Panamanian suburb with lots of trees.
Living on his own from a very early age, Josue somehow made it to school on a regular basis until he was yanked out by his estranged father in second grade.
The next ten years of his life would be spent at the local stoplight in Chanis selling plastic pouches of beans and fruit and ripe plantains.
“Young vendors like me always sold more than adults,” Josue said. “Kids always sell more at the stoplights and so my father had me doing that for quite a while.”
Admittedly a very good salesman, Josue’s wares gradually evolved with his years, changing from simple produce to red roses then to hand towels and ultimately to pirated DVDs, which he’d sell at $10 a pop.
Buying the disks in bulk for $10/dozen, Josue found selling to be something of an art:
Not just choosing the right movies but pairing them with the right potential type of buyer.
“An older lady would never buy Spider Man, for instance,” he told me. “You had to present her with a movie about love…or friendship…or, I don’t know…dogs.”
Now, the only problem with this, Josue’s DVD selling period in which he was returning home with $50 per day, was that it was very short-lived…
Because competition increased very swiftly in the pirated disc market, the same DVD Josue could once sell for $10 was now down to $1.50.
And so Josue did what any entrepreneur would do: he saved up and invested $300 in a computer and scanner/copier.
After teaching himself to use the equipment, Josue began copying and printing discs for $0.50 and started hitting record sales days of $100, $130, and even $150.
This was great, but what happened next was even better…
It was in his spare time hanging around the local cantinas that Josue came across a billiards arcade game and he taught himself the rules.
Clearly with a knack for picking things up quickly, that virtual skill evolved into a real-life talent when Josue won his first billiards match only three months later.
“I think I only won $1. But it was the best dollar of my life.”
What became clear very quickly to the older men in the cantinas was that Josue’s talent in billiards – “specifically the way I calculated angles and was able to stay calm during stressful shots” – was exceptional.
As he grew more comfortable with the game, Josue started betting and his billiards winnings soon became an income stream that far eclipsed anything he could have imagined making at the stoplight…
“There were days when I would win $400 and even $500.”
So successful, in fact, that after a stint at the famous Nelson’s Billiards downtown, Josue had beaten every guy in town and so a small group of elders ushered him to the interior of the country, where they would bet on him like a racehorse…
“In that sort of situation, in a new place,” Josue says to me, “you sort of naturally learn to play bad and then play good.”
“You mean you learned to ‘hustle’?” I asked.
“Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.”
Josue’s period of hustling, billiards tournaments, and league play lasted a handful of years.
This was a 16 year old bringing home (on some nights) $800 and he was absolutely loving his trade.
But his family wasn’t thrilled about the situation.
Suspicious that the elders were stealing his loot and jealous that Josue was seeing such success, they reeled him back home and ordered him to stop playing pool.
It was at this time that Josue fell in with the wrong crowd.
Friends of friends in his new temporary home, Tocumen, who sold drugs, robbed for food, and dabbled in other far less savory endeavors.
This was a low period in his life and it was brewing for around a year.
Until during an early morning raid on his house, cops (as I have learned that they often do in the ghetto in order to provide “results” to their superiors or in some cases just to fuck with people) planted a pistol in Josue’s room and accused him of illegal possession.
“You!” the cops pointed. “Up! Now!”
“It’s not mine. I don’t touch guns,” he responded.
Without a trial, without a lawyer, without notifying his family, and without the slightest ability to defend himself, Josue was handcuffed then locked up in Panama’s most notorious prison – Renacer – for a period of 32 months.
32 months.
When Josue told me this, I stared into his eyes and almost through his head to the chalkboard on the other side of the room.
32 months.
Almost 3 years.
And it became suddenly clear to me – like, the way a camera lens is shifted into focus – the grounds for this burden that Josue always seems to carry on his shoulder.
Fascinatingly, it’s not one of anger (although to me, that would be very easy and sensible).
Nor is it one of sadness or even fear.
It’s more a look of concession…
It’s as if someone stole and beat the absolute shit out of three years of your young and promising life but then also returned it, severely fucked up but still breathing, on a platter and asked the question “So, what are you gonna do next?”
This, I’m realizing more and more, is how Panama deals with young hustlers like Josue.
When you meet him at his new job or if you are to bump into him at our graduation, shaking his hand is inevitably one of those tiny but powerful things in life that makes you even so slightly want to cry.
Not necessarily for the difficult circumstances that life dealt him in his young 21 years.
But for his stone-cold resilience.
And for his inspiration as living human proof that even the most challenged individuals can change…even and only when they hustle.
