Next Book

I was going to post a few (er) pages of the book I am currently working on when lo and behold it disappeared off my hard drive. Did a search and the title wouldn't even come up. Don't know what to make of that........ Yes I do but it is too chilling to even contemplate.

What if you gave a war and nobody came?

Or rather what if you posted a blog and nobody read it? If it fell in the forest would anyone hear it? Found out that in order for anyone to comment they must sign up for a G-Mail account. It's free but not very user friendly is my humble observation. Oh well the blog and the g-mail account are both free and you gets what you pay fer. Working on my next book and am running into some obstacles that are formidable but not insurmountable.

Second thoughts

Hmmm.

As I look over my last blog, I think; mayhap I posted too much. Not everyone has the time or inclination to read so much of my drivel at one setting. Oh well too late now, its done and I have to live with it. I'll let you be the judges.

STREET LIVES

Please be aware that the following is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. It filled with profanity, violence, tales of drugs, sex and various other illicit and illegal activities. Having been fore-warned you delve a little deeper.

Street Lives, lives!

This book “Street Lives” is a true story. It chronicles the life of a real “Player”, beginning as young man, in his early years pursuing a quest that he had no control over.

You see Players are born, not made.

Oh sure there are plenty out there calling themselves players they tend to pop up all the time. Longevity is the true benchmark of a real player. They come to town riding high in their Caddies and Lincolns. But the cities gobble them up and spit them out so quickly that if you don’t write their names down you will forget they even stopped by.

“Do you remember So-and-So?” will be the question and after a moment or two spent in reverie the memory will be jogged and a faint image will flitter in one’s mind. You nod in vague recollection and the inevitable question arises: “What ever happened………?”

There are a variety of responses but by far the most frequently used are #1 “Aw that niggah strung out, or in today’s vernacular; “He’s basing, he’s cracked out, he’s a rock star. All terms alluding to the person’s propensity to smoking crack cocaine. In short drugs took him away from his game and gave him a new one. Years ago when heroin was the rage, the refrain was: “The China Man’s got him. Today it’s crack and meth.

Answer #2 is: He in the Penitentiary. Believe it or not there are very few men locked up for straight Macking i.e.; Pimping that is. Granted there are a few but most are locked up for various other and sundry crimes. This leads me to point this axiom out. When there backs are against the wall, people tend to do what they do best, or rather what they know. A man gets down on his luck and he will more than likely not stray from something that he knows will put a few kibbles in his pockets.

The third and final answer #3: Dat niggah dead. Quiet as it’s kept; them streets ain’t no joke and nothing to play around with. More niggahs get killed on bullshit tips than you would imagine. In other words they die for little or nothing. As I said before, it’s hard but it’s fair. You gotta look at the streets as if they are parts of a jungle and there are all manner of beasts and men that will take your life if given half an opportunity to do so. You get what your hand calls for. If you are out there half stepping and bullshitting then you can expect something will happen to your ass. No you are begging for something bad to befall you. On the other hand, if you are true to the game, the game will be true to you. Just as in life you get out what you put in. If you play by the rules, then shit will go your way. If you don’t …… Well you know that God don’t like ugly!

This brings me to this:

The Pimp God. There is one. Now I know you think this is blasphemy but please allow me to explain. Some things are universally right or wrong. In the streets there are some things that a normal person or square might consider wrong but street people would consider as right. Street people live by a different code than others. When you hear the term Pimp God it is your same God but one that understands Pimps, Whores or HOs, and players in the life. They have their own code of conduct more stringent rules and must be judged by a different yardstick. So the final arbitrator is the Pimp God like in Greek mythology.

The streets are a young man’s game. It is a twenty-four hour job, eight days a week. A lot of people think that I say this in jest but I am here to tell you that this is no joke and that it is for real. You are always at work if you are a part of the streets for they never close down. Oh sure sometimes there appears to be no activity but I assure you something is always going on. Make no mistake about it the streets are a treacherous place to be plying your trade whatever it may be. You not only have to contend with the other denizens of the deep, which are of your own ilk, but there are other predators as well. Case in point: the PO-lice. They be on your ass like stank on shit. As it stands they feel as if they have a license to be as brutal and cruel as they want because they know that society cares abhors those that live outside its prescribed boundaries and also that street people don’t complain to the powers that be. Why should they when they know they would be pleading their cases to deaf ears. The majority of Players are Black with a few other minorities strewn in to give it flavor. That leaves them open to all sorts of travesties perpetuated against them. There are countless men sent to prison when the PO-lice knew beyond a doubt that they were innocent. You can’t look to the courts either since the prosecutors and judges all work hand in glove.

Now don’t get me wrong, some men and women need to be behind bars. A lot of mutha-fuckas is out there doing all kinds of crazy shit that is a sin before man and God and deserve to be locked up. On the other hand if yo ass is in the street life then you are fair game as far as the legal profession is concerned. If you ain’t guilty of what you are charged with then you are guilty of having gotten by with something that they didn’t catch you for so yo ass going to jail is “just desserts”.

There use to be a time when the only good niggah was a dead one. Then someone figured out it costs about forty thousand dollars annually to house a niggah behind bars. Now there are two good niggahs, a dead one and one behind bars. Think of all the money that is made off of crime. First, let’s start with the PO-lice, then think of all the judges, lawyers, court clerks, bailiffs, jail personnel, probation/parole officers and so on and so forth ad infinitum. Shit even Stevie Wonder could see the Pros of locking niggahs up. You doubt what I’m saying? Have you ever heard of lifetime probation? Well I hadn’t heard of it either until a few years ago. It’s the latest wrinkle in the game. Suppose they catch a dope-fiend with a little amount of crack, heroin or even marijuana. Let’s say they offer him a cop to a misdemeanor. First of all the fool has a court appointed attorney who is pressuring him to take this plea bargain of lifetime probation, with the thought of getting out of jail real soon. Now the lame has already done a few months in jail and is sober and dried out. He is not thinking of reality and the future. He is already into instant gratification of the drug mentality. He rationalizes that he can quit doing drugs for the rest of his life. With the added threat of punishment if he drops dirty urine he really thinks he can stop doing drugs. He goes for the red card in a real life game of three-card molly. He opts for the proffer and so the game begins. Lifetime probation comes with its weekly or random drug tests. At first he can do it. But him being who he is, a dependent personality and pretty soon before he knows it, he is going to try just a hit or a blow, just one. As he already knew one is too many and a thousand is not enough, he is caught back up in the trap of his own making. Before he knows it he is strung out again chasin Jason, sucking the devils dick or nodding whatever the fuck you want to call it. Sooner or later he is going to get caught which is a violation of probation. Maybe he catches a break and doesn’t get sent back to jail, this time. Pretty soon he is back in jail and before you know it he has done more time than if he had been found guilty and sentenced to a regular jail bit. Guess what? There is no end in sight because as soon as he gets out it is back to probation or parole with no end in sight. Then the cycle repeats itself. So the state makes forty grand per year off his stinkin ass and there ain’t shit he can do about it.

The streets are a young man’s game because a young man can do a bit and come out of prison relatively young to change his lifestyle and make something out of his life but a mutha-fucka that’s older is shit outta luck cuz he is too old to change his ways. For an older player a prison sentence is almost a life sentence. You doubt it? Let’s say for example a man has spent his productive years out on the streets and in his late thirties or early forties he catches a case. He gets a boatload of time (for drugs of course) 15 yrs to life. Now while he is down and locked up he has to deal with other inmates in a dog eat dog cutthroat world. The young-ins that he comes in contact with have no concept of the game nor do they know how to act, consequently he becomes a dog to survive. During his lock up he gets in to various infractions for disciplinary reasons and does at least 10 years of the sentence. By the time his ass gets out he is 40 or 50 years old. What the fuck is he gonna do? In an effort to survive life on the bricks his mind reverts back to doing what he was doing before he got locked up. What he doesn’t know is; shit done changed up big time. What use to work no longer does. Sadly whatever year he got locked up, it is that year when he gets out. You see when he went to jail; time ceases to move for him.

The real world has left him in the dust. Whatever year it was when you went to jail it is that year when you get out. I don’t care how many books and magazines you read. I don’t care how much TV you watch time is suspended until you hit the bricks again. Let me give you an example: my boy Griff. Now Griff got locked up back in the sixties. Although he has been out several times (never more than a few months) since then every time he gets out it is 1968 all over again. He can’t help it. It was sad to see him point out the wonders of a microwave oven in the nineties. Shit it was brand new to him. Video games, computers, high tech TVs, VCRs all that shit is Buck Rogers to him. Not to mention that he has never seen a CD or DVD player. Oh sure they hear about and see it on TV but to be confronted with it in real life is another story. You try explaining to someone who has been locked up for 15 or twenty years of their life, why no one can pick up an ATM and just walk away with it. Some of the weaker ones cannot fathom how life has left them by the wayside. They simply commit a stupid crime so they can be sent back to the safe haven from whence they came. All this is sad but true and people that live life on the edge know that if you play, you must pay. It’s part of the game. Even though it’s called the game there is nothing childish or funny about it. It can be deadly as you will soon see. My story is a little different. I’ve came close death on more than one occasion and lived to tell this tale. Many were not as fortunate. There, but for the grace of God…. go I. I think part of the reason that I was spared was to tell this tale so let me get on with it.

Players Are Born Not Made

Sho you riiight!

The old axiom must be true; at least I feel that it was that way with me. I was the eldest of five

siblings. I was sent to church regularly and believed in God. We didn’t have a lot of money but I was never hungry and was instilled with traditional middle class values. The little bitty town that I grew up in was not a hot-bed of ghetto culture. The vice there was minimal and I was not inordinately subjected to it, a little less than some, a little more than others. My parents were not married when I was conceived although both married others when I was very young.

My mom’s side of the family was somewhat sane and normal. On the other hand, my father’s family was in the mix from as long as I can remember. By the mix I mean they were in the street life or game so I guess I got it honest.

My real father toiled in a factory all of his adult life, he was as they say; a “walking checkerboard”. His brother, Uncle Freeman was different. He suffered from TB and the only job I ever knew him to have was that of being a numbers man. While sober he was taciturn and quiet but you let him get a few drinks in him and he was the complete opposite. He would keep you in stitches laughing as he told funny stories and acted a complete fool. They say my father and his sisters were in the numbers business as well but since my father kept his job in the factory it was supplemental with him. Uncle Freeman though, never hit a lick at a snake. To show you what kind of guy he was, he knew he was dying but the day before he croaked he went out and bought himself a brand new car and paid cash for it, that’s the kind of guy he was. My aunts were colorful in there own way. My aunt Switchy, (although we kids had to call her Aunt Willa Mae) ran a little policy on top of other shit too. She always had some kind of scheme to get paid. My other Aunt, Central was her name, ran a whorehouse. It was kind of exclusive because I never saw more than one hooker work there at a time. Aunt Central was very discreet and aristocratic looking. She and her husband had some strange thoughts on bringing up kids. They had none of their own together and I spent lots of time with them. When I was three or four, I would be all duded up in suits and some people mistook me for a midget because I would have a cigarette in one hand and a drink of whiskey in the other. Way back then they thought it was cute to let kids have a drink every now and then. When I was older I would go over and play Tonk with the hooker in residence. I would have my cigarette stuck in my mouth but the drink was mostly coke with just a splash of spirits. By this time I was aware of what a little of the brown liquid could do and didn’t want to spend all my time hugging the porcelain throne.

Now the real peach of the bunch was my Uncle Genie Fields. He was my father’s cousin but because of our age difference I called him uncle. Uncle Genie had fair skin, straight hair and blue eyes. He could pass for white and did when it suited him. As a child I can remember his having a big ol’ Cadillac. I don’t know if it was a limo or not but I can clearly remember riding my tricycle on the floor in the backseat of the car. Uncle Genie was a real character all right. He wore a pair of six guns complete with holsters, western style. They were full-scale replicas that he often switched for the real thing. You see Uncle Genie was a marked man. He would often quiz me asking if I saw any strange men around his house. Once he was satisfied that I had not he would reward my diligence with a dime or sometimes even a lofty quarter. Once he even gave me a “Bo dollar” that I promptly lost before I could redeem it.

The reason he was so wary had to do with Mr. John Dillinger. Back in the day Black folks were not allowed to stay in white folks’ hotels. My Grand-ma and her sister ran a boarding house for black travelers. It was more than just a boarding house though. You could get a drink there as well any time of day or night. It was frequented by the locals as well as strangers looking for a place to sleep, drink or be merry. In 1934 Dillinger’s girl friend was one Billy Frechette. She was part native Indian and had grown up on Walpole Island, which lies south of where I grew up It lies in the middle of the Saint Clair River between Canada and the United States. She was familiar with the south end of my little town, which is where the rooming house was. Dillinger of course was on the lam from having busted out of Crown Point Jail in Indiana. While he was there he made the acquaintance of one Herbert Youngblood. Now Herbert was a black man being held on murder charges. Legend has it that it was he who carved the wooden gun that allowed John boy to get the drop on the PO-lice. To show his gratitude he took Youngblood with him. According to family lore Youngblood played a minor role in two subsequent robberies netting over one hundred thousand dollars. Needing a place to hide out Frechette mentioned the little town in Michigan that was not to far from where she had grown up. On top of everything she had occasionally turned a few tricks there before meeting John. To cap it off it had a substantial Black population so that Herbert would not stand out. He was becoming an integral link with his newly found friends. After being there several days John left Herbert while he went to case other banks. Trying to obtain the substantial reward being offered, the authorities were alerted by someone who knew. The PO-lice surrounded the boarding house and a hellacious shootout occurred. Before being mortally wounded Herbert Youngblood was able to kill the under-sheriff and one of his deputies. After being wounded he was taken to the hospital where he was denied medical care. Lapsing in out of a coma he related that the PO-lice were not the ones to shoot him. He repeated over and over that he'd been shot in the back by the white nigger.

Rumor had it that it was uncle Genie who actually fired the shots that finally wounded Youngblood and that his Mother kept firing random shots out of the windows keeping the PO-lice at bay while she and her son methodically searched the room for any money that had been stashed by John Boy. I was an adult when I finally gathered the courage necessary and asked my Aunt Switchy about it. She looked at me in a strange way and told me no money was found. She then winked smiled a big ol Cheshire cat grin, laughed and walked away. To this day no one in our family will admit to any money being found. In any event the PO-lice took the credit for killing Youngblood. They were so mad at him that they even denied him a decent burial and sold his body to a medical school for dissecting. The streets knew what really happened and that’s why my Uncle Genie had to leave town. Johnny Boy was a popular figure and Uncle Genie was no fool; he mysteriously disappeared for many years. It might also explain why my grandma carried a gun under her apron. As a child I would coax her to shoot at cats that I would spy in the alley. She would smile and pull out her “PO-lice” gun as she called it. She would fire in the general direction of where the cat was, never once hitting any one of them. Looking back on it she probably enjoyed it as much as I did. She always had a big smile on her face and would hug me tight after expending a cartridge or two. These are my fondest memories of my paternal grandma. But all of these things happened before I even went to school. As I grew older I spent less time having fun. I was in church every Sunday. I was even the secretary for Sunday school and later on I was secretary for the junior usher board as well. I had to account for my behavior and had plenty of positive role models. On the other hand I was always on the hustle for a buck or two. In the fall and winter it was raking leaves and shoveling snow. In the spring it was cutting grass. My favorite time of the year was summer. I would go out and shine shoes on the weekend. I would hang out in front of bars and make spare change. On the way home I would stop by Brody’s and listen to country music. Few people wanted a shoeshine but I was content just to peer thru the back door and listen to the music emanating. After awhile I would leave there and head towards the black owned bar and listen to jazz. Friday nights I could stay out late but on Saturdays I had to be in earlier since I had to get up and go to church. I would always split my take with my Mom and Dad. My mother had married when I was two and my stepfather had a heart condition and couldn’t do the manual labor that was offered to him. The money wasn’t much but it helped a little.

School was filled with incredible boredom for me. In spite of myself I retained a little of what was taught to me and developed a fondness for reading. I had no idea of what I wanted to be when I got older but I knew that working in some factory had no allure for me. After a few years I finally drifted into what would consume my life with a passion:

The streets.

My mother often railed against me running the streets too much. I guess she could sense where I was headed but was powerless to stop it. Like I said; players are born, not made. So in spite of her best efforts I wound up making my living from the very streets that she warned me against. There are a few of us old heads around that survived. I guess the term for us would be O.G. This stands for original gangsters. Some of us have done bits in prison and survived. A very few like myself, were lucky enough to sidestep that move. Although the authorities baked quite a few cakes for me to sample, fortunately I was able to send them back with out ever tasting one of their poisonous brews. When you are charged with a crime it is said that the government has baked you a cake. I once sat in jail for seven months in Washington D.C. I was facing life plus seventy-five years. I managed to piss off the chief judge, the head prosecutor and a bunch of PO-lice when I walked away with no convictions and not even a trial. A cop once told me that even if they didn’t convict me on any given charge, they got satisfaction out of making my life miserable while trying. They really enjoyed making it difficult for a nigger. Wait a minute, I’m getting ahead of my story, lets go back a ways so you will dig where I’m coming from.

 

In The Beginning

I write, therefore I must blog, or so I have been told.