Life (36 page)

me a key of Boy thanks to Trina’s persuasion. I did not have a clue

as to how to cut up heroin but Trina did. This was around the

time she seriously started nagging me about retiring. Hell, I just

got started. I hadn’t been in the game a hot month yet, but I knew

what she was talking about. Willie would escalate profits so much;

he was the kind of man who, if you made a few nice moves with

him, you could retire. A year before, they found a shitload of coke

in Tampa. It was estimated to be over one hundred million dol-

lars. Everyone knew whose dope it was, including the feds. I think

that’s what Trina was most worried about. I propped my feet up

on a chair, went a little deeper into my thoughts and inhaled nico-

tine like I was a fiend. I thought about the calls that Trina had

asked me if she could she push “five” for. Calls from a federal

prison. Her ex-boyfriend, Mike, was doing life in the joint in

Atlanta. In hushed tones they would talk. With every fiber in my

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body, I tried not to listen to their conversations, but out of respect,

she always talked to him in front of me. She told me she had no

secrets, had nothing to hide. Honesty was the best policy and all

that bull crap. I made the mistake of asking her if she still loved

him. She shrugged her shoulders and told me she did not know.

In a woman’s language, that meant, “Yes, but I don’t want to hurt

your feelings.” Damn, I hated to admit, but I was jealous. I won-

dered if he asked her for phone sex. Tell her to play in her pussy

and moan in his ear. I was powerless. I had to respect the game,

that is, if I was real. Hustlers are abnormally superstitious people.

That’s where a nigga’s blessings come from–honor amongst playas.

I knew that it could have been me on the other end of the phone.

As I sat there thinking, raking my mind, I detected some move-

ment in my peripheral version. Something caught my eye. I was

not alone in the hotel room. Then I heard the all too familiar

sound of a bullet being engaged into a semi automatic. For some

strange reason, I held my breath and waited for the inevitable, my

brains to be spattered across the wall. The sound of thunder res-

onated outside and in the dark crevice of my mind, Blazack’s face

flashed like some evil troll, he was here to do me. My gun was out

of reach on the dresser. I got caught slipping.

“
Place your hands were I can see ‘em!” a hoarse voice com-

manded. I raised my hands fully prepared to accept the conse-

quences of my blunder as I thought about all the cars in the park-

ing lot that I should have paid more attention to.

“
So we finally meet, boy,” a voice said, dripping with all the

Southern hospitality of a Klan redneck. From the corner of my

eye, I watched as the white man stepped from the shadows of the

closet. His complexion was a sickly pale white. He had a long beak

nose that pointed downward like a hook. His beady eyes were set

far in the back of his head, and appeared to sit too close together.

His hair was dirty blond.

I could feel my heart racing in my chest as something stirred

in the pit of my gut–fear. I knew his face from somewhere, then it

hit me, Spitler! The crooked cop that Nina tried to warn me

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about. Damn, how could I have been so fuckin’ blind? It sudden-

ly occurred to me that I saw his face in different places, just never

took the time to focus on him. He always blended in perfectly

with all the white folks. The police always get credit for being

clever whenever they capture a criminal, but nine times out of ten,

it’s a hustler’s fault for thinking too slow and moving too fast.

“
Life Thugstin.” He called my name. Like in all the cops and

robbers games, he was letting me know that he did his homework

on me. He probably got my prints off the car and ran them

through NCIC, the National Crime Information Center.

“
In my eighteen years on the force, I have never seen one boy

cause so much havoc in this town as you son,” he said and walked

so that he was standing in front of me. His Southern drawl made

the hair on my neck stand up. Florida crackas are the most evil,

treacherous men the United States had ever bred. In fact, that’s

where the name “cracka” came from. The hot Florida sun bakes

their white skin making it look like old cracked leather. When I

was a little boy, my stepmother told me stories about how the slave

masters used to hang pregnant women upside down and took a

knife and butchered the baby out of their stomachs and when it

hit the ground, they would stomp it. She told me this was done to

implant fear in all the slaves. And even after Lincoln had so called

freed the slaves, Florida crackas would rather kill theirs than let

them be free.

I had no intention of ever going back to prison. As he talked,

I measured the distance to my gun. Desperation will make a man

do some suicidal shit, like leap for a gun when he really doesn’t

have much of a chance.

“
You shot that boy in Frenchtown and robbed him after he

wouldn’t buy your fake drugs.”

“
That wasn’t me!” I quipped, easing closer to my gun. I could

feel my palms sweating.

“
Shut up! And keep your hands where I can see them,” he

snorted, as he continued to brag about himself, how brilliant of a

cop he was to be telling me of my track record in his town.

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“
You robbed that jewelry store and knocked the snot out of

the security guard.” Someone once said that ignorance is bliss, so

I did what Black folks are famous for whenever they were caught,

cold busted. I played dumb and looked at that white man like he

was speaking a foreign language.

“
Where did you get the money from?” he asked, nodding at

the pile of money on the bed.

I didn’t ever answer, just looked him in his eyes, and thought

about prison bars and caged cells not big enough for dogs much

less a human being. That desperate voice in my head was telling

me,

Try him! Go for your gun

. Then something dawned on me,

where was his back up? Something was out of place.

“
Today’s your lucky day boy,” he said mockingly. “I’m not

going to turn you in, but I am going to help myself to some of this

money here. He started stuffing his pockets with my money. He

was robbing me. I jumped up from the bed taking a step forward.

“
Wha da fuck you doin’?!” I was enraged. This is why you

only see white cops killing Black men in cold blood. In their eyes

Black men were powerless against the system.

“
You make a move like that again, and I promise you boy, I’ll

blow your goddamn brains out.” There was no doubt in my mind

that he meant what he said.

“
Sit down!” he barked. My eyes shown optic slants of hate that

back in the days of the slavery of my ancestors, he would have had

me lynched for. Reluctantly I sat back down. My breathing was

labored and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I was sick

and tired of white men constantly taking from me. If it wasn’t my

freedom, it was my money, and as I looked at that white man with

blood in my eyes, I realized that it was just the principle of the

thing. Even so-called criminals respect each other.

“
I’m here for a good reason,” he said.

“
What, to take my muthafuckin’ money?”

“
No, to make you money.”

“
Huh?”

“
As long as you’re selling drugs and killin’ each other in that

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jungle ya’ll call Frenchtown, I ain’t got no problem with that.”

“
I can’t muthafuckin tell! You come in here actin like John

Wayne takin’ my muthafuckin money!”

“
That’s because crime does pay. It pays the judges, the lawyers,

the FBI, CIA, the DEA and you just paid me.” With that, he

smiled like Lucifer in the flesh. My blood boiled in my veins. Only

history knows best the relationship of the white man stealing from

Blacks in the name of the law. He continued, “America has built

illegal drugs into the most power ful institution the world has ever

known. Like the prisons, legalized slavery, check the stock mar-

ket.” As he talked, I had no idea what the hell he was talking

about, and didn’t care neither.

“
But on the other hand, I like you, you remind me of your so-

called black leaders of today. You’re in it for the money, them boys

back in the day …” Spitler stopped to think, and suddenly

snapped his finger like he had a bright idea. “Martin and Malcolm

X, all they did was stir up trouble, wasn’t no good to black folks.

Now you, you think like a white man. You know how to take

advantage of your race. From here on out you can sell all the drugs

you like, just keep it out the white folks’ neighborhood. Them

white kids is America’s future. You hear me?” He raised his voice.

Something about what he said hurt me to the core, made me feel

less than a man, less than human. White people have this uncan-

ny way of making Black people feel awkward in their presence and

all the time he talked, smiled, looking like a Catholic priest.

“
This is my cut,” he said stuffing more money into his pock-

ets.

“
HELL NAW! FUCK DAT!” I stood up fast, stiff like a

human rocket. “Listen, cracka, I don’t fuck wit no muthafuckin

police, period!”

“
Sit down!” he commanded, pointing the gun at my head.

I guess this is the way Black men get shot, because all I could

see was red. Spitler provoked me, pushing me over the edge.

“
If you’re gonna shoot me, shoot me now! You ain’t finna

come in here, take my muthafuckin money, telling me how to r un

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shit!” I said, standing my ground, fists clinched at my side. We

stared each other down. I knew it was foolish of me to do what I

was doing.

“
For two thousand dollars a week you can sell all the dope you

want. Just keep it out the white neighborhood. Hell, it would be

like you have a license. I can make sure you and your people never

get caught, as long as you’re working out of a house.” Spitler was

talking a mile a minute, non-stop. “I’ll actually be working for

you.”

I sat back down on the bed, rubbed the waves in my head,

thinking about what he said. I knew I had no out with him; I was

in a no-win situation in this deadly game of crooked cops. One

thing was for certain, once a hustler had a cop in his pocket, that

changed the whole game. Things could turn from sugar to shit. I

took a chance and tossed a gambit at him. “OK cop you work for

me now.” He smiled like he had just sold me a comfortable cell in

Sing Sing prison. “That money that you just took off the bed, that