Treading the Waters, Part 15

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When we were last with Gerald he was getting out of juvenile in New Orleans and had just learned that his old crew, including his best friend Greg, had gone to prison for a string of robberies.  

I heard a lot of rattin’. They were trying to say my man Greg was rattin’. I’m like, “Damn, man.”  

But then I’m on the street, and they’re in. They in the big jail, you know, where the hard offenders go.  

And I’m about to come home from juvenile. 

I’m like, “Damn, boy, if I’d a got caught with them niggas, I’d be gone. Boy, I’m glad I didn’t get in the car. I got in the car a few times to roll, but…”. 

So after they got they time and shit, I heard my man Greg was in the parish jail, OPP. I get the word from the deputies. With me being a street dude, I could go around the jail and ask some of the deputies what happened. They’d tell me.  

Now, I can’t go in the jail, but I can see one of the deputies like at a hamburger place, Taco Bell, a restaurant.  You might see some of them fools in the ghetto. Out the hood. One deputy, he stay right across the street. And he was a rank. He was a big rank. He was SID.   

He’s the type of guy that, in the jail, if you act crazy, they bring you back. They punish you. They call it the Body Offender’s Shop. They break you up. 

We called ourselves the rat pack, but they was the real rat pack. SID is a terrible, terrible, terrible people you don’t want to deal with. 

What I mean is, they handle they business. They tell you they coming to get you, they coming to get you. Out the jail. Like you might be in there cutting up or something, whatever.  

SID is the one that come search the jail. They’ll come to the prison gate and say, 

“A2. LISTEN UP. THIS IS WHAT’S GOING ON.” 

And you might be still talking. 

“MOTHERFUCKER, I KNOW WHOEVER BACK THERE TALKING–. WE ABOUT TO PULL YOUR ASS.”  

Everybody’s quiet. You can hear a rat pissing. The big rats they have in the jail, you can hear them motherfuckers.  

“WE BE BACK UP HERE AT ONE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, MOTHERFUCKERS.” 

That’s how they talk, they don’t sugar coat it.  

“TO TEAR THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN. AND WHOEVER GOT A FUCKIN’ KNIFE–CAN-KNIFE, WHATEVER–I DON’T GIVE A FUCK WHAT KIND OF KNIFE. THROW THE BITCHES IN THE HOLE. EVERYTHING. CAUSE IF WE FIND IT, WHOEVER IN THEM CELLS, YOU KNOW WHAT TIME OF DAY IT IS.” 

What they mean by that is they give you heads up to throw your knives out in the hole. Don’t try to hold a toothbrush or nothing. Throw it. As long as they don’t see you throw it, they can’t give you a charge.  

You see knives you ain’t never think you see, in that joint. You see big old screwdrivers. You see some shit in that jail. 

So I’m thinking about my man Greg. I’m like, “Damn”.   

And I was scared when I was in the juvenile, like they might come get me. Niggas might say I be riding with them. Cause when rats rat, they rat. 

To be continued. 

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