Previously: With me bein’ addicted, mostly I saw nothin’ but money and the material things. I didn’t pay attention to the consequences that could come with this. One day, the cop pull up on me and say, “I’m gonna do you a favor man. Leave those guys alone. They goin’ down. We gonna bust them and they never see the light of day again. I’ve got informers. I pay them real good.” I say, “I’m gonna see the light of day, ’cause I’m not doin’ nothing.’” He say, “All right man, I’ll see you later.” I was really messed up in my mind after that. I wanted to quit but my addiction was sayin’, Nah, if you quit, you ain’t gonna be able to get high like you do now. I was in a world of my own with everything I wanted. I thought I struck gold. I should have known this was the beginning of a road that was gonna come to a end.
A few weeks later I was so high. I was comin’ from the BP station where I got me a pack of Newport cigarettes. This unmarked gray Impala pulls up with a white boy and a black boy in it. They jump out. I know immediately they’re undercover police.
They tell me to come and put my hands on the car. Me being so high—I knew I had the cigarettes in my hand, but I forgot I also had ten bags of heroin in my hand, because someone had called to meet me for it.
So I put the cigarettes and bags on the hood of the car.
I told them, “Man, this car hot—I’m not keeping my hands on the damn hood.”
The black cop said, “Well put your hands on the side of it.” That’s when he asked me my name and I told him my name.
Then the white cop told me, “Do me a favor take one hand slow off the car and put it behind your back.”
I asked him, “Man, what are you doin’?”
He said, “We don’t want no conflict with this. Sometimes people try to run.”
He put a cuff on both my hands. I said, “Man what are doin’? Takin me to jail?”
He said, “Nah be patient, man. We just running your name in for a check.”
Next thing I heard, he getting on the radio, sayin’ he need transport and I say, “What’s goin’ on?”
He say, “You got the right to be silent . . . .
I say, “What??”
He say, “Before I search you, you got anything in your pocket that can stick us—needles, knife, anything like that?”
I say, “You already told me you gonna take me in, what’s really going on?”
He took my shoelaces, my belt, my money change, my money and put it in a plastic bag. It was around $400. He say, “Man where you work at? How you get all this money?”
I say, “Man why you gotta ask me all these questions?”
He say, “If you want to get your money back—from what we see you could be a dealer.”
That’s when I seen the white van comin’ around the corner. I say. “I know the law. Anything under ten bags, I’m a user; it’s just possession.”
He say, “If you got another bag on you, that could be distribution.”
The black cop say, “You a seller.”
I say, “I’m a user.”
He say, “Why you got all this money?” Then he say, “You may know New Orleans law but we got other law here.”
Right then they put me in the white van and say, “This officer here gonna take you to 5th district station. You go to court tomorrow—you may get out, you may not get out.”
To be continued . . .
My book, “Still Standing: How an Ex-Con Found Salvation in the Floodwaters of Katrina,” is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle form. I hope you will tell your friends about it. It tells a story of poverty, life on the streets and in prison that many from age 12 to 92 would not otherwise know. If you like it, maybe you can write an Amazon review. Thank you!
