Previously: After the detective tryin’ to get me to rat on other dealers, and me tellin’ him, “If I did know, I wouldn’t tell you,” he threaten me with life sentences. After me bein’ in the cell four or five hours, the van moves me and my co-defendants to the holding tank for court. I was thinkin’ to myself, I never dealt with the FBI. The people I know who deal with the FBI, they never see the street again. Finally the guards cuff our hands in front of us and escort us to the courtroom in shackles. I got a state appointed lawyer; he say you got 38 counts indictment—like drug traffic, buying and selling controlled substances. He also say, wiretap, which means my phone was hit. In my mind I’m thinkin’ I ain’t gonna see that blue sky again for a long time.
After the judge say we finished, the marshals told us to stand up one by one and they led us out of the courtroom, back down to the holding tank.
With the Marshalls in their suits escorting me, it made me feel like a celebrity. The only thing different is you got cuffs on. But you got plenty of body guards walkin’ with you: Nine of us co-defendents, ten body guards.
For three or four hours me and my co-defendents sat in the holding tank. I was asking the others how this go, because I never dealt with the FBI before. The kingpin—my head man in command, the one I used to drive around in his fancy car—say, “Enjoy the ride, because you ain’t gonna go home no time soon. Keep your head up, stay strong, stay like the team we were on the street.”
He told me I had the best lawyer, a charity lawyer, and that he a celebrity lawyer who can beat charges.
And then we start crackin’ jokes about the old days on the street. Tryin’ to keep our mind from what’s goin’ on, we talked about goin’ out with this girl and that,. We talked about a broad I got to get with.
They sayin’ “We remember the night you had Kim with you. We been tryin’ to get with her ever since high school. How the Hell you get lucky to get with her? You must be trickin’ a lotta money to her.”
I say, “Nah, she like what she sees. Why can’t it just be my player status?”
One other guy ask me, “Where the cops caught you at?”
So I was runnin’ down to them how I got caught.
I told them, “I always lay inside in the daytime. I only come out at night, like three o’clock in the morning, because I know the polices’ shift times. And I know they lookin’ for me.
“So one morning, one of the young guys I used to get the coke from called and told me he wanted to see me early in the morning, before the boys we don’t like (the police) come on shift. I told him, ‘Make sure if you come, come by yourself.’
“I knew I was wanted because someone told me they saw me on the news. And that the cops was goin’ around the neighborhood showin’ my picture, askin’ folks if they seen me.
“So I got up that morning in the trap house I be in (that mean a hustlin’ house) to wait in the hall for my young boy to come to bring me the product (y’know cocaine, crack, whatever).
“He came, we talk for minute, and I tell him we really can’t stand there because the cop could see me. I just wanna do business and let you go; the FBI on me like gravy on rice.
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. It’s a tough story but also good, because I’m still standing, so it makes a nice gift! 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!
