Previously: We had told the doughboy—the dealer—where we was stayin’ and after that, guys start comin’ by the Armory in nice-lookin’ cars, tryin’ to meet some South girls. Some girls don’t want no part of datin’ them. But some fall for the okeydoke. One night one of my homeboys had to go to the hospital after getting high on embalming fluid. It mess up the head. An inmate I knew from prison in Angola be full of that stuff one time and threw kids from the fourth floor of the project building. Finally FEMA moved some of us in a van to TraveLodge. A week or two later they give us gift cards with $395 and take us over the bridge to Walmart. We come to find out the football player LaVar Arrington, number 56 for the Redskins, had give us that. I used the money for a Saints Starter jacket, just like the one a friend in New Orleans got killed for. That kind of killin’ happen a lot where I’m from, like what happened to my cousin...
My cousin got killed for a big medallion he wore around his neck. A few weeks before he got killed, he wrassled with these guys that attacked him for his leather jacket, and they shot him in the back. He let loose once the shot hit him and they got the jacket.
My cousin never was no trouble. He was a college student at SUNO (Southern University New Orleans). A few months after he got shot for his jacket, a guy tried to rob him for his medallion piece. That guy shot him and killed him. That one that killed him was another inmate I knew when I was in Angola.
Now that I be in D.C., the authorities was givin’ us all a case manager to help you get your food stamps, hotel, and medical attention. If you have mental health problems, they help with that too.
They didn’t put no time limit on how long we stay at the Travelodge. But the news say it was any day we could be moved out.
They put us right there where women was prostitutin’ and there be drugs. We go to Checkers for hamburgers and right there too, that’s a strip—everybody know that—the nice-lookin women be there—we flirt with them—hey baby what’s goin’ on?—and then the women tell us they hustlin, tryin’ to get some dates.
And, y’know, I know what time it is. I know they’s hustling girls. I know I don’t have the money. They ask where I stay at. I tell them Travelodge and that I’m from New Orleans.
They say a lot of your homies be there, they might want to rent their rooms out. The ladies say they’ll pay a few dollars to rent rooms for a couple of hours.
Some of my homeboys and homegirls was rentin’ out their rooms for a few hours for people to get high. Also to have sex. Word got back to an employee at the hotel about what was goin’ on, and he say we gonna find a way to put you out.
Why would they put us in a area like that in the first place?
After around three months they moved us to Howard Johnson’s Hotel in Maryland. We had the majority of rooms there.
Managers was comin’ room to room at Howard Johnson’s to see if anybody not supposed to be there be sleepin’ there. My case manager told me not to let anyone sleep in my room. I hadn’t done that anyway.
By that time my homeboys and homegirls was getting places. Just like me, they had jail records, but not as long as mine.
After another few months pass, and I be given thirty days to get all my stuff and get out of the hotel. But they didn’t give me no place to go.
To be continued . . .
Good news: You can buy my memoir on Amazon!
“Still Standing: An Ex-Con Finds Salvation in the Floodwaters of New Orleans”
The Kindle version is up and if you don’t see the paperback it’ll be there real soon. Ask me about it! And tell your friends! Thank you for all your support that brought me to this point!
