When we were last with young Gerald, he was in the Garden District of New Orleans. For the very first time in his life he had gotten behind the wheel of a car, but it was a sports car he had stolen with his best friend, Gregory. The cops had spotted them and he was trying to make a run for it…
I stop! Gregory jumped out the car. He ran! Whoom!
I couldn’t. I stopped the car. Whee-ahhhh.
I got out, trying to run. I never forget this here, it was so funny. I wasn’t fat, fat-fat, but I was a little chubby. I was trying to run.
The big ole’ fat police, he crazy!
I say, “Damn!”
I could see him on me, but at the same time, he look like he reaching. He grab my shirt. Bam!
I fell down on the ground.
He say, “I told you to freeze! Now where your friend?!”
I say, “I don’t know that guy! What do I do about it?!”
Gregory made it. He made it. I know he made it, he always real fast. I’m talking about he was fast. Police can be up on him, he can shake ‘em, shake ‘em, shake ‘em up off him.
So the police tell me, “Either you tell me where he went or we gonna lay there and get you. You going to jail.”
I say, “Man, I don’t know that man!”
So they say, “What’s your name?”
I said, “My name’s Gerald Anderson”
He say, “You ever been locked up?”
“Yessir.”
“For what?”
“For all kinds of stuff.”
“‘All kinds of stuff.’ Like what?”
“All kinds of stuff.”
He say, “You know you going to jail for auto-theft, no license…” Shit like that.
I told him, I said, “Man, my friend give me the car, man.”
He say, “If your friend give you the car, where the goddamn keys at?”
I say, “Oh, he told me he had the keys.”
You know, I done been to jail for this and that and that. But not no car theft.
It wasn’t really funny, but I was like, “Damn, now the shit getting upgraded.”
To be continued.
