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When we were last with Gerald, he was running the streets of New Orleans with his friend, Minew, who was talking to Muscles, a woman who was also involved with a major operator, Sam Skully. And things were getting heavy…
So Muscles called Minew. She said, “Where you at?”
He got off the phone. He said, “Man, dude don’t want to fuck with me no more.”
I said, “What she say?”
He said, “Man… .”
I said, “Man… Tell her to come around.”
So she swung through. She come through to pick us up.
She said, “Where y’all wanna go?”
I said, “Man, I don’t feel comfortable riding with her, man. … Man, I’m gonna leave you, drive your car myself.” I’m driving Minew car, because Minew had a 5.0.
So I get behind there. We go New Orleans east to the Daiquiri Shop, because that’s where most everybody hang out, the Daiquiri Shop. We go over there and get a daiquiri and shit and kick the bobo.
I’m telling this nigga, “Man, I ain’t even sleeping right at night. I’m thinking about this nigga put this hit out on our head.”
But Minew… Man, Minew a wild cat. He said, “Don’t worry about it. If you livin’ with the cat, you got nine lives!”
So I said, “Man, fuck it.” We kicked back for a minute. He down with his girl.
Later, we at the Second Line. Mardi Gras Second Line is like Superbowl Sunday.
We see all the big dogs. And Sam seen Minew.
Minew talking to Sam. Sam talking to him.
Sam told him, “Man, I knew she fuckin’ with you. But you know what, little nigga, your money not long as mine.”
Minew say, “Why that got to be money? Why this can’t be she love my gloss??”
I’m not laughing, but I’m feeling it.
See, these dough boys got heavy weight. But they girls be looking at us being a dealer, and without us you don’t make no money.
So we most of the pushin’, they just the sidekick.
Now, yeah, dough boys is the big boys that supply the drugs. We the little man.
But if you a woman, you lookin at–if that dude don’t move this shit, this dude don’t make no money because he don’t know how to move it.
All the while, they know you got it, but they maskin’ up. It’s hard to pin… because they not out there. You out there every day.
Some dudes, they got addicted to being around they workers. They like to sit in. They want to sleep right there on the spot. They just watch you.
I don’t like my dope man to sit down like that. If you gotta sit like that, I’m gone.
You got on a Rolex. I got on a fuckin’ Seiko watch.
So you gotta be the dealer. But you try to tell them that, they think they know it all. See, that’s how the Feds roll up.
The Feds don’t worry about the user. The user gonna go into the program. The dough boy’s going down.
It’s mostly the users that give up the dough boys because they can’t take the pressure. You got some dude think, like, “Man, I can’t give up the streets. I like getting high!”
Only thing a Fed gotta tell ‘em is, “Man, I give you two eight balls.” They get ‘em a phone. They put them in a house, they pay they rent, and they put them in a hotel.
So when Minew say that, I’m not laughing.
But I’m feeling it.
To be continued. Anderson’s first book, “Still Standing: How an Ex-Con Found Salvation in the Floodwaters of Katrina,” is available on Amazon.com.
