When we were last with young Gerald, he was at the jail for the first time waiting for his mother to sign him out and take him home.
My mother came up to the station to pick me up.
As the woman in the station got me out the cell, she warned me not to come back again.
I was looking at them, saying to myself, “Shit, I don’t think I’ll ever come back after what I’ve seen them do, after how they try and intimidate me.”
My momma asked me, “How you like your first time in jail?”
I say, “Hmm. Not too good.”
“Well, I hope you learn from that.”
I say, “You know how I am, I ain’t trying to go back to jail.”
My momma ask me if I wanted something to eat, so we stopped and got me something.
When I got home, my sister and brother–they called me “Joe”– said, “Damn, Joe, what happened?”
I say, “Man, I went to jail because I was in the drug store and, you know, a lot of us was in there, and the people saying I stole something. But, you know, I don’t steal.”
But in my mind I knew I did steal.
My brother tell me, “Man, you know that ain’t good, that ain’t a good look, bro. I’m gonna tell you somethin’–Once you start goin’, they say you keep goin’ back.”
But I was already out in the street, and they didn’t really know I knew my man Gregory and the Rat Pack like that.
When I got up the next morning to get ready to go to school, my momma say, “Come here.”
I say, “What?”
She say, “Go get me a cream cheese and a newspaper before you go to school.”
All the while, in my mind, I wasn’t going to school. But I say, “Alright.”
So after I returned from the store, my momma say, “Be safe, have a good day at school.”
But every time I head out for school, I would always go to my man Gregory’s house. We were real close.
To be continued.
