When we were last with young Gerald, he’d had his first experience going to jail for shoplifting and was getting deeper into the life.
Let me tell you how we do back then.
We were all the same age. Gregory was my man, we called him Buffy. Everybody called me Baby Gerald from back when I was young.
And Bum was there, though I didn’t feel him too much. A lot of people was scared of Bum, and I was a little intimidated by him too because he could fight. To me, it was like Bum had a hand like Muhammad Ali. He could really fight.
Also, he come from the Lockee Family. You fight one, you gotta fight them all. They used to get into it with another family, the Greens.
So we be talking, and my man Gregory tell me, “Baby Gerald, better watch Bum. Bum is trying to run on you. I don’t think you can beat Bum.” That’s what’s my man Gregory always say. I say, “Shit, that nigga is big as I am, I’ll beat his ass.”
One day we was back in the back area, our little clubhouse we would go in.
Gregory say, “Hey, Bum, Baby Gerald say he gonna see you.”
Bum say, “What’re you talking about?”
“He try to get some rounds in with you.
Bum say, “Baby Gerald, you sure you want this.”
I say, “Man, shit, if that’s what you want to do. You wanna get it in, let’s get it in.” But at the same time, I say to myself, “Shit, I’m gonna wrestle him,” because I always watch wrestling when I was coming up. Mixed-style wrestling was always my thing.
So we went a few rounds. No hitting in the face, just hitting body shots.
I’d seen where this thing with us was going to be a bind — like me and Greg were gonna run for a while.
Like, if he had a girlfriend, I try to meet her friend. We try to keep things going together.
His mother and father was cool with me. He was from a middle-class family. He’d always say, “Man, I gotta get my own money.”
We’d get an opportunity to work for summer school, day camp, like when you’re 16 or 17 and you’re working with kids at the YMCA for a few hours to make some money. I was looking at him like, “Man, shit… We’ll probably do it next year.”
Every time we say “next year,” the thing kick in. Hustlin’.
Hustlin’ was getting bigger to us, to me and him.
To be continued.
