When we were last with Gerald, he was a young man hustling in the neighborhoods of New Orleans and, on the side, fishing for his friend’s father. His friend, Gregory, had just suggested they steal some of the fish and sell it at Big Giant Crip…
Big Giant Crip was a bar in our neighborhood, at Second and Danneel. They call it “Big Giant Crip” because the guy who had it was crippled.
You catch wrestlers coming in there. It trip me out when I seen Ernie Lad there, “The Big Cat,” because the place was a little small, and he gotta bend down to get up in there.
Me and Gregory used to go around there because we know Crip. He used to give us money every day. We go to that door and go, “Crip! Crip!!”
He come out, give us five dollars. I don’t care what time you go — Crip there, he gonna give it to you. Or some of the old cats give it to you.
But there was a lot of drug-selling in that area too. It was a major neighborhood.
One day, me and Greg and his Daddy, Jimmy, sit out.
Jimmy, he said, “Man, I know you all out here doing this crazy shit. But I try to pay y’all.”
And that’s when Greg told him.
“Pay us what? $75? Shit, me and Baby Gerald go on Bourbon Street and get ‘bout $500. We go out there and snatch purses, everything.”
“That ain’t how I want y’all to go. But you gonna go do what the hell you want.”
So they got into it big time. And his Daddy told him, “You talk that shit if you want. You remember I brought you here, I take you from here.”
My eyes got big because I never heard that before. I was like, ‘What the f@#$ is Jimmy talking about?’
He say, “I kill your a#@. Because I brought you here, I take you from here.”
To be continued.
