When we were last with him, young Gerald had just been taken by Security to the back of the K&B drug store for pocketing a few cans of tuna.
I didn’t know for sure what was gonna happen, but I knew for sure I had those cans of tuna on me.
He told me, “I can do two things. I can get the police car to come get you. Or I can eject you from the store so you can’t come in here no more.”
He ask me, he say, “What would you think about–”.
I knew the answer. I say, “Not to come in the store no more.”
But then the other security guard say, “Nah. I see him on the camera and I seen him come in here. He come with them other guys that been stealin’. They don’t know we know they be stealin’. But I think he’s a newcomer with them.”
I look at her, I say to myself, “Damn, so they been comin’ in here stealin’. They know them, but don’t know me.”
Then she say, “Let’s do him a favor. Let’s call the police and let him go to The B-Roll.”
The B-Roll, or the Bureau. That was where the police held and processed you. It was different than the juvenile detention facility which was called the Youth Study Center.
I sat back there in the back of the store room where they put me. They had me cuffed to a machine. I say to myself, “Oh, shit.”
When the police came, they ask me my name, my address, what area I’m from. They walk me through the store, through the aisles. I was feeling down, thinking, “Damn, who might go tell my momma? Who’s seen me that know my family and gonna go back and tell ‘em?”
They escort me to the police car and we rolled to the B-Roll. They brought me up some stairs. Before they brought me to the main desk, they put me in a cell.
They had 10, maybe 15 more young kids like me up in the cell. One of the kids ask me, “Man, what you in here for?”
I say, “Stealing out of the K&B.”
I ask them, I say “What’chall in here for?”
Some of them say stealing cars, some say robbery.
I say, “Damn… . What y’all think gonna happen to me?”
Different ones talkin’, they say, “You gonna go home. I promise you.”
“You gonna have to make a phone call. Your momma or somebody who older than you gonna come up here and come get you. You go to court the next day.”
As we was talkin’ in the cell, I heard the key turn in the door.
Click-click.
It was the lady that work there.
She say, “Mr. Anderson?”
I say, “Right here.”
She say, “Can you step out for a minute?”
So I stepped out.
She say, “Well, this is what I’m about to do. I’m about to ask you a few questions. And I’m gonna take your fingerprints and stuff like that. I’m gonna let you call somebody, your mother, sister, whoever. They must be over 21. They come get you and you can be released. But you go to court tomorrow.”
I’m thinking to myself, “I can’t call my mother. Because she gonna go off. I can’t call my brother, because he beat me up.”
So I asked the lady, I say, “Hey, I can’t get out myself?”
She say, “No, because if I let you out this time of night at the police station they’re gonna pick you up. It’s curfew hour.”
So I say, “Alright. I’ll call.”
I call, and my mom answer the phone. She say, “Hello?
I say, “Hello.
I say, “Mom.”
She say, “What?”
I say, “You come get me–?”
“–Come get you from where?”
I say, “Oh shit.”
This new series chronicles Gerald Anderson’s time running the streets and going in and out of prison. It will eventually become his sophomore and autobiographical book. You can purchase the first book, “Still Standing: how an ex-con found salvation in the floodwaters of Katrina,” from Gerald directly or find it on Amazon.com.
