Corruption Officer

by Gary L. Heyward

  “Yep,” he says. “And he got better prices. Every inmate that’s over on that side is rocking with him now. So that is why our flow done slowed up. And if he’s getting it like I am getting it, ya know what that means, right?”

  I am in deep thought when he says that, because I know exactly what he means. It was stupid of me to think that I would be the only one rocking like this. While holding up the coke he continues and says, “This is what’s popping right now, Gee. This is where the money is at and everybody and their momma is getting that paper up to get it.” He stood there looking at me, knowing that I know what he is getting at.

  “That’s a whole new ball game,” I say, staring at him.

  “I’m ready if you’re ready,” Flocko says.

  I tell him that I will think about it. As I’m walking away, he says, “Scared money don’t make no money.”

  CHAPTER 34

  MY BROTHER’S KEEPER

  BUMP, BUMP, BUMP, BUMP!

  I can hear my heart beating loud and clear. I’m outside by the bowling alley close to Rikers Island about to meet Flocko’s sister. I’m a little nervous because this is my first trip picking up coke. Cigarettes and pouches of tobacco were different, because if I get stopped in the street with those I won’t get charged, but if I get stopped with a half ounce of cocaine, I’m screwed. I’m sitting there sipping when my phone rings. It’s her telling me that she’s pulling up. I haven’t seen her in years and really forgot what she looked like.

  I exit my van when I see a woman park and begin to walk toward me. She stops a few cars from mine. I walk up to her.

  “Hey, what’s up? Long time no see,” she says.

  I still don’t recognize her, but looking at her face I can see the likeness between her and Flocko.

  “That’s a half,” she says. I just nod in acknowledgment, taking the bag from her.

  “Okay. I got it,” I tell her.

  Then she walks back to her car and I get into mine and just like that I become a drug dealer.

  After the transaction I drive home in silence. Just me and my thoughts. I just made fifteen hundred dollars in less than fifteen minutes and it feels great. After a while my adrenaline finally slows down. I start calculating my future earnings; one trip a week with this and I’m good.

  —

  I get to my neighborhood and as usual there is no parking. I find the nearest fire hydrant and park right in front of it, putting my Rikers Island parking pass in the window. I proceed toward my building, but I’m cautious, because it hasn’t been normal since the attempt on my life. It’s been real stressful coming and going, always thinking that this fool Biz is lurking somewhere in the cut. This shit with Biz had me frustrated and angry. I didn’t like having to be on point like that all the time; holstering my weapon, putting it in my jacket pocket so if it came down to him or me, it was most definitely going to be him.

  I’d started taking different routes from the parking lot to my building so that I couldn’t be tracked. I would never come home at the same time. I would use different entrances to get inside the building. And I would do things like press the elevator button of the floor above or below mine so that I could come out somewhere other than my floor.

  I cautiously enter my building and, surprisingly, an elevator is on the ground floor waiting. I run and jump inside just as the door closes behind me. I press the button for two floors beneath mine, because I know that the staircase door on that floor doesn’t make a sound when you open it. When the elevator arrives at the floor, I press the door-open button and stand there inside the elevator without moving. I purposely wait for the door to close, and when it does I jump out. This maneuver would throw off and surprise anyone who might be waiting there for me. I was taught these maneuvers from one of my gambling spot siblings that had beef in every project. I remember him saying, “Whatever you do, don’t make it easy for them, Gee.” And I wasn’t.

  I make my way down the hallway to the silent door and exit. It’s a good thing I had on my uniform with my windbreaker jacket and my work boots, which were more like sneakers. They didn’t protect my feet from shit but they didn’t make a lot of noise either. Inside the stairwell I hear someone talking on the floors above me.

  I take my gun out of my pocket, put it to my side, and begin to creep up the stairs. Two steps at a time because I want to move swiftly. I’m close when I realize it’s just one voice. Whoever it is isn’t talking but singing. It’s “Am I My Brother’s Keeper.” A song I used to sing as a kid.

  Biz!

  Now my adrenaline is flowing. My heart starts pounding and my palms get sweaty. This is it. I get closer. Step by step, all I can think about is him trying to kill me and me being stressed out trying to duck this fool all the time. All the stealth training I received from the marines comes into play, because I am going to put an end to this shit right here, right now. My conscience starts to talk to me: Gee, are you really going to do this? Is this what it has come to? I creep. His singing gets louder, “Am I my brother’s keeper!” I think some more and question myself. What are you going to do? Are you going to shoot him? Are you built like this? Everybody in every hood knows that old saying: “Don’t pull a gun out unless you plan to use it.” Should I do this? After all this time I have the drop on this fool and it’s late night in the hood and that makes for a perfect opportunity.

  I stop. I can still hear him singing. He’s right above me. I have my gun raised, but now I bring it down to my side. The stairs are built with a landing between floors and I’m standing there silently with my gun and my target right above me. Anger and urgency come over me. I remember the ultimate no-no that this fool committed. He threatened my family, most of all, my momma in that elevator. I’m nervous. I am scared, and right now my stomach is filled with rocks.

  Yes, I am built like this!

  I raise my gun and lean to the side so I can peer up the steps. He’s sitting there with his back to me singing and doing something with his hands that I cannot see. I got him. I can blast his ass right now, right in the back, and get away with it. No, I want this fool to see me. I want him to know that I did this to him.

  I take a step closer, then out of nowhere he says, “Remember that song, Gee? We used to sing it all the time.”

  CHAPTER 35

  HEARTFELT

  It seemed like an eternity had gone by as I stood there, gun in hand, dumbfounded that he knew I was there the whole time. No need for stealth now. I climbed up the rest of the steps, positioning myself directly in front of him. I still had my gun pointed at him when I noticed what he was doing. There was a cardboard box laid across his lap with a blunt cut opened and filled with weed. He took a vial of crack from his pocket and sprinkled it into the blunt—mind you, never once looking up at me to see that I had my gun pointed at him. I felt that he already knew. He began to hum that song again as he brought the woolly to his mouth. He wet it so that it rolled tight. Then, and only then, did he look up at me to see my menacing stare.

  “You ain’t never been no killa, Gee. And you sure don’t look like one now,” he said, laughing.

  “What does a killa look like, Biz?” I asked with venom in my voice.

  He put his blunt in his mouth, lit it, and blew out smoke while nodding at me like he got my point.

  “Now what?” he asked. “Ya got ya little peashooter pointed at me like ya ready to end me. Now what?”

  He threw his arms in the air. I jumped back at the sight of a sawed-off shotgun. I had not seen it under the cardboard. He laughed again as he put his arms down and took some more puffs. While exhaling, he said, “Don’t be scared now. Ya should have been scared the other night when you came out of the gambling spot at two in the morning or the other night when you parked on 153rd Street and walked to the back of the building entrance.” He saw the dumbfounded look on my face and said, “I could have gotten you anytime I wanted to.”


  I put my gun down—not away, just down. Truthfully, he and I both knew that I wasn’t going to do shit. He took the blunt out of his mouth and pointed it at me.

  “Why you do that shit to me, Gee? I mean, I’ve been jailing my whole life and I know how dirty COs can be but I never thought that you would do me dirty like that.”

  “I did not know it was you under that same dirty hoodie that you’re wearing now,” I tried to explain. “How was I supposed to know that they transferred you to my jail, huh?”

  He jumped up and said, “You know how it felt seeing that it was you who did this to me?” He pulled his hood off, showing his permanent scars.

  “And then you just stood there!” he shouted. “Stood there and did nothing! You did nothing while those white boys pounded on me. Was that that blue brotherhood bullshit? You beat on me to prove to the white man that you had no problem beating on a nigga?”

  I saw the pain in his face and I decided not to respond. “What was you afraid of, huh?” He answered his own question and said, “You were afraid that if you stepped in to stop them that you would not be respected as one of them!” Now he was sweating and he had his hood halfway off his face, staring up into the light fixture. My assumption was that the drug was kicking in and he was high. I put my gun away and leaned back against the wall. I began to question whether he was right about some of the things he was saying.

  “Were your CO buddies there, Gee?” he asked. “Were they there when we had to share clothes? When I would come to your house and you come to mine when our families did not have food? Were they there when we got jumped by some guys trying to take your sneakers? Who took that ass-whipping with you? Who?”

  Now we were both staring hard at one another, both of us knowing the answer.

  “You think this shit is easy?” I yelled. “You think it’s easy seeing your friends and loved ones come to jail? Seeing them go back and forth all the time not learning their lesson the first time and constantly fucking up in life? Just imagine busting your ass trying to stay out of trouble in the neighborhood and area that we came up in; landing this job and then seeing your people get their ass beat not by you but by other people.” I laid into him. “Look at you, Biz. You want to blame everyone but yourself for you coming back and forth to jail. Do you ever think of the shit that you do while you’re out? Do you think of the people that you hurt when you get locked up? Huh!? You know what your moms once told me?”

  He froze, looked at me hard, and began tearing up at the mention of his mother. I had found a soft spot and now I was going to twist my knife. I continued, “She told me one day that if I saw you in there for me to tell you that she loves you and that she is getting old and that she don’t know how much longer she can take you being in there.” Now he had his head down and he began to sway from side to side. Then I said in a low, heartfelt voice, “It was a mistake, man. I did not know that it was you until your hoodie came off.” Then he said, without looking up at me, “A mistake, huh? So what would you have done had you known it was me before they started whipping my ass?”

  Dead silence. I had no response. Then he said, “Them muthafuckas are going to pay. Them COs think that they can do anything to a person while they are in prison and that a person won’t come after their asses when they get out. They think moving up to Middletown or out to Long Island will stop an inmate from finding them. Humph, I got something for their asses. They’re going to pay for what they did to me.” I then ask him, “What are you going to do, sue them?” He responded by handing me a piece of paper out of his pocket, and when I looked it had a list of COs’ names with their addresses next to them. My first thought was Oh, shit, how did he get this info! Then I thought, I can’t let this happen. I began to yell at him frantically, “See, this is what I am talking about! You still on some bullshit that’s going to have your ass back in jail or worse.”

  He wasn’t paying me any mind. He was gathering his things and taking long pulls from his blunt. Meanwhile, I continued to yell, “Why can’t you just let this shit go and get your shit together?”

  He just smiled at me, picked up his sawed-off shotgun, and put it over his shoulder as if it was a mere handbag. He took off down the steps. Halfway down, with his back toward me, he said, “I love you, Gee.” I just continued to yell at his back, “What about your moms? Don’t you think that she’s had enough? You’re going to put her through this shit again?” He stopped in his tracks, turned around, and looked up at me. He was crying. I saw the tears running down his face. He pulled his hoodie all the way over his head and said, “She won’t be going through any more pain because of me.”

  “Why you say that?” I asked.“Do you think this time will be any easier?”

  “She died this morning,” he said without looking up at me.

  Then he walked down the stairs, exited onto one of the floors, and was gone.

  CHAPTER 36

  NO-JOKE

  The next morning I arrived at work carrying my first shipment of coke. As usual, in the morning there was a line to check weapons before we went through the metal detector. As I stood there awaiting my turn, I noticed a white officer, who graduated with me, casually standing on the other side of the metal detector. Something was not right. As I recalled, though he graduated with me, as soon as we were assigned to our respective jails, he disappeared, nowhere to be found. Then, oh, shit, it came to me. He went straight to the K-9 Unit to train drug-sniffing dogs, and if I was a betting man, I’d bet he had his sniffer right there, under the desk by the entrance, out of sight so no one could see it. Damn, what was I going to do now with a half ounce of coke on me? I had to think fast. Luckily for me there were some lockers by the front door for visiting lawyers to put away their cell phones and other stuff prohibited inside the jail. I moved quickly while the hustle and bustle of officers going through the detector was happening. I hurried and put a brown paper bag filled with coke in one of the lockers. I returned to the line, turned in my firearm, and proceeded through the detector. The detector beeped because I’m in full uniform—shield and all. I passed through and said what’s up to the officer that I knew. I looked down to see old Smokey, a large German shepherd, just lying under the desk, in the cut, with his tongue hanging out, just waiting to catch someone. I breezed through and went to the locker room to wait until he and his dog left.

  I got to the locker room, where a group of officers were having another Norman-Seabrook-is-useless ceremony while everyone was getting dressed. (Norman Seabrook was then president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.) I don’t understand why they even bother, as everyone who opposes him loses, and none of the allegations against him were ever proven. But, hey, if they want to sit there and whoop and holler, so be it.

  I was going through the motions at this point, waiting for roll call to start so that I could retrieve my package. Afterward I walked back out, got the coke, and walked back in. Rin Tin Tin, the K-9 dog, was gone. The whole time the front entrance officer only glanced up from reading the paper long enough to see that it was someone in uniform going back and forth. I made it to my post and made the drop to Flocko. He assured me that as soon as movement was allowed this morning it would be out of my housing area.

  So I sat back on my post in the A station, breathing a little easier. I had some time to relax a minute before I let the inmates out. I began to think about my mother and how hard she took it when I told her last night about Ms. Daniels’s death. I just shook my head at the fact that my own mother was getting up there in age and that another one of her friends had passed away. Then I thought about Biz’s CO hit list. I debated whether I should take his threat seriously. What were the chances of his being able to carry out the hits? Did he just smoke crack in front of me so I would think he was on some high shit, not being serious? But he did have a list of addresses that would make one wonder how he got it.

  I had let the inmates out to start my da
y. One by one I clicked open the cells and received the normal rush of inmates, all wanting something at the same time.

  CO, open the shower!

  CO, I need this. CO, I need that!

  It becomes like Grand Central Station in a matter of minutes. After I wrote out the passes, Flocko came up to the officers’ station to tell me that the bird had flown the coop. The coke was out of the housing area via his personal mule. He said that he needed to holla at me. So we went into our office where we conduct business, which is him inside the utility closet, and me pretending that I’m telling him what to do in there. He told me how much I could get by letting inmates use my phone to make calls that they can’t make on the city inmate monitored phones. I told him that I would think about it. I already knew off the bat that they weren’t using my phone, but maybe I could find a phone that would work.

  “On the gate,” I heard an officer yell. I turned to see that I was receiving a new inmate into my housing area. I cracked the gate open and they both walked in.

  The officer gave me the inmate’s locator card, and because we didn’t know each other, there was no conversation, just a nod, and then he left. The inmate was a young slim dude with braids. He was ice grilling me. I could already see that he was going to be a problem. I paid it no mind, because a lot of times the ice grill is just a front to intimidate other inmates. I did the usual orientation, then I told him what cell to go to. I buzzed him in and he went to his cell. Then he stepped right back out with his shirt off. He started asking who ran the phones and about slot time. I told him I ran the phones and he grilled me through the protective gate and started going off, disrespecting me, talking about how he didn’t trust Po-Po and how his fellow inmates shouldn’t either, how every chance that he gets he tries to put a shank in a CO’s neck.