Writing My Wrongs

by Shaka Senghor

  Later that night, I was in my cell kicking it with Gigolo and L when G came to the door to tell me he needed to speak with me. Gigolo and L got up and left so the two of us could talk in private. I could tell by the look on G’s face that something was troubling him.

  After he pulled the door closed, he lifted up his shirt to reveal a steel pipe concealed in his waistband. “I know how we can get out of here,” he said.

  5

  East Side Detroit

  1986

  I had been out in the hot sun on Newport Street for nearly an hour, trying to hustle up on a few dollars, but I wasn’t having any luck. Each time the wind blew, the stench from my body made my eyes burn. I felt ashamed of my dusty red Levi’s and grungy, days-old T-shirt. My hair was dirty from sleeping on the floor of my friend Ernie’s basement, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had showered or brushed my teeth.

  It had been two weeks since I left home.

  I watched a short, light-skinned woman leaving the grocery store on the corner of Harper and Newport. Her shopping cart was full of bags, and I wondered if I could convince her to give me something to eat. The only thing I had eaten that day was a piece of buttered toast that Ernie had smuggled me in the morning. By now, my stomach had passed the stage of growling and was barking like a full-grown dog.

  When the woman stepped onto the parking lot, I approached her swiftly while her back was turned. She saw me out of the corner of her eye, but before she could protest, I retrieved two of the bags from her grocery cart.

  “Allow me to help with these, ma’am,” I said, mustering as much charm as I could.

  She turned around, clutching her purse and looking like she was ready to scream. I revealed my yellow, gap-toothed smile and proceeded with the bags to her car, where I waited for her to open the trunk. After a long moment, she relaxed and popped the back hatch, and I began loading each bag into the trunk.

  When I was done, she reached into her purse and took her wallet out. “I don’t have much,” she said, pulling two shiny quarters from her purse.

  I took them and stuffed them in my pocket, prepared to walk away. But she called me back.

  “Here, take this and get you something to eat,” she said. She reached into her purse and pulled out a food stamp that was worth a dollar.

  I took it with a smile and rushed inside the grocery store. I grabbed a grape Faygo soda, a bag of Better Made Hot! Chips, and a pack of cookies. When I came out of the store, I checked to make sure the coast was clear, then darted into the alley behind the grocery store. I kneeled down beside the dumpster and ripped open the bag of chips. The stench of rotted food coming from the dumpster wasn’t enough to spoil my appetite, nor were the maggots that were feasting on a pool of reddish liquid next to me. I greedily stuffed handfuls of chips into my mouth and chased each round with a gulp of the sweet, purple soda. I was so hungry, it felt like my stomach would start eating my spine if I didn’t get the food down fast enough.

  Once my stomach started filling up, I stood and exited the alley. I knew Ernie would enjoy some of the cookies and the rest of the chips I had in the bag, but I had wanted to make sure I was full before I shared my rations.

  My Fila tennis shoes were on their last leg as I walked down Newport toward Wade. I had to walk with my toe curled to keep it from dragging on the ground through the hole in the bottom of my shoe. As I walked past each street, nearing the one where my parents lived, my palms started sweating.

  The last thing I wanted was for my mother to see me in this condition. So far, she had been right—moving out was a bad idea. I hadn’t thought through my exit strategy, and by the time I realized it was extremely hard for a child to make it in an adult world, my pride and stubbornness wouldn’t allow me to go back. I didn’t want to hear her say, “I told you so,” and I didn’t want to return to a place where I felt unwanted.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached Camden and didn’t see anyone I knew. It was still early, so there weren’t many people out on the block. I looked down toward my mother’s house and saw her Monte Carlo sitting in the driveway. A twinge of sadness shot through my body as I thought about how my life used to be. But I stuffed that feeling back down and kept walking until I reached Wade.

  Before I made it to the corner, I could see everyone was out at the house next door to Ernie’s. I groaned inside when I noticed a few of the older guys from my neighborhood hanging out on the porch. It was a ’hood custom for us to crack jokes on one another on the street, and nothing was off-limits. The more uncomfortable the target became, the more the crowd laughed. For the last week or so, I had been on the butt end of jokes about my clothes and hygiene, but the most painful part came at the end of the day, when the older guys cracked jokes about me not having anywhere to go. I felt like a bum. I tried to laugh along with them, thinking it would prove that their words didn’t faze me—but underneath, I was being torn to shreds. There were even moments when I got so angry that I wanted to fight, but that made everyone laugh harder because, at only five-foot-six and 110 pounds, I wasn’t going to beat any of them.

  Ernie came to the door and let me in. I handed him the leftover chips and cookies and went straight down into the basement, where a mix tape was playing on Ernie’s boom box. A few minutes later, my friend Tommie Seymour came over, and we talked about our plans for the day. Tommie and Ernie were the only ones who seemed to understand what I was going through at home, and they had done everything they could to help me out.

  By the time we stepped back outside, most of the guys next door were gone, so we went and sat on Kurt’s porch. After a few moments of sitting and talking, we heard the sound of deep bass coming from down the block. We looked around, waiting to see who would come driving by with their music thumping. It was the newest phenomenon erupting in ’hoods all across the city.

  Our neighborhood was home to some of the most notorious drug gangs of the crack era. From the Best Friends and the Chambers Brothers to White Boy Rick (who grew up around the corner from us), our streets were flooded with these new neighborhood superstars. The sounds blaring from their fancy rides drew attention and envy from all the younger guys and girls in the ’hood. They would zip past in their Jeep Wranglers or Jeep Cherokees, the music thundering out of the back, and we would all stand around talking to one another about our dream rides. For the first time in our young lives, we saw guys our age living the American Dream, and we all wanted a share of it.

  Moments after we heard the sound of the music, a small, white Dodge Omni stopped at the corner.

  “That’s Miko,” Tommie said. He left the porch and walked over to greet the tall, muscular, light-skinned man in the driver’s seat. We watched from the porch as the two of them talked. After a minute, Tommie came back and told us what they had discussed. He said Miko was looking for someone to “roll” for him, which was code for selling drugs. He said Miko was paying up to $350 a week, plus $10 a day for food, for anyone willing to sit in one of his drug spots. The only catch was that you had to be willing to sit in the spot twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  Ernie didn’t want to do it, and Tommie said he couldn’t. They both turned to me, and I already knew what they were thinking: rolling for Miko would be a way for me to get off of the streets. It was the lowest job on the drug-dealing totem pole, but it sounded like a good deal to me. All I could think about was having somewhere to lay my head and a way to feed and clothe myself. Without further discussion, I told Tommie that I would do it.

  Tommie walked back to the car and told Miko I was down to roll. Miko called me over, and when I got there, he asked me my name. I told him that my name was Pumpkin, the nickname my aunt had given me as a kid.

  “You got to come up with another name, li’l homie,” Miko said, taking in my unwashed appearance. “What’s your real name?” he asked.

  “James,” I responded as I thought about a new nickname.

  “You should call yourself Jay,” he suggested.


  “Yeah, that sound slick,” I said, rolling my new nickname around in my head.

  After talking with Tommie for a few more minutes, Miko told me to hop in the passenger seat, and we sped off with the sounds of Cybotron beating from the speakers. It was the perfect soundtrack for our neighborhood, with the fast-paced beat of techno-house music matching the frantic rhythm of our young lives.

  “You had something to eat yet?” Miko asked.

  “Some chips and cookies,” I replied.

  “I’ma shoot up to Burger King before we go over to the spot.”

  “All right,” I said as houses and cars zipped by on the other side of the window.

  We reached the Burger King on Gratiot, which was a stone’s throw from the Ninth Precinct of the Detroit Police Department. Miko turned down the music as we pulled into the parking lot. When we got out of the car, a police cruiser pulled out of the lot, and I felt a nervous energy course through my body. I wasn’t thinking about what would happen if I were caught selling drugs, nor did I think about the fact that I could get killed or charged with any number of crimes that were associated with the business. All I knew was that it felt exciting to be rolling with a badass like Miko.

  We grabbed some food and headed over to a street named Flanders, where Miko’s spot was located. The house was a dilapidated duplex that sat in the middle of the block, and it looked like it would fall over if the wind blew too hard. The splintered porch steps creaked as we ascended them, and a dark-skinned, slender woman greeted us when we reached the porch.

  “Hey, Miko,” she said, opening the door for us to come inside.

  “What’s up, Dee,” Miko replied. We stepped into the darkened living room.

  The woman gave me a once-over and turned back to Miko. “Who’s the li’l man?” she asked.

  “This my little brother, Jay,” he said, introducing me. “He gonna be holding down the spot over here.”

  He retrieved a plastic bag from his underwear and walked toward the dining room table. “Where that mirror at?”

  “I got it,” Dee said as she followed him into the room.

  Miko held up the bag for me to see. “These are nickels,” he explained. “It’s a hundred rocks in this bag, and they go for five dollars apiece.”

  “All right,” I said, nodding my head.

  “How much does that come up to?” he asked.

  “Five hundred dollars,” I said.

  “Okay, li’l nigga. I see you can count. All the sacks I give you will be the same,” he said, “but it’s up to you to count them. That way, you’ll know I ain’t cheating you.”

  Miko was teaching me an important rule of the game. In the world of dealing crack, no one is to be trusted. It is a predatory and parasitic environment, and nearly everyone is out to get over in some way, even if it meant cheating their friends and employees.

  Dee returned with a mirror, and Miko poured out the contents of the bag, counting the rocks into piles of twenty. I watched his every move and did the math in my head. I was amazed that such a tiny bag could hold a small fortune.

  “When you sell the first two rocks, keep that for your food and cigarettes or whatever you want for the day. When you get down to the last twenty rocks, call me so I can bring you some more, all right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, and I took the bag from him.

  “Keep the sack in your drawers, and don’t let anyone else hold it. When someone comes through, Dee will let you know if they are straight. Don’t show them shit until they show you the money. And don’t sit there and haggle with them over the size of the rock. This ain’t the store, and the customers aren’t always right. But at the same time, treat them the way you want to be treated.”

  “I got you,” I responded. I was playing cool, but on the inside, the excitement of my new world was taking over.

  “Let me show you where the heat at, in case somebody get out of line,” he said. He led me into the back room and pulled a sawed-off shotgun from beneath a soiled mattress.

  I had never held a shotgun before, and I was intimidated by the menacing look of it. It looked like it would knock me to the ground if I pulled the trigger, but when Miko handed it to me, I took it and held it like I knew what I was doing.

  “That button right there is the safety,” he said. “If a nigga get out of line, take the safety off, point it at him, and shoot. Trust me, this will tear they motherfucking head off.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Somehow I hadn’t thought about the possibility of having to shoot anyone. I didn’t know yet that crack could turn people into stone-cold killers. I had seen people smoking weed and drinking, but the most that ever happened was a fistfight.

  “I’m going to pick up your partner, Tee,” Miko said. “He good people, and he’ll have your back, but this is your spot. So run it the way you want it run.”

  With that, he turned the spot on Flanders over to me. I was off the streets and open for business.

  —

  TEN MINUTES AFTER Miko left, my first customer showed up. Dee met him at the door and told me what he wanted. I came to the door, and he handed me a crumpled twenty-dollar bill through the bars of the Armor Guard. In return, I gave him four rocks. He looked them over and smiled before leaving the porch.

  It was my first sale. As I looked at the money in my hand, it all started to feel so real. I was officially a drug dealer.

  Within a few hours, customers were streaming through the door like water. My pockets were quickly filling up with five-dollar bills, until I had a fat knot bulging from my pants pocket.

  The first week flew by, and I was excited when Miko came through to pay me. He deducted $75 for the rocks I had traded for clothes that some of the customers were selling. I felt rich holding the $275 dollars he had given me in small bills. That wad was the most money I had ever had. He told me to call when I was finished, and he would take me out to Eastland Mall to shop.

  When we hit the mall later that day, I couldn’t wait to go to Foot Locker and cop a crispy pair of Filas, which at the time were the hottest shoes you could get. I felt like a king when I pulled out my knot of money and paid for the shoes. It was the first time I had been able to walk into a store and buy exactly what I wanted without having to worry about how much it cost. We continued shopping, and Miko bought me some other items to go with my gear. He seemed to be embracing me like a little brother, and he told me he always wanted me to look fresh.

  I felt like a superstar the next time I walked down my block. At the age of fourteen, my wardrobe cost more than those of the adults in my ’hood. Like most teenagers, I wanted to be accepted and exalted by my peers, and when I came through wearing my fresh Filas, Ballys, and Jordans, I could hear the girls talking about how good I looked. The attention was every bit as addictive as the drugs that I was selling.

  Within a few weeks, I had immersed myself fully in my new life as a hustler. The money came quick, but I found ways to spend it quicker. I decked myself in the latest gear, and I felt proud, walking around with a wad of money in my pocket. But in truth, I was overcompensating for the things that had been missing in my life—the most important of which were love and acceptance, things my new life couldn’t give me. I wouldn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I felt lonely. Tee was a few years older, so there wasn’t much we had in common besides making fast money, and I couldn’t relate to Dee or her husband because they were high all of the time. They never smoked crack in front of me, but I could tell when they were high because they would start acting jittery and paranoid.

  One day, a customer named John came through to buy some rocks. John was what we called a “runner,” someone who would make a run to the crack house for a gathering of smokers who hung out at his house. They would give him their money, and he would find the best spot to get them what they wanted. John was a frequent customer, usually buying two or three hundred dollars’ worth of rocks at a time. But this time, after buying a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of rocks, he asked if
we would be interested in rolling out of his house. He told me he had a spot on Wilshire that he was interested in opening, and I told him that I would run it by Miko.

  I called Miko to tell him about John’s offer, and he told me we could check it out. When he came to pick me up, Miko said he was proud of me for thinking of ways to expand the business. If things went right, he promised he would take care of me.

  John lived three houses off of the corner of Wilshire and Chalmers. The street was lined with well-kept brick Colonials and Tudors, and John lived in a big, pretty brick house that was a stark contrast to our house on Flanders. Miko asked me if I was sure I had the right house, and I double-checked the address that John had written down and told Miko we were in the right spot.

  John came to the door and invited us inside. We were surprised to find that his house still had the appearance of a normal home and not a crack house. There were relics of John’s former life as a middle-class family man. Framed pictures of his wife and children were hung on a wall in the dining room, and the living room was well furnished with a floor-model television and sectional couch. I half expected the woman of the house to descend from the stairs and ask if we wanted refreshments, but instead, we got down to business.

  John told us the story of how he lost his job, his wife, and his kids as a result of smoking crack. He was in a desperate spot, and allowing us to sell out of his house would allow him to keep his home and support his habit. It was a good deal for us, so we took him up on it and moved in the next week.

  —

  DURING THE EMBRYONIC stages of the crack epidemic, my old neighborhood was still one of the nicer neighborhoods on the East Side of Detroit. Most of the houses maintained pristine exteriors, but on the interior, the families were being slowly consumed by the madness of addiction. The promise of the Black middle class was eroding as crack and all of its associated vices entrenched themselves deep into the heart of the ’hood. In the sixties and seventies, it was heroin that had wreaked the havoc, but the damage caused by crack would make heroin seem like little more than a footnote.