“Mornin, kane I hep yu?” He said again, still smiling. “Aight, that’s a little better, ok, now you can help me. Alright let me get one a those Boston creme joints right there, and one a them glazed twisty things right there, and uuummm let me get a skinny, I mean a medium coffee, black, no sugar no cream, nameen? And yo, can you hurry up before one of those flies gets on them please.” I said, and glanced over my shoulder to see the reaction of the other waiting customers. “You see now? No flies onlee donuts.” Ahmad smirked back as the other attendant got my donuts. I gave him a five dollar bill and waited for my change. “And can make sure ya man over there ain’t tryin a put no little bomb ‘em either, I know how yall gets down over there in Pakistan or wherever yall from.” I couldn’t help but chuckle, but Ahmad stopped smiling. I think I pissed him off with that one because he paused as he was counting my change and looked up at me angrily. “Yur change ser, thank you.” He said with a fake smile then put my change on the counter in front of me. “I’ma check ‘em too, ha ha.” I laughed, then grabbed my donuts and coffee and left.
As I walked towards the shop I could hear my boss Sal’s voice screaming from nearly half a block away. “Well, what do you want me to do about it!?" I heard Sal scream into the telephone receiver as I walked into the shop and past his office which was near the entrance of the shop. “Look, it’s not my fault that the parts haven’t come in yet! Your parts had to be ordered from overseas and.... Well as soon as the parts come in, the sooner I can fix your car! Well if you would’ve brought an American car we wouldn’t be having this problem now would we?” He screamed at the customer.
I walked over and punched my time card then walked towards the back of the shop. I noticed that the car I was working on yesterday was up on the hydraulic lift and some of my tools lay nearby. I started trippin a little because I know I put my tools back yesterday. It looks like somebody was working on it too... and with my tools! Now everybody knows how I feel about anybody using my tools, but who could it have been? I know it wasn’t Sal fatass. He don’t never do shit around here, and I know Joey didn’t touch ‘em, know better. Could it have been…? Na. He wouldn’t be caught dead up in here on a Saturday. Shit Sal can barely get him to stay late during the week so it couldn’t have been him. I was gettin heated.
Well, whoever it was, was about to hear it for real for touching my shit. Suddenly the sound of a toilet flushing was heard from the bathroom. Whoever’s in that bathroom must’ve been the one working on that car with my tools. Yeah, they in for some shit now. I thought to myself as I got closer to the bathroom. The bathroom door slowly opened. It was Mike, my long time friend and co-worker. He walked out of the bathroom rubbing his stomach. “Aahh, let me tell ya’ll somethin’ Kore, seems like I was shittin’ for damn near ever up in there. Probably lost about three or four pounds after that one. Whew, you betta stay away from over in that bathroom area for a while. It’s real toxic up in that mafucka right now.” He joked as he wiped his hands with a paper towel. What’s goin’ on dog?” He asked as he walked over to me and shook my hand. I returned a pound, knowing that just a second ago I was ready to rip the head off the nigga that came through that door. But that’ll never happen now. ‘Cause Mike, he can get that, because that’s my man right there.
“Mike? What the hell you doin’ here? You ain’t really known for doin OT. Times must be real hard if you up in here today.” I joked. “Yeah well, you know. I figure I’d come and kill some time for a while. You know, make a little somethin extra for da pockets feel me?” Mike stated smiling. “Yeah I know. So you must’ve been the one fixin this bad boy over here then huh?” I asked. Mike replied: “Yeah, Sal told me you about to change the transmission filter on this one. So I started workin’ on it before you got here. He said he got some more cars comin’ in a little while." Mike was about to continue on, but was interrupted by a loud yell. “Koreyyy! Miikeey! Come here you guys!” Sal screamed from the inside of his office. Salvatore Sorano was the manager of:
FRANKIE’S AUTO REPAIR SHOP SPECIALIZING IN ENGINE & TRANSMISSION REBUILDING & ALL AUTOMOTIVE REPAIRS. “WE DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!”
"Yeah right", I said to myself as I thought about the sign that hung outside. “Aww c’mon, I told this fat mafucka’to stop callin me that.” Mike sighed as we walked towards Sal's office. I glanced over at Mike who looked pissed as we entered the office. Sal was sitting in a large beat up office chair behind a desk, all 300 plus pounds of him. “Okay Mikey, I nee…", Sal started.
“Yo hold up hold up.” Mike interrupted. “What? What happened?” Sal asked, looking questioned. “Now c’mon Sal, how many times we gonna go through this name calling thing man? Would you like it if I called you Sally? This is a place of business right? Next time I’m not gonna come when you call me. My name is Mike not Mikey Sal. See what my shirt says? Mike not Mikey.” Mike snapped as he tugged at his shirt’s nametag which read Mike. “Okay Okay I’m sorry Mike.” Sal said insincerely. “Now listen… Mike.” He said cautiously. “I need you to go to the parts store and pick up two fan belts, one for a ‘14 Lincoln Town Car and the other for a ‘16 Benz S600. Joey’s towing the Lincoln back now. The belt is shot and I think the transmission is slipping. I’ll take a look at the Mercedes when it gets here, that car belongs to a good friend.” Sal said. “So….Korey.” Sal said, then paused and stared at me for a few seconds, like he was waiting for a response from me. “What’s up Sal?” I asked.
“You don’t have a problem with that do you?” He asked. “With what?” I replied, catching a hint as to where he was goin with this. “Problem with me calling you Korey” I kinda liked that Korey and Mikey thing. It’s got a nice ring to it.” “Yo cut the shit man!” Mike interrupted. “Okaay, okay” Sal chuckled. “Okay Korey, can you hurry up and finish the car on the lift so we can get it out of here before Mike goes to get the parts? They’ll be here soon, Mike you can give him a hand until then. Okay, back to work you guys.” He ordered.
Mike stared at Sal for a few seconds, and then shook his head before walking out of the office while I followed. “That mafucka, I tell you.” Mike complained. I just shook my head and thought. Yeah, just like I said, it’s gonna be a lonnng day.
3
I’M THE PO’BOY!
(Po’ Boy)
“Hey! Is that you Po’Boy!?” I heard someone yell from across the street while I sat at a red light. “It’s me, Roxanne! Can I holla at you real quick Po’!?” She yelled as she hurried towards my car. I could barely recognize her at first, but as she got closer I could see that it was Roxanne. “Damn Po’ Boy, it’s been a while since I last seen you and you still lookin’ good.” She said as she strolled up to my car. As fucked up as Roxanne looked right now, it wasn’t hard to tell that she used to be a good looking chick back in her prime. Roxanne Roxanne was what we used called her. Now you know a chick had to be finer than a dime if cats used to say her name twice.
She used to be one of Crosstown Dickey’s top of the line tricks. Every man and their daddy wanted a piece of Roxanne back then. She had that kinda body that was built for fucking. There was a rumor going around back then that her sex game was so good that she had guys screaming out her name over and over when she fucked them. Even bodied a few old timers who thought they could hang with her. That’s how she became the infamous Roxanne Roxanne. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” She asked. “I gotta run, what’s up?” I asked. “You see Po, I been out here all damn day tryin to make a few dollas to get my grand baby somethin for her birthday. My daughter don’t want me comin around. So I wanna try to get her baby somethin so maybe she might let me visit for a little while.” She explained sadly, leaning against my car.
Even though I knew she had to lay in the bed she made. I kinda felt sorry for Roxanne, and feeling sorry for anybody is rare for me. If she didn’t remind me so much of my mother, I probably wouldn’t have even looked her way more or less stopped my car for her. Roxanne used to make a lot of money trickin for Dickey back then. That wa
s until she got hooked on pills and smack. That’s when her life started going downhill. Drugs had her all messed up and she started stealing from him. So Dickey cut her loose.
I heard now all she does is trick from state to state pickin up part time pimps, steady johns and lining the pockets of dealers with her drug habit. I might see her every so often and give her a few bucks so she didn’t have to be out here lookin’ all fucked up like she do right now. “Now look, I’m gonna give you this money, but you gotta get out of here, and don’t come back out here for a while?” I said. “I promise I won’t Po’, I promise.” She said.
I opened my armrest and gave her a few hundred dollar bills. “You lookin fucked up Roxy, here, go clean yourself up.” I told her in disgust. “I know Po’, but you know how it is out here. Ain’t no hope for some of us.” She said sadly. “I’m gettin too old for this shit. Thanks Po’.” She said, and walked away.
As I drove away, I realized that it’s been about thirty years that I’ve known Roxy. That was about the time I started in this game. I was seventeen, and back then it was hard growing up in them slums. My parents worked hard, but we were still poor. I’m talkin’ Po mans poor, and my father constantly reminded us of just how poor we were. When it was time to pay the bills I would always hear him screaming out. “We po’ folk woman can’t you see that?” whenever he and my mother argued over money.
As time went on things only got worse, first my mom lost her job, and when they both lost their jobs, it was out to the streets we went. Selling off all of our furniture and staying with friends and relatives here and there. My father tried his best to keep us together, but when the money and opportunities dried up, he left. So my mother and I were at the mercy of the streets. I still remember that look he had in his eye as he was about to leave out the door for the last time. He turned to us and said, “Hey, I’ll be back in a few” and gave me that usual smirk and wink, but that smirk, didn’t seem like the one he usually did, and his wink seemed more like a long sad blink rather than his usual playful one. We never saw my dad again after he left that day.
A few days later my mother found out that my father had skipped town with another woman he was seeing. My mother was devastated, and not too long after, she started mingling with some of the other women that were in the streets. She would leave me with some of the women who watched all the kids. Every day that went by, and I saw my mom leave. I wondered if I would ever see her again. Even though it was like I had a few mothers, there was nothing like looking into my mom’s eyes and feeling her hugs and kisses. Her friends treated me like I was their own son, all of her friends did. There were plenty of toys to play with and televisions to watch all of our favorite cartoons on.
What I didn’t like was that every time when my mother came home, she seemed a little different than when she left. But the one thing that I was 100% sure of, was that my mother loved me with every ounce of her soul, because she would tell me every chance she got. I never went to school, so I never learned how to do a lot of the basic things like read and write like the normal kids did. While all the other kids sat up in those stuffy classrooms for hours we had Miss Maysie.
She was one of the women who watched us sometimes. She would read stories to us and showed us how to do simple math problems. She taught us about the presidents, about slavery and about just about everthing she could think of. Sometimes she made us repeat after her just like how they would do in a real classroom. To us, Miss Maysie was a teacher. She’d ask some of the older kids who went to school to show us some of the things that they had learned in school as well. It was like we were like a little outcasted community living within a regular community. As the months, days and years crept by, I began to notice all of the drama that went on in the streets more and more. Whatever went on out in the streets, one of the other kid’s parents would talk about it right in front of all of us, and it only made me want to see what was going out there in the streets.
All of the whos whats wheres whens whys and how’s was starting to click inside my head. I wanted answers to questions that I didn’t know how to ask, but was determined, even destined to find out. When I got old enough to venture out on my own, my first plan was to start contributing to my household and make things easier for my mother. I knew that making money would solve a lot of the problems we were having back then. I started hanging with the older kids who shuffled and hustled on the low. They sold anything they got their hands on, or should I say anything that they stole, but all of that changed once I met Owee. Owee sold smack for some of the older heads in the neighborhood. He paid me a few cents to watch his stash as he ventured around the neighborhood making his transactions to fiends. He even sold to the uppity white folks that seemed to need to have the product he sold.
Owee hung out with Paris, Nut Nut and Man Bee, who all did the same thing. They would swap me to each other to watch their backs while they made their moves. From the very start I was fascinated by it all. I was young, but big for my age. I was just as tall as most of the older guys back then, if not taller. I was ready to get my hands on some of that stuff they were selling, and making some of that fast money they were making. When that day finally came, and Owee gave me my first package of some packaged white powder to sell, it was off to the races for me. I was out making money selling $5 bags of smack. I felt like I was on my way to being just as big and just as paid as the rest of those that were making big money. Even though I had to turn all of my money in to Owee after I was done, making my first hustle felt better than anything that I had ever done before.
My first cut off of my first package sold was only about $25, but it felt like a million. I felt I was on my way to getting rich, but deep down I knew that $25 a day was nothing compared to what I could make if I applied myself more. As bad as I wanted to run out and spend it, I knew that wouldn’t be smart because I would be right back broke again. I remembered how much my father would say how much of “Po’ Folk” we was. So in my mind, I convinced myself that no matter how much money I made, I was still a Po’ Boy, and that’s when I became the Po’ Boy, and nothing, and nobody was gonna stop this Po’ Boy from getting rich. As long as I kept reminding myself that I was just a Po’ Boy, and not spend my money stupidly. Getting rich shouldn’t be a problem. After I got my first taste of a few dollars, my next step was to take a bigger bite, and then an even bigger one. I began to run hard and fast and faster and harder than everbody else, and my clientale grew just as fast.
When my crew slept I was making money, and when my crew was making money, I was right out there making money right along with them. Near or far, and sleep became a luxury that I couldn’t afford, so I slept less. I was hardly tired anyway. I had gotten so tired of being poor and hungry, and seeing my mother struggle so hard. I was letting nothing or no one stop me from climbing the ladder of success on these streets. I started out as nobody with nothing, but with all the eager and determination I had. I had positioning myself to be one of the most powerful pushers in the history of downtown Detroit.
After the boys I rode up with introduced me to the dealing game, I became willing to do, or how these young boys say these days, I was down for whatever to get the job done. I started out as just a runner, but I moved up fast. When I finally got that chance to meet our boss, I was ready to let him know he had a loyal dude right here, and I was ready to prove it. My boss was a guy named Crosstown Dickey, a slick haired, spats wearing, chubby guy. When I first saw him I thought that he was some kind of math teacher or something. He didn’t look like a big time kingpin type of guy. Not to me anyway. Dickey was always on the move. The first time I saw him it was real quick, and all I got was a “hey what’s good lil man” and a fist bump.
Not what I kinda had in mind, but “he’ll see my work soon” that’s what I told myself. He and I got along good in the beginning. He seemed to admire my fearlessness to learn about the game. Dickey was easily running about sixty percent of the city’s heroin back then. He paid me $200 hundred dollars a da
y to make drug runs, count his money and then double count the money. When I tell you that there was lots of it to count, you can take my word on that.
I found out later that he had a few nightclubs, a stable of hoes and about 5 or 6 gambling joints spread out over town. Dickey was a businessman, not just some big time kingpin who looked like a math teacher. At first I didn’t notice it, but one day it came to me that I never saw Dickey with a right hand man, or someone who followed him around taking orders. He always said “the right hand could kill you quicker than the left hand could” so he would just up and disappear whenever he felt like it, and pop up unexpectedly whenever he felt like it. He’d come and collect whatever he wanted and then, he was gone. Like a ghost. He had so many people working for him, but never trusted anyone enough to get close to him, with the exception of me of course.
I liked how smooth Dickey moved. He never announced himself whenever he arrived and never let it be known when he was going to leave. That kept his crew off balanced, and they didn’t know how to come at him. So we all just did as we were told with no questions asked, and everthing worked out fine. Behind the scenes, Dickey’s weakness soon revealed that he loved to drink, gamble, and fuck as many women as he could. After him letting me get in so closely it didn’t take long for me to see that Dickey was gettin’ high, and on his own supply.
I’d hear him in his bedroom and sometimes in his bathroom sniffling real hard and real fast. You know that sound like somebody is sniffing something up their nose? I’d catch him nodding off and then snap back to consciousness like nothing ever happened. He’d say some shit like he was tired from all the time and work he put in, and hey, if that’s what Dickey said, then that’s what it was. No questions asked or you‘d wind up disappearing just as fast as he could sometimes, because well, just because.
Introduction To Hard 2 Da Kore (Hard2daKore Book 1) Page 2