by Tracy Brown
Born already had twice the amount of nice things his friends had. In fact, Jamari used to wear his coats, his clothes, even his sneakers. And Born didn’t worry about the clothes his friend borrowed, since he had plenty more where that had come from. The problem with Born was that he was accustomed to having all the finery that Leo had introduced him to. And now that Leo was unable to provide these things as readily, Born was sick of watching his mother work her fingers to the bone to try and keep it all going. He used to notice that Ingrid fell asleep still wearing her uniform when she got home from work. How she could barely keep her eyes open at the dinner table. On the weekends, Ingrid would be so tired from working all week that she would sleep well into the afternoon. She was exhausting herself in a futile attempt to change the direction in which her son’s life was headed. Despite her pleas, he immersed himself deeper in the drug game.
Whenever she canvassed the house in search of dirty clothes to wash, she would find small baggies in Marquis’s room. She knew that these baggies were used for packaging drugs. Suddenly there was an awful lot of money in the pockets of his jeans and coats. She saw the signs, knew the truth. Eventually his activities were no longer something he could hide.
She heard all the stories about his fights, his run-ins with rival crews. And in her heart she knew that he was rebelling against the addiction his father was battling. His fury in the streets was synonymous with his fury toward his father. Ingrid felt helpless to stop him, and was terrified that he would wind up dead in the cold-hearted streets where he was holding court. Then, when he was fifteen years old, Born was arrested in the lobby of her building. They caught him with five bags of weed in his pocket. Lucky for him, his cracks were upstairs at the time, so that’s all they found. They arrested him for the weed, and they took his jewelry as evidence. When he got out, Born went and bought two more chains to replace the ones they had taken from him. It seemed impossible to stop him, and Ingrid feared she would lose her only child to the streets he couldn’t leave alone.
Leo was on a mission half the time, as Born started coming home with larger and larger amounts of money. Born began offering it to his mother to help with the rent, the bills, to buy food. At first Ingrid refused to take it. She didn’t want his drug money, because she didn’t condone his drug dealing. But it got harder and harder for her to turn the money down. Ingrid honestly needed the help that Born was offering to her. It got to the point where she couldn’t turn it down anymore. But she made it clear to him that she wasn’t happy about it. She told him that she didn’t want him hustling, but she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop him. Instead she told him to be careful. To watch his back, and to stay on point. But now, as Marquis went from the wide-eyed young man she’d had the pleasure of raising to a full-blown hustler determined to pick up where his father had left off, Ingrid wished she had somehow forced him to stop altogether. For the sake of her own conscience.
13
THE BIG PAYBACK
1988
At sixteen years old, Born didn’t give a fuck anymore. He and his boys were a team, still hustling crack in Arlington, and also in the Harbor projects, for A.J. and his crew. To Born, the money was good, and the streets were a familiar venue, and he was on the come up. He was seeing less of his lather these days. Leo was a shell of the man he once was, and Born was ashamed of what he’d become. Despite his feelings of disappointment in his father, Born never told Leo how he felt. At the end of the day, Born still had some respect for him. He was still his father, regardless of his shortcomings. Born, and his father’s other children, had been left to fend for themselves now. All of his older siblings had reached adulthood, and they’d given up their hopes that Leo would get his act together. In fact, some were just as strung out as Leo. They’d accepted that their father was no longer the respected and powerful man he once was. And now Born was beginning to accept it as well. He had dropped out of high school, and was hustling harder than ever.
It was a cold, early Sunday morning in January. Born was once again the only hustler outside, cloaked in layers of clothes to shield him from the freezing temperatures. A pair of long Johns, a sweatshirt, and a hoodie were all tucked inside of his Carhart jacket. His hands were snug inside his gloves as he scanned the block for fiends on the prowl. He didn’t have to wait long. A scrawny, half-dressed white woman with stringy brown hair made her way up Holland Avenue. Priscilla. He recognized her, and remembered the last time he had seen her—in a crack house with her four-year-old daughter. She had no shame, and Born’s heart went out to her child. He felt bad for all the kids of crack addicts, who are forced to watch in silence as their parents commit suicide with every hit of the pipe. Born watched her as she emerged from one of several smoke houses sprinkled throughout the surrounding blocks. She walked swiftly toward Born, and smiled in anticipation as she bought twenty dollars’ worth from him. “There’s money in there,” she said, nodding toward the crack house she’d just left. “You should go up in there and see who wants something.” Born had been to the spot on a few occasions, and was familiar with it. He knew that the fiends smoked their shit there, zoned out, and commiserated.
Making his way to the rundown house, Born saw a little boy sitting outside of the house on the steps. The boy looked young—no older than seven—and he shivered in his dirty, cheap jacket as he sat on the steps in the cold morning air. Born noticed the expression on the youngster’s face, and he shook his head. The kid looked dirty, his clothes were dingy, and his skin ashy. He looked bored and lost, as he sat there on the steps of the crack house. Probably not his first visit to such an establishment, Born guessed. But he wasn’t there to play social worker. He stepped past the youngster and inside the house, where he was greeted by the sight of junkies in various stages of euphoria. A few came right over, recognizing their pusher, and bought from Born.
He didn’t notice right away the older man in the back of the room, with a flimsy black wool coat pulled carelessly around his tall, lanky frame. After serving the last of the users who had crowded around him when he entered the spot, Born scanned the room for any other customers before he left. He saw the man standing idly in the back, and gazing apprehensively at Born. It was then that Born realized the crackhead staring back at him was his own father.
A rage burned deep within Born, as he stood looking at his father, the light of the early morning peeking through the house’s dingy windows. Leo turned to walk away before his son could confirm his recognition. But Born called after him, “Don’t walk away, Pop.” Leo stopped in his tracks. “I got that,” Born said. “You can get it from me.”
The words cut Leo like a knife, his worst fears realized. His son had seen him at his worst, strung out as he was. It was the lowest point in his life. Born walked toward his father, tromping across the wood floors in his Timberland construction boots, and closing the distance between them easily. Now, face-to-face, the two generations stared back at one another, their unspoken conversation so intense. Leo’s eyes held so many apologies, so many things he wished he had the words to explain to his baby boy. Born’s eyes held disappointment, the loss of all respect, and the anger of a man-child abandoned too soon by his father. Born extended his right hand to reveal the crack vial in his palm. He watched his father trying not to grab it, fighting the urge to seize the rock in his son’s hand. Leo didn’t want to buy crack from his son. But damn, he wanted that high!
Born watched his father’s inner battle, growing all the more disgusted as the seconds elapsed. Leo couldn’t look his son in the eye anymore, and instead stared at the drug in his outstretched hand. “Take it.” Born’s voice was flat and unfeeling. “Here.”
Leo, still hesitant, didn’t budge. “What’s the problem?” Born’s face held a cynical grin; the sad clown, smiling despite the pain he really felt inside. “You’re gonna give your money to somebody out here. It might as well be me.”
Leo felt lower than low. He pulled his last ten dollars from his pocket and handed i
t to his youngest child. Born took it and placed the crack into his father’s old, wrinkled hand, a hand that had once seemed so strong, so powerful, now looked bony and cold. He watched his father struggle, trying to find something to say. And Born let him squirm, let him cringe at the discomfort of the situation. Leo was frustrated, and not knowing what else to say, he asked, “Does your mother know you’re out here selling this shit?”
Born laughed. “What, you gonna tell on me, Pop? Go ‘head. Tell her. So, I can tell her that you’re out here smoking crack. Go ‘head!” He laughed once more, right in his father’s face. Leo, realizing there was nothing he could say in his own defense, turned and began to walk away. His son’s laughter echoed in his ears.
“Just another fiend, man,” Born muttered to himself. “That nigga’s just another fiend.”
Born walked out of the crack house, leaving his father to get high with his fellow addicts. Born shook his head as he made his way back down the steps and past the little boy who still sat out front. This time, the kid looked directly at Born. He could see a vacant expression in the young boy’s eyes, and it broke his heart. Born felt like he was looking in the mirror at his own self as a child, wondering why crack had to infiltrate his family. Although Born had never had to sit around crack houses and watch his father’s addiction on that level, still he could identify with the child sitting before him. He knew how it felt to feel neglected by a parent who makes you feel like drugs are more important to them than you are. He felt guilty knowing that he was contributing to the habit of whoever this kid’s parent was. But Born quickly dismissed the feeling, telling himself that if he didn’t supply the fiends with drugs, some other hustler would gladly do it. Still, he felt the pain in the eyes of the little boy as he walked away, making his way up the block.
The look in the kid’s eyes haunted him so much that without a second thought Born walked to the bodega on the corner. He ordered a breakfast sandwich—sausage, egg, and cheese on a roll—and got a pint of Tropicana orange juice from the freezer. He looked behind the counter and directed the store owner to fill up a brown paper bag with all the candy kids adore—Jolly Ranchers, Now & Laters, taffy, gum, Skittles, Tootsie Rolls, jellyfish, Blow Pops, the works. Then Born walked back to the house where his father was surely getting high by now. He approached the steps and saw the young boy sitting there still. He walked up on him and asked, “Yo, shorty, what’s your name?”
The boy looked at Born suspiciously for a moment. He had been raised in the streets, and knew better than to converse with too many strangers. He looked Born over from head to toe. Then he answered, “Kevin.”
Born nodded his head. “Okay, Kevin. Here.” He handed him the bag with the breakfast sandwich, and watched as the child hungrily searched through its contents. A smile spread across his face, and he looked up at Born.
“Thanks,” he said.
Born smiled at the shorty. “You’re welcome.” He watched him devour the breakfast sandwich as if it was his first meal in days. It broke Born’s heart, and he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the brown paper bag filled with candy. The child’s eyes lit up at the sight of another bag of goodies, and Born laughed. Despite the little boy’s obvious upbringing in the streets, he couldn’t conceal his enthusiasm at the sight of all that candy. “Yo,” Born said. “Don’t eat all this at one time. It’s enough in there to last you a little minute.” He handed Kevin the bag of candy and watched as a huge smile spread across his face.
Kevin was thrilled. “Thanks, man!”
Born patted the kid on his nappy head, and smiled. He wanted to say something, but had no idea what to say. Finally, he found the words. “You keep your head up, shorty. It’ll get better. Trust me.” Born winked at little Kevin, whose mouth was filled to capacity with food, and he walked away.
Unbeknownst to Born, Leo had watched the whole thing from inside the crack house. He stared out the window watching his son’s exchange with the little boy, and his heart sank. He saw the pity in Born’s eyes as he looked down at the child. Born’s demeanor toward the child had said, “I understand.”
Leo looked at the crack pipe in his hand, and felt like shit. He got choked up for a minute, and then he grabbed the crack in his palm a little tighter. It was time to numb the pain. Time to escape reality for a little while. He got high, thinking the entire time about his son and how he had disappointed him. It was one of the saddest days of his life.
Yet Leo was so far gone that after that first time Born sold crack to his father, Leo came back to Born when the opportunity arose. Born preferred it that way, in all honesty. Crackheads are not well respected in the streets. Born hated to think of anyone talking down to his father, or humiliating him. He was never his father’s primary source for the drug. But if Leo was in need and he ran into Born, he got his crack from him. The relationship between father and son had taken a twisted turn. They’d gone from being a larger-than-life father and his adoring son to an addict and his dealer. And Ingrid seemed blind to all of it.
Born and Martin had been hustling for A.J., taking the deal of thirty dollars off of every hundred they made. Together he and Martin held down a drug spot on the first floor in their building. When people saw them coming, they usually had different reactions to the two friends. When folks saw Born, they saw Miss Ingrid’s son, the respectful young man who was in the streets, but also was not the type you had to watch your back around out of fear of being stabbed in it. But Martin had a reputation for being a bully. Many people saw him as a loudmouthed menace, when in fact he was just a guy who liked to get drunk and start shit. That was just the way Martin was. But he was Born’s man, and they made a lot of money together. The two had been such good friends from the time they’d been small boys that an unspoken trust had developed between them. They were doing their thing, and bringing in lots of money. And they were doing it quietly.
It was no secret that drugs were being sold on the borough’s north shore. The police were focused on the projects. The Mariner’s Harbor projects were within walking distance from where Born and his crew lived. Arlington Terrace wasn’t the projects. It was a nice, working-class community. The grounds consisted of a cluster of several buildings and a small park, with five-bedroom town houses sprinkled around the perimeter. Hardly the place you’d expect to find a drug empire being run on such a grand scale. Born and his boys flew under the radar virtually undetected, and slept on by their counterparts in the Harbor projects. The money piled up, and things were looking up. But they began to want more money, more of a cut from what they were selling.
A.J., however, wouldn’t budge. He figured these youngsters should be glad that somebody was giving them a shot at all, and he let them know their percentage wasn’t negotiable.
“Y’all niggas are asking for too much,” A.J. said. Born and his crew had asked for a sixty-forty split. “I wish I could work witchu, you know what I’m saying? But, y’all lil niggas set the bar too high. Y’all want to get a promotion before you even had a chance to really prove yourselves.”
“How you figure we haven’t proved ourselves?” Born asked, his face twisted in a grimace. “We been bringing you more money as a crew than all your other workers combined. We might be young, but we ain’t stupid. We can do the math, A.J. The proof is in the numbers.”
A.J. shook his head. “The numbers are good, but that’s only because my product pretty much sells itself. I got y’all out here slanging top-of-the-line cocaine. The money is coming because the shit sells itself. You lil muthafuckas should be glad that I’m giving you a chance to see some real paper out here. You already got a good deal. Don’t get greedy.” A.J. waved his hand as if the meeting was concluded.
This didn’t sit well with the young men, who were hungry for a bigger piece of the pie. They didn’t bring up the subject with A.J. again, since he had made his position perfectly clear. But they didn’t go away quietly either. When they were together, they often griped about A.J. Martin became the most vocal
about his displeasure with the cut they were getting, and it wasn’t long before Born agreed. They had had enough. If A.J. wasn’t willing to give them what they wanted, they were going to take it. Fuck it.
Born and Martin went to A.J. one day and told him they had been robbed. Their story was bullshit. And in reality they had just kept the drugs and sold them on their own, using the money they made to put themselves on. They got themselves established without A.J., and then they put their whole crew on. Born, Martin, Jamari, Chance, and Smitty were a team. They chartered their own territory, and did their own thing. They were notorious for doing whatever it took to get money. Right before everyone’s eyes, the crew from 55 Holland were the niggas running things in Arlington. They did whatever it took to get money, from shootings to robberies, from burglaries to crack sales. Martin emerged as the enforcer of the crew, having the heart to lay a nigga out without hesitation. Martin’s reputation preceded him, and he was a legend in his own time.
At sixteen years old, Born had gotten himself an apartment of his own, separate from his mother. The apartment was downstairs on the second floor of the same building he’d grown up in. Ingrid didn’t complain, since her son was living right downstairs. It made her feel better knowing that he was so close by. And he no longer kept his guns, his drugs, or any other incriminating evidence at his mother’s place. He had his spot for that. The rent on the subleased apartment was cheap, especially with all the money he was bringing in. Born and the rest of the crew had stepped up their game. Now they no longer had to do many hand-to-hand sales. They employed workers for that, young dudes from around the way who were happy with the money they made from the block.