Previously: Pt. 1
The homie T really liked the way it went down last week, and we're loving the comments. Please keep them coming. Like I expected, he went in and blessed me with part 2 earlier this week. That being said, I proudly bring to you "The Chronicles Of A True Hustler", Pt. 2
The moment Moms foretold finally came to pass. I was on my own. I remember her telling me “Momma may not always be here to take care of you” when I was eleven. I also remember her advising me to make sure I "keep cop money". And I did. I kept cop money. That's like rule #2 to a drug dealer, #1 being "never get high on your own supply". Cop money is what you keep in order to cop more drugs in order to keep inventory in stock. Keep the business alive. No cop money, no product, no money. I got that. And I kept it.
No amount of cop money could ever prepare me for the shock that hit me dead center in my stomach on the day my moms kicked me out of our house and fed me straight to the streets. I was thirteen years old. She screamed at me, “Get the fuck out!". Shit came out from nowhere, knocked every last bit breath out my thirteen year old lungs. It was the ultimate betrayal. Having Moms choose a man over me, her son, her flesh and blood. Funny how they say everything has two sides though. That day, one of life’s most important lessons was seared into my brain. From that moment on, I would never again rely on my reality as real. I would never again get too comfortable in the comforts of my daily life, walking around, ignorant in trusting in what I thought I knew to be fact, to be solid ground, because at any given moment, I could lose any and everything, and within a fucking heart's beat away. I would never again take a god damned thing I had for granted.
This whole bullshit started because I thought I was smart enough to do the right thing. Ha! Doing the right thing didn’t make me right, it made me homeless and with nothing. Nothing but cop money though. Cop money, the streets, life's lessons and the rules of the game. We lived on Oakdale Avenue, in Hunter’s Point. The year was 1979. I was just 8 years old. My mother, brother and me lived on 1086 Oakdale. Some of my best childhood memories are from that period, the late 1970's. My friends Byron, Montrell, Lil’ John, Marcus and I had a Big Wheel chop shop in Byron’s garage. Even then I hustled parts to kids who needed their red and yellow plastic three wheeled "rides" staying fresh. We also had a tree house, built atop the nursery school at the bottom of the hill, across the street from some abandoned buildings. White boys wasn't the only ones with tree houses. It was during that period in Oakdale, when I first heard "Rapper’s Delight", the song I played when I lost my virginity with a 12 year old girl who lived across the street from me. That was also around the time that "Chicken", Moms' new boyfriend moved in and started living with us. Moms taught Chicken how to read and shorlty after he learned, he landed a steady job as a bus driver, driving for the city's MUNI system. He wore a shit-brown colored MUNI uniform to work. He was called Chicken because he teethed on a chicken bone when he was a baby. Must've been cute. The name stuck.
By 1984, Oakdale had gone from being a middle and working class neighborhood to a hot spot for drugs. The epicenter was a two-block stretch cut off from the rest of the world by George Washington Carver Elementary School. The intersection of Oakdale and Baldwin Court was ground zero. Baldwin Court was named after the late literary icon James Baldwin. At the time, I had no clue as to who James Baldwin was. To me, Baldwin Court was just the place that had a free lunch program. I never missed a lunch.
I was selling good weed at the time, had been since 11 years old. On Oakdale, I was among the gangsters and hustlers, men and women, boys and girls, all talking big shit, all getting in where they fit in. The hustle was real sloppy then, not sophisticated. The daily grind was running up on passing cars, throwing 'bows and bumping shoulders, jockeying with competitors for position. Once you claimed a car window, you'd shove your arm deep into the customer’s vehicle, right in front of the customer's face, offering up your wares for sale. The fiends had their hustle on too. They'd slap your hand in the air, causing you to spill your product all over the floorboards of the car, driving off, dragging your ass up the block if you weren't on point. Most times though, it was business as usual, fiends quickly exchanging money for the fattest bag, the biggest rock, and getting the fuck out of Dodge, hopefully in one piece. This one day, I noticed Chicken pulling up, riding in a little shitty brown Ford Pinto. We owned a brown late-model Ford Pinto at the time. It was the same color as the chocolate Thai weed I sold. It was also the same color as the MUNI bus driver uniform Chicken was wearing as he drove our Ford Pinto. The second I spotted the car and peeped Chicken, I laid in the cut, studying real hard to make sure I was seeing what I saw. What I saw was the Ford Pinto as it slowed to a stop, swarmed by the dealers who were pushing and shoving each other until one claimed that window, the victorious dealer walking away from the Ford Pinto counting money. As the Ford Pinto pulled off, my thoughts raced “Chicken just bought crack?” “Chicken is a crackhead?” "Does Moms know she's fucking with a crackhead?" As much as I was thrown off by the scene I just peeped, I was smart enough to want to protect my mother, my younger brother. Angry and concerned for Moms, I bounced off the block, rushing home to tell her that Chicken was a fiend.
Beating Chicken home from across town, I walked through our door and saw Moms making dinner. I told her “You’ll never believe what I saw today”. I ran the whole shit down, how Chicken drove up with some strange woman in the car. How a crowd of dealers swarmed the car. How I knew that Chicken bought crack and not weed because the guy who claimed the car window, who walked away counting money was a known rock star. Moms took that news and waited for Chicken. When he got home later that evening, she lit into his ass. They moved their beef into their bedroom, closed the doors and screamed at each other, back and forth for what seemed like an hour. Their argument spilled out of their room, out into the hallway, to the living room, into kitchen, back into living room, down the hallway and into my bedroom. Chicken was still in his MUNI uniform. Worn from going at each other head on, Moms and Chicken started directing their anger towards me. They both began screaming at me like if I was the fiend seen driving the Ford Pinto, wearing the brown MUNI, kicking it with a ho' riding shotgun. That's the day I came to hate bus drivers and for a long time after that, thought they were all fucking crackheads.
The screaming ended with Moms telling me to "GET THE FUCK OUT!" Chicken's punk ass, cornered like the fiend he was, hit Moms with that old “him or me” routine. She fell for it. She didn’t even give me time to pack a bag. I hit the streets with the clothes on my back, my weed bags and cop money. Moving with my sudden predicament, I headed towards the Valley to look for the homies. I caught up with my man Dark and told him what went down. Surprised that Chicken was smoking crack, his response was "If you want, I'll help you catch and smoke that fiend ass nigga." And I did want to catch Chicken. Catch him one morning, coming out the house in his MUNI uniform, on his way to work. Catch his ass by surprise the way he caught me when he rolled up in the Ford Pinto to buy crack. I didn’t want to smoke him though, just swing on him with something cold and metal. Let him feel me giving back some of that pain, see me bringing him close to death. Have him scared and scarred, knowing that whenever he saw me, he saw the person who held death over him. Moms loved him too much though, and I fell back because me hurting him would only result in her feeling more pain, more hurt.
Dark let me crash at his house until I could figure out my next move. A week later, I visited my Grandma Jones on 3rd Street. After sitting down for some dinner and bringing her up to speed as to my whereabouts, my current situation she said “You know, your momma called me. She said she want you to go back home.” “Ain’t this a bitch?” I thought to myself. “She let that nigga turn her against her son and now that I'm out, she wants me to come back home. Fuck that and fuck her!” I responded "Really, I'm cool with that". Streets were no joke and I knew I had to keep a roof over my head, knowing I couldn't stay at Dark's home much longer. Plus, I had to keep an eye on my brother. It took a few days for me build up the stomach to tolerate Mom's and Chicken’s bullshit. When I did get home, Moms and Chicken played like the whole scenario never play out like it had, like it never took place. They did their best to act "normal". I played it like I never forgot, understanding that in moving forward, shit would never be "normal" again.
Posts
This book needs to come out yesterday
ReplyDelete@T + CJ : I've been waiting for this and subsequent drops and have again been blown away by the quality of the content and narrative.
ReplyDeleteCo-sign Archie
Without question this is the best blog on the web. You could write about gardening or interior decorating and it wouldn't matter. The writing is just that good.
ReplyDelete^^^Agrees with them all. I can see what you are saying and its GREAT!
ReplyDeleteThe Chronicles of a Hustler >>> The Wire
ReplyDeleteNice end of the work day read...
ReplyDeleteLook forward to more on what ever the format is - blog or book.
We get a guest appearance by Charles Cosby on this one?
You are murdering this blog shit right now CJ. And these drug dealer joints your man is dropping are some epic shit. I didn't comment on part 1, but I read it and the shit is ill, bottom line. Every time I come here, the reads just get better and better. At first I checked this blog every day, and I actually would get mad when I didn't see a new drop. But now I appreciate them more because I can sense the amount of work that was put in to make them. Not just in the typing or whatever, but the actual life experiences that go into them. Keep up the good work, for real.
ReplyDeleteEvery cop, judge, and lawyer (lol) needs read this. The problem with own young black males is right in this story....THE PARENTS. I have had boyfriends and girlfriends with a mother just like this. I try to get people to see that what is needed to EDUCATION.
ReplyDeleteI been readin tha blogs for a cpl wks now and I'm really diggin all tha stories... especially this one... bein a thug is nothin to glorify especially if its by force not choice... can't wait for part3... cj can I get g-side starshipz and rocketz review on here wuts good!
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading your blog, I even printed your post about Rocafella and gave it to people on my college campus. This story is similar to my early childhood so I can relate. I appreciate it and plan to read all your post, and in the future I will be good at narrating as good as you.
ReplyDeleteI ve been reading you since the days of Bol, and I love your blog. We all preciate the writing but dude, we need more drops! I know ,its a lot of work but it is so good.
ReplyDeleteIt's gettin better and better...Can't wait for the part 3 !
ReplyDeletePeace.
Your french fan lol
Combat Jack... I love what you are doing with the blog. I been checking for you since the Bol, XXL thing and Dallas Penn after that. I respect your work. And your homie here needs to write a book, I'd cop it in a heartbeat. His writting has that real Iceberg Slim/Donald Goines vibe to it.
ReplyDeleteexcellent blog but jack whats up with some mor industry stories
ReplyDeleteHEAT
ReplyDeleteI questioned this when I read the first part but really enjoyed reading this. Cool shit.
ReplyDeleteThat photo looks like it's been taken in the UK. To me, living in London, it gives it a funny perspective when reading a gritty story of pursuing the American dream.
Looking forward to the next one
i would pay for this.....waiting for the next one
ReplyDeleteNo doubt this was written by a true to life hustler from The Bay. Real west riders remember how it used to be. The MUNI dudes still rock them ugly shirts to. LOL
ReplyDeletethe parallels drawn between the street hustle and the legal hustle are real. cosign everyone that said this needs to come out as a book/movie/etc Yesterday. I keep thinking to myself how i can get this up at work as motivation and a reminder to keep doing what i gotta do...
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed this a lot.
ReplyDelete