me a key of Boy thanks to Trina’s persuasion. I did not have a clue
as to how to cut up heroin but Trina did. This was around the
time she seriously started nagging me about retiring. Hell, I just
got started. I hadn’t been in the game a hot month yet, but I knew
what she was talking about. Willie would escalate profits so much;
he was the kind of man who, if you made a few nice moves with
him, you could retire. A year before, they found a shitload of coke
in Tampa. It was estimated to be over one hundred million dol-
lars. Everyone knew whose dope it was, including the feds. I think
that’s what Trina was most worried about. I propped my feet up
on a chair, went a little deeper into my thoughts and inhaled nico-
tine like I was a fiend. I thought about the calls that Trina had
asked me if she could she push “five” for. Calls from a federal
prison. Her ex-boyfriend, Mike, was doing life in the joint in
Atlanta. In hushed tones they would talk. With every fiber in my
177
L i f e
body, I tried not to listen to their conversations, but out of respect,
she always talked to him in front of me. She told me she had no
secrets, had nothing to hide. Honesty was the best policy and all
that bull crap. I made the mistake of asking her if she still loved
him. She shrugged her shoulders and told me she did not know.
In a woman’s language, that meant, “Yes, but I don’t want to hurt
your feelings.” Damn, I hated to admit, but I was jealous. I won-
dered if he asked her for phone sex. Tell her to play in her pussy
and moan in his ear. I was powerless. I had to respect the game,
that is, if I was real. Hustlers are abnormally superstitious people.
That’s where a nigga’s blessings come from–honor amongst playas.
I knew that it could have been me on the other end of the phone.
As I sat there thinking, raking my mind, I detected some move-
ment in my peripheral version. Something caught my eye. I was
not alone in the hotel room. Then I heard the all too familiar
sound of a bullet being engaged into a semi automatic. For some
strange reason, I held my breath and waited for the inevitable, my
brains to be spattered across the wall. The sound of thunder res-
onated outside and in the dark crevice of my mind, Blazack’s face
flashed like some evil troll, he was here to do me. My gun was out
of reach on the dresser. I got caught slipping.
“
Place your hands were I can see ‘em!” a hoarse voice com-
manded. I raised my hands fully prepared to accept the conse-
quences of my blunder as I thought about all the cars in the park-
ing lot that I should have paid more attention to.
“
So we finally meet, boy,” a voice said, dripping with all the
Southern hospitality of a Klan redneck. From the corner of my
eye, I watched as the white man stepped from the shadows of the
closet. His complexion was a sickly pale white. He had a long beak
nose that pointed downward like a hook. His beady eyes were set
far in the back of his head, and appeared to sit too close together.
His hair was dirty blond.
I could feel my heart racing in my chest as something stirred
in the pit of my gut–fear. I knew his face from somewhere, then it
hit me, Spitler! The crooked cop that Nina tried to warn me
178
L i f e
about. Damn, how could I have been so fuckin’ blind? It sudden-
ly occurred to me that I saw his face in different places, just never
took the time to focus on him. He always blended in perfectly
with all the white folks. The police always get credit for being
clever whenever they capture a criminal, but nine times out of ten,
it’s a hustler’s fault for thinking too slow and moving too fast.
“
Life Thugstin.” He called my name. Like in all the cops and
robbers games, he was letting me know that he did his homework
on me. He probably got my prints off the car and ran them
through NCIC, the National Crime Information Center.
“
In my eighteen years on the force, I have never seen one boy
cause so much havoc in this town as you son,” he said and walked
so that he was standing in front of me. His Southern drawl made
the hair on my neck stand up. Florida crackas are the most evil,
treacherous men the United States had ever bred. In fact, that’s
where the name “cracka” came from. The hot Florida sun bakes
their white skin making it look like old cracked leather. When I
was a little boy, my stepmother told me stories about how the slave
masters used to hang pregnant women upside down and took a
knife and butchered the baby out of their stomachs and when it
hit the ground, they would stomp it. She told me this was done to
implant fear in all the slaves. And even after Lincoln had so called
freed the slaves, Florida crackas would rather kill theirs than let
them be free.
I had no intention of ever going back to prison. As he talked,
I measured the distance to my gun. Desperation will make a man
do some suicidal shit, like leap for a gun when he really doesn’t
have much of a chance.
“
You shot that boy in Frenchtown and robbed him after he
wouldn’t buy your fake drugs.”
“
That wasn’t me!” I quipped, easing closer to my gun. I could
feel my palms sweating.
“
Shut up! And keep your hands where I can see them,” he
snorted, as he continued to brag about himself, how brilliant of a
cop he was to be telling me of my track record in his town.
179
L i f e
“
You robbed that jewelry store and knocked the snot out of
the security guard.” Someone once said that ignorance is bliss, so
I did what Black folks are famous for whenever they were caught,
cold busted. I played dumb and looked at that white man like he
was speaking a foreign language.
“
Where did you get the money from?” he asked, nodding at
the pile of money on the bed.
I didn’t ever answer, just looked him in his eyes, and thought
about prison bars and caged cells not big enough for dogs much
less a human being. That desperate voice in my head was telling
me,
Try him! Go for your gun
. Then something dawned on me,
where was his back up? Something was out of place.
“
Today’s your lucky day boy,” he said mockingly. “I’m not
going to turn you in, but I am going to help myself to some of this
money here. He started stuffing his pockets with my money. He
was robbing me. I jumped up from the bed taking a step forward.
“
Wha da fuck you doin’?!” I was enraged. This is why you
only see white cops killing Black men in cold blood. In their eyes
Black men were powerless against the system.
“
You make a move like that again, and I promise you boy, I’ll
blow your goddamn brains out.” There was no doubt in my mind
that he meant what he said.
“
Sit down!” he barked. My eyes shown optic slants of hate that
back in the days of the slavery of my ancestors, he would have had
me lynched for. Reluctantly I sat back down. My breathing was
labored and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I was sick
and tired of white men constantly taking from me. If it wasn’t my
freedom, it was my money, and as I looked at that white man with
blood in my eyes, I realized that it was just the principle of the
thing. Even so-called criminals respect each other.
“
I’m here for a good reason,” he said.
“
What, to take my muthafuckin’ money?”
“
No, to make you money.”
“
Huh?”
“
As long as you’re selling drugs and killin’ each other in that
180
L i f e
jungle ya’ll call Frenchtown, I ain’t got no problem with that.”
“
I can’t muthafuckin tell! You come in here actin like John
Wayne takin’ my muthafuckin money!”
“
That’s because crime does pay. It pays the judges, the lawyers,
the FBI, CIA, the DEA and you just paid me.” With that, he
smiled like Lucifer in the flesh. My blood boiled in my veins. Only
history knows best the relationship of the white man stealing from
Blacks in the name of the law. He continued, “America has built
illegal drugs into the most power ful institution the world has ever
known. Like the prisons, legalized slavery, check the stock mar-
ket.” As he talked, I had no idea what the hell he was talking
about, and didn’t care neither.
“
But on the other hand, I like you, you remind me of your so-
called black leaders of today. You’re in it for the money, them boys
back in the day …” Spitler stopped to think, and suddenly
snapped his finger like he had a bright idea. “Martin and Malcolm
X, all they did was stir up trouble, wasn’t no good to black folks.
Now you, you think like a white man. You know how to take
advantage of your race. From here on out you can sell all the drugs
you like, just keep it out the white folks’ neighborhood. Them
white kids is America’s future. You hear me?” He raised his voice.
Something about what he said hurt me to the core, made me feel
less than a man, less than human. White people have this uncan-
ny way of making Black people feel awkward in their presence and
all the time he talked, smiled, looking like a Catholic priest.
“
This is my cut,” he said stuffing more money into his pock-
ets.
“
HELL NAW! FUCK DAT!” I stood up fast, stiff like a
human rocket. “Listen, cracka, I don’t fuck wit no muthafuckin
police, period!”
“
Sit down!” he commanded, pointing the gun at my head.
I guess this is the way Black men get shot, because all I could
see was red. Spitler provoked me, pushing me over the edge.
“
If you’re gonna shoot me, shoot me now! You ain’t finna
come in here, take my muthafuckin money, telling me how to r un
181
L i f e
shit!” I said, standing my ground, fists clinched at my side. We
stared each other down. I knew it was foolish of me to do what I
was doing.
“
For two thousand dollars a week you can sell all the dope you
want. Just keep it out the white neighborhood. Hell, it would be
like you have a license. I can make sure you and your people never
get caught, as long as you’re working out of a house.” Spitler was
talking a mile a minute, non-stop. “I’ll actually be working for
you.”
I sat back down on the bed, rubbed the waves in my head,
thinking about what he said. I knew I had no out with him; I was
in a no-win situation in this deadly game of crooked cops. One
thing was for certain, once a hustler had a cop in his pocket, that
changed the whole game. Things could turn from sugar to shit. I
took a chance and tossed a gambit at him. “OK cop you work for
me now.” He smiled like he had just sold me a comfortable cell in
Sing Sing prison. “That money that you just took off the bed, that