Corruption Officer (2 page)

LATER THAT NIGHT

The Cloth I am Cut From

I called my man C to come pick me up.
 

“Heinus dogumus?” he says on the other end of the
phone.
 

That’s our Greek name for Hennessy.
 

“Yeaaah, maan!”
I say.
 

And automatically he says, “O-my-god, this nigga must have
cracked them nigga’s at the g-spot.”
 
Well, I could not take the credit for Fungler’s work so I was honest and
told him.
 

“Hell yeah, nigga, you know how I do!” I said.

You see C was my right-hand man and he always warned me
about me having the shakes -
an
addictive gambling problem
.
 
He was there when I won and there when I
lost.
 

“I’ll be there in 15 minutes,” he said.
 

While I was waiting, I saw a friend of mine named
Fredis.
 
He ran the g-spot and knew me
since I was a youngster.
 
He came over to
me and playfully said, “Let me hold something before the hoes get you!”
 
I knew he was joking ‘
cause
he was another get-money, Harlem cat whose pockets stayed phat.
 
Me, I wasn’t a Harlem cat I was just ah…um a
person that lived in Harlem.
 
I jokingly
told him that he was too late because this money was already spent last
week.
 
He gave me
dap
, and while I was waiting for C we reminisced on when I first
came to the gambling spot.
 
Back then, I
really did not have any money.
 
I used to
just come to watch all the hustlers, scammers and real Harlem thugs
gamble.
 
It would be a smoked filled room
with weed and anything else you wanted to smoke.
 
Everybody had their own as I should say trade
or M.O. or modus operandi – hustle.
 
You
had credit card scammers, pick pockets, and real live pimps; I am talking
perms, rollers in their hair and all.
 
I
would just sit there and listen to the tales of whose making the most money and
who fell off.
 
I got to know a lot of
people and they became my illegitimate family.
 
I learned and I witnessed everything.
 
Females would come in there looking good, all dressed up and dudes would
try to holla but these chicks were about their business.
 
They were professional boosters.
 
I mean from hair spray to expensive mink coats,
you could get it at the g-spot.
 

I remember one time I was hanging out there and Fredis asked
me to go with him to one of his other spots - crack houses.
 
I was about 15 years old and he kind of
always looked out for me.
 
So, I went
with him up there to drop off some stuff.
 
When we got there all I saw were about 5 or 6 guys, some sitting, some
standing – all getting blow jobs.
 
I was
like oh shit!
 
It shocked me, seeing that
I was still a vir…had yet to participate in anything yet.
 
Fredis saw the look on my face and without me
knowing pushed me out into the middle of the room.
 
I tried to play it off like nah I am cool but
they wouldn't let me walk.
 
So the chick
who was not a bad looking crack head proceeded to give me a blowjob, little did
anybody know that it was my first one.
 
See White people would be like, “When I was underage an older woman
touched me,” all sad looking and shit.
 
Whereas young Black dudes in my hood would be saying, "Yo, Miss
Peterson sucked your dick too?"
 
Laughingly they’d give each other
dap
,
and say, "I am going back tomorrow, and she’ll make sandwiches!"
 

Boy, I tell ya’ back in those days ’86, ’87 crack first hit
the streets hard.
 
Whew!
 
I remember Fredis and a bunch of other guys
in the neighborhood had all the fine chicks in the Projects.
 
They would not give a young brother, like
myself, any play, knowing that my only source of income was a summer youth
job.
 
What happened to that program?
 

I remember taking a kitchen knife with me to the armory on
139
^th
Street to get my check then risking my neck to go to Jew-man’s
store that sold the latest sneakers for cheap.
 
The knife was for the people waiting outside the store to rob you.
 
Then I would try to impress these fly
girls.
 
Then crack hit and now it was
like freaknik up in those burnt out buildings.
 
Every time one of those fly chicks slipped and got strung out, news
traveled like a police blotter.
 

EXTRA!
 
EXTRA LISA FROM BLDG 1
WITH THE FAT ASS THAT USED TO DATE CARLOS IS OPEN!

With $5 and a dream all young dude’s fantasies would come
true.
 
So at this time C pulls up and we
bounce to the liquor store, it ain’t far.
 
We got some
hennimus
and park
in the “office” the corner of 155
^th
Street 8
^th
Avenue, in
front of the supermarket.
 
You see, C is
a State Corrections Officer and he was always telling me that I had to step up
with my job game.
 
As it was, I worked as
a security guard, one step up from a summer youth job, being that it was all
year round.
 
I told him that I had taken
several City and State job tests and was still looking.
 
I was looking ever since I came home from the
Marines as a Gulf War veteran.
 
Yeah, I
know what you’re thinking…security guard.
  

IN MY PROJECTS

After he dropped me off at my building, we had agreed to
meet up later to hit a club.
 
On my way
into my building I ran into, Junebug, a local crack head that would fix
anything for you, a TV, a typewriter, a radio, anything.
 
He asked if I wanted to buy some
batteries.
 
He assured me that he had had
them for 1 year and that they were still good because he kept wrapping them
with aluminum foil and putting them in a refrigerator.
 
I wondered, ‘Nigga, you live in the
streets.
 
Where’s the fridge?’
 
I bought them from him not because I needed
them.
 
I already had my own batteries,
wrapped in aluminum foil in my fridge that had lasted me 3 years.
 
I bought them because officially he was my
cousin from my mother’s side of the family.
 
Nobody really knew this fact.
 
You
know sometimes it’s embarrassing to have a family member strung out on crack,
but then in my neighborhood who didn’t have a family member who was a part of
this epidemic?
 
While I was in the
military my brother died from the drug.
 
So, after I copped the batteries with the lifetime warranty, I proceeded
to get on the only elevator out of six that was still working.

As I stepped in I saw the pool of
piss on the floor.
 
The gremlins aka kids
or grown-ups who piss in the elevator and spit on the buttons so you could not
press your floor were hard at work.
 
I
often wondered why the military was wasting time trying to find Saddam Hussein
when they should be trying to catch these muthafuckers.
 
Well, anyway after I got Junebug to press my
floor button for me, the elevator door closed and it started up.
 
Then the muthafucker jumped, stopped then
started up again going at a snail’s pace.
 
All I could do was curse and think again about what C had told me about
stepping up my job game.
 
I knew I had to
because my situation right then was crazy.
 
I had a bullshit security job that wasn’t paying much.
 
I was married to my childhood sweetheart who
lived on the same floor as I did with my two kids around the corner.
 
She lived with her moms and I lived with
mine.
 
I was trying to get a better job
so I could get us an apartment and so we could act as a family.
 
Although she and I had our differences while
I was in the military, we were still willing to try.
 

We had a son and a daughter and I
desperately needed to do something because I grew up around here all my life
and times were changing fast.
 
It used to
be that it was a level of respect because all of the muthfuckas doing the
robbing and killing were the same individuals that your moms used to babysit.
 
So it was a weird sense of comfort that you
knew that your momma might get robbed but they weren’t gonna kill her.
 
Nowadays, these young kids don’t care.
 
Yo momma, my momma, it don’t matter.
  
Anybody can get got.
 
The Projects is something else and I knew I
had to get out.
 

As the elevator got to my floor,
before I got out, I let out a real stinky fart, a little present for the next
person who’s going to walk into the elevator…you know, to go along with the
spit and the piss.
 
Shit, fuck dat!
 
Them nigga’s do it to me.
 
As I was walking to my door I checked the
walls for the latest news of what’s going on in the Projects.
 
It’s always in the form of graffiti.
 
They always had some shit like, “If you
wantcha dick sucked, go see Tasha or Monique in apartment such and such.”
 
I hope I never see my daughter’s name upon
that wall.
 
If I do,
somebody gots to die.
 
So, after
scraping the bottom of my feet on the hallway floor, my best attempt to get the
piss off the bottom of my shoes, I entered my mother’s apartment.
 
Yes, I was living with Mom Dukes at the age
of 29.
 
Man, I am trying to get out.
 
I am trying.
 

As per usual, I put down my
things and proceed to look in the pots to see what she cooked.
 

“Boy, go and wash your hands,”
she yells from the back of the apartment.

I know not to stop at a fast food
joint, 'cause my Momma cooks.
 
If I slip
up and bring home some sautéed cat su’ flay from the local Chinese joint, I
would definitely get the beat down like
Willie
.
  

“Don’t do it, Willie.
 
Don’t do
it!”

“You got some mail,” she said.

So, I went over to the table to
see which bill collector was requesting my attention and that’s when shit
started to change.
 
I got a letter from
Corrections stating that I was to start at the Academy on July 10
^th
.
 
That was 1997.
 

After I read the letter, I was
hyped.
 
Things were finally changing for
the better for me!
 
Here I was with about
$3,000 in my pocket.
 
My paycheck was
only $300 and change.
 
Now I had 10 times
that amount.
 
That’s the way it was at
the g-spot, you could either be a thousanair or you could end up hanging
yourself in a matter of 15 minutes.
 
So,
here I was with 3 g’s and, not to mention, the batteries I copped from
Junebug.
 
I already wrapped them and put
them in the freezer behind the smoked neckbones.
 

So I ran to my Momma and sat on
her lap – yeah all 260 pounds of me.
 
She
screamed, “Boy, if you don’t get off of me!”
 
All I could do was
show
her the letter from the
Department of Corrections, and when she read it she jumped up screaming out
loud, "You did it!"
 
I mean me
and my Momma hugged and danced around the living room.
 
We did the robot, the snake, the Patty Duke
and then she went and did the watussy (she lost me there).
 
Then she came back with the roach
stomper.
 
We both did this very well ‘
cause
we had a lot of practice.
 

I ran and jumped in the shower
singing JayZ’s
“I’m a hustler, baby.
 
I just want you to know.”
 
I peeked at the mirror and said, “You
know you love me.”
 
After I got out I
went to my closet which consisted of my brother’s military uniforms (he was a
Marine, God bless him) and a whole bunch of other stuff that wasn’t mine.
 
There was only a small space for my
clothes.
 
You know at 29 you ain’t
supposed to be staying at your moms.
 
You’re supposed to be there just long enough to get on your feet and
then get your own place.
 
Well, my small
space had all my outfits for partying.
 
I
had a Chinese mock neck and a pair of ice-cubed slacks.
 
Seriously, I had 30 different shirts and 1
pair of black pants!
 
When I went out I
would switch my shirts up and wear the same black pants.
 
In the dark, who’s going to notice?
 
So I grabbed the one and only Versace shirt,
took me 3 pay checks to get, but I got it,
yeah
nigga what
, and my never let me down black pants.
 

As I was getting dressed I
thought about my new job as a Corrections Officer.
 
I looked in the mirror and at this time my
mother came to the door of the bathroom and we started discussing what this
meant.
 
My mother broke it down to me
that Corrections was a good job and there were so many things that I could
accomplish with it.
 
I could find an
apartment and really give my marriage a try.
 
And even though in my mind, my wife and I hadn’t really been together in
a while, it sounded nice.
 
We’d front,
but the feelings weren’t there anymore.
 
My mother went on to say that the benefits were good for my kids, Gary,
Jr. and Porsha.
 
They could grow up in a
better environment once I saved up to get a house.
 
She went on to say how proud of me she was
that I stayed out of trouble, went into the Marines, served in the Gulf war and
now landed this job.
 
She hugged me and I
saw her eyes swell up in tears ‘cause she just wanted the best for me and to
see me do good.
 
Ain’t nothing like Mom
Dukes.
 
If you are reading this book and
right now you and your Mom’s is beefing…make up with her ‘
cause
you only get one.
 

After I got dressed I called C and said I’d meet him
downstairs.
 
I had yet to tell him about
my
made
man
status.
 
Yes,
made man
.
 
In the ghetto everybody knows that if you
land a city or state job you hold on to that particular a job, you do your 20
years and retire young, depending on your age when you start.
 
The
made
status goes as follows:
 
1. consistent
money – never worrying when or where the next check is going to come; 2.
consistent coochie – the chicks that would not give the “one-step up from a
summer job” brother a look are now constantly dropping the draws because of BEN
O FITS; 3. and the perks – everybody in the hood will now know that nigga got a
gun and a muthafuckin’ badge!
 
Traffic
stops – whip out the badge – BAM!
 
Bouncer at the club – stop – BAM!
 
Subway and bus – BAM!
 
Chicks
putting up a coochie stop sign – BAM! BAM!
 
HA HA!
 
I felt like Master P
‘cause in the Projects sometimes that badge had NO LIMITS!
 
I met C downstairs and we went back to the
liquor store you know to preflight before we got to the club.
 

When we got there it was after 12 so the store was closing
and the Indian dude would not let me in.

If I had my badge – BAM!
 
He’d let me in.
 

C and I went to the Chinese restaurant/number-hole spot or
place where people play illegal numbers, the ghetto OTB and I don’t mean Old
Tenement Building.
 
It was a place where
you can get liquor after hours. What?
 
Don’t
act like there are no bootleggers in your hood.
 
After I got the McFinister aka Hennessey we jetted to the club.
 
On the way there I told C about me becoming a
C.O. and he was like, “Ooooh shit!
 
These
chicks better lock their coochies up!”
 

“Ya know that’s right!
 
Do they still make chastity belts?” I asked.

“Yeah.
 
Now they are more up to date, they have
combination locks on them,” he said.

We both laughed.
 
As C
and I drove down to the club I thought to myself that this job wasn’t about
chicks or perks, it was about survival, me doing whatever I had to do to take
care of my family.
 
I came out of deep
thought when one of my favorite songs came on the radio.
 
I told C to turn that shit up.
 
He did and all you could hear was Cassidy’s
song, “I’m a Hustler, Homie.”
 
I sung the
verse simultaneously with C.
 
In my own
thoughts I said, ‘You better ask about me.’