The brothers out here now hustle drugs, hard drugs, coke, ecstasy, crack, heroin; our hustle back when we were fourteen, fifteen and sixteen was running numbers. I had a partner named Elijah, El and I worked for Manny. Manny was a big old country boy and drove a big old caddy, an all red Coup Deville. Manny worked for Bone, Bone was the headman as far as we knew, I’m sure there was someone higher in the neighborhood but Bone was the top for us, he was where the money went and the orders came from. He gave his terms to Manny and Manny gave his terms to us. Bone grew up in the house right next to mine but he was much older and had already moved by the time I came along but he had been in the neighborhood all that time. El and I were the youngest of everyone running numbers in Bone's crew, when we started I was fifteen and El was fourteen, everyone knew we worked for Manny so we didn’t really have to worry about anyone fucking with us. Aside from that we had made our own reputation before Manny brought us in, that’s what caught his attention to us in the first place. We made money here and there around the neighborhood, small change at first but we gradually began to manage larger and larger takes. We went from stealing bikes to strong-armed robbery to burglary to armed robbery. I got my hands on a .32 automatic, which became my trademark and El managed to come across a black .22 revolver with a pearl handle and everywhere we went one of us carried a gun, usually me. If you passed us on the street and we didn’t know you, chances are you were about to be robbed. If we liked your sneakers they were ours, if we liked your chain it was ours, if we liked your coat, it was ours. Houses, stores, cars and people, all potential opportunities but we had our rules. One, never snatch anyone’s pocketbook. That woman could be your friend’s mother, two, no senior citizens under any circumstances, and three you not only don’t rob on your block but you also protect it. And last but not least, it was sort of an unspoken rule not to sell drugs, oh yeah I admit we robbed a weed house once but we kept the weed for ourselves, we did try to sell some to Manny’s brother Sam but that deal went bad when the cops pulled up behind Sam’s white caddy as we were passing him a manila envelope of about ten ounces of marijuana through the window, Sam pulled off and the cops sped off in pursuit leaving Elijah and I standing there with Sam’s money and the weed all over the street.

more to come...
- Gordon Gray