Hood Rich: The rise and fall of one of Brooklyn's Finest Read online

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated to my seeds and my earth. They are my motivation for making life changing decisions. They give me the strength to do the things that I need to do

  instead of the things that I want to do.

  Knowledge of self comes before wisdom and understanding!

  ©2016 Corie Allen, Seven Publishing All Rights Reserved

  Rich

  They aint call me “Hood Rich” for nothing… I had the whole Wilson Avenue popin’ from the L stop to Halsey Street. I had some of the rawest coke too. It was so raw, you could step on it, and it was still better than any other coke you could find anywhere in the five boroughs. It was all luck at first though, I must admit. I had the best connect in the world... nobody. I got all those bricks for free.

  The abandoned house on Cooper and Knickerbocker Avenue had been boarded up for fifth-teen years. Word on the Street had it that twenty years ago, an entire family had been murdered in that house. It was the corner house. Everyone thought it was haunted, and so did I. For 15 years no one went in. I would never forget the day that I went in. My whole life changed that day. It was June 21st. I can remember it as if it was yesterday...

  Me and Zeke were walking down Wilson Avenue when we heard the gunshots. A couple of bodies dropped right in front of Razor Sharp barbershop on Wilson Avenue. I could see who was shooting as we ducked down between two cars. It was those crazy ass Moffat Street niggas. Manny ran over to me and handed me a gun

  “Here yo, stash that for me... I’m a holla at you later youngin.”

  Manny patted me on the back and took off running up Wilson Avenue. I stood there with the gun in my hand, frozen in time. I thought to myself for a split second... what do I do?

  Manny was like “Mr. Big” in my hood. I was only seventeen years old and I had just graduated from Franklin K. Lane high school. However, growing up in the hood gave me maturity beyond my years. I knew I needed to get rid of that gun as fast as possible. I looked up and Zeke was already gone, sprinting up Wilson Avenue towards Decatur Street. I could hear the sirens approaching as cops started swarming the area. I ran up Moffat Street towards Knickerbocker Avenue as a patrol car zoomed by me.

  I cut through the school yard to Cooper Street and looked up at the abandoned house. Perfect I thought. It appeared old and dilapidated on the outside. It definitely hadn’t been kept up over the years. It stood three stories high with deep red bricks and white awnings.

  I reached the back door and surveyed the entrance. It was covered by a rapidly rotting wood board. I pulled the boarding back and opened the door. I took a deep breath and stepped inside. I stood there in the kitchen with years of accumulated dust on everything. Dishes were still on the sink and counter. An old metal toaster and salt & pepper shakers sat on an old round breakfast table. I walked through to the dinning room which was almost empty. There was a ladder leaning against the wall and several cans of paint on top of a thick clear plastic sheet. The living room had the same arrangement. The basement door was open. It stood between the living and dinning rooms.

  I inched slowly down the steps. As I cleared the ceiling I could see that the basement had been used as a makeshift casino parlor. The light was dim, and almost nonexistent in the rear. In the front, streaks of hard light cut through the edges of old wood planks that were used to board up the basement windows. There was a bar, and three round tables. Two of the tables had carousels with poker cards and chips. The other table had an old fashioned triple beam scale. There were some Black duffel bags on the floor and a cherry wood armoire against the wall. I looked toward the back of the basement which was dark. I decided not to go back there. I wiped the biscuit off with the bottom of my white tee. Today was the first day I’d actually held a gun. It was a chrome and pearl .357 magnum pistol. I tilted the armoire forward and placed the pistol underneath it. Out of curiosity I walked over to the Black duffel bags and pulled at one of the zippers.

  As I pulled the zipper down, my eyes opened up wide and my pulse quickened. There was forty carefully wrapped plastic packages inside of the duffel. I unzipped the other eight bags and they were the same. I took one of the packages out the bag and sat it on the scale. The package weighed two pounds and eight ounces. My heart started pounding a mile a minute. I began to think... what the hell was I going to do?

  I wasn’t a drug dealer, but I was from the hood. I didn’t know exactly how much this was worth, but I knew it was allot! My mind began to race, catching up to my heart I was thinking I should show Manny. Wait... no... this is worth too much to much. I can’t tell nobody, I thought. I wanted to find out exactly what I had on my hands before I did anything. I decided I would show Manny one of them, and tell him I found it somewhere else. I took off my shirt and wrapped up one of the packages. On my way out all I could think of was who had lived in this house, what happened to them, and why all of those bags were left in the basement. I peeped out of the boarding to be sure that no one could see me coming out. I had to be careful.

  Shakita was walking up the Street. In her day she was one of the flyest chicks in Brooklyn; not that she still didn’t have it.

  Shakita was a curvaceous but slim red bone at 29 years old. She had the prettiest green eyes and looked young too. She would get upset if any of the neighborhood kids called her “Mrs”. She’d rather them call her Shakita, in keeping with her young persona. Shakita had six kids. Only the two youngest lived with her. They were twins, Quran and Teran. The twins were ten years old. The other four kids she had before she turned eighteen were lost in the system. Between her doing drugs and being pimped, she lost her life, or the part of it that was meaningful. Time was taking its toll, but Shakita still looked better than most of the neighborhood chicks. This was mostly because she kept herself up so well. Shakita’s name rang bells like Sunday at twelve o’clock amongst the city’s top hustlers. In her teens she was a ghetto superstar. The two biggest drug dealers in Brooklyn once had bad blood over Shakita. She was a dime piece and she was down for anything, including taking trips and making drops. She was a hustlers dream.

  Shakita used to leave home for days at a time, shacked up with a different drug dealer each week. While on one of her getaways, her mom had a stroke and the state took her children away. She was 17 at the time. When she came home and got the news, she sat on her stoop and cried. I watched from my window across the Street. I remember ... I was 6 six years old then. I watched as Manny walked up the Street and asked her if she was okay. This was the old Manny, before he became “Mr Big”.

  Shakita and Manny were in the same class at Franklin K. Lane high school, although Shakita only appeared in school occasionally. Manny liked Shakita, even though she never gave him the time of day. In fact this was the first time he’d gotten eye contact from her. They talked for a while before she went in the house. Later that night, Shakita and one of her drug dealing admirers rudely awakened the entire block with their’ loud argument. Shortly after her friend left, another one pulled up to pick her up.

  After that night, Shakita was missing for a whole year. One day she reappeared in a yellow cab with a suitcase. Turns out she was in Atlantic City turning tricks on Pacific Avenue. She ran away from her pimp and came back to Brooklyn only to find out that her mother had passed away from another stroke. When the cab pulled up, Manny happened to be sitting a few stoops down. He broke the news and managed to console her.

  The very female that Manny had admired since his days at P.S. 384 elementary school was now in the need of help. Manny had moved up in the crack game during the year she was gone. He’d just taken control of the main three
crack strips in the hood. He also had a crack house on Moffat Street, which was the block he lived on.

  Manny was there for her and it paid off. Shortly after Shakita’s return, the twins were conceived. She was Manny’s trophy, but not for long. Her whorish ways got him into plenty quarrels, and even a shootout before he realized what and who he was dealing with. Manny tried everything from spoiling, to beating her; to no avail. One day Manny came home and caught her having sex with one of his workers. It broke his heart and turned him into a killer. They never found that poor kid. From that point on Manny treated Shakita like the dirt on the bottom of his shoe. He had other females over the house, and even had sex with them with her in the bed. Manny disrespected her in private and in public in front of other people. At one of his private parties, Manny sat in front of the table snorting coke with two naked females. When Shakita walked over to join the activities, Manny stood up and blocked her. He turned her away. Instead he gave her a Dutch that was laced with coke and weed. I don’t think Manny ever thought that Shakita would start smoking straight crack, or get hooked. The next day Manny got booked by the narcs. He couldn’t bailout on the account of his probation. He ended up sitting for nearly twenty-five months in jail on Riker’s Island. When Manny came home, Shakita was turning tricks on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the Galaxy Motel to get high. Manny got on his feet and got her off the streets, however he was always in denial about the whole ordeal.

  With the package in hand I darted out of the alleyway and around the corner and up the block to my stoop. I sat down and placed the package on the step beneath me. I looked across the Street to Shakita’s house. The lights were on and I had just saw her walking towards the block.

  Decatur Street, our block, was usually filled with little kids running up and down the Street. Old folks sitting on they stoops watching the kids and just being plain old nosy.

  The “Fly Girls” sitting on the hood of somebody’s car exchanging gossip. Hustlers standing in front of “Georgie’s”, the corner bodega, slinging cracks. Now today, however, was a different type of day. The hood was deserted after all the shooting that had taken place over the last two hours.

  Bushwick, our neighborhood, was never usually that quiet. Twenty-four hours a day there was nonstop action, especially in the summer. Being a mixed neighborhood, we had: Black's, Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, Dominicans, and Haitians. My block was mostly Black, and Rican though. I lived on the so-called “clean” Decatur Street, between Knickerbocker and Irving. Now the block before mine between Wilson Avenue and Knickerbocker was known as the “dirty” Decatur Street or simply as the “dirty” block. The reason it was called the dirty block is because it was full of run down apartment buildings. My block, the “clean” Decatur had mostly houses and duplexes. It was well kept and all the kids dressed better. We also had all the fly girls. Most of my homies lived on one of the two Decaturs. A few of them lived on Cooper or Moffat streets. We called ourselves “Brooklyn’s Finest”. We named ourselves in homage to the original Brooklyn’s Finest or B-K-F as it was known in the eighties, when Brooklyn had gangs with three letter acronyms. They had Born To Fight or B-T-F, Brooklyn’s Most Wanted or B-M-W, and so on.

  The O.G.’s that was down with the original Brooklyn’s Finest called us “Part Two”. We were all young. Most of us had just graduated from Bushwick High or Franklin K. Lane. We didn’t hustle or gang-war, we was just homies.

  I was sitting there for about five minutes before police cars swarmed the block. A helicopter was shining a spotlight at Shakita’s door. The police kicked it in, and a few moments later Manny emerged at the door in handcuffs and shackles. He was taken away quickly by Homer, NYPD’s top homicide detective. It turned out that one of the guys that dropped in front of the barbershop was playing possum, he was still alive. The police combed the streets until morning looking for that gun (that I had stashed in the abandoned house).

  That night was the second time I saw Shakita cry. It was like a rerun of a sad sitcom. Only this time, I was outside and I was 17. I was old enough to understand what was going on. I got up and walked across the Street. I sat next to Shakita and draped my arm around her.

  “It’s going to be okay.” I told her. I tried to offer some hope. It’s the least I could do.

  “No, it’s not... that was homicide. Aint no corning back from murder. What am I gone do? I aint never work no nine to five. My kids need shit. I’m tired of turning tricks for a couple of dollars. Niggas aint shit either. I know Manny wasn’t shit, but I made him that way. He really loved me and I did him dirty. What the hell am I gone do now?”

  I saw the pain in her eyes. The tears fell to her lap as she trembled and cried in my arms.

  “My life is fucked up... it’s not even worth living no more... shit!”

  Those words struck a nerve, and my heart. My mom killed my dad when she caught him cheating. After shooting him, she turned the gun on herself and committed suicide. I was only five years old at the time. I never dealt with it even though I had a therapist. I just blocked out my parents. It was my defense mechanism. I couldn’t feel. All I could do was block. My foster mom tried to get me to talk about it so many times, but I never did. She was very supportive and caring, and I was very stubborn. She quit trying eventually because I was doing so well in school, and adapting to my surroundings with so much ease. I never spoke about my biological parents, but to hear someone speak of suicide, it forces me to think about my parents. I couldn’t let Shakita do that to her kids. The twins were 10 years old. They were super-cool, Quran and Teran. They already spoke the language of the streets.

  I looked Shakita in her eyes and grabbed her chin. “Your kids... they need you. Remember how you felt when your mom died? Do you want them to feel the same way you felt? Just stay strong... it’s gone work out.”

  I wanted her to believe, but I already knew Manny would be okay. After all, I’m the one who stashed the gun. Shakita looked at me, smiled and said in her tender voice:

  “You aight youngin’... cute too. If you wasn’t so young I probably give you some.” Shakita smiled again. I knew what she was thinking... if this nigga had some money...

  “So what you gone do? You 17, you just graduated. Is you going to college or the army or something. You not like the rest of these tired ass dudes around here. You smart... just don’t be no corner boy, they the worst, they stay broke.”

  I didn’t know too much about the game, but I thought about it. The dudes that stand on the corners never get the cars, and the jewels. Only the bosses had it. I settled it right then and there that I was going to be a boss. Just like Manny was, but bigger, smoother, and smarter. I smiled and looked into Shakita’s eyes. “I’m gone be a boss.” I said I smiled, then she smiled and laughed.

  “Boy... what do you know about being a boss? Do you even know what it takes to be a boss?”

  That was the easiest question of the day I thought. “Money!” I shot back at Shakita.

  “No... boy anybody can make money. It’s what you do after you start getting that money that counts. Lots of dudes start out good, take a fall, and never get back. Sometimes they spend their whole life trying to get back. In and out of jail, beef on the Street, bitches, shootouts. Bosses maneuver they way around all of that shit. I been around bosses all my life. Boy you crazy, you aint never even sell drugs, how you gone be a boss?”

  Shakita was right. I didn’t know shit about the drug game. The only thing that I did know for certain is that I could make money. I knew that Shakita probably knew everything. The only other person I could think of was my foster brother P.J. . He was a big time angel dust dealer. P.J. Was the man to see before he got booked by the narcs trying to buy embalming fluid from the funeral parlor. Cars, jewels, money... P.J. had it all, then lost it all. He’s still doing a four year bit up north in Elmira. I wish I could show him what I had, but I guess for now I had to settle for Shakita’s smoking ass.

  “Can you teach me?” I asked her. There was a moment of
silence as she looked up, then down, and finally at me.

  “How I’m gone do that? Rich you know Manny booked. They kicked in my door. They ran in the house on Moffat Street. Everybody was there. The coke, the money. Everybody got booked. Who you gone work for?”

  I was trying my hardest to keep my secret, but I had to tell somebody. I had to say something.

  “I found something, when my foster mom go to sleep I’m gone bring it over.” Shakita’s face looked confused.

  “What do you have?” She asked.

  “Coke.” I answered.

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know... I’ll show you later.”

  “Aight youngin’, but if I show you, what I get out the whole deal?”

  I knew this shit was coming but I didn’t care, plus I wasn’t gone show her but a little piece of that brick anyway. I had a question burning in my mind though.

  “Shakita, is it true what they say about you... that you smoke the pipe?”

  I just had to ask. I figured I may as well just be straight to the point. Shakita sighed and placed her hand on her hip.

  “Baby I’m a grown ass woman, and I take care of me. I lace my weed wit that naughty shit, but I don’t fuck wit’ no straights. I’m not a crackhead, I just do me. And those same niggas that be talking shit is the same niggas that would be standing in line waiting to taste this pussy. I’m twenty-nine years old and I still look twenty baby. Play your cards right and I might just let you taste it. You just come get me when you ready youngin’... aight!”

  I was speechless. Shakita did still look good, but she had been around the block. I couldn’t trust nobody else to teach me though.

  I went inside my house and sat in front of the computer. I googled cocaine. I decided to do some research before I get down with this. I looked at wholesale prices, Street prices and weights. I also learned about cutting and cooking. I decided to take what appeared to be a quarter of the whole brick and then I broke that in half. Yep I figured an eighth of a brick would be about four and a half ounces. That’s just enough to get me in the game. I decided not to let anyone know what I had. I put the rest of the coke in my closet. I put the four and a half ounces in a zip-lock bag and wrapped it up. I walked over to Shakita’s house. I sat down on the couch as Mr. Nick, the neighborhood smoker/handyman was fixing the door. Shakita was at the top of the steps.