I grew up in DC in the 80's in a little spot off Florida Ave in North East, by the time I was 13 I was moving 20-30 grand of soft and hard ( powder coke and crack) a day, my cut was $2,000 and my mom would also get paid $1,000 for letting me "hang out".
I would like to tell you my name and introduce myself like everyone else but if I did I couldn't tell my story, It will be the first time I have ever shared my life story with anyone who didn't grow up in my neighborhood. My life today is completely different than it was back then.
I had never seen a white person in real life before only on T.V.
I grew up on Orleans and Morton Place in DC from the time I was born in 1976 until 1990 when I moved to Baltimore. My block, known as "the strip" was two one way streets parallel to each other that were about two blocks long with a few alleys that connected them, row houses jammed together, split into apartments. Around 1986 I noticed a change, some of the older guys from around there started hanging outside all the time, more traffic started coming down the street, people walking and white people in cars with MD and VA plates. The white people was the craziest part for me because I had never seen a white person in real life before only on T.V.
One day on my way home from school one of the guys on the corner asked me if I could run to the store and grab him some cigarettes and beer from the corner store, back then they didn't ask for id, you would just tell them who it was for and they would sell it to you. He gave me a $50 bill and told me to get whatever I wanted too, I don't remember what I got but when I went to give him back his change he told me to keep it. After that I made sure to walk by them everyday on my way home from school to see if they needed anything, it didn't take long until this paid off big time.
Everything happened so fast it seemed like overnight.
In reality it was about a year after the changes on the block started things got really different, my street was always known for cocaine but all of a sudden it became the Mecca, they were selling over $100,00 in powder a day. My street got so busy there were cars coming down it 24/7, the guys on the corner were there 24/7 and there were more of them sometimes 20 - 30, people constantly coming out of the alleys. Sometimes I would see familiar faces but as time went on they looked different, when I first started seeing the white people they would come into my neighborhood in nice cars and nice clothes but a year later the nice cars were gone, the nice clothes became stained t-shirts and sweatpants or dirty looking jeans, there faces looked darker, thinner, eyes wider. The guys from my neighborhood were the opposite, now they were all dressing in fly clothes, wearing lots of gold, and driving really nice cars.
In 1987 one of the corner guys introduced me to a man named Johnny. Johnny asked me if I liked football and then told me he would pay me $200 a day to play catch with the guys on my block after school, I agreed and the next day after school when I got home I stayed outside and tossed a nerf football to the guys up and down the block. The nerf football was empty in the middle and filled with small bags of coke, so when a customer would walk up one of the guys would whistle, I throw the football to him, he serves the customer and throws the ball back to me. When the ball was empty they would put the cash in the football and I would throw it to another guy who would throw me a new football.
I didn't know at first but when I came home and showed my mom the money she went and talked to Johnny, I thought I was in trouble but after that I was getting paid $400 and she would get paid $400 and she made sure I as out there every day. It didn't take long before I figured out what was going on.
It only took about 2 weeks outside before I saw someone get killed.
It was two black guys in a blue Malibu. Just like usual the car pulls up, whistle, throw football I was waiting for him to throw the football back and I see the guy in the car reach out and snatch the football and BANG, I see a flash of light and the guy from my block is on the ground, the Malibu spins it's tires and takes off, at least 10 guys on the strip shot at the car. I don't know which one hit him but the Malibu slammed into the house at the end of the street. Then two of the guys from my neighborhood walked over, opened the drivers door and fired two shots, walked over to the passenger side opened it and pulled the guy out of the car and started stomping on him until the whole front on his face was indented, they stomped him so bad I think they smashed the back of his skull too from the pressure on the concrete. When they were done they put his body in the back seat and moved the drivers body to the backseat threw me the football and then drove off in the car.
I am going to stop here for now, It's hard to share some of this. Like I said in the beginning, I have worked hard over the past 20 years to run as far away from who I was and where I came from. I will say that this is just the tip of the iceberg, once I got hip my story gets pretty deep.