by Mike Tyson
“Give me my bird back,” I protested.
Gary pulled the bird out from under his coat.
“You want the bird? You want the fucking bird?” he said. Then he just twisted the bird’s head off and threw it at me, smearing the blood all over my face and shirt.
“Fight him, Mike,” one of my friends urged. “Don’t be afraid, just fight him.”
I had always been too scared to fight anyone before. But there used to be an older guy in the neighborhood named Wise, who had been a Police Athletic League boxer. He used to smoke weed with us, and when he’d get high, he would start shadowboxing. I would watch him and he would say, “Come on, let’s go,” but I would never even slapbox with him. But I remembered his style.
So I decided. “Fuck it.” My friends were shocked. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I threw some wild punches and one connected and Gary went down. Wise would skip while he was shadowboxing, so after I dropped Gary, my stupid ass started skipping. It just seemed like the fly thing to do. I had practically the whole block watching my gloryful moment. Everybody started whooping and applauding me. It was an incredible feeling even though my heart was beating out of my chest.
“This nigga is skipping, man,” one guy laughed. I was trying to do the Ali shuffle, to no avail. But I felt good about standing up for myself and I liked the rush of everybody applauding me and slapping fives. I guess underneath that shyness, I was always an explosive, entertaining guy.
I started getting a whole new level of respect on the streets. Instead of “Can Mike play with us?” people would ask my mother, “Can Mike Tyson play with us?” Other guys would bring their guys around to fight me and they’d bet money on the outcome. Now I had another source of income. They’d come from other neighborhoods. I would win a lot too. Even if I lost, the guys who beat me would say, “Fuck! You’re only eleven?” That’s how everybody started knowing me in Brooklyn. I had a reputation that I would fight anyone – grown men, anybody. But we didn’t follow the Marquis of Queensberry rules in the street. If you kicked someone’s ass it didn’t necessarily mean it was over. If he couldn’t beat you in the fight, he’d take another route, and sometimes he’d come back with some of his friends and they’d beat me up with bats.
I began to exact some revenge for the beatings I had taken from bullies. I’d be walking with some friends and I might see one of the guys who beat me up and bullied me years earlier. He might have gone into a store shopping and I would drag his ass out of the store and start pummeling him. I didn’t even tell my friends why, I’d just say, “I hate that motherfucker over there,” and they’d jump in too and rip his fucking clothes and beat his fucking ass. That guy who took my glasses and threw them away? I beat him in the streets like a fucking dog for humiliating me. He may have forgotten about it but I never did.
With this newfound confidence in my ability to stand up for myself, my criminality escalated. I became more and more brazen. I even began to steal in my own neighborhood. I thought that was what people did. I didn’t understand the rules of the streets. I thought everybody was fair game because I sure seemed to be fair game to everybody else. I didn’t know that there were certain people you just don’t fuck with.
I lived in a tenement building and I would rob everybody who lived in my building. They never realized that I was the thief. Some of these people were my mother’s friends. They’d cash their welfare checks and maybe buy some liquor, and they would visit my mom, drink some liquor, and have some fun. I’d go into my room and go up the fire escape and break into their apartment and rob everything from their place. Then when the lady would go upstairs, she’d discover it and run back screaming, “Lorna, Lorna, they got everything. They got the babies’ food, they got everything!”
After they left, my mother would come into my room.
“I know you did something, didn’t you, boy? What did you do?”
I’d say, “Mom, it’s not me. Look around,” because I would take the food and stuff and leave it on the roof and my friends and I would get it later.
“How could I have done anything? I was in the room right here, I didn’t go anywhere.”
“Well, if you didn’t do it, I’ll bet you know who did it, you thief,” my mother would scream. “You’re nothing but a thief. I’ve never stole nothing in my life. I don’t know where you come from, you thief.”
Oh, God. Can you imagine hearing that shit from your own mother? My family had no hope for me, no hope. They thought my life would be a life of crime. Nobody else in my family ever did stuff like that. My sister would constantly be telling me, “What kind of bird don’t fly? Jailbird! Jailbird!”
I was with my mother one time visiting her friend Via. Via’s husband was one of those big-money showing-off guys. He went to sleep and I took his wallet out of his pocket and took his money. When he woke up, he beat Via up real bad because he thought she had stole the cash. Everybody in the neighborhood started hating my guts. And if they didn’t hate me, they were jealous of me. Even the players. I had nerve.
It felt incredible. I didn’t care if I grabbed somebody’s chain and dragged them down the stairs with their head bouncing, boom, boom, boom. Do I care? No, I need that chain. I didn’t know anything about compassion. Why should I? No one ever showed me any compassion. The only compassion I had was when somebody shot or stabbed one of my friends during a robbery. Then I was sad.
But you still fucking do it. You think they’re not going to kill you; that it can’t happen to you. I just couldn’t stop. I knew there was a chance I would get killed but I didn’t care. I didn’t think I would live to see sixteen anyway so why not go hard? My brother Rodney told someone recently that he thought I was the most courageous guy he knew. But I didn’t consider myself courageous. I had brave friends, friends who would get shot over their jewelry or watches or motorcycles. They weren’t giving it up when people robbed them. Those guys had the most respect in the neighborhood. I don’t know if I had courage, but I witnessed courage. I always thought that I was much more crazy than courageous. I was shooting at people out in the open while my mother looked out the window. I was brainless. Rodney was thinking it was courage but it was a lack of brainpower. I was an extremist.
Everyone I knew was in the life. Even the guys who had jobs were hustling on the side. They sold dope or were robbing. It was like a cyborg world where the cops were the bad guys and the robbers and the hustlers were the good guys. If you didn’t hurt nobody, nobody would have talked to you. You would be labeled as square. If you did bad, you were all right. Somebody bothered you, they’d come fight for you. They’d know you were one of the guys. I was so awesome, all these sleazy, smiley scumbags knew my name.
Then things started to escalate. I began to come into intimate contact with the police. Getting shot at in Brownsville was no big deal. You’d be in the alley gambling, and some guys would come running in shooting at the other guys. You never knew when the shit was going to go down. Other gangs would drive through on their motorcycles and, boom, boom, they’d take a shot at you. We knew where each crew would hang out, so we knew not to go certain places.
But it’s something else when the cops start shooting at you. One day a few of us were walking past the jewelry store on Amboy Street and we saw the jeweler carrying a box. I snatched the box and we started running. We got close to our block and we heard car tires screech, and some undercover cops ran out of the car and, boom, boom, they started shooting at us. I ran into an abandoned building that we hung out in and I knew I was free. I knew that building like the back of my hand. I knew how to go into the walls or go to the roof and go through a hole and be in the rafters above the ceiling. So I did that. I got on top of the ceiling and looked through the hole and I could see anyone walking on the floor below.
I saw the cops enter the building. They started walking across the floor, guns drawn, and one of them went right through a hole in the floor.
“Holy shit, these fucking kids are busting my balls bringin
g me into this building,” he said. “I’m going to kill these fucking bastards.”
I’d be listening to these white cops talking and laughing to myself. The building was too fucked up for the cops to go up to another floor because the steps were falling apart. But there was a chance that they might look up and see me hiding in the rafters and shoot my ass. I thought about jumping to the next roof because that was my building, but it was a ten-foot jump.
So I made my way to the roof and my friend who lived in my building was on his roof. I was on my knees because I didn’t want to stand up and let the cops outside see me, but my friend was giving me the blow-by-blow.
“Just chill out, Mike. They came out of the building. But they’re still looking for you. There’s a bunch of cop cars down there,” he reported.
I was waiting up on that roof for what seemed like an eternity.
“They’re down, Mike. They’re down,” my friend finally said.
So I went down but waited inside a little longer. My friends were looking around the block, making sure the cops weren’t hiding there.
“Just wait some more, Mike,” my friend said. Finally he told me I could go out. I was blessed to make it out of that situation. The jewelry box we stole had all these expensive watches, medallions, bracelets, diamonds, rubies. It took us two weeks to get rid of all that shit. We had to go sell some there, then go to a different part of town to sell some other pieces.
With all the jostling I did, it’s somewhat ironic that my first arrest was over a stolen credit card. I was ten years old. I obviously was too young-looking to have a card, so I’d get some older guy to go into the store and I’d tell him to buy this and this and that and buy something for himself. Then we’d sell the card to another older guy.
But one time we were in a store on Belmont Avenue, a local store, and we tried to use the card. We were dressed clean but we just didn’t look old enough to have a credit card. We picked out all these clothes and sneakers and brought them to the counter and gave the cashier the card. She excused herself for a second and made a call. Next thing we knew, she had cut the card in half and in seconds the cops came in and arrested us.
They took me to the local precinct. My mother didn’t have a phone, so they picked her up and brought her to the station. She came in yelling at me and proceeded to beat the shit out of me right there. By the time I was twelve, this started to be a common occurrence. I’d have to go to court for these arrests, but I wasn’t going to jail because I was a minor.
I used to hate when my mother would get to the precinct and beat my ass. Afterwards, her and her friends would get drunk and she’d talk about how she beat the shit out of me. I’d be curled up in the corner trying to shield myself, and she’d attack me. That was some traumatizing shit. To this day I glance at the corners of any room I’m in and I have to look away because it reminds me of all the beatings my mother gave me. I’d be curled up in the corner, trying to shield myself, and she’d attack me. She didn’t think nothing of beating me in a grocery store, in the street, in front of my schoolmates, or in the courtroom. The police certainly didn’t care. One time they were supposed to write up a report on me and my mother stormed in and beat my ass so bad they didn’t even write me up.
She even beat me up when I was in the right sometimes. Once, when I was eleven, I was shooting dice on the corner. I was up against a guy who was about eighteen. I had a hot hand that day and my friends were betting on the side that I’d hit my numbers. I got down $200, but I hit my number six straight times. I had won $600 of his money.
“Shoot one more time. Shoot for my watch,” he said.
Boom, I hit my 4-5-6.
“That’s the name of the game,” I said. “Gimme the watch.”
“As a matter of fact, I ain’t giving you nothing,” he said and he tried to snatch the money I won from him. I started biting him. I hit him with a rock and we started brawling. Some of my mother’s friends saw the commotion and ran to our apartment.
“Your son is fighting with a grown man,” one of them said.
My mother came storming over. All the other grown men there were letting us fight because they wanted their money. If this guy didn’t pay, nobody else was going to. So I was in the middle of fighting this guy when my mother jumped on me, grabbed my hands, smacked me, and threw me down.
“What are you fighting this man for?” she yelled. “What did you do to this man? I’m sorry, sir,” she said to him.
“He tried to take back his money,” I protested.
My mother took my money and gave it to the man and smacked my face.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said.
“I’m going to kill you, motherfucker,” I yelled as she pulled me away.
I deserved every beating I got. I just wanted to be one of the cool kids, the kid in the street who had jewelry on and money in their pockets, the older kids, the fifteen-year-olds who had girlfriends. I wasn’t really into girls that much then but I liked having the clothes and getting all the attention.
By then, my mother was giving up on me. She was well known in the neighborhood and knew how to speak eloquently when she needed to. Her other children had the capacity to learn to get along with others, but then there was me. I was the only one who couldn’t read and write. I couldn’t grasp that stuff.
“Why can’t you do this?” she’d say to me. “What’s wrong with you?”
She must have thought I was retarded. She had taken me to all these places on Lee Avenue when I was a baby and I’d undergo psychological evaluations. When I was young, I’d talk out loud to myself. I guess that wasn’t normal in the ’70s.
Once I got into the court system, I had to go to court-mandated special ed crazy schools. Special ed was like jail. They kept you locked up until it was time to go home. They’d bus in all the antisocial kids and the fucking nuts. You were supposed to do whatever they told you to do but I’d get up and fight with people, spit in people’s faces. They gave us tokens to go back and forth to school, and I’d rob the kids for their tokens and gamble with them. I’d even rob the teachers and come to school the next day wearing the new shit I bought with their money. I did a lot of bad shit.
They said I was hyperactive so they started giving me Thorazine. They skipped the Ritalin and went straight to the big T; that’s what they gave little bad black motherfuckers in the ’70s. Thorazine was a trip. I’d be sitting there looking at something but I couldn’t move, couldn’t do nothing. Everything was cool; I could hear everything, but I was just zonked out, I was a zombie. I didn’t ask for food, they just brought out the food at the right time. They would ask, “Do you need to go to the bathroom?” And I would say, “Oh, yes I do.” I didn’t even know when I got to go to the bathroom.
When I took that shit, they sent me home from school. I’d stay in the house chilling, watching Rocky and His Friends. My mother thought something was wrong with her baby, but I was just a bad-assed fucking kid. They misdiagnosed me, probably fucked me up a little, but I never took it personally when people misdiagnosed me. I always thought that bad stuff happened to me because something was wrong with me.
Besides the zombies and the crazy kids, they sent the criminals to the special ed schools. Now all the criminals from different neighborhoods got to know each other. We’d go to Times Square to jostle and we’d see all the guys from our school, all dressed up in sheepskins and fancy clothes, money in our pocket, doing the same thing. I was in Times Square in 1977 just hanging out when I saw some guys from the old neighborhood in Bed-Stuy. We were talking and the next thing I knew one of them snatched the purse of this prostitute. She was furious and threw a cup of hot coffee at my face. The cops started coming towards us and my friend Bub and I took off. We ran into an XXX-rated theater to hide but the hooker came in shortly after with the cops.
“That’s them,” she pointed to Bub and I.
“Me? I didn’t do shit,” I protested, but the cops paraded us out and put us in the backseat of their car.<
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But this crazy lady wasn’t finished. She reached in through the back window and scratched my face with her long hooker nails.
They drove us to the midtown precinct. As we pulled away from Times Square, I saw my friends from Bed-Stuy, the ones who did all this shit, watching from the street. I had been arrested many times so I was used to the formation. But they looked at my rap sheet and I just had too many arrests, so I was going straight to Spofford.
Spofford was a juvenile detention center located in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. I had heard horror stories about Spofford – people being beaten up by other inmates or by the staff – so I wasn’t too thrilled to be going there. They issued me some clothes and gave me a cell by myself and I went to sleep. In the morning, I was terrified. I had no idea what was going to go down in that place. But when I went to the cafeteria for breakfast, it was like a class reunion. I immediately saw my friend Curtis, the guy that I had robbed the house with who got clobbered by the owner. Then I start seeing all my old partners.
“Chill,” I said to myself. “All your boys are here.”
After that first time, I was going in and out of Spofford like it was nothing. Spofford became like a time-share for me. During one of my visits there we were all brought to the assembly room where we watched a movie called The Greatest, about Muhammad Ali. When it was over, we all applauded and were shocked when Ali himself walked out onto the stage. He looked larger than life. He didn’t have to even open his mouth – as soon as I saw him walk out, I thought, I want to be that guy. He talked to us and it was inspirational. I had no idea what I was doing with my life, but I knew that I wanted to be like him. It’s funny, people don’t use that terminology anymore. If they see a great fight, they may say, “I want to be a boxer.” But nobody says, “I want to be like him.” There are not many Alis. Right then I decided I wanted to be great. I didn’t know what it was I’d do but I decided that I wanted people to look at me like I was on show, the same way they did to Ali.
