King

by Johnson, Tremayne

  Jay-Roc picked one up and looked me in the eyes.

  ''It’s crack, nigga!'' He said, like I was already supposed to know.

  ''Crack?'' I questioned, dumbfounded.

  I dropped the vial I was holding like it was a virus that could kill me. I had heard about crack from my mother and the teachers in school, even on television. There would be commercials like, ''Crack Kills!'' or they would show an egg cooking in a frying pan and they would say, ''This is your brain on drugs''. Asia told me that her mother used crack and it made her very sick.

  I didn’t know what to think at this point. I just stared at Jay-Roc with a stupid look on my face.

  ''What the fuck are you lookin’ at me like that for Deon? I ain’t smokin’ this shit if that’s what you were thinkin’. I sell this shit, I been sellin’ this shit since before we even met. What the fuck did you think Jay-Roc stood for? My name is Jayson and I sell Roc, nigga!''

  A big smile spread across his face, but it was hard for me to find any humor in the situation. My best friend just told me that he sells crack. Everyone except for me had to know what was going on. I felt kind of stupid. I didn’t know too much about drugs, but one thing I did know was that if you could make all that money selling those little white rocks...I wanted in.

  ''How much do they pay you for the crack, Jay-Roc?'' I asked.

  ''One of these sells for twenty dollars,'' he answered, holding up one of the vials.

  ''Twenty-dollars!'' I shouted. ''For that little thing?''

  ''Shh...not so loud, Deon,'' he said. ''You do know this shit is illegal. Yeah, those crack heads pay me a whole twenty-dollars for one of these vials. That’s crazy right?''

  Crazy wasn’t even what I was thinking. Stupid, was a bit more along the lines of what I thought.

  Jay-Roc and I sat on the steps for hours. I learned a lot about the game and even more about the neighborhood I lived in. People who I knew as hard working citizens were drug addicts.

  Like old man Ray from the second floor; he was always at the grocery store helping people put their bags in the cabs or the trunks of their cars. I always thought that was his job, but Jay-Roc put me on. He told me old man Ray was into heroin heavy, but the bagging thing was his hustle. He said you had to have a hustle in these streets in order to survive. Just like the job I got at the barbershop, it’s just that some hustles are legit and some aren’t.

  Another thing Jay-Roc told me that shocked the hell out of me was that Mrs. Baker, who stayed two doors down the hall from my mother, and me was a base-head. That really surprised me because she didn’t look like a base-head. To me she looked pretty good to be an older woman. Jay-Roc said that you couldn’t always look at a person and tell if they got high or not. He told me to never judge a person just because they had a habit.

  Mrs. Baker was dealing with some personal issues of her own so I guess the stress of it all was too much for her to deal with. After the loss of her son, I did see a bit of a change in her demeanor.

  Her son, Taj and I hung out a few times before he got killed a couple years ago. He had a serious asthma condition. We used to go up to the roof and jump over to the next building, you know, just having some fun. One day the police came and when Taj went to reach for his asthma pump the police thought he was going for a gun and shot him nineteen times. He died right there in my arms.

  Shootings of innocent people by the police seemed like the norm around my way, but when Taj got killed it really hit home for me because that was someone I grew up with and became good friends with. You never knew when tragedy would strike in the hood.

  I had a million more questions that needed to be answered, but it was getting late and soon my mother would be shouting at the top of her lungs from the window telling me to come inside. I hated when she did that. Jay-Roc said he had to work anyway and I had school in the morning. He had stopped coming to school all together. He said he couldn’t make any money being in school. I guess he was right.

  That night I lay in my bed thinking of all the possibilities that could be if I started selling drugs with Jay-Roc. My mother wouldn’t have to worry about the bills always being late and us having to live in total darkness. We would keep our refrigerator filled with the best foods instead of the generic welfare stuff we always had, and our gas and hot water would never be turned off again leaving us to sleep with every blanket we had.

  I thought about all the money I could make and how I could save up enough to buy my mother the big house in the suburbs that she always dreamed about and the large amounts of fresh, new gear I would get on top of the nice car I would be driving.

  I knew Jay-Roc wouldn’t mind if I got in on it with him. That was my boy. My biggest problem would be my mother. There was no way she would let me stay out pass nine-o-clock on a weekday, and from what Jay-Roc said he worked the night shift.

  I didn’t go to sleep until four-o-clock in the morning. I woke up at 7am and was tired ass hell. My mother called me into the living room before she left out to go to work.

  ''C’mere, Deon,'' she yelled from the kitchen.

  ''What’s up, ma?'' I asked.

  I pulled out a seat and sat down at our small, kitchen table.

  ''Deon, I got some bad news,'' she said.

  I could tell by her facial expression that this was serious. Despite our struggles, my mother was never the type of person to be sad or depressed. Today her face showed just that.

  Her voice cracked a bit when she spoke to me. ''I got laid off yesterday, Deon.''

  ''Laid off?'' I replied, confused. I didn’t know exactly what she was telling me. ''What do you mean by laid off, ma?''

  ''I lost my job, Deon. The company I work for is downsizing and the people with the least amount of time in are the first to go,'' she explained.

  ''So, they just fire you like that, no warning or nothing?...How are we supposed to live here if you don’t have a job? My job isn’t enough to pay all the bills. What are we going to do, ma?'' I was panicking; I didn’t know how we would make the rent if my mother couldn’t work. How would we get our next meal?

  ''Calm down, Deon...I’m going out today to look for another job. It shouldn’t be too long before I’m working again.'' She said, as if she hadn’t a worry in the world.

  I know for sure that my mother is a survivor, but here, in America, everything revolves around money.

  Just like that my world had been turned upside down. In a period of twenty-four hours my life had changed drastically.

  With no one else to rely on I thought about talking to Jay-Roc and asking if I could team up with him. There was really nothing left to think about. My father was nowhere to be found because he was running from the law, so even if he was around he wouldn’t be of much help. He was a wanted man for a triple homicide.

  I grabbed my book bag and dashed out the house, but I never made it to school. I went up to the roof of my building and cried my eyes out. When I finally stopped feeling sorry for myself I set out to find Jay-Roc.

  For the first time ever I wandered the mean streets of Brooklyn during school hours. I was in search of Jay-Roc. I had to find him and tell him I needed a fast way to earn some money. I went by all the spots I thought he would be at, but he was nowhere to be found. By the time school let out I was exhausted. I went everywhere in Bedstuy and still couldn’t locate him. I remembered that he had given me an emergency phone number just in case anything happened and I needed to reach him. He said it was Shareeka’s home phone number and I could call anytime.

  I ran down the block to the pay phone, dropped a quarter in and dialed her number.

  ''C’mon...somebody pick up,'' I said to myself as I waited.

  The phone continued to ring and just as I was about to hang up I heard someone pick up.

  A female voice on the other end said, ''Hello?''

  ''Hello...um...can I please speak to Shareeka?'' I asked nervously.

  ''Who is this?'' She asked.

  ''This is, Deon,'' I answered.
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  ''Oh, what’s up, Deon? This is me...Shareeka.''

  My heartbeat slowed down a few paces. ''Hey, Shareeka...I need to get in touch with Jay-Roc. He told me if I was ever looking for him and couldn’t find him, to call this number.''

  ''Ok, hold on,'' she said.

  I could hear her scream out his name and tell him someone was on the phone for him. I was happy he was there.

  ''Hello?'' He said, out of breath.

  ''Jay-Roc, what’s up?...It’s me, Deon. I need to talk to you. It’s an emergency.''

  ''You all right, Deon?''

  ''Yeah, I’m good, but...''

  ''So, talk then, nigga,'' he said, cutting me off before I could finish.

  ''It’s not something I want to talk about over the phone. Can you meet me somewhere?''

  ''Yeah, where you at?''

  ''I’m on Halsey by the pizza shop.''

  ''All right, I’ll be over there in twenty minutes...just stay put until I get there.''

  ''Cool...I’ll be waiting right here.'' I said, hanging up the phone.

  I went into the pizza shop and ordered a plain slice and a Pepsi. I was starving. I hadn’t eaten all day because I was too busy running around trying to find Jay-Roc. Now that I had spoken to him I felt much better.

  About a half hour later, a candy apple, red colored Lexus GS 300 came to a stop in front of the pizza shop. I didn’t recognize the driver, but I could see Jay-Roc stepping out of the passenger seat. He looked inside the pizza shop and waved for me to come and get in the car.

  The driver was a chubby, light-skinned kid with a red bandanna wrapped around his head. I had never seen him with Jay-Roc before. When I got inside the car it smelled brand new. I knew by the shiny rims on the car that this kid had to be a hustler. Jay-Roc gave me a pound and introduced me to his friend.

  ''Deon, this is my homie, Lou,'' He said.

  Lou turned in his seat and extended his chubby palm for a handshake. Now that I remember it, I do recall Jay-Roc mentioning Lou. He was the kid from Spofford that helped him out when those other kids tried to jump him. That explained all the red. Lou was a Blood too.

  ''So, what’s the emergency, Deon?'' Jay-Roc asked.

  He tapped Lou on his shoulder and directed him to make a right at the next light.

  ''Umm...do you think we can talk somewhere in private?'' I suggested.

  ''This is family right here Deon. Anything you say to me, you can say to him.''

  ''Oh...ok,'' I said. ''This morning my mother told me she got fired from her job,'' I explained.

  ''Damn, Deon...sorry to hear that. Is she all right?''

  ''Nah, not really, we ain’t gonna be able to pay the bills off my little bit of pay I get from the barber shop,'' I paused and looked out the window at the moving traffic. ''I was thinking I could get down with you and what you got going on.''

  Jay-Roc reached for the volume button on the sound system. He turned the music all the way down and looked at me.

  ''You think you ready for this, Deon?'' He asked, with a serious look on his face.

  At the time I just knew I was ready. How complicated could selling some drugs be? Besides, what else was I going to do?

  I looked him directly in his eyes. ''Yeah, I’m ready, Jay-Roc.''

  He slowly nodded his head up and down. ''Well, listen...we’ll talk more about this later. If you’re still interested then maybe we can work something out. Don’t worry, Deon...I got you. You’re my boy. Anything that’s mine is yours,'' he said with a smile on his face. ''Except for Shareeka!'' He smirked and the three of us broke out in laughter.

  I felt more content about my situation now that Jay-Roc said he would help me out.

  That day we rode around Brooklyn and Jay-Roc introduced me to so many gangsters and hustlers, there was no way I could remember all of their names. I was finally getting a chance to see the type of lifestyle he lived. Jay-Roc was a well-known and liked person because everywhere we went people showed him respect. I never imagined one person being loved by so many others.

  He made it clear to me that respect is the only currency that matters; it’s the true taste of power. He said, ''Without respect you have nothing and are regarded as less than nothing."

  What Jay-Roc showed me that day impressed me a lot. It also motivated me to become someone who the people looked up to. Just like him.

  I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it was too late to turn back now. I was in it until the end.

  Chapter Six

  When I first started out working with Jay-Roc he gave me the job of bottling up the product. I would sit up in Shareeka’s house at her kitchen table and bottle up thousands of cracks. Shareeka’s mother worked two jobs, so she was never home.

  In the beginning, Jay-Roc bought the product already cooked up from this older dude in our hood named Royal.

  Royal was a heavy set, tall Jamaican kid with dirty, gold fronts in his mouth and the cockiest attitude I had ever witnessed. He was from Tompkins projects.

  He was always bragging about how much money he had and all the females he was dealing with. Jay-Roc said he only dealt with him because his prices were good and he always had work.

  He would give me 4 1/2 ounces at a time. Each ounce contains 28 grams. Off each gram I would make 5 twenty-dollar bottles. That meant that I would bottle up $12,600 off each package. The six-hundred on the back would cover the shorts. Jay-Roc would see twelve G’s on every 4 1/2 ounces. After the crack was put into the bottles I would take it over to my house and stash it. He was paying me five-hundred dollars a week to do this. That was more money than I ever had in my life.

  Things began to fall in place. My stash was growing bigger every week and Jay-Roc started to move more and more product as the time went on.

  Before he had only one or two blocks that he would distribute the drugs on, but now he controlled corners all over Bedstuy.

  We would go shopping every weekend for new gear and sneakers. I had so many pairs of kicks I had to keep some at Asia’s house.

  My mother grew suspicious once I started giving her the money for our rent. She questioned me about where the money was coming from and I lied to her. I told her that I was putting in more hours at the barbershop and occasionally, Benny the owner would let me cut a few heads. I knew she didn’t believe me. My mother was no dummy, but she never complained. She always told me to be careful.

  Once Jay-Roc’s clientele grew a lot of dudes got mad because of the money we started to make. One day Jay-Roc came and picked me up to go see the connect.

  As we rode through the Brooklyn streets in his 94’ Ford Taurus, Jay-Roc seemed unusually distant for some reason. He had the music playing low when we pulled up to a group of dudes on Myrtle Avenue.

  He cut the engine and looked over to me. ''Here...hold this,'' he said, passing me a black revolver with electrical tape wrapped around the handle.

  ''What happened, Jay-Roc?'' I asked, staring down at the pistol in my hand.

  ''See, this is the foul part of the game, Deon...'' He said, checking the bullets in the gun he pulled from underneath his seat. ''You gotta let these niggas know up front who’s runnin’ this shit. When you demonstrate strength there will be no revolution.''

  Jay-Roc opened the door and I followed. We approached the group of four dudes who paid us no attention as they continued their conversation.

  ''Royal, let me talk to you for a sec?'' Jay-Roc shouted.

  Royal looked up at us and then went back to talking as if we weren’t even standing there.

  ''Yo, Royal!'' Jay-Roc screamed.

  ''What the fuck you want lil’ nigga?'' He answered.

  Jay-Roc stepped between the four men and quickly put the barrel of the steel to Royal’s head. The other three men slowly back away. I gripped the revolver tightly in my hand unsure of what to do.

  ''I want what’s yours...motherfucker!'' Jay-Roc said, and pulled the trigger releasing a blast of fire from the weapon.

  I stood f
rozen as blood shot into the air and fragments of Royal’s face covered the concrete.

  Jay-Roc then turned the weapon on the three other kids who were trying to run away and hit two of them in the back before they could get any distance.

  ''Deon, lets roll!'' He said, jogging back to the car.

  He threw me the keys and we peeled from the scene in a matter of seconds. I never asked Jay-Roc why he killed Royal. It must have been something that needed to be done. After that it was on!

  The summer of 95’ was the shit! Jay-Roc and I made thousands of dollars and of course we splurged a lot of it on material items, but for my 16th birthday Jay-Roc went to the extreme.

  He paged me early that morning. I had spent the night at Asia’s house. She and I were real close at this point. She’s the one I lost my virginity too. I was also her first, so we were definitely in love.

  I called Jay-Roc back and he told me to meet him outside in front of Asia’s building in ten minutes. He sounded very excited; I didn’t know what was going on.

  Asia insisted she come along with me and we got on the elevator and went down to meet him. As soon as I pushed open the front door I was staring at two brand new BMW M3’s. One was red and the other was pearl white. I saw Lou and Jay-Roc sitting in the red one, but no one was in the white one. Jay-Roc and Lou got out the car.

  ''Happy birthday, my nigga!'' Lou said, handing me a shopping bag full of new clothes.

  Jay-Roc walked around the car to where I stood dangling a set of keys.