by Mack Mama
That was the thing about the streets and the code I lived by. It was death before dishonor, and I honored that code. The funny thing is, I bumped into the traitor years later, and she actually apologized to “me”. I was all ready to bang out when I saw her, but she quickly asked me could we. I was on guard, but I gave her a chance to talk. She told me how she knew she was wrong, and she wasn’t mad about the scar on her face. I looked into her eyes and saw the truth. She was serious. Also, I saw the love. She actually still loved me. She even thanked me for all I had done for her. I was there for her when she couldn’t turn to her own family, and she really appreciated me. She gave me a hug and I felt her sincerity. I was flabbergasted! I looked at her, and told her that she was still very pretty, and I’m glad that I didn’t do any real damage to her face. She didn’t have keloid skin, so the scar blended in smoothly with her creamy complexion. She was a red bone, with thick, long hair to cover the mark. I used to always tell her she was too pretty for the streets. So we laughed and reminisced for a few minutes and, after that, we parted our separate ways. That was the type of experiences I’ve had whenever I bump into people from my past. Either that or I will get the evil looks behind my back. One day, I bumped into the girl whose boyfriend I had shot in the stomach. I ran into her at a beauty parlor. I had forgot, that I shot her man, and actually had the balls to speak to her. She rolled her eyes so hard at me, they almost crossed. If I didn’t have a reputation for being crazy, she probably would have tried to retaliate. Thank God she didn’t, because I am a changed person. However, I am still obligated to defend myself. If you don’t grow and mature, then you will be stuck in your ignorance. The only thing I’m stuck in is my youth. I have done so much time that I haven’t aged in terms of my physical appearance. I take care of my body and watch the things that I put inside of it. I want to live and be healthy, so I can always be here for my daughter. I know how it feels to live your life without a mother. I don’t ever want my baby to feel that pain.
Chapter Ten
WHAT CAN I DO?
This song is all about regrets. It was supposed to be for a soundtrack to a basketball movie that Dale Davis-from the Detroit Pistons- was producing. I had met him at one of my shows. His boy, Dave, had called him and told him about my performance. After that, he drove down in his limousine to meet me. He was looking for independent artists to be on his movie soundtrack, so we chopped it up about his project. It was about a basketball player who was accused of raping a groupie. It loosely followed the Kobe Bryant scandal. I was excited about the song. I did the first verse from the perspective of the psychopathic female who was obsessed with the player and was delusional about the whole situation. It was a different type of song. I had made the lyrics of the hook something everybody could relate to; those who were going through things in their lives.
The hook goes: “What Can I Do to turn the hands back on time?/
How can I go back to make things alright?/Guilty hearts makes the world tell lies/I Just can’t figure out why/I just don’t know what to do..”
I have so many regrets in my life. I can’t turn the hands back on time, so I have to move forward and be a better me. The movie never came out. I just used the song for the soundtrack to my autobiography because it’s so deep. It could be a Lady GaGa tune. The lyrics are poignant and my flow is very abstract.
The turning point in my life was my last and final bid, which I completed in 2009. Prior to that bid, I thought I was done with going to prison, but I had a rude awakening. Yet another person, I tried to help, snitched on me. For that, I received a five year sentence. She kept calling me, begging me to take her out to make some money, until I finally felt sorry for her and gave in. If I would have stayed focused on my career, it all could have been avoided. I had six mixtapes out and a heavy buzz in the underground circuit in New York. Everybody knew or heard of Mack Mama. My album was finished and I had at least fifty songs in my catalog ready to go. I had a promotional tour set-up, and I felt like I was finally going to do it. Then all of a sudden…BAM! I got bagged and my entire life seemed to float right before my eyes. I never got a chance to prepare myself for the bid.
In 2004, I took a woman named Pearl Dixon to Connecticut to make some money, using illegal credit cards. We went to several stores and successfully used the cards to purchase thousands of dollars in electronics and gift cards. At the last stop, which was Home Depot, she went in the store. After ten minutes, I saw the police enter the parking lot. I had my driver leave immediately. I already knew that the gig was up and they were there for her. I had tried to purchase some gift cards and was turned down because my identification didn’t match the credit card I was using. so I left the store and waited for Pearl in the parking lot. I had pulled out the wrong I.D, which I’m never careless to that point. That was a sign that a fiasco was in the making. Pearl called my phone as I was en route to her house to drop off her share of the goods. She told me her bond was $100,000. I told her that if I had that type of money on hand I wouldn’t have been out hustling and the best I could do is get her a lawyer. That wasn’t good enough for her. As I was giving her things to her daughter-something that most hustlers wouldn’t have done- she had her daughter write down the license plates to my Mercedes ML320. Pearl gave it to her arresting officer. Then she wrote a statement, informing him of every store we had been to, and how much I pay my workers for going into the stores and bring me merchandise. She painted the picture that I was the master mind and queenpin of a very lucrative operation. Now that I look back on it, I guess I was.
I had no idea that she had snitched on me, and, from that point, I didn’t hear from her. I called her daughter on several occasions, trying to obtain information on her, so that I could send her some money, but she never returned my calls. I should have known something was up, but that thought never crossed my mind.
On April 6 2005, I was stopped for a traffic violation in Massachusetts and arrested for a having a suspended license. I posted a hundred-dollar bond and, while I was waiting for a cab to pick me up from the station (my truck was towed earlier that day at the time of my arrest), I was rearrested and told that I had a warrant in Connecticut for sixty-five counts of credit card fraud. I was devastated! I didn’t know what they were talking about. I swore that it was some kind of mistake. The police were very nice to me. Actually, they tried to help me, but it was out of their hands. I racked my brains as I sat in that freezing, cold cell, and couldn’t figure out what I had done in Connecticut. After sitting there, shivering in absolute confusion, a lightbulb went off in my head. Pearl! She had got knocked in Connecticut a year ago and she snitched on me. Well, I’ll be damned. Ouch! I was bit once again.
When I went in front of the Judge, after being held in Massachusetts and extradited to Connecticut, he took one look at my lengthy rap sheet, and looked at me in disgust. I felt like a piece of shit. My dear friend, Poochie, was in the courtroom. She had traveled all the way from New York to support me and retrieve my truck from the tow company. I turned around and glanced in her direction. She gave me a sad smile of encouragement. The D.A. droned on and on about my history of warrants-for not showing up at court dates-and the numerous alias’ I used, proving that I was a flight risk. The next statement he made almost caused me to pass out : “So your Honor, in light of her various felonies and out-of-state residency, it’s our recommendation that she be held without bond…”. I held my breath and, a tear ran down my face. I had never cried in court, but I knew that I was done, finished, finito`.
The Judge gave me a five- hundred- thousand dollar bond and scheduled my case for the next month. That was it. I was escorted back to the nasty dungeon, where the inmates were held underground beneath the court. It seemed like my life would never reach the surface. I couldn’t wrap my head around a half a million dollar bond. I was hit! There was no way I could come up with that amount of money. I sat in that bull pen, surrounded by the lost souls. There were crack heads sleeping on the floor, while dope fiends vomitin
g in the steel bowl that we were supposed to share when we needed to relieve ourselves. I wanted to flush myself down that decrepit toilet.
I felt like my career was over. Any chances of my dreams coming true were diminishing, and it was my fault. I should have retired like I said I would. My mind kept rewinding back to the day I took Pearl out, and why she did the unthinkable. Snitching was punishable by death as far as I was concerned. It never failed. Every. Single. Person. I tried to help in those streets had burned me. I wanted to kill her, because she took me from my daughter.
My Velvet was four years old when I left her. It destroyed me. It was history repeating itself. I was five years old when my mother went to jail and my god mother had to raised me. Now, Velvet’s godmother, Queenie, would have to step up to the plate and take over for me. I wanted to crawl up in the corner of that cell and die. I couldn’t stop the “what if’s” They haunted me. What if I wouldn’t have gone out that day I got arrested? What if I would have never went and got Pearl and took her out? What if I would have simply stopped hustling, maybe I wouldn’t have been in that horrific situation. Initially, I felt that my music career would never happen. Once again, I had f**ked up and destroyed all chances of making it, but God had other plans for my life. Had I not got arrested, I would not have changed, and I certainly wouldn’t have wrote my books : “Tales of an Original Bad Girl” and “Daisy Jones”. Everything truly happens for a reason.
When I arrived at the York Correctional Institution, which was affectionately called Niantic by the old-timers who ran in and out of the Prison like it was their time share, I was shocked. I was used to the squat-and-cough deal the correction officers ran you through during intake, but the two pairs of stiff denim jeans, along with the two burgundy, raggedy t-shirts second hand skips they made you wear on your feet were crazy. They took all of my personal possessions and stripped me of my dignity simultaneously. The prison itself was wild due to being the only female lock up in Connecticut, so everybody was thrown together. I was housed with girls that were locked up for murders and had life in prison. I couldn’t believe it. The correction officers were so mean and racist, not only to the blacks but to the white girls, who they looked down on as trash. Niantic was no joke. It was the worst experience of my life. We were locked in our cells eight hours a day.
Now, on the flip side, I have to say that it was a much needed experience, because it changed me in so many ways. The first Sunday of my incarceration, I went to church and heard this woman speak. She was a visiting evangelist. Her testimony was about how she used to be in Niantic, and she was a recovering crack addict. She gave her life to Jesus Christ. He forgave her for all of her sins, which meant that she was saved. That message touched my soul and I cried like a baby. Every layer of hate and anger peeled off of me in that small area we sat in and had church. I cried out to God to forgive me for all of my sins, and I felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I surrendered to Jesus Christ that day and I was serious. I went back to my cell and cut off all my hair. I wanted a new beginning. I wanted to shave off my vanity, so that I wouldn’t attract any attention from the girls. That was my biggest sin; my lust for women. When I cut my hair, I had cut off Mack Mama and had become Christian Coco. I read my bible all day and prayed for my life. I didn’t socialize with anyone but the few ladies who were saved and read their bibles. We had prayer groups and bible study sessions on the tier. I felt a sense of peace. My family couldn’t believe the new me, and were skeptical about my change.
I was put to the test in a major way. I was told to move to another area in the prison, so I packed up my belongings and reported to my new cell. When the door buzzed open, I locked eyes with Pearl. I hadn’t seen her since I’d arrived and didn’t know how I would handle it. So, imagine how I felt when I met my new Bunkie, and it was the person who was responsible for me being in prison. I was shocked. Her face just fell. She looked like she had seen a ghost. I looked at her and felt pity. I told her “Pearl I am saved. I forgive you.” She burst out crying. Then she hugged me, telling me how sorry she was. That experience was the turning point in my growth and development. As you know, from reading my memoirs, that if I didn’t have God in my life, I would still be in prison for seriously hurting that woman in that cell.
She was saved, too. So we read our bibles together and we prayed. She received two years for giving me up, but there was another case in New Jersey that she had to do four years on. All crime were paid eventually. She told on me, but still had to pay her debt to society. I joined the choir in church and started writing gospel rap and songs. I seriously considered going to college for Theological Studies and becoming a pastor. I went to a three day, spiritual retreat called Kairos. It was an awesome program ran by women of the cloth that came in from the outside to show us some much needed love. They helped us learn to forgive and love ourselves, others and God. I couldn’t believe the amount of hate that I had stored inside of me, and I let it all go on that retreat. It felt good to let go of all that bitterness I’ve had stored inside of me for so many years. I wrote my ex-husband a letter and told him that I forgave him for all the physical and emotional abuse he’d put me through. He never responded, but it felt good to release myself from the burden of hate that I felt for him.
When my family heard that Pearl was my cell mate, and we were cool, they knew that I was serious about my new found religion. I was Christian Coco for eighteen months until Satan decided that he wanted me back.
I had become very depressed from missing my daughter. So, I had made a decision that I didn’t want her to visit me in jail, but it was getting to me. Satan knew how to come at me, so he sent a female to lure me back into his lair. She started writing me and going hard, trying to get me. I began liking the attention and slowly stopped reading my bible, the guilt of my attraction to this girl made me stop going to bible study and my prayer groups. I had started writing her back and, before I knew what happened, my lust for women came rushing back like a flood. She wanted to please me, so I finally gave in to my desires. I felt so ashamed that I had let God and my sisters in Christ down that I literally left the whole Christian Coco personality alone. I told everybody to call me Mack Mama because Christian Coco was gone.
Everybody thought I was nuts. I had completely flipped. I had since moved from the cell with Pearl and, when I saw her again, she was in for a shock. I told her I was mad all over again, thinking about how she got me locked up, and took me from my daughter. I wanted to flip on her. Satan had won. He lied dormant, waiting to strike and attack when I was at my lowest, most vulnerable point. When slipped into a depressive state, I had lost faith in God’s word, and Satan caught me slipping. As of this writing, I am still a back slider in terms of my commitment to Jesus Christ, but in the eyes of my lord and savior, I am still his child. He patiently awaits for me to return back to his throne. I know that I have a calling in my life and I am highly favored by the Lord. I will be back!
Chapter Eleven
DANCE ON
I was moved to the east side of the prison, which held the inmates who were considered minimum risk and had done a large percentage of their sentence. I had done two-and-a-half years and, by right, I should have been home because I had a nonviolent crime. However, I had some fights and a physical altercation with a C.O., so I got hit at the parole board. When I turned back to my old self, all of the anger returned. I had zero tolerance for the bullshit that went on in that prison. To be honest, it all stemmed from the “bulldaggin”. I was fighting over the girl I was with simply because other females were jealous and wanted to be with her. She had a fan club, but she wasn’t worth all the drama. She was a freak and a big flirt. So, I was involved in nonsense that I wasn’t used to, and totally out of my character. I should have been focused on my freedom, but I slipped and got lost in that ignorant mindset. That can easily happen when you’re surrounded by that much negativity. Birds of the same feather flock together, and when you sleep with dogs, you wake up with fleas. I grew up listening
to the wise adages of my deceased, sweet godmother. She had a saying for every situation and those are my favorites.
I actually did fifty four days in segregation behind shoving a correction officer out of the way to get to the freak I was with. I found out that she was creeping on me and wanted to rip her head off. While I was in segregation, I found a peace of mind. It was serene. I was in the cell by myself and no one bothered me. I spent my days writing and creating new songs that I would perform over and over again for my audience. The seven other inmates that filled the cells on the tier were all I had to entertain. They appreciated me spitting a hundred bars and singing at the top of my lungs like I was a contestant on American Idol. I would look in the plastic tin foil, which served as a mirror in my cell, and imagined that I was on stage. I used my imagination and transported myself out of that tiny cell and felt the heat from the spot light. I heard the roar of approval from the crowd and my heart would soar. I couldn’t wait to get home. I would practice giving interviews, and I actually gave a lot of girls in that prison my autographed head shot pictures that I had my family send in. I always carried myself like a star. I wrote a song once inspired by a C.O. who laughed at me when I told her that I was going to be a star.
