by Mark Anthony
We unloaded a .22 long. We then put one hollow point bullet inside the gun. After the bullet was loaded into the gun, we decided the exact order in which each of us would get shot. Whoever was the first person to get shot, he proceeded to become the next shooter. That’s, of course, if he didn’t die.
Down the line we went, pulling the trigger. Our hearts were beating and our palms were sweating. I was sweating razor blades. We had managed to successfully complete the first round. The second round started and J.P. put the gun to Erik’s head. As Erik cringed and closed his eyes, J.P. pulled the trigger . . . Click! . . . Nothing.
Then Erik took the gun and put it to Latiefe’s temple. Latiefe was stone faced and didn’t flinch. Erik pulled the trigger. Click! No bullet discharged. A sigh was let out by everyone after each attempt. Two more attempts were made, and both of them came up empty, so Randy spun the revolver. It was now my turn to be shot. Randy put the gun to my head. It was eerie because I felt as though my best friend was about to kill me. I sat in the chair. There was a split second of silence . . .
“Hol’ up! Hol’ up! Chill!” I screamed just as Randy was about to pull the trigger. “I ain’t doing it! I’m out!”
“Yo, Holz, you’re a sucker! Word!” everyone yelled. “Five minute wreck!” they screamed as they charged at me in a mob-type fashion.
I tried to bounce, but they caught me and started pounding on my body. I broke loose and ran out of the apartment. I ran all the way out into the street. When they caught up to me, they beat me some more. I screamed in pain, but it was kind of funny at the same time.
“Let me explain,” I yelled as I laughed. “Just let me explain.” I pleaded for mercy.
“Nah, there ain’t no explaining! Your five minutes ain’t up yet, nigga!” Latiefe screamed.
After about ten minutes, I was still getting a whipping and my body was throbbing in pain. Randy stepped in to stop the melee.
“Holz, if I pull this trigger and a bullet doesn’t come out. You’re gonna get wrecked some more.”
Randy pointed the gun straight into the air toward the dark night sky. It was a night where every star in the sky could be seen. He pulled the trigger.
Kaboom! The sound of the gun discharging a bullet filled the night’s air, along with the sight of a flame that discharged from the gun.
Everyone was startled and kind of shook because no one actually expected the gun to go off.
“Yo, what the . . .”
I paused and thought about how close I had come to being shot in the head by my best friend. Again I yelled out very loudly.
“Yo!”
Ten Thirteen
One of the best times of the week was upon us. It was Wednesday, August 7. Fourth Crew went on yet another venture to Harlem. Nah, we didn’t go to buy drugs or anything like that. We went to the world famous Apollo Theater. Like any other Wednesday night, the scene outside of the Apollo after amateur night had concluded was frenzied. People were everywhere.
On that night, Fourth Crew stood out in the crowd like shining stars. We had an inflated sense of pride and self-esteem. We now belonged. For the first time ever, we didn’t travel to the Apollo in a little Toyota or in a beat up station wagon. Nor did we travel there on the subway. And we weren’t all squished into one car resembling a can of sardines, either.
No, none of that. The day that we had long envisioned was finally here. We traveled to the Apollo in cars worth thousands. Each of our eight whips carried no more than four men. We all drove in a convoy one behind the other. We looked like the president and his entourage when he was being escorted into town. My Saab was leading the pack. The words FOURTH CREW! were printed on both sides of all of our cars. The letters were black on top of a chrome background.
As we circled 125th Street, everybody clocked us. We were dressed to the T. Our gold was blazin’ and our ice was shining. After circling around the block a number of times we decided to park and floss in front of our cars. Females glared at us as we stood in front of our cars. The same females that wouldn’t give us the time of day just two short months ago were now captivated by our presence.
Yeah, we kicked game to some of the females who had dissed us weeks before. I knew that they didn’t remember us, but boy did we remember them. As we conversed with them we played high post. We looked away as we talked to them, not giving them our full attention, after all, we were fly and we knew it. We saw in their eyes that they wanted our phone numbers or they at least wanted us to ask them for their numbers.
They sure weren’t going to get what they wanted. Rooted somewhere deep in their minds were their schemes of benefiting from the money we appeared to have. Fortunately, we had pulled and filed the cards on those gold-digging, high maintenance chicks a long time ago. After they finally realized that we weren’t going to ask them for their numbers, they took the initiative. They wrote down their numbers and handed them to us.
“Ha!” We chuckled as we ripped up the little pieces of paper that they handed us. “Next!” We would yell as we prepared to diss some more women.
We didn’t play like big Willies all night, though.
We did give our phone numbers out and we took phone numbers, but only from a select few females who hadn’t dissed us before. Other guys, of course, were insanely jealous of us. But who the hell cared? We blasted our car stereos into the wee hours of the night and had all types of fun.
After we’d left the Apollo and returned to our apartment, we laughed and discussed everything that had happened. And our discussion carried one common theme, and that was: What a drastic difference life was now that we had loot.
The next night was Thursday. And during the summer of 1991, Thursday nights had developed into a big night for urban New Yorkers. A club called the Red Zone was open on Thursday nights. Club promoter Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs had the spot on Thursdays, and he dubbed it “Daddy’s Night.” Everybody who was anybody could be found at the Red Zone on Daddy’s Night. Like most hot spots in New York, the Red Zone was frequented by many rap stars.
Every Thursday night our crew had to represent and make an appearance at the Red Zone. We had to be there simply because that was the place to be. The Red Zone contained the ghetto type of atmosphere that we lived for.
Whenever we would go to the Red Zone we would wait on long lines to get in just as everyone else would. Even the A-list celebrities had to wait on line because that’s how packed the club would always be. After waiting on line we would pay our ten-dollar entrance fee and then we would be inside the jam packed night club, that’s of course after we’d passed through the metal detectors and were frisked.
Every week the music inside the club would be on point. Heads would lose their minds when MC’s like Biz Markie or KRS-One would rip the mic and start freestyling over some ill break beat or whateva. All of the best DJs in New York showed their stuff at the Red Zone—DJs like Kid Capri, Red Alert, and Funkmaster Flex. The Red Zone would always be so rammed that you could hardly move around, much less get busy on the dance floor. But in essence that’s what made it fun. I would get high just thinking about how much fun the Red Zone generated. Inside the club we would smoke our weed, parlay at the bar, dance, and have a good time.
On that Thursday at the Red Zone, the response that we were getting from females continued on the up and up. Everybody wanted a piece of our action. I knew that once the summer came to an end, the club would definitely lose some of its pizzazz, but until it did, you could expect to see Fourth Crew in the joint every Thursday night.
Friday night, Latiefe, Randy, and I sat in Randy’s room counting cheese and discussing what we thought should be Fourth Crew’s next moves as far as our drug business went. As we counted and conversed, Latiefe expressed that he was getting bored with all of our newfound riches.
“Well, it’s like having something that you’ve never had, but always wanted, and when you finally get it, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s not all that I thought it would be,’ ” I explained to La
tiefe.
“Yo, if we do like we did before we had loot, then new ways of flipping our loot will automatically come to us,” Latiefe said.
Randy didn’t understand what Latiefe was talking about. He was about to ask Latiefe a question but I beat him to the punch.
“Yeah,” I said in response to Latiefe. “Let’s go uptown and play some ball until the sun comes up. We could put on them Harlem cats at that park with all the lights.”
“You mean Rucker Park?” Randy asked.
“Yeah, the Rucker. Yo, wouldn’t it be fun if someone organized a midnight basketball league? That way we could spend our spare time constructively, you know, just ballin’ in the park.”
“Word, that would be the move,” Randy added. Then he reminded us of the nighttime basketball tournament that the drug dealers used to run. The tournament was SNIFF.
“Didn’t someone get killed in that tournament?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Randy replied, “I think it was the referee that got mercked. He made a bad call near the end of the game or something like that.”
“Yeah, yo, you can’t make no bad calls and expect to live,” I said.
“Especially when cats are betting fifty thousand dollars on a game!” Randy added. “You gotdamn right you can’t make no bad calls!”
Latiefe, sounding very disgusted, interrupted us.
“What the hell are y’all talking about? I’m not talking about us going to play no damn basketball! Can’t y’all understand what I’m sayin’? I’m bored! I want to jack a nigga! You know what I’m sayin’! Let’s rob some sucker! Y’all wit it or what? Come on, we’ll steal a car, rob a nigga, and laugh, you knaaimean?”
Latiefe, you sound so pathetic, I thought to myself.
“For what?” I asked. “Latiefe, why should we steal a car and rob somebody? We already got loot! When we were broke it was a different story.”
“Why? Because we’re thugs, that’s why! Whach-you mean it’s a different story? I’m sayin’, let’s just do it for fun. Man, y’all niggas is mad boring! And y’all are supposed to be some thug niggas?”
Everyone was quiet for about thirty seconds. We were trying to figure out exactly what we should do with our idle time.
“A’ight, whateva,” Randy said as he broke the silence. “I’m wit’ it. Let’s go have some fun.”
“A’ight,” I agreed reluctantly. “But I’m only doing it if we steal a Blazer.”
“Yeah, all right,” Latiefe replied, sounding very eager to step into sin. “That ain’t no problem. Let’s be out before y’all softy moist niggas change y’all mind.”
Later that night the three of us canvassed the neighborhood of Laurelton. We were looking for a Chevy Blazer. It didn’t matter what year the Blazer was, because all of the models looked the same.
We walked through the dark streets dressed in the latest fashions. We weren’t wearing the preppie-type fashions, though. Instead we were wearing the latest in hoodlum fashions—saggy jeans and all.
As we walked down 228th Street, we came upon a 1987 Blazer.
“Let’s do it!” Latiefe said as he barked his orders.
At that point I was a little skeptical because the Blazer was parked in someone’s driveway.
“Yo, we can’t mess with that one,” I whispered loudly. “We gotta find one that’s parked on the curb. It’s easier access. Plus, this piece could have an alarm or whateva. If they look out their window, they’ll either start shooting, or they’ll be calling the cops, or both.”
“Holz, stop being a sucker,” Latiefe whispered back over the sound of crickets chirping. “Come on, were taking this one while we got the chance. Trust me, we ain’t gonna get caught.”
With that, Randy quickly proceeded to break the driver’s side window of the Blazer. I unlocked the door and got in. I then opened the other door and allowed Latiefe and Randy to jump in.
“Hurry and start the car, Holz!” Latiefe loudly whispered.
“I can’t,” I said in a panicked tone. “I’m having trouble with this pulley. I don’t know what’s up.”
“Man, move the hell out of the way and let me do it!” Latiefe quietly barked.
We switched positions and Latiefe snatched the pulley and screwdriver out of my hand. In seconds he had the car started. He backed it out of the driveway and we were off.
After we had driven two blocks or so away from the house in which we’d stolen the car, Latiefe stopped the car so that we could clean out some of the glass that was inside the jeep. When we were done with that I retook the position as driver and we were again off and driving in search of our first victim.
“Yo, don’t turn that radio on,” I instructed Latiefe. “The system is probably too loud and I ain’t trying to get noticed in this damn car!”
As I realized that we were actually cruising in a stolen car, it was like a brick had hit me, and I couldn’t believe it. Was I just totally stupid or what?
“Man, what are we doing in this car?” I asked. “This whole thing is stupid! What the hell are we doing?”
“Holz, just shut up and drive,” Randy yelled from the backseat. “And, yo, turn that radio on. We ain’t getting caught. We’re just having fun. You tell me how the hell are we gonna have fun with no music? We’re just going for a little joyride. What’s up? You scared or something? Besides, I’m sayin’, I’ll kill somebody tonight before I go to jail, word up!”
Randy, who was carrying the gun that we planned to use in our robbery, reached into the front of the car and cranked the music up. The Blazer was now booming. Everyone could hear us coming from at least two or three blocks away as we drove along the streets of Queens. I abruptly turned the radio off.
“It’s too late at night for that! If it was daylight, then yeah, we could blast it, but not now. We’ll attract way too much attention!”
We drove and drove through just about every town in Queens, South Ozone Park, Howard Beach, Astoria, St. Albans, Hollis, Jamaica, Corona, everywhere.
“Why is it so dead tonight?” Latiefe asked. “Ain’t nobody outside. Where the hell is everybody? We’ve been driving for too long. Yo, forget that waiting for the perfect victim. Man, the next person that we see we’re sticking them up. I’m just itching to jack somebody. I ain’t having no fun yet. This driving and driving and driving is boring!”
In an effort to speed things up so that I could go home and get some sleep, I eagerly agreed.
“Bet! The next person we see, ’cause it’s too late for this nonsense. I could be laid up knocking Kendra’s boots right about now, but instead I’m driving around with y’all clowns. Ain’t nobody out here on the street, ’cause everybody is in the crib asleep!”
As we continued to drive I became suspicious of a car that was trailing in back of us. It must be following us, I thought to myself. I remembered seeing it about seven or eight turns ago.
“Yo, don’t both of y’all look now, but I think Five-O is following us,” I said in the tone of a kid that was about to get in trouble.
Latiefe, who was sitting in the passenger seat, immediately turned his head like a fool.
“Yo, kid, that is Five-O!” Latiefe emphatically proclaimed.
“Gotdamn!” I screamed as I simultaneously rammed my fist against the dashboard. “I told y’all dumb niggas! See this whole idea was stupid! Latiefe, why the hell did you turn around? Now we definitely look suspicious!”
“Holz, shut the hell up! I been listening to you crying like a girl all night long, and now is definitely not the time for more of your crying!” Latiefe yelled.
“Yo, why don’t both of y’all niggas shut the hell up!” Randy yelled from the backseat. “Y’all are arguing like women, and the cops are following us. Just shut up and be quiet. We gotta see how we gonna get out of this. Now, Holz, just relax and drive. Don’t switch lanes or nothing like that.”
“You sure that’s Five-O?” I asked.
“Hell yeah, those are the same two DTs that stopped me once befo
re,” Latiefe said, sounding kind of nervous. “Everybody in Queens knows what kind of unmarked car that they drive. Besides, it’s two thirty in the morning and there ain’t no other cars out here.”
“Yo, we gotta get outta this car,” Randy informed us. “Holz, this is what you do. Make a right turn and if they turn with us, I want you to immediately turn the lights off and floor this jeep!”
For some reason I felt relaxed. I mean, under the circumstances I should have been pissing in my pants, but I wasn’t nervous at all. Although the cops were following us, I felt as though we weren’t gonna get caught. I followed Randy’s instructions and made the right turn. And as expected the detectives made the turn with us.
“Go Holz, go! Floor this piece!” Randy screamed.
“Yo, just chill,” I said calmly. “They’re not gonna pull us over.”
“Yes they are!” Latiefe yelled. “Yo, Holz, lose them!”
“Yo, we’re gonna get caught if I try to outrun them. This big truck ain’t fast enough.”
“Well, just drive this thing as fast as you can,” Randy instructed. “I need some way to throw this gun out the window. I ain’t trying to get bagged with this gun on me!”
Latiefe then informed me that he had an ounce of coke on him, which of course only stood to make matters much worse. By the second, things just kept falling apart for us.
“Yo, Holz,” Latiefe said, “I gotta get rid of this work! Lose those pigs so that I can throw this work out the window! If we get caught for a stolen car, we’ll get off, but if we get caught with a gun and drugs, we’re going up North!”
“OK, OK, a’ight, check it, I’ma make another turn, and if they turn with me, I’m gonna pull over, get out, and ask them for directions like I’m lost.”
“Man, are you crazy!” Randy screamed out in disbelief. “If that ain’t the most jackass backward move! That won’t work! Don’t you know that they probably already know that this car is stolen? With all that damn noise we made in the driveway, the people in that house probably saw us taxing their jeep and called the cops. Holz, all I know is that if we go to jail because you didn’t try to outrun these pigs, man, I’m gonna hold your butt cheeks open for the cat that rapes you!”
