NEWARK DRIVEN
Part 1
Part 1
"Newark Drive"
The moment I made exit 14 off the NJ Turnpike came into Newark off route 21 onto South Broad Street I began to feel excitement and anxiety at the same time in the pit of my stomach.
I grew up in Newark, but it was like that every time I came back after being gone a while. I was usually coming back after a prison bid. I had done that several times over the past decade and it had always ended up the same way – with me leaving the city a few months later in the back of a sheriff’s van headed back to the joint for parole violations or new bid.
I had been on parole - this time - for 15 months, after doing 4 years at Garden State Prison. I had been paroled from prison 5 times previously and in those days I could not wait to get back to Brick City - mostly in anticipation of getting high, ASAP. This was only my first trip to my hometown since I had gotten out and it was the longest I had ever stayed out of the city when I wasn’t locked up.
I had spent the past 4 years inside planning how I was going to not ever come back to prison again. In the process I had convinced myself that if I ever went back to Newark to live, or stay for any significant time, it would certainly be the beginning of my end. I become to know only one way of life in Newark. Drug addiction, crime and basically being a pathetic mess was the way it always ended up for me in the city I love. I had begun to fear the city back then I had to get out or I knew I would die. Not only fearing that I would fall back into my old habit, but now that I had convinced myself that I was not longer a dope fiend criminal, but a law abiding citizen, I feared becoming myself a victim of crime.
I love my hometown Newark and I know it loves me. However we had become unable to trust and depend on one another. We had exploited and disappointed one another too many times in recent years. Like so many relationships with our family members and loved ones the city of Newark and I love one another - we just can’t live together.
So this time when I was paroled I did not come back to Newark. I moved to Trenton, NJ. I left prison this time with a plan for success and a commitment to succeed and I felt my best opportunity for success was to remove as many negative distractions from my daily life as possible. Heroin, negative friends and family members, and general familiarity were three primary negatives I wanted, no needed, to avoid and all 3 were present in Newark. In Trenton there was heroin, but no negative associates or familiarity for me there. I could start a new life and create the person I wanted to be in a new environment. I figured as long as I didn’t go out making negative friends or looking for heroin, I could concentrate on moving forward. I had also made contacts with good people in Trenton and also had job opportunities there when I got out. So far my plan had been working and I was finally getting my life on track in my new city.
It was early afternoon and the traffic was heavy in the area. I was headed to the Arch Bishop Walsh AKA “The McCarter Highway” or “Grafton Avenue” projects in North Newark, where I had grown up.
There was still that fear I spoke about earlier and I didn’t want to stay around too long. I would try to remain anonymous and quiet inside the safety of my car and hope no one notices me.
I drove north on Broad Street. There were some tough sections in Newark, but back in the day South Broad Street was just crazy. South Broad Street was like 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem, only rougher, deadlier and more ignorant. The streets and sidewalks were packed 24-7 with dope fiends, drug dealers, hustlers, winos, pimps, prostitutes, brothers selling bean pies and Final Call and any other sight – or drug - you could find in New York was there on South Broad. You just didn’t go down there not knowing who, what or where however, unless you wanted to get seriously hurt, or just robbed - if you’re lucky. I have some stories to tell about my exploits on South Broad, but that for another time. For then I just glad when the light changed and I moved on. I’ve seen and participated in many square looking folks, as I was at that time, being pulled out of their cars many times on that corner.
About a mile and a half further north up I stop at the red light at Broad and Market Streets, the “Times Square” of downtown Newark. Broad and Market Streets is probably the busiest 4-way crosswalks in the state of NJ. You got the buses, the people, the cars, the cabs and delivery trucks and major hustle and bustle going on at Broad and Market. I was first in line at the light and I sat watching the crowds from the opposing sides of the street as they rush off the curbs and into the street towards one another and clash like gladiators into battle right in front of my car. People shopping, working, commuting, hustling, stealing, scheming and living in the city, crisscrossing and weaving in and out to avoiding collisions and as little physical and eye contact with one another as possible.
As if in a drive-through at a wild animal safari ride, I observe, study and judge from the safety of my car. My mind reverts back to my days as a predator and begin separating and classifying the individuals. I look for the easy marks or the folks most likely to be chosen as victims, and the legitimate people just downtown taking care of business. Mostly I try to spot the predator looking to rip the victims off. I begin to think to myself, “I don’t trust any of them.” I begin to feel ashamed and I think my people I'm scared of my people. A look at their faces white black brown tan in and I envy them because they don't appear at all to be afraid of Newark.
When I got to Bloomfield Avenue I made a detour and went up past Barringer High School. I have really deep feelings of regret and sorrow that I had not taken more advantage and enjoyed high school more. I realize that it was not as unbearable as I had made out to be when I quit Barringer in my senior year. It was 4 months before graduation and I quit because I didn't want to take an extra class required for graduation. A class that would have added an extra 45 minutes to my day. I had begun getting high and hanging out by then and I could barely stand to come to school and sit through the classes I already had. So I stopped going.
I cut through Branch Brook Park, across Grove Street and down Grafton Avenue towards the projects. I caught the red light at the intersection of Grafton Avenue and Broadway . As I sat there I was very conscious that to my right on the corner was a drugs store that was the scene of my first felony.
t was a couple of days before Christmas in 1969 and I had just turned 18 years old, that past November. By that time, I was well into my heroin habit and the never-ending quest for my next fix. I had left my parents home, in building #1 of the Arch Bishop Walsh Housing Projects, in North Newark, over a year before and had pretty much burned all my bridges in terms of being welcome back there. ABWH was made up of 12 buildings, nine were 8 stories highs, with 8 apartments to each floor. There were three building 3-stories high with 4 apartments on each floor.
For the past 3 months I had been living in an apartment in building #9, with a couple of get high partners, Willie and Juan. The woman who used to live in the apartment with her 4 kids had just up and left it with her nephew, Willie, because she said someone had put curse on the crib. She was into voodoo, big time. Three months ago, she just walked out and left everything in the apartment, including food, furniture and her clothes, all the kid’s stuff and moved back to Mississippi.
Willie, Juan and me had been living in the apartment since she split. We figured it would be at least a few months before the housing authority came to put us out for not paying the rent. That is if they came at all. People rarely got evicted from the projects. Think about it, where would they go. People who were evicted from other places were put into the projects. You had to be seriously trifling to get put out of the projects. All evicting someone from the projects would mean is that the city would have to find a new place to relocate them probably across town into another housing project.
We used the apartment as a shooting gallery for the dope fiends to shoot up heroin and cocaine, and chill out to enjoy their high. Of course we charged everyone a fee to use the place. The dope fiends would either pay with a portion of their dope, or with cash. It cost $5.00 per person, to come in and ‘get off’. Most of the dope fiends would mainline intravenously. If they did not have their own works or set, which consisted of syringe, hypodermic needle, and cooker (a spoon or bottle cap to cook the drugs in), we also rented works for $2.00 or a small portion of drugs. You could hang out and nod for a couple of hours, as long as you behaved. We also sold a little cocaine and heroin. Very little in fact.
The problem was that the three of us would shoot up all of our merchandise before we could sell it. Although it was early in my shooting up days, I was already strung-out on heroin. I was able to keep up with my addiction with relative ease in those days, but I had already developed my insatiable appetite for the drug. I would shoot it up as fast as I got it and as long as I had it.
So, there we were, after splurging the night before. We were out of stash and needed to re-up. We were sitting around trying to figure out how we could get money to buy some dope and get high. It was to getting late in the day and we had not had anything all day.
“Damn,” Willie said, his face was twisted with frustration, “I’m starting to get sick. Aint none of ya’ll got nothing' stashed to get high off’?”
Willie was standing up looking out the living room window. The apartment was on the 8th floor. It faced the back of the building, over-looking the railroad tracks and the big playground. The playground was a big concrete covered area about the size of the average football field, between the rear of 3 building and the tracks. It was always filled with broken glass and looking down from above, it looked like a giant jigsaw puzzle with fuzzy edges, from the grass growing though all the cracks
“No, man.” I replied, “Do you think I been sitting here all day with ya’ll if I had something. If I had something, I would have been done crept to the bathroom and oiled up.”
All of a sudden, Juan, who was sitting on the love-chair in the corner, burst out laughing and fell over on the floor. He kept pointing his finger at me and held his stomach as he laughed and struggled to catch his breath. That was Juan, everything was funny to him. Even things that were not funny at all would just bust him up. Juan, who was 15 going on 8 years old, thought everything I said was especially funny. I just cracked him up for no reason. When we were all growing up and in school – before we turned into dope fiends – Juan would always say, “Go on, Mike, tell a joke”. Juan would really get on my nerves with that shit. Mostly because put my on the spot in front of the girls.
I was more of a spontaneous Hyker, in those days. Hykes, were like the Dozen or Snaps, of today. In fact it was call The Dozens back in those days also. The difference being, as the dozens tend to deal with talking about your momma, (example, “yo momma is so stupid, she sold the car to get gas money”), hykes talked about everybody and everything in your life, (example, “we had a sofa like the one in your living room, then my father got a job”). I was a Hyker not a joke teller. I could not just tell a joke or say something funny, on command and the added pressure of trying not to look uncool in front of the females did not help me.
Juan was about, 5’ 1” and he was very self-conscience about his height. To break Juan out of putting me out there with people waiting for me to make them laugh, I would say to him, “Is it true that midgets have little dicks?”
Everybody would crack up on that one every time - except Juan. He soon stopped asking me to tell jokes.
Willie, who did not think I was particularly funny, stood in the window looking at Juan. “Man gets your dumb ass up off the floor. That shit wasn’t that funny, niggah,” Willie shouted at Juan in disgust and his face still twisted in aggravation.
Willie, who was 19 years old, was tall and good-looking guy, and he knew it. He always dressed really nicely and made sport of playing the women. That is until he got strung out. Now he was just another raggedy dope fiend chasing the white lady. You could not tell him that, though. He thought he was still fine.
“We need to make some cash, ya’ll” or we gonna be some sick niggahs up in here shortly, Willie said. “Let’s stickup that store we talked about last week.”
We had talked about several ways to get money in the last could of weeks. All of them illegal, of course. Every time we ran out of dope, we would plan to rob this small drug store nearby. We chose that store because we heard that it had a lot of money inside. Since the owners of the store were White people we just assumed that had to be true. As far as we were concerned all white people had plenty of money and would not miss the small amounts we were stealing from them. We also like the location and the easy escape route we had laid out. We could do it in less than five minutes. To that point we never had to carry it out because something or someone always came through to get us high. Things were real slow for us that day. We did not have any drugs and none of the dope fiends were coming to shoot up in the apartment.
None of us had ever pulled an armed robbery before, but how hard could it be. We’ve seen it on TV and in movies all the time. You point the gun and say, “give it up!” They give up the cash and then you split. In real life things did not go so smoothly for us.
When got to the store it was about 5:30PM and just gotten dark out. There were two customers inside the store at the cash register being waited on by the old woman, who was eyeing us from the jump. The old man, who was the pharmacist and owner of the store, was just walking out from a room in the back of the store towards the front, barely seemed to notice us.
The drugstore was the small old-fashion mom and pop joint you see in the movies. There were no isles and circular, spinning magazine and greeting card racks took up the limited space in the middle of the floor. All the shelves made of wood were built into the walls and had big sliding glass doors up top and big pullout drawers on the lower part. The Pharmacists area, located at the front of the store as you came into the door, sat high on a raised platform so that the owner could see everything and everyone in the store at all times. There was also a counter and stools where they sold ice cream sodas and other snacks. When we walked in Juan sat at the counter near the cash register, which was sitting on the counter, while Willie and I browsed the magazine rack. Willie had a small .25 caliber automatic pistol that he got from someone I do not recall at this time.
We waited until there were no customers in the store and made our move. As soon as the last customer walked out the door we went into action. Willie pulled out gun and stuck it into the old dudes face and shouted, “Give it up, niggahs”
I was standing behind the storeowner dude who, upon seeing the gun, just flipped out. The dude’s face turns pale and he immediately started doing a nervous jig dance with his feet. Turning around in circles, flailing his arms in the airs and moaning, “Oooh... Nooo...Oooh... Nooo... Oooh... Nooo...”
By this time Juan had jumped over behind the counter and was fumbling around trying to open the cash register. The old woman who had picked up on what was going down was standing behind Juan, beating him on his back with her fists screaming at the top of her lungs about how she had told the old guy to sell this Goodman store.
Willie was standing in front of the old white guy shouting at him to open the cash register.
I was still behind the old guy sandwiching him in so he couldn’t run out the back or get a gun or something. Before I knew it I was screaming at Willie, “shoot this motherfucker.”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no”, the old white guy moaned louder and began spinning around faster. He looked like a one of those little toy soldiers that run on batteries and when they run into something they bounce off in circles, spinning like a top.
“I can’t get this motherfucka open, man,” Juan shouted in frustration, as he turned around and gave the old woman a little shove. “Damn, get out of my fuckin' ear with that screamin' bitch.”
Finally, Juan took a can of shaving cream off the shelf and started banging on the cash register as if that was going to open it.
The old woman kept hitting Juan on the back and talking out loud to no one in particular, “Now we are dead, Gabe. Now it is too late to sell the store. Now we are dead. Now maybe Gabe will listen. Now we are dead.”
Me: “Open the cash register niggahs.”
Willie: “Give up the money before I bust a cap in yo’ ass”
Me: “Fuck it, shoot this niggahs Willie. Shoot him, man”
Old Dude (still dancing and spinning): “Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no…”
Old woman: “Gabe, will you listen now?”
Juan: “Yo, somebody else come try and open this niggahs.” He was almost exhausted from beating on that cash register with that can and having that old woman beating on him.
The place was like a madhouse. There was total chaos and confusion and we had been in there for what seemed like forever.
Then, the front door opened and a middle-aged man in a blue work uniform came walking into the store, unaware of what was going on. Everyone in the room, except the old woman who kept chastising Gabe, froze and there was a sudden silence in the room. When the guy finally looked up and realized what was going down he also froze in his tracks. He dropped the change that he was counting in his hand, raised his hand up into the air and turned to face the wall. All without saying a word. It was easy to see that this man did not want any part of this shit.
For a moment we were all a little stunned and we were all just standing there looking at the new guy, waiting and wondering what to do next. It was as if somebody had called ‘time out’ and stopped the action. Even the old woman had quieted down.
All of a sudden, Willie turned back to the old white guy and just hauled off and hit the old guy upside the head with the .25 automatic pistol. When the pistol made contact with the old guys head it accidentally went off. I was still standing behind the old guy and actually felt the bullet whiz past my face as it broke a case glass door behind me. The loud bang of the gun scared the shit out of everybody and started the panic and hysteria all over again.
The lady started yelling at her husband, Gabe, again.
The new dude dropped down on his knees and started praying.
Juan was now hitting the cash register with a small fire extinguisher.
I was probably the most scared out of everybody when I felt that bullet fly past me. Suddenly the reality, the finality, the seriousness of what we were doing became clear to me. “What the fuck am I doing here?” I thought to myself.
I just wanted to tell those people that I was sorry and beg for their forgiveness. But, it was too late for that sorry shit now. At that point, I reached in, grabbed the old dudes wallet out of his back pocket, and ran for the door. I could see that Willie was right behind me. Juan was attempting to carry the unopened cash register, which appeared bigger than he was, with him out the door but, it was too heavy and he finally gave up and dropped it on the floor. We never got the register open but Juan did manage to grab a small cash box and a carton of Kools cigarettes on the way out.
We ran out of the store across Broadway, down behind the barbwire company, across the railroad tracks behind the projects, climbed over the fence into the playground and up into the building #9. The escape went just as we had planned it.
There was $43.00 in the old guys wallet and close to $600 in the cash box. We split the money 3 ways, changed our shirts and went over to building #10 to find Virgin.
Virgin about 27 years old and he had been getting high much longer then we had. Virgin was not someone we would normally hangout with first because he was older than we were, but also because we really did not like him. Virgin acted cool with you but there was something sneaky and slimy about him. He could not be trusted was the general consensus about Virgin.
However, he knew where to score over in Harlem. Most of all, Virgin also had a car and he would shoot us right over to New York City to score, if we paid for the gas and tolls and got him high.
Virgin was about 6’ 3” tall, dark complexion and his eyes were always bloodshot. He had really bad skin with big acne craters and knots on his face and his lips were pink around the inner edge. We thought that was from all the cheap liquor he drank. He had long arms like and these great big hands with long, thick fingers. Virgin was also well known around the way for having a really big dick. The stories about the size of Virgin’s dick were legendary. Most of the girls were afraid to go near him. That’s why they called him Virgin because he could not get any pussy for a long time
Before he became a dope fiend Virgin was that he could play basketball like a god. He was probably the best player in the projects or even in Newark, when he was in his prime. Virgin had a lot of style and flair on the court. Plus, he could shoot the jumper, take a chump to the basket, dribble the ball from one end of the court to the other with blazing speed and unbelievable control and thrown the dunk down with authority. He could do all kinds of tricks with the ball like the Harlem Globetrotters. He was the first one I ever saw do the no look pass and the reverse dunk with 3 people playing defense on him. He could do it all. When he was on the basketball court nobody noticed how ugly he was. Let me put it this way, nobody would mentioned it when he was playing ball. If somebody did hyke on him it would be something positive like, “He sure is ugly looking but that niggah can play some ball.”
On the drive to New York Virgin seemed really interested about the robbery and kept asking us questions and shit. Juan told him every detail.
Me, Willie and Juan put in together and bought a 2-quarter ounces of Nicky Barnes’ “Suicide” on 8th avenue and 116th street for $175 each. We went to a shooting gallery that Virgin knew on 112th street and got high. We had to give the “houseman” some of the heroin for letting us get off in the house. We all had our own works so we did not have to buy or rent any. That would have had to fork over another dollar each or more drugs.
On the ride from Harlem back to Newark we were not at the George Washington Bridge before Virgin began asking more questions. Only now he was not only asking about the stick up we had done earlier that day, but also now he was fishing for information on other hustles we had pulled off recently. That punk was trying to get us to flip on stuff other people had done and we knew about.
It did occur to me then that Virgin was much too interested. I remember at one point asking Virgin. “What are you, the cops, Niggah? You sure are asking a lot of questions.”
Virgin tried to played it off. “Fuck you talking’ about, the cops? He said with mock offense. “I just wanted to hear what went down. I aint got the heart to do that kind of shit.”
Juan was more than willing to continue running his mouth.
We came back to Newark and went to Willie’s apartment. We bagged up 30 or so dime bags to sell and divided the remaining drugs 3-ways, between Juan, Willie and me for personal use. We figured if we sold these 30 dimes we could make enough to go back to the City, re-up, and keep turning it over like that. We would be able to get high and make some cash at the same time, for a while anyway.
We gave Virgin 2 dimes as payment for taking us to New York. He was not happy about only getting 2 dimes and thought his cut should have been more.
Virgin: “What the fuck is this, niggahs? Two fuckin dimes for taking you 3 niggahs to the City to buy dope?”
Willie: “Man we got your as high in New York. We gave you the same shot we all had.”
Virgin: “I didn’t ask ya’ll to get me high over there and I sure didn’t agree that it was part of my money. Man, you young niggahs is trying to play me. Ya’ll know the deal.”
Me: “We filled up your empty ass gas tank, that was 26 bucks. You probably only used half a tank to go over and back. We paid the tolls and bought your broke ass a 3-piece meal at Gino’s Chicken. Sounds like you trying to play us”
Virgin was standing in the middle of the floor and he was pissed. His was breathing hard and sweating and his hands were tight in big meaty fists. He wanted to fuck us up, but he had doubts about taking on all three of use at the same time. “Fuck you niggahs. Ya’ll gonna need another ride and you can kiss my ass”, Virgin spit out as he walked out the apartment. The clang of the metal apartment door reverberated throughout the apartment and the outer hallways as he slammed the door behind him.
Me: “Yeah, you better take your ass out of here cause aint nobody gonna need you to give use a ride no where in that raggedy ass car. Yo ride is so fucked up I was scared the police was gonna stop us on general principal.”
We knew where to score now so we did not need Virgin’s ass anymore. As far as transportation, there was always the PATH Train out of Newark Penn Station to Penn Station in downtown Manhattan and take the subway uptown to Harlem. Or we could take a bus to NY Port Authority and subway from there. Fuck, Virgin!
When Virgin was gone we all looked at each other for a second and burst out laughing. Of course, Juan took the joke too far and almost kicked over the coffee table with the dope we were cooking up on it as he rolled on the couch in laughing convulsions.
Willie, exasperated and angry that Juan almost spilled a lot of heroin, “Come on Juan, why do you always have to go overboard and shit? You knockin shit over and bout to get a beat-down.”
Juan: “Oh, fuck you Willie, you aint gonna beat nobody down over here.”
Willie and Juan had gotten into it a couple of times. Juan was game like a pit bull, but each time Willie kicked Juan’s little ass. If someone hadn’t stop the shit Willie would have had to kill Juan or still be beating his ass today because Juan would not quit while he was still conscious. I don’t think Willie really wanted to start in with Juan again.
Fortunately, at that point the dope was cooked and it was time to get high. It was quiet while we each searched our arms for a good vein to insert the needle and inject the heroin. We all sat back one at a time and enjoyed the rush of the heroin making it’s way through our veins and into our brains.
“Damn, this is some good shit,” I said in my best slick-slurred dope fiend voice.
Juan, “Yeah, it is. Man, now all I need is some pussy!”
For several moments there was silence in the room again, except for the television.
Finally, I said, “I thought your sister was in rehab?”
Willie, who had been holding his laugher in, exploded into laugher. I tried to keep a straight face and not start laughing myself, but I couldn’t hold it in either. I started cracking up too.
Juan, “What you niggahs laughing at? Fuck you niggahs. Don’t be talking that shit about my sister, Mike. She was high and didn’t know what she was doing.”
There was strong rumor around the hood that Juan and his sister older sister, Lisa, were caught hitting it with each other in their mama’s apartment a few months earlier. It was Juan’s mama who caught them and threw them both out. Lisa went to rehab and Juan moved into the apartment with Willie and me.
Me: “You did, niggah.”
Again, Willie and I were bent over with laughter.
“I was high too,” said Juan, all pissed-off and shit, “We were fucked up off those pills. Man, Mike, I’m telling you, you play too much. Don’t be talking that shit about me and my sister.”
We were laughing so hard that we had blown our highs and everything.
That was okay though. We had money, plenty of drugs and a place to live. Life was good.
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