BRICK CITY FX

Federal Department of Justice announces investigation into Newark Police Department | NJ.com

2011-05-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

Federal Department of Justice announces investigation into Newark Police Department | NJ.com

Newark Driven -3

2011-05-05T21:27:00.000-05:00

Newark Driven

Part 3

"Busted"

Newark Police Headquarters was located in downtown Newark on Broad Street behind City Hall. The City Municipal Courts and the main Police Headquarters share the same building, with other city administrative offices. They are connected to City Hall via underground tunnels as well as a raised walkways between the buildings. The marble stairs and floors in the building always shined like ice. In stark contrast to the big holding cell in the basement, where they put all of us in with 12 or 15 other prisoners. Like most other police lockups there was a lot of concrete and steel, a lot of foul odor in the air and a lot of sorry souls sitting inside.

Through it all I always had a gut feeling that this was about much more than the small amount of drugs that the police had gotten out of that hallway. They took us to Police Headquarters downtown, instead of to the Second Precinct Police Station on Orange Street where we would usually be taken. I knew with certainty that I was in big trouble when Scotty Tina, the nastiest, meanest negro to ever legally carry a gun, came to the holding cellblock looking for me. Scotty was a Robbery/Homicide Detective.

“Jackson, who is Jackson!” His voice roared off the steel walls as he scanning the bullpen like a hungry wolf stalking a chicken coop. His cold squinting eyes looking really irritated. “Who is Jackson?”

When I heard him call my name and saw him standing there in silhouette from light coming in from the single bulb light fixture outside the cell, I was scared shitless. My heart started racing a 100 miles an hour, I got cramps in my stomach and I thought I was going to pee in my pants.

I closed my eyes praying that I was only having a nightmare that I would wake up from and find myself snuggled safely in my bed at home. However, when I opened my eyes I was still there and so was Scotty. I had to accept the reality that I was truly caught in a nightmare and there wasn’t no waking up.

“Michael Jackson! Jackson, front and center!”

I knew that Scotty wanted to ask me about the drugstore robbery. By the way he was sounding, I knew that he already knew that I was down with it. All he needed to do was to get my name on a written confession.

“Jackson, Michael Jackson!” he really sounded pissed now. “Where the fuck you at, motherfucka?”

I thought to myself, ‘Oh shit, I haven’t even met the man and he was pissed off at me’.

“Oh, did you say Jackson?” I meekly raised my hand, I said trying to sound as though I had just heard him for the first time. “Right here, that’s me”.

Scotty snapped his head over and focused those steely eyes on me and snarled, “What, you ain’t hear me calling you? Get the fuck up and get your sorry ass over here boy. I ain’t got all day to be standing around in this funky ass bullpen fucking with you sorry Negroes.”

As I stood up and started walking toward the front of the cage I saw Scotty reach behind his back and snatch his handcuffs out of the case.

This could only mean one thing, I was going for a walk to the infamous “Green Room”.

Everything seemed like it was going in slow motion. Everything except my heart which was now beating out of control.

“I want my mama”, I whined out loud to myself.

I had heard a lot about the Green Room at police headquarters behind city hall. There were stories about the blood on the walls and the dents from brothers getting their head rammed into them. The phonebook treatment, where they put a phonebook on top on your head and beat on it with nightstick. The cops could do things with a telephone book that Ma Bell never dreamed of. You could scream and yell as loud as you wanted to but no one could hear you, no one who would likely help you out, anyway.

Not many guys came out of “the room” without confessing to something. Sometimes they confessed to things they didn’t even do. Jail was better than the beating the cops would putting on your ass in there.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.” Scotty reached through the bars and grabbed my hands together behind my back. He held them with one hand while he put the cuffs on me with his other hand. and at the say time he grabbed the back of my neck with his other hand.

When I turned around I was expecting him to open the cell gate and take me out. Instead he reached up through the bars, grabbed the front of my jacket and yanked hard, crashing my face hard up against the bars. The only reason I did not get a broken nose or knock out teeth is that my nose and mouth went between the spaces of the bars. The pain in my head was excruciating and shot through my body like an electric shock. My knees buckled and I felt like I was about to pass out. I wanted to reach up and grab my head, but he had already snapped the cuffs on my wrists with his right hand.

I could barely talk with my face all squashed up against those bars like that.

‘Damn, man, what you doing?” I was almost crying by then. That shit hurt! “Why you knockin' my head up on the bars and shit. You ain't got to do all that”.

As I stood there with my hands cuffed behind my back and this cop trying to push my face and head through the cell bars, I struggled only slightly. Mostly I wanted to ease the pressure that he was applying as he continued to pushed my head against the bars. I did not want to fight or struggle too much because I didn’t want him to think I was fighting him and resisting. That would only make him mad. But, the pain in my head and face was something that I had never felt before in my life

The other prisoners in the holding cell, including Grimlin, T-Tom and Wayne sat quietly looking away as if they were completely oblivious to what was going on with me and this big, mean ass cop. I couldn’t blame them, though. There wasn’t anything they could do except draw unwanted attention to themselves. So they went about minding their own business and thanking the Lord that they were not in my shoes at that particular time.

“Shut up. Sissy. We’re going upstairs to talk.” Scotty grabbed me by the handcuffs and pulled me away, backwards.

I almost had to run backwards to keep up with him. We went up, down and through several stairways and hallways to a long narrow office with several desks lined along the wall on both sides leaving a worn linoleum path down the center of the room that ended through another door. We entered the room and stopped there in the doorway for a moment.

I notice that there were detectives seated at a couple of the desks. There was an elderly white couple seated in chairs at one of the desks. I noticed the old guy had a big white bandage over the left side of his face and eye. When then looked up and saw me, the woman became visibly startled, letting out an audible gasp. The couple clutched closer to one another.

I remember thinking that to myself with indignation, "Damn, soon as white folks see a brother they act like he's gonna fuck with them or something."

Right than, Scotty jerked me back out of the room by the cuffs and we continued down the hall.

Finally, we came to a small dimly lit room with drab lime green color wall and windows painted over the same color. The room was almost empty except for a wooden chair and table sitting in the middle of the floor and a old gray file cabinet over against a wall. A light fixture, with a funnel shape shade hung from the ceiling over the table, just like in all the cop shows I had seen on television and in the movies. I was praying that my high-powered attorney would bust through the door in a nick of time to save me from the ass whooping I knew was coming. But I knew this wasn’t the movies and I damn sure didn’t have a high priced lawyer. I was busted, like a muthafucka!

“Have a seat”, Scotty demanded, while pushing me down into the wooden chair with his big black hand gripping the top of my head like he was palming a basketball. The diamond pinky ring and the 2 enormous gold nugget rings he had on left a deep groove on my forehead.

He walked over to a black telephone on the wall near the door and dialed a few numbers. “Alright, we’re ready, tell Donley to come up too...okay, see yah.”

Scotty was a big, mean looking brother in his mid forties. He was about 6’3” and 245 lbs of muscle and Black rage. He struck real fear in the hearts of those committing Robberies and Murder in the City of Newark, because of his viciousness if he ran down on you. Most people in Newark knew Scotty, whose real name was Stanley Scott, because his family lived in the Columbus Homes on Seventh Avenue. He was a star Tailback at Barringer High School, back in his day. Story has it that he got a full scholarship to a big-time college in Florida and broke his leg to pieces in his first year. With his career over he came back to Newark and taught at Barringer for a while before becoming a cop. He had a younger brother and sister who were dopefiends, who he was really pissed. It seemed like Scotty took his frustration and anger out on every other black dopefiend he came into contact with. If they had a choice, the brothers I knew would rather get busted and beat up by any white cop on the force rather than by Scotty.

So, there i was sitting there with my hands still cuffed behind my back. I had forgotten about the pain from my face being smashed against the cell bars downstairs. The pain and discomfort in my hands and wrists from the tightness of the handcuffs had taken over my entire body. It felt like the edge of the handcuffs were slowly slicing through my wrists.

“Dig, man, could you loosen these handcuffs, please?” I pleaded, while trying unsuccessfully to adjust my wrists and somehow relieve the pain.

Scotty said nothing. He just coolly and calmly began removing his suit jacket and gun holster and carefully hung them both on a hook on the wall. Then he took off his cuff links and started rolling up his shirt sleeves. It was obvious that this man was in peak physical condition and that he knew it. He was also a really sharp dresser. I could tell that he put a lot of thought into his wardrobe.

He was sporting a 3-piece light gray sharkskin iridescent suit that was tight as hell. When I say “tight” I don’t mean how nice it was. It was a nice suit, but I mean the pants were so tight you could see his butt cheek dimples. He finished the outfit off with a black high roll collar shirt with white pin-dots that could only have been pressed and starched at a professional Chinese laundry. He probably got the whole hookup at Kent Men’s Store on Market Street.

His processed hairdo was as jet-black and shiny as his patent leather biscuit toe shoes. His skin was dark chocolate brown and smooth as silk. He wore well-groomed mustache, of which he allowed traces of gray hairs to frame the edges.

Scotty was well known for being a ladies man and it was easy to see why.

After a moment I thought how ironic it was that I was admiring the fashion statement and sexual prowess of the man who had moments earlier call his buddies to come up and take part in kicking my ass.

“Don’t worry about the handcuffs”, he said nonchalantly as he continued to neatly rolled his shirt sleeves up over his biceps. “That’s the least of your problems. We got other things to talk about and you won’t even feel the cuffs after a few minutes.”

About then, the door opened and three upset looking white plainclothes detectives walked into the room. They were not as well dressed and well cologned as Scotty, but they were just as big and mean looking. I also noticed that their jackets were already off and their sleeves already rolled.

“That him?” shot one of the white cops pointing to me as if there was someone else in the room who it could possibly be.

“Yeah, that’s him”. Scotty sneered, ”That’s the stick-up man”.

Scotty came over and stood directly in front of me, with his legs spread slightly apart. He was hold a telephone book with 2 hands in front of him. He was standing very close and his dick, pronounced in those tight pants, was uncomfortably close to my face. Two of the other cops stood on either side of me and the third stood in back of me.

“I heard you Willie and Juan were the ones who stuck up that drugstore tonight?” Scotty was cool, calm and smooth.

I remember thinking that I wanted to say “Damn, muthafucka, did you take a bath in High Karate cologne?”,

What I said was, “I didn’t do no robbery. What robb…”

Just then, Scotty stepped back with his right foot, as if he was going into a batter’s stance and proceeded to swing that telephone book like he was trying to hit a home run. The book connected with the left side of my face and head with such force that it knocked me clean out of the chair onto the floor.

The next thing I knew four cops were stomping and kicking me from all angles. I was getting hit with so many feet that I began to wonder when the other 10 cops had come into the room and joined in the fun. I tried to curl up to protect my face with my knees but there was little I could do with my hands cuffed behind me.

After a few moments of kicking me on the floor the cops picked me up by the elbows and threw me back into the chair.

“You like to rob old people motherfucker?” WHAM!

"No man. I ain't robbed nobody. You got the wrong guy, officers". I was crying and whining at this point

I knew what was coming and tied to lean forward and put my face in my lap but, the white goons held me up so Scotty could get a clean swing at my face with that telephone book.

WHAM!

“Oh Yeah. You the one who likes sticking guns in people's face, niggah?”

WHAM!

Each time he asked a question, Scotty would come around with a two handed swing of the phonebook and crash into the side of my head. They got tired of me falling off the chair so they took turns holding me up in the chair while the others beat my ass.

“Where’s the gun?"

"What gun? I don't have a gun, please officer?"

"You lying, niggah!"

WHAM!

"What did you do with the gun?”

WHAM!

"Where can we find Willie and Juan?"

WHAM! WHAM!

“I didn’t do nothing I swear officer”

All the time I could hear them talking and asking questions, but I figured the questions were rhetorical in nature since they did give me an opportunity to answer. after a while they stopped talking and asking questions

WHAM! WHAM!

“What are you talking about?

WHAM! WHAM!

“I don’t know about no robbery!”

WHAM! WHAM!

“Oh, God, help me!”

WHAM! WHAM!

“I didn’t do nothin’”

After beating me to the floor again and pounding and kicking on me to the point where my body had gone numb and I could no longer even feel the blows or hear what they were saying. My nose, mouth and left ear was bleeding; my eyes were almost swollen shut and I could feel loose teeth in my mouth, by the time they finally stopped and lifted me back up into the chair. I was sure that I was going to die in that room that night.

I'm tempted to tell you that I took that working over like Cagney and never said a word, but there is no sense in me lying. The next thing I knew I was singing like a canary and giving up everybody and everything. I even wrote out and signed a detailed confession. I told the cops them about Willie, Juan, the voodoo apartment we lived in, where the gun was and everything else. I was telling them stuff they did not even ask me about. Stuff they did not even know about including a couple of jobs that we had planned to do. Scotty also had me pick a couple of unsolved robberies out of the unsolved crime book for myself, which I was more than happy to do, at that point.

Yes, it was all true what they said about the Green Room at Police Headquarters. By the end of the night I was looking forward to a nice safe jail cell.

As I was being taking back to the holding cells by one of the white cops that had just beat my ass, he laughed and said, “Your boy Virgin gave you boys up tonight. What’s that about?”

“Ain’t that a bitch?” I thought to myself, “Virgin dropped a dime on us. That’s why he was asking us so many questions. We ran our mouths and told Virgin all he needed to know and he went straight to the police -aint that a bitch?”

I stayed in the holding cell at Headquarters overnight and went to the county jail the next morning with lots of lumps and bruises and a massive headache. That night while I reflected on what had gone down that day, it occurred to me who the old white couple that I saw sitting in the office at headquarters were. It was the couple from the drugstore. The people we had robbed. Scotty brought me into that room for them to see and identify me. They obviously did recognize me judging by their reactions when they saw me.

I couldn’t believe it. I had just hours earlier terrorized and threatened the lives of those people and I did not even recognize them sitting there in the police station. I even had the nerve to get indignant because they were frightened of me. I was very ashamed of myself.

The cops busted Willie and Juan later that night or the next day. They got the gun from the apartment and the rest of the dope we had in there, too.

I stayed at the Essex County “old” Jail on Duryea St. waiting for my court date for six weeks. Then they transferred me to the Essex County Jail Annex located in the Essex County Penitentiary in Caldwell. My bail was $50.000 but it may as well have been $50,000.000 as far as me making it.

After waiting in jail for 6 months I made a deal to plead guilty to Robbery and in return they dropped the drug possession and the gun possession charges and would give me no more than a 7-year prison sentence.

Little did I realize that my I was beginning a decade long cycle of prison, drugs, disappointment and failure.

Newark Driven -2

2011-04-28T19:13:00.002-05:00

Newark Driven

Part 2

"The Good Life"

After robbing the drug store earlier in the day Willie, Juan and me were in good shape and good spirits. We had money in our pockets and plenty of drugs to use and to sell. After we got back from copping in New York we got rid of Virgin and then we all got high and talked shit for a while. After that we walked to the White Castle in Belleville for a dozen cheeseburgers and an extra-large Coke.

Later I went over to Building Number 2 to holla at my girl, Sheila, but her brother said that she had gone to Jersey City with her mom and wasn’t expected to be back until just after midnight.

It was about 10:30PM at that time so I headed over to the lobby of Building 6 to checkout the Homies who are usually loitering there and to try to sell some of the heroin I was holding. Willie and Juan went there own ways.

The entranceway or lobby of Building 6 was where you could find many of the neighborhood dope fiends hanging out at anytime of the day or night.

You enter each of the buildings through 2 large steel doors with 2 big vertical Plexiglas windows on each of them. You step inside into an area about the size of a large living room with walls of tan painted cinderblocks and 2 light fixtures on the ceiling. The floors were a dark brown vinyl tile and on the left wall is a large steel grate that covers a big radiator recessed into a space in the wall. The radiators were one of the attractions of hanging out in the lobbies, other than the fact that there really were not any other places to hangout. The radiators in the lobbies kicked out big-time heat, sometimes year-round. It could get so hot that it could seriously burn you if you touched the grate.

In one corner hanging over the radiator was a red steel box with a glass front door that held a large fire extinguisher.

The wall on the right side, immediately as you enter the lobby is covered with 64 small bronze colored mailboxes. Each mailbox, one for each apartment in the building, was about the size of one of the red bricks that made up the outside walls. There were thin slots cut in the doors that allowed you to see if you have mail inside. The lobbies were always crowded with women waiting for the mailman to bring those welfare checks on the first of the month. Inside the mailboxes, if there was still a door and lock on it and you could get a key, was also a safe hiding place for our drugs, in case the police ran down on us. Straight ahead, as you enter the lobby past the mailboxes and the radiator was the elevator. There were passageways to the right and left of the elevator that led to doors to the stairways and to the first floor apartments.

Building 6 was also the place where you could always find the drugs you wanted to buy. Heroin, cocaine and marijuana were the predominant drugs of choice in the projects and the people who purchased there. White folks came from all the wealthy suburbs surrounding North Newark to buy drugs at Building 6. They came from Forest Hills and Silver Lake Sections of North Newark and places like Belleville, Nutley and Bloomfield. Upstanding, respectable white folks would even cross the Passaic River from Kearny and Harrison to cop at building 6.

The lobby of Building 6 was preferred as a hangout for us dealers and crooks because of its location and it had good view of the street. The hangout spot migrated from building to building over the years, but 6 seemed to remain a mainstay. Buildings 6 and 7 sat opposite sides of Grafton Avenue facing one another. Grafton Avenue was the main road that cut straight though the center if the projects complex from Broadway to McCarter Highway where it ended. These were the easiest buildings to get in and out of without coming too deep into the complex. It was also a perfect location for a quick stop and cop curbside drug service, where customers could purchase whatever they wanted without ever leaving the safety of their fancy cars.

Building six was, usually, the best location to see the police coming and give us a chance to run up the stairs and escape. We would either go up to someone’s apartment, or any other number hiding places in the building before the cops could sneak up on us. If they didn’t get you in the lobby you were home-free. The police were not running upstairs into the hallways looking for anybody. Since the voodoo apartment were I was staying was there in Building 6, it made it that much more convenient for me.

When I got to 6 there were 4 other people already there in the lobby, Wayne, T-Tom Gremlin and Roz. Wayne and T-Tom were there dealing heroin, same as I was at the time. Gremlin and his wife, Roslyn, were ol’ head junkies in their 40s.

T-Tom and Gremlin were over near the right stairway entrance talking when I came in. Roz, who was probably supposed to be looking out the door for the cops, was standing on the wall in front of the radiator. Wayne was sitting on the short steps near the elevator reading a comic book, as he was known to do a lot. T was leaning with his back against the wall facing the door. He was holding his hand in front of his face so that only his eyes were exposed to Gremlin’s juices. Gremlin had his back to the door, talking to T-Tom and didn’t see me come in and head for the radiator to warm up.

“Come on, T”, Gremlin whined, while he held a watch close to T-Tom’s face as if to give him a good look, “You can do that for me, baby.”

“I don’t need no fuckin’ women’s Timex watch, Gremlin”, T-Tom said, sounding exasperated, frustrated and irritated by Gremlin’s begging and his juicy dialog, “I need cash”.

Apparently, Gremlin was trying to get 3 dimes ($10 bags of heroin) for $21.78 cash and a used women’s Timex watch and it didn’t look like T-Tom was going for that deal.

“Check out the watch”, Gremlin persisted, “It’s worth at least 20-30 dollars, muthafucka”.

“Grim, man, I told you”, now T-Tom was pissed. “I can’t do nothin’ with that damn watch. What the fuck you think, I’m gonna do, go out on the street and try to sell a fuckin’ Timex to get my money? You sell the watch for 30 bucks and then you can come back to me right and have cash left over. I don’t want no watch!”

“Aw, T, you can help me out”, Gremlin mumbled, fumbling to put the watch into his coat pocket.

They had probably stolen or found the watch somewhere, because it had been a long time since Roz and Gremlin had sold the last of their own personal jewelry and valuables.

“Okay, fuck it then, can I get 2 dimes for 15 dollars?” Gremlin asked T-Tom, as if he was letting him know that he may not have got over with the watch, but he was determined to get a bargain.

“Grim, you showed me that you had 21 dollars”, T-Tom said, not believing the audacity of Gremlin to try and short change him on 2 dimes when he knew Gremlin had right money.

“I didn’t want 21 bucks and change and a watch for 3 dimes, so why the fuck would I give you 2 dimes for 15 bucks? Especially, since I know you that you have the correct money in your pocket?”

“Damn, baby”, Gremlin shot back at T-Tom. “Me and my wife have to get something to eat!”

T-Tom looked over at me standing there against the radiator, with Roz, and rolled his eyes. We both laughed. Hearing my voice, Gremlin turned around and saw me.

“Yeah, yo, what’s up MJ?” Gremlin acted like he was really happy, even relieved, to see me.

“What’s up, Grim?”

I was very cautious because I knew what was coming.

“Mike, I heard you was holdin’”, he spit as he gave up on T-Tom and rushed over to me near the radiator,” You holdin’, my brotha?”

As I said earlier, Gremlin was in his late 40s and he spit when he talked. He couldn’t help it, since he had sold his dentures years ago to buy drugs. Gremlin and his wife, Roz, used to be Junior High School Teachers and had a house in Belleville, before they took on heroin 5 years ago. Now they lived in Gremlin’s mama’s basement on Chester Avenue.

I really did not want Gremlin coming over and getting in my face with that spit spraying shit. I was about to tell him to back off when the lobby door swung open and before any of us could react,“ALRIGHT MOTHER FUCKERS, EVERYBODY FREEZE!”, the police got the drop on us.

The first cop through the door was dressed for the streets, with a baseball caps turned backwards and blue jeans, sneakers and a hoodie sweatshirt. “Everybody put your hand up and face the wall!”

For a quick moment I thought it was some stick up men there to rip us off for our dope, because of the way cop #1 was dressed. But, I knew these were the cops. No doubt in my mind. Cops carry themselves differently and have more style than your average stickup dudes when they run down on a chump. Plus, 3 of the 5 guys who came in behind him, also with their guns drawn, were wearing trench coats and ties – like detectives.

The baseball cap cop, who was standing their in the crouched position, holding his gun with both hands, first pointed at me and Roz and than swung around to Wayne who looked like he was ready to book up the stairs.

“Don’t think about it, motherfucker”, he warned, like Dirty Harry. “Run and you’ll die right here”.

Anyway, when the cops busted in I was holding eight bags of the heroin inside the fingers of the gloves I had just taken off. I dropped the gloves on the floor at my feet and attempted to kick the gloves away from me. It was a futile attempt because 3 cops were looking right at me when I dropped it. T-Tom was also holding 3 dimes and tried to dropped his stuff on the floor and walk away from it. It didn’t do him any good both because they busted us all and took us all to headquarters and charged everybody with joint possession of the drugs.

Everybody, except Roz. The police let Roz go. They said she was clean. I wonder if the fact that Roz also happened to be a white woman had anything to do with her going home. Especially since Wayne didn’t have anything on him and he didn’t have any outstanding warrants either, but they locked his ass up that night. I’m just saying.

Gremlin had an outstanding warrant for failing to pay child support and he was pissed as hell about it. Gremlin was especially pissed and didn’t stop letting us know about it.

“Yeah, you cheap muthafuckas, I bet you wish you would have sold me that shit now, huh?” Gremlin spit. “Now the po-lice got everybody’s shit”.

Gremlin’s ranting was not the worse of the bumpy ride in the back of the police wagon with our hands handcuffed behind our backs and shackled together with leg irons. The worse part was that we were in such close quarters and Gremlin tends to speak extra juicily when he is mad. Gremlin just kept on grumbling and spraying around the back of that police van like a lawn sprinkler.

“I was in there for a half hour talking with you, niggah", he said to T-Tom. "If you would have just made the deal I would have been gone long before the cops got there!”

It was T-Tom that Gremlin was really mad at because T-Tom was in control of whether the deal went down or not.

T-Tom and Wayne were brothers. T-Tom was 21 and a couple of years than Wayne. Wayne was more-or-less a runner for T-Tom than a dealer. Wayne Had Attention Deficit Disorder or A.D.D. Except in those days we just said he was retarded. He liked to look at comic books and would look at them for hours. I say, “look at them” because he couldn’t read.

It turns out that T-Tom had 3 dime bags in the hallway and that is exactly how many Gremlin wanted to get from him.

“Man, Gremlin”, said T-Tom who had just been taking Gremlin’s verbal assault like a man and remaining quiet. “If your wife had been looking out for the cops like she was supposed to be doing, the cops might not have been able to sneak up on us. Shit, plus it ain’t my fault you don’t pay your child support, niggah!”

Gremlin hesitated for a second and had a look on his face as if he was offended and considering responding to T-Tom’s comment about Roz slacking up on the lookout tip and causing us to get busted. Or maybe he was offended by the child support crack that T-Tom made. Perhaps Gremlin thought better of it because the shit was true that his girl was supposed to be looking out for the cops and he don’t pay his child support.

“Shit the watch itself is worth 30-40 dollars”, Grim said, “Now the man got everything, fuck!”

T-Tom, Wayne, nor I, said another word to Gremlin the entire ride downtown, but he just kept going. Since our hands were handcuffed behind our backs we could not cover our faces against the onslaught of spit. The only thing we could do is try to turn our bodies as much as we could away from Gremlin and let the backs of our heads take the drenching.

Life had taken an unfortunate turn for the worse…

Newark Driven - 1

2011-02-01T22:15:00.003-05:00

NEWARK DRIVEN
Part 1

"Newark Drive"

(Part 1: Sometime in the Spring of 1981)

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 116^thStreet 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.

PART 2

STICK-UP

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 old guy started spinning like a top again and shouting, “Oh no”.

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.

New York Drive

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.

To be continued…

About BCFX

2007-03-20T18:40:00.002-05:00

About BrickCityFX

Brick City FX is a working online collection of various tales as told in the unique styling of the author Michael B. Jackson, who grew up “down the hill" in the Arch Bishop Walsh Homes Projects in North Newark, New Jersey.

I intend to post at least one article each month, here on Brick City FX. The editing is basic raw, MS Word spell checked; so don’t trip when you come across spelling and grammatical errors.

Some of this stuff may have actually happened.

Some of this stuff may not have actually happened.

Some of this stuff I may have just made the hell up.

In fact, all characters, names, locations, similarities and events in these stories are entirely fictional. The material on this website contains coarse language and adult situations.

Anyway, feel free to speculate, read into it, signify and gossip to your hearts content, as long as you enjoy it. I intend this FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!

I hope you enjoy. mbj

Michael B. Jackson is the author and publisher of 3 other non-traditionally published books “How to Do Good After Prison: A Handbook for the Committed Man” , “How to Love & Inspire Your Man After Prison” and “Como Cumplir Con Tus Obligaciones Al Salir De La Prision: Guia practica para una vida mejor”. Find out more about the author at Jointfx.com.

UPDATES
BCFX is a living book and a work in progress. It has not recieved a final edit, yet. A new Episode or chapter added to the story every 15 to 30 days as it is written.

READER CONTRIBUTION
Readers are invited to visit the Brick City FX Guestbook to comment on the book.

Copyright Notice
This website and its content is copyright of Michael B. Jackson © 2007. All rights reserved.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:
• you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only
• you may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge the website as the source of the material
You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

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Welcome to our website. If you continue to browse and use this website you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions of use, which together with our privacy policy govern our relationship with you in relation to this website.
The term we refers to the owner of the website whose registered office is Joint FX Press, PMB 104, Postnet; 621 Beverly-Rancocas Rd., Willingboro, NJ 0806. The term “you” refers to the user or viewer of our website.
The use of this website is subject to the following terms of use:
• The content of the pages of this website is for your general information and use only. It is subject to change without notice.
• Neither we nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered on this website for any particular purpose. You acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies or errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law.
• Your use of any information or materials on this website is entirely at your own risk, for which we shall not be liable. It shall be your own responsibility to ensure that any products, services or information available through this website meet your specific requirements.
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Copyrights Page

2007-03-20T18:36:00.000-05:00

Copyright Notice
This website and its content is copyright of Michael B. Jackson © 2007. All rights reserved.
Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than the following:
• you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only
• you may copy the content to individual third parties for their personal use, but only if you acknowledge the website as the source of the material
You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.

Terms and conditions of website usage
Welcome to our website. If you continue to browse and use this website you are agreeing to comply with and be bound by the following terms and conditions of use, which together with our privacy policy govern our relationship with you in relation to this website.
The term we refers to the owner of the website whose registered office is Joint FX Press, PMB 104, Postnet; 621 Beverly-Rancocas Rd., Willingboro, NJ 0806. The term “you” refers to the user or viewer of our website.
The use of this website is subject to the following terms of use:
• The content of the pages of this website is for your general information and use only. It is subject to change without notice.
• Neither we nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered on this website for any particular purpose. You acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies or errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law.
• Your use of any information or materials on this website is entirely at your own risk, for which we shall not be liable. It shall be your own responsibility to ensure that any products, services or information available through this website meet your specific requirements.
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