Bars: Breaking a Racial Stereotype

© 2013 by Jay Charles. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/04/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-6311-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-6310-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-6309-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910537

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Contents

Chapter 1       Young Niggas

Chapter 2       Point tha Finga

Chapter 3       Trapped

Chapter 4       Tradin’ War Stories

Chapter 5       Peep Game

Chapter 6       Where Do We Go From Here?

Chapter 7       Two of Amerika’s Most Wanted

Chapter 8       If My Homie Calls

Chapter 9       Straight Ballin’

Chapter 10       Pain

Chapter 11       Unconditional Love

Chapter 12       Heavy in the Game

Chapter 13       Old School

Chapter 14       Thugz Mansion

Chapter 15       Only God Can Judge Me

Chapter 16       Temptations

Chapter 17       The Streetz R Death Row

Chapter 18       Words of Wisdom

Chapter 19       Checkout Time

Chapter 20       Me against the World

Chapter 21       Bomb First

Chapter 22       Fuckin’ Wit’ the Wrong Nigga

Chapter 23       Hold Ya Head Up

Chapter 24       This Ain’t Livin’

Chapter 25       I Ain’t Mad at Cha

Chapter 26       Heartz of Men

Chapter 27       Life Goes on

Chapter 28       If I Die 2nite

Chapter 29       White Manz World

Chapter 30       Nothin’ but Love

Chapter 31       Strictly 4 My NIGGAZ

Chapter 32       Heaven Ain’t Hard to Find

Chapter 33       Something Wicked

Chapter 34       Thug Passion

Chapter 35       Temptations

Chapter 36       Picture Me Rollin’

Chapter 1

Young Niggas

Yo, you coming over? Brian asked.

Yeah, I’ll be there in a half an hour, I responded before I could even wipe the eye crud off my face. After I hung up the phone, I took a quick shower and threw on my red Nike basketball shorts, a black Nautica T-shirt, and red dunks. Appearance was clearly the last thing on my mind. At this point the only things I cared about were smoking weed and dealing coke. I had been dealing weed for years through the hallways and suburban streets of Basking Ridge, but I didn’t know what truly fast cash was until I started dealing coke two months ago. I grabbed my CD case that didn’t have any CD jackets. I had removed those to make space for all of my necessities: my weed, my gravity bong cap, lighters, bagged-up coke, and tinfoil for more bags later. My seventy-eight-year-old father dropped me off at Brian’s, who was outside shooting hoops, waiting for me to get the day started. Both of our minds went to the same place after we exchanged our classic pound handshake—the gravity bong or as we so affectionately called it, the GB. We both take out lawn chairs and sit around the trash can that was halfway filled with water with a cut-off two-liter bottle in it to begin our ritual. Lately this was the only place where I felt comfortable, in a circle smoking with my friends. Both of us were in pretty good moodWe’d been making more money dealing coke than we could’ve dreamed of dealing weed.

Almost as important as the money we were making was the feeling we had while we were dealing. Windows down, G-Unit blasting through the speakers, high as hell on our way to our latest hustle, we thought we were true thugs. You couldn’t tell us shit. Dealing coke in Basking Ridge was even more taboo than dealing weed, which went along with my motto back then, The more shocking and offensive I can be, the better. We had already cut the coke with caffeine pills, to maximize our profit, and bagged it, so we were all ready to set up shop. I had some deals set up for the day, so we handled a few of those on our way to to smoke with our friend and pick up some weed. After we left I got a call from a girl named Jennifer. She needed a gram of coke, so we met up with her in the Starbucks parking lot. I sold her a gram for $50.00. After cutting, that bag probably only cost us $15.00. That made us a $35.00 profit to drive to Starbucks and give coke to an artsy, indie fuck, which is a pretty good deal, right? It started to get late, and I had to go home to eat dinner with my dad, so Brian drove me back home, but certainly not before we went to our normal chill parking spot to do some much needed GBs. I love that Brian and I would just smoke, deal drugs and do whatever we wanted wherever we wanted, business was going better than ever and we had just graduated high school three weeks ago, on the surface this should be the best time of my life. But deep down I knew I was going nowhere fast, I hadn’t even applied to colleges and all I cared about was smoking as much pot as possible to numb my life, at best it looked like I was going to be that pothead kid who stayed in town after high school half assing his way through community college and life. Maybe risking my freedom all the time was my way of asking to get caught, like Marvin Gaye walking around with a gun in his robe, provoking his crazy dad, until his dad shot him dead. I wasn’t secure enough with myself to tell Brian this so I started discussing Cassidy’s place in today’s best rappers when we noticed a middle-aged white man come out. Judging by his body language, he didn’t seem too happy that we’re smoking weed out of a trash can in our car. Brian and I had smoked in some pretty sketchy places throughout out our high school years, but never had anyone had that type of reaction when they saw us smoke. It was extremely odd and unsettling. So we decided to bounce. Brian dropped me off at my house, high as hell. I sat down and enjoyed one of five things my dad knew how to make, chicken cutlets. I quickly scarfed the chicken and went upstairs to bag up Jim’s quarter of coke, which he was buying for a trip down to the shore with his friends.

Jim was one of my favorite customers. He always had big money orders, and he didn’t know shit about anything, so ripping him off was very easy. I bagged up his quarter, which was probably like five grams, three after it was cut, so I’d be selling this for $300.00. It cost me about $45 to make. Jim called and told me he wants to meet at Pleasant Valley Park instead of my neighborhood, which felt strange but whatever, I didn’t care. As long as he had the cash I’d go anywhere. I got this feeling that I had to rush and get this deal over with. I felt this nervous anxiety come across me, even though I had done this type of thing countless times before. So I started to annoy my dad so that he would take me over to Dan’s, where Brian was hanging out. My dad took his sweet-ass time as I annoyed him to hurry up. He started to get a little suspicious, but he had nothing other than me wanting leave as proof that I was up to something. Finally I grabbed my CD case, and we were out the door. He dropped me off at our friend house, and Brian met me outside. We waited till my dad was out of sight and went on the mile drive to the Pleasant Valley Park. I was super excited ’cause this deal was really gonna put our finances in a great state. This much profit on one deal was hard to come by even for me, the king of giving people what I could get away with, not what they paid for or deserved. The way business had been going lately and with our clientele being at an all-time high, it seemed like a matter of weeks and not months until we’d be really slinging with the big boys.

We weren’t sure where to meet Jim, so we drove up to the top parking lot. He called me and said he was by the tennis courts. So Brian drove down to the courts and parks. I take the bag out of my CD case and trot over to Jim’s car and sit in the passenger’s seat. Being the natural salesman I was, I immediately started praising the coke I was about to sell him. I held the coke low so he could grab without anyone seeing, and I waited for him to get his money out. Then ten seconds became twenty, and I start to realize something was wrong. The closing scene from Blow came into my head, the one where George Jung realizes he’s getting set up. I turned my head to Jim and called him a bitch, and then I was being thrown on the gravel while five cops with guns pointing at me were yelling, Police! Hands on the ground!

Chapter 2

Point tha Finga

M ike Tyson was one of my heroes growing up. Anything Mike did I wanted to do, including getting arrested. I would see the videos of him going to jail in handcuffs while he smiled and made a mockery of the whole process. How cool is he , I thought. The prospect of losing the next three years of his life didn’t faze him in the least. It doesn’t get tougher than that , I thought. I thought that going to jail would make me tough and cool. After all Tyson did regain the belt after he was released from prison, and it seemed to add to his legend. For some reason, even before I started my illegal ways, I was sure at some point or another I’d be going to jail. So here I was standing in my moment of fame that I knew would come, the moment that I’d imagined when as a little boy watching Mike Tyson documentaries. Back then I figured I’d feel tough at this moment. I wasn’t scared, I didn’t feel tough. In the weirdest of ways possible I was finally relaxed—no more running from the cops, no more spending twelve hours a day chasing the high of drugs and selling drugs, but most importantly no more running from my own problems.

My denial stage lasted all of about four seconds. Then I realized all that was important now was for me to start making the right decisions to get me out of the trouble I was in. Knowing that I didn’t have to worry about hustling my way to my next high was very freeing. It was almost as if I actually had something to live for now, reassembling my life. As the cops picked me up and walked me over to sit down next to a tree and explained everything, I noticed Brian standing in handcuffs outside his car. The cops searched Brian’s car only to find my CD case with the rest of my stuff in it. They sat me down and started planting seeds in my head, wanting me to set up anyone I could give them. Unsure what my next move would be, I asked them if we could talk somewhere a little more private. They drove me and Brian to central booking and put us in separate rooms. I assumed the cops were in the other room, piecing their plan together to have me snitch on someone. That was when I started thinking of how my dad would take it, and tears started flowing rapidly down my face.

Finally a cop came in the room and explained to me how much time I was facing. The cop did his best job to make snitching sound as glorious as possible. No one will ever know you set them up. Your whole life is over if you don’t. You won’t see your dad again. Don’t take the fall for them, he said over and over and over again. The whole time I was just sitting there and crying. I tried to use my dad’s age as a reason for them to let me go, as if that would make a difference. If they had souls they wouldn’t be cops. So I briefly stopped crying, and the cop turned the voice recorder on and asked me about the people I dealt to. The time between him asking me that and my response felt like five years, not five seconds. I remember thinking, Oh well, if I agree to do this I can go home, get on with my life, and I’ll worry about this later. No one has to know. I thought briefly that snitching was something I could half-ass and worry about tomorrow like I did throughout all my years of high school. As soon as I started justifying snitching I lost that feeling of relaxation I had right after I had gotten arrested.

I guess it came down to what I truly feel about myself. Did I think I was some boy who got rid of his problems by throwing them on someone else, or was I a man who could overcome anything that came at me and was responsible for his own actions? As bad as I had let things get for myself, I never looked down upon myself. I knew I was better than snitching. All I had to do was say it. I know if I didn’t think as much about myself as a person as I had, I would’ve snitched. After the five seconds, which felt like an eternity, tears started flowing down my face twice as hard as before, and as I slammed my head on the desk with my hands in my face, I started repeating over and over, I can’t do it. I can’t tell. I’m sorry. It was finally time to start taking accountability for my actions.

The cop, taken aback by my decision, left the room. Another cop swung open the door and said, Does the name Lenoard sound familiar? Brian’s decision to give up our dealer’s name and information didn’t affect my decision. Still crying, I shook my head no. Wow, so you’re really going to take the time for these guys, huh? Whatever—it’s your life, the cop said to me bluntly as if the only point of my existence on earth was to provide information for these shitty suburban cops. Realizing more than seven years in prison hanging over my head wasn’t enough to make me crack, the cops gave up on trying to get me to tattle. However, that didn’t stop them from hitting me in my core of cores for one last ditch effort.

You see this? the bright red-faced cop asked me, shoving a printed-out AIM conversation I had had with my sister, bragging about how much money I was making by dealing drugs.

Yeah, what’s your point? I say to him with the most nondescript tone and facial expression I could muster up for someone who just found out his sister, his own flesh and blood, had taken part in me getting arrested.

Your own fucking family will tell on you, but you won’t tell on some piece of shit drug dealer. Some son you are. I hope you rot in fucking jail.

They put me and Brian in separate holding cells downstairs and give us the opportunity to make a phone call. I called my dad to tell him what had happened. I made sure I wasn’t crying and was acting calm so he could do his best not to overreact. Of course he started to freak out. He told me to call him back after he spoke to my mother. I called him back, and he told me there was nothing he could do to help me and that he was not going bail me out. My mother had convinced him that this was something I would have to get through on my own. I felt like that should’ve been really bad news to me, but it wasn’t. Finally I was in control now, me against the world. It was time for me to see what I was made of. Thank God I didn’t know how hard it was going to be.

They took our fingerprints in the room next to the holding cells, and then it was off to Somerset County Jail. On our way to the police car I saw the resource officer from my high school that had been trying to get me for the longest time. I didn’t want to yell at him like some moron who couldn’t control his emotions. I wanted to say something that would open his mind but make him feel like shit at the same time. I turned to him and said, Really? You happy? This is what you spent all your time on? Making sure I don’t deal drugs? Glad you got your priorities in order. Why don’t you go out and actually try to make a difference? I said it in a you should be ashamed in yourself tone with a look of utter disgust on my face.

Locking up bad guys like you is my job, he said with a shit-eating cop grin on his face.

I smile back at him. Fuck outta here. You can’t even believe you’re own shit, fuckin’ big ass gap in your front teeth.

He quickly covered his teeth to conceal the Michael Strahan-sized gap in his front teeth. The other cops tried their best not to smile while the resource officer’s facial expression was that of a hall monitor who had just gotten embarrassed for giving someone detention for cutting a corner too quickly. They put me and Brian in the backseat of the cop car, and we started having a conversation as if nothing had happened. Then he started asking