Legacy of Untold Stories ... Part 1

 "Down These Mean Streets" by Piri Thomas ... Legacy of Untold Stories

My English teacher Mr. Goff gave me this book to read called, "Down These Mean Streets" and said I should keep a journal to tell my story the way Piri Thomas had told his.  I told him I'd write about true things but if he read it he couldn't tell the cops, and he especially couldn't tell my mother ... 

It was cold.  I looked up at the window and the frost framed the glass like a TV screen so I could watch the world in black & white.   I could hear the chatter and coos of the pigeons on the ledge like they wanted to break in.  They jostled and pushed each other looking from their side to see if I was awake.  I'd have just as soon opened the window and flown with them.  But eleven stories is a long way to fall to find out you don't have wings, so I was satisfied for now to watch the show from under my covers. 

My dick was hard.  Just as I was about to turnover and grind my hips into my already stained sheets to find some relief and release, the moment was broken by my mother's voice.  

"Popsi! Hey Papa Joe," she was calling me. "Get up and go play my numbers and get the paper, and eggs if they still got any."  

I hated when she was off on Saturdays cause it meant my chores doubled, and I already had my own plans for the day.    

Anytime I left our apartment I always the took the stairs down.  I always did whether going down or up.  I hated getting on the elevators in my building not because they always got stuck, I just hated looking at the people on it.  They said "Good morning" like they were throwing up and it hurt their throats.  Their eyes looked like we were all headed to those gas chambers I'd read about in Social Studies class with Mr. Horowitz.

So I just ran down the stairs.  The corners of the landings were filled with the piss or vomit of junkies, or dog shit but it all made me move that much more faster.  I only paused if someone had put up some new tags on the walls, especially if I recognized the name.  

I had to meet John and Ricky.  John told me we could make some money working for Beau.  Beau was an older guy from the block that I didn't like much.  He called me "mantequilla" - butter, just to fuck with me.  But he knew some of the same people I did so he left it at that.  

"I heard you little maricons like to surf?" he said blowing his cigarette smoke at me.  "If you can prove it - show me you got some balls - y'all can make some cash later tonight." 

"How much?"

"Fifty dollars each." 

"Let's go."

Surfing in the housing projects was easy enough if you had the legs for it. 
Every guy in my building knew how to take a screwdriver to pop the outer door of the elevator opening it up to the shaft below.  One of your friends then rode one of the two elevators in the building to let's say the tenth floor.  With the door open on the eleventh floor, two others would jump onto the top of the elevator and ride the roof of the car up and down.  

Slicker still was jumping from car to car as they passed by.  Beau said to work for him we had to make a jump.

"I gotta five year old brother that can surf on the roof - y'all muthafuckas gotta show me you can jump.  And don't try to bullshit me if you don't - I'll know," he warned us.

Getting on top of the cars was easy.  Getting outta the building that could be tricky because once people realized we were up there they'd call the cops.

Beau led us to one of the big buildings, twenty-one stories, for our test. 

Once inside the three of us took the stairs and Beau would give us time to get to the tenth floor and he would ride car #2 to the ninth floor.  I popped the safety door with a screwdriver and Ricky and I decided to go first.    

We jumped down on top of the car and tried to land like marshmallows cause we didn't want to get busted before we even got started. 

We shot up towards the top.  With the elevator now moving I closed my eyes for a few seconds just to feel what those birds did.  It was glorious having wings.

Ricky and I rode for awhile laughing between us  in the cool breeze of the shaft, looking to make our jumps.  Finally car #1 was going down slow enough to leap on.   Our car was stopped so people could get on and I caught the other car just as it was going by and I rode it down to the first floor.  Ricky was still up there on car #2.  

I took off like a rocket from the first floor.   I could tell by the speed of the car that I was headed towards one of the top floors and I could see Ricky's car moving down fast.  Too fast.  

"Don't fucking jump," I thought to myself. "This is too fast Ricky," I was muttering.  And in a breath I saw him.  His eyes were like saucers, his body bumping around like those pigeons trying to break into my room.  

He had timed his jump wrong.  

Slipped, then fell straight to the bottom.  

"Get - the - fuck  - out!" I told myself. 

Once the elevator stopped near the top and I could tell whoever was on it had gone.   I stomped on the hatchdoor of the roof of the elevator car to get inside.  I had to jump on it like a trampoline but it popped, and I went crashing to the floor.  I took the ride one floor down and hit the stairs.  Stopped on the tenth floor to get John and we hit the steps.  

We went out the back entrance of the building not to be noticed but we didn't run. 

When cops see niggas or Ricans  running through the projects they're obligated to chase you.  The key was to walk. Slow.  So slow it looked like you were lost. 

I wanted to go home but John told me, "No! We have to stay out and do what we always do."   

So we did.

We played ball up at Riverside Park.    

We went home just in time to eat.  Ricky was all over the news on TV.  As much as I pleaded with mom to go out again she was firm in her, "No way boy.  That's the devil out there today.  You stay your butt right in this house."  

John stopped by about an hour later.  I stepped out into the hallway.  

We whispered.   

He said Beau told him there was too much shit going on tonight.  It'd have to be tomorrow. 

I went into the bathroom to take a shower before dinner.  I stood there naked taking in all of me, tracing my body with the tips of my fingers. My bones where coming through my skin.  My left shoulder hurt most of all.  I had dislocated it when I was eight years old playing tackle football on asphalt.  At the emergency room the doctors had trouble resetting it and basically had to do it again. I remember yelling, "You're trying to kill me! I'm gonna get both you muthafuckas when you let go!" 

I passed out on the table after that.

That's how I was feeling now,  like I was gonna blackout.  I turned on the shower and could feel the hot beads hitting my stink skin.  The gravity of my stomach pulled me to my knees and I was crying like a punk.  I had to stuff my wash rag in my mouth so my mother and sister wouldn't hear me.  Prayed that the spray of the water would dull my gagging sounds.  Then I started throwing up.  Right into the bathroom drain.  I was stretched out like some fiend in that tub.  

Eventually I pulled it together, got under my covers and passed out.

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