LITMIR.BIZ

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go,” but I would never even slapbox with him. But I remembered his style.

      So I decided. “Fuck it.” My friends were shocked. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I threw some wild punches and one connected and Gary went down. Wise would skip while he was shadowboxing, so after I dropped Gary, my stupid ass started skipping. It just seemed like the fly thing to do. I had practically the whole block watching my gloryful moment. Everybody started whooping and applauding me. It was an incredible feeling even though my heart was beating out of my chest.

      “This nigga is skipping, man,” one guy laughed. I was trying to do the Ali shuffle, to no avail. But I felt good about standing up for myself and I liked the rush of everybody applauding me and slapping fives. I guess underneath that shyness, I was always an explosive, entertaining guy.

      I started getting a whole new level of respect on the streets. Instead of “Can Mike play with us?” people would ask my mother, “Can Mike Tyson play with us?” Other guys would bring their guys around to fight me and they’d bet money on the outcome. Now I had another source of income. They’d come from other neighborhoods. I would win a lot too. Even if I lost, the guys who beat me would say, “Fuck! You’re only eleven?” That’s how everybody started knowing me in Brooklyn. I had a reputation that I would fight anyone – grown men, anybody. But we didn’t follow the Marquis of Queensberry rules in the street. If you kicked someone’s ass it didn’t necessarily mean it was over. If he couldn’t beat you in the fight, he’d take another route, and sometimes he’d come back with some of his friends and they’d beat me up with bats.

      I began to exact some revenge for the beatings I had taken from bullies. I’d be walking with some friends and I might see one of the guys who beat me up and bullied me years earlier. He might have gone into a store shopping and I would drag his ass out of the store and start pummeling him. I didn’t even tell my friends why, I’d just say, “I hate that motherfucker over there,” and they’d jump in too and rip his fucking clothes and beat his fucking ass. That guy who took my glasses and threw them away? I beat him in the streets like a fucking dog for humiliating me. He may have forgotten about it but I never did.

      With this newfound confidence in my ability to stand up for myself, my criminality escalated. I became more and more brazen. I even began to steal in my own neighborhood. I thought that was what ­people did. I didn’t understand the rules of the streets. I thought ­everybody was fair game because I sure seemed to be fair game to ­everybody else. I didn’t know that there were certain people you just don’t fuck with.

      I lived in a tenement building and I would rob everybody who lived in my building. They never realized that I was the thief. Some of these people were my mother’s friends. They’d cash their welfare checks and maybe buy some liquor, and they would visit my mom, drink some ­liquor, and have some fun. I’d go into my room and go up the fire ­escape and break into their apartment and rob everything from their place. Then when the lady would go upstairs, she’d discover it and run back screaming, “Lorna, Lorna, they got everything. They got the ­babies’ food, they got everything!”

      After they left, my mother would come into my room.

      “I know you did something, didn’t you, boy? What did you do?”

      I’d say, “Mom, it’s not me. Look around,” because I would take the food and stuff and leave it on the roof and my friends and I would get it later.

      “How could I have done anything? I was in the room right here, I didn’t go anywhere.”

      “Well, if you didn’t do it, I’ll bet you know who did it, you thief,” my mother would scream. “You’re nothing but a thief. I’ve never stole nothing in my life. I don’t know where you come from, you thief.”

      Oh, God. Can you imagine hearing that shit from your own mother? My family had no hope for me, no hope. They thought my life would be a life of crime. Nobody else in my family ever did stuff like that. My sister would constantly be telling me, “What kind of bird don’t fly? Jailbird! Jailbird!”

      I was with my mother one time visiting her friend Via. Via’s husband was one of those big-money showing-off guys. He went to sleep and I took his wallet out of his pocket and took his money. When he woke up, he beat Via up real bad because he thought she had stole the cash. Everybody in the neighborhood started hating my guts. And if they didn’t hate me, they were jealous of me. Even the players. I had nerve.

      It felt incredible. I didn’t care if I grabbed somebody’s chain and dragged them down the stairs with their head bouncing, boom, boom, boom. Do I care? No, I need that chain. I didn’t know anything about compassion. Why should I? No one ever showed me any compassion. The only compassion I had was when somebody shot or stabbed one of my friends during a robbery. Then I was sad.

      But you still fucking do it. You think they’re not going to kill you; that it can’t happen to you. I just couldn’t stop. I knew there was a chance I would get killed but I didn’t care. I didn’t think I would live to see sixteen anyway so why not go hard? My brother Rodney told someone recently that he thought I was the most courageous guy he knew. But I didn’t consider myself courageous. I had brave friends, friends who would get shot over their jewelry or watches or motorcycles. They weren’t giving it up when people robbed them. Those guys had the most respect in the neighborhood. I don’t know if I had courage, but I witnessed courage. I always thought that I was much more crazy than courageous. I was shooting at people out in the open while my mother looked out the window. I was brainless. Rodney was thinking it was courage but it was a lack of brainpower. I was an extremist.

      Everyone I knew was in the life. Even the guys who had jobs were hustling on the side. They sold dope or were robbing. It was like a cyborg world where the cops were the bad guys and the robbers and the hustlers were the good guys. If you didn’t hurt nobody, nobody would have talked to you. You would be labeled as square. If you did bad, you were all right. Somebody bothered you, they’d come fight for you. They’d know you were one of the guys. I was so awesome, all these sleazy, smiley scumbags knew my name.

      Then things started to escalate. I began to come into intimate contact with the police. Getting shot at in Brownsville was no big deal. You’d be in the alley gambling, and some guys would come running in shooting at the other guys. You never knew when the shit was going to go down. Other gangs would drive through on their motorcycles and, boom, boom, they’d take a shot at you. We knew where each crew would hang out, so we knew not to go certain places.

      But it’s something else when the cops start shooting at you. One day a few of us were walking past the jewelry store on Amboy Street and we saw the jeweler carrying a box. I snatched the box and we started running. We got close to our block and we heard car tires screech, and some undercover cops ran out of the car and, boom, boom, they started shooting at us. I ran into an abandoned building that we hung out in and I knew I was free. I knew that building like the back of my hand. I knew how to go into the walls or go to the roof and go through a hole and be in the rafters above the ceiling. So I did that. I got on top of the ceiling and looked through the hole and I could see anyone walking on the floor below.

      I saw the cops enter the building. They started walking across the floor, guns drawn, and one of them went right through a hole in the floor.

      “Holy shit, these fucking kids are busting my balls bringing me into this building,” he said. “I’m going to kill these fucking bastards.”

      I’d be listening to these white cops talking and laughing to myself. The building was too fucked up for the cops to go up to another floor because the steps were falling apart. But there was a chance that they might look up and see me hiding in the rafters and shoot my ass. I thought about jumping to the next roof because that was my building, but it was a ten-foot jump.

      So I made my way to the roof and my friend who lived in my building was on his roof. I was on my knees because I didn’t want to stand up and let the cops outside see me, but my friend was giving me the blow-by-blow.

      “Just chill out, Mike. They came out of the building. But they’re still looking for you. There’s a bunch

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