I Never Knew…
I never knew substance was an aphrodisiac. It’s like our soul winks when we talk.
Wearing camouflage is so taxing, in an era that lacks understanding. Treading lightly through every one of your layers, as if I’m afraid the weather is going to change. Yet our forecast speaks volumes, as our eyes hold dialogue. Our energy reminiscent of a boomerang, in a language only we can understand.
I never knew substance had a heartbeat… Until you made my pulse skip, until I dug the undertone, of the vibe our words carried. Until your smile forced you to look away, because you knew deep down, that a connection like this takes preparation. And even then, I’m left on a ledge, suspense running through my veins.
I never knew substance had a face, as pretty as yours, that outdid every cliche and put the Universe on its head. Potent like a first dose, calm like a waterfall. Majestic, angelic, with a touch of sturdiness, I simply love your style. I never knew substance felt so good, until I met you……..
8ball and a Dream (Part 1)
1994 Detroit, Ml.
E was doing the crush linen, pinky ring bigger than an elephant tooth. Nighttime, the type of night where even though it was dark it seemed like it was 3:00 in the afternoon. Luxury cars parked up and down Meldrum St. I see everyone; their perspective style leaving its mark on me. E’s cocky swagger, Tito gave me the fashion sense of a hustler, Jay gave me class, Tone gave me game every chance he got. CJ gave me a shot along with Lance. Tee showed me love and gave me priceless jewels. Brill kept it real and gave me the history of my turf. “That nigga got them bricks…” Eleven yrs. old; is what I say to Bubba as he sits next to me on the stoop this same night while looking in E’s direction. Nothing new; another day in the life actually, another impression with unknown benefits. Yup, we’ll see… I take everything in with grateful eyes, thankful, but don’t ask me for what because I really didn’t know yet.
“While linking the ‘War on Terror with the seemingly endless War on some drugs, the hypocrisy of our government propping up the cartels and narcotics warlords who support U.S. foreign policies– as the U.S. justice system simultaneously continues arresting, trying and incarcerating Joe Citizenry for buying, selling and using the very same drugs our ‘allies’ and so called protectors traffic into the country.–is stark.”
—-Pg. 170 paragraph 1
1999
The nightgown swallows my mom, she was olive oil skinny. Hair unkept, aura disheveled, typical addict side effects. I bypass her bed which is the couch, salty feeling still indescribable. Hurt, mad, frustrated, a pathological pain I channeled into something else. Gray Cavalier, first car I bought with my own money parked on the side of the house. I nod to my boy KO who awaits in his ride as I walk around to mine. Amateur stash spot, under the passenger seat, plastic 4-5, I retrieve it in broad daylight, we on our way to hit another lick. By the time I raise my head I’m cold busted. Grandma right there, hurtful scowl on her face, her premonitions about her grandson was true.
On May 11, 2000, the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI}made public their report on the CIA’s alleged involvement in crack cocaine trafficking in the Los Angeles area. It focuses solely on implications of facts reported by investigative reporter Gary Webb. It alleges that a group of Nicaraguan Contra supporters formed an alliance with black dealers in South Central LA. to sell cocaine to the Bloods and Crips, who turned it into crack. The drug profits were then funneled back to Contra confers by Contra supporters.
—-Paragraph 2 P. 170
2018 SCI Albion FB unit 60 cell
“Take it in!! T–a–ke it in!!” Thirty-ish hillbilly corrections officer yells, mouth full of snuff. We all scramble around the top and bottom tier of the unit, like kids in a schoolyard and recess is almost over. Tobacco, bowls of food, miscellaneous goodies is just a few of the things we’re trying to collect before we’re locked in our cell for the night. Everyone against each other, everyday job trying to keep up with what’s what, who’s who and the latest schemes. A circle of confusion if you not tuned in, so this run around is much like a complicated maze, as we remain oblivious to our role in this web of deceit, trickery and misconceptions…
Summer 1999
Wasn’t so polished when I first started out. My stomping grounds were like sandpaper, and every run in sharpened my blade. 10th grade summer, fireworks were approaching. I remember June riding up on me; Cartier frames, candy paint, sounds thumping. “Hey boy? Y’all robbed them didn’t y’all?” “Naw man we ain’t hit them” I respond. Seconds later he was all smiles as if he read me like a book. “Tell me the truth Boy, y’all robbed them?” Word traveled fast, we robbed them on 8 mile and went shopping at Eastland right down the street. We ran into our victims in the mall parking lot. Big fight, weapons drawn, police swarm. Close call; me and my co-d in holding tanks feigning amnesia.
Approved for release in February of 2000, the HPSCI report states the committee ”found no evidence” to support allegations that CIA agents or assets associated in any way with the Nicaraguan Contra movement were involved in the supply or sale of drugs in the Los Angeles area…
—-Paragraph 3 P.170
Yeah right…. ?
DEA’s lead agent in El Salvador and Guatemala from 1985 to 1990 was Celerino Castillo who documented massive CIA sanctioned and protected drug trafficking stated; “It is a massive cover-up, a flat out lie and I’m going to prove it with the casefile numbers..”
Paragraph 2 P.171
Summer 2002
Mom was ten toes in by now, voice cracky as she relayed the news to me over the phone. “June got killed; they shot him right in front of his mother’s house.” I’m standing on the same block he once held down, same one I was in admiration of as an 11-year-old. Looking at everything through different eyes. The house I grew up in, no longer a home, now a fully blown trap, June wasn’t the first to have it and he wouldn’t be the last. I observe and roam, not just physically but mentally, trying to find my way. Hungry eyes, looking for opportunity as if this is the only place it exists; the hood, this turf, only seeing one side of the coin. GLAMOUR. Around this same time Brill told me; “Boy you up next..” His smile was prideful, like he saw in me what I didn’t see in myself. Amazing how he knew what I wanted without me saying a word.
After participating in a historic CIA Drugs Symposium held in Eugene, Oregon, June 11, 2000, Castillo decided to go back through his notes, journals and his DEA-6’s — the bi-weekly reports he’d filled out at the time–to see just how many times his records didn’t match the ‘not guilty’ verdict of the HPSCI report. “I’ve got them (CIA} personally involved in 18 counts of drug trafficking. I’ve got them on three counts of murders of which they personally were aware, that were occurring and I also came out with money laundering.”
—- Paragraph 3 P.171
2018 SCI Albion Prison Yard
Tension is the usual; to the point it’s not even evident, it’s like an invisible weight we carry on our shoulders. All of us; housed in this enlarged cage, this outdoor facade. We’re mad at the sky because it isn’t blue enough, mad at the rain because it’s only drizzling, mad at the weight so we push out that extra rep. All this misplaced anger; everyone anticipating a mishap, or the wrong move by a rival crew who don’t even know they’re a rival. And this is how it’s planned, this is the seeds of confusion in full bloom. The U.S. never tend to our garden, we never get the memo, just the BREAKING NEWS when we’re the subject. Our name and age serve as the caption. Inmate number, #H0-1829, yard count, 186. My imprint, my stamp, another casualty of the Drug War that never ends. As I maneuver through the tension and walk through the metal detector headed back inside, I start to see the light…..
August 2002
Small home; type where the furniture held all the equity. Always wanted to be inside, now I’m here. Female acquaintance from around the way sit opposite me while I wait. I wish I remember her name but I just remember her style. She looked at CJ then shook her head at me. “Hmm hmmm..” Read my soul, had seen my naivete so many times. As if the game had a stylist, she didn’t think it fit me or if I knew what I was getting myself into. “He gone do it anyway; might as well deal with me.” CJ’s justification as he weighs pound on the scale. My introduction to the game, my first shot, somebody believed in me, was it sincerity, or because opportunity met fate? At the moment I was chasing the former, and off to the races….
Notorious drug trafficker Francisco Rodrigo Guirola Beeche, who is documented in DEA, CIA and U.S. Customs files flew out of Orange County, California in a private airplane with three Cuban Americans. It made a stop in South Texas where U.S. Customs seized $5.9 million in cash. It was alleged that it was drug money, but because of his ties to the Salvadoran death squads and the CIA he was released, and the airplane given back. In other words, the government kept the money, and known drug trafficker Guirola got off with his airplane.
-Paragraph 5 P. 171
Sept. 2002
Back when Santa Claus was paying visits, I use to rush to this living room to unwrap my gifts as an adolescent. Now I sit in this same room, looking down at this saucer, razorblade between my thumb and index cutting rocks of cocaine. The kitchen not what it used to be, now it serves as my workplace. My mom sneak hits in the dining room as I play numb to it. Brill sits next to me; my coach/sidekick, but somewhere along the line his eyes became shaky. Clientele rings the doorbell, music to my ears, my one-track mind only focused on keeping them happy. In and out, in and out, serve, re-up, spend and then flip again. This was my reality, what I aspired to be. Through the rush and excitement, second thoughts started to haunt me but my ambition had other plans. Couldn’t face the ‘I told you so’s.., had to prove the squares wrong. And so I grind..
In May of 1984 Guirola had gone with Major Robert D’Abuisson, head of the death squads in El Salvador at that time, to a highly secret, sensitive and as it turns out, successful meeting with former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence Vernon Walters. Walters was sent to stop the assassination of then U.S. Ambassador to EL Salvador, Thomas Pickering. The CIA knew Guirola, and knew him well. The HPSCI report notes that John McCavitt, a senior CIA official in Guatemala and EL Salvador at the time ‘rejects forcefully’ the idea that there was CIA involvement in trafficking in either country, and that he told the Committee that lllopango airport in El Salvador hadn’t been used as a narcotics trans-shipment point by Contra leaders. Castillo documented Guirola less than a year after the arrest in South Texas, flying drugs, cash, and weapons in and out of lllopango Airfeild, out of hangers four and five, run respectively by Oliver North/Gen. Richard Second’s National Security Council and the CIA.
—Paragraph 6 P. 171
SCI Albion 2018
The young cats are starting to call me ‘oldhead’. At 34 years old I’m appalled; don’t know if it’s my looks, my demeanor or a sign of respect I’ve yet to embrace. I was 23 when I walked through these walls, naive with fresh eyes. The more I witness the more that naivete seeps out of me, I can feel it and maybe that’s what these young cats see that I don’t. ‘How the People Seldom Catch Intelligence (or How to be a Successful Drug Dealer)’ by Preston Peet. I scan the article once more and take notes as I reflect on my experiences….
Environmental factors, check. Choices, check. Free will, check. Thinking short term, check. Menace to Society, threat to my community? Do I have to take that rap too? Torn, can’t be so quick to swallow up all the responsibility. Not when this same government make me out to be the target, the EL Chapo, to ease their guilt and balance their conscious. If it wasn’t me and wasn’t them who was it? Maybe it was the cocaine magician who can be held accountable for the influx of drugs. This underground market that created prodigies yet ruined so many lives. There’s an invisible hierarchy that puts the wrong faces at the top. I’m not blameless but who influenced the influencers? When the smoke clears we all remain amongst each other pointing fingers. No regret as the cell walls close in on me, just wondering how many others had to go through this to get theirs opened..
To Be Continued…..
Paragraph excerpts taken from the article “How the People Seldom Catch Intelligence (Or How to be a Successful Drug Dealer)” by Preston Peet
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