When we were last with Gerald on the streets of New Orleans, he was finally runnin’ the streets with his two best friends from two different periods in his life, Greg and Minew…
Now it’s really kinda shakin’ the city because we’re very known. What I mean by very known is, the large to-dos in the street, they know our work. They know we rob, they know we jack, they know we shoot dope. They know we hang out. They know everything about us.
It’s me, Minew, Greg, all three together. The Three Stooges.
It’s shaking when we go back of town, the Calliope Projects, where Master P and C-Murder and all of them from. When we go back there, it gets shady.
They don’t know what we be up to. They be scared. They’ll put in work if they can get the work. But they KNOW we gonna put in work.
What I mean put in work, we will pull them triggers. Police out there — whatever. That’s how serious we are out there.
We really don’t go back there for it. But we know they’ll snake on us. Mean they’ll kill us, because they want us out the streets, some of them be so scared.
These are big boys. Sam. You know he scared. But Sam will put a hit out on you, get you out the way. We don’t want the beef, but we never know. We can’t sleep on it.
He’ll put a hit on any one of us. Because if you kill him, you know I’m gonna come. So it don’t matter.
A lot of people curious about young kids in New Orleans, how they get killed, and how the situation go. A lot of them be in the way.
What I mean in the way, it might be family problem, it might be beef problems, it my be girlfriend. But it’s mostly you in the way.
It’s different from here, where I’m at in D.C. now, to New Orleans. If you out there in the street, all this come with the street. What I mean by that is that you can’t be out there thinking this not going to happen.
Anytime you breaking the law, there’s gonna be some drama. I don’t care how rich your folk be, how classy they be, it’s gonna be drama.
I don’t care how big you get, it’s gonna be a problem. Even for me, a problem.
I’m a street guy, but they still get me. They’ll get me high and still kill me. I gotta be on my Ps and Qs. You can’t never tell when it’s gonna happen.
My instinct can make me feel not the right way. You, him, him, him … I might tell y’all, “Nah, I’m gonna pass.”
I go in the project: “Glad you didn’t get in that car, they was trying to knock you off.” As I get in the car, they gonna have a back-seat man. I’d have seen it, watched it.
Most of the time when I move today, I still think about a lot of things that I did. And I’m blessed, I’m really blessed.
I look at the world today, it seem like it’s coming to an end. That’s how it really look.
Then you gotta sit back and think about it. If it do end, I did me. I did what I had to do, whatever.
You can’t stop it if it’s coming to an end.
But I tell you, when me and Greg and Minew together, it’s no joke.
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To be continued. Anderson’s first book, “Still Standing: How an Ex-Con Found Salvation in the Floodwaters of Katrina,” is available on Amazon.com.
