When we were last with young Gerald, he was a young man in New Orleans living the life of a hustler with his friend, Gregory…
It really trip me how much I was in the street as a young hustler. I never stayed in the project. They think all hustlers come out the project. But it ain’t like that.
If you go back to New Orleans today and ask people, they’ll tell you, “He stay in the project.” But I never stayed in the project. I was outside of the project. But I got a reputation in the project.
People would tell me, “You from Calliope Project? Magnolia? Calliope?” They always thought I was out of project but I never really stayed there. I used to tell people I stay in the project, but I really stayed in a regular house.
Maybe because of my character as a hustler they feel like I was out of the project. I know all the killers and robbers and hustlers in the project because I was brought into the game.
The more stuff I get… Like I said, I don’t stay with my momma. I mostly carry them around in a bag, or keep them at Greg house, because they had a garage.
I used to sleep in they garage. Greg, Daddy and Momma knew. They used to holla, “Where Baby Gerald at? See if he want something to eat.”
His family looked at me like I was one of they kids. But at the same time, they know it wasn’t me running away from home as a young boy.
His daddy used to work the Queen boat out of the Mississippi River. And his daddy, Jimmy, really wanted us to be good guys, but he couldn’t control us the way he wanted to.
Jimmy used to go out on weekends, and do crawfish, crab hunting and fishing. He used to get us to go out and do all kinds of things. We get big old racks of shrimp up out the water.
We’re looking at $75. That’s a lot of money at the age 17 to be earning every weekend.
At the same time, Jimmy had a fish market.
Greg told me, “Man, my daddy tight as shit, he own the whole business. All this shit… I’m gonna tell you the truth boy, we supposed to be getting more money here. I didn’t want to tell on my father, but he robbin’ us.”
He told me, he said, “Man, I know what we gonna start doing: We gonna start stealing us a sack, and we’ll sell it to Big Giant Crip.”
To be continued.
