Dutch

  “All right! How you came into this world is how you’re leaving it too. Strip!”

  Many of those in the lineup had been through this ritual many times, but Dutch was one of the ones who had not. New to the bullshit, he began to undress, a little too slowly for the large CO who spotted him. The corrections officer came thundering toward him.

  “You!” the CO said as he got close up in Dutch’s face, so close Dutch could smell the man’s breakfast on his breath. “Didn’t you hear what the fuck I said? You deaf or is you just retarded?”

  Dutch’s whole being trembled in rage, but his composure remained unaffected. He merely continued to slowly unbutton his shirt.

  “Listen here, you little black bastard, once you step inside these here walls you belong to me! You ain’t shit, wasn’t shit, and ain’t gonna be shit! When I tell you to strip, motherfucker, I mean strip, not no goddamn striptease!” the CO shouted in Dutch’s face.

  Qwan glanced over nervously as he stood asshole naked in line with all the others who were naked or about to be, all except for Dutch. He imagined standing there eye to eye, toe to toe, with the corrections officer, then beating the motherfucker, dropping him to the ground and stomping him until the man lay lifeless. Instead, he just smiled.

  “Yes, sir… you’re the boss,” Dutch spoke as the rest of his clothes dropped to the floor.

  The young men were then outfitted in prison clothes, handcuffed, and shackled, ready to be shipped to the various places they would do their sentences.

  The transfer buses were loaded up, but Dutch and Qwan were to head in two different directions. Dutch was to go to Mountainview and Qwan would be going to Jamesburg, known to everyone as “gladiator camp.” Dutch watched in silence as Qwan boarded the bus. Qwan never looked back, and once Dutch saw that he was seated, he boarded his own bus.

  Mountainview looked like a big farm surrounded by trees and distant mountains. He was definitely a long way from Newark. The camp was arranged in cottages, about ten in all. Dutch was assigned to Cottage 3. When he entered, he saw guys sitting in the day room watching TV and playing cards. He noticed a few familiar faces, but he didn’t acknowledge them. He wasn’t trying to be too friendly too quickly. That could be seen as meaning that he was scared or looking for protection, and since Dutch was neither, he approached no one. Someone did approach him though—Kenneth Jackson, aka Shorty.

  “Now, when did you first meet Bernard James?” inquired Jacobs.

  “Well, I had read about him in the paper, about how he tried to hit the port and all, but I didn’t know him until he came to Mountainview.”

  “And can you describe him for us?”

  “Well, from jump, Dutch came in like he had something to prove, you know, like he had a shoulder on his chip, I mean a chip on his shoulder. Matter of fact, he wasn’t in the cottage five minutes and he was already fightin’.”

  Shorty had been playing cards waiting for Dutch to come through the cottage door. He found out Dutch was assigned to his cottage, and Shorty was the self-appointed cottage welcoming committee, always trying to find fear in the new jacks so he could con them. He looked at Dutch, but there was no fear of anything there. So Shorty came with a friendly face instead of a bunch of slick talk.

  “Hey, ain’t you Bernard James?” asked Shorty.

  Dutch looked at him, never saying a word, then looked away.

  “Yeah, yeah, I thought I knew you. Yeah, you use to steal cars with my man Nu Nu from down Bergen,” said Shorty, his conniving mind working overtime.

  Dutch looked back at the nigga. Who the fuck is Nu Nu? thought Dutch, knowing he didn’t know any Nu Nu.

  Shorty realized that approach wasn’t working and tried another.

  “Yo, yo y’all, this that kid who tried to rob the port, yo. His name is Bernard, yo. The nigga got heart,” said Shorty, throwing Dutch to the wolves, so to speak.

  “Fuck a Bernard, nigga name don’t ring bells here! Fuck him and the port!” somebody hollered back.

  Snickers and furtive glances were thrown at Dutch as he began making his way to the disrespectful voice belonging to a young cat a little older than him. When the cat saw Dutch coming, he stood right up and began to say something but never got it out of his mouth. Dutch caught that nigga with lightning-fast speed. He hit him with a combination that sat him back in his chair. The dude’s friends spread out as the guy sprang quickly to his feet and threw up his hands.

  “Oh, you nice wit’ yo’ shit, huh? But, ain’t shit sweet here, nigga,” the guy proclaimed as he slid into the boxing style known as the Brooklyn 52. He glided from side to side, bringing his hands up and around, trying to conceal his blows. He threw two blows. Dutch ducked one but was somewhat dazed by the second. The cat tried to follow up with a right hook that Dutch sidestepped as he hit back with two hard jabs of his own, catching his opponent in the mouth and eye, drawing first blood.

  The fight was the center of attraction. With adrenaline pumping, niggas were standing on top of chairs and tables, screaming and hollering.

  “Get yo’ weight up, Duke,” screamed one guy.

  “Knock that muhfucker out,” hollered another.

  “Little man got heart,” spoke another in the crowd, respecting Dutch’s gangster.

  They fought a bloody draw. Dutch was more bloodied than his opponent, but the point was made. Newjack or no newjack, Dutch would represent and represent to the fullest. He was brought back to the present by the sound of Shorty’s voice as it got louder.

  “Then bam! Dutch hit the dude in the mouth and the fight broke out. That was how Dutch came through the door.”

  “So, Bernard James came into the prison a violent person, is that correct?”

  “I… mean, he wasn’t no killer or nothing, but he definitely made his presence known and I respected that.”

  No, you didn’t. You didn’t respect that shit. Nigga, you feared it. After the fight, Dutch knew who was responsible for it—Shorty. But you ain’t sittin’ up there telling these crackers that you started the shit.

  That’s just how Shorty was, though, the type of cat who instigated fights but rarely fought one. Originally from Prince Street, one of the most notorious areas in Newark, his people’s names rang bells and he lived off of their rep. Shorty was so well connected in the prison’s black market it didn’t make sense. Dutch learned he was a valuable liaison between the inmates and the many corrections officers who flooded the prison with drugs. However, he also knew that guys like Shorty were bad business, so he kept him at arm’s length, close enough to reach, but distant enough to keep him in his place.

  “Do you know of any gang activity at Mountainview?” asked Jacobs.

  “Yeah, everybody in a gang, if that’s what you wanna call it. Dudes just really clique up, I mean, get together on a county-versus-county or city-versus-city basis, sometimes a street-versus-street basis. It all depends on where you at to determine who you wit’.”

  Jacobs barely understood what Shorty had just said, but he had managed to establish that there were gangs, so he could establish Dutch’s involvement in them.

  “Now, I ask you, do you know if Mr. James was involved in any gang?”

  “I’m sayin’, everybody was ’cause really, you had to be. So, yeah, everybody was, especially Dutch,” Shorty emphasized.

  “Especially?”

  “Dutch practically ran Mountainview, and if Newark was involved, he was on the front line. If any moves was made, Dutch didn’t make ’em, he had ’em made. He was the man, bottom line.”

  Dutch chuckled to himself. This nigga is ridiculous. Why is he always exaggerating? Truth was, Dutch didn’t run anything, let alone some kind of gang. He did run with those cats who were recognized and well-respected, but it had nothing to do with Newark. There were plenty of smooth dudes in the game who liked Dutch’s style. Real recognized real, that’s all it was. And he didn’t run with a gang. Sure, he had earned a little rep for his hands and dudes knew how he got down. But in truth
, Dutch was respected for his mind.

  Nobody knew how, but Dutch ended up with a job in the library, a job he had actually wanted for some time. Most cats didn’t think the wild young nigga even knew how to read, let alone want to. His choice of literature ran to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Machiavelli’s The Prince, or George Jackson’s Blood in My Eye—and then he’d mash a nigga’s face over a card game. His moods alternated, and he was unpredictable. No one trusted him except those who didn’t trust themselves and therefore understood him. Only the most incorrigible and unredeemable could see the potential in Dutch. He had been raised in the streets and perfected in prison.

  Within a year of Dutch’s being locked down, niggas had come through with stories from the streets about who was getting it and how. The players in the drug game were getting younger and younger. Before, the old heads were on top and in control. But, gradually, they retired, went legit, got locked up, or died, leaving the streets wide open for thirsty up-and-comers.

  Skeet and Phil, Kurt from Prince Street, and the Wright brothers were all making names for themselves throughout Newark. But of all of them, one name stood out the loudest, the clearest, and the deadliest—Kazami. No one knew him, either. He had just popped out of nowhere and emerged on Springfield Avenue around the time Dutch had fallen. Within a year, he had completely taken over Newark’s heroin trade. Then he gradually added Elizabeth, East Orange, Linden, and most of Jersey City. Many people thought Kazami was Haitian, but he was really Nigerian and brought a team with him that was used to guerilla warfare in the jungles of Africa, so the urban jungle was no challenge.

  Murder and intimidation propelled Kazami to the top and there he stood alone, virtually unchallenged until Frank Sorbonno, aka Frankie Bonno, had moved up in the ranks of the Cerone crime family and wanted to control the city’s drug trade. Frank had two hits carried out on Kazami, but missed both times, which only added to Kazami’s street reputation, making him legendary.

  Dutch had already heard of Kazami from Angel, who had started nickel and dimin’ for one of Kazami’s workers on Dayton Street. Of the whole clique, Angel was the only one who wrote to Dutch on a consistent basis. Roc, who also worked for one of Kazami’s street teams, sent money from time to time, but it was Angel who kept him in the know.

  She told him about everything. Shock had died in a motorcycle accident. That was the first time Dutch had cried for someone in his life. She also wrote and told him Zoom was home and he was running around sticking everything up with the Zoo Crew. Years later, they too would become legends in Newark. She also wrote telling him about her first sexual experience with a woman. Dutch already knew she was dyke material, so he wasn’t at all surprised.

  Craze, his main man, almost never wrote unless Angel caught him, sat him down, and made him, which was seldom. It wasn’t that Craze wouldn’t write. It was that he couldn’t and he was ashamed. Dutch understood when he finally did get a letter from Craze and it was in the handwriting of a child. Dutch couldn’t read it to answer back, so he didn’t.

  Qwan wrote him a lot. He was over there in “gladiator camp” holding it down with the tack heads over there. Qwan always went to church, but never hesitated when he perceived someone as disrespecting him. He talked about God in every letter, but Dutch wasn’t concerned with that. He was just glad Qwan was all right.

  Of everyone in Dutch’s young life, the one he expected to write him the most, his mother, never wrote at all. When he was in the county, Dutch wrote her several times but she never wrote back. And right after he got locked up, her phone was disconnected, and he couldn’t call. He sent letters every week or so and greeting cards for every holiday and occasion, but his mail to his mother was returned to him marked CHANGE OF ADDRESS UNKNOWN. Delores had moved and didn’t even leave a forwarding address.

  At first, it pained him, but he knew his mother loved him, so his pain changed to confusion, but never to stress. He had Angel find out where she moved to, but he never wrote her again. He figured he’d just go visit her when he got out. He only had one month left in prison. Dutch was now sixteen, and had grown a full two inches, and with the constant workouts in the gym, he was in tip-top shape.

  He had learned many things in prison, things that would shape his immediate future and ultimate destiny. He stared around the cold cell in which he had spent the last eighteen months of his life. It was the last morning he would ever spend locked in a cage. He looked at the mirror and at himself. I’m never coming back to no place like this again, he promised himself. Then said it out loud, “I’m never coming back to prison. I’ll hold court in the streets first.”

  Dutch walked out the front gate of Mountainview Correctional and never looked back.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE RETURN

  Dutch’s first sight on leaving prison was Craze sitting outside the fence in a stolen Honda Prelude.

  “Fuck kinda shit you into? How you gonna pick me up in some stolen shit?” Dutch asked, finding his friend amusing.

  “Oh, so these muhfuckers done got rehabilitation programs that work on niggas, now? Let me find the fuck out, they done got you all fucked up in the head and rehabilitated and shit,” said Craze as he threw up his hands and playfully swung at Dutch, who blocked him and playfully threw one of his own.

  On the long trip back to Newark, Craze filled Dutch in on everything he’d been doing during Dutch’s absence.

  “Ay, yo, you remember that chick, Sharonda? She used to live in my building? Word life, money, I gutted that bitch out!” Craze bragged as he blew a ring with his cigarette smoke.

  “Nigga, please! Ain’t no way you bagged that bu-gee bitch. You? Aw, hell no,” Dutch replied.

  “Yo, that’s my word. Shortie on my dick, callin’ me every five minutes and shit, talkin’ ’bout when we gonna go back to Pebbles Beach so she can suck me off,” said Craze, laughing along with Dutch. Pebbles Beach was slang for the rooftop of any project apartment building.

  “Let me find out, nigga. You musta’ started stickin’ niggas or something. Ain’t no way you gonna tell me she just fuckin’ you on the strength.”

  “Naw, yo, I been swingin’ with that cat Sugar Ray from time to time and you know how Ray get down. I ain’t gonna front, he been schoolin’ a nigga on the broads,” Craze admitted.

  Dutch knew Sugar Ray was a wannabe pimp. Ray was a top player in Newark, specializing in women. And while he wasn’t a real pimp in the true sense of the word, he tried his damndest to live the life of one.

  “Angel said the chop shop connect got popped. Y’all ever find another one?” asked Dutch.

  “Naw, you know how niggas is about connects.”

  “Then why you ain’t start clockin’ wit’ Angel? She said she tried to put you on but you ain’t want to. The fuck up wit’ you, nigga? You and Scotty hangin’ out again?” Dutch questioned, half joking, half serious.

  “Fuck you, nigga. I ain’t smokin’ no crack.” Then he turned up the radio playing Colonel Abrams’s “Music Is the Answer.”

  “So, what is you doin’?” asked Dutch, turning the volume back down.

  “Yo, I’m sayin’, shit just ain’t been right. It’s like I been stuck, you know. You know I’ve known you forever and it’s always been me and you. You know what I’m sayin’? Roc and Zoom my niggas and Shock, God bless the dead. Angel, she like my lil’ sister. But, wit’ out you…” Craze completed his sentence by shaking his head, not knowing how to express what he had been feeling for the past year and a half since Dutch had been gone.

  Dutch understood. Craze needed to say no more.

  “But, now… since you back, I know shit gonna be all right. Word. I know it,” he said, his words expressing nothing but love for Dutch.

  When they reached Newark, the streets themselves seemed to welcome Dutch home with the sounds of a hundred booming systems, children laughing, and people crowding the streets, and the urban smells mingling in Dutch’s nostrils. Young women ornamented the city blocks like jewels and bec
ame the twinkle in his eyes. Dutch felt invigorated, renewed, free.

  They rode up Elizabeth Avenue and made a right onto Pomona. Pomona Gardens was on the corner where Craze pulled over.

  “Why she move here?” Craze asked.

  Dutch didn’t know, and he didn’t answer. He just opened the door and got out of the car.

  “Wait here,” he said, walking away from Craze and over to the building he had been told his mother lived in. He searched the panel for Murphy, Delores’s last name, but it wasn’t listed. Luckily, someone was coming out and he entered the building and took the elevator to the fourth floor. He found 406, Delores’s apartment, and knocked on the door. Waiting, he felt butterflies and nervousness. Why didn’t she write me back? And why’d she move over here?

  There was no answer.

  He knocked again.

  Something in his heart told him his mother was home. He decided to knock once more, but as he was about to, the door slowly opened and his mother stood in the doorway in her housecoat.

  “Hey, Ma,” he said, not knowing whether to hug her or just stand still.

  She gazed at him momentarily, then spoke. “When you get home?”

  “Today, just now,” Dutch answered, feeling awkward standing in the hallway, seemingly barred from what should have been his home. She stepped aside, though, and pushed the door open wider to let him pass.

  Dutch looked around the place. It was the same size as their apartment in Brick Towers, just more airy because it had more windows.

  “So, you moved, huh?”

  “Yeah,” was all Delores said as she lit a Newport.

  “Well, whatcha’ do with all the stuff I bought you?” he asked.

  “You bought?” she said as if he was crazy.

  “Ma, listen, I know I messed up. And I know you probably mad at me, but…” His words made him think about all the visiting days his heart had yearned to hear his name called. Everybody else had someone waiting on them with open arms in the visiting room. “But, you coulda’ came to see me at least once or wrote me back. I wrote you every week and you just moved on me.”