Turnabout is Fair Play.

I have strayed from writing about my own prison time and criminal history over the last month or so. In the meantime I have made some pretty strong statements and comments about other criminals and crime in general. You could argue I'm being more than a little hypocritical seeings how I've lead a fairly shady past. And that argument isn't a bad one, maybe I have been free handed with judgement of others while not completely forth coming in regard to my own character defects. So Ive decided to delve off into the seedier pages of my past once again. I want to preface what I am going to write with this disclaimer. There is nothing glamorous or admirable about leading a criminal life. With that in mind, I hope I never come off sounding like I take pride in the things Ive done, or that I think it was justifiable or acceptable.



I didn't wake up one morning and decide , "Today is the day I'm going to become a crook". It was a gradual thing, and a great deal of my future decisions in career choice would be influenced by my role models. My Pops wasn't around much in the early years, he and my mother divorced and he was scarce for awhile. My mother to her credit did the best she could, she worked 2 jobs, so I was left to my own devices much of the time. My first male influence in my early teens was an Uncle. He owned a restaurant for years on the corner of Gregory and Prospect, where now sits a Churches Chicken. My Uncle wasn't a criminal, but he rubbed shoulders with some pretty nefarious characters. I worked at the restaurant for a year or so and came to know most of the guys who frequented the place. It was an eclectic mix of customers. At any given time you could find several career criminals, numerous cops, and a smattering of regular working class folks.



Teenage boys tend to be drawn toward flash rather than the mundane. I mean to say that the cops were usually dishevelled surly detective types, while the criminals were colorful, flashy and for the most part pretty friendly. The cast of regulars included Vern Wilson who at the time was Chief Detective of the metro squad. Vern was a hell of a good guy, and quick to give me unsolicited advice on why I shouldn't admire or strive to be like the guys who he referred to as shit heels. Frankly I found Vern to be pretty boring. On the other side were guys whose real names I've forgotten over the years, and probably would hesitate to mention anyway. And the real names don't really matter and are beside the point.



There were two different pimps who came in the restaurant often. One of them actually owned a restaurant a couple of doors down. His place didn't have any equipment in the kitchen and zero employees. He never served a meal out of the place. He had a fro that was so big it needed its own zip code. He also had one leg shorter than the other. This was back in 1972 or so. Some of you may recall the stacked platform type shoes that were popular for a period of time back in the day. Well this guy had to wear corrective type shoes on account of one leg being shorter than the other. So he had one shoe with like a 6 inch platform sole, while the other shoe had about an 8 or 10 inch lift. He drove a white Rolls Royce and wore those shirts with giant collars and always sported big Bootsie Collins sunglasses. He was friendly and easy going and Id be surprised if he ever laid a finger on a woman in a violent manner. The other pimp, whose first name was Gus, didn't have the same easy going manner. In fact he called the other pimp a "Parody Pimp". Gus was self taught , fairly educated, and not flashy at all. He owned a brick building down the block that housed a barber shop on the first floor and a whore house of sorts on the second. I used to deliver food to the second floor of Gus's place. Gus called me Jimmy Ray's lil peckerwood, Jimmy Ray being my uncle, and Gus being somewhat a prick.



But these guys weren't the ones I looked up to , I only mention them in passing to paint an image for you. The guys I looked up to went by nicknames, which is not say they were mobbed up types with names like Louie the nose or Willy the rat. No these guys were mostly white , out of working class stock. Guys with names like Crawdad, Baby Huey, Indian Rod, or Bird Dog, cartoonish names. They didn't dress particularly flashy, but they drove flashy fast cars, always had massive wads of cash, and wore leather coats. They would have been referred to as Hoods back then. But to a 14 year old kid, they were pretty impressive. So that was how it all began, the formative years as it were.



Nobody told me that behind their cavalier demeanor was a constant fear of waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Nobody told me about the claustrophobic feeling you get the first time you get locked up in a cell the size of the average bathroom, and even if they had warned me, it probably wouldn't have had any effect.



Before I was old enough to drive, I was in reform school, by the time I got out Baby Huey had been killed over a card game, Bird Dog had been shot once by the police, and a second time a few months after by the same guy who killed Baby Huey. So, while these guys had comic book names, they weren't exactly lovable cartoonish characters. By the time I was 18, I was well on my way to becoming what Vern Wilson referred to as a shit heel.

I'm not going to go through the long list of things Ive done at this point, it really doesn't matter anyway. I broke a lot of laws, and Ive paid a heavy but fair price for doing it. What I haven't done is blame anyone else or tried to say it was a free case. My saving grace if there is one, is that I take no pride in my past, I honestly wish Id taken a different path. But as the saying goes if wishes were horses we would all be riding.

Again I don't ever want to come off sounding like I am bragging or unrepentant, and I hope I have at least managed to remain true to that intention. But I think its important to openly cop to my own character defects, if I am going to point out the same in others. Now I can go back to picking on other knuckle heads and shit heels with a clear conscience.