me to school. It was then that the kids would always hit me and kick me. They were, like, “Get the fuck out of here, nigga, you, like, nasty motherfucker.” I would constantly get abused. They’d punch me in the face and I would run. We would go to school and these people would pick on us, then we would go home and they’d pull out guns and rob us for whatever little change we had. That was hard-core, young kids robbing us right in our own apartment building.
Having to wear glasses in the first grade was a real turning point in my life. My mother had me tested and it turned out I was nearsighted, so she made me get glasses. They were so bad. One day I was leaving school at lunchtime to go home, and I had some meatballs from the cafeteria wrapped up in the aluminum to keep them hot. This guy came up to me and said, “Hey, you got any money?” I said, “No.” He started picking my pockets and searching me, and he tried to take my fucking meatballs. I was resisting, going, “No, no, no!” I would let the bullies take my money, but I never let them take my food. I was hunched over like a human shield, protecting my meatballs. So he started hitting me in the head and then took my glasses and put them down the gas tank of a truck. I ran home, but he didn’t get my meatballs. I should have clobbered those guys, but I was so scared because those guys were so brazen and bold that I just figured they must know something I didn’t. “Don’t beat me up, leave me alone, stop!” I’d say. I still feel like a coward to this day because of that bullying. That’s a wild feeling, being that helpless. You never ever forget that feeling. The day that guy took my glasses and put them in that gas tank was the last day I went to school. That was the end of my formal education. I was seven years old and I just never went back to class.
After that, I would go to school to eat breakfast and then leave. I’d walk around the block for a couple of hours. Then I’d go back for lunch and leave. When school was out, I’d go home. One day during the spring of 1974, three guys came towards me on the street and started patting my pockets. “Got any money?” they asked. I told them no. They said, “All the money we find, we keep.” So they started turning my pockets out but I didn’t have anything. Then they said, “Where are you going? Do you want to fly with us?”
“What’s that?” I said.
So we walked over to the school, and they had me climb the fence and throw some plastic milk crates over to them. We started walking a few blocks and then they told me to go into an abandoned building.
“Whoa, I don’t know,” I hesitated. I was one wimpy little guy against three. But we walked in and then they said, “Go to the roof, Shorty.” I didn’t know if they were going to kill me. We climbed up to the roof and I saw a little box with some pigeons in it. These guys were building a pigeon coop. So I became their little gofer, their smuck-slave. Soon I found out that when the birds flew, they often landed on some other roof, because they were lazy and in bad condition. I’d have to go downstairs, see which roof they landed on, figure out a way into that building and then go up on that roof and scare the birds off. All day I chased the birds, but I thought that was pretty fun. I liked being around the birds. I even liked going to the pet store to buy their seed. And these guys were tough guys and they kind of liked me for being their gofer. My whole life I had felt like a misfit, but here on the roof I felt like I was home. This was what I was supposed to do.
The next morning I went back to the building. They were on the roof and saw me coming and started throwing bricks at me. “Motherfucker, what are you doing over here? You trying to steal our fucking birds?” one of the guys said. Whoa, I thought this was my new home.
“No, no, no,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you guys need me to go to the store for you or chase your birds.”
“Are you serious?” he said. “Get up here, Shorty.” And they sent me to the store to buy them cigarettes. They were a bunch of ruthless street guys, but I didn’t mind helping them because the birds enthralled me. It was really cool to see a couple of hundred pigeons flying around in circles in the sky and then coming back down to a roof.
Flying pigeons was a big sport in Brooklyn. Everyone from Mafia dons to little ghetto kids did it. It’s unexplainable; it just gets in your blood. I learned how to handle them, learned the characteristics of them. Then it became something that I became somewhat of a master of, and I took pride in being so good at it. Everybody would let their pigeons fly at the same time, and the name of the game was to try and catch the other guys’ pigeons. It was like racing horses. Once it’s in your blood, you never stop. Wherever I lived from that day on, I always built me a coop and had pigeons.
One day we were on the roof dealing with the pigeons and an older guy came up. His name was Barkim and he was a friend of one of these guys’ brothers. When he realized his friend wasn’t there, he told us to tell him to meet him at a jam at the rec center in our neighborhood that night. The jams were like teenage dances, except this was no Archie and Veronica shit. At night they even changed the name of the place from the rec center to The Sagittarius. All the players and hustlers would go there, the neighborhood guys who robbed houses, pickpocketed, snatched chains, and perpetrated credit card fraud. It was a den of iniquity.
So that night I went to the center. I was seven years old, and I didn’t know anything about dressing up. I didn’t know you were supposed to go home and take a shower and change your clothes and dress to impress and then go to the club. That’s what the other guys who were handling pigeons did. But I went straight to the center from the pigeon coops, wearing the same stinky clothes with all this bird shit on me. I thought the guys would be there and they’d accept me as one of their own, because I was chasing these fucking birds off of these buildings for them. But I walked in and those guys went, “What’s that smell? Look at this dirty, stinking motherfucker.” The whole place started laughing and teasing me. I didn’t know what to do; it was such a traumatizing experience, everybody picking on me. I was crying, but I was laughing too because I wanted to fit in. I guess Barkim saw the way I was dressed and took pity on me. He came up to me and said, “Yo, Shorty. Get the fuck out of here. Meet me back at the roof eight in the morning tomorrow.”
The next morning I was there right on time. Barkim came up and started lecturing me. “You can’t be going out looking like a motherfucking bum in the street. What the fuck are you doing, man? We’re moneymakers.” He was talking fast and I was trying to comprehend each word. “We’re gonna get money out here, Shorty. Are you ready?”
I went with him and we started breaking into people’s houses. He told me to go through the windows that were too small for him to fit through, and I went in and opened the door for him. Once we were inside, he went through people’s drawers, he broke open the safe, he was just really wiping them out. We got stereos, eight-tracks, jewelry, guns, cash money. After the robberies, he took me to Delancey Street in the city and bought me some nice clothes and sneakers and a sheepskin coat. That night he took me to a jam and a lot of the same people who laughed at me at the other jam were there. I had on my new coat and leather pants. Nobody even recognized me; it was like I was a different person. It was incredible.
Barkim was the guy who introduced me into the life of crime. Before that, I never stole anything. Not a loaf of bread, not a piece of candy, nothing. I had no antisocial tendencies. I didn’t have the nerve. But Barkim explained to me that if you always looked good, people would treat you with respect. If you had the newest fashion, the finest stuff, you were a cool dude. You’d have status.
Barkim took me to a roller-skating rink on Utica Avenue where I met these guys who were called the Rutland Road Crew. They were young, maybe twelve years old, but they dressed like grown men. Trench coats, alligator shoes, rabbit furs, Stetsons with the big brims. They had on designer clothes from Sergio Valente, Jordache, Pierre Cardin. I was impressed. Barkim told me how they did it – these guys were pickpockets, chain snatchers, and robbers. They were just babies. They’re in public school and they’ve got watches and rings and necklaces. They’re driving mopeds. People called them thugs
