me right in my eyes and said, “I’m gon hurt you!” At that point all the madness I felt left me, and my safety was all I thought about. I didn’t run or back down, but I did make sure when I hit him I did it fast and got away even faster. I didn’t knock him out or down, but everyone there saw when it came to fighting I could handle myself. So my rep grew and before my twentieth birthday I had two workers, a woman who brought in ten thousand every other week, and a rep. My woman was my best friend: she kept me sane in a world built on insanity, she allowed me to love. Her name was Tunisia Mannings.
Tunisia was a bright young lady from the suburbs of Oakland, California. She was uncorrupted by the environment around us. Tunisia was a chubby dark-skinned young lady who was about eighteen years old, she was very pretty and self-willed. I watched Tunisia from afar and liked the way she handled herself. Nisi’s stepdad was like Jason of the Friday the Thirteenth movies; to the Tenderloin, his name was Tim. Tim was 5’10” and weighed 200 lbs. He wore his hair long and uncombed. He had a scar in the middle of his forehead, which when he smoked weed made him look like a red-eyed demon. He robbed, beat, and shot anyone who challenged him, so he was someone nobody messed with. No one could talk to Nisi unless he approved and he approved no one. One day while Tim was gone, Nisi got jacked by the police (stopped and searched) and had to eat a fifty-rock of dope. She was scared and none of her people were around, so I stepped up and took her with me.
We ended up in a Taco Bell on Market Street and after I calmed her nerves, we talked. In the space of about six hours we opened up our hearts to each other, telling of things that neither one of us had ever told anyone. When we walked into that Taco Bell we were strangers, but when we left we were connected by our souls. When Tim found us he told her, “Go get in the car,” and as she ran off, he just turned my way and frowned. But two weeks later we were together again and this time it was for good. Nisi and I hustled together every night for forty-five days. We slept in the same bed but never touched each other.
One day she asked me, “Fred, my grandparents used to tell me about something they called a courtship—is that what we are doing?”
I said, “No, we’re just taking our time.” The truth was I was cautious—because of Tim.
On the forty-sixth day, Nisi said, “Fred, we doing it tonight!”
I said, “What!”
She responded, “You heard me!”
So that night we got the E&J brandy and had planned to get the weed, but forgot. When we remembered we didn’t have the weed, I said, “Baby, I’ll be right back. Get ready.” I went to jail that night and didn’t see her again for three months. Jail did me good, because I now knew I could do it. Also while locked up I got physically bigger, which helped me in the streets.
At twenty-two I was a terror, standing 5’9” and tipping the scales at a whopping 185 lbs. I felt unstoppable. I returned to Oakdale with money, respect, and a rep. The young men welcomed me back. The name Freddy-Gz was given to me by a girl, and it stuck. In my opinion this name aided in my downfall, because it became known throughout the city. At that time I no longer sold drugs, but I started to rob drug dealers and dice games—which in itself is crazy, but the seeds of corruption were now in full bloom. But in the garden of my life, among the thorns, thistles, and weeds of my character were the most beautiful flowers. These flowers were the women that I surrounded myself with, which during that time were numerous.
The most influential flower in my life during that time was Dawn. Dawn was a beautiful, loving, compassionate, and generous slender white girl from my past. During my high school years she was one of Hen’s girls, but I always liked her.
One day I got a call from Hen’s mother.
“Hello, Fred, it’s Alana. Henry is in jail and I was wondering if you will go with Dawn to see him and put money on his books?”
I said, “Yeah, just give her my number and tell her to call me.”
My first thoughts were of Hen, because what his mother didn’t know was I already knew where he was. I was with him when he got caught—I just got away. When I met up with Dawn I didn’t expect to hook up with her, but as I looked into her innocent face I succumbed to my lust.
It took some time to win Dawn over but I was up for the challenge, and in the summer of ‘96 we consummated our relationship. For me it was nothing special just sex, but for her it became so much more. After Dawn and I had sex I forgot all about her, until she called me four weeks later. I was at one of my other female friends’ house asleep, and when my phone rang the lady answered it. I was awakened to the sound of her saying, “Fred, it’s a woman on the phone saying she’s pregnant and it’s yours.”
I rolled over and said, “Give me my phone,” I placed the phone to my face and said, “Hello.”
It was Dawn, I listened as she shouted at me, “Fred, I’m pregnant!”
I calmly responded back,” Who’s the father?”
Dawn got real quiet and then said, “Fred, it’s yours.”
I said, “Stop playing with me!” I then hung up the phone, threw it on the chair, and tried to go back to sleep.
But the young lady I was with at the time wouldn’t let me. She said, “Until you go see if that’s your baby, I’m not messing with you.” I got up and left, but all day I was haunted by the thought that it may be true—I didn’t use protection that night. Early the next morning I was on my way to Dawn’s house. Dawn and I started a relationship and I moved in with her. My extracurricular activities didn’t change: I continued doing drugs and sleeping with every woman I could manipulate into bed. Dawn was sensitive and very loving, but her loyalty and devotion was wasted on me. I wasn’t into love, nor did I feel for others. My only concern at that time was only to benefit myself, so to me Dawn was a tool to be used. Dawn tried her best to keep her family together for the first few months, but by her eighth month she was telling me the only reason she was still with me was because of the emotions that came with the pregnancy. I took that to mean once the baby came, she would be gone. We patiently waited for her to go into labor for our own reasons. Both of us wanted me to be there at the birth of our child, but our hopes would be dashed by my stupidity. Five months into Dawn’s pregnancy, another woman I was having sex with told me I was the father of her unborn child. Her name was Debra, and although she wasn’t my main chick at the time, she would become my wife in the near future.
For the entire time during both of these pregnancies, my habits and my actions were unchanged. When one accepts the corruption, he or she accepts all that comes with it and in my case that meant doing drugs. There had always been drugs around me, but I had never partaken of them. Watching how the drugs took control of my parents and the misery it caused me and Tia made me hate them, but by this time all those memories were gone and I chose to taste the forbidden fruit of cocaine. I was snorting cocaine, smoking weed, drinking alcohol, robbing drug dealers and dice games every night. Cocaine made me feel as if I were invincible. It gave me that edge that propelled me to even more daring crimes.
During 1996 I started to hang out and commit robberies with an older man from Oakdale named Jonathan. Jonathan was a stocky dark-skinned black man who stood about 5’5” and who never had a problem putting in work. He loved the fact that he had a youngster who never minded holding the pistol and was willing to rob anyone at the drop of a hat. We spent money all day and went to the strip clubs at night. By 2:30 AM we would be looking to make our money back out of the pockets of the drug dealers of Tenderloin. One night after we left the strip club drunk and headed for the Tenderloin, we came upon two police officers sitting in their car. Being the arrogant and disrespectful child that I was, I pulled up on
