🔵 By David Breaux. Photo by lauragrafie.
At the age of 16 I had the reputation as a killer and for not giving a fuck. So when my friend Eyes’ brother Jerry came home from the joint (penitentiary) he came to see me! He was full of H. Rap Brown and Black Panther rhetoric. When he pulled up in front of my house, driving this beat up old Rambler, so old it didn’t even have power steering; so old you had to crank the windows down, after doing so he said: “Big Dave, let me holler at you!”
I was sitting with my dogs and two best friends as always, Warrior and Cossack, so I bid them to stay as they sat up, ears perking up, and I went and got in the car with him.
The very first thing he said to me was: “Big Dave I hear a lot of good things about you!”
My immediate response was: “Tell me who is talking so I can put a bullet in them for not minding their own business!” He laughed and said: “Yep, I got the right man.” I thought he was laughing at me and said: “I ain’t joking, who are these motherfuckers with my name in their mouths?” He said: “Calm down Big Dave, it ain’t that serious.”
“To you!” I said. “Let’s talk.” was his response again. I said: “Seems to me someone’s beginning to talk too much.”
“Peace blood”, he said. “Listen up and chill for a minute and hear me out.” So I did.
He went on and on about ‘burning bridges, setting fire to your own house, Black people not having no real money and that if we wanted to make some real money we need to take it from these White Folks.’
My immediate response was: “Money is green and these niggas ain’t never gave a shit about me! Everywhere you go you gotta deal with their madness, so fuck ‘em all I’ll take from whomever I want to!”
He laughed again and said: “Big Dave, niggas ain’t got no money, not no real money and you burning down your own house, sooner or later they’ll put the police on you.” – “Not if I put a bullet in them!” He laughed again and said: “Trust me Big Dave, you have to have a safe place to rest your head, help me and we’ll get paid.” I said: “Hold up.” And got out of the car, took the dogs and put them back in the house, grabber my pistols, got back in the car with him and said: “If you serious, let’s go!”
He looked at me, laughed, and off we rolled, and as we turned the corner and I saw him tugging on the steering wheel to turn the corner in this antique, all I could do was laugh and say: “One hell of a getaway car.”
For the next six months we rolled East, West, North and South, taking from “Honkies” (White people). After about eight months, after out first day, Jerry got himself doing something with niggas I’d warned him not to fuck with. I was indisposed locked up in the “Audie Home”, (a juvenile detention center) fighting a case that was on my unfinished business list. Jerry was supposed to be on a break, preparing to get married. We had talked about buying some real weapons, getting some new cars, riding down South, casing anyone or anything, flying a Confederate flag and robbing and murdering those racist, hateful motherfuckers.
He got killed and the dream died with him. I stopped sticking up in the neighborhood, lesson learned. I started hustling at different things. Sticking up had temporarily lost its appeal and you have to change games to stay ahead of “The Man”. (Police.)
I met Brenda about a year later, 1971 before I picked up my pistols again. We were together over a year before I killed her. Another story for another time.