Talking to a Dead Man
Conversation with a Gang Member in Detroit
The street is raw. Concrete and red brick crumbling together, ghosts of buildings and remnants of long lost dreams.
“That’s the place. That’s where I got shot.”
“Here.”
“See that mark on the curb? Carved in? My girl did that.”
“Those are your initials.”
“That’s right. Sign of respect from my people.”
“Do they always do that?”
“Yeah. Not always, you know. But often. Helps them grieving and going through, know what I’m saying.”
The man looks up to the top of the abandoned American Hotel. He adjusts his sagging pants and rolls up the sleeves of his bright bomber jacket. Every single building around us is empty, with trees and weeds taking over the worn structures.
“What happened that day?”
“I was coming back to my crib, minding my own shit and all, when this nigga comes out of nowhere and puts a bullet right in my stomach. Took me a while to figure what was happening, you know. I was all pumped up and shit because of the — the adrenaline, you know. Didn’t realize what was going on. Then I see the blood and I think ‘shit, man, this motherfucker just shot me in the guts’, and I put my hand on it and it’s all warm and shit, and I start fucking falling on the ground like a weak-ass motherfucker. Crazy shit, man, I tell you.”
“Did you see who the guy was?”
“Motherfucker came in my back, ran past me. I was here, see, near the fence, didn’t see nothing. But I sure know who he was.”
“Who was he?”
“See, I’m running some business around, hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“And sometimes business is hard. Ain’t easy making a buck here. Tough shit going on and all.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So you have to make choices, you know. Like, you have to or you lose respect from your crew. This nigga, he was no good. Bad bone. Used the product, didn’t know shit about shit, talked like he was the king — he had to go, know what I’m saying? He had to or I would have lost my business. Motherfucker had nothing to do with my people. So I — how do they say? I had to let him go.”
“But he came back.”
“I guess, yeah.”
“You’re not sure?”
“Can’t be. He didn’t talk a lot when my man found him.”
“Your man?”
“My man. You know.”
“Your man.”
“Yeah. Smoked him right away.”
“But you’re not sure he was the one who shot you?”
“Motherfucker would have denied it anyway. No need to fuck with that. That nigga was done. His time was up, that’s all. What do you think he would have said? I ain’t no fucked up latino homey, what with the torture and all that shit. I do what I have to do.”
“For respect.”
“For surviving, man.”
“How did you make it alive?”
“A brother found me on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. I think you can still see the stain. There and there.”
We both go through a hole in the wired fence and move a wood panel to enter the building.
“Did you go to the hospital?” I ask.
“I stayed in Harper’s ER until them cops came in. Tried to get me talking, told me I’d end up in Marquette if I didn’t. I told them to suck my dick and had a nurse make them leave because I ain’t no snitch. We take care of our own problems, here, feel me?”
“Marquette Correctional Facility.”
“Yeah. Fuck that shit, man.”
“Ever been there before?”
“Not there. In Ionia.”
“On what charges?”
“I was a damn ghetto star in the Brewster-Douglas projects, handing elbows like lollipops. Fat stacks in my pockets, bought a Beemer and all. Shit was going smooth. One day a baby gangsta blasted a bitch right in fucking front of me. He never even flinched. Just like that, with the nine in his hand, a piece bigger than him I swear, boom, right in the face and it was it. The kid looked so proud. Just like that.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I was chilling out with my crew and one of them boys knew the girl who just got killed. So he popped the kid.”
“How old?”
“Fourteen, thirteen maybe. He should have kept racking up instead of pretending to be a grown-up.”
“That’s so young.”
“He still had a gun. I ain’t with it, but that’s what it is, you know what I mean? It’s not like he would have lived long doing shit like that anyway.”
“What about his family?”
“His crew?”
“His family.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Didn’t they come after your friend?”
“It ain’t how it works. The kid dissed out, no need to drink milk on that, see?”
“Is that how you got in Ionia?”
“Five-O posted up shortly after, looking for witnesses. They started giving heat and I got busted selling, you already know.”
“How long?”
“Full year.”
We climb a flight of rundown stairs and get to the former ball room. Walls are peeling, doors and windows are smashed in and there are graffiti everywhere.
We take two old armchairs and sit in the middle of the hall.
“Did you keep at it when you got out?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it different?”
“I ain’t no 730 nigga who don’t give a fuck of going back in prison so I laid low for a time, but it’s over now.”
“Is that why you’re all draped up?”
“Yeah. I got to make them know I’m back in the jungle. See them new LeBrons? Four hundred bucks for that shit.”
“LeBron is a fraud.”
“Word. My man!”
“Is your family still living there?”
“I ain’t talking about my family.”
“No problem.”
“My family’s my family, man. Ain’t going to talk shit about them.”
“I understand.”
“How about your family, white boy?”
“My family.”
“How about you tell me about them? Let me guess, fancy house with a gardener and shit?”
“You’re all wrong.”
“I don’t know. But you got balls coming here. Someone could have busted a cap in your ass, know what I’m saying?”
“I know.”
“Look over here. The piano. Ain’t it a shame?”
I watch the wrecked grand piano, covered in dust, missing legs and rotting on the floor.
“Do you know how to play?” I ask.
He smiles and I see his golden tooth.
“I just like to come here. Reminds me of how fucked up this city is.”
“Have you ever thought of bailing out? Getting away from it all?”
“Sure. I think of it all the time. But Detroit is my home. I was born here. It’s all I know. The outside is — it makes me — I don’t know, man.”
“Have you ever left the city?”
“Went to Chicago once with school.”
“How was it? School?”
“I had this teacher at Marcus Garvey, she tutored me for a semester before I dropped out.”
“Did you live in the East Side then?”
“Near the Packard plant. We used to start fires in them vacant houses and feed cats to pitbull dogs.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“We were just fucking around. That’s when I met my girl Shanice.”
A rat runs in the corridor outside the room. We can hear gravel fall down the ceiling and crash on a wooden cabinet.
“One day she got assaulted by a bum while bringing her little brother to kindergarten. I came to visit her at the clinic, talked to them doctors and shit. She said to find the motherfucker and beat his ass.”
“Did you do it?”
“What do you think? The nigga was just a basehead on the nut. I blasted him. Worked up my cred real good.”
“What happened after that?”
“I failed them tests then quit coming in school. I found a vacant on Helen Street and stayed there with my girl for a couple of months. Then I started banging.”
“Did she approve? Gang life?”
“I don’t know, man. Who gives a shit? She represents me. Either that or she would get raped by ten motherfuckers in an alley. I take care of her, I give her cash so she can buy shiny shit, I let her ride my dick all night long if she wants, in the end it’s all that matters, right?”
“You protect her.”
“I do. I do.”
We start walking again through the building. Colorful inscriptions everywhere on the walls. Some very complex shapes and designs, rising from the chaos of debris and litter.
“Later I’ll bring her to this restaurant on Washington Boulevard. Classy ass white people shit on the menu. Maybe we’ll get high on Dirty Sprites after we come back to my place.”
“Dirty Sprites.”
“Codeine syrup mixed with pop.”
We stop in front of a room still furnished with a bed, a desk and an antique television set.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt again?” I ask.
“Afraid? That’s what I have to deal with to survive. To get respected. In the end, we all die. At least I’ll go on my own terms, feel me? I’m already old for this but there’s no retirement here. You’re in, you’re in.”
“I understand.”
“I haven’t chosen this life, you know. It’s just what it is. Sure I like money and bitches, but if I could just — you know. I like Detroit, though. Living here makes you human. Makes you real.”
“The city can do that to you.”
“It brings out the best and the worst, man. Makes you look out for your people. Makes you connect with them.”
“Does it happen often? Connecting?”
“Sometimes. I try to help when I can.”
“How so?”
“I remember when I was young. Waiting for gunshots to stop outside. At ten, I already knew five other kids who ended up dead.”
I listen to him talking and I see pride in his eyes.
“I ain’t forcing no one to become a junkie, feel me? I sell that shit but I ain’t forcing no one. Word, I do good for real. I buy groceries for a Ravendale single mama every Monday. Sent this kid in an amusement park last month. Built up a team to keep my hood safe at night.”
“Do people accept your help?”
“Most of them. They ain’t all down with what I do but they don’t care as long as I don’t try to drag them in. I just let them be.”
A draft of cold air makes a piece of paper fly across the room.
“They fine people. They keep their heads down and try to survive too. I don’t want their kids to be banging, know what I mean? This life ain’t for them. Let kids be kids. They’ll grow up fast enough.”
“They already know too well how it goes anyway.”
“True that. Not even counting on adults to fix up shit anymore.”
“Do you want kids someday?”
The man rolls down his sleeves and shrugs.
“I’d like that. But I know I won’t.”
“You won’t.”
“I mean, shit is tough here. You never know. I could be dead or in prison anytime, so I don’t make plans.”
“Because it’s too difficult.”
“We ain’t meant to have kids anymore. We wouldn’t know how to be parents. I got raised in the East Side, you already know. Would you want your kid to grow up in this shit? I ain’t no father material. I would fuck up everything I’d do. Even my girl, she’s no good for that.”
He stares at his reflection in the blank TV screen.
“More kids mean more poverty, more crime when they join the gangs, more trouble for everyone. It should just all end with us dying.”
“That’s rough.”
He makes a wide gesture with his hands.
“Look at all this. It has to go, we can’t live like that forever. Having kids mean it will just go on and on and on. You don’t want that. You want it all gone, leveled to the ground. All them dealers, all them bangers, them guns and drugs. Everything from Southwest to Seven Mile. Replace it all with new, clean shit.”
“Don’t you want to keep anything?”
“Hell no, nigga.”
“Why is that?”
“Detroit is like crack. You know it’s bad but you keep smoking it anyway. You can’t quit. The only way to get out of it is to destroy everything. But I don’t want to see what it’ll become. I want to keep it the old way while I’m alive. Then when I’m dead they can transform the whole thing into a motherfucking meadow.”
We leave the room and go downstairs. The sun is setting, casting shadows into the building.
“You don’t care about leaving a legacy.”
“I don’t get to leave a legacy. I ain’t no rapper, I ain’t playing sports, I ain’t got no talent. I’m good at what I do but that’s all. Have my brothers, my queen, my shit. I don’t ask for nothing else.”
“You’re just doing business.”
“I’m just doing business. And the only thing that’ll be left of me when I’m gone is this mark carved in the curb.”
“Some people will remember you.”
“They’ll see my initials and they’ll wonder who the fuck I was.”
“They will remember.”
“I don’t know, man. That’s how it is. I ain’t complaining, though. I’ll be good.”
“You’ll be good.”
“How does it feel, talking to a dead man?”
“You’re still there for now.”
“For now.”
We stand on the street where the American Hotel sign stays unlighted with missing blue letters, spelling the broken name of a broken symbol.
