A Dirty Hustle

He was one of those guys that on first impression people took for granted. As far as they were concerned he was just some little dude that they could take advantage of. They even went so far as to think that they could handle him. What they weren’t expecting was in that five four stocky frame was a monster. He had learned early on not to take any shit from anybody. He would be grabbed into his environment early on in life and once he was brought in, it would take a minute before he walked away. They called him Dirty but his government name was Damien Jackson. This is the beginning of the story of the Dirty Hustle.

Fuck! Here I am laying here in the cold hoping that someone heard something and called the cops. But in my line of work, most people chose to mind their own business. They didn’t want any parts of whatever the street hustlers had going on. That gang life had people scared to death. They didn’t want any parts of the drama our life entailed. This was my life and here I was reaping what I had sowed. I was lying here in the dead cold of night, amongst freshly fallen snow, with three bullets to the abdomen, not sure if the paramedics would get here in time to save my pathetic ass life. At this very moment, it seemed that the streets were betraying my black ass, paying me back for all the reckless hell-raising I had caused. These were the same streets I had hustled on for damn near ten years. It was these same streets that I had raked in my countless amounts of dirty money slanging drugs to the fiends that craved it. Now here I was with my black ass, lying here in the damn snow bleeding to death because some young cats decided it was a good idea to fuck me up. Some young punks from another set had ambushed me and shot me down like a dawg in the streets. They had planned to rob me for everything I had. I guess they were a little pissed off when they discovered I wasn’t really packing anything worth taking. They were hoping to score my drugs, jewelry, and monies. That’s how I wound up with the third shot to the abdomen. See I wasn’t no dumb ass nigga. I already knew the game. I knew that to survive in these means streets, I was going have to be smart about how I traveled. So I never traveled with large wads of cash. I always stashed my shit and made sure that I was not carrying enough to draw attention to myself. That’s why I’m lying here with three bullets drilled into me fucking up my brand new jeans outfit, praying someone was going to call it in.

By the time the cops and EMTs arrived I was unconscious. They weren’t expecting me to make it to the hospital. But I wasn’t trying to leave this place before I handled my business. Those motherfuckers that shot me up were definitely going to get what they had coming to them. I was fighting to live just so I could fuck their asses up once I got out of this damn hospital. But one thing at a time… I need to take you back to beginning of this lifestyle of mine. It wouldn’t be fair not to give you a glimpse of the monster that is before you now. So let’s go back. Way back…

I grew up on the mean streets of the NY. That’s right New York. I was raised in Brooklyn right in the middle of the hood. My role models were hustlers, pimps, and dope dealers. I was no ordinary dude. I wasn’t six feet or anywhere near it. I was a little dude. At the close of puberty, I was barely five four and people thought they could take advantage and roll right on over me. But what they didn’t know was that I was smarter than I looked. And fear was not an option in my life. My mother was a crazy wicked woman who didn’t mind bashing a nigga’s head in. Fuck with my mom’s and you definitely would get fucked up. As a matter of fact my mother could roll with the best of them and didn’t give a fuck about cutting up a nigga when she got pissed off. I can recall plenty of nights having to go pull her out of the bars because she was drunk as hell and ready to whoop a bitch’s ass or a nigga’s for that matter. That’s just the way she was and she wasn’t even thinking about changing.

Early on I knew I was going to have to be able to handle myself. I wasn’t the biggest nigga on the block. As a matter of fact, I was probably one of the smallest in the neighborhood. Which for some kids might have presented a problem, but for me it just meant I would have to be ready for anything. I worked out daily to ensure that if I needed to beat a nigga’s ass I could hold my own. My first victim would be when I was about ten. Some dude thought that he was going to disrespect my mother and get away with it. The dude was a neighborhood crack-head who was always trying to rip off people. That crack had his ass in a choke hold and he would do just about anything for his next hit. That fool had made the mistake of snatching my mom’s purse while she was returning home from the store. What he wasn’t counting on, was having to deal with a nigga like me. He had his coming to him and I was going to make sure that he never forgot it. When I located that fool’s whereabouts I beat the brakes off that fool. I didn’t beat him until he was down. I beat him until I was tired. I took a table across that son of bitch’s head until he couldn’t even catch his breath. I had him begging for his life. And when I was done with his ass, I picked his dirty ass up and threw him in the garbage can. They just assumed that he would die right there on the spot, but he didn’t. Just like a crack head to survive an ass whipping like that. He just had to spend a couple of weeks in intensive care while they stabilized his ass. When he did get out of the hospital he thought twice about the way he handle people in the neighborhood. Whenever he saw my mom, he crossed the street or went in the opposite direction. And if he thought he saw me, he would take off running. Because already knew that I was going to whip his ass again.By the time I was thirteen I was a full fledge hustler. I was so heavy into the game, that I had my own crew and everything. There wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t do. I dabbled in everything. I sold dope, ran errands for the local hustlers and was a lookout on occasion at the dope house. I even tried my hand in pimping but discovered that just wasn’t my thing. It didn’t take me long to earn my street credibility. After I kicked a couple of asses and cut a nigga no body was even thinking about trying me. Most people thought twice about fucking with my crazy ass. That’s how I became known as ‘Dirty D’. To many, Dirty D was the nigga that would fuck you up and wouldn’t lose an ounce of sleep over it.

This is a little something that I am working on. I would love to get some feedback on it...