My Name is Jade

You know when your somewhere and you hear a song come on and it takes you back? You can’t help but say, “THAT’S MY ISH!” For me it’s several songs but I am also reminded of history when I find myself in places or situations that bring back familiar passions. Here, follow me for a second: I could hear the music playing, and the scene was one that was very familiar to me. The grayed out, smokey atmosphere was one I’d seen many-a-day. The music loud, which drowned out conversations across the room. Yet still people conversed as though they were in a library. I could never wrap my mind around that. So there I was in a space I’d always found a sort of peace. I searched around the room looking for faces I’d grown accustomed to seeing. You know the faces; the girl with the titties out and the too short skirt on. Or the dude that has been drinking and smoking too much, but still thinks that every female in the place wants him. How about the group of females that came together and the one in the middle has dollar bills pinned to her because it’s her birthday. Yeah, I could go on and on, but mainly my eyes always searched the DJ booth, the bouncers, the managers and the doors. You may be wondering why I’d be looking at the DJ booth, but what you may not realize is, ALL the action in most clubs starts in that booth. He/she’s the one that has ties to every person affiliated with that particular spot. They’re the ones that can either open the door, or make sure that mofo stays shut. The bouncers were the ones that got you to the booth, which in turn got you to the DJ, who in turn, turned you on to the managers and after you took care of them, you were introduced to the owners. Rarely would it be just one person that owned the spot and rarely were they not tied to some illegal shit. So in essence, this was my home. I’d already made a name for myself, but I knew that in order for me to get what I truly wanted I’d have to make myself some new powerful friends. I wanted power! I had the dough and the respect of anyone that crossed my path. I never had to say or do much because I’d established myself as someone you simply didn’t want to fuck with. My peers (yeah, that’s what I’ll call them in this chapter) always lined up on my behalf. Look at me wrong and yo ass might have gotten carried out and tossed on your ass….after getting your ass whipped! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been the ‘mean’ guy or the stand out guy. I’ve just been given….or better yet, I’ve earned respect so others wouldn’t stand for someone to disrespect me. I never really knew my position until Mr. Grey waved for me to come over. Mr. Grey….ahhh, Mr. Grey. He was the owner of ‘The Grey Spot’. I can remember it like it was yesterday. No one in my camp even saw him do it, but I caught his quick pinky wave over. Man this dude was cool. I mean he was a smooth charismatic dude with unbelievable power around town. Man it was like if this dude thought of hurting you, you was hurt! I am not playing either. OK, OK, I will admit, I was a little nervous going over to him because after all, I was an up and coming player and I didn’t want to step on any toes, but I also knew I had to be respected too. Not that he would outwardly disrespect me, but you get the picture. Man it seemed like something in the movies. Everything went into slow motion and no one in my circle noticed I’d made a move over to Mr. G and funny thing is, his people didn’t seem to notice either. Man, the first words out of his mouth were, “Your father my my nigga!”, and right then I knew I was good and that I was in. He went on talking about how he and my father use take fools paper and dare them to say a word. My father never really talked about people by name, so I would’ve never put Mr. G with my father in a million years. I don’t know why though, because my father was a General in this game too. “Anything you want or need, I got you”. After G spoke those words to me I knew what it meant. Simply put, my business would grow 100 times the size it was, overnight. I have to raise my own eyebrow because even as I write this I’m like, wow! I never really had to raise a hand of my own and yet the level of respect that was offered to me was unheard of. Shoot it still is to this day. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ll beat a nigga’s ass twice if I need too, but sure, why not let someone do it for you? G had a impeccable mind. He could remember conversations verbatim from years ago. He was a mathematical genius, which means he was a calculating beast that remembered everything. He was one that didn’t do well with disappointment and his disappointment was not like a you and I disappointment. If you told G that you were going to be somewhere at 7 and you got there at 7:05, this dude would flip and his flip was to the extreme. I remember that exact scenario happening to one of his people and G broke a bottle across his head and told him he would not see 7:06 if that ever happened again. That dude almost lost his life over 5 minutes. G also had homes and apartments everywhere. I remember we were coming back in town from a west coast business trip and as we were landing he leaned over to me asked me to go to the leasing office of one of the apartments he had and let them know that he would not be renewing his lease. He said be there at 9 because according to my lease I have to give them 60 days notice and the lease will expire in 234 hours. I was like what the ?!?!? Why is that even on your mind? Did they call you or were you just looking over the lease???? Nope, that was just G. He’d had a female staying there and was done with her so he cancelled or refused to renew the lease. I’m pretty sure he didn’t let her know that she needed to move either. I did go to that leasing office with the notice and wanted to let the girl know that she needed to move, but that would’ve been disrespectful to G, so I left that in his hands. Shoot for all I know, it could’ve been a test for me. Power is perhaps the most dangerous thing on this planet. It’s addictive. The more you have, the more you want more of it. I was falling victim to it’s power and didn’t realize it. I had what many people wanted. I owned nice homes. I Drove phat cars. I had the pretty woman, with the pretty women on the side. I had both the name and face recognition. I definitely had the money. I had the ‘that nigga is not to be fucked with’ swag. Yet there I was finding myself finding holes in G’s empire. They began to seem larger and larger and soon enough there would either be a split or a hostel take over. This is my story, and my name is Jade