When Crack Was King: A People's History of a Misunderstood Era by Donovan X. Ramsey;

Author:Donovan X. Ramsey; [Ramsey, Donovan X.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House LLC
Published: 2023-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

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SHAWN EMBRACED THE SUMMER MONTHS. He could dive all the way into hustling and wouldn’t miss a thing because he had a game, a test, or had to be in class. He finally bought a car that summer, a red Dodge Omni that he paid for with cash. He tricked it out with fifteen-inch speakers, an amplifier, tweeters, and a brand-new radio from the electronics store down on Market Street. The car helped him better run the streets with Terrance, who had an all-white four-door Benz that he called the Ghost.

The two would ride out to Harlem some nights and cruise down Eighth Avenue. Harlem was like another world, Shawn thought. The women were beautiful, and everyone seemed to be getting money. He and Terrance would usually end up at a club called the Rooftop, where they parked outside and waited for it to let out. The women who trickled out were usually down to hang and grab something quick to eat with “the guys from Jersey.”

Around this time, the cocaine business was moving from dimes to nickels, which exploded the market. Shawn and his crew responded by breaking down their product into smaller vials and selling them two for five dollars. After that, money poured in from all directions.

Shawn was pushing up to a kilo each day. He’d end up with stacks of bills in each pocket, and sometimes there were so many customers that he’d have to send them to somebody else in the crew—Terrance, Phil, Lamar, or Frank. Shawn took home about $1,000 at the end of each day, sometimes with product to spare. To hide the money and the drugs, he paid a neighborhood handyman to come by one day when his mother was away and install a fake pipe that ran from the washing machine to the wall. The only other people who knew about it were Terrance and Tony.

All the money flowing on Chadwick attracted dealers who wanted in, women interested in dating guys with money, and the police. One day, Shawn and some friends were sitting on the block when a group of five or six men came walking up. They stopped where Shawn was and introduced themselves as officers with the Essex County Sheriff’s Bureau of Narcotics.

One of the cops, an older Black man, asked them their names. Shawn cooperated, figuring they would have already arrested him if that’s why they were there. He told them his name, and so did his friends. That’s when the man in charge told them that he was responding to a complaint that drugs were being sold on the block. He asked if anyone knew anything about it. Shawn and the rest shrugged and looked around like it was the most ridiculous thing they’d ever heard.

The officers seemed satisfied and started to walk away. Then the older Black officer stopped and, to everyone’s surprise, asked, “Where’s Terrance?” Shawn tried his best not to let on how shaken he was. He replied, “Terrance doesn’t live over here.

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