Paper Chasers Read online

  “First of all, we don’t even know y’all. We just can’t be speaking to anybody.”

  The other female had a completely opposite demeanor as she first responded to her friend and then she acknowledged us.

  “Nah, chill, they seem cool. So, what’s up? How y’all doing?” she asked.

  From that, a conversation began to flow. As the two spoke to us, we found out that they were both nineteen-years-old and attended Adelphi University. They were in summer school.

  Adelphi University was near Hempstead. It was located in the adjacent affluent town called Garden City. We also found out that their names were Lisa and Kim. Lisa was the more friendly of the two.

  Wiggie asked Lisa for her phone number and she gave it to him. These stupid, non-street-smart women didn’t even realize that they were about to get robbed. They played right into our hands when they asked us for a ride.

  “Why don’t y’all do us a favor and drop us off on campus?” Lisa asked.

  “Yeah, no problem, we’ll drop y’all off,” Wiggie coolly and calmly replied.

  So the two got in and we drove toward the campus. As we were driving, Wiggie continued to converse with Lisa. Kim was also starting to loosen up as words began to flow out of her mouth as well. While we were all engaged in conversation, Dwight slowly turned his body around so that he could face the backseat of the car. He was smiling a nice, big, Kool-Aid type of smile, and as shrewd as a cobra he pulled out his gun. He had a black 9mm.

  “I’m sorry,” he told them, sounding as if he was amusing himself with his actions. “Sorry, but y’all gots to give up all y’all money, jewels, and whatever else you have.”

  The two young ladies were sitting right next to me, with one on my left and the other on my right. They both hesitated and looked at each other as if they were dumbfounded. They had good reason to look confused. I mean five seconds ago Dwight was asking them about their GPAs, and just that quickly he had a gun pointed in their faces, asking for their goods. Dwight appeared to have slipped into a rage as he screamed at them.

  “Yo, this ain’t no game! Now both of y’all run the jewels!”

  With a gun to their heads, Lisa and Kim were left with very few options, so they wisely complied with Dwight’s demands as they briskly followed his orders to the letter.

  Then Wiggie pulled the car over to the curb.

  “Thank you ladies,” Wiggie said calmly. “And, uh, y’all make sure y’all have a nice day, OK? Uh . . . uh . . . Lisa? Can I still call you?” Wiggie asked in a shy, nerdy voice.

  With that the three of us burst out into laughter. As we drove away Wiggie yelled out of the window.

  “This better not be a fake number, either!” Wiggie’s last comedic comment really caused us to double over in tear-jerking laughter. Lisa and Kim were left standing on the corner crying and in shock.

  We managed to take from them four gold rings, one bracelet, a gold chain, two sets of gold earrings, and thirty dollars in cash, all of which wasn’t too bad considering how easy it was. There was just something inside me that made me feel very cowardly as I realized that we had just jacked two defenseless women. Needless to say, I felt like a real punk. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one with a pulse. Wiggie’s conscience was speaking to him too.

  “Yo, we shouldn’t have jacked them. I mean they were ladies,” Wiggie said.

  “I don’t care if they were ladies!” Dwight rudely interrupted. “I’m gonna tell y’all again just like I’ve already been preaching to y’all. We’re robbing women, we’re robbing men, we’re robbing anybody and everybody! What!”

  Neither I nor Wiggie replied. We both just sat and let Dwight’s words marinate in our minds.

  After driving in silence for about two minutes, Wiggie managed to finally break the silence by suggesting that we step up our game and rob the next nigga that we saw. I guess his reasoning was that it would make all of us feel more manly.

  So after having driven deeper into Long Island, we decided to stop in a town called Massapequa. We were all feeling hungry, so we decided to dip into some of the money that we had stolen and buy ourselves something to eat. A hamburger spot called White Castle was what we all agreed upon.

  After we’d finished eating the “Murder Burgers,” as they are commonly referred to in New York, we sat for a bit, just to let our food digest. We talked, burped, farted, and kicked it for about twenty minutes, then it was time to get back to work.

  “Come on, y’all, let’s be out,” Wiggie dictated.

  The three of us departed. We had work to do so we immediately resumed driving in the quest for yet another robbery victim, one whom we all agreed would have to be a black male.

  It seemed as if it had taken less than a minute after our lunch break for us to pick out a new victim. He was a black male, about twenty-one-years-old. He looked as if he could have fit right in with our crew. However, he did have that “Long Island” look about him—that sissy look. One big difference about coming from Queens or any other borough in New York City and going out to Long Island was the contrasting looks. The city look was a much more tougher, slumish look, while the Long Island look was more punkish and suburbanish.

  The victim that we selected was standing next to a white Volkswagen Jetta, talking on a payphone. We proceeded to park our car alongside the curb right behind his car. Dwight got out of the car, went to the adjacent pay telephone, and pretended like he was using it.

  Wiggie and I sensed that the guy knew what was up. He knew that we were plotting evil. The guy was wearing a thick gold herring bone chain with a nice gold medallion. He kept putting quarters into the phone in order to keep his conversation going. As he was talking on the phone, he nonchalantly tucked his chain inside his shirt.

  After five minutes or so, Dwight stopped pretending as if he was talking on the phone and he made his way back to our car.

  “Yo, Dee, he knows what’s up,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know, I know. I’m just trying to bait him.”

  As Dwight was talking to Wiggie and me, the guy finally hung up the phone and walked toward his car. Dwight made his move.

  “Yo money, you got another quarter? I ran out of change,” Dwight explained.

  “No,” the kid quickly responded and he briskly kept it moving.

  Dwight got closer to him, pulled out on him, and carefully issued instructions.

  “Don’t move, money! I know you already know what’s up, so just run that chain.”

  The guy hesitated as he glanced at his surroundings and pondered his options.

  “Yo, money, take off that gold right now or word is bond, I’ll murder you!” Dwight screamed and sort of barked that command as he simultaneously got closer to the kid’s face and attempted to intimidate him.

  Dwight came across very convincingly and the kid wisely listened. He took the chain from out of his shirt, pulled it over his neck, and held it out.

  Dwight snatched the chain and patted the kid down to see what else he had on him. Dwight took everything that was in his pockets, and there were definitely some more quarters.

  “Oh, I thought you didn’t have a quarter. You lied to me!” Dwight yelled, and with that Dwight slapped the kid upside the head with the gun.

  “Now turn around!” Dwight screamed. “Turn around and start running as fast as you can!”

  Like a flash the kid took off running. Dwight quickly walked back to our car and we bounced. As we were pulling away I pulled my gun and I shot out one of the windows as well as one of the tires on the Jetta that the guy had been driving. I did that just for extra precaution.

  “You didn’t have to do that, Holz,” Dwight said, sounding a bit perturbed.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “’Cause I took that nigga’s keys, so he ain’t going nowhere no time soon.”

  Dwight also had the guy’s gold nugget watch, fifty-five dollars in cash, and his wallet, which had his driver’s license and some credit cards in it. But undoubtedly the most s
urprising thing that Dwight had snatched was a chrome .380 handgun, one just like Randy always carried.

  “Yo, that cat had heat on him!” Dwight informed.

  “Say word!” I said, sounding as if I were shocked.

  “Word. But yo it’s ours now . . .”

  Wiggie decided that we should head back to Queens, so that’s where we headed.

  “Y’all see how easy that was?” Dwight asked while we were driving. “And yes, it was a dude that time.” Then Dwight proceeded to school us.

  “Don’t ever sleep on anybody when y’all are jacking them. If I had jacked that kid the wrong way, or if I did it like I was scared, that kid would have blown me away with his burner! But I did it right, and now I got his biscuit, the same biscuit that could have killed me, and the same biscuit that probably could have killed all of us.”

  Again, that made me think I had to be insane to be doing what I was doing. Dwight’s stick-up enforced in my mind that I indeed had to keep my mind transformed into that of a crazed psychopath. Dwight continued to advise us.

  “From now on, don’t take anybody for granted, because they just might be packin’ heat. Even ladies carry tiny handguns and Mace. If we make one mistake too many, it could cost us our lives. If y’all tell a cat not to move and he flinches, pop a cap in him! Don’t waste no time. If y’all tell a cat to give you his joints and he hesitates, pop a cap in him! After y’all get whatever it is that y’all want, make the kid either turn around and run, or make him lay face down on the ground. Once he’s down on the ground, fire a shot into the air, that way he’ll think you shot him. We have to do one or the other, that way we’ll be protecting ourselves.”

  “Yo, why don’t we just start frisking everybody we rob?” Wiggie asked.

  “’Cause we might not always have the time to frisk, so if we frisk or not, still make the muthas turn around and run, or make them get on the ground,” Dwight answered.

  The lesson on how to jack somebody was over and we’d made it back to Queens. We decided to go somewhere secluded, park the car, sit in it, and just chill. Robbing that guy had sparked many new ideas. We had his credit cards, but we all agreed that wouldn’t have been wise to try to use them. We discussed how we could have taken his car if we’d wanted to.

  Then we talked about carjacking, which Dwight thought was a great idea, but we first had to find ourselves a chop shop. A chop shop was a place where you took stolen cars, and in return you’d get money for the cars. Depending on what type of car we could get our hands on, the reward was sure to be high. If we got our hands on a 1991 Mercedes Benz, we could probably get two thousand dollars for it. But again, we would first have to find a chop shop, so taking cars for now would have to wait.

  “We got his driver’s license,” Dwight said. “Why don’t we just wait until tonight and break into his house?”

  “Nah, I ain’t doing that! No way!” I quickly responded. Wiggie agreed with me.

  “Dwight, that’s too risky, ’cause we don’t know what people have inside their house, or who may be inside the house. For all we know there could be a man on the other side of the door with a shotgun, waiting to blow our heads off as soon as we step inside.”

  “Ah man!” Dwight said. “Yo, y’all niggas is soft! It don’t matter whose inside the house, ’cause whoever might be in the crib ain’t gonna know who they’re dealing with. Man, I don’t care who’s in the house or what kind of weapons or dogs or whatever they may have. Nobody is iller than me! Nobody! Besides, I thought we were supposed to be a bunch of ruthless hooligans! What’s up with y’all?”

  I didn’t care. Call me soft or what have you, but I wasn’t gonna be a cat burglar. I didn’t have it in me.

  “Look,” Dwight added, “OK, if we do it, we’re doing it in the daytime, a’ight? Besides, we don’t have to go back to that kid’s crib if that’s what y’all are thinking, because maybe y’all are right. It probably won’t be worth it. But yo, how about this? Why don’t we just pick someone’s crib at random, break in, and rob it?”

  “Are you crazy, Dwight!?” I asked.

  Dwight looked at me as if he was indeed crazy, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Listen to this,” Wiggie schemed, “instead of us breaking into people’s houses, why don’t we get them to let us in?”

  “Come on now. Wiggie, ain’t nobody gonna open their door for any one of us,” I replied.

  “I know that,” Wiggie said as he started up the car and we drove off. “I got a plan. Just hear me out. See, let’s go out to Amityville . . .”

  As we drove out to Amityville, Wiggie laid out his plan.

  “This is how we gonna do this. We’re gonna drive around until we see a delivery truck or something like that, any type of work truck. When we find one we’ll follow it, because eventually it’s gonna go to someone’s house for a delivery. We’ll just wait for that someone to open their door, then boom! We push our way in. It’ll work, I’m telling y’all.”

  “You know I’m wit it,” Dwight quickly responded.

  I guess that the two of them automatically assumed that I too was going along with the plan. So I did go along with it, even though I didn’t like it.

  Again, I caught myself starting to regain a conscience. I had to remind myself, No conscience, Holz, none whatsoever.

  “Once we get inside a house,” Wiggie continued, “Dwight, you head straight for upstairs. Holz, if they have a basement, you head straight for the basement. If there’s no basement, then go with Dwight. I’ll take the middle floor, the one we enter on. We have to gain control of everybody that’s in the house. If somebody tries to be a hero, we’ll let them have it. No questions asked! After we get control of everyone, we’re gonna bring them all to one floor in the house. Dwight, you’ll watch them and make sure nobody moves. Me and Holz will then ransack the place. We’re only taking money, jewelry, and expensive stuff that we can carry out easily. We have to be in and out, no longer than ten to fifteen minutes.”

  After driving for more than forty minutes, we finally reached Amityville, and before we could blink, we spotted a telephone company truck.

  “A’ight,” Wiggie said, “here we go.”

  We followed the truck in a manner that didn’t seem obvious. The truck pulled in front of a two-story house on a block with twenty or so such houses. We pulled right in back of the truck.

  The truck, which was actually the size of a van, only carried a driver. The driver, a black man, got out and made his way to house number thirty-two. He rang the bell and after five minutes of getting no answer, he left. He got back into his truck and continued on his route. We followed him in the exact same manner as before.

  The telephone man turned onto a street called Atlantic. His truck started to slow down. At first we thought that he’d spotted us following him. But he hadn’t. He was only preparing to pull in front of house number fourteen, which he did. The driver, who hadn’t figured out that he was being followed, again got out and made his way to the front door of the house.

  “Let’s go!” Dwight instructed.

  We got out of the car and hastily walked to the house next door. We had to be careful, making sure all of our movements were crisp and precise. The driver still had not noticed us as we ducked behind some shrubs.

  “Put your masks on,” Dwight whispered. We did as he said. Then the front door opened. A white lady answered.

  “Are you the repairman?” she asked.

  “Yup, that’s me,” the man replied as he smiled.

  “Oh, come in. I’ve been waiting for you. Come in.”

  It was at that point that we sprang up like jungle bunnies from behind the shrubs and ran to the lady’s front door, catching it just as it was about to close. We pushed the door open and ran in with our pistols drawn. The white lady frantically started hollering.

  Wiggie instructed the lady and the repairman to both keep quiet and to get on the floor. I checked to see if I could find stairs that led to a basement. Apparently
there was no basement so I darted upstairs to see what Dwight was doing.

  “Here, here, take them downstairs,” Dwight said to me as soon as I got upstairs. He was talking about a white, teenaged boy who looked to be about sixteen-years-old, and a cute little baby girl who looked like she was maybe one-and-a-half-years-old.

  “Hurry!” Dwight yelled at me. “Hurry and take them downstairs so I can see what is up here.” I proceeded to bring the two downstairs. While carrying the little girl in my left arm, I pointed my gun at the white boy’s head and instructed him to walk. I guessed that the two were brother and sister.

  “Is that everybody that’s in the house?” Wiggie asked once I got downstairs.

  “Yes,” I nervously answered.

  “A’ight, Holz, watch them. I’m gonna go see what I can take. If they even flinch, you blast them.”

  Like a paranoid crazy man, I couldn’t believe that Wiggie had called me by my nickname. That was all I needed was for the cops to have something to pin this whole robbery on me. But there was no time for paranoia because I knew that’s how a mistake on my part could happen.

  So while I held the lady, the repairman, and the two young kids at gun point, Dwight and Wiggie ransacked the place. Those that I was holding at gunpoint appeared to be incredibly frightened as they sat side by side on the waxed parquet floor. The white lady was still screaming and crying.

  “Let me hold my baby,” she kept repeating. “Please, just don’t hurt my baby.”

  “OK, lady!” I shouted. “Shut the hell up!”

  In the background I heard all sorts of ruckus going on. There was rumbling and bumping, along with the sound of furniture being moved.

  “What are they doing to my house?” the lady inquired.

  “I already told you to shut the hell up, lady!” I screamed.

  Just as I finished screaming at the lady, Wiggie came back into the living room where I was located.

  “We got everything,” he said. “Let’s get up outta here. Yo, Dee, come on. Let’s go!”