Federal Nightmare

By James Hairston

“Sic Transit Gloria Mundi”
FEDERAL NIGHTMARE is an urban crime drama that will take you deep into the world of South Florida’s drug trade; a world not described in any of the tourist brochures; a world of cunning betrayals where enemies are abundant and friends are few and far between. To survive in such a world, one must be ruthless while holding on to their sense of humanity; if such a feat can be achieved.
“Se Non É Vero, É ben trovato”
DRIVE-BY speaks for itself and will make you think for yourself. James L. Hairston is currently serving time in a Federal Penitentiary. He can be contacted at:
James Hairston #07762-068
USP Coleman II
P.O. Box 1034
Coleman FL 33521

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Hairston
• Release date: Dec 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310852503

Book preview

Chapter 1

June 1st 1985, I still can’t believe it! I killed someone that day and damn it happened so fast I did not have time to think that I was taking a life. I didn’t even have time to stop and think about the consequences. None of that shit came into play. It was just me and the moment.

When I left the scene I was nervous and scared, but I was also pumped like I was on some kind of super drug. I must admit, it did feel good standing there in the middle of the avenue dumping shells into some fool that thought I was soft.

When I got home, I actually stood in the mirror with the gun in my hand trying to see how I looked to everyone that was out there. Shit, I thought to myself. All those witnesses, I hoped everyone would stay cool. Since there was only hustlers, addicts and ho’s out at that time of the night I thought it would be alright. I kept getting nervous sitting there, I knew I had to get my shit together before I got caught slippin’. I changed my clothes and took some rubbing alcohol and cleaned my hands with it. I got that from all those espionage novels that I liked to read. The alcohol takes away any gun powder residue that is on your hands. Then I went out into the back yard and buried the gun. I planned to get rid of it all together the next day. After that, I got into my car and drove back down to the set.

The scene looked like nothing even went down, but I still had to find out what’s up. So I parked down the block and walked back up the street where all the hustlers hung out.

There was a couple of people hanging out that I knew had seen what went down, so I walked over to where they were hanging, and upon seeing me they were all smiles.

They started saying shit like Nigga you’re crazy as hell and making jokes about the whole shooting, but I cut them off with this hard look on my face and this angry tone in my voice. Hold that shit down! I shouted. I think that they noticed for the first time that I wasn’t scared, just concerned. That was also the first time that I noticed anyone looking at me with terror and fear in their eyes. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had crossed over at the ripe age of 17; I was a murderer.

Chapter 2

I guess I should tell you how this whole thing went down.

Me? My name is Maximillion Jones; I was what some would call a product of the streets, but I had a good mind for strategies. By hustling and working bullshit jobs, I had managed to keep a little three room apartment and I drove a ’72 Mustang II, which was my first car and I loved it, (even though it was a piece of shit). Anyway, one day I was riding around looking for something to get into when I ran into Fatboy Jerry, we had made a little money together before, so I knew him to be straight-up. He said that he had a way for us to make some fast money, but it was going to take some work on our behalf. He told me that he knew some Haitians that were selling slabs of base for twenty five dollars apiece. He said that they were so big that we could cut it up into five dimes (ten dollar bags) and double our money, but the hard part was finding a spot to move the stuff. You see all the good hot spots where you could sell were under ownership and just me and Fatboy weren’t going to muscle in on anyone’s block. So we came up with this scheme: Since I had a ride, we could go from block to block real late at night or early in the morning when most people shut down shop and catch that straggler money. It sounded good to me, plus being the chess player that I was I had already seen where this could take us in the future.

So Fatboy had one hundred dollars and I had fifty dollars, a car, a .380 semi-auto, so from there we were in business. We got a hundred and fifty dollars worth of slabs and hit the streets. You know Fatboy was right! We were flippin’ that shit so fast that the money started stacking up. Business was so good that we could just sit in a couple of spots late night and people got to know us. Then one night we were sitting on the hood of my car over on Rosemary Avenue, it had to be about three o’clock in the morning and we had had a good night. We were rapping to these young girls that were looking for a quick high when this guy pulled up with a chick in the car. Fatboy was serving the coke and I was holding the burner in the background. Fatboy went up to the car to serve them, and that was when our whole night was spoiled.

First the chick told us they wanted thirty dollars worth of crack and then she started fussing around like she can’t find the money, I sensed that something was wrong because when addicts come to cop they about always have their money in their hands, and most of the time they have held it so tight that the money is in a sweaty ball.

So I’m standing in the background watching Fatboy’s back and the transaction, I’m slipping the .380 out of my back pocket, no sooner than I took the safety off the gun the guy grabbed the bag of ‘rocks’ out of Fatboy’s hand and hit the gas.

I moved real quickly; I was right at the driver’s window with the gun in that fools face telling him to stop the car, but all he did was look at me and duck down, so I put three bullets right into the side of his chest. I was pulling the trigger so fast I had to adjust my aim and put three more into the side of his car.

The car went down the street a little farther then ran up on the sidewalk and stopped. Seeing that me and Fatboy ran and jumped into our ride and we were out of there.

I thought about going and getting my base back that the fool had snatched, but there was only about fifteen dimes left in the bag and being that he gave his life for it, I figured that he could have it. Come to find out later, the chick on the passenger’s side just moved the guys’ body over and drove off.

Chapter 3

So that’s how the shit went down, now to cover my ass.

Now after talking to the guys on the set and finding out what went down after I left, I felt a little better about our getting away with it.

I left the block and went back home, I called Fatboy and told him to meet me at two o’clock at the chicken box on Forth and Rose. I also told him that I had been back on the set and everything looked good.

Next I went and got the gun out of my yard and drove down and threw it in the Inlet.

I had some serious thinking, because this whole game was taking on a new life, and I had to make a conscious choice about if I was willing to go forward. I was, however I had to keep control and be swept away by the momentum of the fast hustle. I knew people who had got caught in the game.

I had a plan, now just to see if Fatboy was down. If he was, we would be eating good for a long time.



We met at the chicken box as planned; Fatboy seemed to be in good spirits, so I ran my plan down to him.

I said "this is our situation, we are starting to make a little money and we are also starting to make a lot of noise, so we got to step-up our game so a brother or the cops won’t catch us slippin’.’’

I told him how I had already been talking to the Haitians about buying more weight and they said they would give us some base at five hundred dollars an ounce.

I also told him we should take a road trip up to this little town called Jupiter Beach. I knew a few people up there, and the shit we sold down here for ten dollars will go for twenty up there.

Now I figured we could both put up twenty five hundred dollars and come out with ten O’s of raw base.

Now with taking this shit up to Jupiter we would make a quick twenty thousand dollars off our five thousand dollar investment. Then we could get a whole bird for fifteen thousand dollars and start putting other people on the frontline.

Fatboy liked my plan and just like that we went into action. We rode to Fatboy’s crib to pick up his money, then went by mine. I took out an extra five hundred because I was going to stop and get a new gun, there was no way I was going to be caught without a burner.

So after stopping and picking up a nice 10mm semi-automatic for four hundred, we went to the Haitians spot to cop the base.

These Haitian people are a whole other story. There’s a section of town called little Haiti, and this place is jam packed with these immigrants and they all stick together.

We pulled up and they were sitting outside as usual, when they saw us, they started to smile because they knew us for bringing money. They normally take your money and have you wait outside, but this time I showed him the five ‘gran’ and he got real serious and said wait, after about 10 minutes he came back and lead us up into this small room at the back of the house.

Upon entering the room, there were bags of base lying on the table.

Besides the two young girls sitting in the room bagging up coke, the room was empty, which was the same state as the rest of the house.

I handed him the money and he gave it to one of the girls and spoke in his native Creole language, I guess he told her to count it.

Then he walked over to the table and said come here my friend, I like you two, you spend goo’ money, and then he counted out twelve bags from the table. So where we were looking to get ten ounces, we got twelve (It was on now!).

The girls confirmed that the money was straight, and we assured him that we would be back and we were out of there.

Now we went to my crib and the first thing I did was put one of the bags on the scale and just as I had figured, one ounce on the nose.

We then went to work bagging up twenty dollar pieces. We must have been there bagging for close to five hours, but when we were done, we had bagged up twenty two thousand dollars worth of fat ass doves.

Now the ride up to Jupiter was only a forty minute drive up I95. We went and bought a bag sealer for eighty nine dollars and sealed up all the bags air tight. We then tied string onto the bags and put them in the gas tank; now we were ready to ride.

Chapter 4

We arrived in Jupiter without any problems. We went to the house of a friend of mine. He goes by the name of Big Bro.

Big Bro was an O.G. about fifty five years old. He was one of those true hustlers that kept three or four ladies of the night around the house. If it was anything that involved money, believe me, he had a hand in it one way or the other.

Big Bro stood about 6’2 and you could tell that at one time he was very solidly built, but now with age and the lazy life of a hustler. He was out of shape but his size still gave him that intimidating look, not to mention that everyone knew that he did not play.

Us pulling up was a big surprise for Big Bro, because even though I had called him and told him I might be coming to see him, but I didn’t say when.

He came out to meet us and offered us his hospitality the way only a true G would.

We went in and I introduced him to Fatboy, I told him Fatboy was my brother who he knew he wasn’t, but just by me putting that label on him told Big Bro that he was down.

Big bro greeted Fatboy like he knew him his whole life, as they stood shaking hands it was a sight because were Big Bro was tall and wide, Fatboy Jerry was short and wide with this box hair cut that just about made up for the height difference.

I told Big Bro that we needed to talk so he sent all the girls that were in there trying to make eye contact outside.

I laid it on him that we had some base to be put down and that it was enough that all three of us could eat well.

He was down like I knew he would be, so we pulled the car into the garage and unloaded the product.

Big Bro had another house down the street that he did a little sideways hustling from, so we set up shop there.

It didn’t take long for word to get around that some niggas from Palm Beach was in town, and the money started rolling in.

The shit worked out better than we thought, the doves we bagged up were still big as hell compared to what they had been dealing with, so it turned out that instead of us stepping on anyone’s toes, most of the hustlers was coming to us too, ‘cause they could double their money off our shit, plus our product was better than anything that had hit that area in a long time.

We had sold our base in six days; I was like shit, just think how it will be once more people know about our spot.

Big Bro got two thousand for his troubles, plus the money I knew he made on the side, and we were on our way back to the bottom twenty thousand strong.

Chapter 5

We got back home and stashed our re-up money ($15,000) and split the rest.

I told Fatboy we should wait a couple of days before making our trip because it was time to start recruiting. We agreed that we would bring in four people; we would recruit two people a piece. I already had my first choice lined up and what a choice it was.

There was this gangster broad named Liz that I messed with from time to time on the money tip, you see Liz was a lesbian, she had pretty light skin, long Indian black hair and was a stone cold hustler, at 5’9 she was no push-over, not to mention the girl had more heart than most niggas plus I could trust her.

Next I went to see my main man Bubba, now this was my ‘nigga’. We had always hustled together off and on, ever since I walked down a back street one day and he was jacking this white man.

He looked up and saw me with worry in his eyes of what I was about, so I said to him get money my nigga and kept on walking.

Well Bubba being the G that he was handed me a fifty dollar bill as he was running past. I was like OK. True.

So the next time I saw him sitting on the corner, I walked by and dropped a fifty on him and said stay real, and kept walking.

Then after that we just started running into each other, and turned each other on to licks.

This was someone else I trusted. Bubba was 6’, and so skinny that every time a strong wind blew you wanted to grab hold of him to keep him from blowing away. However,