The American Dope Boy: Memoir of a Dope Boy

By M.C. Kerns

Unapologetic and brutally honest, The American Dope Boy is a tale of a teenager who confronts life in it's most ugly form. Based on a true story, The American Dope Boy tells the story of a teenager who ends up selling drugs and learns the hard lessons of life during his journey. Set in the height of the crack epidemic in Memphis TN, you will get a first hand account of how crack had a devastating effect on a family and the collateral damage that followed. Even though the situations were dire at times you will read how the antagonist learned from his many lessons and persevered. The American Dope Boy is also a cautionary tale for youth about the pitfalls of the drug culture and the illusions of what the streets have to offer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543909432

Book preview

Biography

Prologue

The stench of crack is in the air. It is a pungent, acidic odor that is recognizable once inhaled. Several junkies surround Big George with anticipation of receiving some crack in exchange for a favor or small amount of money. A young dope boy also in the room is boastful and willing to give a hit to anyone who is willing to take on an outrageous endeavor. A woman eager to meet her need to get high haphazardly agrees to whatever obligation she will have to fulfill. The dope boy instructs the women to get naked and jump out of the window. The woman, without due regards for her well-being, fulfills this obligation and comes back into the residence to receive her prize. The woman is given a hit, which she immediately places on her straight shooter. She proceeds to smoke and inhales it as if she suffers from asthma. As she exhales, a euphoric look on her face cues the dope boy that the woman now is in the zone and will do anything to keep her high going. The dope boy then suggests to the woman that an even bigger prize awaits if she’ll fulfill her next task. The woman gives him a look indicating that whatever he suggests, she will agree to. That’s when the dope boy brings in his Rottweiler, who goes by the name Sager.

I will give you a $20 rock if you suck Sager’s dick, says the dope boy.

Without hesitation, the woman takes action and obliges. To those in the room, this is nothing out of the ordinary. The people carry on as if they don’t even notice she is performing this act. The dope boy looks on with a stare that shows he is well aware of the power he holds over whoever desires crack: It can make people spend all their money, steal from relatives, and stoop so low as to do inhumane acts just to retrieve the drugs.

This desire is just as powerful as God himself. Or, is it the dope boy who is playing God? He knows that he possesses a substance that basically controls people’s lives. That is power. And power is just as addictive as crack itself.

Introduction

Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Mack C. Kerns. I’m also known by my nickname Coo. My uncle gave me that name because he said that I looked like a cupid when I was a baby. But the story that you are going to read is far from a love story. The American Dope Boy is a story about a young man (me) who ends up selling drugs on the streets of Memphis, Tennessee. Now, this is not just a story about selling drugs. This also is a story about life. It is a story of how everything can be beautiful one day and ugly the next. This story has been 10 years in the making. Since my mother’s death, I’ve felt compelled to tell our story. After many starts and stops, I finally pulled it off. How I ended up selling drugs is quite unorthodox. I was just a naïve kid from a middle-class upbringing who became quite efficient at selling dope. You probably would expect someone from the ghetto or a broken home to end up in that situation, not someone who was born with a small silver spoon in his mouth.

Your socioeconomic status alone does not determine your outcome. Your faith determines your disposition. What you will read in this book may shock you. And you may agree or disagree with how I handled some of the scenarios. But I can tell you that everything you are going to read is true. This is how things go down on the street. This is the life of a dope boy and how I lived. I am unapologetically honest. This is the tale of a teenage drug dealer who is adapting to the changes in his life and to the people who are around him. Even with a lot of negative forces at work, it was up to me to break the mold and overcome the adversities I faced.

This story takes place in Memphis, Tennessee, between 1989 and 1994. In just a few short years, I experienced more than some people experience in a lifetime. Of course, I have to give you a brief history of how I ended up in my predicament, and I also will give you some follow-up information so you know how my situation was resolved. This memoir is based on true events; this is not fiction. Some of the names of the people in my life have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. I try to tell this story chronologically whenever possible, although some times and dates have been altered to conceal the identities of certain individuals.

Also, I must admit that it would be impossible to share everything I have witnessed or done in this book. I focused on only the incidents I felt could move the story forward and that would provide a lesson that might prevent other youth from making the same mistakes I made. Like I said, this is a story about life. A million dope boys probably have been through similar circumstances. Anyone who has to adapt to the changes that life throws at you is a dope boy. When I was selling dope, I used to say that it was the best time of my life. Well, I will let you read on and be the judge of that for yourself.

Chapter 1

Wonderful Childhood

I enjoyed a beautiful childhood with two loving parents. I was truly blessed to grow up in such a loving environment. I grew up middle class in a middle-class neighborhood, and I lived a sheltered life as I child. My dad (Mike) was a letter carrier and my mom (Carol) was a homemaker. My mom sold real estate from time to time, but, hey, who bought houses every day? My dad originally was from Proctor, Arkansas. His parents were sharecroppers, and he grew up in the country picking cotton. My mother was from Memphis. She grew up in an area called Box Town, but her family later moved to South Memphis. My mother’s relatives owned a lot of real estate and were somewhat prominent. They owned a lot of property in an area known as the Bolden Bottom. So, my parents came from two different backgrounds, and at times, they had views that didn’t mix. My dad believed in being honest and hard working, whereas my mother believed in hustling and getting one over on someone else, if you could. Nonetheless, they ended up getting married and starting a wonderful family.

I grew up an only child and I was spoiled rotten. I had everything. You name it, I had it. I had every toy that was made back then: Transformers, He-Man, G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu grip. Nintendo, Atari . . . the list goes on. Some people said I lived like a white kid because I had so much stuff. And speaking of white, we lived in a part of town that was called Whitehaven. I’ll let you guess why this area of town was called Whitehaven. Have you figured it out yet? Well, let me put it to you like this: The neighborhood we lived in had more Asian people than black people. Do you get my drift?

So, when I say I lived a sheltered life, I mean I was not familiar with what went on in the so-called hood. I’m going to tell you how sheltered I was: I thought that everybody had a father who was in the house with his children and their mother. (Now, ain’t that something?) Looking back, I can honestly say that having a stay-at-home mom made a difference in my life. Instead of being shipped off to some day care to have a total stranger look after me who didn’t give a fuck about me, my mom looked after me, nurtured me, and taught me many things. My mom was there with me, and we built that critical bond that young children need at that time in their life. Plus, I watched a lot of Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood around that time, which certainly helped with a lot of basic education.

I truly am thankful to my mom and dad for providing me with that shelter and love. I was blessed in more ways than one. For instance, my mom and dad had a sickle cell trait. If two people with a trait have a child, most likely, that child is born with sickle cell disease. But not me. I was lucky I guess. Sickle cell runs on mother’s side of the family. I had an uncle and aunt who passed away from it. It was one of the many favors that the man above has shown toward me. Yes, my childhood certainly started like a fairy tale, but as I came to learn, everything in life doesn’t end happily every after. I came to learn that it’s not what happens to you in life that counts. It’s how you deal with it.

Chapter 2

Racism?

Racism. Yeah, I have to talk about racism for a minute. Now, being a black family living in a predominantly white neighborhood, we encountered some issues here and there. I’m just going to talk about a few incidents that stuck with me. I’m not saying that we endured pure prejudice or discrimination. The incidents we faced were few and far between, but I’m writing about them to make a point later in this book.

The first incident occurred when we were staying in some apartments called the Red Oak townhomes. (I really like the apartments because of how the stairs were made.) Anyway, my mom and I had walked to the store that was behind the apartments. On the way back home, a white woman was looking out her window on the second floor. I remember that the curtain on her window was the confederate flag.

When the woman saw us, she shouted out, Looks like we gone have to start burning some crosses around here!

My mom must have cussed out that lady from A to Z. My mom called her all kinds of things, including No good, dick-sucking peckerwood!

That incident actually was kind of funny, in particular, seeing my mom cuss out that white lady. But the next incident was a bit more peculiar. We moved from the apartment to a house that still was located in the Whitehaven area. We had a next-door neighbor who I will call Mrs. Judy. This incident was so peculiar because Mrs. Judy initially seemed like a sweet, old, white lady. She would bring gallons of sweet tea and a box of Bo Jangle’s chicken over to our house. Care to take a guess as to what we did with her offering? Yeah, we threw it right in the garbage. And I’m going to tell you exactly why we threw it away.

The following is just one of the many incidents we had with Mrs. Judy. Every Fourth of July, my dad would have family over to our house, and all the kids would pop their fireworks either near or on the gate that separated our yard from Mrs. Judy’s yard.

Whenever we popped our fireworks, Mrs. Judy would yell out, Stop popping them firecrackers, you fucking niggers!

As kids, we thought it was funny. So, guess what? We kept on popping fireworks, and Mrs. Judy kept on yelling. Now, all the grown-up folks acted like they didn’t hear what Mrs. Judy was saying. They just kept on partying and eating barbecue. Hell, a white guy was married to my dad’s sister, and he was partying with us (that was a rarity back then). Later on, I asked my mom why we didn’t say anything about Mrs. Judy calling us niggers.

My mother replied, You don’t pay ignorant peckerwoods like that no attention.

Now do you understand why we threw the chicken in the garbage? There you have it. My mom summed it up perfect. No matter what bad things people say or do to you, they don’t affect you unless you allow them to. Looking back on this situation, it also taught me a life lesson: Be careful how you treat people because you just might see them again. I want you to remember Mrs. Judy because I’m going to mention her again. Until then, let’s move on.

Chapter 3

Stolen Innocence

This chapter is short and sweet. I’m going to talk about an issue that goes on, but that a lot of people don’t want to address. It’s about molestation, and a lot of children have been molested by people they know—whether they’re kinfolks, stepparents, or whatever. This issue needs to be addressed. Now, you may be wondering, what the hell does being molested have to do with selling drugs? Well, remember that I said in the introduction that this is a story about life. I am writing about this incident and few others because they shaped the way I view life as well as how I deal with people, especially women. So, the next few incidents I share with you definitely had an impact on me and made me deal with women in a somewhat-cautious manner. This is something I have struggled with even into my adult years.

One day I went with my mom to visit her cousin Florence. I was around 7 years old at the time. Now Florence had three daughters—Gena, Tonya, and Melissa. Gena and Tonya were teenagers, and Melissa was younger than me. I had seen them only in pictures before meeting them. When we got over to Florence’s house, I was scared to go inside because they had a big Doberman pincher in the house. I was crying and scared to go inside, so Florence had her daughters put up the dog. I remember them taunting me and telling the dog, sic ‘em, sic ‘em. Anyway, they put up the dog, and I went into the kitchen with my mom.

My mom told me, Go in the back and play with Gena and Tonya.

Now, I was thinking to myself, What we gonna play with? Do they have G.I. Joes or an Atari?

I was pretty sure they didn’t. Anyway, I walked down the hallway to the room Gena and Tonya shared. I walked in the room, and they acted like they never had seen a boy before. They immediately started touching and feeling on me. Gena pulled down my pants and started feeling on my thang (slang for dick). While this was going on, Tonya was standing by the door acting as the lookout.

Gena pushed me on the bed and pulled her shorts down to her ankles. Now, I couldn’t help but notice a big ole dookie stain in her panties (ugh). Then Gena got on top of me and started grinding. Now, we weren’t having actual sex; we were just dry humping. I do remember from this experience that (1) she was heavy as hell, (2) I could feel her heart pounding on my chest, and (3) from all that heavy breathing she was doing, her breath was stanky (yuk!). When Gena got off me, I thought this confusing ordeal was over. I got off the bed and tried to pull up my pants, and that’s when Tonya grabbed my hand and led me to the bathroom. I guess Tonya wanted some privacy. Tonya pulled up her shirt and exposed her breast. She grabbed the back of my head and pushed my face into one of her breasts. She then whispered in my ear, suck it. So, I started to suck her breast, and her breathing increased. Her hand started putting pressure on my head as a signal to suck harder. As I sucked on her breast, I could hear the pounding of her heart in her chest.

She stopped me from sucking her breast and stuck her tongue in my mouth. The next thing she did was really the shocker. Tonya knelt down, pulled down my pants, and put my thang in her mouth. Do I need to write that again? Yes! She put my thang in her mouth and started to suck. Now, even though I was only around 7 years old, I have to say that shit felt pretty good. Tonya sucked until I got hard, and then she stopped and pulled down her shorts and panties. She grabbed my arm and pulled me closer to her. She grabbed my thang as if she was trying to get in a certain position. She then grabbed my buttocks with both hands and was thrusting me toward her in a rhythmic motion. Tonya closed her eyes as if she was in a trance. Her breathing got deeper, and she periodically would kiss me and whisper, It feels good. Then came a knock on the door. With her