Heightened Chaos: Based on a True Story.

By Roxanne Lyons

Heightened Chaos will change the way you look at the streets forever.
The year was 1979, as the oldest girl of eleven kids that Tomasina bared, gave birth to a baby boy, Johan Garcia at Belleview Hospital, New York City. And like all kids that are born, he possessed a pure heart, mind, body and soul
By the time Johan turned four, the innocence he was blessed with at birth, slowly started to fade.
One morning as he woke up in one of the most notorious neighborhoods of New York City, Washington Heights, Uptown Manhattan, home of the brave, Dominican land; without his intentions, Johan found himself a member of one of the most powerful secret societies to ever exist in Americas history.
His low key gangster Uncle, Jose Eduardo Liriano, got together with a childhood friend, Santiago Rodriguez, A.K.A Yayo, whom later on would be recognized worldwide as one of the smartest gangsters to walk the streets of New York!
Robert Jackall, a Williams College sociologist, who has researched the crack trade, once said, One has to recognize Yayos particular and peculiar genius even if one doesnt honor it.
So like two kids in a science lab, Mr. Liriano and Mr. Rodriguez, were mixing chemicals together, and a very destructive drug was born. Crack! The drug leeched out from New York to Miami and Los Angeles into the American interior.
The crack epidemic led Congress to adopt mandatory-minimum laws, which hit inner-city crack users with penalties as severe as those levied on Wall Street possessing a hundred times more powder cocaine. Over the next decade hundreds of thousands of Americans would be locked up for drug offenses.
So many people were smoking crack throughout America, and the violence that it brought to the streets was so severe that President Reagan was forced to declare war on the epidemic.
When the crack epidemic exploded, Washington Heights had seemed as if a nuclear bomb had detonated in it. Everyone felt the effects.
Dr. Randall D. Marshall at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital treated hundreds of residents; many with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, an illness common among Vietnam veterans.
When Johan turned five, he was in the middle of a war that completely over powered him psychologically. Watching the gangsters make millions, murders, and Based heads smoking crack right in front of his door step; by then, his thoughts were covered with darkness.
In this fact-inspired tale, narrated by Johan Garcia and written by Roxanne Lyons, you will witness the rise of crack in the United States. And how Mr. Liriano and Mr. Rodriguez were destined to introduce the new drug to the world!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781462842032

Roxanne Lyons

Roxanne Lyons is a first time author who resides in the picturesque Highlands of New Jersey. She is currently working on her second novel and is looking forward to continuing her work in the literary field.

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tCopyright © 2009 by Roxanne Lyons.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

CHAPTER 1

A lot of things come to mind when you think of New York City: Wall Street, the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers, maybe even Broadway Plays. But mention the infamous section of Uptown Manhattan known as Washington Heights, and only one thing comes to mind: Hustlers. In the Heights, making a dollar out of fifteen cents comes as natural as tying shoelaces. And I’m not saying that because that’s where I’m from. It’s reality. Stick the worst hustler on the planet in the Heights for a year, and I guarantee he’ll come out on top of his game. That’s because hustling is woven into the fabric of the Heights. I know it sounds crazy, but I got the historical facts to prove it.

Back in the days, Greeks and Irish populated the Heights. That slowly began to change when Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in ’59. A growing number of Greeks and Irish families soon found themselves the neighbors of Cuban immigrants. By ’72, not only had the Heights’ Cuban community swelled, but other Latin immigrants began to migrate there as well. Needless to say, all of these immigrants were striving to establish better lives for themselves. My family was a part of that wave of immigrants. They were one of the first Dominican families to settle in the Dyckman area of Washington Heights.

My Uncle Humberto got to the U.S. first. He quickly got a factory job sewing for Fendi in Brooklyn, got an apartment on Vermilyea Ave. and 200th Street in the Heights, and then worked and saved enough money to bring his entire family to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic. He got them all here in less than a year: My Grandmother Tamasina, my mother Marina, my Aunts Glady, Enersida and Elsa, and my Uncles, Eduardo, Pedro, Narsiso, Manolo, Heriberto, and Tono. They came to this country hungry with ambition and determined to work hard and live the American dream. Of course there were language barriers in the beginning, and that led to confrontations. My Uncles, especially Eduardo, the youngest, constantly fought the Irish, Greeks, and Cubans. The odds were always against him. So Eduardo did the only thing he could; he eventually organized a gang called the Pachucos, which you’ll hear a lot more about later. It ended up being one of the most notorious gangs of the ’70s. By the early ’80s, the Irish, Greeks, and Cubans started moving out of the Heights, and the Dominicans had gained control of 90% of the restaurants, grocery stores, bars, and clubs. That’s the hustle Dominicans brought to the Heights.

The same ambition and determination that drove Dominicans from a minority to a majority in the Heights also produced some of the world’s most talented musicians, baseball players, and wonderful cooks—all Dominican, and all from the Heights. When it comes to music, the Heights gave the world a group named Tavarez. The group’s talented voices hit the scene in the mid-seventies with R&B slow jams and took the nation by storm. The four brothers had hits like, Only takes a minute girl and Heavens must be sending an angel. The lead singer of the group, Butch, ended up marrying Lola Falana, who went on to perform in Vegas.

Then there’s baseball. In general, Dominicans have produced some of the most talented baseball players in history. It’s in their blood to play the game. Even those who don’t know how to play, know how to play! I guess it’s all those green bananas, platanos, that we eat! Right now, two of the most talented ball players in the major leagues come from Washington Heights. Like all little boys from the neighborhood, they once dreamed of becoming something big and buying their mothers the biggest houses in the world. They came from poor families and their parents, especially their mothers, sacrificed their entire lives, sometimes even enslaving themselves, just to give their children a better life. You have to understand, it’s very easy for a kid from the Heights to go in the wrong direction. It’s hard for some kids to stay grounded and positive in the face of watching their mothers’ sacrifice, struggle and suffer in order to give them hope of a better life. Add the distraction of the TV, the block, and hustlers flossin’ materialistic stuff that the kids can’t afford, and you got a recipe for a life of negativity. Baseball offers a vehicle for staying positive and avoiding trouble.

We all know Manny Ramirez as the two-time world champion with the Boston Red Sox and one of the highest paid players in the history of the major leagues. But many don’t know that Manny grew up in one of the most violent and drug infested neighborhoods in New York City—the Heights in the area of 172nd, 173rd & Audubon, birthplace of the East Coast crack epidemic. It’s funny because instead of ruining Manny’s life, the gangster life may have saved him. See, there was this organization of Dominicans from the Heights called the Wild Cowboys. They had crack spots all over the Bronx, which they inherited from the Crack King Yayo, and were feared and very well respected by everyone in the underworld. One of the leaders, Lenny Sepada, later flipped the script and became a known Rat by blaming his associates for his own actions. Well, before he did that foul shit, Lenny used his gangster influence to encourage Manny to avoid the criminal pitfalls of the neighborhood and stay in school. Back then gangsters helped kids instead of taking advantage of them.

Lenny’s encouragement paid off too. By the time Manny got to high school, all you heard when he stepped to the plate was Home Run! Manny ended up graduating from High School, going straight to the major leagues, and is now a future Hall of Famer who inspires hope in millions of kids. Manny was fortunate to find such a mentor as Lenny. Even though Lenny wasn’t a leader on a positive note in the community, he made an effort to harness his negativity into positive results when it came to the youth. He made a big difference regardless of his circumstances at that point, which is something a lot of us should always do with the youth. It’s the total opposite today. We have the big criminal and drug lord personalities, but none of them want to take on the leadership responsibilities necessary to save our youth from a life of crime. The older cats now a days accept the youth’s ignorance and manipulate them into the drug game.

Alex Rodriguez is the best player on the planet, and his 500 home runs guarantees that he can retire right now and still make the Hall of Fame. Guess what? He’s not from Miami. He’s a Dominican from the Heights, so he and his family also know what it’s like to make it out of the struggle. I’m not saying that every Dominican kid goes through a difficult time, but just on the strength of being a kid from the Heights means you endure a certain burden. A-Rod was no different. He lived in the Heights until he was four, and then his family moved to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. After that, they decided to move back to the states and settled in Miami. Still, his mother took that Heights’ struggle and hustle with her wherever she went. His parents divorced when he was eight and his mother got two jobs to support him and give him a better shot in life. Alex never took that ambition and hard work for granted and funneled it into his love for baseball. The rest, as they say, is history.

As far as food is concerned, I’ll put it to you like this; you got people like Margo and her husband from 163rd and Broadway who hook up different types of foods from all cultures. They’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars filling the bellies of people that come from all over the world. Then you have the street-selling cooks who create little wooden carts with thermostats to keep their food warm in the winter. They sell rice pudding, hot ginger tea, and sweet beans with raisins—a famous Dominican desert. As people crowd the city streets, coming and going to work, shopping, hanging out, hustling, doing what they do best, they’re certain to hear the lady with the unique voice almost singing, aaaaa bichuela con dolllllce, (sweet beans). She pushes her cart all over the hood making a killing with her fabulous tasting food.

Then there are also the trucks called cuchifritos. They’ll pull up on a crowded block, park on a corner, and fry a whole pig for you right there. They have a nice set up too. Each truck has a glass compartment where you can see the food and choose whatever you want to be cooked. They’re the fast food Spanish joints of the neighborhood. They also make natural juices that are delicious and healthy. They make ridiculous money, but the competition is tough because there’s a truck on every block. Not to mention there might be a restaurant across the street from where the truck is parked. Sometimes emotions and greed come into play and they war with each other. You might wake up one morning and find the cuchifrito burned down to the ground. But another one is sure to pop up a few days later—all decked out with rims and security cameras, and maybe even two or three thugs posted up as guards, screw facing. It’s that serious when it comes to the cuchifrito. They even set up tables and chairs next to the truck so people can eat in comfort.

The food business in my neighborhood is a multimillion-dollar business. It’s just another sign of that ambitious and determined spirit. It goes to show that we can achieve anything we want in life and be the best at everything we do if we perfect ourselves through practice and hard work. Like many other Dominican communities, in the Heights people don’t just develop the talents that help them survive and acquire wealth; they pass those talents on to their kids so they can survive under each and every circumstance that comes their way.

Also in the culinary arts arena, you have men and women who can create miracles within the human body. They could get recipes patented that can literally cure people from many different diseases, but because of the lack of information or not being able to speak the language, they are not capable of expanding their talent worldwide. Which is a shame, but their talent doesn’t go to waste because they do make a difference among their family and friends. But at the same time, when you have a talent that can make you millions, you have to struggle to educate yourself in order to get your talent out there and be heard.

That’s the environment I was born into. The Heights is my life, and I’ve lived it since birth. Like a lot of other kids from the neighborhood, I was raised by a mother who struggled and sacrificed to make my life better. My mother dedicated her life to providing for me. Too bad I can’t say the same for my father. He broke out on my mother while she was pregnant with me. I personally can’t understand how a man can do such a thing to a woman, and I’m not just saying that because it happened to my mother. I’m saying it because it’s wrong. Anyway, I was born on Jan 30th, 1979 at Bellevue Hospital, which is a long way from the Heights. I once asked my mother why she didn’t go to Presbyterian hospital, which was only a few blocks away. She just smiled and said, Because the doctor that I trusted the most was from that hospital. And if I had to travel further to know that you would be in good hands, that is what I had to do. That’s the kind of mother she was, and that’s what’s inspired my belief that Your mother is the closest thing to God you will ever know on this earth!

My mother didn’t trust anyone with me when I was a baby, so she applied for welfare so she could be there for me. Her family was there to offer support if she needed it, but her sense of motherly pride and the responsibility she felt for bringing me into this world drove her to take it upon herself to be the best mother she could be. At the same time, she didn’t settle for what the State gave her. She did a little hustling on the side. There was this lady named Elida from the 3rd floor who sold clothes. My mother pulled her aside and said, Every time you get clothes, sell them to me for a decent price. Elida agreed, and my mother bought the clothes and then re-sold them from our one bedroom apartment to turn a profit. After I entered kindergarten, my mother got a job in Brooklyn with my Uncle Humberto sewing for Fendi. As the years went on, my mother saved her money and made sure I had everything I needed—from food, to love, to clothing, to everything. She did it all by herself until she found love and married a man named Mateo. By the time I was in the fourth grade, she was already building her dream home in the Dominican Republic, which she now owns. So I’m not just talking about the Heights’ hustle, I’ve been up close and personal with it all my life.

I spent my childhood literally in the middle of the streets of the Heights playing sports: Baseball, basketball, football, and plaqita (car plates). Plaqita is a game where we bend two license plates into an open square and then place them on the ground twenty yards apart. The plates were strike zones, and we played two on two. One person stood at one plate, and an opponent stood at the other. One person rolled a tennis ball towards the plate, while the other tried to hit the ball with a broomstick. We hit the ball and ran back and forth from plate to plate counting the runs. If you had a good arm and could hit the plate from far away to get an out, and avoid some more runs, it would be considered a great play! That’s a Dominican game that you’ll only find in communities like the Heights. Although I must admit, my favorite sport was football. I loved the contact. At that age, I was already playing with equipment that I had gathered from my friends. If I would’ve asked my mother to buy me equipment she would’ve looked at me as if I was losing my mind. She didn’t know about that sport in the Dominican Republic; they didn’t play it over there. And, as overprotective as she was of me, knowing that somebody would be slamming their head into me, oh no! That would have been a wrap!

I was pretty good at football too. I managed to sneak in a few games on the weekends without my mother knowing. It sounds simple, but that’s another sign of the Heights hustle. Dominican kids have to find ways to cross cultural lines that allow them to experience the new and different without disrespecting the traditions and wishes of their parents. My plan was simple: If my mom didn’t find out I was playing football, she wouldn’t know what it was; if she didn’t know what it was, she wouldn’t have a reason to stop me from playing it. And it worked! It wasn’t long before I was playing with teenagers who were much older than me. They made my game, and me, tougher and more aggressive. Our block played boys from other blocks. We called ourselves the Academy Boys. It didn’t matter if it was a blizzard, the Academy Boys were always ready to play whatever block was in Riverside Park in Dyckman that day.

Oh! I can’t talk about the Heights without mentioning Riverside Park. That’s probably one of the nicest parks that I’ve ever been to. It has a beautiful view of the George Washington Bridge and the Hudson River. It’s a good hangout area, especially in the summer. Right before you get to the actual park it has a straightaway strip where people can park their cars, play their music loud and drink their liquor. The ballers would always go there to compare their cars and see who’s got the loudest system. Throughout the years we’ve named that area El Malecon, which means shore in English. In 2003, two friends by the names of Kevin and Mike opened up a lounge right on the pier. It was poppin’ for a little while until it got shut down. Kevin’s brother, who was an ex-cop, was supposedly running drugs out of the joint and made a few sales to a couple of under-covers. Being that the Marina was under Kevin’s brother’s name, it got shut down.

Things can get crazy at Riverside Park though. You never know what you might see. At times you could actually catch some crazy Dominicans jet skiing! How can you jet ski on the Hudson River! Now that’s crazy! But that’s the determination. You want to jet ski, you’re going to find a place to jet ski.

That’s the energy that circulates through Washington Heights, and it’s never ending. It goes back to one of the greatest Americans ever: George Washington—a man with vision, spiritual discipline, and the determination to accomplish greatness. Along with his troops, he himself fought against the British for the freedom and Independence of the United States of America. The British put up a tough fight, and in certain areas of New York, the former President had to retreat. That’s who my place of birth is named after. From the public High School on Audubon Ave., to the bridge that divides Manhattan and New Jersey. And just like George Washington changed the course of the world with his victory over the British, my neighborhood changed the world of hustling by producing a few larger-than-life figures who brought hustling to all new Heights.

CHAPTER 2

If one man could be credited with elevating the Heights hustle to another level, it would be Santiago Luis Polanco-Rodriguez, A.K.A Yayo. He moved to Washington Heights when he was a kid. After entering George Washington High School, he and a childhood friend, Capulina, organized a graffiti crew. They called themselves the Playboys. With the streets breeding violence, and the cops clueless about who was doing what when and where, the Playboys ended up turning into a gang. They became only one of the many gangs located in the Heights. In the ’70s, the gangs that were making the most noise were the Ball Busters, established by Pingita, which expanded throughout all the burrows; and Franky Cuevas’ B.B.B’s, also known as the Bad, Bad, Boys. Franky ended up doing about 11 years in prison in Upstate New York. He later came home in 1989 and made about one hundred million dollars.

Then you had the infamous, notorious, Pachucos. At a time when all the gangs of New York fought with bats, knives, and chains, the Pachucos introduced guns into their wars, .357’s & .38’s. There were only twelve of them, but if you want to talk about gangsters, they took things to a whole different level in every aspect of the word. My Uncle, Jose Eduardo Liriano was the leader of this organization. The leaders of all these organizations had a lot of things in common, but the main thing was they all grew up in the same area in the Dominican Republic: Santiago De Los Caballeros. Although there were times when the gangs bumped heads, and most of the time things got solved on a positive note, one thing became crystal clear: the Pachucos were not to be played with! But toughness soon took a backseat to something more important. Money.

In the mid ’70s, early ’80s, cocaine was an expensive high at $60,000 a kilo. It was considered a rich man’s high. Only top-notch executives could afford it, and they used it to party. It didn’t affect them back then as much as it does today. Now, chemicals are used to expand it and keep it at a high potency level. The more it expands, the weaker it gets. It harmed people then, but it’s destroying them now. You have to understand, when a human being alters his mind with such substances, it adds more of the substances the brain already produces, disrupting the body’s balance, breaking it down, even creating holes in the brain.

See back then the quality of coke was so good that privileged users had too much fun to worry about side effects. It was good shit, and you had to know somebody to get it. Hustling in the drug game wasn’t a trend either. It was a business run by real gangsters. I don’t mean pants saggin’, your ass showing, or talking that shoot’em up shit on wax. I’m talking about real gangsters with principals and morals who respected the codes of the streets, because they knew they could die at any moment. And not over pettiness either, like now a days. Now you have people killing for pennies. Back then, when someone got shot, the ambulance would show up hours later, and even before the cops. The cops rarely arrived to investigate the crime scene until well after the ambulance had picked up the body and delivered it to the hospital D.O.A. That’s why at one point New York City had one of the highest murder rates in the nation. Brooklyn alone had more homicides than most places in the country, so New York hustlers took the game seriously, and hustlers from the Heights were no exception.

If you were smart enough to analyze your surroundings, it wasn’t hard to tell when someone was selling kilos. He or she would walk around with a team of secret service protecting them because other gangsters were scheming. On any given day your average supplier had four or five kilos of coke, and at $60,000 a key, their own grandmothers would’ve cremated them for that. The value of the dollar has declined throughout the years, but thirty years ago, that was a lot of cash! Needless to say most suppliers lived their lives looking over both shoulders. Although there comes a point in life when you know you’re not supposed to be doing certain things, but sometimes it’s too late. You’re in so deep that it becomes an addiction.

I’m sure many gangsters from back in the day silently wondered if the game was worth it, which is why many gangsters wouldn’t introduce the game to the youth. There was more respect in that regard. So when young kids from the hood wanted to get put on, they weren’t told, Here bring this package across the street. Instead, real gangsters tried their best to guide the youth towards an education, rather than taking advantage of an innocent child who could be somebody in life. And if any financial support was needed, it was provided. After that, the kids knew better than to ask to be put on. The gangsters would only have to speak once and that’s all it took for a kid to know that he or she had to do the right thing. But honestly, some got saved and some didn’t. Still, one saved is a free world, because every mind is a different world.

Today, it seems like anybody can be a drug dealer. But that profession wasn’t meant for everyone. Everyone on this planet was blessed with many different talents, and very few are cut out to be drug dealers. Unfortunately too many think they are when they’re not. That’s part of the reason those urban environments are so fucked up, and not too many people are stepping up to guide the youth in a positive direction. In today’s generation you have young kids walking around the streets of New York with kilos of cocaine, selling it like it was candy. These kids never would have survived the ’80s. That goes to show you how much the drug game has changed.

All throughout the ’60s and ’70s, a lot of people were getting high on Freebase. Freebase was cocaine mixed with baking soda. Nothing more, nothing less. Freebase was created by all the top dogs of the Colombian cartel. They all got together and the product was created for the destruction of the black community. It was introduced as an addictive and smokeable drug that could be sold cheap. The right amount of cut with baking soda stretched the cocaine, which meant bigger profits. Freebase ended up spreading like a ruthless disease. The first place that it was introduced was in the ghettos of California. The Jamaican Mafia took complete control of the product and distributed it all over California.

It was around that time that Yayo, being the leader that he was with aspirations of making a better life for him and his family, noticed that there was something much bigger in the streets of New York than graffiti and violence. He noticed the drug business. The year was 1980. Yayo, about 20 years old, set out to establish himself in the business. By then he had a reputation amongst the gangsters and was known all over New York. That reputation was all it took. He got introduced to some heavy weight pushers, and they opened the door for whatever amount of product he needed to flood the streets of New York. Understand, Yayo’s case is special. It was very difficult to acquire a connection that would open the doors and supply you on such a level, especially in those days. Sometimes not even money mattered. That’s where the old saying comes from, All money is not good money. There were some hustlers who managed to get their hands on some product once in a while, but when their product was finished it was difficult to find a wholesale supplier to refill their inventory, even if they had the money up front.

The drug business at that time was like a fraternity, a secret society of true gangsters! When you were in, you were in! And believe me, you knew it, because the next man or woman would give their life for you! Yayo was in, and with the vision of living a better life and a bird’s eye view of Corporate America at its best, he grew even more ambitious. His lack of education only made him more shrewd. But one thing about him was that he always paced himself with things. Never greedy, he was a master at the game of patience, with a very serious character. Those characteristics helped him put all his floss intact. As a young adult, he was very well respected as if he was a grown ass man. And at sixty dollars a gram, the world was his…

* * *

First Yayo received a couple of ounces and sold grams at a hundred dollars apiece. He distributed throughout bars and clubs in the Bronx and Washington Heights. The coke was good. Pure. It sold like water.

My Uncle Eduardo, the leader of the Pachucos, noticed what was going on and stepped to Yayo and said, Listen, you know how the streets are giving it up, and I want to start making some money too. Plus, you know that once shit starts to get out of control, I’m gonna make sure that the balance is kept.

On the strength of respect that Yayo and the streets of New York had for Eduardo, Yayo had no other choice but to welcome the number one Pachuco Dominican Gangster into the secret society that had New York City locked down on the coke tip. After that it was a wrap. Eduardo and Yayo held each other down. They balled out of control. They passed their time making more money than they could count and enjoying the night life at Fuego, Fuego (Fire, Fire), which was a Latin club on 157th and Broadway. The name says it all. All the gangsters from Washington Heights partied there, dancing, showing off their girls, and powdering their noses left and right. The name of the club fit it perfectly because the violence was off the hook—shoot-outs, bodies dropping, it was Fire, Fire, for real. Raymond Colita shot that shit down a few times. He was a gangster hit man, and loyalist to Eduardo. He’s doing twenty years in the Feds, about to come home soon.

Eduardo and Yayo also frequented Studio 84, which was owned by a heavy brick layer that eventually got indicted for the murder of a federal agent. Well, he became a rat and took half of Broadway to the Feds. Caballon will be released soon. Studio 54 was another spot, 1018, you name it, if it was poppin’, those kids were there.

Regardless of the circumstances, even though there were drugs, violence, etc., 1982 wasn’t a bad year. If you had the Toyota 1.8 with B.B.S rims on it, you were ballin’. Hood classic, dropped low, with a booming system pumping free style music. It was all good. The energy was mild and I was only three years old at the time, but I already looked about five. My mother’s friends often attempted to send me on errands thinking that I was older. My mother had to constantly inform them that I was only three! They couldn’t believe it! He’s too big for his age, a little baby Huey, they’d say. The thing is, I hoped my mother would let me run those errands. I loved the streets. I liked being outside enjoying the