Run, Toby, Run

By Jimmie Allen

In the middle to late 1950s, I lived in the Brewster Projects that were infested with gang activities. In order to survive being beat up, you were encouraged to participate or be a part of a gang. There were two things I was good at; fighting was one, and running was the other. Both got me out of some tough situations. The Brewster Project recreation center was right in the area of the Brewster's twelve-story apartment buildings populated by a gang called the Russians. I spent a lot of time at the center, which was a short distance from my house. I learned to swim there, took boxing there, even learned to ice skate there. The Russians was to many to fight; running was my best option until I joined the baby Russians. The school I attended was in the area of the gang called the Angels. I eventually found myself being a part of both gangs. Running and ducking allowed me to escape being found out until my family moved out of the area. Running kept me out of more trouble than fighting. The story is based on my ability to avoid potential deadly situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098012878

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Run, Toby, Run

Jimmie Allen

Copyright © 2019 by Jimmie Allen

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Living in our society today infested with drugs, gambling and murder, sometimes I wonder if it’s wise to bring babies into this world under these conditions. I can remember when I was a very young man living in the Brewster Projects back in the early fifties and sixties. It was rough growing up there, especially in dealing with the gangs. As a matter of fact, at age nine, I myself was in two gangs at the same time. One gang I was in was known as the Russians, which was a very large gang from the twelfth-story apartment building located around the Brewster Recreation Center, which I frequently attended. I took up boxing, was on the swimming team, and played basketball there. To assure that I could continue going to the center, I had to join their gang. I can recall an incident that happened to me just before I joined the Russians. I was playing on the Brewster playground when I got into an altercation with this boy who just happened to be a Russian member. Before I knew it, I was being chased by a gang of boys. I ran toward the apartment building that I lived in, but the only entrance was blocked by my little sister and her friend playing. These guys were hot on my tail. I had two choices. One was to jump a six-foot fence, running away from my building to try and out run them, or yell as loud as I can to get my mother’s attention. I took the second chose. My mother obviously heard me, because I heard her voice loud and clear when she yelled, Leave my son alone! That was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. These guys were only a few steps away from catching me but were scared off by my mother’s yell. As they ran away, one of them dropped a bag which contained weapons such as knives, screwdrivers, and hammers. I truly believe that if it wasn’t for my mother’s yell, I would have gotten seriously hurt or even killed.

It was shortly after that incident that I became friends with the Russians and joined their gang. The other gang that I was in was called the Angles. They were located near the school that I went to, Lincoln Elementary School on Mack and Brush. I had befriended this guy from school. He became attached to me because I defended him from some older boys one day. It turned out that this guy I defended was the younger brother of the leader of the gang called the Angles. I was somewhat persuaded to join his gang due to my ability to fight well. And I did, again, to keep down any trouble. This put me in, what you might say, between a rock and a hard place when it came to dealing with these gangs. Fortunately for me, I never participated in any real gang activities, so neither gang found out about my dual membership nor did my family know, with the exception of my older brother, who never said a word to anyone. Again, fortunately for me. Shortly afterwards, in a matter of a few years, my family moved further east out of the Brewster Projects. Most of the gang leaders were locked up in jail, and the gangs disbanded by then. But despite all that, I still can’t recall life being as bad as it is today. I guess I was somewhat sheltered from most of the violent crimes just by virtue of being too young to understand the street life, seeing that my parents didn’t let me run the streets during those times anyway. I was raised by two strong black women, my mother Dortha and my grandmother Ruby. These two women kept me from the streets and the streets from getting to me. I thank them for that.

Now that I’m all grown up, as I think back to my younger days as a little kid, I can remember times when family and friends of my mother use to get together at our house with their kids. And sometimes we’d go to other family member houses. These houses would always be filled with a lot of kids. Some my age, some a little younger, and some a little older. Mostly all of us were related—first and second cousins. During some of those visits, I can remember the adults would always be playing card games for money, drinking liquor, and talking a lot of stuff while us kids would be playing games or watching television until the wee hours of the morning. Gambling was a very popular pastime for the adults in our family. I can also remember times when people would come to our house, and my mother would give them a piece of paper with numbers on it along with some money. I remember my mother used to ask me from time to time to give her a good number to play. She’d say I could bring her luck. I would laugh and give her some numbers off the top of my head, and she would write them down and thank me. She would say, I know we gonna hit the number this time. I would feel so good thinking that I really did something good for my mom. I’d never know if she would hit the number or not. The minute after I’d give her the numbers, I would go back to my involvement in little kid games, forever forgetting that point in time concerning the game of numbers.

I can remember my uncle who used to live with us when I was around thirteen or fourteen. He would sit for hours upon hours, trying to figure out a scheme or system in calculating how numbers would fall. Now I could see why the game of numbers was such a popular and profitable game for the people who played the numbers and the people that controlled them. Some people have been known to have spent their last cent to try and hit the numbers only to luck out and be left with nothing but a dream of someday hitting the big one.

This story is about two brothers torn apart from each other while one of them was still in his mother’s womb. They were separated through the murder of their parents and raised to service the needs of the people that were responsible for their parents’ death. One brother was being raised by the best friend of his dead father. A friend who felt guilty because of his fear and greed that caused his best friend to die. He thought that by raising the kid as his own, it would make things right. The other brother was being raised by the man who ordered his father and mothers death. This brother was being educated to the highest level to service the man’s purpose in running his criminal organization to meet the needs of its future growth. Although the brothers never met. They were somehow linked through the dreams they both suffered from during their lives. A link that would ultimately bring them together.

Too young to remember what happened that day in the summer of June 16, 1951, in the apartment of his parents, Jeffrey was then only eleven months old. He was taken to Los Angeles by a crime boss name Frank Brueno. He raised Jeffrey as his adopted son, sending him to the best of schools, teaching him the organizations business, and securing the love, loyalty, and respect from his adopted son. Jeffrey would do anything for Frank, the only father he ever knew. Toby was born around 9:15 p.m. that day while his mother lay dying in a pool of blood in that apartment, never knowing the events that took place there. The only parents he would know were Bobby and Mary, the people that raised him, the best friends of the people killed in that apartment of his birth. Toby loved Bobby and Mary very much, the only parents he would ever know during his life on earth.

The number one destroyer of life today caused Toby to seek revenge and Jeffrey to retaliate in vengeance for his father’s reputation and honor. Two brothers caught up in the world of the drug trade.

Jeffrey and Toby were the children of John and Betty Allen. Their troubles were only an extension of the problems that existed long before their birth, which caused them to enter into this world infested with lies, deceit, greed, betrayal, and murder that would ultimately pit the two warriors against each other yet would link them through the blood that flowed through their veins.

John and Bobby lived and went to the public schools on the eastside of Detroit in the Brewster Projects. John was a year older than Bobby when they first met. He was eight then, and Bobby was seven. They first became acquainted while attending Lincoln Elementary School off of Mack Avenue and Brush Street. This was considered the lower east side of Detroit. At that time, they only spoke to each other while passing through the school halls. They really didn’t become friends until later. John was very athletic. He played basketball, roller skated, he was on the swim team, and he even took up boxing at the early age of eleven. These activities all took place at the Brewster Recreation Center. Bobby, on the other hand, was small for his age; he didn’t really get along with the kids at school. The bigger kids would pick on him and call him names. They often beat him up on a regular basis. Bobby would be afraid to fight back in hopes that they would just leave him alone. John was tempted to help him on a couple of occasions because he felt sorry for Bobby, but he didn’t get involved. John felt that if Bobby wouldn’t fight back, he sure as hell wasn’t going to fight for him.

One nice summer day during school vacation, John was with some friends playing on the Brewster playground. He noticed a commotion taking place not to far from where he was. A crowd was beginning to grow. At that time, he heard someone shout, A fight! A fight! He and his friends ran over to see who was fighting. The boy on top looked kind of familiar to John, but he knew the boy on the bottom getting his ass kicked. He was one of the neighborhood gang members. John was shocked and surprised to see that it was the little boy from school, Bobby, who seemed to be winning the fight. John actually felt pride seeing Bobby fighting back. As reality set in, John knew that Bobby was in for a real ass kickin’, whether he won or lost. Bobby seemed to have gotten a little taller over the last couple of years. John was now ten, and Bobby was nine years old at this time. The boy that Bobby was fighting with was a member of the gang called the Russians. John didn’t belong to the gang, but he lived and hung around them. When Bobby looked like he was getting the best of the boy he was fighting, some of the other gang members would jump in on Bobby. Bobby didn’t notice John standing there, watching; he had his hands full trying to get out of a no-win situation. When John felt that Bobby had had enough, he jumped in to save his ass.

John shouted out loud, That’s enough!

Everybody stopped and looked up at John. Tommy was the name of the leader of the Russians. He looked at John and responded in surprise, You know this nigger, man?

John could see the surprise on Bobby’s face when he saw John. John responded to Tommy, Yeah. Then he smiled at Bobby and said to anyone listening, Yeah, he’s a friend of mine from school. He’s cool. John was very respected by the gang. He and the leader, Tommy, used to fight each other all the time growing up in the hood. They became the best of friends. They grew to have a lot of respect for each other. Bobby was so glad to see John he could have jumped up and kissed him. He knew his ass was in big trouble. John introduced Bobby to the gang. Tommy, my man, this here is my friend, Bobby. Bobby, this here is my family. John looked Bobby in his eyes and said, This is now your family if you want it to be.

Bobby responded with an unquestioning, Yes! knowing that once he was in, his problems with guys beating him up were now over. That’s because the gang called the Russians was well known and respected on Detroit’s eastside.

Tommy responded, Any friend of my main man John is part of this family. Welcome, Bobby. You put up a hell of a fight, my man. Everybody shook hands and started laughing. Now Bobby was one of the boys, black eye and all.

John and Bobby had become inseparable; they were always seen together. Bobby eventually took up swimming, basketball, and even tried boxing. All the things that John did, Bobby wanted to be part of. One thing for sure, most of the kids that used to tease him at school didn’t bother Bobby anymore. As a matter of fact, one bully in particular that used to jump on Bobby caught him in the school halls one day when he and John weren’t together. He fronted Bobby off and called him a sissy without John to back him up. Before the bully could say another word, Bobby cold cocked him, hitting the boy square in the mouth. Blood flew everywhere. Bobby put a hurting on that boy so tough, it was now obvious that he didn’t need John’s reputation to help him anymore. Bobby beat the boy so bad that when John got to the fight, Bobby was like a wild animal with no mercy all over the young bully. John could see the excitement in Bobby eyes every time he drew blood from the boy on the ground. He was just kicking him about the face and head. John thought Bobby really would have killed the boy had he not stopped him. John had to tell Bobby four times, That’s enough! That’s enough, Bobby! Stop, Bobby! That’s enough!

Bobby beat the boy so bad it scared John. For the first time, John saw something in Bobby’s eyes that let him know that Bobby could be a very dangerous brother when pushed. John lived with his mother in the fourteen-story apartment buildings. Her name was Dortha Allen. She worked evenings as a waitress in a downtown restaurant. John never knew his real father; it was just him and his mother.

Bobby, on the other hand, lived with his mother and father. His father was an elderly man, much older than his mother. His mother’s name was Ruth, and his father’s name was Thomas Jenkins. They lived in their own house off of Mack near the school he attends. Both John and Bobby were the only children living in their houses. Bobby was a spoiled kid, always being supervised by his parents, while John was a less supervised kid. When Bobby would have to sneak out of the house, John could leave whenever he pleased. Not that his mother didn’t care about him, she just believed that he should learn to hold his own not to mention that she was busy trying to find a man who would take her out of the projects and into a better life. John’s mother was a very good-looking woman. She always was able to have a relationship with a man; they just didn’t stick around for very long. That was just as well with John; he didn’t like most of the men his momma dated anyway. John’s love for his mother wasn’t much different from the average son-mother relationship. He knew that his mother was troubled by her present living conditions and wanted a better life for herself. So he did everything he could to stay out of her way and not cause any trouble between him and her.

John introduced Bobby to the art of stealing. He and Bobby would go downtown, and John would show Bobby how to rip off the clothing stores with minimal amount of risk of getting caught. John was good at shoplifting. He taught Bobby that you had to have confidence. You can’t be afraid of getting caught in order to be a good thief. This was how John survived and stayed dressed in nice clothes. Bobby, on the other hand, didn’t have to steal; he just did it for the fun of it. When they did get caught, Bobby’s mother would always cry and complain about her nice young man getting into trouble because of him hanging around John, who she considered to be a bad influence on her little boy. John’s mother would only curse at him for getting caught.

By the ages of thirteen and twelve respectively, John and Bobby put down kid games and moved up to ripping off watches and rings from the jewelry stores. They eventually got into stealing cars. At first, they were just joy riding until they discovered that they could sell them to chop shops and make good money off the cars they stole. At this impressionable age, John was beginning to feel a desire to be around girls all of a sudden. This one girl in particular from the hood had a crush on him. He had never given her any thought until now. He was starting to notice the lumps and the bumps that protrude from the sweaters and skirts of the female persuasions. He was beginning to look at the girls as being cute, fly, and fine. He liked the way they made him feel. This one particular girl’s name was Betty. Even though John wanted to get to know her better, he had become very interested in the numbers business and how it worked, so he had kind of put his interest in Betty on the backburner for now. Putting her on hold wasn’t an easy task; she was one fine-looking twelve-year-old. About five feet tall and about a hundred pounds on a fine brown frame with pretty pearly teeth. He wanted to start making big money to impress this cutie pie named Betty.

John had been watching and noticing the old timers doing their thing at the stores, the barber shops, and moving through the projects collecting money. They had talked about setting up a rip-off of this one particular numbers runner. They had the spot all mapped out on how they were going to make their move. This particular day was a nice cool afternoon in October. John had been watching this older black man for quite some time. He was the pickup man for the numbers and paid off to the winners. Everybody called him Cool Popa the money man. He was, in fact, a cool old dude. Nobody ever bothered him or tried to take his money, which he always seemed to have plenty of. Cool Popa was always buying drinks for his friends, flashing his money, and bragging and talking plenty of shit about all the women he had and could get. John saw him with his mother once. She didn’t seem to be interested in him, but the thought of him even trying to crack on his mother for her womanhood angered John to the point that ripping him off would be a pleasure. John had surmised that this man was his own boss and so sure of himself that nobody would ever rip him off.

Well, John thought to himself, the man’s luck just ran out. Little did John know that Cool Popa didn’t work for himself. There was someone waiting for him sitting in a car nearby. It was Frank and some of his boys. Frank Bruno had become a somewhat powerful man, controlling the numbers business, extortion, and money lending in the Brewster Projects, among other things. Not too many people would challenge Frank’s authority until now. Two young men were about to wander into Frank’s territory, unsuspecting of what they were about to get into.

On this particular day, Frank was in the hood conducting other business, and he was personally going to collect the receipts from Cool Popa. Cool Popa came out of the bar called Carries around 7:30 p.m. The bar was located on Gratiot, near Russell Street. He was carrying this bag in his hand believed by John to have money inside. Cool Popa was alone at this time as he was on other occasions when observed by John. This was when John saw his opportunity.

He told Bobby, When I hit him, you grab the bag. We’ll hit Russell Street going toward the eastern market. You ready?

Bobby nodded with anticipation. John took off with Bobby right behind him. John hit Cool Popa with such a force, knocking Cool Popa off his feet. Cool Popa was in his fifties, about six-foot-three and about two hundred and sixty pounds. John hit him good, causing the bag to fly out of his hands and right into Bobby’s reach. At that time, Frank saw what was taking place just before Cool Popa was hit. John and Bobby knew Cool Popa wouldn’t be able to catch them, and they were sure nobody saw them. They were so fast they figured that even Cool Popa couldn’t see who they were. The boys were around the corner and out of sight before anybody knew what was happening, or so they thought. Cool Popa carried a gun, but it was of no use to him at this point; there was nobody to shoot at. The perpetrators were long gone. He was definitely caught off guard. Cool Popa never had to pull his gun before because nobody was ever fool enough to fuck with Frank’s money until now. John was running so fast he could almost feel his feet touching the back of his head. When he and Bobby felt safe, John slowed down so Bobby could catch up. John looked at Bobby and took the bag from him.

See, Bobby! John said, almost out of breath. It was a piece of cake, wasn’t it?"

Bobby was so scared, he had a hard time catching his breath when he said, No problem! Is there a lot of money in the bag?

When John looked into the bag, he started laughing out loud and shouting, We’re rich, Bobby! We’re rich, man! Shit! We hit pay dirt. He and Bobby were so into themselves, they didn’t notice that they were being followed. It was near dark at this time, around eight o clock. John noticed a seemingly tall black man approaching them. They were so focused on the man they didn’t even hear the car coming up from behind them. They didn’t think the man would pose any danger to them, but they didn’t want the man to hear what they were bragging about either. John told Bobby to chill until the man passed them. As the man came near the boys, John heard a voice from behind him. John looked over to the street and noticed a car which was now alongside of him.

The voice from the car said, You run, you’re dead.

John was just about to take off when the man in front of him slapped him silly. He was hit so hard he fell hard to the ground from that blow by the big man. Before Bobby could react, a blow from behind sent him to the ground also. Frank warned the boys in a soft voice, Please, boys, don’t get up! You got a lot of nerve ripping me off of my money. I should cut your big balls off.

Bobby was so scared, he cut loose in his pants, which sent a foul odor in the air. John didn’t show any fear, even though he was scared shitless. John spoke in an angry voice in the direction of the car. Take your fuckin’ money, man! We didn’t know it was yours. John’s voice was cold as ice to show no fear in the sight of danger.

The big man that slapped John spoke in a much colder voice, Oh! You’re one of those badass niggers, ain’t you? Shut the fuck up before I bleed your young ass!

John looked the big man in the eyes and shouted back, Fuck you, man! I said I didn’t know it was yours. We thought it was that punk-ass nigger Cool Popa’s money. He’s always talking like it was his money, so we just relieved him of it.

The big man kicked John hard in the stomach, causing John to grunt and throw up. Bobby started crying real tears in fear by now. Frank motioned the big man not to hit John again. Frank immediately took a liking to John and a great dislike for Bobby’s sniffling ass. Frank saw something in John that reminded him of himself when he first started out in the business—John’s youth and strength. That’s what he needed in his organization, he thought to himself.

Frank said in a humorous way to the big black man, The boy got heart to talk that way to you, Ted. Not too many people talk that way to Ted and live. Frank looked at John lying on the ground and told him to get up. Frank and John were now looking each other in the face. Frank asked John a question, You want to work for me, boy?

But before John could say anything, Bobby replied with relief, Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Bobby couldn’t resist that opportunity; he was so scared he was shaking nervously when he spoke up. The only thing that was going through his mind was, We going to die! We going to die! He wanted to plead so badly to the man sitting in the car. He wanted to say to him, I would do anything! Anything! Just didn’t kill me! until Frank asked John that one question. It seemed like hours passed before John