Be Careful What You Ask for in Detriot

By David Dean

As a kid, David used to always look up to drug dealers, pimps, and players because he thought that they had everything—money, cars, and whores. Even though he wanted to be a lawyer, he wanted to live like them, but his mother was not having that kind of life for him and his big brother, Mike. She raised them like middle class even though they were poor. Growing up, David never saw drugs, pimps, or players. It was not until David turned eighteen that he started to see drugs and prostitution after some guy had left David for dead because they were jealous of him for going to school and working and even trying to get a scholarship to college to play basketball. But his so-called best friend put a stop to that, and David’s whole life had changed. He became that person that he looked up to when he was a kid. He became one of the biggest drug dealers in Detroit and the state of Michigan. He kept the bad-ass killers, the biggest drug dealers and the most scandalous thieves around him. He felt that if they can’t get past him, nobody could. David got married even though he was married to the game and lived that kind of lifestyle. His wife didn’t really know David was in the game until after the wedding. They had the house he bought, the cars they drove, and the jewelry they wore. That’s when David started noticing her stealing money and depositing it into her own private credit union. He thought that she was putting it away for a rainy day, so he never said anything. It seemed like everybody was trying to steal from him—his family, his best friend, everybody except for his mother and father. But this was David’s way of keeping up with the game. It was David’s way of practicing for the people that were not family or friends. The people that were close to David wanted to bring him down and take over his little cartel. And his cousin did bring him down, sending David to federal prison. This story details the life of David Dean.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781645440147

David Dean

David Dean spent most of his childhood drawing Star Wars characters and Transformers, and wanted to draw comics before realising that someone must draw book covers - what a fantastic job that would be! David is now an award-winning illustrator specialising in children's illustration and book covers, and lives in Cheshire with his two cats and hundreds of books.

Book preview

Chapter 1

I was about thirteen years old, and I wanted to live like the white people, with the white picket fence and all. Don’t get me wrong, my mother made sure my brother and I had everything we needed and most of what we wanted. My brother name is Michael and he is the oldest by one year. He was always smart in school and made straight As. All the way through school he used to do my homework for me, so I guess that’s why I never learned shit in school. My mother worked at Ford Motor Company and she would work sixteen hours a day to make sure we had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and clothes on our back. My mother is a wonderful woman. I was her baby, and to her I could do no wrong. One thing about my mother is that she loved me and my brother; we came before anything she did and we knew it. My mother always had our back growing up.

At that time, I used to watch The Brady Bunch, this family sitcom that used to come on TV in the evening after school, they looked so happy, like life was just so much easier for them then it was for a black family. It was this other family sitcom, but their family was black and poor, and they lived in the ghetto the name of that show was called Good Times, and they would always be struggling; it was always black families that were struggling back in these days. I made up in my mind right then and there that when I grow up, get married, and have kids that I wasn’t going to be struggling. I always wanted to be a lawyer or a basketball player, but I always thought I wasn’t smart enough to go to college. I couldn’t read, write, or spell until after I made it to the tenth grade, so how the hell was I supposed to go to college?

Right around fifteen years old, I took Dad’s car and drove it up to the store without permission. A car came from out of nowhere and hit me as I was making a left turn. I got scared and took off not because of the accident but because of Dad. Dad was one of those kinds of fathers that used to get mad as hell, but also he was one of the nicest dads in the world. He would be fussing at you but at the same time give you his last.

Dad had a son; his name was Maurice. Maurice was my little brother through marriage. His dad married my mother. My big brother Michael and I were crazy about him. To us Maurice couldn’t have been more of our little brother then as if we had the same mother. He was a mother. He was a straight-A student too; he was very smart. In the early ’80s he lost his life at Skateland. It was the local skate rink that everybody used to go skating at on the east side of Detroit. Maurice had went skating one Saturday evening with his friends. He met a girl inside and her parents came to pick her up, and Maurice walked her out to the parking lot, and they said their goodbyes. She left and my little brother walked over to his car and opened his door and got in.

While he had been outside in the parking lot with the girl he met, his friend James had got into an argument with another guy on the inside Skateland. James was about seventeen years old about 5'7 or 8 and weighed about 130 pounds, and the dude he got into it with was around about the same size. But James had a hot temper, he threatened to hit the dude, but dude had a little sawed-off shotgun on him, and James saw it and took off and ran outside to Maurice’s car. Maurice had just got in and rolled down his window, when James came running out there and jumped in the window on the passenger’s side all frantic and scared. Then the guy that James was into it with came running out to the car on the driver’s side with the gun and tried to shoot James. Instead he shot my little brother, close range and in the face, and then he took off. James stayed there hollering for help. My little brother died right there, and nobody ever knew who the guy was that shot him.

That got to Dad. It hit us all pretty hard, but Dad took it the hardest by that being his blood son. Dad, my brother Michael, and I were always close, but after that, we all got closer. My brother Michael went into the army, and I was still at home. Dad wasn’t my real father, but Dad was the one that raised me and took time out with me and my brother.

Like I said, I had an accident in his car the police came to the house and made out a report. The lady ran into me, but because I didn’t have a driver’s license, I was still at fault and the lady sued Dad. The City of Detroit sent Dad a letter revoking his license. Dad called me in the den and showed me the letter they had sent to him and asked me to read it. I couldn’t read. I tried and couldn’t do it. That’s when Dad noticed that I really couldn’t read, so he told my mother she thought I was just playing, but back in those days, the teachers didn’t care about black kids getting an education; they would pass you anyway, and that’s how I made it all the way to the tenth grade without learning how to read, write, or spell.

Dad went out and bought me all kinds of children’s books and sat down with me and taught me how to read, and every day Dad would make me read an article out of the newspaper to him before he went to sleep. He also bought me a car because I had to get my driver’s license after they revoked Dad’s license, and he made me take him to work and pick him up for a whole year until he got his license back. He and my mother were heroes to me and my brother, and they were just being parents.

I grew up in a preppy neighborhood with preppy friends. I played basketball and I had a basketball rim in my backyard, so that drew in a different kind of crowd from my preppy friends, so they left, and my dope-dealing, drug-smoking friends came. Don’t get me wrong, my preppy friends and I smoke a little weed, but this new thing called crack and fifty-ones came out and it was a whole new ball game. Everybody that called their own selves cool was smoking fifty-ones, and even the ones that wanted to be cool got turned out on crack. They went from smoking fifty-ones to smoking the pipe; some call it the glass dick. It changed the direction my life went in.

I wanted to become a basketball player and a lawyer. I brought my grades up in school and got accepted to various colleges. But I started hanging with the wrong crowd. A guy named Kenny and one named Pookie. They had become my friends because of my love for basketball. They were from the neighborhood, and we all went to the same middle school Winter Halter. I met Pookie there, but I didn’t meet Kenny until he started coming over in my backyard playing basketball. We would play every day every day after school until we thought that we would become better than everyone else. Then the three of us started going to a local neighborhood playground and playing three on three for money, and sometimes we would make fifty or sixty dollars apiece.

After playing a few games, I would have to go to work afterward. I was working at the neighborhood grocery store Livernois Food Center. I worked from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. every day, except for Saturdays and Sundays, and I worked in the morning.

Pookie and Kenny would take their money and go in halves with some of the other guys from the hood, getting high and drunk off smoking weed and drinking beer. Everything was cool until my twelfth grade. I was going to school, playing basketball, and then going to work. Pookie and Kenny had dropped out of school and started rolling with YBI Inc. Pookie used to roll down on Dexter and Elmhurst, and Kenny was part of the A team; they were on the corner of Dexter and Waverly.

The A team had become some killers, but Kenny was my boy. I used to see him on my way coming home from school and stop and pick him up and give him a ride back to the hood. I guess he used to go over to some girl’s house at a certain time every day. That’s why I would see him on my way home. Until this one day, Kenny had got jealous of me for trying to go to college and decided he was going to set me up. He knew I came home from Mackenzie High School the same way every day, and he knew that if I saw him, I would stop and pick him up. That’s one thing about west-side guys, they would plot and plan on how they were going to set you up, and by the time you caught on, it was too late.

Like I said, I was coming home from school and saw Kenny. He was acting kind of funny, but this was my boy, and I didn’t think that he was up to nothing. This time when I picked him up, he asked me to go over on Kentucky and Fullerton to pick up a couple of his boys that roll with him on Dexter. It wasn’t going out of my way, so I didn’t mind. I said, All right. I still noticed he was acting kind of funny looking all in the back of my van. I think he was trying to hide a gun or a sack or something back there. But I was looking at him and asking him what he was doing. So I guess he didn’t hide anything.

We pulled up in front of some house on Kentucky, and two guys came out and got in my van that I had never seen before. One was a tall black guy, about 6'3" and 170 to 180 pounds. The other one was a brown-skinned, of average height, and kind of chubby. Neither one of them had a coat on. I guess because it was a nice day outside, but it was still wintertime.

Kenny said he wanted me to drop them off on a street called Lessley. Then the little chubby guy started laughing as if Kenny said, Something funny?

Then the little chubby guy lit up a fifty-one joint and I said, Man, that shit stank! Then I told him to put that shit out while he was in my van.

The little guy said, Nigger, this is the shit everybody smoke, fifty-ones.

I said, I don’t. I can’t even stand the smell of that shit, but I don’t knock you for smoking it.

Kenny knew I couldn’t stand the smell of it and told the guy to put it out. With a smirk on his face, he was winking his eye, then Kenny asked me to stop at the store at the corner of Fullerton and Livernois so they could get them some beer before I dropped them off. I pulled over to the side of the store so they could go in and get their beer and so I could go ahead and drop them off.

All three of them got out and went in the store, and in about five minutes, they all came back and got back in my van, all laughing again. Then the little chubby guy lit up that fifty-one again, and while I was arguing with this guy about putting the shit out, I was pulling up in front of the house on Lessley that Kenny wanted me to drop them off at. As I was pulling up, I saw a bunch of guys on the side of the house, but I didn’t suspect anything because Kenny was my boy. I didn’t know he was that envious of me. As they were getting out of my van, the little chubby guy threw some beer on me. Kenny knew I wasn’t any hoe and would get out and chase the dude until I caught up with him.

When I caught up with him, about twelve guys came running from off the side of the house, then somebody hit me from behind with a wooden baseball bat and knocked me out. Then all of them beat and stomped me and left me for dead.

The guy that lived across the street saw the whole thing, and he was the one that chased them away by hollering out I’m calling the police! They heard that stopped and took off. Then the guy came over to the van and saw me lying down there. He said he thought I was dead. He was on his way to run back in the house to call for an ambulance until he saw me starting to move, then he asked me if I wanted him to call an ambulance, and I said, No, I’m okay. Then he helped me up on my feet. With my van still running and my door still open, I got back in my van, then I blacked out again. Then the guy asked me again if I wanted him to call for some help. I still said, No, I’m all right, then drove off around the corner where I lived. I pulled up across the street from my house and parked and got out.

As I was trying to walk across the street to my house, I fell out in the middle of the street. As my mother was on her way coming out of the house, I heard her holler out My baby! as I was blacking out. When I had come to this time, I was at the hospital under all kinds of lights, being examined. The doctor told my mother that if I were to fall again, I could die, and that my brain was swollen, and that I wasn’t in any shape to go home, and that they would be keeping me. My mother was crying, and she just kept on saying, Is my baby going to be okay?

The doctor said, Yes, ma’am, he will make a complete recovery, but right now we have to run some more tests on him, so you and your family can go back home and get some rest and you can come back tomorrow and see him.

My dad, grandfather, cousins, and family were all out there in the waiting room of the hospital. My cousins came back the next day, asking me what I wanted to do about getting back. Even my grandfather was ready to ride with his shotgun and he would’ve used it too. I pretended I didn’t know who did this. I said some guys came out of nowhere and rushed me. I didn’t want to tell my mother and them that it was my supposed-to-be boy, and I fought back to back with him on a few occasions when guys tried to take his gym shoes or other reasons. The same motherfucker, who spent the night at our house and ate at our table, left me for dead on the side of the curb because he was jealous of me for trying to go and make something out of my life. All I could think of was how I was going to get Kenny.

I had to stay in the hospital for six weeks, and in that time, I thought of one hundred ways to get this nigger. I wanted to kill him for leaving me for dead, but when the doctor finally released me from the hospital, he told my mother that I was still under restriction and in pretty bad shape and still couldn’t return to school. I couldn’t ride in a car for too long, and I couldn’t do anything that caused me to jump or bump or nothing like that. Now I had to miss the whole semester of school and wouldn’t be able to graduate and my chances of going to college if fucked up. All of my dreams just went down the drain.

Ten weeks had gone since I’d been out of the hospital, and it’s a month left of school before prom, and I recovered pretty good. My girlfriend Janine still wanted me to go to the prom with her, and she encouraged me to let that revenge thing go and go to summer school and graduate and go to a community college or something. Out of this whole time I hadn’t seen Kenny, so maybe it’s better to have let it go and move on. I had already paid for the prom tickets and my clothes, and my mom and dad had just bought a new Cadillac, and I drove their car to the prom. The prom was at the Roostertail. I had gone earlier that day and got a room at the Olmerlay Hotel. It was a couple of after parties that night, but the one that we were going to was at the Olmerlay Hotel; it was Janine’s idea. So I knew I was going to get some pussy that night.

When we got to the Roostertail, the commentator announced our names as we came in. Janine and I were sharper than a motherfucker; we wore white and lilac. I had on a white cummerbund, and Janine wore a white gown with lilac around her waist and white shoes; she was looking like an angel. But as soon as we started having fun, Janine started getting sick. She said she had been having some woman problems and she wanted me to take her home. Janine went into the ladies’ restroom with two sisters that went to our school that I was cool with, but they really didn’t like Janine; they knew that I was going to have to take her home.

I didn’t know how they knew, but they asked me to come back and pick them up after I had dropped Janine off. I thought about me having a hotel room that I couldn’t get my money back off and that I had spent two hundred dollars, and Janine knew that, so I said I would. Just don’t say nothing. I will be right back after I drop her off. One of the sisters had a beeper, I told her that I would call her from the payphone outside and leave a message that I was outside. The sister that had the beeper was Lisa, so she said okay.

When they get the message that she and her sister would come outside and for me to park right out in front, Janine was coming out of the restroom with one of her girls. While I was standing there talking to Lisa, I nodded my okay. As I walked toward Janine, I asked her if she felt any better, and her girl Robbie said that she was in the restroom throwing up and that she needed to go home and lie down. I asked Janine if she had everything, Robby said that she was going to go and get her veil and Janine’s purse and that she was going to ride back with us. Robby lived across the street from Janine. I said, That’s cool. Then I walked them out to the car on our way to Janine’s house.

I said to myself, I’m glad that Robby rode back with us, because now I didn’t have to worry about Robby seeing me with Lisa and Rochelle and telling Janine. So as I pulled up at Janine’s house, I got out and open the passenger door for Janine to get out, and I opened the back door for Robby. Then I walked Janine to her door and kissed her on her cheek because she had been throwing up. As I walked back to the car, I watched for Robby to make it in her house across the street. Then I got back in the car. I was on my way to go and pick up the two sisters.

I had an ounce of weed on me for the after-party. I pulled it out and rolled up a joint while I was driving. Then I fired it up and smoked it on my way to the Roostertail. When I got there, I didn’t have to call Lisa because she and Rochelle were already standing out in front of the place, talking to some other girls and a couple of guys that I knew. I was driving this brand-new wine-and-burgundy Cadillac and whipped over right in front of them and got out and open the doors for them to get in because they didn’t know what kind of car I was driving. They both were excited when I did that, and all geeked up when they got in.

They smelled the weed. Lisa was in the front, and she asked me if I had some more weed, and I handed her an ounce. Then I told Rochelle that it was a brown paper bag back there with a gallon of Hennessey, some ice, and some big blue cups and for her to make us some drinks. Rochelle broke out with some rocks of crack cocaine and wanted to break them down and put them in the weed and roll up some fifty-ones. I said to myself, Everybody, damn everybody smoke that shit, but only this time I wasn’t going to tell them they couldn’t smoke it. I was not going to say or do nothing to blow my chances of me fucking both of them tonight.

I let down the driver’s side window and cracked their window so I wouldn’t have to smell that shit. I told Lisa to roll me up a regular joint. Rochelle said, You don’t want to smoke these fifty-ones with us?

I said, No, that’s all right, I don’t smoke that, I just smoke regular weed.

Lisa said, If you are not going to smoke it, then I’m not either.

I said, Don’t let me stop you from having a good time. This is prom night, this night only comes once in a lifetime, I just don’t do it. But that don’t have nothing to do with you.

Lisa said, Okay. Then she and Rochelle were smoking the hell out of them fifty-ones.

By the time we got to the Omerlay Hotel to the after-party, they both had been drinking and smoking fifty-ones; they were fucked up. I had to spray some car air freshener on us to keep us from smelling like fifty-ones. We stayed at the after-party for a little while, then Lisa, Rochelle, and I went to the room. I was looking at both of them; they were both some fine-ass bitches. They were models at some little company, and they both were hot and horny like a motherfucker. This was the party that I couldn’t wait to get started.

We were in room 107. It had a king-sized suite with a Jacuzzi. If I had to say so myself, that room was laid the fuck out. Lisa and Rochelle said at the same time that it was beautiful. Then Lisa said, Dave, you must have got this room for you and Janine.

I lied and said, No, I had just got the room when y’all was at the after-party kicking it with y’all girls.

Rochelle said, I seen you leave, that’s where you were at?

I said yes, but when she saw me leave, that’s when I went outside with my boy Larry and Butch to see the car he had rented for the night. I did get the room for me and Janine earlier that day, and now I saw why it cost me two hundred dollars.

Anyway Rochelle lay across the bed, and Lisa and I sat on the couch. Lisa fixed us a drink while I rolled up a couple of joints. Rochelle came over and sat next to me and started crushing up a couple of crack cocaine rocks into little crystals almost like a powder or something. She then took some weed papers and put a little weed in it. Then Rochelle sprinkled the crushed rocks over the top of the weed and then rolled it up. While she was smoking that, Lisa and I were smoking regular weed. Lisa said she didn’t smoke fifty-ones all the time and that she would rather smoke regular weed. But tonight was prom night, so she did it this time.

Lisa said that Rochelle’s boyfriend had got her turned out on that shit. Rochelle said, Everybody smoke fifty-ones.

Lisa said, Girl, you know I really don’t smoke them. I just let you talk me into smoking some tonight.

Rochelle said, Yeah, because you are a square, that’s why you don’t.

I turned the music up and said, "Yeah, let Rochelle have fun, this is a once-in-a-lifetime night, and we all deserve to have fun,