Part 2 (1/2)

Each night when I go to bed

It just isn't fair.... Obsession

Whenever I get sad I listen to the songs because I need to hear my daddy's voice. These two songs are all I have left of the physical memory of him.

I watched my hero go from a strong, strapping man to a withered bag of bones in less than half a year. He got so weak and thin that he couldn't eat solid food, and then soon he couldn't even speak. He'd try to whisper, and all he could eat was pieces of ice. We'd sit there in the hospital and feed him ice while he looked up at us, just helpless, as if he wanted to say something that he couldn't get out. It was heartbreaking.

Once my dad was sick it was hard for me to keep going like nothing was wrong. I tried to keep up a front in school and around most of my friends because how could I share the truth? I was too scared to let it be known that he was dying of AIDS. Ignorance and fear of the disease abounded. If I was honest about it with the kids in school, no one would have talked to me again. I probably would have been expelled by the teachers as a danger to the student body-that's how limited the understanding of the disease was back then. So I kept all of it to myself and let everything that I'd worked so hard to achieve in school slowly slip away from me.

My father died before the end of my senior year. My grades had never been good, but once my dad got sick, they got even worse. The same thing happened with sports-my coaches were great, but my dad was the one who really knew how to motivate me. Once he was gone, there was n.o.body there to hold me down, n.o.body to demand to see my report card, n.o.body to take me down to Yankee Stadium when there was still a track across the street and make me run two miles every night. There was n.o.body there to watch my football games and n.o.body to come to my track meets. n.o.body to tell me what I was doing right and what I was doing wrong. So I thought, ”f.u.c.k it.” The world was f.u.c.king me. I was on my own.

I started skipping practices and track meets and cutting cla.s.s. I had been on the track team in 1987 and I had won the Bronx champions.h.i.+p in the fifty-yard dash. I was actually going somewhere with that, if I'd only been able to keep my life from ruining my focus. But I couldn't, and I didn't tell any of my coaches why. As my grades started to slip, I began to forge my report cards. I'd carefully change a grade here, make a minus into a plus there, and then I'd turn in that falsified report to my coaches. They'd put that information onto my transcript, and that's how I kept my grades high enough to keep playing sports. I didn't care at all about school-sports was all I wanted to do. And my coaches turned a blind eye to it. It wasn't a situation that was going to end well, and it didn't. One of the a.s.sistant track coaches confronted me just before the team was heading to an important meet. I'd been one of the runners who'd been carrying the team, but that wasn't going to save me.

He told me that I'd been slipping and acting out and that he wasn't standing for it. He said he knew I was forging my grades, and he threatened to go to the school authorities about it. That was it for me; I couldn't take any more. It was hard enough just getting through a school day knowing my dad was one day closer to death. This track coach getting on my case was the end for me: I quit school and never looked back.

Years later I got an honorary diploma from DeWitt Clinton High, which was a surprise to me. I was on Sat.u.r.day Night Live at the time and agreed to appear on a local cable show called After School, which showcased a different New York City public high school each week. I was reunited with my track coach, Mr. Brad, my football coach, Mr. Johnson, and my favorite teacher, Mr. Blanco. We shot some footage at the school, and I saw the a.s.sistant coach who'd confronted me. He took me down the hall, where there were years of photos of all the sports teams. He stopped at every track team photo for the years I ran track. In all of them, someone, I don't know who, had blacked out my face with a Magic Marker. He was laughing about that; he thought it was really funny, and he made a point of showing me. I don't know what he was expecting, but I turned to him and said, ”Don't worry about it, Coach,” and walked out of there. Maybe he felt like I let him or the team down back in the day, but I didn't know what to do: I'd been caught forging grades, my dad was dying, and the only thing that made sense to me was to quit school before I got kicked out.

That day I also got to speak to a group of kids in the drama program, which didn't exist when I was in school. It was inspiring to see kids from my neighborhood have that kind of creative outlet. The princ.i.p.al took that moment to inform me that all I'd done in entertainment counted toward four credits in the school's drama program and that I was eligible to graduate. He presented me with a diploma, and I was overwhelmed. Just having that piece of paper and getting to wear that robe for a minute meant the world to me. Right then I knew my dad was looking down on me and was very proud.

After I dropped out of school, I learned a few lessons right away. The most important one was that in high school, p.u.s.s.y is free. That's why they call lunch hour at public school a box lunch. High school was four years of box lunch! I had no idea how good I'd had it in school. It was only after high school, once I found out that just being me, just being funny and flirting with girls I ran into every day, wasn't enough to get me laid anymore, that I realized I had a problem. I hadn't counted on that. I thought that being an athlete made you just as popular on the streets. I was wrong; out in the real world other rules applied. There was one thing that spelled P-U-S-S-Y, and that was M-O-N-E-Y.

I had to find a way to get cash because if I wasn't fly, if I didn't have new sneakers and gear, there wasn't any p.u.s.s.y coming my way. I wanted all that s.h.i.+t because I wanted the girls. Overnight I became a single black male addicted to retail. I needed money, clothes, and hos. There was only one way to get all that: I had to get a real neighborhood job, if you know what I mean. There were plenty of fast-food joints and small businesses, but that's not what I was looking for. I applied where I thought I'd get the most for my time; I started dealing weed. All the kids in the neighborhood thought it was funny.

”You're no drug dealer, Tray, you an athlete! What the f.u.c.k you doin'?”

”Naw, man, you want some of this s.h.i.+t?” I'd say. ”It's dope, man, best s.h.i.+t on the block!”

I'll be honest: I wasn't the best drug dealer I've ever seen-or you've ever seen either, suburb people! I was the kind of drug dealer who had to keep a day job to support his night job as a drug dealer. You don't hear that s.h.i.+t in rap songs. Where's the rapper bragging about slinging McNuggets all day so he can sling weed all night? That was me. I worked everywhere and hung out on the block. I needed that nine-to-five. I had jobs at Wendy's, Popeyes, a few pizza shops, and a few sneaker stores, and I was terrible at every single one of them. That's why I had so many! When I worked in restaurants, I dropped all the food. I dropped so many fries on the floor it looked like the Hamburglar ran through there every five minutes. The sneaker place wasn't much better. All I had to do was get shoes from the stockroom in the back, but it's amazing how distracted you can get in a room full of shoes when the stock girl that you like is back there too, telling you about how she just broke up with her man.

The funny thing was, I liked the job I was the worst at-selling drugs. I had my personality going for me; I could talk to people all day, because I love people-I love anyone who wants to give me love back. So as a drug dealer, I was good in only one way-I could talk to any motherf.u.c.ker that came up to me. But in every other way? Nah. Drug dealers need to be quick, efficient, ruthless, paranoid in a healthy way, and always on guard. I was like half a drug dealer, but that didn't keep me from ending up with all the bad s.h.i.+t that comes with the job, that's for sure.

While I was out there dealing, the drug scene changed right out from under me. Selling weed on the street was nothing once crack came along. Crack. Doesn't it even sound like trouble? Crack isn't a natural drug; it's not even a more intense form of a natural drug. It's a concentrated form of a manmade narcotic that dealers cook to save money and increase addiction. Crack was created because a bunch of drug lords in the Bahamas and Miami realized that they had too much cocaine on their hands. They had so much c.o.ke that the value of it went down, so they were making less money with every sale. They weren't having that. Since they couldn't increase the demand, they decided to change the drug. They put all that c.o.ke into an oven and cooked it up with some other chemicals until it was a pile of high-powered rocks that people smoked. Then they started to market that s.h.i.+t on the streets as the newest high anyone could ever want, at half the price. If there's one thing about Americans, they like the newest s.h.i.+t that does the most. Just turn on late-night TV if you don't believe me. Slap Chop, ShamWow-all that, it's nothing but an eagerness to get there faster.

Once crack became the new black, the South Bronx became New York City's drive-thru restaurant. It was already Easy Street for whatever else you might want, from heroin to c.o.ke to weed and hookers. You name it, you could get it in the South Bronx. But crack changed everything. The dude I sold for told all of us soldiers that we had a new game, and I saw the difference right away. This wasn't a party anymore. The people buying crack were serious users. I was selling crack to every kind of person you can imagine: rich people, poor people, young people, old people, desperate people, already high people, and way too many in-withdrawal people. But I didn't care about them too much; I was making money, I was buying myself s.h.i.+t and beginning what I thought was going to be a better life. At the same time I knew it was wrong; it wasn't my character. My grandmother and my uncles and my father hadn't raised a family of jailbirds. We might have had a few drug addicts, but we never had jailbirds, and none of our tribe ever died violently.

I can't lie. There were parts of selling crack that I really liked. Selling drugs to all kinds of people on the street was great for developing my comedy skills. I'd always used humor to get me through tough situations. I took to selling crack like it was an open-mic night, and I was pretty good at it. I had people laughing even when they were jonesing for a fix. Maybe it was just because I had what they were looking for that they were a good audience, but I didn't care. I loved shooting the s.h.i.+t, making jokes with all those crackheads. It was like comedy-they were paying me for a good time.

After maybe a year of standing on the corner making a decent living, I woke up and realized that I was following the herd-and if you follow the herd, you're bound to step in s.h.i.+t. I wasn't stupid; I knew that my new job didn't come with a retirement program. Drug dealers don't need 401(k)s-because they die. I figured that out because my friends started to die. I could name them all here, but out of respect for the dead all I'm going to say is this: A lot of good cats got washed. And it was like that all over the country, in every major metropolitan area. I'm sure a lot of you who are about my age understand what I'm about to say: It's one thing to hear about what went down, and it's another thing to have been there, seen it, lived it, and, if you were lucky, to have survived it. I'm talking to those of you like me who might have known what you were doing was dangerous but who were more worried about getting by day to day. It only takes one loss close to your heart to snap your neck around. What you do after that is up to you.

For me, that loss was the death of my friend Spoon. I still miss him each and every day. We played football together in school. He was one of the funniest motherf.u.c.kers I've ever met. If you want to know what Spoon was like, get on YouTube and search for my character Spoonie Luv on Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla's show Crank Yankers. I've got to give it up to those guys for selling a TV show where puppets act out real live prank phone calls that comedians like me made. That is real right there! You had be white to make that happen. You think anyone would have bought that from two black guys? Can you see Redman and Method Man hosting a show like that? I didn't think so. But who cares? I'm glad all those executives at Comedy Central are as ridiculous as they are because that show is a cla.s.sic, and because it gave me a place to honor one of my best friends in the whole world.

At his best, my man Spoon was an insane, dirty, 247 prankster. The guy was, hands down, the most on-point wisea.s.s I've ever met. Spoon always took things that one step further. When the team used to shower after football practice, we always used to throw our wet drawers at each other, just f.u.c.king around. One day our coach walked in to talk to us, and Spoonie couldn't help himself: He threw his drawers at the coach, and they hit him right in the chest with a loud bop! Coach ran us right out of the showers, he was so p.i.s.sed, and the next day he made Spoon run two extra miles in full equipment. Of course, it was those qualities that also caused his death-that's the way it goes in the ghetto. If you s.h.i.+ne too bright, someone will put your light out. One day Spoon was out there on the street, doing what he did best-joking and talking s.h.i.+t to everyone who walked by his piece of pavement. He started snapping on this one dude and took him down. The guy had nothing to say. Spoon was too good; you had no business getting into it with him unless you knew him and had some ammunition. This guy had none, and he couldn't handle being stripped of his pride.

From what I heard, Spoon wasn't even really breaking his boot off in this guy's a.s.s, he was just being playful, which was actually him at his funniest. But the guy got p.i.s.sed. He had his girl with him, and she was laughing at what Spoon was saying. He was a teenager still caught up in that emotional tornado, a young kid who knew nothing about self-control. Without a word or a warning, he left his girl there on the street, went up into his mama's house right there on the block, got his gun, and put a cap in Spoon's head.

Statistically, Spoon's murder wasn't remarkable-just look at the murder rates in any ghetto in America, whether we're talking about back then or today. There have probably been ten deaths like Spoon's in the time it took you to read the last two pages of this book. Every single day the same type of mindless violence happens in cities across the country. You won't see articles about it regularly in Newsweek, but ask anyone in law enforcement. They know because they do the paperwork. There are too many unsolved murders to report on the news. It's too d.a.m.n common. Spoon was just another one of those.

They say it takes something local to make someone think global, and Spoon's death did that to me. His death was a huge smack in my face. It woke me up and it cut me to my core, because I should have been there with him. I would have been, but I'd gotten lucky that night. I was with a girl who I'd been working on for some time, but if I hadn't been, I'd probably be dead right now. I know this much: If I had been there and that kid came out like that, I'd have taken a bullet because I'd have been trying to snap on him even harder than Spoon was. I probably would have failed, but that's what Spoon was for me-inspiration to be funnier because he was so d.a.m.n quick. It still makes me pause all these years later when I think about it: If I'd been there, I'd be dust.

It was like G.o.d was looking me in the eye and telling me I was driving the wrong way down a one-way street. The night I got the call that Spoon had been killed, I took it as a sign. But there would be more. My friend Allen got shot too because he followed a guy named Panama, who was reckless. They were trying to become big-time drug dealers, and I wasn't willing to take it that far. Remember Enter the Dragon, starring Bruce Lee? Remember the guy he fights at the end, the guy with the claw? He says something to Bruce that I've never forgotten. He says, ”There is a boundary.” My boundary was never shaming my family.

I don't know what you believe in, reader, but I believe in spirits. I've done some dumb-a.s.s s.h.i.+t, but something has always gotten me through. If you ask me, it's got to be the spirits of my homeys; they're up there, looking out. They got me, because we all came from the same beginning. They just got up there first, so they're watching me now. I feel sorry for the people who don't have that.

Redd Foxx was the first real dude. He had party alb.u.ms before Lenny Bruce, and they were so dirty you could not play them around kids. He was a pioneer, straight from vaudeville. He did stand-up for years and then took that spirit and brought it into the sitcom world. Sanford and Son was what he did as his third act! And he brought it all mainstream-big-time, mainstream success.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like to say it a few times a day lately, since my girlfriend, Taneisha, and I moved in together: Nothing makes a man feel better than a woman. It's nice to have a daily reminder of this in my life once again. I thought those feelings were gone forever after my wife and I split up. We'd been together for twenty years. I thought she was going to be the only true love I'd ever have.

I met Sabina when we were just kids. I was at the age where the last thing you want to do is settle down. At nineteen, every man feels like Christopher Columbus, ready to explore that great ocean of females he sees stretching out to the horizon before him. Nineteen-year-old men are like farmers staring down a field of corn at harvest time, and their d.i.c.k is the tractor. That tractor is gonna cut into the sc.r.a.ppy, half-bald corn just the way it cuts into those perfect stalks. But that don't matter to a young farmer riding along on his d.i.c.k tractor. To him, it's all about how many stalks and how quick he mows them down. When you're nineteen and in that frame of mind, corn is corn.

I was no different. In fact, it was just that mentality that led me to Sabina in the first place, but once I met her, everything changed. She made me feel like anything was possible. No woman had made me feel that way before. Meeting her, I felt like a kid being introduced to Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and a real live unicorn all in the same day. That would be some intense s.h.i.+t!

Sabina was something I didn't think existed-a best friend, a good woman, and my rock all in one. All it took was the love of a good woman to make a man out of me. Within two weeks of meeting her, I was through with other girls and I started to think about building a family of my own.

I'll never forget the day I met Sabina. I was selling souvenirs outside of gate 4 at Yankee Stadium. I had a good business going; I also had my regular c.o.ke customers down there too. When it was game time, they knew where to find me-right at my souvenir booth. I'd scalp tickets out there too sometimes. I'd take care of 'em, whatever their needs.

I was standing out there at the stadium on a game night selling s.h.i.+t with my boy Elgis. He is still out there and he is my dog! So when you go to a game at Yankee Stadium and you want to buy some souvenirs, go to the booth right outside of gate 4. You'll see Elgis, doing it like we used to. Tell him Tracy sent you. What up, Elgis! I saw him the other day, the first time I was at the new stadium. That place is nice; it's a palace. Every time I go to a game, it's a trip back in time for me. I see the stairs I used to run, the track I used to jog around, even though they're not there anymore.

So the day I met Sabina I was out there with Elgis, doing our thing. The Yankees were playing the Minnesota Twins, and the Yankees kicked their a.s.s. I remember seeing this bomb-a.s.s chick on a pay phone nearby. She was short with a big f.u.c.king booty, wearing these tight cutoff jean shorts. She was looking good.

”Elgis, you see Shorty over there?” I asked him. ”I could pull her like a hamstring.”

”Over there?” he said. ”Nah, you can't get her.”

”Yes I can.”

”Bet.”

I went over and stepped to her, and she put up a good fight, but she didn't stand a chance. You've got to understand, I've got the gift of gab-it's the same way I got Taneisha. I made her laugh and I made her smile. No woman can resist me! Give me enough time, and it's a done deal, so long as she's got ears, eyes, and a p.u.s.s.y.

Within a few hours Sabina was on the other side of my booth, helping me sell souvenirs. Next home game, she brought her two kids to the job. Two, maybe three weeks later she finally gave it up and I got some. I took her to this little hotel near the stadium. She was four years older than me and already had two children, but it didn't matter to her at all that I had nothing to my name. I'm glad she saw that I had heart and I wasn't afraid of hard work of any kind. It also helped that I like to be clean. She told me years later that the first night we did it, in that hotel, she was impressed that I'd worn a brand-new outfit and that I washed my drawers out in the sink and laid them out to dry on the radiator so they'd be fresh the next day.

Once the right woman was in my life, that was it. I was happy. I felt a s.h.i.+ft in me right away-I was inspired to change. Sabina and I were so right for each other it was like she was my pot and I was her lid, and until you have that, you won't ever understand.

Like I said, when we got together Sabina already had two kids-Malcolm, who was two, and Benji, who was four or five, so there wasn't just the two of us to think about. Her sons were from different fathers, both guys I knew from around the way. That would be a nightmare for most men, but I didn't even care; none of that mattered to my pride. And looking back on it all, I see that the fact that I was cool with the situation says the most about the kind of love Sabina and I shared. Only a real bond with a woman would make a nineteen-year-old male happy to raise two kids who aren't his. Young men in the ghetto are proud and angry; they do not have the ideal temperament to handle raising a neighbor's punk-a.s.s kids. But I saw no shame in it at all; I was proud and happy to raise Sabina's children as my own. To me her children were extensions of her, not of those other men. I loved all of her, so how could I not love them? That's how it's been with them from day one. I am their father and they are my kids and that's it. I consider them my flesh and blood. I legally adopted them after we'd been together a few years.

It wasn't long before we added my own flesh and blood to the family. I think my desire began during those three weeks Sabina made me wait before she gave me some of that good stuff. From the first day we met we were together every day, so those three weeks were an eternity. All I could think about was getting some. I wanted it so bad I couldn't even m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e! I had three weeks of sperm backed up. For the next three years my son Tracy junior was swimming around in my big-a.s.s nuts. When I look at my teenage son now, I like to remind him that once he was just a single sperm cell swimming around in my nuts. Now he's all grown up, got teeth and everything.

Sabina and the kids and I had been together, living in one apartment, for about seven years before she and I even thought to get married! Looking back, I think that's so funny. And at the same time, I like it. We were too busy just living, being a family, and enjoying each other. We were already married in our minds. That's how I thought about it, anyway. For Sabina, who knows? She's older, and maybe she was waiting to make sure I was good enough and I was going to stick around. It was a great situation for me. I got a family and free room and board. But then she made me earn it. One day I came home from working an afternoon at the stadium and found her ironing the good clothes.

”Baby, what are you doing? Why you ironing the good clothes? Did somebody die?”

”No,” she said. ”n.o.body died. We're getting married tomorrow.”

”Oh,” I said. I thought about it for a minute. ”Okay.”