March 4, 1982

 

It was Pawn's first birthday and Donna was in the Millcreek Mall boosting with her best friend Natalee. If it wasn't nailed down to the ground Donna would boost it and then sell it for half price at the Twenty Grand or the Good Cooks.

 

The Good Cooks was Debo's favorite place to be. And that's exactly where he was a on his son's birthday, trying to move a few pounds of some Mexican dirt weed that he had gotten from a boxing match.

 

Sometimes the fighters would get paid in cash and sometimes they got paid in drugs. Debo's last fight had landed him ten pounds of dirt weed and the Good Cooks was the best place to get rid of it. The Good Cooks was located on a side street called Wallace between 18th and 19th street. The bar was filled with a lot of the local dealers who never crossed the Buffalo Road Bridge to hustle in the Twenty Grand.

 

Timmy and Terry were playing a game of Eight Ball drinking forty ounces of Colt 45 while trash talking to each other. The music was playing low while Debo stood by the side door waiting for a couple bikers from the Iron Wings to pull up and buy a couple pounds. The Iron Wings was a local biker club that would score low grade weed from Debo then re-sell at high prices to white collar people who were too scared to ever pull up to the Good Cooks.

 

After sitting in the door for about an hour Debo began to hear the sound of motorcycles coming down 19th street. Debo told Timmy and Terry to go grab the pounds he had hidden in the “mother ship.” The “mother ship” was the name of a big white conversion van that Timmy owned. Terry ran to the van to grab the smoke.

 

Donna had been in the mall for over an hour with Natalee before Nan got out the car to go find them. Nan had waited in the car because she was pregnant with her second child. Her oldest child was at their mother's house with Phel and Pawn waiting for them to get back so they could eat ice cream and cake for Pawn's first birthday. While waiting for Donna and Natalee to come out the mall Nan's water broke so she needed to find Donna and go to the hospital. She wasn't having painful contractions but she was sure her water had just broke because she remembered the same thing happened when she had her daughter Recee.

 

As soon as Nan got to the middle of the mall she saw Donna and Natalee coming her way with big smiles on their face. It was obvious from their smiles that they had a good day.

 

The bikers pulled up ten deep, all wearing black leather vests with red patches. The leader of the crew got off his bike and signaled the crew to shut down the bikes and relax. By this time, Terry had already came back with the two pounds that he got out the secret compartment in the mother ship. He handed them to Debo in a Erie County Farms bag.

 

The leader of the biker club was a boxer for Mobster Louie B just like Debo was but he never got paid in drugs. The mob wouldn't give the drugs to the white boxers because they wanted to keep drugs out of Little Italy, the Italian part of Erie located on the west side.

Mobster Louie B would always pay the black boxers in drugs because he thought it would never affect Little Italy.

 

Debo and the leader of the biker club walked up to each other and began to shadow box and talk shit. The whole city was waiting for them to fight in the ring for the belt but Mobster Louie B wouldn't let them fight each other. After a few minutes of shadow boxing they both began to laugh and then decided it was time to handle some business. They never did any talking while exchanging the drugs for the money. They would discuss prices at the  gym a day or two before the pick up.

 

Debo ducked behind the bar and grabbed the Erie County Farms bag and his chrome 357. Even though he knew the bikers well he would never do the exchange without his 357. The deal went okay as usual. The leader of the biker club handed the bag to a young biker looking to earn his patch and told him to stuff it in his saddle bag. Being a prospect meant he had a lot of dirt to do before he could earn his patch.

 

All at once the Harleys started up and began to head west towards Little Italy. Debo ran back to the side of the bar and put his 357 back in its hiding spot and counted the cash to make sure it was all there. It was his son's birthday and he planned on buying him something special.

 

As soon as Donna got close to Nan she could see a big wet spot in Nan's jeans. She started laughing and said, “You're too old to be pissing on yourself.”

 

Nan didn't think the joke was funny but Natalie was laughing louder than ever. Then Nan told them her water broke in the car and that's why she came in looking for them.

 

It was Pawn's birthday but Donna was happy her little sister's water had broke because Nan was having a baby boy a year after Donna had Pawn and from the looks of the wet spot on Nan's jeans her son might be born on the same day as Pawn.

 

Once they got back to the car Donna jumped in the driver seat and headed for twenty grand. The plan was to sell a few track suits so she could buy Pawn’s birthday gifts, then get Nan to the hospital so she could give birth to her baby boy. As they were pulling away Dj Bobby K was playing Kurtis Blow “these are the brakes”on WERG 89.9.

 

Donna had called Super Soul Saturday and asked Dj Bobby K to wish Pawn a happy birthday from the Beard Family. The family had just finished singing happy birthday to Pawn when Phel spotted Debo pulling up outside. He ran to tell Donna what he seen, Donna ran to

the window to see for her self then turnt the music down and told everybody to be quite Debo was outside. Everybody got quite because they knew Debo would ruin the party if they let him in , all he ever did was argue about dumb stuff. After a few minutes of banging on the door Debo decided to go and check to see if Pawn’s party was at Natlee house.Soon as he pulled off Star cut the

music back on and the party got back in motion. Donna began to cut the cake while Bernice scooped the ice-

cream . Phel got the first piece because Pawn was sleeping in Mommas rocking chair. Then Star kids Monty and Paula got theirs. Bernice daughters Shonta and Mecole didn’t eat cake so they just got ice-cream .

 

Nan loved her nephew Pawn so she was in no rush to get to the hospital. Plus she wasn't even in any pain. Her son ended up being born a year and a day after Pawn’s birthday March 4th was spent playing cards and listening

to the radio.

 

After Stopping bye Natlee’s house and finding out Donna wasn’t there Debo decided to hit the gym to release some frustration. He had heard that Donna was messing with this light skin cat from North East name Donny. But when he asked her about it Donna told him Donny was Mr. OIC son and he only stopped bye Mommas on 17th street to get his hair braided from time to time. She promised that she only knew him from the OIC building and when he came bye with Peter Gun. Debo believed her because he was in love but deep down inside he knew something was wrong.

 

After Nan had Cheeko, everybody was having a good time in the waiting room. Then out of nowhere Debo burst in the waiting room looking all crazy and angry. He couldn't believe that they had Pawn's first birthday party without him there.