Frank, how are they treating you in here?”
“I can’t complain, Martha. How are you?”
“I’m doing well. I heard from Yogi. He’s finishing up school.”
“I heard. I’m proud of that boy.”
“You should be. He’s a good kid.”
In the visiting room at the federal prison in Phoenix, I sat and talked with one of my frequent visitors, Martha Louis. She was Joe Louis’s wife and had always been a very good friend to me and my family. She’d taken Yogi in as one of her own when I was first arrested back in 1975, and she’d taken very good care of him. Martha was an attorney, a very smart, warm, and beautiful woman. And I had a lot of respect for her. By the time I was in prison in Phoenix, Joe Louis had passed away. Martha was still out in Vegas, which meant that she was close enough to Arizona to come to visit. And I appreciated that.
“Yogi is a good kid,” I said. “All of my children turned out pretty good. Wish I had been around for them more.”
“You did what you knew how to do,” Martha said. “You can’t beat yourself up now.”
“This is the last place I need to be. I’m damn near fifty years old. My family is all over the place. This isn’t the way to live.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re getting out soon. What are you going to do?”
“I’ve gotta figure that out.”
I got visits from other friends as well. Candace Louis, Martha’s daughter, would come to see me. She was a very sweet girl. And pretty as all outdoors. Opal Brown, who had introduced me to the actress Ena Hartmann, would come out to see me, as well as my old friend Little Pop. It helped the time go by. Three years later, I was sent to a prison camp in Dallas, Texas. Since my son was living there, I opted to go to Dallas so I could be paroled to my son’s address and try to get my life together.
“Dad, anything you need, just let me know. I want to help you,” Yogi said when I moved into his place in Dallas.
“Son, I want you to concentrate on you. I’ll be fine.”
“You can stay with me as long as you need to.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Any idea what you want to do now?”
“Well, I got some ideas about a few business ventures.”
“Legal or illegal?”
“Now, Yogi. Don’t get all mixed up in what I’m trying to do.”
“I was just asking!”
“Well, don’t!”
Yogi turned away and left the room. I didn’t mean to upset him. But he was asking me questions I didn’t have the answers to. How the heck was I supposed to know what to do at my age with no money and no education? All I knew how to do was get back in the game. Something I did not want to do. For a few months, I didn’t do much of anything. I caught up with friends and family. I checked in with Julie and Francine, who were living in Puerto Rico. And I flew up to New Jersey to check in on my mother, who had moved north years ago with my father. My father had passed away, but my mother was still kicking, as fiery as ever.
My mom was living in Newark, New Jersey. I stayed with her for a few days before I headed back to Dallas. I had to check in with my parole officer every week so I could never travel for too long. And I hated it. After another trip to my mother’s place in Newark, I saw how easy it would be to slip back into hustling, even on a very small level, just to get some money in my pocket.
I found myself in a very bizarre job, a job with a thousand-mile commute. I was living in Dallas with Yogi, checking in with my parole officer every week. And then, two or three times a week or so, I would fly to Newark, stay with my mom, and dabble in the drug game.
I was operating on a very minor level this time. I wasn’t even trying to re-create my past glories. There was no point. I wasn’t going back to Southeast Asia. I was far from commanding an army of people. Gone were the days of having five hundred people ready to hit the mattresses in my name in the streets of Harlem. There were no shipments coming in. There was no Blue Magic. There was just me, a single entity, making small-time deals with kids who had no idea who I was. I wasn’t happy with it. I wanted nothing to do with the game at that point, nothing at all. But I felt like I truly had no other options. It had been all I’d known since I was sixteen years old. What was I supposed to do now? Be a janitor? Work at a fast-food restaurant?
I guess some people would think that spending so much time in jail would have made me give up the game completely. But it didn’t. Getting caught and locked up was just an occupational hazard. It never served as a true deterrent. It just came with the territory and I never let the risk stop me. I know I should have. But I never did. I was always thinking about getting out of the game for good. But it never seem to work out that way.
But traveling back and forth from Newark to Dallas was ridiculous. I wasn’t making much money. And here I am, living with my mother and still selling drugs?
One afternoon, I was at my mother’s house when I called my parole officer to check in.
“Actually, Frank, I need you to come to my office right now.”
“Can’t do that,” I said. “I can come first thing in the morning.”
“Are you in the state of Texas right now, Mr. Lucas?”
“Absolutely,” I lied.
“Then you need to get to my office right away. I can’t accept a phone check-in today.”
“Why not?”
“I need you to get to my office.”
“I just told you I am very busy today. I won’t be able to get there until the morning.”
“Listen here, boy, you need to get to my office immediately.”
I hated my parole officer. In fifty years of dealing with the law, I’d come across hundreds of cops, judges, and prosecutors. Some were always fair, even when their job was to put me away. But sometimes, they were just assholes. And this guy was the biggest jerk of all. I could see his face through the phone, pasty white with a fat neck. I hated him.
“You know what?” I said. “Fuck you. Catch me if you can.”
I hung up while he was still sputtering into the phone.
And so I was now living with my mother, selling drugs on a small scale, and I was officially on the run. I stayed with my mother and didn’t return to Dallas with Yogi. They’d have to find me if they wanted to lock me up for a parole violation. If I’d flown down to Dallas the next day, as I’d planned, he still would have locked me up. I’m sure he knew I wasn’t in Texas, where I was supposed to be. So, I was screwed either way. At least, if I didn’t go back, I could live life on my own terms—until I got caught.