How To Scam the Dead and the Poor: A True Story

The Algiers

When Jerome was a kid, he and his momma heard gunshots and looked out a window and saw police everywhere with big guns and helmets and flashing lights. They hid in a closet with one of his mama’s tricks, some white dude from GM, who said keep quiet, don’t move. The trick held him close and they stayed there ‘till the gunfire stopped and the trick said he’s going to see what’s going on. He left the room but never came back, thinking it a bad idea to be found in a black motel by white cops.

Jerome cried and wanted to leave but his momma said she had a business to run and the police already did their worst, so what else could they do? The cops never came to Jerome’s part of the Algiers motel, which was near the Cadillac building…you know the old General Motors headquarters. His momma had solid clientele there.

Before you get the wrong idea, Jerome’s momma wasn’t any cheap whore, and those GM guys knew good tang when they had it. Maybe business fell off for a while, after all, it was the 1978 Detroit riot, but his momma figured she could sell dime bags ’til things picked up. She took care of Jerome the best way she knew how. What do you think she ought to do, each day drag her ass to some white ladies’ house to clean for chump change, then schlep home on a dirty bus to a house full of kids and a drunk? Some say that’s honest work. Mamma called it honest-to-God shit work. Nuh uh, that wasn’t Jerome’s Momma.”