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You can now follow me on all my social media platforms to find out who my latest guest will be and don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you are notified for when my next podcast goes live. So I should probably, and thank you for having me man, your class act. This is beautiful. But I guess the best way I can do is I'm going to give you a quick overview of my story and then I'll go back and kind of give you a little more. But ultimately, I grew up surrounded by the mafia, right? I'll get in that in a minute. And then I ended up in prison at age 29 and did it for extortion and bank robbery and all kinds of stuff, bad stuff. I was a bad guy. I was in the hole in prison for 17 months. Got into it with the officers. They tasered me and anyway.   And I look over and I see this, they actually dumped a bucket of mop water on my bunk, just to be douchebags, just dumped it on my pictures and my letters. So I see this letter from my grandmother sitting there. And I remember in that letter she said to me, she says, Alonzo, you write the most beautiful letters. You could be a writer, right? And at this time I was thinking about committing suicide. Like I was, they were trying to give me 30 years. So I'm like, I just check out, slip my wrist.  I've never been scared to die. So I just like, I'm just check out. But then I saw that letter and my grandma said, you could be a writer. And I thought, man, maybe I love writing and love reading. So I wasn't a writer. And I thought about I could get through this prison bit by writing, right? Become a writer. So I started writing stories in my mind. I was in the hole so I didn't have pen and paper. But so for over 14 months in the hole, I wrote three novels in my mind. And then when they finally sent me to prison proper, I ordered a bunch of pens and paper and then started writing. So I started writing these books and everybody in prison loved them.  So these guys are just, oh my God, dude, this is an incredible story. And it feels good. It feels good. But this is where it gets crazy. So six years in, I had finished my sixth book. It's called The Be a King. It's about a mafia family. It happened to be the only book that I had written about a mafia family. It's actually turned into a two book series. But all my other books had nothing to do with mafia. This one did. I sent it to my friend. He thought it was amazing. So he published sample chapters of the book on Facebook, which was brand new as 2009. I've been locked up since 2003 at the time. So somebody, he posts these samples and I'm getting fan mail in the prison. People send me, oh my God, it's amazing. And also in some woman writes me a letter says, I work for a New York publisher. I'm a huge reader. I'm willing to read your manuscript. And I'm like, can you imagine I'm in prison. I'm writing books. And also in some chick from New York says I'm willing to read your book. So my friend turns it to a PDF, sends it to her. The woman reads the book in three days. It's 1100 pages. So it's both novels together. Writes me another letter says, this is the best book I've ever read. And you're a unicorn, man. I want to help you get this book published. So I said, awesome. That's, you know, amazing. I can imagine I was through the roof just freaking out. And so we became pen pals, me and this girl, right? And well, it turned out we had everything in common. We really had, well, one thing led to another and we ended up falling in love, me and this woman from the publisher. And so she commits her life to me. We figure out we're both in love. And she says, you know, what do we do with this? And I said, can you wait for me? She's like, I would wait 20 years for you. I'm like, you got to be faithful.  I said, well, then let's get married, but I'm going to wait till we get out of prison. I don't want to get married in a prison visiting room. You know what I'm saying? So she says, where do you want to live? I said, Northern Michigan out in the woods in Miller, Nowhere. I want to be away from people. I want to go fishing every day. I want to get away. She says, so she packs all of her stuff up, moves, tells her family that she's engaged to this prisoner, ex-gangster in prison.  They think she's lost her frickin' mind. It's just crazy.  And so at which point I, you know, I kind of had a honeymoon period for eight or nine months, but then I ended up publishing my books to be a king. And they went kind of viral at first, you know, they shot to the top like 30 in the mafia genre. What's a tough genre. And people, everyone's going, man, this guy wrote the next Godfather. This is the greatest mafia story that's ever been told. But so anyways, that's kind of overall my story. Now they're making a TV series.  And my love story is kind of a strong element of it. And then they're making the documentaries to promote a scripted TV series starring Amanosante. So it's pretty cool, you know what I'm saying? But after that then, let's go right back to the start. Where you grew up and how it all began. Give people a better understanding of what you went through and everything that you're doing now. Yeah, thank you. That's where I was going to go. So I grew up in Detroit.  My father was abusive drunk, right? So they divorced when I was four. And I went and moved in with my grandparents, grandma, grandpa, Toko and girls point Michigan, kind of a rich city right outside Detroit. Now this is where it gets crazy because I had no father figure and my mother's youngest brother was like a young gangster. He was a young hustler street guy, right? His name was Pete. He was only 12 years older than me. So he's more like an older brother and I'm living with them. I'm in this house and girls point, I'm surrounded by mafia. My grandfather was Peter Paul Toko. His cousin was Yakumo Toko, the boss of Detroit mafia, the boss. And they grew up together. They lived in the same neighborhood their whole life, you know, did all the same family function, knew each other. I'm not going to say that my grandfather was heavily involved in mafia, but all his goombas or his friends and the people around him, cousins really, they were all mafia. So I grew up surrounded by mafia. And when I was a little kid, I remember some girl didn't invite me to her birthday party. And I said, why?  I don't even know what that is. So I asked my uncle, Pete, what's the mafia? He said, he said, laugh. He's like, you'll see, you'll see some day it's our family. And so I'm a bad kid. I move, I'm constantly getting into fights, expelled from school, troubled. I got no father figure, right? So I'm just a bad rambunctious hyperkinetic, they call that, put me on medication. And then at 14 years old, I get expelled indefinitely. They like, you can't come back. We want you out of the system. So they expelled me from the school when I was 14 years old. So my dad didn't feed us. You know, he was kind of a, I don't say abusive drunk. He just didn't feed him. I was a child, I was hungry, right? So I started selling drugs, weed.  And I bagged this drug dealer to front me some weed so I could make some money. He says, you know, I told him, he said, why? I said, I'm starving. I was going to give him my jacket. I had a $300 jacket. My mom bought me as a gift. I'm going to trade you this jacket for half ounce of weed. He's like, why would you trade the jacket?  I'm like, because I'm starving, bro. I'm starving. This is a young white kid, but he's carbon and gold. Got a low rider car, rings and everything. He's baller, right? So he says, yeah, come on, I'll take you to the house. And he gives me a quarter pound of weed. Well, this is where it gets gangsta, though, because I knew these black guys in this one ghetto called Panic Zone, right? So three, four miles from my house. It was all black projects where everybody bought crack. So all the crackheads would go in there by, well, I had a couple of friends in there and I'd sell them. I'd go to see my friend, Sidney Norton, his brother was a crack dealer and so was his cousin. And I always had good weed.   And I'm like, I'd sell you a joint or two. But they were like, we'll buy it all. We'll buy anything you bring. And that's what I told this drug dealer. I said, man, I got these black dudes or crack dealers. I got stacks of money. They make $800, $900 a day. I said, I could sell it to them all.  He was a lunatic. He stole his dad's 44 Magnum pistol, right? And so his dad was in prison at the time. So I said, Johnny, I need you to protect me. I need you to have my back. We're going to go in the panic zone. We're going to sell this freaking weed, right? And he's like, yeah, I got you. I got you. He thought it was going to be fun. So he takes his big 44 Magnum pistol and we drive into this ghetto and we park in the square. And I start telling all these crack dealers, I'm like, I got weed. I got weed. So they come over and kind of finagle.  And they're like, what's up with your boy, John Wayne? I said, he's just got my back. You know, we're good. So I sell all that weed in one day, a quarter pound, make like two, 300 bucks. I end up going to get groceries with the money. And so that started. So what doesn't happen like a year later? My uncle Pete, the gangster one I told you about, he finds some weed in the pocket of my coat, right? And so drugs are really bad. You know, some like old school Italians, you know, mafia, whatever, they're not, they don't, drugs aren't good, right? My uncle got busted for selling coke. So my grandparents were on him about drugs all the time. Yeah. And they're yelling at him in Sicilian. And I can't understand it, but they yell at him all the time. And so I'm, drugs are bad. So my, my, my uncle bought me this, this jacket, this leather jacket that I liked. He had one. I said, I like that jacket. So he bought me one. And so we were the same size and everything. So I put the ounce of weed in my coat. Cause I'd go to my grandparents every weekend for dinner. Right. And I'd go while I'm there and like watch football in my grandpa, who's kind of a layoff bookie. And my uncle grabs my jacket and goes somewhere. It comes back. He says, Alonzo in the basement. And I know his tone tells me I'm in trouble. He comes down with the coat. He pulls out this thing. I have not a money in there too. He says, what the app is this? I'm like some weed. And I'm thinking he's embossed. He's going to tell my grandpa and I'm in all this trouble. I said, some weed. He's like, what are you doing with it? I said, I'm trying to break a buck, man. I'm hungry. You know, whatever.  And he throws it at me. He says, if you're going to sell weed, sell good weed. Come here. He goes upstairs into the garage and he's got boxes of pounds of weed.  I'm like, thousand, which I was paying way more. I was paying like $1,300. I'm like, thousand. He goes, good. Take 10,000 a pound. You now sell my weed. And that's kind of how I got involved. And what happened after that is I started selling steroids. I got into the steroid racket, which is a good story. What happened is this, I got introduced to this mob dude, right? Who was selling steroids in the gym where I worked. I was involved in one of the biggest steroid busts in American history at the time. They said it was the biggest steroid. But 55 guys, $8 million in cash, like 30 million doses of steroids. This is all inflated. But anyways, this guy named Joe DiMaggio. Everybody knows who he is. So I'm going to say his name. He's been bossy to wherever. So I approached him. I said, listen, I think you know my uncle Pete. He said, Pete Toko. I said, yeah. He said, oh, I know Pete. Good guy. I know his sister. I said, it's my mom. I said, well, I got these guys who want to buy some steroids, man. I'm trying to get the plug on this. And he says, yeah, yeah. Come over to the house. So I come over to his house and he's got this big walk in safe and it's got like thousands of bottles of steroids in there. It's like, what do you want? I'm like, well, I can get rid of it.  Like, you know, once a week, come over and give me. I'm like, okay. So I don't know at the time the FBI are surveilling his house. His phone's wired the whole night. And so I start coming and going buying steroids from this dude every week.  I just assumed they were mafia. I didn't know what level because I grew up in it. I just assumed this. And so he ends up getting busted, right? This huge sweep. It's all over the news, whatever. And I'm freaking out because I know I'm involved, right? A couple of days later, an FBI agent comes to my house and it sits me down. It's a big tall guy. And he says, he's got the ledger. Joe would mark down everything that everybody owed him in the ledger. And there were two ales. They called me Al back then. And he says, there's one guy's getting $100,000 worth of stuff at a time, Al. And then there's one guy's getting like $5,000. I'm like, yeah, I'm the little guy. He's like, that's what we thought. We've been watching you, whatever. You're just selling steroids to high school buddies. I was selling at like five different high schools and like five different gyms. So I was making like $5,000 a week at 17 years old. $5,000 a week selling steroids. Plus weed. Plus I was making another probably $2,000 a week of weed. But I'm just clocking, bro. I can't even spend the money fast enough. I'm buying cars and four-wheelers and toys and jet skis and whatever I wanted. And so I get busted a couple of days after the big bust that the local narco cops came to me and arrested me for conspiracy to deliver two times. $5,000 worth of steroids. Somebody set me up and I got sent to the cops and they ended up busting me and resting me. And I bond out right away and I fight the case for a year and a half. And in the end, my grandpa ends up paying a judge, $10,000, so I don't go to prison. Because I was fighting with a lawyer and all this. And by the time I got sentenced, I was 19 years old and my uncle says, Grandpa's going to take care of this. I said, what's he going to do? He's like, he's going to go see the judge. I said, what's he going to do to judge? He goes, don't worry, he'll take care of it. So then I go to court next time and they're like, all right, we're going to give you six months in the county jail. And I told my uncle, I said, what did he do? He said, give him $10,000. He had dinner with them, slipped them 10 Gs and now you're not going to prison. So I do my time in jail and this is where it gets. What was that like? Jail? Yeah. First time? Yeah, it was my first time in jail. What was that feeling? 19 adult prison. Yeah. What was it Detroit's prison like? Well, this wasn't a prison. It was a jail. So what's the difference? Oh, way different, way different. Oh, the prisons are way worse. You know, they're way more violent. You get, you know, in prison, there's a lot of maniacs and killers and really hard criminals. County Jails, a lot of drunks and crackheads and stuff like that. Minor offenses? Yeah, minor offenses. Yeah. So I didn't get in a couple of fights.  I had one dude with, this is how I ended up in a hole later on. This is years later before I went to prison. I went to the hole by, I punched somebody. Some kid, a little like light-skinned black kid kind of muscle balance stole something out of my commissary while I was in church. And I went in front of him and he got tough. So I just wham. I just shattered his eye socket. I actually had to pay for restitution for his ambulance ride to the hospital. Crushed his eye and knocked him out. And then I dared anyone. Anyone else want to steal from me? But at the time when I was 19, there's an interesting story there. I found this thing called the daily bread. And I didn't know anything about God or Christ or anything like that. I started reading this daily bread. It really spoke to my heart. So that's the first seed that was ever planted regarding God. I didn't really know God, none. I raised Catholic, but I didn't really know God, none. But that was it. So I get out. This is where it really gets crazy is, so I get out of jail. I'm 20 years old now.  Or she died right after I got out. So she didn't see me. No, she just, excuse me. She died before I went to jail.  There's this very tight community of Sicilians who came from the same little town of Sicily outside of Palermo called Teresini. And there's like, it's like a hundred families. They all came to Detroit, but then the mob families, there's like five major ones. So like in Nucleus, and they all lived in the same neighborhood and they all did business together, promote each other's businesses. They built a church for themselves. They had clubs and societies and they were very secretive. It was all mob stuff, right? So I knew a lot of these old mob guys all my life. I'd been growing up with them, you know, and they just around them.  But now in my teens, my uncle P started telling me, you know, Tony's the street boss of the mafia and Uncle Jack is the boss and this person is that person, that person. And I'm starting, now I'm paying attention. I'm kind of seeing how people treat them. And the higher the level of the mafioso, the more respect people give them. You know what I'm saying? So you see them and they shake their head, hey Pete, how you doing? Come by, they're shaking. They give them a kiss on the cheek, you know. And so I'm noticing all this stuff. So then this episode is sponsored by Fire Away Pizza, the fastest growing pizza company in the UK with over 150 stores. With their fresh quality ingredients and unique pizzas, they will have you coming back for more. Use code James20 for 20% off. That's James20 for 20% off. I'm just fresh out of jail. I'm not out two days. My friend fronts me 10 pounds of weed and another friend fronts me like $5,000 over the steroids. So I'm literally home two days and I'm back in the game doing exactly what I was doing before I went to jail. And so I'm hustling. And also my grandmother says you got to go to your cousin Nina's graduation party. This is where it gets interesting. And I was like, okay, yeah, I'll go. You got to go. I'm like, I'll go. And I forget about it. Right. I grabbed my ninja. I got a ninja. I drive out to the beach. I'm with my friends throwing a football and beach hitting on all these girls, whatever. I got a page. It's my grandmother. My grandmother page. I mean, it's kind of, this is back when pagers were a thing. Do you remember pages? Yeah. So I was like, it's like, go to the phone. Yeah. What's up grandma? She's like, why aren't you at Nina's graduation party? I forgot. I'm at the beach. She's like, you need to get there. So I said, all right. Fine.  I stopped at the, that's like a right aid to get a card for her. And I ended up, so I, this is funny what I was wearing. You'll laugh. I wear a suit vest, a suit vest with no shirt underneath, a big gold chain with an Italian horn and like khaki, Z-Caveriche shorts or black, black Z-Caveriche. So I'm wearing a suit vest, no shirt. That's a little muscle bong. Yeah. I just did some bodybuilding shows. You understand what he's known at the time, but I was because I sold them. You know what I'm saying? They just assumed I was because I sold them, but I had good genetics, pretty good genetics. I worked out really hard. I ate good. I was serious about it. So I looked pretty. I was like about 190 pounds ripped up. I did three bodybuilding shows when I was 19. I always placed top five. It was pretty good. I wasn't great. But so I show up at this big party. It's in girls point, not a huge house, but a big house, very expensive area.  Like little girls, just like the godfather. I said, dance the music's playing.  I go over there and get a plate of food. My aunts are like, hey, how are you doing Alonzo? Good to see you. And I'm putting this plate on my food and my grandmother yells. She's like, Alonzo, have you seen Nina? And I said, no, I just got here. You know, it's like she just went inside and she goes see her. So I'm like, all right. You know, I haven't seen my cousin Nina in like four years. So she was 14 years old when I last saw her. So now I go in there wearing this outfit and she's in there. This is actually a funny story. I walk in, I surprise her and I'm like, she's pouring wine into these glasses. She's only 18. I said, better not let your mom see that. She turns around. She's like, Alonzo, how are you doing? I pull out the card and I give her this card. You know, congratulations. You're going to college. Use the money on books and I said, no, it's fine. Take it. I don't know. She's like, you don't have to take it. Take it. Whatever. She's like, I want you to meet my friends. So we walk into dining room and there's like eight little teenage girls there.  So now I'm this pretty boy. You know, Jersey Shore looking guy walking there and they're all like, you know, looking at me like, like they've never seen, like an alien and it was uncomfortable. So I asked me if I was going to still eat my food. And then I hear my name at a table here. Alonzo and they're speaking Sicilian. So I don't really understand it that well. And I look over and my grandpa's talking to a guy named Tony Giacalone. So Tony Giac, they call him. Now this guy is like probably the most powerful mobster in Detroit. Even though he's not the boss, he could be if he wanted to, but the previous boss, he had met his mentor. He loved them. He said he'd never take the family over whatever. So, but he's the street boss and everybody in Detroit knows this guy's the same guy. They know Giacalone's a boss, but you never see him. He's just like the king on his throne. You never see him out of his castle or whatever. But Tony's in the street. He's a drug dealer. He's an extortionist. He's a loan shark. He runs his crew, gangsters, whatever. So he's with my grandpa. And I hear my grandpa say to him, Tony, you think you can get Alonzo some work? And he goes, yeah, sure, Peter. I can get him to work. I'll find something for him. And my grandmother says, no, no, he doesn't need to work. I don't need him to work. He's going to college. Well, when I was in jail, I actually won a scholarship. Not much. It was like $700. But I scored so high in the GED, which is like a general diplomacy equivalency. I scored so high that I got a $700 scholarship and a stamp letter from George Bush. And so I told my grandparents and they're like, we'll match it, $700. My dad will match the $700. So he got $2,100 bucks to go to college. So that was the plan. And my grandma says, no, he's going to college. He doesn't need to work. And this is the conversation. And then my grandpa says, yeah, I still got to work. He needs to stay out of trouble or whatever. So my grandma says, no, he needs to work. And at one point she says, I said, no, wham, it slams her hand on the table. I said, no. And they all get quiet. And so I walk over. I'm like, yo, do I got to stay in this?  They're like, you know what we're talking about? I said, yeah, yeah. Grandpa asked Uncle Tony if we could find some job. She's like, yeah, you don't need to work. Forget it. Boom. That's when she slammed her hand. And so I get home later and I said, what's with grandma and Tony? She don't like Tony. And she says, you know what Tony does. I said, what do you mean? He's like, you want to give me a job? He's like, he rolls his eyes. I'm like, oh, is that kind of job? He's like, you know. So and I didn't realize he was trying to push me into the direction of mafia. So about a week later, Tony comes over to the house and he says, listen, I got a guy. You ever heard of brownies on the lake? He says, I said, yeah, it's a big nightclub on the water. Right. He's like, yeah, go in there telling them that I sent you and that, you know, you're looking for the work security at the door. So I said, all right, cool. His name guy's name was Al. Ironically.  And I said, hey, Tony Jack.  I didn't say you're looking for security. I said, Tony said, you're going to give me the head security job. And the guy's like, well, Tony Jack says that and you got to do it. So I get in there and I start working. And this is a major mafia hangout. It's the high end place, very high. It's right on the water. High rollers pull up with their boats. And they park their boats on the deck.  And so I'm now 20 years old working security at this nightclub with all these mobsters coming in all the time. And they know who I am, that I'm a toco. And they all think I'm like, my last name's toco. And they're like, hey, cousin, Kujine. And they're hugging me and kissing me on the cheek. All these older mob guys. So I start connecting with all these dudes, right? Getting numbers. They got to scam. He's got a safe job. He's got a larceny guys. He's got a crew at chop shop, you know, stolen cars, all this stuff. So I was like networking with these dudes. And that kind of, that drove me in that direction.  Yeah, how many's in the crew in the Detroit mafia? I don't know. I don't know. A couple hundred, I guess, but I didn't know. Like, I didn't know. I only know of handful, you know, small handful, you know. When did you get proper involved, Anna? That's when. Straight away. Well, that's when when I was 20 working at this nightclub and Tony got me a job there. And then he came to see me while I was working there standing around talking to me and everybody's going, damn, Tony Jack talking to that Al kid, the bouncer, he must be somebody. So Tony, this is where it gets serious. I'll tell you. Tony called me one day after this and he says, I need the seven o'clock in the morning phone rings, ring, ring, ring, right. Right. I was sleeping in the basement, my room. I hear the phone ring. Here's my grandma answer. Come on. She says on the phone. And then I hear him say, okay, hold on. So he comes to the stairs. She's like, Alonzo, Tony's on the phone. I said, seven o'clock in the morning.  She goes, Tony Jack. She don't like Tony.  So I pick up the phone and I'm like, Tony, and he waits for my grandma to hang up. And he says, listen, I need a favor. I'm like, sure, Tony, anything. What do you need? I know. I need you to do something. I'm like, what? She says, I have a girlfriend of mine. I don't know if it's his girlfriend or who it is, but her ex showed up at her house last night and slapped her around and he's there, passed out drunk. You know, can you handle that? He didn't say what to do. He said, yeah, I said, yeah, sure, I can do that. Where is it? It's like, it's like three miles from you. It's just five minutes away. I said, yeah, I got it. He's like, you sure you got it? I said, yeah. So long story short is I get my workout partner, Dario, this big muscle-bound Italian kid, and I go over there. The guy's passed out in the bed. He's kind of a bigger guy. I bought your size, muscle-bound handsome guy. I'd say he's 30 years old. Passed out in the bed. This guy has a little bit longer hair and he's passed out. So I try to be cool with him. I'm like, I banged a wall. Boom, boom, boom. It's time to go, mother, after you got to go. And he rolls over and he goes, can I curse on there? Yeah, of course you can.   And I said, I'm the boogeyman, motherfucker. And he goes, he laughs and he rolls over. I grab him by his hair. Boom. I yank him out of the bed. I'm just going to drag him out of there. But he starts fighting, trying to fight me. So I start pounding him. I got this big gold ring on. I got this big nugget ring on. And I got him and I was like, wham, wham, wham, wham. I just pounded his face in, bro, pounded him. And his blood splattered all over the place. Now I got him in the hallway. I'm dragging down the hallway. Bam, bam, bam. He's begging me. He's begging me to stop. All right, man, all right, all right, all right. I'm dragging him out, blood smeared all the way. I drag him down these stairs and I take him outside. And then I tell him, and I forgot it here. He's like, look what you did to my face. Because he gets in his car in the van. He looks in the mirror. He's like, look what you did to my face. I said, motherfucker, you ever come back and put your hand on this woman? You need a surgeon to put your face together. That's what I tell him. So he starts reaching under his seat, though. And I open the yank the drug. What are you doing, bro? And I grab his hand. And he's got a crowbar under there. I yank the crowbar.  I threatened to kill him. I said, look at the prick out here. And then I called Tony, or the girl called Tony and said, you know, whoever that guy was who came over to my house this morning, he was for no games.  And I smashed him, bro. So then Tony says, OK, this is a kid I can use. This is a tool. This guy's a tool. He's a young, tough guy. He ain't scared to fight or hurt people or whatever. And so essentially after that, he starts putting me to work, you know, doing collections for bookies and loan sharks and various things. But like a funny story is that he had me working security poker games and casino nights, things like that. Now, it's kind of spotty. You know, I might not see him or hear from him for a month. And he's like, yeah, I need you to do this, right? And there were other guys. There was other mob guys I'd met through him and in the club where I was bouncing who were like, yo, I want to do this or can you do that? One day this is a funny story. You'll appreciate this. It's a really crazy story.  She looks like Sophia Vagara. And we're all sitting around smoking weed by the pool. It's like two o'clock in the afternoon. She comes out and brings us like lemonade and sandwiches. But she's rich, too. She had ball or got a big mansion. She married a dude. First of all, her husband's in prison, but then she married another guy and then divorced him and got like millions of dollars. So now she's living, she's a baller. And she comes outside. She says, how come you guys don't work? And we're all like, you know, we do work, you know, we dice games and poker games and we got sell weed and whatever. It's like, no, no, you need to actually work. I find a job. She says Antonio used to do construction contracting with Antonio is the guy in prison or husband in prison. And she's always going on about Antonio did this and Antonio did that. And we're just like rolling our eyes. Like, you know, sure, sure. And finally, she says, oh, we said, we don't know nothing about contracting. How are we going to contract? You know, you don't need to know nothing. You just sell the job and then contract it out to other people. They do the job. You make a piece. So we kind of think, well, she leaves. We smoke with Joan. We're thinking about it. And I say to my cousin, Angelo and my cousin Dominic are there. I said, you know, we could, we could do that. You know, you know, he's like, we don't know any contractors. And I'm like, what about Pepe? Pepe is this old contractor we see all the time in the Eastern market. The Eastern market is kind of like the epicenter of the Detroit mafia. It's like, it's like the little Italy, like New York's little Italy, but it's the Eastern market in Detroit. And it's all about a mom. My grandfather had a business there for 25 years of a food delivery business, a big one, which would have been impossible to get without the mafia. But anyways, so we're at this place called Roma's one day and we're all sitting around the table, busting balls, you know, laughing or whatever. And then comes walking to Stu Pepe, which was funny because he always wore this tracksuit. He had his, like a burgundy Puma tracksuit. Say I wore it every day. Every time I'd see him, he was wearing his tracksuit. It's kind of weird. So I say, you know, Angelo, whose father knows the guy, I said, go over there and ask him if he can get us some work. He's like, I'm not going to ever ask them. You know, we believe he's a made guy, and he's got a high level mom guy, right? We don't know if he's made, but we assumed he was because he was with another guy named Tony, this other guy, excuse me, Salvi was the guy's name. And so these guys won't go over there and talk to him.  I could do anything. You got your own equipment? I'm lying. I'm just lying. And yeah, I got this. And ultimately, I go visit him at his office with my cousin, Angelo. And he says, all right, I got this job for you guys to do. I kind of said, we're hungry. Why east side work and dah, dah, dah. Since I got this job, there's a strip mall I'm building and I need it. They're building an extension to it. I need to dig out this old foundation extended dah, dah, dah. Or how much? She's like, I'll give you guys 25 grand. And then I kind of do the math. I'm like, all right, cool. We could probably make five, 6,000 bucks off it. So it's not that bad at least. So he gives us $12,000 up front. And he says, when the job is done, I'll pay you the rest. So we go contract these other mob dudes, Trangali crew. And these big, tough guy, muscle bound, huge mother. He got this guy named Andre, this huge giant dude. And I'm kind of scared of the guys. We're young, you know? So I get these guys to do the job, they do it. And I still owe them like five, six grand.  And he says, yeah, I'll pay you when the job is done. I'm like, no, what job is done? We did it. We didn't expect it. He said it was good. I was like, no, no, when the mall's done. What do you mean? He didn't say that. He said, I told you when the job is done. I said, well, we did our part of the job. I need this money. I got to pay these guys, man. He's like, I don't know how it works. You got to wait till I get paid on the mall. And that could be, that's like six months away. So now the young thug in me comes out. I'm not the kind of guy, dude. I was a violent guy, like the fight. I was always knocking mother out. I was known for it. We're knocking guys out in clubs or wherever at the track. Anyone who owed money, if somebody owed money, owed you money, you send to me. If they didn't have the money, wow, and Josh shot him and knocked him out right in front of everybody. So this is what happens. So this guy, he don't know me that good. He just knows I'm Pete Tocco's grandson. So he's like, I got Pete Tocco's grandson. I know Pete known my whole life. So I started arguing. I said, bro, listen, I need his money. I got to pay these freaking guys. He's like, oh, it ain't how it works. And then I snap and I say, listen, motherfucker, you're going to pay me my money, man.  He's like, what'd you say? I said, you heard me, man.  So you're going to pay me my money. Angela was pulling on my arm. I'm going, shut up, man.      He's like, yeah, somebody's going to come with this. I raised my shirt. I go, I got one too. They better be a good shot.  So next thing you know, it turns out this guy goes to his boss, this guy named Salvy, who is a maid guy. And he's got a business in the market. He's like a high-level mob dude, right? Kind of a high-level dude, like way up there. And anyways, we're just punk thug kids, you know what I'm saying? And this guy Pepe tells Salvy what I said to him. And now this guy, Salvy's like, this is super disrespectful, man. This kid's got to go. He's disrespected other people. I had disrespected other people, including Tony Giacalone once when I scabbed his poker players. I'll tell you that in a minute. But anyways, see, he tries to get me killed.  And ultimately, kind of the guys that he was trying to look for, they knew me and liked me, you know, looked for killers. So they call my uncle.  So my grandpa, who knows I'm friends with Tony, I'm good friends with Tony Giacalone, not good friends, but he's an old man, but he likes me anyways. So he calls him. So they end up having a sit-down. My uncle, my grandpa, Tony, Salvy and Pepe. And so this is all related to me after the fact. I didn't know I wasn't there.   That's where I'm at. Meanwhile, he's trying to have me killed. So all of a sudden, they have this meeting and Tony tells these guys, why didn't you pay him his money? He said, Tony should have heard how the kid talked to Pepe. And first of all, Tony says, listen, Alonzo is not in the mob. He's not a made guy. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, the rules kind of don't apply to him. And he's a young kid.    This guy's your friend.   And Tony says to the guys, you're going to pay him his money. And I don't want to hear nothing about this ever again. And if something happens to Alonzo, I'm going to blame you. Because Tony liked me. So Tony for people who don't know. Tony Jack is the street boss of Detroit mob. The street boss. So is it dangerous? Listen, they suspect him of up to 50 murders. So he's very dangerous. Well, okay. So he's the number one suspect in the Jimmy Hoffa case. So that's the guy. Jimmy Hoffa was going, you know, Jimmy Hoffa. Yeah, exactly. So there's a character based on him in the Irishman. So he's the guy that Hoffa was going to meet the day that Hoffa vanished. He was going to meet Tony Jack. So he's the guy who's, you know, they believe responsible for up to 50 murders. I don't really know all this at the time. I'm young. I just know he's a gangster. He's an old mob dude, whatever. He's friends with my grandpa.  So we're kind of related to marriage. But I don't know him that well. I just, you want to make a buck? Go do this. Want to make a buck? Go do that. He likes you then. He likes you. What happens then when you try to get your money? So the guy you're fighting with, he's a made the guy. Yeah. I think, yeah. Yeah. Did you do with us? No. I mean, I suspected. So what happens then?    Pay him his mother up in money. So Tony, then, you know, they call him. My grandpa says you go get your money from Pepe and forget this. Leave this alone. So I can walk it in. My cousin Angela won't even go in there. He's terrified. He thinks I'm going to get killed. I walked in there. He was doing his tracksuit. He said, what do you want? I said, my money, man.  So he reaches in this drawer, a filing cabinet, pulls out a little lockbox, pulls out the cash and he hands me the money. And he says, I don't want to ever see you again in my life or get the f out of my business. And then he complained about something like we left some trash on the job site and I had to clean up your mess in the job site. And I saw a peel $100 bill off of the knot of money. I crumble it up. I go, here you go. I'll cover that. And I throw it and hit something in the face and he drops on the ground. And then he had already told me once not to slam his door. When I came in, I slammed the door. But this is another time.  Totally disrespectful. But yeah, that was a close call. I could have been certainly been killed there. And you're only a kid? You're only a young boy, 20, 20 months. So what other jobs were you getting asked to do? Mostly collections, like collecting for bookies and stuff like that. Yeah. It was mostly basically for bookies. And but I had all these different scams and rackets going like, for example, my uncle would always say to me, you know, what do you got on the floor? And like for money making. And I said, I got this guy who works for an alarm company in the gym, kind of a square. I said, I think I can get him to tell us how to like deactivate alarms. And we could start this robbery ring and we can break into houses and businesses. So I go to the dude, my grandpa and my uncle said, go for it, man. Put him on the hook. So I tell the guy, listen, can you help us be alarmed? Alarms. He's like, oh, bro, I'm the technician. That's what I do. And he's like, I can show you how to fry the alarms, how to, you know, get through them, bypass them, whatever. He said, this is where it's crazy. He goes, I can even tell you when people aren't going to be home. I said, how was that? He says, well, a lot of people, when they go to their home, they go in, they forget the punch to code in their alarm. And the phone rings a minute later and it's the alarm company going, is it you? Oh, sorry, I didn't hit the alarm. That's not bad. There's a lot of people before they go on a vacation or a trip, they'll notify the alarm company, listen, I'm gone for a month. So if I, you know, the alarm goes off, it's real. And they have a database of this. And this dude who worked here was able to get us into this database and he says, this person's gone for a week. This person's gone. So we start. So we put a crew together. Larsen is one guy is a safe guy. I was the crash car driver. So I drove the car and use the police scanner. Listen to the police scanner in case somebody, the neighbor saw something and called the cops.  Let's go, go, go. So they pull up in a van and I'd be in the street in this crappy car called the crash car. Are you familiar with the crash car? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's like, I drive.  Just dump it like black, block the traffic and just let them get away.  I had a police scanner in there. So if they caught me, they'd be like, yeah, well, you got a police scanner. But anyway, so these guys were going into these houses and just raping them and these, these, these mansions. So my, my part of the job was our score was I get to pick, pick one item from each score or jewelry or whatever. Right. So my uncle's and his partner owned a pawn shop. So I learned about watches and gold and jewelry and stuff like that. So every time there was a big score, I'd pick a watch. Right. So I ended up, I ended up with like 20 like high end watches over like the year. And it ended up in a newspaper and like we had, it was too hot. We were hitting all these houses. They go up at two, three in the morning. They'd fry the alarm. They knew how to open it up and put these wires on it. And then like with a battery zap it and there's no memory, alarms off, you can walk right. And then they break in and they go and they'd be in there for hours, man, looking for arts for money for cash. And, you know, these are high end houses too. You know, rich people house. But, um, so that's the type of stuff I was doing kind of with some of these guys, some of the guys I was doing with were mob tide guys, you know, associates, whatever. But, um, that lasted a while. Then I ended up, uh, doing, doing a boat scam where we were stealing boats, which is a funny story. One day I was, my uncle said, you know how to drive a boat because I like fishing, right? I can drive a boat. He says, listen, I need you to drive a boat across the lake. So Canada is on the other side of Lake St. Clair where I live. So I don't know if you're familiar with Detroit. It's Detroit is one side of the river. Canada's on the other side. And so he says, I need you to take this boat across the river to a marina in Canada. Call this number. The guy's name is Frank and give him the boat. He's going to give you some cash and you're going to give you cash to cousin Anthony. Well, my cousin Anthony had a party that night on the boat. So we were partying on the boat. And then my uncle says, I need you to take it. So I know it's a scam. I said, has the boat been reported stolen? He's like, no, not yet. I said, don't lie to me, Uncle Pete. Don't lie to me. He says, don't worry. You'll be fine. I'll give you a couple thousand bucks. So after we partied on this big, like not a yacht, but I'm like a 50 foot cabin cruiser. It's kind of a yacht. We partied all night, sleep in the morning. I start this boat. I've never driven a boat like this, man. You know how hard it is to drive a big giant boat, bro? Trying to back it out of this marina at Metro Beach.  He comes there. He hands me 8,000 bucks. And I give it to, I ended up giving it to Tony Jack because it was Tony Jack's like the guy Frank in Canada. That was his connection, Tony Jack. So anyways, I asked the guy Frank while I'm there. I'm like, are you interested in any more boats? He says, yeah, man. So what they would do is retag them. They would take the boats in Canada, the stolen boats from America and retag them, give them all new paperwork, and then sell them in Canada or even Europe or whatever. These boats were worth $100, $200,000, you know? So they were retagging them. So I put a little crew together and we start stealing these boats. And then it starts getting more and more and more and we're selling these boats. And actually that made it in the paper too. But at some point, Tony goes to me, he finds out. He says, what are you doing going to my guy, Frank? That's my guy. If you want to sell stolen boats, you go through me. You don't go directly to my guy. And I said, well, we're only making a couple thousand bucks or five thousand bucks a boat. And we're splitting it two, three ways. I mean, there's nothing left. He's like, I don't care. I got to have my peace. And so I was like, I stopped doing it. I stopped doing it. What's the scariest job you ever been on? Those larceny jobs are pretty scary. Nick, drug robberies, like busting in the house with DEA uniforms.  You know, they all think it's a wreck. Get on the ground. We zip time. Take all their money. One time a guy, I asked the guy, I got him on the ground. My boy's getting the money in the dope. And I say, is there anyone in the house? Anyone else in the house? He's like, nobody's here. Nobody's here. And I actually have a pistol on him. And so all of a sudden, some guy comes running down the stairs with a gun. And I'm like, totally off guard. I got my gun on this guy. And I look up and this guy's got a gun around the corner. And he, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa. Fire's like eight shots before I even react. And like, boom. All those shots missed. It was just like the movie Pulp Fiction where he shoots him and it goes around. And it was like, dude, I didn't get hit. That's crazy, man. But I have been shot twice. And one time was a drug robbery. I was robbing this Kaldian. He was an Arabic guy for a quarter kilo of heroin. Kind of knew the guy for a while, but he was cocky.  That's what I was.  You know, just take 20 pounds, 50 pounds of weed, whatever. So this is $20,000 with a heroin. And we got a kind of argument like, you know, over who's car was nicer.  We got an argument whose car is better, right? And he was being cocky, douchebag. I was going to rob this mother of her. So I tell him I needed a quarter kilo of heroin. Tell him to meet me in Detroit in the city. And I'm parking out behind a restaurant. Pull up next to him. Get in a car.  I throw it in my backseat. I hand him $20,000, right? We're still talking, you know, between two cars. And he stuffs the money in his inside pocket.  And he looks at me. He's like, are you serious, bro? I said, dead serious, bro. Don't make this be your last day. You can make it up. And I got the gun on it. Give me the freaking jacket. What the frick, man? He starts pulling off his jacket. But as he slips off his jacket, he pulls the pistol out and starts firing. God loves me. I know that. He starts firing like as he's raising the gun. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. So first round, the shot hits the ground. Second shot hits me in the shin. Third shot hits the pocket of my leather jacket. I found it later. The bullet. So I got 25 or something. I actually went and wrapped around and came on this side. So this is my pocket. And then I figured it out. And then the fourth shot jammed. So he had me dead to right. He comes out of his jacket. And as he handed it to me, I grabbed the jacket. And also he's like, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And then it jams. Right when he gets like my chest, it jams. And I have my gun. So I just, I raise my gun and his eyes get big. And he takes off running. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. I start shooting at him. And he runs off. But I take the jacket and I get away. That's certainly one of a scariest moment. I'll give you my scariest moment, though. The scariest moment is, and this is a good story, is, when I was about 20 years old, 21 or so or something like that, I had this cousin, a straight lace like kid who lived in the suburb. Thought he was a mobster. You know, they all, all these young kids, they all think they're like, because they're related and they have a name. It's a mafia name. They're like, I'm a mobster. He's selling Coke crack in the suburbs, way out in the suburbs. And he calls me one day. He says, hell, I got an emergency. I tried to rock up an ounce of Coke and I can't bring it back. You know, I don't know if you know about rocking up cocaine, but it's, it's, it's a process. And I'd seen it done. I had guys seen it. I seen people rock up Kilo. So I said, don't move. I'll be there. I'm on my way. I jump in my ninja. I shoot over there. He lives in a nice neighborhood like five, six miles from me. I get there. I said, give me a soda. We'll heat it up. We ended up pulling back like three quarters of an ounce of crack. Right. I said, what are you doing with this crack? And he says, I'm selling it, man. I'm moving out here. I got to sell the crack out in the suburbs. Yeah, bro. Every day, all day. He says, I'm like, how much you paying for Coke? He's like, I'm paying fricking 1,100 bucks an ounce. I said, bro, I can get it to you. I'll get it to you for cheaper, man. I'll give you a thousand. It'll be better. Better Coke. He says, all right, cool, cool. And I said, you can buy hard, which is rocked up or whatever you want, 700 bucks for the rock already or 1100 for the, or a thousand for the powder. He's, you know, and he wanted rock. So I go in the ghetto. I'm down in the ghetto. I got all these friends who buy weed for me because I've been a weed dealer for years now.  So I got weed houses open and stuff like that. And I stayed in these guys and I got connections. I said, I need an ounce of Coke. They're like 700 bucks. You know, so I'm like, all right, cool. I'm going to buy an ounce of two here and there. So I start buying ounces of Coke from these black dudes all the time. And this is crazy, man. And then so I'm going back and forth to sell them. And one day I come to get this.  It's not a lot, but it's easy. So one day I'm waiting in the car for this guy, my dope dealer, the cocaine guy, it's black dude. He gets in the car. He goes, I've got to have 850. I'm like, I'm not paying 850. You know, he's like, I need 850. I'm not paying it. Now they know I got a gun. I always have a gun. I carry a gun right here. It's out. They know that. I'm in my girlfriend's car because my car was too flashy. I didn't want to drive down there in the hood in a flashy like jeep with kickers and tinted windows and stuff. So the guy says, I didn't, I said, I'll pay 750. That's it.  I don't know why. I've been dealing with them for freaking six months and they just decided they're going to rob me. I don't know why. And so they have a crack house across the street and I see some dudes in the windows. They're all looking around and looking. I start getting nervous, man. I start the car, put the car in neutral, right? I back, I back up. So if I have to take off, I take off.  He's like, one second, he comes out and he comes out, gets in the car. The guy looked like Grant Hill, a basketball player. Anyone who knows who that is, a famous Detroit basketball player. That's who we reminded me of. He gets in the car. He says, I need 800. I said, bro, I'm not paying 800. I go around the corner. I got five different guys. I get it for 700.  And I hear, don't move, motherfucker. And my reaction was they were joking. Like, because I've been dealing with these guys. I think it's kind of a joke. Like, they're just kind of like, oh, got you kind of thing.  And the guy goes to rack around why he didn't have one in the chamber. I'll never know. But he goes, and it goes to rack one in the chamber and it jams. So he's like, don't move, motherfucker. And I look and he's like, in a jam. At that point, I look over at this guy to see if he's got it. So I all at one motion instantly. I knew my life was on the line. And one motion I reached up and I grabbed his hand with the gun was pulled my gun and I was looking at him to make sure he didn't have a gun, but he dives out of the car thinking I'm going to shoot him. And I got this guy. He's trying to wrestle. I got his hand with the gun. I put the gun out the window. Bang, bang, bang, bang. Drop a couple shots. His hand goes limp. The pistol falls into my back seat. I throw it in gear. Pull off. I get about a house, couple of houses away here. One gunshot. Boom. Just one. And I get so mad. I swing up in a driveway and I'm aiming and it's like four of them out in front of this house now. And the one dude is on the ground because he's crawling behind the car. And I start aiming. Bang, bang, bang, bang.  But I didn't take off. But really, that's not even the craziest one. The craziest one was when I got stabbed and hit and had with a baseball bat and sent the same kind of neighborhood. I was drug dealing with this guy. And got into Lorenzo.  I liked. He was a good dude. He had my back. Solid guy. And I was going to pick up some dope. I was selling heroin at the time. And I see him and his brother in the corner with some dudes in front of a house. So I pull up, jump out. I'm in a Mustang. I jump out. I'm like, yo, what's up, Lo? And the guy on the porch, one of these guys, stocky black dude, real black.  And I say, hey, man, it's cool, man. This is my boy. Lorenzo's my boy. And Lorenzo says, oh, it's good. He's all good. He's good people. That's my boy. He's not giving up who he is.  I said, hold up, man. I'm not the guy.  Nothing, you know. And so he comes over with a bottle. He's got a big, freaking 40 ounce bottle. He goes, and he's circling me with this bottle. Because my voice, he starts coming towards me. And my voice says, don't do it. That white boy will put you in an EMS, the hospital. That's what he said.  He ain't the one. And he's after them. I said, let him go. Lo, come on, come on. So we're in the square off in the street. And he's circling around me with this bottle. He's going to try and, I know he's going to try to smash it in my face. He's like, what's up? What's up? So he tries to smash his bottle off me. I duck it.  It bounced off of me and broke in the street. But it left a cherry on my collarbone. And it hurt for like a year or so. So I, and I spin back like this. And I come back, wham, jaw shot. You know, just wham, knock him out, one punch from him. And he goes straight down. And his boy's like, what the frick? And then I should have left it. I should have just left it at that. I knocked that guy out. I proved my point, whatever. But instead, I'm going to be a tough guy. So I get on top of him and I freaking pound him, bro. Pound him bad.  So the next day I go to Lowe's house is just down the street, by the way, from this dude. I, I, I beeped the horn. His friend Pat comes out. He says, uh, Lowe's eating. He'll be out in a minute. And then he says, you shouldn't have done what you did, bro. I'm like, what? He's like that guy down the street. He's crazy. He's like, we don't even deal with him. He's a lunatic. You know what I'm saying? We don't sell him dope. I'm like, that's what I'm supposed to do. So he said, I'm saying the bad guy's bad news. So I'm sitting against the front of my car, just chilling. And with this guy Pat waiting for Lowe to come out. And all of a sudden, bang! Something hits me in the back of the head hard. And it's shocking.   He stars.  And I, as I turn around to look, this guy's got a baseball bat. He's wound up with this bat. And he just cracks me right across the head right here. Splits my head open. I still got a big scar there. And it knocks me back against the car.  God forbid if you have. But in my mind, he was trying to kill me. So in my mind, I got to kill him. That's how I reacted. So bang! It's the car. I'm just trying to kill me. Oh, by the way, the bat went broke over my head. It broke. And I heard it bouncing down the street. And I could wrap it around my head. And I heard clink, clink, clink, clink. And I see it flying down the street.  So I turn around. I grab him by the throat as hard as I could. And I tackle him. I don't punch him. And I get on top of him. And I start, actually, with both hands, I'm crushing his throat, crushing. It was gnarly, bro.    Man, you work out. You got strong hands. Imagine if you tried to squeeze somebody's neck as hard as you could, just as hard as you could. Dude, blood squirting out of the guy's nose, mouth. He's choking. He knows he's dying.  Now, and you can't do nothing about it. So his boys start kicking me, right? And they're kicking.  I don't let go. I'm still pounding. This guy's that. Another one, they say, punch and kick me a few times. I won't let go. But out of the corner of my eye, I see a guy coming with a two by four. You know? And I'm on this guy. I'm trying to kill him. Blood's all over. This guy's out now. He's not even conscious. And the guy comes up with this two by four, and he's like winding up to hit me in the back of the head.  I get up and run. I run so fast, I run out of my shoes. So it's summertime. And by the way, I got a preference. This was the worst ghetto in Detroit. Detroit's got a lot of ghettos. This is probably the worst one in the whole city. Very bad area. There are no white people. I was out of place.  So I run. These guys chase me. And I'm jumping fences through backyards. Like about every third house is an abandoned house, you know what I'm saying? And some people got rockwilders and pit bulls in their backyards. And I'm running barefoot. I'm jumping these fences. These guys are chasing me. I'm running for my life, so I'm terrified.  I was hurling these fences, going right over them.  So I get to, I run like three, four, five blocks. It's a crazy story. I get about five blocks, and I'm out of breath. I'm in an abandoned house backyard behind the garage. And this is just got dark out. So it's like about 10 o'clock in the summer. No shoes, no shirt. I have no shoes, no shirt. I'm bleeding everywhere, man. Oh, by the way, I got stabbed. One of the guys stabbed me. So while I was on the dude, one guy ran up and he stabbed me. And luckily when he came from the side, it went in like on an angle. So it didn't like penetrate. So it came through here. I got lucky, just nicked along.  And so I'm sitting him on the side of this house, breathing. You know, just what the frick just happened. And then I heard his gunshot and I'm like, I had a friend who recently had been killed, beat up and died. And I remember thinking to myself, I wonder what he was going through with those last minutes. Like, what was his, going through his mind as he knows he's dying.  And I go, man, I know what it feels like now. This is what it feels like. And then I said to myself, no, I don't want my girlfriend to get that call. So I just said, I'm not going to. So I got up and I jumped a couple of fences and started walking down the street. I'm covered in blood. I mean, just covered in blood. And I actually saw my car drive by. So as I'm hiding, I see my, I left the keys in my car, man. I left the keys like a dummy. Scooboyeta. Stupid, man. And now I see my car drive by. I think it's them, but it's not. It's Lorenzo and his brother and they're looking for me. They're driving around looking for me. And he ran them off. He shot it, shot at them. They were coming to burn my car with gas. They broke it back window while they were dunking gas and he come about to get away from my boy's car. And they said, man, up that way. But he shot a shot at a bang. That's why I heard a shot. Boom. And they, they took off. So, and then they were driving looking for me. But I didn't know. I thought they're trying to find me to kill me. So I jumped a couple of blocks. I'm walking down the street and I'm so thirsty because it was a hot summer day. I just ran like six blocks. I've been stabbed. So I'm losing all this blood. So I see a faucet on the side of a house. So I'm going to walk over and try to get a drink. Right. And I go right over. It don't work. Right. And I hear some lady go, hey, get away from my house. Hey, get away. And I stand up. I said, I'm sorry, ma'am. I just wanted some water. I just wanted this black lady. Right. It was an angel. And she was running over from across the street. And she says, what happened to you? You're getting a car accident? I said, no, I got jumped.  Come on. Come here. She walks me up to her house. This is where it's crazy. I remember the house. They had a white and green house, baking a lot next to it. Green awning, green chairs.  Because this is where all the blood was pouring out. She didn't know I was stabbed because everything's covered in blood. She put that over your head. I called an ambulance. I ended up passing out. That was it. I probably was out for 20, 30 minutes. And then an ambulance came and it took me to the hospital and they stitched me all up. And this doctor named Dr. Whedon, he did plastic surgery on my head. He said, you need to sign a waiver because I'm not certified to do that type of surgery.  And I'm like, yeah, do it, man. I'll hook it up. I was in a lot of pain. My leg hurt the worst. The interesting part about this story, bro, is I survived. My girl comes, they called my girl and said, I'm in the hospital emergency. She was coming and screaming and crying. She's not supposed to be back there. She goes running. There's orderly chase in her. She goes screaming. I'm fine. I'm fine. They wouldn't tell me. They wouldn't tell me what was wrong. They just said, he's in emergency room. Is he alive? And he's alive. That's all I can tell her. And she gets there. I just want to go take a bath, man. My leg hurt from where they hit me the two by four. Yes, I had a headache from the bath. So a couple of days later, bro, I went to go. First of all, the next day I took that doctor out to lunch. I said, thank you for doing what you did. And then a couple of days later, I went to try to find that lady. That house couldn't find it, bro. Went up and down every block, every block, every block. Couldn't find that house. And still in this day, I think she's an angel, man. It was an angel song. I wanted to thank her. I just wanted to say, thank you for that. What age were you then? 21, 22. So you're still young. What's the biggest regret you've had in that life?  Being a bad guy. It's not to be proud of. I do these interviews like this to kind of promote my books and my apparel and the things that I'm working on.  I could have went to school. I could have started a business. I could have got a job. I could have whatever. But in my mind, none of that was an option. You know, I was raised around these criminals and they always had an angle for everything.  You know what I'm saying? Hustle. I could always hustle money. There's always a different way. So I regret that part.  Screams and shows and people. Well, I have dreams. Yeah. I have dreams. I have dreams that mostly when I'm back in prison, dreams about prison. But, but I, I regret all that, man. I regret that. The thing is, bro, James, what people didn't know about me is I was this really like a savant. You know, I had this creative mind. Nobody knew I was just like correct. I used to read books. I'd be sitting at the dinner table. There'd be mob guys there and they'd go, hey, reading a book. You know, it was a tough guy. All you do is fight and get in trouble. Dude, I got eight felonies by age seven. Pipe bombs, fighting, felonies assault, stolen property. I'm seven and then the steroid bus.  Trouble fighting. Everybody in the family knows it. They all know it's like screwed.  So, but nobody knew that I had this gift as a writer. So I regret not tapping into that, that, that, you know, the talent that I had as a young man. Nobody tried to push me to go to school or try to use my talent or gift. They're just, I was thrown to the wolves, you know, just like whatever. So, yeah, I have, I have a lot of regrets. But the thing is, you know, I live a good life now. So I try to. Yeah. What age did you go to prison? I was 29. Yeah. What was that for? And how was your life like before that?  Were you just lost? Were you drinking, taking drugs or anything? I did use drugs towards the end. And that's what made me crazy. Yeah. I lived a good life all my 20s. I never went to prison. I got busted with, you know, 15 pounds of weed and did like five months in jail. Other than that, I've caught cases, but I beat them, you know, with lawyers and stuff there. Couldn't get me. I have to tell you about New York. Don't let me forget that. In any ways, I, uh, Let's talk about New York now. Well, okay. So this, let me finish about that. My whole 20s, I lived a pretty normal life. I had a girlfriend.  I'd go hunting and fishing. But I was a gangster. I did criminal stuff. That's all I said. I'd leave the house in the morning. My girl didn't know where I was going. Like I just, I'd leave and say, like, where are you going?  So I ended up at 29 years old. This is a funny story. I, my girlfriend, I had put a shirt and a suit on like this and again, ready to leave the house. I put a pistol in my waist and he just said, it's bill day. You know, I need to pay the bills. I'm like, what your half is 2,200. We got to pay taxes. I pull out my knot. I only got $700, bro. And I don't have any dope. So I was going to go buy some dope with that because I was out there towards the end. So I said, all right, listen, I'm going to go to the bank and pick up the rest of the money. I'll be back in a minute. And I kissed her and she kind of looked at the gun, looked at me and I'm like, yeah, I got a gun. So I went to the bank and I put a fake bomb in the bank, then walked out, got in the drive-thru, drove through the thing and said, listen, there's a bomb in the bank. I need $75,000 out the window in the next 90 seconds. So the bank goes bomb. The bank goes boom. And I said, I detonated with this.  And I throw it. I know it's not $75,000. I think it was like, I don't know. It wasn't that much, like $20,000. So I say, yeah, I'm good. I got the money, right?  Like I get in a high-speed chase. They catch me. I crash. I get out with the money and run. I mean, I'm serious high-speed chase, like 120 miles an hour with like eight cops behind me. And I'm driving like a maniac, bro. I went through a red light and did a Hell Mary. Through a red light doing like a hundred on a side street. Side street. There's a red light. I'm just going, I go, this blow right through the frickin' red light, bro. Yeah, it's crazy. And then I go, so then I go get some dope from my friend. I was going to go back later and get like an ounce, but I just got like a few bundles or whatever. And as I'm getting ready to like snort some, all of a sudden I hear, I hear the cops. And it was at a tracking device in the money. You know what I'm saying? So they knew where I was. They had called off the chase because they're driving, you know, crazy. But they knew where I was. So they kept finding me. I get away. And eventually I crashed the car. I got out and I ran.  Six cops cuffed me. It stomped me out. Like one of them crashed the car or something. So they were mad about that. But anyways, and that was my last day of freedom. It was that day and I went to jail. And then it was a crime spree. So over like a couple of weeks, I racked up 17 capital crime that all carried life. Extortion, bank robbery, arm robbery, more arm robbery, more bank robberies, a lot of them. I beat most of them. There was a kidnapping in there. But the extortion got me the biggest time. I got 13 years for the extortion. Why did you Kamikaze? The bank job? Did you have a mask or anything? No. Were you high on drugs? Yeah. But I wasn't high at the time, but I was using drugs. I just didn't care. I put a little bit of a disguise on. I had a shirt and tie with sunglasses. And I walked in there like I'm going to fill out a bank thing. And I set this orange plastic thing with a bunch of wire sticking out of it on the counter. And I walked out, jumped in my car, drove through the drive through, hit the button and just said, hey, listen, there's a bomb on the counter. And then I give you the money. So I think I'm going to get it. I've done bank job before. I had robbed banks before and got away with it. Just with notes. Walk in, give me the money. They give you a couple thousand bucks to walk out. So I thought it was good. This is my new way to do it, though. I thought it was a great idea. But so they send the money out in a bag. And in the bag, it's a tracking device. I just throw it on the counter, on the seat next to me. And I'm good. I get away. No. Well, so I ended up in prison. But I wanted to tell you about New York, too, because it's interesting. When I was 20 years old or 21, something like that, Tony Jack sent me to collect money from a gambler. He was a young guy. He's only like 21-year-old kid, right? He says, this guy's giving me trouble, man. He's ducking my bookies, what he said. So the bookie that works for Tony called Tony and said, I can't find this kid. He owes me 10,000 bucks. Can you help me find him and get the money? Calls me, because that's what I'm good at. You know what I'm saying? So I ended up going to his house. And then he was hiding, obviously.  I said, well, listen, I knew he was in the military. He had been in the military. I said, listen, I'm an army buddy. I'm with the high school with him. I'm home on vacation. I wanted to see him. I love the guy. She's like, oh, OK. Staying with his dad. Here's his number to his dad. So it's only a couple of miles away. I drive to his dad. It's knocking the door. The kid opens the door, right? I pulled a pistol and I pushed him into the house. I said, listen, man, you're ducking Johnny. You owe him that money. You've got to pay up, bro. And he's just saying how it works. And he's like, I'm going to pay him. I'm going to pay him. I'm going to get listed. You're not answering his calls. You're hiding from him. You moved out of your mom's house. You're hiding. You've got to pay. And at this moment, Income's walking his dad. He's an older guy. He kind of looks like a biker, you know? A big burly guy. And he's like, what's going on? I've got a gun on. Son, you know? And I said, sit down, man. Sit down. Nothing bad is going to happen.  Your son is 10 grand in debt with a bookie. He's got to pay up. And he looks at it and says, what the frick are you doing? I said, yeah. This one I said, Tony Jack sent me. Do you know who Tony Jack is? And the kid didn't know. He's like, no. But the father is like Tony Jack alone. I said, yeah, he was like this to his son.  You know who these people are. You know who you're freaking dealing with. You're going to get yourself killed. I'm like, listen, man. There's got to be a way to pay this off. I'm the good guy. I'm here to help you. Let's get this paid off and get it out of the way. Do you have any assets?  And the guy scratches his head. He thinks, he says, all I have is my gun collection. Now I freak out. I was like, gun collection. I'm thinking, because my dad's a gun collector and there's guns in every room. So I'm thinking, this guy's probably got guns all over the house. Now I'm super nervous. I got this gun on. It's a .357 revolver. And I'm like, listen, bro, if you try to be a hero, I don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to get this debt taken care. Don't do nothing crazy. He's like, no, I'm not going to.  And he's like, I don't know. Probably $25,000, $30,000. I got a couple hundred guns or whatever it was. He says, I got this huge safe. So here's the plan. I said, here's what we're going to do. We're going to take all your guns and then we're going to sell and pay off his debt. You're going to report them stolen and collect insurance money. So you're going to get, you know, and whatever I sell, whatever I make past the 10 grand on the guns, I'll split it with you. So you're going to double dip. You're going to get money from the guns. You're going to get money for it. He says, OK. So he's like, how are we going to do it? I was going to like, I have this huge safe that's bolted to the floor. You know what I'm saying? It's not like somebody could just come in and steal it. I said, we'll rip it out of the floor. Because he says, if I have a safe, like how are you going to steal them? Most of the guns are in the safe. You can't just walk in and open a safe. It's going to look bad. The insurance company is going to think that it was an inside job. They're going to think it was a bullcrap job. So I said, we're going to take the whole safe. So when the insurance company comes, the police come, make a report. So you came home. They broke and kicked in the door. They ripped the safe off the floor and they took it. And so that was the plan. So we end up, I call my uncle. He comes with a van. It takes us like four hours because it was in the gun. It was in the basement. The gun case was in the safe in the basement. So it's so heavy, man. It's like 800 pounds with the guns. So we got a dolly. We're pulling it. I got the dad and the kid helping me get this stuff off. We steal these guns and here's where it goes bad.  I said, I got a bunch of guns for sale. You know, let's have like an auction. So I go to one of this house. He is a vacant house. It's his grandmother's house. He just inherited it. Just ghetto. And I lay out like freaking $10,000 with the guns on the floor.  And they're like, I'll give you $300 for that one. I'm like, $400. So I'm just selling that at $300, $400, $500. I'm getting all this money from these guns, right? And I had to sell all the guns for like $25,000. And I didn't give the dad nothing. I just kept all the money.  So what happens is one of these drug dealers, black drug dealers get caught with a gun. And the ATF says, where'd you get the gun? And he tells my father from some white, some white good, like a good looking young white kid, right? So the cops are like, well, the gun traces back to this dude's father, right? So the gun, they look at the father, they investigate him. And the kid, it's a good looking white kid. So the son is a good looking white kid. So the ATF thinks the kid stole the guns and sold them all these drug dealers, right? No, the kid flips on me and he says, no, no, no. This guy, Al, he did it. He's the one who did it. He extorted me. I owed some money and he made me pay the gun. He told the whole play. But all I had is my first name, Al. And so they're trying to tie it all together. I was in databases and investigation. And I find out there's a warrant for my, or not a warrant, but an investigation. My uncle tells me, you got to get the frick out of here, man. You got to go. So my sister just graduated from college. And she says, do you want to get a house together or do you want to move to New York? I said, perfect. Let's go to New York, get the frick out of here. So I had an alias. I had this fake ID. It was a real ID. Guy kind of looked like me. Guy named John. I won't say his last name. But I had all the information and social security birth certificate, all that. And so I ran to New York and went to Brooklyn and I started a new life in Brooklyn.  You got to work. Job work. I don't know how to frick work. I don't have any skills. What am I going to do? I actually did try to get a job at an import exporter called Yanni Ben Moshe's Alex import exports name of it. I ended up scamming a bunch of money from them, writing myself a fake check and cashing it. And they found it was me and I got fired. I only worked there for like three weeks. So now my sister's like, you got to take some money and take some money in, right? So I'm talking to my uncle Pete. He says, listen, I have some friends in New York. They're friends of ours. You know what that means? So for people who don't know, friends of ours means mafia, but I'm not a made mafia guy, you know, nor is my uncle. But when he said, you know, I have some friends from New York. They're friends of ours. Maybe they can put you to work. I'm like, yeah, give me the number. So I get the guy's number. I come meet him at a club called McManus here in Manhattan, somewhere in Manhattan, right? And I don't know what he looks like. He's just guy named Vinny, right? And I walk in, there's one guy at the bar, this little skinny guy wearing a trench coat and a fisherman's hat. So I'm not thinking this is the guy, the mob guy. He's from the Lucchese crime family. He's a made member of the Lucchese crime family.  He says, he doesn't look at me. You Al? I said, yeah. I said, he says, what do you do? I said, do anything? He says, anything? He's still don't look at me. I said, yeah, I do anything. He's like, anything? I said, yeah, man, I can do anything for the right money. He looks at me, finally looks at me and he goes, anything? You do anything? I said, yeah, man, whatever.  I want you to call them.  They're hustlers. They'll put you in the game and help you make some money. Because he's like, I know you're Uncle Pete. I want to help you out, Uncle Pete. So a couple of days later or a day or two later, I go meet these two guys, little Vinny and Tommy, these guys from Brooklyn, right? And they're dressed like this. So they're little young mob guys. They're like wannabes, kind of. Like they're not mob, but they're like wannabe mob guys. And I sit down in this restaurant with them and they're like, they really like flip it. They're like, they're like way too cocky, right? And I say, what's up, I'm Al from Detroit. And they're like, yeah, Detroit. I heard of it, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yes. What do you guys do? And they're like, man, money's easy. I say, well, how do you make money? He's like, I'll do money all over the place. So I say, like, what? And he says, well, this is what's funny. He's like, we sell black boxes. Do you know what those are?  A black box would steal all the cable channels and you get all the paper views, all the fights, everything for free. And there's $100 for me. So I call back to Detroit and tell these guys, I'm like, I got these black box for $100. I'll give them to you for $300. Everybody's cons of them. But the funniest thing was, I mean, I did some really crazy stuff. I'll tell you about a robbery jewelry store. But the funniest thing was they had this little device. You remember this device where you'd like speak into it and remind yourself, like, pick up milk and away from home from work, right? You'd put it on the little thing. And then after work, you'd hit it and go, oh yeah, pick up milk, right? So they programmed it to make the sound of coins going into the pay phone.  They all had their own little sound. So the guy said to me, come here. I'm going to show you. Call your girlfriend in Detroit. I'm like, call my girlfriend in Detroit. That's going to be freaking 20 bucks. He's like, just try it. So I dial it up. He says, please deposit $14.75. The guy takes the thing, goes brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr, up to the microphone, brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr, brrr. And it goes through. I said, oh my, that's crazy. He's like, every drug dealer I know wants one of these because you're constantly putting quarters in the coin, calling, beeping, whatever. So I said, how much for those? They're like 60 bucks. They last about three months and the battery dies. So I'm selling all these things. But I was, these guys I was working with, they see little petty stuff, you know? I'm like, I need to hit a real score, man.  So at one point they had, they come, this is hilarious. There's a building called Cherry Hill Textile in Brooklyn. The building's probably still there. Maybe they tore it down. I don't know. But it closed like 10 years before. Inside of it was like, I'm not joking. Like at least probably eight or $10 million worth of fabrics, textiles, things that make, you know, whatever, everything. And there's thousands and thousands of rolls, right? And so they said, we can't sell it, but we can get the copper out of the wires in the walls. How can I do that? I'll sell this fabric. So I took it on into my own. It was like below them, these two mob guys, kids. I'm not going to steal fabric to get, I end up getting all the swatches, little samples and taking them to the Garmick District here in Manhattan and say, do you want to buy any of these? I have 100 yards of this. I have 200 yards of that. And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, bring it. So what ended up happening is first we were going in there through a window, but they put a metal thing over it. So I take a sludge hammer and I smash a hole through the wall. It's building, bro. And I go in there, it's pitch black, it's dirty, it's old. And I take all these fabrics and I load them into the plastic rolls and throw them out the hole in the wall, right?  I said, I need a van.  And I said, we got to go pick up some textile behind your aerial textile. And then of course the van pulls up. There's a hole in the wall and all this stuff. And the guy's like, no, no, no, no. I said, man, I'll give you an extra 75 bucks. I'll give you 75 bucks. We got a load in the van. He's like, okay. So they throw it in there. And they take me to the garment district and I go to these textile merchants. And I'm like, here's, and they cash me out, bro. Cash me out. I was making like $800 a day doing it every day. And it was crazy.  They put a big metal thing over the hole in the wall and they had a security guard patrolling. Dude, I said, I made 40,000 bucks. My sister found the money underneath the sink. I had it hidden up there. And she's like, why are you having all this money? You need to give me some. That was her reaction. He's like, you need to give me some of that. I'm like, I don't give you.  But at one point I had, I had this crack head couple, which is funny because it was a very pretty black girl and her boyfriend was very quiet. I don't think he liked me. I knew he had a gun. I said, I'm going to rob a jewelry store. And I tried to get Vince and Tommy to get in on it. Right? I knew I could do it because I cased the place out. Right? And so they're like, no, I don't want to do it.  And I'm from Detroit. It was, I just lunatic. You know, they're not used to that.  And I said, listen, I want you to park the van around the corner and just wait, leave the side door open. And I'm going to go in there and get this jewelry. And when I come running, I'm going to jump in. I'll give you one piece of whatever I get, jewelry. You know, I'm going to get several thousand dollars. So they had these boards on the wall in the jewelry store. They're owned by Asian people. This is in Brooklyn on 3rd Avenue. And there's all this chains. So they got a shorter one, longer one, longer one, longer. And they got bigger and they did diamond cuts. And there's like, there's like $10,000 of gold chains on a board. And I'd been in there before I bought a ring. So they kind of knew who I was.  I was dressed nice then and weren't thinking. But to get in the store, you had to get buzzed in or out.  So you can't just grab and run. Right? So I'm trying, I'm looking at all these chains on this board. Kind of look at what I like. And I'm waiting for someone to come in. You know what I'm saying? Waiting for someone to buzz in. And all of a sudden, like I look, glance over. I'm like five feet from the door.  And I take off running and they jump over the counter and start running after me.  I was a fast junkie at the time. I was some super athletic as fast. I played football. Anyways, I come running around the corner and I dive in the side of this van and we peel off. And I give them a nice chain. It's probably worth like 800 bucks. And so we're driving. And the guy says to me, oh, because he sees what I got. I got $10,000. He said, you got to give us more. I give you more. I told you, give you one piece from the score. I give you one piece. That's it. No, no, you're going to give us more. And he knows I got a gun. He's got a gun. So I'm just like, man, I'm not giving you no more. So when we pull it to like the next light, I just said, yeah, well, whatever. I'm not giving you nothing. I finished the door and I jump out, right? So kind of walking into a Nike headquarters place, like a shoe place and look around. All of a sudden, it turned around. And this frickin chick crackhead chick, she's got a baseball bat. She follows me into the store with a baseball. Don't even have shoes on. She barefoot. This crackhead chick. Pretty chick, though. She's pretty. She can sing really well too, which is crazy. I felt bad for her. Anyways, she walks in. She goes, you got to give us more money. She got this bat. You're going to give us, you're going to give us more of that or whatever.  You got the wrong guy, bro I said I'm from Detroit.   So see when you got your 13 years What was that feeling like was that a relief for you? Yeah You came back because it just seemed as if you were living a hectic life not knowing where you were going smart man, bro You're smart man. You get it. Yeah, no, I didn't enjoy that life.  I actually prayed to God a couple days before this I said father God. I said I'm tired of this life I don't want it and I'm willing to do whatever I have to do to get out of it. I'm willing I don't know what that is, but in my heart. I knew it was prison But I didn't think it'd be that long I think it might be a couple years But I'm prepared and like three days later when I robbed the bank or whatever I got I went to prison and I went to jail and got arrested. I was on a five million dollar bond I was all over the news, bro It was like they made me out to be a monster which I was I guess I was running around freaking the east side Arm robbering places bank robbery places. It was crime-free man. I just took people's cars Just was a nut.  So what you know, I didn't care What was prison like?  Prison's tough, dude.  They're all gonna get you and so I went into it thinking I can or I can be cool or I can try to evolve And like because I discovered this writing when I when I was in the hall discovered this creativity What were you in the hole for? Knocking the guys eye in yeah, the one at the stop. Yeah, and yeah, well say I I went there for 30 days But while I was there I got into it with the cops Coming back from court They're the guy's wrenching on my arm, right? I'm cuffed. I got like six cops around me. I'm a high profile inmate So wherever they whenever they transport me inside the jail There's always like six cops around me because I'm I was listed. It's called very high security risk I don't even know why because my record and stuff that says he's a very high security list So we escort him. I don't I went in my own cell.     I'm cuffed.   I'm like, maybe I can survive this You know, maybe I can get through this and so I at that moment. I decided I'm gonna change I'm gonna try to be a better person. I'm gonna I'm gonna do the right thing In prison and and just change. So I kind of stuck to myself in prison. Why do you think you were so angry? It's a good question man. You ask good question. Um, I think I was angry at the world for because my childhood was so messed up Do you not see a mother at five years old or something?     Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I lack of love Lack of love and and I think the other thing was too that I'm half Sicilian on my mother's side And I was told by like my uncles that you can never really be part of the family because you're not pure Sicilian Or Sicilian on your father's side So you can't like you're not good enough. That's kind of how I said that's kind of the premise for my book Did you always feel like a new state though? Yeah, yeah, and I had to prove myself So I felt like I had to prove myself Like I said the premise for my book to be a king is about a half Sicilian dude But he's half Sicilian on his father's side But his family got to look down as their nose at him because he's you know, half-breed and he's not pure like them They call it a fetto which means defective So I always saw my thought my cousins and my uncles and all these men kind of looked at me like He's he's the fetta. You know, he's defective.  He's like, I want you to put a guy in the hospital I just stumped a guy out and then I robbed him.  I said you do this put him in the hospital I said, I mean I might as well rob while I'm at it, you know, I'm saying and he's like what I'm just saying I I like did that for acceptance, you know, I'm saying I was trying to get the acceptance of the people that I guess I looked up to which were scumbags You know, I'm saying so the the crazier I acted the more violent that I acted The you know, the more they like I'd be in the club with my cousins, right? Good-looking guys always dressed nice.    So these cousins would be like So what was the moment in prison when you decided and off son off? I'm tired. I'm drained You're always running out of prison try to live day by day. What was the moment? What was the light bulb moment for you? That was the moment when I was in the hole when I was after I got jumped and beaten I was just like, man, this ain't the life I want. This is not who I am, man All my life I've been pretending to be somebody else I've been trying to be somebody for for everybody else In reality, I like to think I was a nice guy and I liked people I enjoyed people I enjoyed talking to a medium of a funny guy People like me if they got to know me but very few people got a chance to know me Because my reputation was like he's a crazy guy, you know, he's a gangster He's a crazy criminal nobody I walk into a room. You can hear the din change You know, I'm saying everybody's talking and I walk in and what's that guy? And they'd see me freaking knock guys out. They see me smash people I pull guns I got I pull the gun on a guy in a club one time Who was over a drug deal go bad.  So the guy you got a weed from calls me says you owe me for the pound It's not paying you bro. You know who this is. I know who you are I knew the guy so we do him years ago. He wasn't a tough guy He wasn't a gangster. He was pretending to be a gangster on the phone talking crazy to me.  So I come to his house It's a dude answers the door dudes in like a three-quarter link trench coat Opens the door and he says points to the thing and the guy's sitting at the end of the table Like he's a mob boss, right the guy who's weed it was And I it says sit down so the other guy sits down pulls out a pistol sets it on the table He says you owe me a thousand bucks for that weed.  He's a murderer And I don't know if that's gonna kill me. So I cool. I said, all right, bro It's not that serious, bro.  He's like, yeah, go get my money Say, all right, cool.  I said will you bring him to point billiards? Which is like a pool hall that turned into a club at night.  I go cool with that. Well, she was a descendant of the mafia too So she was like her family's mob too. So she knew the deal. She knew to play I said, bring this guy to this this club.   Then I smashed him on the ground. I'm choked up Bang bang bang and I pull a pistol and there's like 50 people in here So it's kind of early in the night.  He's mangled.   He's gonna.  He was a gangster And I'm just smashing.  No, no, no, no, no It's the opposite. So so I was you probably wanted to be the opposite but your actions Proved differently as well. Yeah with the fight in the ceiling the robin. Yes. Yes I agree and I have a shame to that and I'm sad about when I only people like like I was a bully's bully I hated bully. So you know this type of guy. You're in the club, right? And you see guys, I don't know like we have the club circuit on east side So there's like 10 clubs we all go and you see guys from other neighborhoods all the time You kind of know who they are and also you seem one starting to get bigger and bigger and bigger So he's on steroids. He's juiced up. He's getting bigger He's walking and he used to be kind of a timid guy quiet Just you know hit on the girl whatever now he's in the club talking loud acting tough He's like smacking his own homeboys in the head like you know, I'm watching him I'm like smile effort. Thanks because he's you know, put a little muscle on He's a tough guy and that bothered me, bro That bothered me bad And then so what I would do is like if there wasn't a lot of girls in the club And I wanted to go I told my guys let's go. Let's go. Let's go.  I like knock his drink out of his hand. Boom. The one who's been acting tough And fricking I knocked her out and what even they they usually would say oh my bad big dog You know my bad my bad and if they did that I'd say sorry bro.  You ain't one of them.  This is our city You have to pay a piece if you're selling selling 10 pounds a week you got to pay us a pound That's how it worked, but we have friends in the cops and we have judges and stuff like that So if you ever get in trouble, you know, we'll we'll help you get out of trouble. We'll know if there's an investigation I'll tell you listen you got this guy you're dealing with he's a rat. You know, I could find all this out So I'm gonna help you But you got to pay me, you know, a thousand a week or a pound a week So that's a form of bullying, but that's just a typical What was the what's the worst thing about prison?  I want to be a writer. I live a normal life I want to be a good person and you're surrounded by maniacs and lunatics and rapists and murderers and killers And it's so violent and everybody around is angry The racial gangs are really bad, you know, because they You know, it's a lot of weakness in prison the guys come to prison and they join gangs right away They join a religious group islam or they join gangs regular gangs, whatever And they're all joined gangs who strengthen numbers. They're scared, you know, I'm saying so I kind of understand it If they're weak, you know the joint gang I didn't I never would never did and that's the thing in prison Guys like me were seen as either crazy Or or bad mother efforts, you know, I'm saying and I guess I was kind of a little both People say this guy walks the yard alone all day. He ain't got a gang.    It's difficult man. How's it been?  Yeah, that's what I was talking about earlier. Yeah The publisher the chicken worked for the publisher fell in love with me through letters And committed her life to me and waited almost seven years for me to come home Was that the first time you'd been in you'd felt love? No, I loved my first girlfriend I was with the first girl for 20 years. So I was with her 13 years before I went got locked up We were engaged to get married.   I can't get needs as well, but for me She wasn't the one. No, exactly. That's what I said, bro This was a good woman, man. Her name was Ramona. She was a very good woman And uh, she'd send money and come visit me and all that but all sudden All in like a few months. He stopped answering his phone as much not seeing me And I'm like, oh, she got a boyfriend.  And I'm like, but you have a boyfriend. She's like, well, I'm like, listen Then she starts crying. She says what you don't even want to be friends I'm like, no, I don't want to be friends Like if you can't wait for me and others, you know six seven years, then you're not the woman for me I'm sorry. I apologize for putting you through this, you know, I just I'm sorry But the woman for me would be the one who's willing to wait for me But if you're not, God bless you have a great life Make sure he's a good man.  You're dating. He better be a good guy Because if he isn't we'll be back and she's like, no, no he's a good guy So I just click up the phone click the phone. I never talked to her again This this chick that I've been with for 20 years So I get it. It's very dark place, bro. Like I'm in a dark place at this time. I mean, you have a suicide though No, no And not at the time just dark very lonely and sad I just written my sixth novel which is the one to be a king So I kept myself busy writing and I had very excited about my writing because everybody in prison loved it They're all just like, dude, you're the freaking best writer I've ever read over over and over and over and over Hundreds of guys are saying this so I'm super excited about it. But um, was that your therapy rating? Yes, it was my therapy 100 and that kept kept me sane. But this is where it's interesting is I'd only been like broken up with my girl for about six months When this chick from the publisher sent me a letter and said I read these sample chapters online I'd like to read your manuscript. I didn't know who she was The irony is she was actually from my neighborhood, bro And I never knew her she was this nerdy chick. This kind of like quiet nerdy book reading chick Not work for publisher in new york and so anyways, I I fell in love with her and that was how I got over my my last love and I was able to Came she came into my life and I told her this I said when you came into my life I was in the darkest grayest Point in my life. This sad even my boy prison my best friend in prison with a pimp from chicago His name is henry davis. He just got out after 19 years And uh, I supported him for years when he was in there after I got out But he's like, oh, you're not yourself, man. You're not acting yourself. You just something wrong I said, what do you meant the freak?  Why don't I start a facebook page for you? This is my friend on the phone, you know, I'm talking to a guy at home my cousin joe I said, uh, what's facebook and he tells me and I'm like, oh, I see it on tv He's like, yeah, I'll start a facebook page for you and And maybe connect with some girls from the neighborhood or some old friends or whatever And I'll put samples of your book up.  I don't even know what I like I know what they are, but I never I don't know how to work the hand me an iphone They give some gifts and you want to just hook me up. Sorry. Now. We're going to take you up to maria maria's five hours north at our house Cooking this massive feast oxtails and turkey and this all this stuff everything I asked for Pecan pie out of this and I drive up there and we have this feast It's actually a super emotional moment because I tricked her. She didn't know when we were going to be there exactly And so I told them to drive by the it's not in the woods in the middle of the woods There's nothing there but wilderness I said drive by the house and drop me off and then give me 10 minutes because my boys wanted to video it They were like, oh, I gotta get this on video You like you with maria for the first time as a free man and I said no, bro This is private, bro. This is between me.  I've just been in prison for 13 years This is the most surreal moment. I am in the woods. The sun is shining. It's a blue sky I hear the birds. I hear the insect. I'm standing free all alone It's the first time I've been alone in you know, 13 and a half years and I'm just standing there going Oh my god, I'm free. Like I can't believe this is real, you know And I looked through the woods and I could see maria on the back deck She's in a blue dress and she's sitting there. It looked like she was praying what she was And uh, so I come sneaking up Through the wood and I get I come sneak and walk up and go behind her. I call her birdie That's my name for a birdie. I said, what's up birdie?  I'm just crying and I'm crying and I'm like, I'm not going anywhere You got me. You're stuck with me now.  I can't believe you're here And then all of a sudden my boys come walking around the corner after like 10 minutes And we're still hugged up crying and stuff and there video in it And uh, so it was a real sweet moment and then um, the next day we went to the courthouse in this little town This little tiny town and she written the vowels and a clerk comes in the room court room and We read the vowels and so as they're reading the chicks reading the vowels I'm looking over my boys and they're crying bro. They're crying. I start crying You know I'm saying my girls the girls aren't really even crying I'll do big tough guys, you know, Detroit tough guys everybody's But you know try and so I married my wife, you know, and then I um Right after that I said to my cousin, would you baptize me in Lake Huron? I want to be I want to be a new man. I don't want any remnants of my old self left Would you wash that away from me and baptize me in Lake Huron? So we drove like five miles to this really secluded remote beach and It was perfect. It looked like you're into heat This blue turquoise water was warm and they baptized me in there and I came up I did not want to get out of the water. It was so beautiful. And then I that day I I after I was I started my life. I started my new life after that day and I just Me and my wife had a little bit of a honeymoon period where I was editing my book I was kind of profiting editing the final before I published it and we did camp in and we did a bunch of camp in And a little bit of traveling and just enjoyed life man. It's just out in the woods I had a four-wheeler somebody gave me a four-wheeler. So I mean I had everything. It was it's nice It's beautiful new life. Oh, I loved it. I saw in the woods I trails that went miles Like, you know, you go forever on these trails to the woods and that's what I did every day And then then I published my books seven months later And there was a lot of hype around it because because I on facebook and groups or whatever not a ton of hype But I sold like, I don't know 500 Pre-co-orders, which is pretty good. Yeah 500 pre-orders And uh, and then I went live with it and then just everybody starts going bro This freaking book how many books have you written 10 10 American people buy your books gonna Amazon go to amazon just go to amazon to be a king volume one and two Or you you get my go to my website to the website garner detroit And what about your clothing range and stuff promoter? Yeah, so so right after I launched my books and they kind of shot to the top of the Mafia is a very tough genre to crack. There's a lot of books. I shot to the top I was number 28 at one point, which is huge and um, and I was listed I remember I got suggested next to the godfather So you had a godfather and then in my book like suggestions for people now I looked over and this book suggested next to the godfather. I got a screenshot of it. Oh, that's pretty crazy, bro And I'm by books next to godfather. So yeah, and then I started our thing apparel. So that's our logo um, which is kind of a loosely Um, not loosely. It's a kind of a mafia theme Uh clothing line our thing and for everybody knows who our thing if you don't know what it is It's cosinostra. So the term cosinostra in english means our thing cosinostra is the euphemism for the mafia That's what the mafia calls itself. It's it's our thing and it means, you know So anyways, I started this line clothes. It's tracksuits jackets hats hoodies all this stuff and um and started selling it People started liking I love it people all over the world. I sent it to uk Australia south africa And um, that's our thing apparel.com all the links to everything that I do You can find it at my website gunnerdetroit at gunnerdetroit.com my youtube channel is gunner detroit You can find that I know it's not a huge channel But soon I'm gonna be doing a lot of um, I used to have like 400 shows there But my producer I have a tv series that's in works. I can't really say what that's about But there's a documentary that's being made on me And so what they want me to do is to take down a bunch of these old shows I I kind of self produced them low production value and they're like I want you to rerecord these shows of me telling these stories I I have these crazy stories from my life like the ones I I've told you just a couple of them There's hundreds of them right they want me to rerecord them for my youtube So if you go to my youtube at gunner detroit, um, I have a bunch of those older shows There's still like about 200 of them there But the best ones I'm going to rerecord them while I'm promoting the documentary You know I'm saying so I'll record these like 30 40 minute stories A crazy crazy shit that I did in the street and then like and at the end of it So make sure to check out the documentary on amazon or netflix or whatever So that's what that's what I got going in a tv series Starring armon assante. I'm the lead writer armon assante is a golden globe emmy winning actor Really cool story. It's got a bit of a mob twist to it But it's a really cool story and uh they I was involved in it and they were going to hire a big shot writer And I'm like why wouldn't you give me a shot at it?  I'm like I write is what I do I'm a creator I'm a storyteller give me a chance and this is on a zoom call with the producers and armon assante And all this and they're like they kind of look at each other like dude It's way hard different to write enough. I said give me a chance So I said, okay, so I sit down spend 17 days writing this script I write the first pilot in first two episodes and I hand it to them and I said after they read it We'll do a zoom call. So I'm in this zoom call and armon is reading the script and he's going This is what he says In all my years I've only encountered maybe two or three writers on your level, bro It's like that.  I was like, yeah, that's my first script. They're like, it's unbelievable We have a great script. We're on it's on. He said green light. Let's go I can't wait to play this part and then they flew me out to new york and I his house I spent three days at his house getting to know him and and the character in the script whatever And I came back and did it again another three days. So that's what I gotta go What's the next to the plans for the future brother? Well, the plan for the future is this uh, I I I hope to have this documentary really expose my books That's the plan from the producer's angle The ultimate of the goal is to get my books to be a king made into films, right? This is everybody's goal everybody's read them same thing This needs to be made either a netflix series or a big budget film, right? So how do we do that? Well, we get gunner's story out there and expose his story to get people interested in his story and his book So so yes, he has an interesting story his love story, you know I grew up around the mafia and there's a gangster bad guy and his wife But he also wrote these books and also what are these books about? So you go read your reviews and like people think they're fake. There's no way this book's that good Nobody can write that like, you know, there's these got to be fake reviews. They're all organic I don't know how to fake reviews but anyway, so the goal is to parlay the um the documentary in the scripted tv series Ultimately into a project for the the books, right? And I have a new book called snowman chronicles about two huge cocaine smugglers Some of it takes place in the uk.  Um, and they it's crazy billion dollar operation hedge fund managers politician bureaucrats Saudi oil chic on and on it's all interconnected. So this is a book I'll be releasing in a few months. Oh good for anybody watching gunner who's wanting to get involved in a leaf of cream What advice would you have for them? Don't do it. You know what being honest guy being honest guy work hard Do not it ain't worth it. Nothing's worth it. You mean there's nothing worse Uh, uh worth losing your time. You see I'm saying Prison it's you don't want to go there, you know I'm saying so just just figure out a way an avenue to to make money legitimately Don't be bad. Be good. God rewards good.  That's my advice. Is that a gonna would you like to finish up on anything else? I don't think that should be about it. I just wanted to say Thank you for having me on appreciate you I hope everybody checks out my books to be a king and you can like I said you find on my website gunner detroit And do you have any last questions you might want to ask?   I think everybody has the monster and you do too, you know It's people can either learn to control the beast Or unleash the beast um, you obviously you've controlled it So I wasn't able to control it for a long time But now I can so a lot of people think this guy gunner is still dangerous. He's a bad guy He could be on that nice the freaking guy you ever met Gonna for government time coming on the show Genuinely appreciate that. Yeah, I wish you nothing but the best for the future brother. Thank you. Take care in there God bless. Thanks for having me out brother. Take care