I've always been basically a loner, a quiet guy, always been basically a loner.
I got buddies that I fish with, I got buddies that fly pigeons with, I got nobody to take
home with me. That's the way it is.
I'm a Brooklyn boy. I was born and raised in Brooklyn.
Before people didn't come to this neighborhood, this neighborhood was terrible.
But to me, this is my life, you know, I don't plan on going no place.
I've been in a pet store 19 years. A friend of mine had a store years ago in
East New York on Pickin' and Saratoga, and I used to go there and help him.
I was a bricklayer and work was getting slow, so I decided to open up a pet store.
I'm an animal person. I like the animal better than I like you.
Animals is very faithful. You think people are your friends.
Next thing you know, they're talking about you or whatever.
When I first started this pet store, I started with pigeons.
Just pigeons and pigeon food. As the neighborhood changed, and I changed.
That's where I'm at today. I got a little bit of this, a little bit of that.
I used to rush home to go and fly my pigeons, you understand?
I was 10, 11 years old. I started messing with the pigeons.
And I've been in it ever since.
It kept me out of the street, man. Whenever the neighbor was bad, I'd go on my roof.
The only problem I had when I was younger, if I didn't go to church with my grandmother on Sunday,
because the pigeons was on the roof, I had a problem.
And back then, things were so bad, I had like three orange crates.
I used to put all my pigeons in there and take them down the house and lock them inside,
because people were stealing your birds left and right.
You get to know your pigeons in the coop. There's 200, 300 boxes in there.
I can tell you just about where every bird was going.
Trying to see that bird.
There's a street rat.
There's one bird up there that don't belong to me.
And if he came down, you'd see the difference.
I have a certain type of pigeon. I got flights and tegas.
Some guys, you can go on your roof, they got all kinds of pigeons.
They don't care. They just want pigeons. They want to catch birds.
But that's what we do. We mix each other, try to catch each other's birds.
The roof is always the same. The roof is always relaxing.
Always relaxing. The best.
I don't drink. I don't smoke. I've never been higher than day in my life.
So it's my relaxation. It's my enjoyment, man.
With the pigeons, you just keep flying them, man.
The pigeons are kind of fading down because people buy a house.
They don't want to put a pigeon's coop on the roof because they don't want to hold in the roof.
But if they put the pigeon's coop on the roof because the kid wants to fly the pigeons,
when they call to the roof, he's there.
When he doesn't have the pigeons, they don't know where he's at.
And then when he gets in trouble, the money that you're going to spend on the roof,
they don't know where he's at.
If I find a kid that wants to fly the pigeons, I usually start them off or help them out.
If he wants to start right now, I could give him 100 birds.
I don't need the money for that. I don't care about the money.
Get a kid a chance, that's all. Get a kid a chance.
If you get into it, you never want to get out of it.
I don't know how to say this. It's untold, it's unspoken.
Thank you for watching.
