VIDEO: D Folks Final.mov

REWRITTEN: 2026-05-12 11:51:17

SCRIPT 408 OF 686

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Yo what it do evil streets familia, y'all know the deal we back at it again salute to all my day ones and subscribers for pulling up on the regular, y'all the whole reason this channel blowing up like it is, anybody trying to push their music brand or business get at me evil streets media at gmail.com we could make it happen. Big respect to everybody hitting the cash app too and if you trying to throw support to the channel you can tap in at evil streets TV on cash app everything go right back into the operation, aight let's dive into this street chronicle.

Ghost town, thirty blocks of raw west Oakland legacy tucked just west of downtown but that name echoed way past the bay area, the blocks stayed tight between west grand and west MacArthur from San Pablo over to MLK with the numbered streets running 24th to 37th, on paper it look like some neat little square, in the flesh it was a battlefield, a family cookout, a music video set and a combat zone all wrapped into one, it was one of the most centrally linked sections in the city, from west Mac you could shoot to Frisco, slide through Emoryville or dip into Piedmont in less than ten minutes, telegraph ran along the top, San Pablo the bottom and between all that you had market west and a whole bunch of legacy, Victorian houses stood there like old timers, duplexes and four-plexes leaned on one another like cats that survived a long battle, scattered around them a couple housing authority towers sat like time bombs, peaceful one minute mayhem the next.

Way back before it earned that ghostly title, folks just called it G street, that was until Halloween night at miss Burles crib flipped everything, she was the matriarch, the queen of the block, auntie to MC Hammer and moms to five certified street legends, from her fortress on 32nd and grove now MLK she pushed that premium green, nickel bags to zips and constructed the early blueprint for ghost towns underground money game, her crib ran like a mini supply center, you grabbed your package from her and got your instructions, serve it a block over and if you was really plugged in you got to post up in the abandoned whips in the lot across the way, that was prime territory.

That Halloween function was legendary, heads was in the front room getting lifted, packed to the walls when the power cut, whole room froze up, then from the darkness young tiddy boat shouted out ghost town, ooh and just like that the whole party joined in, repeating the chant through the blackout, when the lights flickered back the dog dance jumped off like some ceremony and ghost town had officially been christened, arrow one of the older burrell boys blessed the hood with his hand sign, three fingers up two down straight from Bootsie Collins funk scripture, from that point on ghost town had an identity, a title, a sound, a symbol and the youngsters they had a battleground.

Their unofficial headquarters was gears liquors, a bulletproofed Arab owned spot with Pac-Man and defender machines by the entrance, they sold weed, boxed each other and dared outsiders to step wrong, if a stranger tried it the neighborhood moved like a pack of wolves, running cats off the block and making statements out of anybody who violated the set, the OGs burrells, palmers, tollins, allens they watched from stoops and corners ready to back their shorties with fifths, words or warfare if necessary.

Ghost town wasn't just about territory pride, it was about bloodline and from early folks whispered that a wiry red head named Durlin Hines was meant to hold the crown, his older brother big camp aka campy doe was already a ghost town icon, a knockout specialist with hands certified by every section from east to west, camp rolled with a crew of straight up warriors, manimo, angie b, sticter, victor, jed, black cliff, titty bow and karate melvin, these was heavy hitters and because Durlin was camp's little brother they all took turns training him, making sure he could throw them from the shoulders with accuracy.

Durlin was different, freckled face, big lips, a stutter that disappeared once his fists started communicating, he stayed getting challenged at school and he stayed sending cats home crying, at Marcus foster middle he had no competition, he ran that school with an iron fist and a wicked smile, during lunch him and his squad would duck out through a cut in the fence, hit the alley and light up or sip on stolen brew, when they wasn't getting high they was getting active, sometimes running up on nurses coming from summit hospital over on pill hill, snatching bags and dipping through the tunnel between telegraph and MLK, that tunnel was holy ground, once you passed through it you was in ghost territory and outsiders didn't last long, a few security guards learned that lesson the hard way and caught a fade trying to chase Durlin and his crew too deep.

But Durlin wasn't just a fighter, he was a commander, when his partner Kevin Fawcett pressed at west lake junior high Durlin didn't just get heated, he got calculated, he rallied the entire Marcus foster student body like a miniature army, they stormed west lake nine blocks deep rocking straw hats and golf gloves like hood camouflage armed with croquet sticks, bats and bottles, they wasn't just fighting students, they was clocking teachers and principals too, it was a full scale ghost town invasion and after that no other school dared test Marcus foster squad, Durlin had turned middle school politics into combat games, at every hoop game after that whether it was card or low or Claremont, Durlin led the charge, win or lose on the court ghost town always won in the bleachers, in the parking lot, fists flew, turf was claimed, bonds were forged, ghost town wasn't for the weak hearted, it was for the chosen, the loyal, the bold, it raised warriors, thinkers, hustlers and hitmen and in the middle of it all stood Durlin, a product of pain, purpose and power, leading the next generation of ghosts through a world that never loved them but would never forget them.

By the time Durlin hit eighth grade the streets had already been whispering his name a few times, that's when he made the choice to jump in head first, start to serve a little tree like the older cats, out of all the seasoned hustlers on the block he looked up to jed the most, miss burrow son and one of ghost towns main shot callers, jed was the one who gave Durlin his first official corner, 31st right behind gears liquors, that was his proving ground, jed didn't play about his young soldiers, if anything went left he pull up on his MB5 mini bike, slide off with the heat on him and put the whole scene back in order, he kept the ghost town weed market under tight control until a shotgun blast to the head changed everything, jed survived but he wasn't the same after, that left Durlin to figure things out on his own and he did just that, he stamped his name on 31st street like a graffiti tag you couldn't wash off.

Durlin's first squad was a ragtag click of loyal grinders, Charlie Brown, Grady Boe, Boss Man, Lil Stoney and Denise, the pretty shorty from the duplex behind the liquor store, her and her moms had a side hustle airbrushing ghost town tees rocking Pac-Man ghosts and street nicknames in wild colors, their stash spot stayed laced behind that house and Denise moved like a quiet storm in a crew full of young lions, most of them didn't even hustle for the money, they just loved the energy, the sidewalk symphony of a boombox blasting freakazoid or Pac-jam, the sunny days soaked in weed smoke and the feeling of being part of something real, that is until things turned dark.

Charlie Brown got caught lacking one night all by himself on the turf, some Jamaicans ran down on him, chased him through the alley, robbed him and left him dead, he was only 14, that murder sent shockwaves through ghost town, after that nobody came outside without iron tucked, the innocence was gone, then Grady Boe got snatched by a decoy, sold a nickel sack to an undercover, took marked bills, it was one of the first things of its kind in west Oakland, the feds used it as a blueprint, that left Durlin solo on the block and his luck started to flip, one weed case turned into two, then three, then four, he got swallowed up by juveys revolving door.

Inside juvenile hall it wasn't no surprise that Durlin made waves right away, the place was packed with wild teens from every corner of the town, north, east and west, but Durlin stood out from jump, he moved different, carried himself with a weight that made older cats respect him, he wasn't trying to prove nothing in there, that was the thing about him, he already knew what he was, the guards noticed it too, that quiet authority, they kept him separated most times because trouble followed him like a shadow, fights broke out when he ate, other inmates tested him just to see if the legend was real, every single time Durlin left them broken or humbled, word spread through the system about the ghost town kid with the red face and deadly hands, by the time he hit the main unit he was already a legend in miniature.

The streets was waiting for him when he came home, jed had held it down on 31st but the market was wide open, the feds had cracked down hard on the whole operation, miss Burles empire had crumbled and ghost town needed a new face, a new energy, Durlin was only sixteen but he had the respect of every OG in the hood, when he posted back up on his corner the whole dynamic shifted, he wasn't the wild young cat from before, he was calculated now, strategic, he understood that ghost town was about more than just moving work, it was about protection, it was about being the backbone of the neighborhood, when the Crips started pushing up from east Oakland trying to claim territory, Durlin didn't hesitate, he mobilized the whole set, from the oldest riders to the young homies, they pushed back hard and fast, made it clear that ghost town was sacred, that you didn't just walk in and claim what wasn't yours, after that Durlin cemented his legacy, he wasn't just a dealer, he was the keeper of ghost town, the general that held it all together.

But power is a poison and it was creeping through his veins, the money came easy, the respect came quicker, and the paranoia that comes with both started eating at him, he couldn't trust nobody, not fully, in that world everybody got an angle, everybody wants to be the king, and when you sitting on the throne everybody want to knock you off, Durlin started moving different, more violent, less forgiving, little disrespects turned into big problems, his temper which had always been sharp became a razor, people around him started getting hurt over nothing, over looks, over words that didn't even matter, his crew started to splinter, Denise tried to talk to him, told him he was losing himself, that the money and the power was changing him, he didn't listen, he was too far gone, the game had him now, it had him whole.

The streets don't let go easy, they squeeze tighter the deeper you go, and Durlin was in deep, by nineteen he had caught multiple felonies, spent more time locked than free, the system was feeding on him like a machine designed for cats just like him, young, gifted, with no real choices, every time he came home he came home harder, colder, less human, the ghost town that had raised him was now consuming him, the same streets that blessed him was now hunting him, his name rang bells but those bells was ringing funeral marches, not victory hymns, people whispered about what he used to be, the young commander who kept the set tight, the general who moved with honor, before the game flipped him inside out.

On a cold November night in two thousand and twelve Durlin Hines was found slumped in a car on 30th street, three blocks from where he first started serving, he was twenty-six years old, the murder was never officially solved, but in ghost town everybody knew the game had finally called his number, the same code that had protected him for so long couldn't save him when his time was up, another casualty, another name added to the list of ghost town legends who couldn't escape, who got swallowed by the very streets that made them.

Durlin Hines represented something deeper than just one man's rise and fall, he was the symbol of a system that builds young boys up just to break them down, he had the intelligence to run empires, the leadership to command nations, the will to shape futures, but he was born in ghost town where the only throne available was one made of blood and trauma, where the only respect you could earn came through violence and drug sales, he could have been a CEO, a military officer, a political figure, instead he became another statistic, another young Black man whose potential was murdered before it could fully bloom, his legacy sits frozen in time on those ghost town blocks, in the memories of the ones who survived him and the ones who didn't, in the empty lot where gears liquors used to stand, in the tunnel between telegraph and MLK where young soldiers still run through scared and dangerous, Durlin Hines and the ghost town he represented teach us one brutal truth, that talent and heart without opportunity is just a longer way to die, and that the real crime ain't never just the murder at the end, it's the slow systematic erasure of possibility that happens every day in neighborhoods like this one, that's the real evil streets fam, that's the real story, rest easy Durlin, the ghost of ghost town, your name lives forever.