In every hood there’s an individual whose supreme talent seems to be a penchant for murdering others for whatever reason. These individuals are elevated and upheld as heroes in their hoods and for good reason. “He went home in the late 80’s and looked out for all the men he left behind,” Sop-Sop says. “He did what he had to do to survive as a man in the streets.” And those things included terrorizing the streets of D.C. with homicides, shootings and armed kidnappings. It was in the heavy drug trafficking areas of Drama City where Silk plied his trade and made his name. Silk was a master philosopher when it came to that street shit. He played the streets like a game of chess. He was more than feared. “People feared Silk because he was said to have a lot of humps in the ground. People didn’t only fear that, they feared the fact that Silk got away with the shit he did.” Manny says. His reputation itself put an end to any investigations or court cases against him. Sop-Sop explains it another way, “I don’t think it was fear, but the possibility of what Wayne can manifest.” The dude was unpredictable. He kept people off balance and witnesses in check. Nobody knew what to expect. Maybe not even Wayne himself. That’s what made him so dangerous. In a world of ups and downs, betrayals and double-crosses he reigned king.
“He knew how to use fear and mind games real well.” E says. “He was one man that had a large percentage of the masses shook. He didn’t give a fuck what you thought about him as long as you didn’t cross the line. There were a lot of dudes in the streets at that time that were head hitters, but some of them moved on the D.L., you didn’t know they were killers unless you knew them. With Wayne it was a fear thing. Niggas knew he was about murder, it was no secret.” Wayne once bumped into a dude that was like that down Lorton, the dude thought he was still like that on the streets, Wayne told the dude, “You ain’t heard, I run the city.”
He was feared because of the many reasons that set his name to ringing. His name was behind a lot of things that were going on throughout the District. “A lot of people couldn’t understand how he was supposed to be behind so much shit and he was still moving around the city as if nothing was a problem.” E says. When shit went down and the drama jumped off dudes were like, “It was Wayne Perry and them.” He had a whole team of dudes that were very loyal to him. Wayne was the type of dude that if he came up on some kilo’s, he showed love, breaking it down with all his dudes. He might hit 30 dudes off with a couple of ounces each just on G.P. Just to inspire that loyalty to that do or die attitude. His team would go all out for him. No questions asked. They were a bunch of youngsters, and in their eyes Silk was a god.
“On the real, I think Wayne’s name started ringing because he was bussin’ ass. He wasn’t talking, it wasn’t no playing when it came to putting that work in, plus he had some serious killers on his team.” E says. Silk had a whole squad that he could sick on dudes in a minute. Wayne was the type of person that if dude had something and dude was weak or a sucker, then dude wasn’t supposed to have it. It didn’t matter what it was, Wayne was taking it and if dude didn’t like it, fuck it. Wayne only respected men. If a dude was a rat, he wasn’t supposed to breathe, let alone come out his hole. No matter how much money the rat had, spent or flashed or how hard he flossed, that shit meant nothing to Wayne. He was coming to get that. That bling-bling was his. Only integrity and heart counted to Silk. The whole, “he didn’t tell on me thing,” didn’t fly with Wayne Perry. Dudes had to play their position. And if their position was to be up under him and do what the fuck he said, then so be it. That’s how Silk played it. It was all or nothing with him. No half-stepping or in-betweens.
“One day me and Wayne went to pick up a bucket he had parked across town. He used the car to stash stuff in.” Manny says. “Wayne popped the trunk and he had hand grenades, sticks of dynamite and a rack of guns, coke and some more shit. We had this other dude with us too. Wayne threw the dude the keys to the bucket and told him to drive the car back around Potomac Gardens. The dude was like, ‘I can’t drive all that shit back around the way.’ Wayne pulled out his pistol and told the nigga, ‘You better get your ass in that car and take it around the Gardens and if the police pull you over tell them it’s my shit and if they take it I’m a kill your muthafuckin’ ass.’ The nigga got his ass in the car and did exactly what Wayne said. Silk ain’t play no games.” And dudes were wise not to fuck with him or try him in any way, because Wayne was quick to expose a dude and in vicious fashion. “One thing about Wayne, he went at whoever. If you was supposed to be like that and he had to see you he was gonna knock your head off. You would think he was some big 300 pound nigga, but when you see him he is this tall, skinny, funny nigga. Always joking and playing, but dangerous. Niggas didn’t want to be on his shit list.” Manny says.