DEALING FAKE DRUGS CAN'T HIDE ONE MAN'S REAL ILLS

BRADENTON -- William Ben Christopher, "Kenny Bish" to those in the
neighborhood, was on the corner with a friend that night when undercover
officers rolled up.

Everyone knows Kenny. The dopers. The drug dealers. The old-timers who
peddle in gossip. And, yes, the police. At 46, Kenny Bish has come and gone
from the corner at 10th Avenue West and Third Street in Bradenton, but
never really escaped its grip.

Undercover officers jumped out that night in March. They know that corner,
and Kenny was there with a neighborhood guy.

Only that time, Kenny didn't really have crack. Police say he was pushing
fake rock -- dried, hardened bread cut into small pieces that resemble the
real thing.

Kenny has been in jail since his arrest March 4 on the felony charge of
possession of a fraudulent substance. The charge stems from selling fake drugs.

He was sentenced Friday to the time he has already served and could be
released in a few weeks.

Some dealers will make a few extra bucks selling fake drugs. Kenny told
police he did it because he was hard up for money, according to a report.
Selling fake drugs signals desperation because the seller still faces
arrest and also can face retribution from angry, jilted customers.

The fake rock -- beige, wafer-like pieces -- sits in a plastic bag at the
Bradenton Police Department as evidence in case No. 05-16352.

Some of the stuff on the streets is bread, soap or bits of sea shells,
police say. The authorities sometime make their own fake dope to use in
undercover drug deals.

"The best fake crack I ever saw was a dried out McDonald's french fry,"
said Mike Healy, the sheriff's forensic chemist. "Hard to smoke, though."

Ten bucks for a rock, maybe a little more if the buyer is green and doesn't
know any better.

"He smoked real dope," says a neighborhood fella, Frederick Jefferson, who
goes by Shorty. "He ain't gonna sell that."

Shorty showed how a dealer can sell fake rock to an addict.

Here. Here. Take it. The police are coming. Gotta run. It's a good deal.

"Yeah, a good deal on toast," says Shorty, 56, an Army veteran who, like
Kenny, has a few drug possession arrests in his past.

State records show Kenny has been arrested nearly 20 times for drug
possession, battery and theft in cities such as Bradenton, Palmetto, Tampa
and Gainesville.

He was born in New Jersey, according to police records, but his father's
parents in Bradenton took him within a month or so of birth and raised him.
Kenny went to the old Lincoln Memorial High School in Palmetto.

His grandfather was the owner and manager of the local Negro League
Baseball team, the Bradenton Nine Devils.

Thomas Christopher, Kenny's father, worked with juvenile offenders for
years in New York and New Jersey.

He is a feisty man who at 79 talks about how you have to be stern with the
youth, how you have to kick them in the butt sometimes to get them to listen.

His son never did.

Christopher, "Tomboy" to those who know him, is a father not without hope,
but whose patience is paper thin.

"He's a good kid who's been hanging with the wrong crowd," says
Christopher, a member of the Ministers of Justice, a group of men that
meets regularly with the police chief to discuss community issues. "He
constantly does it, standing there on the corner selling that crack rock."

Christopher, a veteran of World War II, curses the way his son lives,
saying Kenny deserves another cell if he doesn't straighten out.

Kenny, who has two teenage daughters, was last released from prison in
November 2003 after serving time for a crack cocaine charge. He was behind
bars between October 1997 and July 1999 for a Hillsborough County theft
conviction.

Christopher has watched his son on the corner, hustling to cars, glancing
around and rummaging through shrubs that hold the stash.

One time, Christopher jumped in a car with a friend and looped around the
neighborhood.

They pulled up on the corner.

Kenny leaned in.

"Aw, daddy," his father recalled his son say.

Christopher lit in to him.

"What the hell are you doin'?" he said. "I'm sittin' in the house watchin'
your ass."

Father and son haven't talked to each other since Kenny last got locked up.

"I done talked to him all his life," he says. "You've got to pick yourself
up. You have to be hard, man."

His son wrote a letter to the judge presiding over the case, pleading that
he has been wronged.

But his father said he is on the side of the judge.

"I was advised to be cooperative and truthful and if (the) substance was in
fact not real I would not be arrested," Kenny continued. "I cooperated in
full and was laughed at and insulted to a great extent."

The night before his Friday court hearing, Kenny lost his right glass eye
at the jail.

He was worried the authorities wouldn't find it, his attorney said. But
they did, in a drain pipe, later that morning.

"He has his artificial eye back, and all's well that ends well," sheriff's
spokesman Dave Bristow said.

Kenny will walk a free man soon, but he won't be able to drive for two years.

A judge denied him that privilege in finding him guilty of the fake drug
charge.

Kenny's dad says his son will have a place to stay when he leaves the jail.

It's a small house, cluttered, with photographs of family members on the walls.

The corner is just a block away.