In his gaudiest days dispensing heroin across West Baltimore, Melvin Williams made so much money he remembers falling asleep trying to count all of it.

The money was so big, he says, that sometimes he would simply weigh it instead of tabulating it.

His public “Little Melvin” persona was so outsized, he stood there at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Mosher Street one sunny afternoon 40 years ago, 26 years old, and announced the city riots of 1968 were over, and in moments the streets emptied of thousands of people.

But he spent a quarter of a century, a bit here and a bit there while his children grew up without him, behind prison bars.

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He was part of the original cast of drug dealers spreading destruction across the metro area.

Then he helped halt the riots at the behest of a National Guard general, a state senator and a top-ranking city cop.

They knew he dealt drugs; they also knew his street respect.

Later, he heard a city judge, Alexander Harvey, tell him, “Mr. Williams, I am deeply sorry that all I can give you is 15 years.”

Now he sits in a dark, chilly, abandoned warehouse in the 2100 block of West North Avenue, and he declares a new day.

Outside, there are still remnants of the old one. On a bone-chilling morning, scores of nearby men and women gather for hours in the usual street corner hustles.

An old man goes past a corner, pushing a shopping cart filled with used aluminum soda cans.

Across North Avenue, side by side, Uptown Liquors and the Christian Temple Baptist Church each open their doors to welcome their percentage of a battered neighborhood’s business.

And, in his warehouse office, Williams sits with the remnants of his old life and the artifacts of a new one.

This week, he says, marks the first time in 40 years he has not been tied to some branch of the criminal justice system. Parole from his last prison stay, which ended five years ago, has expired.

He peers into a computer to examine pages of an autobiography he’s been writing, and he declares it “almost complete.”

Then he glances at a big-screen television to catch moments of a DVD from Black Entertainment Television’s “American Gangster” series. The show, produced last fall, offers the full Little Melvin legend.

There he is, talking about a system that he says forced him into drug dealing. To Williams, it feels like a kind of vindication.

“You know,” he’s told now, “there are rumors that you’re still involved.”

“Of course, of course,” he says. His sleepy eyelids close for a moment.

“I’m the man.”

“What about it?”

“Listen,” he says, “I spent [about] 26 years behind bars. I don’t do anything even remotely resembling crime. I spend all my time now trying to make up for the lost years.”

There’s a lot to make up for. While Williams plied his trade, the drug traffic scarred several generations.

In a few weeks, says Williams, he’ll re-open this darkened warehouse and call it Correct Choices.

He gestures toward a room where computers are spread across a table.

Classes will be offered to area youngsters.

The place also will offer self-defense classes.

A recording studio is being built upstairs.

Williams says he will also talk to youngsters about the pitfalls of drug involvement.

“What can you say to them,” he is asked, “that they haven’t already heard?”

“The truth,” he says. “They want to be tough guys? Here’s what tough guys do. They protect their neighborhood. They let old ladies walk out on the street after dark without feeling afraid. They keep the dealers out of their neighborhood.”

“But how do you stop the drugs?”

“You don’t,” he says. “You can’t. You can’t stop people from getting high if they want. But you can take the profit out of it. What I can do is tell these young people the truth about what happens if they get in the business: ‘Kid, you’re gonna have a great couple of months. You’ll see more money coming in than you imagined. You’ll drive a big fancy car. You’ll sleep with sexy women. But you’re lying there with her, and all of a sudden the door comes off the hinges, and it’s over.’

“You can’t beat ’em any more. They got wires, they got photography that can pick out the hairs in your mustache, they got electronics you can’t imagine.’ ”

Tuesday: Where it all went wrong.

Please send news tips to Michael Olesker at olesker@baltimoreexaminer.com