No one, least of all Taco, could believe that I was going home. I found it hard to believe myself, especially after the homicide detectives had searched my cage, confiscated letters, and made their threat of gassing me as they left. Since I had been acquitted in trial, I knew that the district attorney could not refile the charges for the murder and attempted murders. I was, however, worried about the D.A. notifying homicide that I had been acquitted and then having them come down and book me for yet another murder. When I was let out of my cage for release, I went first to Taco’s cell and held counsel with him. He was my road dog and now would be in charge. We talked softly through the bars.
“Yeah, homie,” I began, reaching through the bars to grab Taco’s hand, “I’m fin’ to sky up and go get bent. Shoot up a gang of them snitchin’-ass Brims and get some pussy, ya know?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right, cuz, go on out there and handle that shit. If you run into my big homie Honcho, tell cuz to get at me.”
“Righteous,” I said, looking now into Taco’s eyes. “Damn, cuz, I kinda hate to leave you in this muthafucka. But I know you gonna be firm and do what you gotta do. But cuz, watch that fool Mike ’cause you know he ain’t likin’ us no way, no how.”
“That’s right,” Taco said in a “Preach On” tone.
“So you gotta keep what we built up goin’, ya know?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think cuz gonna try to trip. But if he do, I’ll give you a call and you can drop some of his homeboys out there.”
“Righteous.”
“Besides, we all like one now since you and cuz got busy. So for him to try to start somethin’ now would only make cuz look real bad to the homies in the pen, ya know?”
“Yeah, you right, but just stay alert.”
Easing away from Taco’s gate was like trying to push away from a ten-course meal after not having eaten in five days. We both knew that he was not going home. He was charged with fifty-nine counts of armed robbery and a murder. Taco had heroically ridden into the Nickerson Garden Housing Projects on a moped armed with a .357 magnum and gunned down a Bounty Hunter. Only moments before, the Bounty Hunter had shot Taco’s girlfriend. Although Taco was a hero in the Crip community for his successful mission, he was but a thug to the district attorney, who was, as usual, seeking a life term upon conviction. Taco took most of it in stride, but I knew, just as we all knew, that the threat of being in prison for life was a muthafucka.
What we did in the juvenile tank was reflected inside the prisons where we were headed. The rank system never ended. Just as it was on the street with continuous levels of recognition, so too was it in jail. Those in placement—foster homes—looked up to those in juvenile hall, those in juvenile hall looked up to those in camp, those in camp looked up to those in Youth Authority, and those in Youth Authority looked up to those in prison. Most of us in the juvenile tank looked up to those in prison, because that’s where the district attorney was trying to send us. We were all under tremendous stress.
When I backed off of Taco’s gate, still looking in his eyes but also taking in the larger scenery of his cage—his bars, bed, sink, desk, and toilet—he seemed so content, so at home. And I wondered, had I looked like him just weeks, days, hours before? I didn’t want to stay here all my life, but I had no way to stop the wheels of fate, already set in motion long before I had a ticket to ride. If I just stopped gangbanging, perhaps I could avoid prison, an early death, and a few other occupational hazards. But to “just stop” is like to “just say no” to drugs, or to tell a homeless person to “just get a house.” It “just wasn’t happening.”
Prison loomed in my future like wisdom teeth: if you lived long enough you got them. Prison was like a stepping stone to manhood, with everything depending on going and coming back. Going meant nothing if you never came back. The going was obligatory, but coming back was voluntary. Going didn’t just mean prison, it circumscribed a host of obligatory deeds. Go shoot somebody, go take a car, go break into that house, go rob that store, go spray-paint that wall, or go up to that school. It never was “go and come back.” “Go” was something that you bad to do. To come back meant that you loved the ’hood and your homies, and that what you did was simply “all in a day’s work.” Being locked up was an inevitable consequence of banging. Your “work” brought you in contact with the police and, since jail was part of the job description, you simply prepared ahead of time for the mind-fuck of being a prisoner. The glory came not in going but in coming back. To come back showed a willingness to “stay down.” It fostered an image of the set as legitimate, and each individual who could go and come back brought something new—walk, talk, look, way of writing—to add to the culture of the ’hood.
In prison, one is thrown in with all the other criminals, gang members, outlaws, misfits, outcasts, and underworld people from all over California. Since every jail I have ever been in seems designed to be recidivistic, as opposed to rehabilitative, the criminal culture is very strong. It saturates every level of every jail, from juvenile hall to death row. And so each individual going and coming back learns a new scheme to be used in the ever-growing arsenal of criminality. The ’hood also gains yet another expert in another field.
“I love you, cuz,” I told Taco with a final salute of the “C” sign held high over my head.
“I love you, too, homie,” Taco responded, hitting himself hard over the heart with the “C” sign.
I quickly moved to Levi’s cell and rapped with him about standing firm in my absence. From his cell I went to Ben’s, Dirt’s, and Chico’s before shouting my respects down to Able row. At that, I was on my way.
It took most of the night for me to be processed out of L.A. County Jail. Ever leery of the homicide detectives, who might pop out from behind some partition or desk with those “gas your black ass” smirks smeared on their faces, as soon as I was finally released I bolted like a track star to an awaiting bus. Once on the bus I darted straight to the back and crouched down in the seat. The police are notorious for letting you think you have gotten away, and then just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water—sharks!! So I moved under cover of darkness like I had just broken into—or out of—1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. On the bus, traveling through downtown L.A., I began to ease a bit, but not much. I knew if I got into South Central, the police’s chances of apprehending me would be slim, sort of like Marines hunting for Viet Cong in their native habitat. A mere academy-taught soldier-policeman would be put to shame trying to track me in the concrete jungle of South Central.
At Fifth Street a passenger of youthful age boarded the bus. On point, I scoped his dress code: blue khaki pants, white All-Stars, blue Adidas sweat jacket over a blue t-shirt, and a blue baseball cap with two golf-ball emblems fastened to the front. He definitely was a banger. The two golf balls could signify several sets. Back in the early eighties, we’d used numbers as codes of affiliation to circumvent police repression. All Trays, including three-time sets such as the Playboy Gangsters, Altadena Block Crips, and Marvin Gangsters, wore three golf-ball emblems on their hats. In contrast, Neighborhood sets and two-time sets like the 5-Deuces, 6-Deuces, and Raymond Avenue Crips wore two golf-ball emblems on their hats. Often, this alone would be a dead giveaway to set allegiance and quite enough to get one’s brains blown out.
The banger paid his fare and started right down the aisle toward the back, toward me. He caught me scoping him and tensed a bit—not out of fright, but as a result, I’m sure, of an adrenaline rush in preparation for a confrontation. I had gotten my rush when I saw him board the bus. Before I saw any movement a small caliber weapon appeared in his right hand—a .25 automatic, I thought. He wasn’t holding it in a threatening manner or aiming it at all. He was palming it as if to say “Yo, I’m armed, and if there is to be a confrontation this is my choice of weapon.” He sat across from me and to the left, on the long, four-passenger seat. We eyed each other tentatively. All the while he palmed the weapon. After a few minutes that seemed like days, he hit me up.
“Where you from?” he asked in a serious, you-better-not-be-my-enemy voice. For the first time in my life I was scared of being shot, scared to die. Still reeling from the mental strain of being shot six months before, I couldn’t summon the courage to die.
“I don’t bang,” I said and looked away in shame, fighting to keep down the bile pushing its way up. The banger broke his stare and looked elsewhere, totally dismissing me. I felt at a complete loss. Damn, I was trippin’. I couldn’t very well say, “Uh, excuse me, I made a slight error. You see, I’m from Eight Tray.” That would be even worse than not initially saying where I was from. I wanted to make it back to the ’hood, and not in a body bag. I would gladly die in a couple of months, but not now, not here.
We rode in silence the rest of the way. Then it dawned on me: the banger was probably unmoved by my disclaimer of affiliation and was going to ride the duration of the bus route to see where I got off. Then he’d know I was an Eight Tray and gun me down. Damn, I thought, while in the juvenile tank I’d had Termite, a Chicano from East Side Clover, write ETG on the back of my neck. For sure when I got off the bus he’d scope the set on my neck and unload his clip on me. Then I would die in shame.
Just as these thoughts were wracking my mind, he reached up and pulled the exit bell. As the bus slowed for his upcoming stop, he stood and pocketed the weapon and walked toward the back exit door. Pausing, he turned and said, “You should join a gang, ’cause you already got the look. Stay up.”
And he stepped down into the street without a backward glance.
I wanted to shout, “Muthafucka, I got a gang!” but that would just fly in the face of what had already taken place. I rode on in silence, though I noted that he had gotten off the bus in an area of downtown where the only gangs were Salvadorans. This could mean one of two things: he belonged to one of the Salvadoran gangs, or he was just out riding the bus lines hunting for enemies. I quite possibly would have been one. What number, I wondered to myself?
The bus was now occupied only by myself and two other people, both elderly women. It turned right on Santa Barbara—now King Boulevard—and I wondered where the driver was going. When we got to King and Crenshaw, the driver hollered that this was the last stop. What? Last stop? Never familiar with the bus lines in L.A., I had apparently taken the wrong bus. Now I found myself on the corner of King and Crenshaw at 11:30 at night. This was the borderline between the Rollin’ Sixties and Black P. Stone Bloods, and I had ETG on my neck and a folder in my hand saying the same thing. Shit, tonight just wasn’t my night.
I milled around in the shadows, ever-watchful, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “Wasn’t nobody on the street but police and fools, police not givin’ a fuck and fools doomed by their own ignorance,” Li’l De had said after my shooting. Now karma had reared its damn head and I was an ignorant fool, doomed. Every car was a potential tank manned by opposition troops. I had been dropped behind enemy lines and had to survive, had to get back to “my country.” The mission of going to jail only proved successful if I made it back alive.
I was so far back in the shadows that I almost missed the bus going in the opposite direction. I was going to ride back down King Boulevard to Normandie Avenue, get a transfer, follow Normandie to Florence and then take my chances on foot at getting home. Mom didn’t even know I was out. I could picture the utter surprise in her face when the police called.
“Uh, Mrs. Scott, this is Detective Joseph from L.A.’s homicide unit calling to regretfully inform you that your son Kody was murdered tonight.”
Mom would calmly say that the officer was making a dreadful mistake. “My son Kody is in jail,” she would say, probably right up until she had to I.D. my body in the morgue. She would never believe it could happen to me. But we had grown so far apart that if I were dying I would not have called her. Mom was the enemy at home. Mom was, to me, what antiwar protestors were to Westmoreland.
I rode to Normandie without incident, but while I was standing on Normandie and King, which is Harlem Rollin’ Thirties neighborhood, a packed beige Cadillac rolled to a stop in front of me. Looking hard for recognition were the twisted, contorted faces of bangers from I-don’t-know-where. I tried to look as unconnected as possible. The legal folder that held my letters and pictures from China—with the set scrawled blatantly across the front of it—was between me and the back of the bus-stop bench. I was being inspected for any signs of being a banger. Perhaps these cats were Harlems just patrolling their ’hood, something I have done a lot.
I’ve found some very out-of-the-way people in the ’hood on some of my patrols. One particular night I rode up on a carload of Miller Gangster Bloods sitting comfortably in an alley behind the Western Surplus. I was able to I.D. them by their loud talking. I was on a ten-speed bike, and once I confirmed they were enemy, I rolled up on the side of the car and emptied my clip into the faces and bodies of the occupants. Out of bounds, trespassing, free-fire zone—hell, I had a dozen reasons to fire on them. “Free country” never crossed my mind. Besides, this wasn’t America—it was South Central.
The Miller Gangsters were from clear across town, 120th Street. It’s possible that they didn’t know where they were. Or it could be that they did know but had little respect for our ’hood, since they had never had open confrontations with us. I’d tend to believe the latter. This is why it’s necessary to read the writing on the walls. Fuck street signs. Walls will tell you where you are.
Not seeing any clear signs in my face or dress code, the idling Cadillac began to ease forward. For identification purposes the passenger raised one hand out of the window with his thumb and pinky finger extended, the other fingers hidden in his palm. I recognized the sign immediately: Neighborhood Rollin’ Twenty Bloods. No doubt they were on a military incursion through Harlem ’hood, their worst enemy. “Hurry up, bus,” I found myself whispering. “Hurry up.”
The bus came, and I rode attentively down Normandie, reading the writing on the walls, passing through several ’hoods. Normandie Avenue can be compared to the Ho Chi Minh trail. It is the main artery of well over forty sets, spanning from Hollywood to Gardena. Normandie is a vital supply route. From dope to dynamite, Normandie has seen it. From King Boulevard to Florence, the bus made its way through the Harlem Thirties, Rollin’ Forties, 5-Deuce Hoovers, 5-Six Syndicate and 6-Deuce Brims. Block after block, set after set, everybody belonged to something. The writing scrawled on the walls told fabulous stories. I knew most of the names written by face, but it was hard to picture the individuals writing them. Bending down, moving, scanning to see who’s watching them… some cats just seemed too sophisticated for that. It’s funny, too, because as much graffiti as covers our city walls, hardly anybody ever sees it being done. As much as I have struck up on walls, I’ve never been asked to stop or been asked what I was doing.
On Seventy-first Street, the street before Florence, I reached up and pulled the signal cord to be let off. I disembarked at a walking-run. Florence and Normandie was a hot corner. I turned the corner onto Seventy-first and trotted past Li’l Tray Ball’s house and wondered if I should stop. No, I decided, make it home first. It was now well past midnight. Although there are more murders in the city on the weekends than the weekdays, it has nothing to do with gang members being workers. Gang members work all day, every day. This was a Wednesday, but that didn’t mean I was more likely to survive. No, I was more likely to be killed any time and any place they caught me!
I scurried along, ducking and dodging into driveways and behind trees. Anyone in any other part of this country would have thought I had either stolen something or was a nut. But any resident here who clocked my antics knew I was just trying to get from point A to point B in one piece.
When I got home I went to the back door, but it was locked. So I went back around to the front and knocked, but got no answer. I’ve never had a key, never wanted one. I never asked Mom for one, and she never offered one. I knocked again, harder. Still there was no answer, but Mom’s car was there.
Suddenly I heard noises from across the street and saw flashes coming from Welow’s garage. I went across the street cautiously. Welow was welding some pieces of metal together and working on his car. He was a civilian who worked at General Motors every day, but on the weekend he’d pull his 1974 Monte Carlo low-rider out and have a ball. He had a lot of tools and welding equipment. In fact, he would saw my weapons off for me and then smooth down the barrels on his grinder. When he saw me his eyes lit up. We rapped a bit before he broke out some pot. My system was clean from not doing any drugs while in jail for six months, so one stick of pot blew me over.
When I finally jetted back across the street I was really on paranoid. I banged on the door now.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
I was doing the get-the-fuck-up-it’s-the-police knocks.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
And that’s who Mom thought it was, because before they had come to my cell with the search warrant they’d gone to my house. Not believing Mom when she told them that I was already in jail, they still made her come out of the house and get on her knees on the front lawn like a common criminal.
I saw her now, peeking from behind the curtain. She couldn’t recognize me, so she hit the porch light, splashing me with light. I freaked and bent down to avoid in-coming rounds.
“The light,” I shouted, pointing, “turn the light out, Mom!”
Hearing my voice, she finally registered who I was. Just as abruptly as I was splashed with light, I was now doused with darkness. The light was screaming “Here he is,” but the darkness said, “Shhh, it’s all right, it’s all right.” Mom opened the door slowly, after undoing more locks than I ever remember having seen on that door.
“Hi, Mom,” I said with a dopey marijuana smile. I know she smelled it all over me.
“You know they going to come get you, don’t you?” she said with a look of why-you-keep-doin’-me-like-this.
“Who?”
“The police, that’s who!”
“Fo’ what? I ain’t done nothin’.”
“Boy, you done broke out of jail!”
“Naw, Mom, I beat my case. They let me out.”
Mom assumed that because I was sixteen she had to come and get me, like always. But I was not in juvenile hall anymore. In the juvenile tank they just let you go.
“Boy, are you sure?” she asked accusingly. “’Cause I can’t take them trigger-happy fools running up in here treating me like no thug. I work too hard for that shit, you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah, I hear you, Mom,” I said with my head down, wandering the length of the hallway feeling like “Damn, ain’t nothin’ changed, I see.” “You been to see Shaun?” I asked, trying to get her off my back.
“Yes, I went last weekend. You know they gave him thirty-six years and life. My poor baby.”
Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes. “Mom, I’m tired, I need some sleep.”
“You need to stop smoking that goddamn weed,” she hollered after me as I walked down the hall.
I closed my bedroom door and waited, hoping she wouldn’t come into my room and continue preaching. I knew she meant well, but I wasn’t up to it tonight. I wanted to be loved, to be missed, to be wanted, not scolded.
Now I was angry. I changed into my combat black, went out the window and into the garage. In a bag under the old chest of drawers, I had a 45 automatic that I had gotten from A. C. Rabbit, our Korean homeboy, before my capture. The .45 had only two shells in the clip. I went across to Welow’s and he gave me eight more shells. I got on Li’l Monster’s new ten-speed and rode quickly toward Brim ’hood, all the while cursing about my mother’s disregard for my feelings, never questioning mine for hers.
From Sixty-ninth to Sixty-second I pumped furiously, needing to shoot somebody, eager to vent my anger. Rounding the corner on Sixty-second and Denker I encountered what looked to be two couples sitting on the back of a car playing oldies, hugging, being lovers. I slowed my pace and gave them the most evil mad-dog stare I could come up with. All four turned their heads and, I’m almost sure, prayed that I kept going. I made a tight circle in the street to see if any one of them were looking at me, but none were.
I peddled on toward Halldale. When I found no one there I doubled back. Noticing that the couples had vanished, I peddled on up Sixty-second to the other side of Brim ’hood by Harvard Boulevard. Getting halfway up the block, I noticed a furtive move to my left in my peripheral vision. Turning abruptly in the direction of the movements, I grabbed for my weapon. Before I could draw, the movement shot out of the shadows like fluid. “Damn,” I said to myself, “a cat.” Shit, the damn cat seemed to be doing just as I had been doing not more than an hour before, trying to get from point A to point B in one piece. I watched the cat momentarily before I continued my scan of the park.
Turning right on Harvard Boulevard, I saw two Chicanos leaning against a brown Gremlin, talking. Both, I guessed, were from FI3. We had no beef with them. Further down the block I saw three cats who looked my age leaning against a van, talking and drinking beer. Bingo—enemies. I rode to within a house distance, approximately twenty to twenty-five feet, and made a circle to make sure they saw me. On my final loop I came up blasting.
DOOM! DOOM! DOOM!
“Ah, Blood, I’m hit!”
“Run!” screamed a distant voice. “Just keep running’!”
One Blood lay motionless in the street. The other two were pinned behind a tree. The van took the majority of my rounds.
DOOM! DOOM!
The .45 had the low, slow baritone of a big bass.
When I heard no other noise, I took off, retaining one round. Peddling as quickly as possible straight down Harvard, across Gage Avenue, and into the peripheral interior of my ’hood, I felt like a Native American on horseback retreating back to my camp after slaying the enemy. I made a left on Sixty-seventh Street and relaxed a bit. On Denker I turned right and made my way home. I put the bike in the garage and entered the house. I went to my room and fell asleep. I slept very well.
“You may tie your shoes in the morning, but the mortician may untie them at night,” Alma, Crazy De’s mother, was telling us as we waited for De to gear up. She knew we were up to no good.
Dressed heavily and in dark gear, Diamond, Tray Stone, and I sat on the couch, oblivious to anything Alma was saying. Our minds had long been locked on our upcoming mission. For once in a long time, we had gained the initiative in the conflict with the Sixties. We knew we had to keep up the pressure. Tonight would be but another offensive strike in a series of military maneuvers we had been conducting in the Sixties ’hood to wear down their resistance. We had made so many successful runs in and out of the Sixties that we arrogantly began calling ourselves the Demolition Squad. We had been seen so often by so many civilians that as of late we were getting waves and head nods. We simply waved back.
Our missions were successful largely because we had logistical help from the LAPD CRASH units. For four nights in a row now, we had been getting helpful hints from “our friends” in blue—as they liked to refer to themselves. “But,” they’d quickly add, “we are from the Seventy-seventh Street gang, which just happens to not get along with the Rollin’ Sixties.”
Ignorant, very eager, and filled with a burning hatred for the “enemy,” we ate that shit up. We never realized that the Seventy-seventh Street gang didn’t get along with anybody in the New Afrikan community.
“Hey, Monster,” a tomato-faced sergeant said, “I tell you, them goddamn Sixties are talking about murdering you on sight.”
“Oh yeah, who?”
“Peddie, Scoop, Kiki, and a few others. If I were you I’d keep my gun close at hand, ’cause those boys seem mighty serious.”
“Yeah, well fuck the Sixties. They know where I’m at.”
“Yeah, but do you know where they are? I mean right now?”
“Naw, you?”
Then, calling me to the car in a secretive manner he said, “They on Fifty-ninth Street and Third Avenue. All the ones I just mentioned who’ve been bad-mouthing you. I was telling my partner here that if you were there they’d be scared shitless. If you get your crew and go now, I’ll make sure you are clear. But only fifteen minutes. You got that?” he added with a wink and a click of the tongue.
“Yeah, I got it. But how I know you ain’t settin’ me up?”
“If I wanted to put you in jail, Monster, I’d arrest you now for that gun in your waistband.”
Surprised, I said, “Righteous,” and stepped away from the car.
We mounted up and went over to Fifty-ninth and Third Avenue. Sure enough, there they were. And just as he had said, we encountered no police.
This was our fifth night out in collaboration with “our friends” in blue. We had a .22 magnum that shot nine times. I had loaded it myself with long hollow points. But first we went in search of a car to use on the mission. Jack at gunpoint for a vehicle with the .22. Once the vehicle was secured, we’d go and get more heavy weaponry for the mission.
It had been two weeks since I was released. China was complaining that I didn’t spend enough time with her, that all I did was think about the Sixties. Since Li’l G.C.’s capture for murder, she seemed to have lost some of her ability to be confrontational with the enemy. She still walked, talked, and dressed gangster, but since my release she had not gone on one mission with me. In 1980, she was putting in much work. Now she wanted to be loved in a way that I could not approach seriously. I loved her, for sure, but I was far from being a romantic. I felt threatened by romanticism, thinking that perhaps I’d like it more than banging. So I shied away from it.
So much had happened since the start of the conflict. Before the war, we—as a set—were more like a family than a gang. Picnics, collective awareness, unity, and individual freedom abounded. Sure we struck out at foes, but it was all in keeping with traditional Red and Blue rivalries. Business, strictly business. We had one dead, one wounded.
Now, in 1981, we had three dead at the hands of the Sixties and numerous—too numerous to note—wounded. As soon as the war started, freak accidents seemed to befall us. Cocaine was killed by Mexicans in a burglary attempt. Bam was allegedly killed by one of our own. Dirty Butch was run over by a car. D.B. was stabbed to death by a wino. Some Bounty Hunters kicked in Joe Joe’s door and shot his mother and brother.
Also, many had been captured. G.C was given fifteen years to life. Big Spike, Dumps, Fred Jay, and Li’l Jay received sentences ranging from four years to twenty-five to life. Madbone had been captured for murder and given seven years straight. Time Bomb and Harv Dog had also been captured for murder.
Gangster Brown’s house was being shot up three nights a week, and the summer hadn’t even come yet. The set sagged miserably under so much, so fast. In as little as a nine-month period, we had gone from being a happy extended family with an infrastructure capable of meeting many of the needs of those driven to the street, for whatever reason, to an exclusive military machine. By June 1981 those who had stuck it out were well-seasoned veterans who could be compared to Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol Soldiers in Vietnam. There was nothing else for us but war, total war.
After no success whatsoever in finding a vehicle to commandeer, Crazy De, Tray Stone, Diamond, and myself found ourselves clear up in the Rollin’ Nineties—not one of our more cordial neighbors—before we decided to double back toward the ’hood. Diamond was in control of the strap. We walked down the adjacent alley off Western Avenue in twos, ever on alert. When we got to Eighty-ninth Street, we crossed Western hoping to catch a victim in Thrifty’s parking lot. There were none.
We decided to try St. Andrews park. We walked the length of St. Andrews to Eighty-seventh Street, and there we found a civilian waxing a custom van. Just the thing we needed—a van. This meant more shooters could be secreted inside. More shooters meant more deaths. We stepped to the vic—the victim.
“Hey, man,” I began spiritedly, as if I were really impressed by his van. “This is a clean van.”
“Yeah, you like it?” said the civilian, who stood about six foot three and looked to weigh about three hundred pounds.
“Hell, yeah,” said Tray Stone, “this muthafucka’s tight.”
The civilian then took in our attire and demeanor and, amped on adrenaline, looked everywhere but at his van.
“Yeah, I work hard for my things,” he said nervously and then, as if expecting something, he added, “too hard.”
At that, Diamond swung into motion. It all seemed rehearsed, we had done it so many times. One step back, draw the weapon, and instruct the vic to lie down on his stomach. Then, either Tray Stone or I would frisk the vic, taking anything he had. We treated the women much better than the men. We’d never rape the women, nor would we take the whole purse.
But this time when Diamond swung into motion his action was countered, as if the vic was a mind reader. When Diamond made his step backward the vic took one step forward, and when Diamond reached for his waistband to retrieve the strap the vic pounced on him with all of his height and weight. Diamond went down as if he wasn’t even in the vic’s way. De, Tray Stone, and I moved with alacrity to aid the homie who was now being pummeled by the vic, who was screaming something about him working too hard for his shit. Somehow, Diamond managed to wiggle free of the vic. He did so on his own, because the head blows we were delivering to the vic seemed to do little. The man had gone stone crazy on us.
When Diamond jumped up, looking like a frightened boy who had just seen a ghost, he started backing away mouthing something that we could not catch. The vic began to turn his big frame in our direction. Tray Stone hollered for Diamond to “shoot him, shoot the muthafucka.” That’s when Diamond found his voice and screamed, “He got the strap!”
By then it was too late.
“Now,” the vic-turned-assailant said, “I’m gonna kill all you dirty, no-good little punks.”
All I could think about was Death Wish. We each ran in separate directions, first for our lives and then to try and confuse the vic-assailant. I hadn’t taken ten steps before the first shot cracked into the darkness.
POW!
Good, I thought, he ain’t shootin’ at me. And then the second shot cracked.
POW!
And I’ll be damned if he didn’t hit me in the back. Two other shots cracked off and I presumed them to be at the others. In the meantime, I dove for cover.
Within minutes of being shot my whole right arm was numb and I couldn’t move it or my fingers. The shooting had stopped, but I was still reluctant to get out of my hiding place. My worst fear came from thinking about what the .22 bullet had done to me internally. All the stories of bullets traveling, ricocheting, and tearing up organs came rushing on me in every voice I had ever heard them in.
Suddenly I saw a shadow to my right and tensed. The shadow seemed to tense, too. Friend or foe? He must have thought the same thing I did, because simultaneously we both broke and ran. As I made distance I looked back. Shit, it was Diamond.
“Diamond,” I hissed, “over here, it’s me, Monster.”
Diamond doubled back huffing and puffing, still wearing his frightened-little-boy face.
“Oh, what’s up, cuz?”
“I’m hit,” I said with all the it’s-your-fault I could put into it.
“Damn, cuz,” Diamond said, now looking out from our hiding place like we were trapped in Khe Shan. “I’m sorry, homie, but that big—”
“Don’t sweat it,” I interrupted him. “We got to get away from here. I can’t move my arm.”
“Damn,” Diamond whispered with disgust.
“C’mon, cuz,” I instructed Diamond, “we got to move.”
We bailed out of our foxhole and into the lights of an on-coming car, Diamond waving his arms dramatically.
“Cuz, that’s a van,” I shouted. “It might be—”
“Muthafuckas!” was all we heard coming from the van. Then:
POW! POW! POW!
It was him all right, rolling on us. We darted to the left and ran through some apartment buildings, out the back, and onto Manchester Avenue. Once on Manchester we made our way over to the Boys Market parking lot. There we found Tray Stone and Crazy De. My entire right side now throbbed. With all the excitement making my heart pump faster I knew that I was losing a lot of blood.
Before I could say anything, Diamond told De and Stone that I was shot and that the man was rolling around looking for us. De looked like he was going to be sick. Stone kept mumbling threats about killing the man.
“We gotta get Monster to the hospital,” Diamond said, feeling responsible for my wounding.
“How we gonna do that?” De said. “You done let fool take the damn strap from you. How we gonna—”
“Man, fuck you, De!” Diamond shot back. “You seen cuz over me, what I s’posed to do? Huh? What?”
“Cuz, fuck it, just fuck it,” De said, waving Diamond off dismissively.
“Naw, ain’t no just ’fuck it’, ’cause you seem to—”
“HEY!!” I shouted. “I’m dying, man, we better do something.”
Stone spotted the father of one of our homegirls and flagged him down. We piled into his car and Stone told him to take us to the hospital. I objected, to everyone’s surprise, and said to take me home. I had an irresistible longing to see my mother. Blue, our homegirl’s father, was driving at a slower than normal pace, leaning in the seat—obviously drunk—and listening to old down-home blues.
After several blocks of this, with us looking from one to the other in irritation, Crazy De leaned over, inches from Blue’s ear, and whispered, “Monster got shot tonight and we tryin’ to get him home. Now, if he dies in this car because yo’ old ass is drivin’ too slow, you gonna die in this car, too.” Then, more loudly, “NOW DRIVE!”
Blue drove so fast that I was scared we’d all die in an auto accident. He bent corners on two wheels, ran stop signs, and bullied his way through red lights. I don’t know if he was driving this way for me or him. Moments later we came to a screeching halt in front of my house. When we piled out, Blue looked relieved.
We knocked on the front door and Kerwin let us in. He and Mom sat at the front-room table eating.
“Mom,” I began with a stammer, “I’m shot.”
“Boy, get outta here with that damn foolishness, I ain’t got time for it.”
“No, I’m serious, I can’t move this arm,” I said, pointing to my right arm with my left hand. I felt like a small boy trying to convince Mom that I had scraped my knee without there being a hole in my pants leg.
“No, Mrs. Scott, he really is shot,” De said respectfully.
To this Mom balled up her napkin, threw it into her remaining food and said, “Shit, boy, you always into something. You gonna be dead before you eighteen.” And she promptly stalked off to her room to retrieve her car keys—I hoped.
“Let me see,” Kerwin said, getting up from the table.
“Man, fuck you!” I responded and sat down.
“What happened?” Kerwin asked, looking at the others, clearly not expecting an answer from me. But the homies already knew that Kerwin was a spy for Mom, so they said nothing. Every morning when I woke up I’d hear him in the front room telling Mom about things he had heard I’d done.
“Kody turned a party out on Eighty-fourth,” or “Kody shot such-and-such,” he’d say, so I knew not to tell him anything. If he heard it on the street, so what? It could be rumors.
When Mom came back up the hallway she had her keys, jacket, and purse with her.
“C’mon here, boy,” she said, and walked right past me out the door. When I went after her, the troops followed. “And where y’all think you goin’?” she said, primping herself. “I am sure not going to be riding around this city with the four of you. It’s bad enough that I got to ride with this one.”
I rolled my eyes to the moonless sky and saluted the homies with the Tray.
“Three minutes,” came their reply, and Mom and I were on our way. At the first corner she began in on me.
“Now what happened this time?”
“Nothin’,” I said sullenly.
“Nothing?!” she shouted. “You got a damn bullet in your body, somebody put it there.”
“You don’t want to know,” I said, staring out of the window, trying to disengage.
“Kody, I need to know what happened. These people are not stupid. They are going to need an explanation to this shooting. Now what happened?”
“Is that why you wanna know, just so you can have an explanation for them?” I shot back. “What about you? You haven’t even asked me if I am hurtin’. No, you too busy fussin’ to show me love, to say somethin’ kind or nice. No, it’s always fuss, fuss, fuss.”
She gave no reply, just looked straight ahead. So I continued.
“You wanna know what really happened, Mom? Really?”
She didn’t answer.
“We went to take a van for a move and the dude took the gun from Diamond and shot me in the back.”
“My God,” she said with disdain. “Kody, why do you want to take other people’s property? That’s not right. People work hard for what they have. You can’t just—”
“Mom, can you drive faster, I think I’m bleeding to death.”
“Oh, now you scared of dying. You should have thought about that when you had your bad ass out there, robbing folks. Now you want to worry about dying. I’ll tell you.”
I didn’t respond and she didn’t drive any faster. When we finally got to the hospital, well over an hour had passed since I was shot. We were made to sit in a waiting room. There were four people there: two New Afrikans, one Chicano, and one American. The American was called first. She had a cold. Mom went off.
“You stupid motherfuckers, don’t you see my son has been shot!? You mean to tell me that a white woman with a cold is more important than my son with a bullet in his back? What kind of damn hospital are you people running here?!”
The receptionist, an American, was dumbfounded. Totally speechless, she sat safely behind the partition, thankful for her seclusion from Mom. Mom kept at it until two American doctors wheeled out a wheelchair and rolled me back through the double doors.
First I was X-rayed, then led to a room with a bed to await the results. The entry hole, they said, was very tiny and didn’t seem to have done too much damage. I explained to the doctor about the numbness and he said it was a symptomatic response to shock and delay of treatment. He added that he doubted if it would be permanent. Mom sat on the side of my bed and gazed out the window.
“Yes, officer,” I heard a female voice say, “he’s right in here.”
“Thank you,” said a scratchy, still unseen voice.
Then in through the door came two American soldier-cops, one with a clipboard, the other with a Winchell’s Donuts coffee cup. The one with the clipboard was older, redder, and more go-with-the-flow. His face was like worn leather, hair gray and managed as if he had just had it styled for a V05 commercial. The younger one was straight off the beach, a surfer-Nazi from hell, all jittery and gung-ho, eager to make his bones in the department. I could tell right away that a conflict existed between these two. New versus old, traditional versus contemporary, professionalism versus personalism. I decided to have a little fun.
“What’s your name, son?” asked Clipboard.
“My name, sir?” I asked, as if not overstanding the question.
“Yeah,” Donut Cup snapped, “your name. You know, the legend you were given at birth?” His tone was pushy like “all you people are so stupid.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, “my name. Kody Scott, sir.” I was careful to be nice and respectful to Clipboard, while agitating Donut Cup with my feigned stupidity.
“Where did this incident take place?” asked Donut Cup.
“Incident?” I asked right back, looking from Donut Cup to Mom for an interpretation of “incident.”
Donut Cup turned his head.
“Where were you when you were shot?” asked Clipboard with all the ease of a family doctor.
“I was standing alone on the bus stop at Adams and Western.”
“Southeast, northwest?” asked Donut Cup.
“No,” I began, as if he had it all wrong. “I was not at Southwest College, I was on Adams and Western.”
“On which side of the street were you standing?” asked Clipboard.
“On the Adams side in front of the gas station going toward downtown.”
“That would be the southeast corner, then,” said Donut Cup, trying to hammer his point home.
“I just always thought it was the corner of Adams and Western,” I said, trying to look perplexed. Donut Cup turned a shade darker.
“What happened while you were standing on the bus stop?” asked Donut Cup.
“Well,” I began, imitating an old man by rubbing my chin in deep thought, “I wasn’t really standing on the bus stop, I was standing behind the bus stop, in back of the bench on the sidewalk between the gas station and the street.”
Donut Cup went flaming red, grabbing his head with both hands as if he were trying to stop from going mad. Mom put a hand over her mouth to suppress a laugh. Clipboard, ever-patient, just waited to rephrase the question.
“Look,” said Donut Cup, his face a stricken mask of anger, “all you have to do is answer the questions as we ask them. If you can—”
“Whoa, whoa,’ said Clipboard, turning full around to face Donut Cup, “if you’d let me ask the questions you would be better off.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Ahh,” said Clipboard with an upheld hand, waving Donut Cup to silence.
“Now, uhh, Kody, as you were standing behind the bench on Adams and Western,” he began and paused for a second to turn and look at Donut Cup as if to say “this is all you got to do.” Then he turned back to me and simply said, “What happened?”
“A brown Monte Carlo came by traveling eastbound.” Now I looked over as Donut Cup as if to say “you people are so stupid.” “A guy with a .22 rifle hung out of the window—”
“Which window?” asked Donut Cup.
We both ignored him.
“—and hollered something and began shooting.”
“What was it that the shooter hollered out, do you remember?”
“No, sir. But I think it was some sort of gang language.”
“Do you gangbang, Kody?”
As if he had just committed blasphemy in front of the Almighty, I said, “No!” with a look of are-you-crazy? Mom rolled her eyes to the ceiling and turned her head.
“Why do you think they wanted to shoot you?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“A brown Monte Carlo.”
“What year, do you know?”
“Seventy-four or seventy-five, I think.”
“Any distinguishing marks, dents, primer, paint defects?”
“Yeah, now that I think of it, there was a huge, gray primer spot on—”
“The quarter panel?” said Donut Cup excitedly.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s it.” Fuck it, I thought, may as well send Donut Cup all the way out into left field.
“Oh my God,” said Donut Cup to Clipboard, “Jimbo’s out.”
Mom was shaking her head as if to say “unbelievable.”
When the soldier-cops had completed their report and were walking toward the door, I decided to use one of my old acting skits, which I had seen on an old TV show.
“Officer, officer,” I said faintly, my voice barely audible.
“Yes, son?” answered Clipboard.
“You… you will get them, won’t you, sir?”
And then just like in the movies Clipboard solemnly said, “Yes, son, we’ll get them,” and they left the room. Shit, that little episode threw me for a loop. Mom began right in on me.
“Boy, why you lie to them police like that? Don’t you know they gonna find out that you were lying?”
“Mom, I ain’t hardly worried about the police looking for me for lying. Besides, if I had told them the truth I would be going to jail for attempted robbery. assault, and possession of a gun. So I had to lie.”
“I don’t understand you kids today. Guns, robberies, and gangbanging. Where is it leading to? You don’t even know, do you? You are just a blind passenger being driven wherever the gang takes you. Kody, I don’t even know you anymore. You’re not the fine little guy that I used to know. I just don’t know what to do with you. You got Shaun into this shit, now he’s locked up for the rest of his young life. When are you going to realize that you are killing me? Kody?”
I was faking like I was asleep so she would not see how effective her talk was. I was the same old person she used to know, wasn’t I? Yeah, sure I was, I tried to convince myself. But if I were still that fine little guy, why didn’t she smile at me anymore? Or laugh and joke like days of old? It wasn’t me who changed, I wanted to say. It was the times, the circumstances dictating my rite of passage to manhood. All this was crucial to my development. I became, without ever knowing when, a product of the street and a stranger at home. Life sure was a trip.
“Mrs. Scott?” an American nurse said.
“Yes.”
“You may as well go home and get some sleep, because the doctor wants to keep Kody here for observation tonight.”
“Oh, thank you, but if it’s all the same I’d like to stay with my son.”
“Okay, that’s fine. Would you like a blanket or anything?”
“No, actually I’m fine, thank you.”
“All right, the doctor should be in any minute.”
Mom looked at me and saw my eyes flutter.
“Boy, I sure hope you got on clean underwear.”
Good ol’ Mom, she never changed. Of course she had changed, I was just too preoccupied with my own little perverted existence to take in anything outside the gang world. The world could have been crumbling around me, but if it didn’t affect the set, it didn’t affect me.
When the doctor returned he explained that, miraculously, the bullet—apparently a hollow point—had exploded on impact. But instead of doing its job of ripping up my internal organs, it had simply stopped, and now there were thirteen small, detectable fragments throughout my upper back. He added that during his observation of the X-ray chart he noticed another bullet lodged in my abdominal cavity. I told him of my previous brush with death and he asked if I was a gang member. I said no. I was instructed to stay the night for further observation.
During the night I regained feeling and movement in my arm. The pain subsided under a stiff dosage of something shot into my hip. The next day, under the warm rays of the Southern California sun, Mom and I tooled out of the hospital parking lot. The radio blared with Stevie Wonder’s new hit, “Hotter than July.” It was July 2, 1981.
Once I got home and was safe behind the locked door of Mission Control—my bedroom—I called up Diamond to inform him of my clean bill of health. His grandmother said he wasn’t there, so I phoned Tray Stone, who answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“What that gangsta like, nigga?” I said into the receiver, recognizing Stone’s voice.
“West Side, the best side,” Stone shot back.
“Naw, if it ain’t North you short, fool.”
“What’s up, homie? You all right? What they say? Did the police come up there? What Mom say?”
“Wait, wait. Goddamn, man, ask one fuckin’ question at a time, all right?”
“Awright, Mr. Important. You okay?”
“Okay all day and even on Sundays.”
“Naw, I know that, I mean the bullet. What the Doc say?”
“I know what you talkin’ ’bout. I’m cool. Fool say the bullet hit my back, broke up and stopped.”
“You bullshittin’?”
“Naw, I ain’t. Doc say I’m too strong for a deuce-deuce to stop.”
“You puttin’ too much on it, now.”
“Naw, naw, Doc say, ’You must be some kind of Monster or something,’ you know, so I said, ’Yeah, from the notorious North.’ ”
“Now I know you lyin’. Nigga, ain’t nobody heard of no fuckin’ North Side, ’specially no damn white-boy doctor.”
“Yo’ mama heard of the North.”
Silence.
“Cuz, don’t talk ’bout Moms. You ain’t right.”
“Yeah, you right, fuck her—”
“I’m gone, Monster.”
“Naw! Awright, homie, I ain’t trippin’.”
“Oh, we handled that other thang, too,” Stone said in a low voice, as if his father had come into the room.
“What other thang?” I knew what he meant, but I wanted to hear him say it.
“’Member that van that fool say he work so hard to get?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he gonna be workin’ harder now, ’cause we fucked that muthafucka up!”
“What ’bout, fool?”
“He never came out and we didn’t know what apartment he stayed in. And there was like a whole bunch of apartments, like fifty.”
“Nigga, ain’t no fifty fuckin’ apartments on that damn corner!”
“Awright, ’bout sixteen then. Anyway, we kept fuckin’ up the van and nobody came out. So Joker said Tuck it,’ and shot up every apartment!”
“What?!”
“Yeah, cuz, the shit was crazy! People screamin’ and shit. He shot one window and a fire started. Aw, cuz, it was just like the movies, I ain’t lyin’.”
“Right, right,” I said, joining in on the excitement.
“But, cuz, you awright, tho’?”
“Yeah, yeah homie, I’m cool. I’ll be at the blue apartments later.”
“Awright, cuzzin, I’ll see you then.”
“Tray minutes.”
“Wes—”
Before he could get “West Side” out, I clicked him. I felt good to know that the homies had responded. It was sad, however, that Joker had gone to such extremes, but I overstood his rage and appreciated his concern. I washed up as best I could with the bandage and the stiffness from the wound, put on my dark-blue overalls, a blue sweatshirt, black Romeos, and a black Bebop hat, grabbed my 9 millimeter, and hit the street.
When I got to the blue apartments Bam, Spooney, China, and Peaches were out in front drinking Old English and talking. When China saw me she eased away from the group, insinuating that she wanted to speak to me privately. Amid jeers and greetings from the other homegirls, China and I went to the side of the apartments. She seemed to have something on her mind.
“Kody,” she began. Never had she called me Monster. “I can’t take you gettin’ shot no mo’. Baby, I be worried to death fo’ you. Everybody dyin’ and shit. I just don’t know anymore.”
“So, what you sayin’?”
“What I’m sayin’ is we don’t do nothin’ together no mo’. You be wit’ Diamond and them and I be all alone. I be worried ’bout you.”
“Yeah, well it ain’t like you don’t know where I live, China—”
“You know yo’ mama don’t like me. You know that, Kody. So don’t even try—”
“What?” I said accusingly. “Don’t even try what? Huh?”
“You know what I—”
“No, I don’t know shit. You know I’m out here, bangin’, bustin’ on muthafuckas daily to make it safe fo’ you ’round here, and now you complainin’. You done changed like the rest of them sorry muthafuckas that’s gone and left the set hangin’.”
“No, baby, you have changed. This fuckin’ war has really turned you into somethin’. You think you Super Gangsta or somebody, runnin’ ’round tryin’ to save the world. But look what it’s doing to us! Look at us!”
She began to cry, dropping huge tears onto her smooth cheeks.
“Do you remember the last place you took me, Kody? Huh? Do you remember?”
“Yeah,” I said, grudgingly. “I remember.”
“Where?” she asked, hands on her hips. Then louder, “Where?!”
“To the drive-in,” I said, but before I could stop the flow of words I knew I was wrong.
“No,” she snapped, “you know where you took me? To jail! That’s where!”
And, of course, she was right. Li’l G.C. and I had jacked a civilian for his car one night. A nice car, too, so I decided to take China out on a date in the stolen car. But then again, why waste a good G-ride? I’ll just pick up Stone and Spooney, I thought, and we’ll do a double date ride-by. Shit, why not? So China and I picked up Stone and Spooney, along with their gun—a huge double-barrel 12 gauge. We stopped at the ’hood store for drinks—Old English and Night Train, gangsta juice. As we made our way west toward the Sixties, a black-and-white patrol car got on our tail. Never one to comply with the law, I accelerated, and the chase was on. After ten blocks of high speed and a faulty turn, we crashed. Immediately I was out of the car and into the wind. I was the only one to get away. Stone, Spooney, and China went to juvenile hall.
“But—” I tried to say, but was cut off.
“But nothin’, ’cause before that you stood me up when we was s’posed to go to the Pomona Fair. ’Member that? You got some new type of gun or somethin’ and just left me behind. That was cold.”
She was right again. The homegirl Dee Dee, whose boyfriend was in the navy, had given me a flare gun that looked like an ordinary ink pen, but shot a single ball of fire that she said would burn right through somebody. Well, that sounded like my type of weapon. She had given it to me on her way to the fair, and what better place to test such a weapon than at a fair? So I went with her instead of China.
“Yeah, but—”
“Naw, baby, ’cause there’s no mo’—”
Then out of the night came a terror-stricken cry of “Sixties!!” followed by the rat-a-tat-tat of a rifle.
In an instant we both were belly down, looking at each other. She saw the anger in my eyes and said in a whisper, “Don’t go, let somebody else play hero, baby, don’t go.”
“I gotta go, I gotta go.”
“Fuck you!!” she screamed, but I was on my way. I heard her faint sobs as I mounted my bike and peddled off.
No one was hit, but the response would have been the same in any case. We mounted up and rode back with swiftness. After that, to beat the heat, I went to Compton to kick it with some homies from Santana Block.
A week later, word was out that the police were looking for me and Crazy De for robbery. Which robbery, I wondered? Shit, we had done so many robberies that I was at a loss to figure out which one we were wanted for. With the police out for us, I’d wake up early, get dressed, and be out of the house before 6:00 A.M., because that’s their usual raiding time. I’d gravitate around homies’ houses until their parents went to work, and then we’d kick it until the rest of the ’hood started stirring. Then I’d try to lose myself in the sameness of the community. I ran, ducked, and hid every time someone yelled “Rollers.” I became so engrossed in escaping capture that my military performance slumped a bit.
The most frightening thing about being hunted as a banger is that you never really know what it is they are hunting you for. The banger’s position is far from static, so one day you could be a robber and the next day you might be told to commit murder, only to be asked the following day to spray paint a wall. Controlled freedom—democratic centralism. The gang was all that.
De and I were both eventually captured and hauled off to jail. De was eighteen, so he went to the county jail. I was still sixteen, pushing seventeen, so I went to juvenile hall. At my first court appearance I was remanded to the custody of the sheriff’s department and sent back to the juvenile tank.
Upon arrival I quickly saw that things had changed. Bennose and Levi were gone. Both had been sent to Youth Authority. Taco was still there, and so were about fourteen other Grape Street Watts Crips, all tight allies of Eight Tray. The difference was that Tangle-Eye was parading around there like a stalwart member of the community, as if his drinking of urine and set jumping was all in some other life. Cyco Mike had somehow regained his position as lord of the fiefdom and all the other bangers were catering to him like a bunch of oppressed serfs. And to top it all off there was an N-hood living on Charlie row!
The N-hood was Lucky from One-Eleven. He had two homies downstairs on Able row. After greeting Taco and the others I immediately went about the task of procuring a weapon to stab Lucky with. I wanted to make a strong point that I was back and shit was gonna be dealt with swiftly and harshly. After I had secured some iron—a steel flat of metal sharpened to a double-edged point—I told Taco of my intent and my utter hatred for all N-hoods.
“You ain’t gotta stab cuz. If you say move, he’ll move. But really, cuz is awright,” Taco said.
“Fuck that,” I told Taco. “This will send out a message to the rest of them punks.”
The next morning I stepped to him and caught him asleep. I crept up, climbed on the stool and then the desk, raised my weapon like my fist was a hammer, and began my downward motion. His movement was swift and sharp. He rolled to one side of the bed and balled up. My downstroke pierced his blanket and mattress and finally stopped with a vibrating “pinggg!” on the steel bed frame.
“Monster Kody, wait!” Anyone who knows me calls me either Monster or Kody. Only enemies and strangers refer to me by my whole name.
“I’m gonna kill yo’ punk ass,” I said, making a mocking stab at him, enjoying the terror in his eyes. “You outta bounds, N-hood, this is Grape and Gangsta ’hood, fool.” I made another swing in his general direction.
“Cuz,” he pleaded, hands held high like I was telling him to stick ’em up, “I didn’t know. Taco said it was cool if I live up here. Ask him, Monster Kody, ask him.”
I stopped swinging but began breathing hard, looking around like a lunatic. I went into my madman routine.
“You got three minutes by Gangsta time to roll yo’ shit up, bitch! You here me?” I said, eyes bugged like a crack addict’s.
“Yeah, Monster Kody, I hear you.”
“MOVE THEN!!” I yelled, waking everybody up.
“What’s up?” somebody said from down the tier.
“EIGHT TRAY GANGSTAS!!” I yelled, and someone said, “Aw, shit, he’s at it again.”
Lucky moved down on Able row and I consolidated Charlie row, resuming control of the tank. I found out that Weeble Wobble had gone to the penitentiary after taking a twenty-five-to-life deal. In San Quentin, the United Blood Nation murdered him. Popa and Perry had received ninety-six and ninety-eight years, respectively, and were in Folsom state prison. Chicken Swoop had also been found guilty and sentenced to twenty-five years to life. Chico was given fifteen years to life, Moman was sentenced to twenty-five years to life, and Old Man was given fifteen years to life. A lot of new people were there, and a few of the old ones still remained.
De and I had been charged with a robbery that neither of us committed. The LAPD knew this, without a doubt. Apparently, a man had been robbed on Eighty-fourth and Western Avenue, his money and shoes taken, and he had picked De and me out of a mug book as the robbers. But we knew that it was a bogus charge. After putting out our feelers and finding out who had really robbed the man, we knew beyond a doubt that it was a setup. The actual robbers—two older homies—didn’t resemble us whatsoever. It was impossible for that man to have been robbed by the other two homies and then have turned around and picked De and I. But it just so happened that De and I were the two hardest working bangers in the culture, committing crime sprees alone and together—a neighborhood’s worst nightmare. So we surmised early on in the proceedings that all this was a game of get-us-off-the-street. Well, it worked. I received four years and De received five. Since I was a minor, I went to Youth Authority; De was sent to state prison.
While I was in the juvenile tank, my homeboy Eight Ball was murdered—blown up in a ride-by ambush. He died on IIIth Street and New Hampshire while riding Devil from 107 Hoover on the handlebars of a ten-speed. He had not been out of Youth Authority a month before being killed. Because of who he was with, and the neighborhood they were in when the ambush occurred, it was easy to ascertain where the shooters were from. No doubt they were Neighborhood Blocks—the Hoovers’ worst enemy. The next day I snuck into the dayroom and ambushed Crazy Eight from One-Eleven N-hood for Eight Ball’s death. I beat him bloody.
Not long after that I was transferred to Youth Authority, going first to the Southern Reception Center Clinic (SRCC) in Norwalk. The day after my arrival I was summoned to the officer of the day’s office. When I got there a big, dark New Afrikan man and a scrawny little American woman sat behind two huge desks, both cluttered with papers and books. The New Afrikan man eyed me suspiciously, while the American woman busied herself with writing, not turning to look at me when I entered the room.
“Kody Scott?” asked the New Afrikan officer, peering over the rim of his glasses.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Monster Kody Scott?” he asked again, to be sure.
A bit hesitant now, I finally answered, “Yeah.”
“Well,” the officer began, sighing, pushing his glasses up on his nose and sitting back in his chair all in one fluid motion, “we don’t want you here. That is, in our institution.”
“What you talkin’ ’bout, man?” I asked, eyebrows automatically connecting in preparation for a mad-dog stare.
“Welp,” he started, through another sigh. “Kody, you don’t mind if I call you Monster, do you? It kinda keeps me focused here,” he said, making a playful attempt at clearing his junky desk.
“Naw, it’s cool.”
“Good, good,” he said, as if he were instructing someone who had done a good job at something. “I must admit you are nothing like I imagined.” And then, as if to himself, “No, no, nothing like I imagined.” He went on, “Well, Mr. Monster… ha, ha, ha… Mr. Monster… sounds funny, huh?”
I didn’t smile.
“Yes, well, the point is every gang member that comes through here—and we get a lot—has something to say about you.
“Is that right?” I said, more bored than flattered.
“Oh, yeah, you betcha. And so from talking to them, and overhearing others, I’ve come to know that you have killed many people.”
“That’s a lie, I ain’t kilt nobody!”
“Hold on now, Monster, don’t get riled up now—”
“Naw, man, people be lyin’ ’n’ stuff, I—”
“Well, we just think it’s best if you are sent directly to Youth Training School to complete your introduction up there, where there are more kids of your caliber around. Besides, the security is much tighter there. You’ll like it”
“Like it?!” I shouted. “What makes you think that I like tighter security? You muthafuckas be trippin’—”
“Calm down, Mr.—”
“Man, fuck you!”
Just then the door burst open and in rushed two linebacker-sized Americans who grabbed me, kicking and yelling profanities, and cuffed me.
The next morning, before the sun rose, I was in chains and on a bus to Y.T.S. to begin serving my four years.