The Gray Goose, as the Youth Authority Transport bus was affectionately called, rolled through the double sally port gates at the Youth Training School under the watchful eyes of those prisoners who worked in 500 Trade jobs behind yet another chainlink fence. After meeting the security requirements of the last checkpoint, the Gray Goose chugged forward, further into the institution. Once this third fence was opened and we rolled through, the expansive sight of the landscape almost took my breath away. I saw the same effect on the faces of a few other prisoners aboard the bus. It looked like a huge college campus, or what I thought a college campus would look like from watching “Room 222” on television.
There was a standard football field of plush, green grass surrounded by a red dirt 440-yard track. On one side of the track sat the bleachers, and behind them was a boxing gym. On the other side stood another huge gym containing Olympic weights and a full, hardwood basketball court. Adjacent to this was a swimming pool. After being locked in the concrete confines of South Central all my life—with the exception of youth camp—seeing such open spaces of well-kept grass surrounded by a track, gyms, swimming pool, and bleachers only conjured up beautiful images of college campuses and well-to-do students.
But, as with all things, that which looks good outwardly may be horribly ugly within. The well-kept face of Y.T.S. was but a facade, for behind the walls of the gyms and in the three units that stood around the outer track like mysterious statues on Easter Island, corruption of every kind was rampant—and for profit.
In 1981, the Youth Training School held 1,200 prisoners. No one, under California law, could stay in Youth Authority past the age of twenty-six. Y.T.S. was considered a senior Youth Authority. A maximum-security youth prison, it comprised three units, each divided into quarters. Each quarter was subdivided into halves, and each half was again divided into banks, or tiers. Every prisoner was assigned to his own cell. Each cell had a sliding door of solid steel with a small glass window for observation by the staff. The units were organized so as to meet the individual needs of each prisoner as set forth by the diagnostic researcher designated to individual casework.
Each unit had four companies, all structured alphabetically. Unit One housed companies A-B, C-D, E-F, and G-H. A-B was for orientation. One had to stay here at least two weeks without going anywhere else but to testing—math, reading comprehension, and so on. If your grade-point average was not up to par, you were made to go to school. If you did not have your diploma or G.E.D., you had to work half a day and go to school the other half until you got it. C-D was where you could be trained in fighting fires and then sent out to do easy time at one of the many Youth Authority Camps. E-F was for drug abusers and people who, when sentenced, were specifically ordered by the judge to complete the twelve-step program as a requirement for release. G-H was for alcoholics with the same presentence or board-recommended stipulations in their file.
Unit Two, consisting of I-J, K-L, M-N, and O-R, was the last unit of specifications. I-J was a medical unit for mentally ill prisoners and prisoners with rape charges or with character defects that had led to the charges and conviction. K-L and M-N were young companies. Young prisoners, even though maximum-security material, were kept together. O-R—better known as the Rock, was the hole, one of the strictest maximum-security holes outside of Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit and Marion’s MCU. Once on the Rock you had to practically jump through hoops to get off. Every week a bus came and took prisoners off the Rock and onto a state prison. The Rock loomed as the ultimate discipline for those considered fuck-ups. Whenever we passed the Rock, which was up above K-L, we gave sort of a thankful salute. The cool people just nodded respectfully.
Unit Three was considered the unit to be in: S-T, U-V, W-X, and Y-Z. W-X was where all the riders were. It had a reputation for everything from race riots to football, dope to weight lifting. It sat above S-T, which was a regular company, as was Y-Z. U-V was for those in 500 Trade. These were the upperclass sort of folks. Everyone in U-V got paid for their work. They kept the institution clean and functioning properly. Everyone wanted to be in 500 Trade. The Youth Training School also had a huge Trade Line, where everything from upholstery to plumbing was taught. Upon completion of the Trade Line, one was given a certificate.
As with almost every institution, correctional facility, or penitentiary, Chicanos and New Afrikans were in the majority. In Youth Authority, one began to learn about the larger prison culture that touched everyone’s lives, including the staff who, after being in the institution so long, began to assume some of the characteristics of the prisoners.
Lines of race, of national unity that defied political logic and overstanding, were clearly drawn in Youth Authority, which served as a junior college for the larger university of prison. The most blatant was that of the Allied Forces of Southern Chicanos—“southern” meaning any land south of Fresno—with all Americans. The Americans could have “White Pride,” “White Power,” swastikas, lightning bolts, “100% Honkey,” and such tattooed all over them, clearly stating they were stone-cold racists, and the Chicanos would be more than comfortable in their presence. New Afrikans allied themselves with the more cultured Northern Chicanos. The Northern and Southern Chicanos were, and still are, locked in a very serious war. The film American Me illustrates this. So, like the warring factions of New Afrikans, the Chicanos were split by geopolitical boundaries. What’s striking is that the division of the two is signified in colors. The Northern Chicanos—Nuestra Familia, Northern Structure, and Fresno Bulldogs—wear red flags. The more numerous Southerners—Mexican Mafia, Southern United Raza, and South Side Government—wear blue.
The New Afrikans from Northern California—primarily Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, San Francisco, and Palo Alto—call themselves 415s, which, until recently, was the area code for most of the Bay area. As if the Crip and Blood conflict was not complicated enough, the Crips do not get along with the 415s. Actually, the 415s don’t like the New Afrikans from 213—the Los Angeles area code—but for strategic purposes they have chosen the Bloods as allies over the Crips. So in Youth Authority, the ground rules of prison are set—your friends, your enemies. As a rule, all Americans get along with all North, South, 415, and 213. This, I believe, is because of their minority status in most institutions.
Tribalism was most prevalent amongst New Afrikans, who began as one then split into Crips and Bloods. The Crips, ever the majority, were then plagued—indeed, traumatized—by the internal strife of “set trippin’.” There was also struggle within each set for leadership. In prison, beginning in Youth Authority, sets try to organize themselves on some level to deal with the new complexities of institutionalization. With this new quest comes the rise of antagonistic contradictions. Since most leaders were not politically equipped to properly recognize, confront, and resolve the contradictions in organizing the unorganized in relation to the larger society, their efforts usually failed, doomed from the outset, or were aborted in the early stages by those who opted for the old platform of anarchy. This start-and-stop process of organization was characteristic of most sets there.
When I was at Y.T.S., we began our organizing process when our numbers swelled beyond fifteen. Our critical concern was organizing around the larger reality of the war. I had been reading Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and was devising a grand scheme for the set based on the Corleone family structure. Never did I take into account that first and foremost the Italians had a clear sense of who they were. That is, they overstood their heritage and their relation to the world as European people. We, on the other hand, were just Crips with no sense of anything before us or of where we were headed. We were trapped behind the veil of cultural ignorance without even knowing it. Yet here I was, trying to pattern our set after some established people, Europeans at that.
My opposition came primarily from Diamond. It got continually worse until 1983, culminating in my charges of set neglect against Diamond. This prompted a meeting of the entire set. Diamond was exonerated, but after that our relationship never recovered.
By this time, I had become very egotistical. My reputation had finally ballooned to the third stage and, by definition, I had moved into the security zone of O.G. status. My rep was omnipresent, totally saturating every circle of gang life. From CRASH to the courts, from Crips to Bloods, from Juvenile Hall to death row, Monster Kody had arrived. This, coupled with my newfound curiosity and interest in Mafia-style gangsterism, made me very hard to approach.
By 1983 I was physically the second biggest in the institution, second only to an old friend, Roscoe, the Samoan from the Park Village Compton Crips. We were weight-lifting partners. He had twenty-one-inch arms, and mine were twenty and one-quarter. He was bench pressing five hundred and ten pounds and I was doing four hundred and seventy. I heard after I left that he went considerably higher—five hundred and ninety, I was told. My size added to the Monster image, and I capitalized on it at every opportunity.
We had planned a righteous gangster ceremony of bloodletting for the year 1983—the year of the Eight Trays. But 1983 found the set in shambles. Most of our combat troops were locked away, dead or paralyzed by lack of motivation. We found ourselves compensating for this in Y.T.S. by vamping on the Sixties. What sped this process up, apart from it being 1983, was the fact that Opie had just been murdered by the Rollin’ Sixties. Caught in a secured driveway trying to climb over a chain-link fence, he was hit once in the side and died waiting for an ambulance. We were incensed with rage, because other than Li’l Spike—who was the darling of the ’hood—Opie was our sort of mascot. He was always filthy and unkempt, which didn’t seem to bother him at all. But De and I would always make fun of Opie’s appearance and shabbiness. We even had the Opie National Anthem, which opened:
Where there’s fire, there’s smoke,
Where there’s dirt, there’s Op…
Opie would just look at us like he felt sorry for us, and De and I would double over in laughter. We’d take our hats off and place them solemnly over our hearts, looking very serious, and then fall into the Opie National Anthem. We loved Opie like a brother.
We needed to consolidate a meeting of all twenty-three of us in the institution so we could move simultaneously. The only feasible place we could congregate without the staff detecting our intent was in Muslim services, which was held every Monday night. We knew that the attendance was low and that our move to this service would not be viewed with alarm by the staff members who worked as operatives for the gang coordinator—the dreaded Mr. Hernandez.
When Li’l Monster came to Y.T.S. from Ventura for whipping a female prisoner, Mr. Hernandez called us both to his office. Li’l Bro was in Y-Z and I was on the Rock. I had been put there as a result of Li’l Fee from the Rollin’ Sixties telling Hernandez that I had instructed Stagalee to beat him down, which of course was true. Li’l Fee had just come down from Dewitt Nelson and was trying to be hard. When I dissed his set, he surprisingly dissed back, though he was out of firing range. In fact he was clear across the front field. The diss was not verbal, and no one other than he and I knew it was going on. When I saw him looking in my direction I flashed his set’s sign and then, still holding my fingers in place displaying his ’hood, I put them in my mouth and chewed on them, insinuating that “I be eating his ’hood up.” He in turn did the same to my set. But my gesture was based on fact; his was empty. Nonetheless, he had done it. I would have charged him immediately myself, but he was in step with his unit, escorted by two staff members and clear across the field, and I was in step with my unit, accompanied by staff. The chances of getting him were slim, taking into account the distance and the staff coverage. Besides, had I gotten there, how long would the brawl last? Surely not long enough to punish him for the crime of disrespect. In addition, I was a “G.” That meant I had people to handle this type of thing. No problem.
I sent word to Stag, who was in M-N with Li’l Fee. The very next day, Stag put an old-style gangster whipping on him. Li’l Fee informed Hernandez—who got involved in every fight that was gang related—of the dissing the previous day, and Hernandez locked me up on the Rock. Li’l Fee was sent back to Dewitt Nelson. The next time we would meet would be over the barrel of a gun.
When I got to Hernandez’s office I was surprised to see Li’l Bro. I had heard that he was here, but had not seen him because I was locked on the Rock. Hernandez gave us some bullshit-ass speech about not wanting to allow two Monsters into his institution. I wasn’t even paying attention to what he was saying. When in the course of his spiel about what he would not tolerate I jumped up out of my seat and shouted “Fuck it, I’m ready to go to the pen!” Mr. Hernandez was shocked and sat looking at me bug-eyed. Li’l Bro grabbed my arm and told me to “be cool,” I sat back down and burned a hole right through Mr. Hernandez, who now knew that I was beyond his little threats. How could I be cordial with the same man who had locked me up and now sat before me espousing threats? I was escorted back to the Rock without further comment from Hernandez. I saluted Li’l Bro and exited the room.
From the Rock, I sent word for the meeting in Muslim services. The following Monday evening we fell into Muslim services twenty-three deep. Besides us there were seven or eight others, including the two Muslim ministers, Muhammad and Hamza. Although staff members escorted them for supervisory coverage, they left soon after the ministers began to speak. On this night, our first night, the Muslims had set up a film on slavery, which held no interest for us. As soon as the lights went off I began in on our needed sweep to rid the institution of the Sixties. During the course of my talk to the homies, the lights flicked on, and the film projector was turned off. We sat up from our hunched positions and were faced with a very angry Hamza.
“Check this out, brothas,” began Hamza, who stood before us in a black thobe over black combat boots and a leather jacket. “Y’all disrespecting our services, over here rappin’ among y’all selves like little women—”
“Wait a minute, man,” I said in quick defense of our status. “We Eight Trays, we ain’t no women.”
“Yeah, well the way y’all—”
“Naw, man, fuck that, we gangstas.”
“Well, if y’all ain’t gonna watch the movie, then y’all can leave.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, standing up and slowly turning in the direction of the homeboys. “Let’s bail.” I stalked off without a backward glance, followed by the troops.
Once outside the Protestant church, which is where Islamic services were held, we made our way to the Trade Line’s smoke-break area and stood around. All at once powerful lights hit us from the tower overlooking the facility, and moments later institutional cars and vans sped toward us, stopping within inches of our gathering. We were put on the fence and brick wall surrounding the smoke-break area and searched by irate staff members. When asked what we were doing “out of bounds,” we said that the Muslims said we could leave. I was taken back to the Rock, while the others were locked in their cells pending an explanation by the Muslims, who had supposedly let us out of services without proper escort. The next day we found out that the Muslims had, in fact, backed up our story and, with the exception of me, all the homies were taken off lockdown.
The next week, while I was in the infirmary waiting room just wasting time out of my cell, Muhammad came through. At first I was a bit reluctant to approach him because of the disrespect issue. But I felt obligated to say something, because they had backed us up when the staff had asked them about the incident. I motioned him over.
“What’s up, man?” I asked, not knowing how he would respond. “Don’t you remember me?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I remember you.”
“Yeah, well, I just want to apologize for disrupting your services last week and say thanks for backing us up on our statement.”
“Yeah, I hear you, but actually y’all didn’t disrupt our services at all. And as far as the pigs trying to lock y’all up, naw, we ain’t gonna contribute to that.”
“Righteous,” I said, noting that Muhammad’s style of speech was straight out of the 1960s. He was about six feet even, with a very dark, shiny, well-kept blackness. He wore a full beard, gold glasses, and a turban. His dress code was militant. He was a black ayatollah.
“Isn’t your name Monster Kody?” asked Muhammad.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“From Eight Tray, right?”
“Right.”
“Insha Allah, I be dealing with some of your older homeboys. Rayford, Bacot, X-con. You know them?”
“Yeah, them my O.G. homies,” I said with pride.
“Was all them brothas with you last week from Eight Tray, too?”
“Yeah, we twenty-three deep here.”
“Why y’all brothas fall to the services like that?”
“Huh?” I said, as if I didn’t overstand his question. I didn’t know if I should tell him the truth or not. If I said we were having a meeting he might feel that we really were disrespecting his services.
“You know, like why was y’all so thick? Somebody got killed on the bricks?”
He saw that I was perplexed and didn’t want to say too much, so he talked on.
“You brothas looked unified and strong. Insha Allah, why don’t you come and check out the services tonight?”
“Naw, I ain’t into no religion or nothin’.”
“Well here, read this. And if you ever feel like checking us out, come on by. You’re welcome.”
“Righteous,” I replied, looking down at the pamphlet he’d given me, entitled Message to the Oppressed.
We shook hands and parted company. That night in my cell I read the pamphlet, which began with a quote by Malcolm X:
Out of frustration and hopelessness our young people have reached the point of no return. We no longer endorse patience and turning the other cheek. We assert the right of self-defense by whatever means necessary, and reserve the right of maximum retaliation against our racist oppressors, no matter what the odds against us are.
It went on to list food, clothing, and shelter as the immediate aims of the struggle, and land and independence as the sought-after objectives. The pamphlet was not as religious as I thought it would be. I had been so conditioned to believe that religion was synonymous with passivity—from the Christian teachings to people of color—that I simply took for granted that Islam was like Christianity in this light. The material ended with another quote by Malcolm X:
From here on in, if we must die anyway, we will die fighting back and we will not die alone. We intend to see that our racist oppressors also get a taste of death.
The language was heavy, and I was impressed by it. Of course I was trying to figure out how to fit my enemies into this language, for the word “oppressor” had little meaning to me then. Although I was, like every other person of color on this planet, oppressed, I didn’t know it. I told myself that next week I was going to go and see just what was happening over there.
During the days before the services I read and reread the pamphlet. I had trouble clarifying words like “struggle,” “revolutionary,” “jihad,” and “colonialism,” but I kept on reading. It gave me a certain feeling, a slight tingle, and a longing sense of curiosity. Finally, the next week fell and I found myself walking down the ramp off the Rock and over toward the chapel that held Islamic services.
When I got there I was greeted by a brother named L.C., who was also a prisoner who lived on company S-T. There were about nine people altogether. After they went through their prayers, Muhammad read a short sura from the Holy Koran and then closed it. Standing there thoughtfully for a moment he played lightly in his beard, and then, as suddenly as thunder, he began a sharp tirade about the U.S. government.
“Brothas, it is incumbent upon you as male youth to learn of your obligation to the oppressed masses who are being systematically crushed by the wicked government of the United States of America. They already know of your potential to smash them, so they have deliberately locked you up in this concentration camp.”
Now, heated up, he began to pace the length of the church.
“Insha Allah, you will not be sidetracked from your mission. You are young warriors who are destined to be free! But you must be prepared to jihad till death!”
I was totally awestruck by his strength and language, not to mention his sincerity. He talked on about the government’s deliberate efforts to rid the world of people of color—black males in particular. All but the simplest things went right over my head. But what I was able to grasp slapped me hard across the face with such force that I got goose bumps. Damn, this shit must be real. It seems too heavy to be made up. And if he didn’t know what he was talking about, how was he able to explain what I had been through in home, in school, in the streets, and with the law? No, this had to be real.
When the services were over I lifted myself up and floated to my cell, totally high on Muhammad’s revolutionary speech. The week following the service, I must have read Message to the Oppressed thirty times. All I thought about was hearing Muhammad blow.
On Wednesday I got some devastating news. Crazy Keith from Harlem came for a visit and told me that Tray Ball was dead.
“What?” I said in utter disbelief.
“Yeah, Li’l Tray Ball just told me that cuz shot himself in the head playing Russian roulette.”
“Where Li’l Tray Ball at?” I asked.
“I seen cuz on a visit.”
“Damn!”
I felt at a total loss. I wasn’t ready to hear that. Not Tray Ball. I had dealt with other deaths in one piece, getting solace out of being able to strike back. But here, on the Rock, there was no striking back. No drugs, no loud music to put me in a trance, no revenge, nothing of the sort. Just me and myself. It was almost impossible to deal with—the reality of him being dead, gone, never to be seen again. All the good times came rolling up on my mental screen. Times when Tray Ball would act as mediator in disputes amongst the homies, using his influence to mend breaks in the clique. Or using his persuasion to recruit yet another homie. Ball gave us foresight, hindsight, and a deepseated feeling of righteous worth. I couldn’t imagine us without him. First we’d lost Eight Ball, and now Tray Ball. Symbolically, the set—Eight Tray—had been castrated by the removal of its balls, the Eight and the Three.
I cried like a baby for hours. Not just for Tray Ball, but for the set. The ’hood was dying, didn’t people see it like that? Our symbols were falling and no one seemed to overstand the significance of this. My nerves were in total disarray. What do you do when your homie commits suicide? Who do you strike at? Who is to blame? We all played Russian roulette, that mindless game of stupidity sadly mistaken as courage. Fortunately, our chambers clicked empty against the ping of the hammer. But for Tray Ball, it was a full chamber.
From what I was able to gather, Tray Ball, along with two or three other homegirls and two members of the Compton Crips, were in the shack—Tray Ball’s backhouse—getting high. Tray Ball started playing roulette with a .38 snub-nose. One round in the chamber, a quick spin, put the barrel to the temple, and click or boom. After several successful attempts—or unsuccessful, depending on the players’ disposition, and I don’t know what Tray Ball’s mind-set was that particular day—he became bored with the game. He exited the shack and went into the house. While he was gone, thinking he was through with roulette, someone put five more rounds in the chamber. When Trayball re-entered the shack, he immediately picked up the gun, put it to his head, squeezed the trigger and BOOM! No one had time to tell him the barrel was full. Everyone fled the scene. Tragedy has no mercy.
Our first thought was of foul play. My initial instinct was to kill everybody who was there, including those from Compton. Later, I knew this was an irrational call based on emotionalism. I remained bitter the rest of the week.
When Tamu and my sister, Kendis, came to visit my brother and me on Sunday, I told them about Muhammad and the way he talked. I asked Bro to accompany me Monday night to services, and he agreed to.
On Monday Muhammad did as he had the week before, only this time he spoke more about the Black Panther party and its threat to the U.S. government. Seeing me and Li’l Monster there, he intentionally expounded on the lives of George and Jonathan Jackson, both members of the party. Jonathan was murdered in a heroic attempt to liberate three prisoners, including the Soledad Brothers—of which his Brother-Comrade, George, was one. Comrade George was assassinated the following year in a bungled attempt to escape from San Quentin.
“How old are you?” Muhammad asked, pointing at Li’l Monster.
“Seventeen,” replied Li’l Bro.
“Jonathan Jackson was seventeen when he walked into the Marin County Courthouse and took the judge and D.A. hostage.”
He paused a minute for effect.
“What set you from?” Muhammad asked me.
“Eight Tray Gangster,” I replied.
“George Jackson was the field marshal for the Black Panther party. He was eighteen when he was captured. He was given one year to life for a seventy-dollar gas station robbery. He served eleven years before he was killed by pigs. He was twenty-nine years old.”
He turned to Li’l Monster. “What you in here for?”
“For murder.”
“Who you kill?”
“Some Sixties—”
“Black people!” Muhammad shouted.
“Yeah, but—”
“George Jackson corrected, not killed, corrected three pigs and two Nazis before he himself was murdered!”
Muhammad seemed possessed.
“This is what I’m trying to tell you. As you kill each other, the real enemy is steadily killing you. Your generation has totally turned inward and is now self-destructive. You are less of a threat when you fight one another, you dig?”
We sat upright, clinging to his words.
“Jonathan knew chemistry, demolition, and martial arts. He was a man-child, a revolutionary. He felt responsible for the future of his people.”
We sat there, stunned by the parallel between us and George and Jonathan Jackson. What made us sit up and take note of what Muhammad was saying about our self-destructive behavior was that he never talked down to us, always to us. He didn’t like what we were doing, but he respected us as young warriors. He never once told us to disarm. His style of consciousness-raising was in total harmony with the ways in which we had grown up in our communities, in this country, on this planet. Muhammad’s lessons were local, national, and international.
I put the word out that all Crips should come to Muslim services and hear Muhammad talk. Within three weeks attendance increased from nine to twenty-seven to forty and finally to eighty! The staff became alarmed, asking questions and even sitting in on some of the services, trying to grasp our sudden attraction to Islamic services. They never caught it.
Islam is a way of life, just like banging. We could relate to what Muhammad was saying, especially when he spoke about jihad—struggle. Of course we heard what we wanted to hear. We knew that Islam or revolution was not a threat to us as warriors. Muhammad didn’t seek to make us passive or weak. On the contrary, he encouraged us to “stand firm,” “stay armed,” and “stay black.” He encouraged us not to shoot one another, if possible, but to never hesitate to “correct a pig who transgressed against the people.” After every service let out, it was a common sight to see fifty to eighty New Afrikan youths mobbing back to their units shouting “Jihad till death!” and “Death to the oppressor!”
The Protestant following totally evaporated. Reverend Jackson could not figure out where his constituents had gone. In these times, gang conflicts involving New Afrikans were at an all-time low. Mr. Hernandez began to pull on the strings of his informants, which, without fail, led him to me.
One day he called me into his office for a fact-finding chat. He offered me a seat, but I declined. He then began his little probe.
“So, Mr. Scott—or is it Abdul or Ali Baba?”
I said nothing.
“Yes, well anyway I have called you in here because it is my understanding that you have been trying to subvert the institutional security.”
The term “institutional security” is so far-reaching that whenever there is nothing to lock a prisoner down or harass him for, staff, correction officers, and most any figure of authority in any institution will pull out this ambiguous term. It is precisely this wording that has me locked deep within the bowels of Pelican Bay today. I am a threat, and proud of it. If I wasn’t a threat, I’d be doing something wrong.
“Institutional what?” I asked, not yet familiar with the terminology.
“Security, Scott, security.”
“Man, you trippin’—”
“No, Scott, you are tripping!” he yelled, slapping both hands hard on the table.
“I don’t know what you talkin’ ’bout,” I answered with a blank stare.
“Oh, you don’t, huh? Well how do you explain twenty-three Eight Trays, fourteen Hoovers, eleven East Coasts and a lesser assortment of other bangers cropped up in Moslem church for the past month, huh? Explain that!”
“Man, I ain’t explainin’ shit.”
“Oh, no? Well how ’bout if I keep your bad ass on the Rock forever, huh? How ’bout that?”
“I already been there two months for some shit that didn’t involve me—”
“You are a damn liar, you ordered that boy Layton to jump on Cox. And you been involved in a host of other shit. So don’t tell me what you ain’t done.”
“You know what, Hernandez, do what you gotta do,” I said low and slow, to let him know that I wasn’t hardly giving a fuck about what he was stressing on.
“Yeah, I’ll do that, I’ll just do that. But you remember this when you go up for parole.”
“Can I leave now?” I asked, bored with his threats.
Actually the Rock wasn’t all that bad. I ate all my meals in the cage, showered every other day, and came out once a day for an hour, usually in the morning. I was able to have my radio and a few tapes. At that time I was exploring the blues. Jimmy Reed was my favorite. I still got my weekly visits, though I couldn’t decide who I wanted to have come. At Y.T.S. they allowed prisoners to have only one female on their visiting list, other than mothers and sisters. Tamu really was not my first choice, China was. But she didn’t have the mobility to be there every week, and riding the bus was suicidal. So I took her off my visiting list and replaced her with Ayanna, who was also from the ’hood. Her mother had moved her out to Pomona to get her out of the gang environment, and she now lived in close proximity to Y.T.S. Our visits went like clockwork, but eventually we grew tired of each other, so I took her off my list. For a short time I replaced Ayanna with Felencia, Tray Ball’s sister. This didn’t work out too well either, because she wanted me to stop gangbanging and I just wasn’t having it. I was not giving up my career for no female, so I ended up putting Tamu back on the list. As long as I got my visits and could keep my music, the Rock wasn’t shit.
In my cell on the Rock, I reread for the hundredth time Message to the Oppressed. Malcolm came on strong:
We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.
As I read on I felt the words seeping deeper into me, their power coursing through my body, giving me strength to push on. I was changing, I felt it. For once I didn’t challenge it or see it as being a threat to the established mores of the ’hood, though, of course, it was. Muhammad’s teachings corresponded with my condition of being repressed on the Rock. Never could I have been touched by such teachings in the street.
The prison setting, although repressive, was a bit too free. But on the Rock, the illusion of freedom vanished, and in its place was the harsh actuality of oppression and the very real sense of powerlessness over destiny. Because there was no shooting war to concentrate on, your worst enemy was easily replaced by the figure presently doing you the most harm. In prisons this figure is more often than not an American. An American who locks you in a cage, counts you to make sure you haven’t escaped, holds a weapon on you, and, in many instances, shoots you. Add to this the fact that most of us grew up in an eighty percent New Afrikan community policed—or occupied—by an eighty-five percent American pig force that is clearly antagonistic to any male in the community, displaying this antagonism at every opportunity by any means necessary with all the brute force and sadistic imagination they can muster.
It was quite easy then for Muhammad’s teachings to hit me in the heart. However, my attraction to the facts involving our national oppression was grounded in emotionalism, and eight years of evolutionary development in Crip culture could hardly be rolled back by one pamphlet and a few trips to Islamic services. But I did feel the strength. I called off the move on the Sixties after Tray Ball killed himself. Everyone asked why, but I really had no answer. I told them that we’d handle it in a little while.
Stagalee was my neighbor on the Rock; he and I would talk through a small hole in the wall. I sent him over the Message to the Oppressed pamphlet and solicited a response from him about its contents.
“Cuz,” I said bending down so as to talk through the hole, “what you think ’bout that paper I sent over there?”
“I don’t know, some of these words too hard fo’ me, cuz. But I can see that this is some powerful shit.”
“Well, what you could catch, what did you think?”
“Cuz, really, I think Muhammad is some kind of terrorist or somethin’.”
“Stag, you trippin’. Muhammad ain’t no terrorist. Shit, Muhammad is down for us.”
“Who?” he asked, “the set?”
“Hell naw, nigga, black people!”
“Ah, cuz, fuck all that, ’cause soon he gonna be tellin’ us to stop bangin’ and shit—”
“Stag, Stag.” I tried to slow him down.
“Naw, cuz, I can’t see me being no Muslim. I just can’t see it. They be standing on corners selling pies and shit. Do you know how long one of us would live standin’ on a corner, not even in our ’hood? Monster, let me catch a Sissy, Muslim or not, and I’ma blow that nigga up!”
“I don’t know, homie, I just feel that there is something there.”
“Yeah, muthafucka, a bean pie!” Stag answered and broke out laughing.
“Stall it out, cuz,” I said, feeling myself getting angry.
“Monster, you ain’t thinkin’ ’bout being no Muslim, is you? Cuz, don’t do it. Muhammad cool and everythang, but cuz, you Monster Kody. Ain’t nobody gonna let you live in peace. Plus the set needs you, cuz. Here, cuz.”
Stag had rolled up the pamphlet and was pushing it through the hole.
“Naw, cuz, I ain’t thinkin’ ’bout turnin’ no Muslim. I’m just sayin’ that what Muhammad be stressin’ is real.”
“Right, right.”
“Well, I’ma step back and get some z’s. I’ll rap to you later. Three minutes.”
“Three minutes.”
I lay on my bed with the rolled-up pamphlet on my chest and thought about what Stag had said.
“You Monster Kody. Ain’t nobody gonna let you live in peace… . The set needs you…”
My young consciousness screamed back in an attempt to exert itself.
“Who is Monster Kody?… J am Monster Kody… a person, a young man, a black man… Anything else?… No, not that I know of… What is Monster Kody?… A Crip, an Eight Tray, a Rollin’ Sixty killer… a black man… Black man, black man, BLACK MAN…”
The words reverberated again and again.
“Nobody gonna let you live in peace…”
“Who ain’t gonna let you live in peace?”
“Black men, black men, black men…”
“Why?!” my consciousness shouted back, “WHY?!”
I had no answer. The confusion gave me a headache. I knew that I was reaching a crossroad, but I didn’t know how to handle it. Should I accept it or reject it? In a perverted sort of way I enjoyed being Monster Kody. I lived for the power surge of playing God, having the power of life and death in my hands. Nothing I knew of could compare with riding in a car with three other homeboys with guns, knowing that they were as deadly and courageous as I was. To me, at that time in my life, this was power. It made me feel responsible for either killing someone or letting them live. The thought of controlling something substantial—like land—never occurred to me. The thought of responsibility for the welfare of my daughter or a nation, New Afrika, never crossed my mind. I was only responsible to my ’hood and my homeboys. Now I was being subjected to a wider reality than I had ever known.
Then I heard it. As I was struggling with this dilemma I grasped the point that Muhammad was trying to make.
“When you were born you were born black. That’s all. Then, later on, you turned Crip, dig?”
In this light I found clarity. But, I asked myself, what was Muhammad really asking of us? Did I have to be a Muslim to be black? I surmised that it was like being a Crip or a Blood, as opposed to being a hook or a civilian. Where I came from, in order to be down you had to be “in.” Did I have to be “in”—that is, a Muslim—to be down with blackness? Surely much thought and internal debate had to go into this issue.
My thing was this: I didn’t believe there was a God. I just had no faith in what I couldn’t see, feel, taste, hear, or smell. All my life I have seen the power of life and death in the hands of men and boys. If I shot at someone and I hit him and he died, who took his life? Me or God? Was it predestined that on this day at this time I would specifically push this guy out of existence? I never believed that. I believed that I hunted him, caught him, and killed him. I had lived in too much disorder to believe that there was an actual design to this world. So I had a problem with believing in anything other than myself.
My interest here was drawn by the militancy of Malcolm X and Muhammad, not by the spirituality of Islam. The first book I got was Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver. Most of it was too hard to grasp, but what I did get was militant and strong. I found that this was my preference.
I was subsequently taken off the Rock and put back in Unit Three, in company U-V. While attending school for my G.E.D., I met a brother named Walter Brown. Bro—who worked at Y.T.S. as a teacher but functioned better as a guiding light—had been a prisoner himself in the 1960s. He was stern but flexible and held great influence over most of us who were considered O.G.s. Brown was militant but responsible. Not to imply that militants are irresponsible, but Brown was specifically responsible for the upbringing of us—young, New Afrikan males. His degree of effectiveness can be measured by the fact that he was designated to “teach” parole classes. That gave him access to prisoners for one week, one hour a day, before they were paroled. This skimpy time frame could not possibly have helped prisoners deal with the multi-complex phenomena of society. Most of what was taught was useless, old institutional garbage that was not applicable to the streets. Brown, however, was beyond that and taught hard-core reality-politics that drew those of us who listened closer to the brink of consciousness. Some of us, those who Brown felt had potential, would stop by his class long before pre-parole and sit and listen to him talk about the raw reality of America.
“Kody,” Brown would say, “these white folks ain’t playin’, man. They will lock you up, lock you down, lock you in just like they have locked you out of this society. If you haven’t got any marketable skills to sustain an income on your own, man, your chances of survival are slim. You are high-risk living—actually just existing. You young, black, unskilled, strong… you smoke cigarettes?”
“Naw, just bo’.”
“Well, that’s good enough. You use drugs, you drink, and to top it off you gangbang! Man, how you gonna make it?”
“Man, I don’t know…”
Brown, like Muhammad, had a great impact on my development, though it took a few years to appreciate their contribution. The strongest New Afrikan men I had known up until that time were bangers. Verbalizing was not an issue. Shoot first and let the victims’ relatives ask questions later. Guns were our tools of communication. If we liked you, you weren’t shot and we’d go to any length to shoot whomever disliked you. If you were not liked, you were hunted, if necessary, and shot—period. Instantaneous communication. That’s all I had known for years. Words, I thought, could never take the place of guns to communicate like or dislike. But here I was, totally absorbed in the spoken words of Muhammad and Brown, and the written word of Malcolm X. Each emotional lash was tantamount to the resounding echo of gunfire. But unlike gunfire, no one was killed. This was my first encounter with brothers who could kill with words. Their words were not mere talk, either. Action followed in the wake of their theories, and their presence demanded respect long before their words were spoken.
One Monday night we fell to Islamic services to find another “Muslim” there. In appearance, this cat was totally out of sync with the Muslims we had known. First of all, he had a Jheri curl, which was dripping juice onto his collar and the shoulders of his Members Only jacket, which was black and collarless. He wore some gray double-knit slacks and black penny loafers. Standing approximately five feet, four inches and weighing a meager one hundred and twenty pounds, he was the opposite of Muhammad. As soon as we had taken in his dress and fried hair dripping nuclear waste, we knew we had been undermined.
“Where’s Muhammad at?” I asked, walking up on him.
“Oh, well,” he began stammering, obviously intimidated by my size, “Muhammad was suspended by the California Department of Corrections Youth Board and restricted from entering the institution until further notice.”
“What?!”
“Sorry, fellas, but Muha—”
“SORRY”?!
“Yes, you see—”
“Man, we want Muhammad. You don’t even look like no real Muslim. Where you from? Who sent you?”
“Please, please,” he said, raising both hands like a jack victim. “If you all sit down I will explain everything to you. Please, just have a seat.”
We moved slowly and reluctantly to our seats, murmuring “Fuck that” and “This dude is a fake” under our breath. Once we were seated it was apparent that the “Muslim” felt even more intimidated by standing in front of eighty irate youths demanding an explanation for the sudden removal of our teacher. He began with “Asalaam Alaikum” and not one of us responded with “Walaikum Asalaam.” Why should we? He wanted us to be peaceful with him, but we had no intention of bidding him peace until a full explanation was brought forth about the removal of Muhammad Abdullah. The “Muslim” extracted a white kerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat mixed with Jheri curl juice from his brow.
“I am George Muhammad and I have been sent by the American Muslim Mission. My job is not to teach you revolution, but Al-Islam. Mr. Muhammad Abdullah was a fomenter of violence and separating. He was—”
“Man, fuck you!” came a voice from the back, immediately followed by a balled-up piece of paper.
“We live in violence,” said L.C., one of the original members of the services before we came. “Always have and, by the definition of ghetto, we already live in separation. Muhammad did not teach us violence and separation. He taught us self-defense and nationalism. And anyway, Al-Islam teaches us, by way of the Holy Koran, that it is our duty as Muslims to fight oppression everywhere it assaults us in this world.”
“Yes, but—”
“Naw, ain’t no ’yes, but,’ see, ’cause you ain’t right. I heard Muhammad talk about you one day. Yeah, yeah that’s right. He taught us ’bout how you be lookin’ like us, talkin’ like us, and livin’ with us, but all the time you be workin’ with the oppressor. Yep, we already up on you. Yo’ name ain’t no George Muhammad. Yo’ name is Uncle Tom!”
“Get that muthafucka!” yelled someone to the left of me, and we all rose and began to advance on Tom, who stood bug-eyed and motionless. Just before he was seized, the doors to the chapel burst open and staff in full riot gear came rushing to his rescue.
We were all sent back to our cells and put on C.T.Q.—Confined to Quarters—during which time I received a letter from Muhammad. His letter was my first lesson in counterintelligence activity.
The pigs sent the Negro preacher to gather intelligence on me. He climbed in the air-conditioning vent and taped several of our services. He has always been our worst enemy, unfortunately, for the Uncle Tom is so hard to detect among us. I will not be coming back to Y.T.S. for some time, if ever. But I will always stay in contact with you. Insha Allah, don’t be deceived by those who look like us but think like the oppressor.
I was stung by the reality of Muhammad’s letter, by the prophecy of his “don’t be deceived by those who look like us” when just this week I had witnessed the undermining of our services by the institution. I passed Muhammad’s letter around to those who were responsible for informing their troops. For those who had a problem reading, I took it upon myself to explain what had happened.
Attendance at Islamic services under the guidance of the Uncle Tom fell off completely. No one attended, so Tom packed up and left. Because of what we had found out about Reverend Jackson spying on us, no one attended his services, either. As for the staff bursting in and rescuing the Uncle Tom—he was wired! I later found out the staff had anticipated such a response.
My consciousness about the larger enemy was being raised bit by bit. Why wouldn’t someone want us to learn about who we really are? Is our knowledge of self so threatening that such measures as sending a Christian preacher into an air conduit are necessary to hinder its attainment?
Muhammad and I kept in contact, and he sent me a lot of literature, mostly Islamic but always Afrocentric. The banging mentality was still uppermost in my mind, as demonstrated in my everyday relations with most people. But questions of right and wrong now came to my mind immediately after every action I took. Muhammad had made a tremendous difference in my life that was barely noticeable then, but cannot be overlooked today.
My time in Y.T.S. after the closing of Islamic services continued in a fashion characteristic of prison life. To occupy my time I had structured a daily routine that gave me little opportunity to be blue about confinement. It was 1983, and I wanted to make a statement for the set somehow, someway. But I didn’t want to do it in a physical manner, which seemed uncharacteristic of me. Actually, it was uncharacteristic of Monster.
Diamond, Superman, and I decided to get tattoos for 1983. I wanted mine on my neck, in clear view for all to see. This, I knew, would be a status symbol, as relatively few New Afrikans had tattoos on their necks at that time. Today it’s hard to find a banger whose neck isn’t written on, advertising his or her particular allegiance. In 1983 it was unpopular to have your set written across your neck, but hell, was I into this for popularity or was I committed for life? My all-out commitment for life would, if I lived long enough, bring about popularity, as I was already experiencing. But with Eight Tray written across my neck, it would be an everlasting bond.
In Black August 1983, I had the tattoo put on my neck. Superman had his mother’s name put on his neck, and Diamond had some shading done on his back. Against the lightness of my skin and the thickness of my neck, the tattoo stood out as a beaming testimonial of my lifelong commitment to the ’hood. One staff member said something adverse about it, but most people didn’t care. I felt content about it, and to me, that’s all that mattered.
Not long after I received the tattoo I got more depressing news from the ’hood. C-Ball, who had been in the ’hood for years, had shot and killed Tray Stone. From what I was able to gather it was over a cassette tape stolen out of C-Ball’s car. But after doing a bit more research I uncovered a possible link in a relationship with a female whose brother was from the ’hood. It was my overstanding that C-Ball was jealous of Stone’s flirtations with the female and that he’d only used the tape issue as camouflage. Supposedly Stone was confronted on the north side by C-Ball, who was armed with a .32 caliber revolver, as Stone had grown too large for C-Ball to fight. When C-Ball asked after his missing tape, Stone became belligerent. C-Ball then fired one round at point-blank range into Stone’s torso. Stone fell to the ground and said, “Ah, cuz, he shot me,” as if he could not believe it. He died thereafter.
C-Ball turned himself in and received eight years. Now the debate was about what to do with C-Ball. Tray Stone was the highest level of combat soldier and was loved deeply by those whom he fought for and beside. C-Ball, while not a combat soldier, had been in service to the set for years, much longer than Stone. Those of us in the combat wing who favored Stone were calling for the on-sight execution of C-Ball, while the voices of the traditionalists in their armchair posture rang just as loudly for the forgiveness of C-Ball for slaying “Tray Stone the bully.” The set remained divided over this for quite some time. Even today there are those on both poles of the issue still debating what’s right and what’s wrong. I have let it rest. Stone was eighteen years old.
I was paroled out of Y.T.S. on March 7, 1984. Mom and Tamu were there to pick me up. Li’l Bro and I had been at Y.T.S. for one year.