Part 9 (1/2)
THE JUVENILE TANK
No one, least of all Taco, could believe that I was going home I found it hard to believe myself, especially after the hoe, confiscated letters, andme 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 attemptedho them come down and book e for release, I went first to Taco's cell and held counsel with hie We talked softly through the bars
”Yeah, horab Taco's hand, ”I' of theet soht, cuz, go on out there and handle that shi+t If you run into hteous,” I said, looking now into Taco's eyes ”damn, cuz, I kinda hate to leave you in this onna be firotta 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 e 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 sohteous”
”Besides, we all like one now since you and cuz got busy So for him to try to start somethin' noould only make cuz look real bad to the hoht, but just stay alert”
Easing away fro to push away fro eaten in five days We both knew that he was not going hoed with fifty-nine counts of armed robbery and a murder Taco had heroically ridden into the Nickerson Garden Housing Projects on a unned down a Bounty Hunter Only irlfriend Although Taco was a hero in the Crip co to the district attorney, as, 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 ere 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 treate, 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 angbanging, 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 ho”
Prison looh you got the stone toback Going atory, but co didn't just atory deeds Go shoot soo rob that store, go spray-paint that wall, or go up to that school It never was ”go and co that you bad to do To come back meant that you loved the 'hood and your homies, and that what you did was si 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 si a prisoner The glory ca back To coness to ”stay down” It fostered an io and co-to add to the culture of the 'hood
In prison, one is thrown in with all the other cri members, outlaws, misfits, outcasts, and underworld people from all over California Since every jail I have ever been in seened to be recidivistic, as opposed to rehabilitative, the cri It saturates every level of every jail, fro and co arsenal of criains 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, ho hin
I quicklyfirm 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 ht for me to be processed out of LA County Jail Ever leery of the hoht pop out froas 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 don LA, I began to ease a bit, but not ot into South Central, the police's chances of apprehendingin their native habitat A ht soldier-police to track le 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-shi+rt, and a blue baseball cap with two golf-ball eer The two golf balls could signify several sets Back in the early eighties, we'd used numbers as codes of affiliation to circu three-tisters, Altadena Block Crips, and Marvin Gangsters, wore three golf-ball ehborhood sets and two-time sets like the 5-Deuces, 6-Deuces, and Rayolf-ball eiveaway 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 ht, 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 ht hand-a 25 autoit 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 froer 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-ene shot, scared to die Still reeling fro shot six e to die
”I don't bang,” I said and looked away in sha its way up The banger broke his stare and looked elsewhere, totally dis me I felt at a complete loss damn, I was trippin' I couldn't very well say, ”Uh, excuse ht Tray” That would be even worse than not initially saying where I was from I wanted to ladly die in a couple of months, but not now, not here
We rode in silence the rest of the way Then it dawned on er was probably un to ride the duration of the bus route to see where I got off Then he'd knoas an Eight Tray and gun ht, while in the juvenile tank I'd had Termite, a Chicano from East Side Clover, write ETG on the back of ot off the bus he'd scope the set on my neck and unload his clip on hts racking my mind, he reached up and pulled the exit bell As the bus slowed for his upco 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, ”!” 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 dohere the only gangs were Salvadorans This could angs, 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 ht 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 LA, I had apparently taken the wrong bus Now I found ht This was the borderline between the Rollin' Sixties and Black P Stone Bloods, and I had ETG onshi+t, tonight just wasn't ht
Inervously from foot to foot ”Wasn't nobody on the street but police and fools, police not givin' a fuck and fools doonorance,” Li'l De had said afterNow karnorant fool, doomed Every car was a potential tank manned by opposition troops I had been dropped behind eneet back to ” to jail only proved successful if I made it back alive
I was so far back in the shadows that I aloing to ride back down King Boulevard to Noret a transfer, follow Nor home Mom didn't even knoas out I could picture the utter surprise in her face when the police called
”Uh, Mrs Scott, this is Detective Joseph froretfully inforht”
Mo a dreadful ht up until she had to ID ue She would never believe it could happen toI would not have called her Mom was the enemy at home Mom was, to me, what antiwar protestors were to Westmoreland
I rode to Nor on Norhborhood, a packed beige Cadillac rolled to a stop in front of nition were the twisted, contorted faces of bangers from I-don't-knohere 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 betweeninspected for any signs of being a banger Perhaps these cats were Harle I have done a lot
I've found some very out-of-the-way people in the 'hood on soht I rode up on a carload of Miller Gangster Bloods sitting comfortably in an alley behind the Western Surplus I was able to ID the 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 Asters were from clear across town, 120th Street It's possible that they didn't knohere 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 an to ease forward For identification purposes the passenger raised one hand out of the ith his thuers hidden in his palhborhood Rollin' Twenty Bloods No doubt they were on a h Harlem 'hood, their worst ene ”Hurry up”
The bus ca on the walls, passing through several 'hoods Normandie Avenue can be compared to the Ho Chi Minh trail It is thefrom Hollywood to Gardena Normandie is a vital supply route Fro Boulevard to Florence, the bus h the Harlem Thirties, Rollin' Forties, 5-Deuce Hoovers, 5-Six Syndicate and 6-Deuce Bried to so 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 the themsome cats just seemed too sophisticated for that It's funny, too, because as raffiti 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 dise-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, h there are more murders in the city on the weekends than the weekdays, it has nothing to do with gangmembers work all day, every day This was a Wednesday, but that didn't mean I was more likely to survive No, I was htinto driveways and behind trees Anyone in any other part of this country would have thought I had either stolen so or was a nut But any resident here who clocked et froot 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 Moain, harder Still there was no answer, but Mom's car was there
Suddenly I heard noises froe I went across the street cautiously Weloelding so on his car He was a civilian orked 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 saeapons off for rinder When he saw me his eyes lit up We rapped a bit before he broke out sos 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 Moht it was, because before they had coone toMom when she told them that I was already in jail, they still et on her knees on the front lawn like a co fronize ht I freaked and bent down to avoid in-co, ”turn the light out, Moistered who I was Just as abruptly as I was splashed with light, I was now doused with darkness The light was screaht, it's all right” Moseen on that door
”Hi, Mom,” I said with a dopey marijuana smile I know she set you, don't you?” she said with a look of why-you-keep-doin'-me-like-this