Part 12 (2/2)
”Calm down, Mr-”
”Man, fuck you!”
Just then the door burst open and in rushed two linebacker-sized A profanities, and cuffed , before the sun rose, I was in chains and on a bus to YTS to begin serving my four years
7
MUHAMMAD ABDULLAH
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 orked in 500 Trade jobs behind yet another chainlink fence Afterthe security requireed 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 cae ca ”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 theyhts and a full, hardwood basketball court Adjacent to this was a swi locked in the concrete confines of South Central allsuch open spaces of well-kept grass surrounded by a track, gy pool, and bleachers only conjured up beautiful ie cas, that which looks good outwardly ly within The well-kept face of YTS 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 ra School held 1,200 prisoners No one, under California law, could stay in Youth Authority past the age of twenty-six YTS 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 slassfor 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 teeks without going anywhere else but to testing-rade-point average was not up to par, you were o to school If you did not have your diploo to school the other half until you got it C-D here you could be trained in fighting fires and then sent out to do easy ti abusers and people hen sentenced, were specifically ordered by the judge to coram as a requirement for release G-H was for alcoholics with the same presentence or board-reco of I-J, K-L, M-N, and O-R, was the last unit of specifications I-J was a medical unit for es or with character defects that had led to the charges and conviction K-L and M-N were young coh ether O-R-better known as the Rock, was the hole, one of the strictest maxi Unit and Marion's MCU Once on the Rock you had to practically juet 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 here all the riders were It had a reputation for everything fro 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 froht Upon coiven a certificate
As with almost every institution, correctional facility, or penitentiary, Chicanos and New Afrikans were in the an 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”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 the 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 fil 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 Fas-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 co with the 415s Actually, the 415s don't like the New Afrikans froic 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 ene with all North, South, 415, and 213 This, I believe, is because of their minority status in st New Afrikans, who began as one then split into Crips and Bloods The Crips, ever the ued-indeed, traumatized-by the internal strife of ”set trippin'” There was also struggle within each set for leadershi+p 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 coonistic contradictions Since nize, confront, and resolve the contradictions in organizing the unorganized in relation to the larger society, their efforts usually failed, dooes by those who opted for the old platforanization was characteristic of anizing process when our nuanizing 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 ere 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 caot continually worse until 1983, culainst Dia of the entire set Diamond was exonerated, but after that our relationshi+p never recovered
By this tiotistical My reputation had finally ballooned to the third stage and, by definition, I had moved into the security zone of OG status My rep was o life From CRASH to the courts, from Crips to Bloods, from Juvenile Hall to death row, Monster Kody had arrived This, coupled with sterism, 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 Saht-lifting partners He had twenty-one-inch arms, andfive 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 ie, and I capitalized on it at every opportunity
We had planned a righteous gangster cereht Trays But 1983 found the set in shambles Most of our combat troops were locked away, dead or paralyzed by lack offor this in YTS by va on the Sixties What sped this process up, apart fro 1983, was the fact that Opie had just been ht in a secured driveway trying to climb over a chain-link fence, he was hit once in the side and died waiting for an ae, because other than Li'l Spike-as 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 the very serious, and then fall into the Opie National Anthem We loved Opie like a brother
We needed to consolidate aof all twenty-three of us in the institution so we could ate without the staff detecting our intent was in Musliht We knew that the attendance was low and that our move to this service would not be vieith alar coordinator-the dreaded Mr Hernandez
When Li'l Monster ca 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 fro Hernandez that I had instructed Stagalee to beat him dohich of course was true Li'l Fee had just co 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 kneas going on When I saw hin and then, still holdinghis 'hood, I put the that ”I be eating his 'hood up” He in turn did the saesture was based on fact; his was eed 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 withhi 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” ThatNo proble, as in M-N with Li'l Fee The very next day, Stag put an old-style gangster whipping on hiht 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 tiun
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 hiave us so to alloo 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 juo to the pen!” Mr Hernandez was shocked and sat looking at rabbed my arm and told ht through Mr Hernandez, who no that I was beyond his little threats How could I be cordial with the sa threats? I was escorted back to the Rock without further comment from Hernandez I saluted Li'l Bro and exited the roo in Musli we fell into Muslim services twenty-three deep Besides us there were seven or eight others, including the two Muslih staff e, they left soon after the ht, 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 hts flicked on, and the film projector was turned off We sat up frory Haan Hamza, who stood before us in a black thobe over black co our services, over here rappin' a y'all selves like little women-”
”Wait a ht Trays, we ain't no women”
”Yeah, well the way y'all-”
”Naw, onna watch the movie, then y'all can leave”
”Oh yeah?” I said, standing up and slowly turning in the direction of the holance, 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 shts hit us fro 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”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 infir tih At first I was a bit reluctant to approach hiated to say so, because they had backed us up when the staff had asked them about the incident I motioned hi hoould respond ”Don't you remember me?”
”Yeah,” he said, ”I reize 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, nae ain't gonna contribute to that”
”Righteous,” I said, noting that Muhaht out of the 1960s He was about six feet even, with a very dark, shi+ny, 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 Muhaht?”
”Right”