Part 18 (2/2)
When I awoke the nextmusic The fresh, wholeso, ”Angel,”soood vibes Keonda came into the room and she and I talked awhile When I was in YTS, Taan When I was released I taught her his third na!” and I'd say ”Yeah!” I finished playing with Keonda, ate, showered, and geared up The phone rang
”Telephone, Kody, it's Muhammad”
I went to the phone
”Asalaareeted me
”Walaikum Asalaam”
”So, are you ready to roll?” he asked
”Roll? Where?”
”To the seotten about that
”Yeah, I'ht over to pick you up”
Thirty ot to the car there was another brother inside who looked vaguely familiar He introduced hiht I'dthe slave movie We saluted each other as Muhammad pulled out into traffic
”So, what's been up, Monster?” Muha name, I believe to make me feel comfortable Even when he introduced me to brothas and sistas in the ht Trays” He never dohere I was coh, that when he'd introduceannounced as Monster Kody froers, I felt that the revolutionaries wanted to stop gangs, which is seldo violence, which is ninety percent black-on-black And the way they try to stop it is to show that black-on-black violence is a result of white-on-black violence I knew none of this then, but felt uneasy all the same
”Ain't nuttin' up, man, just dealin' wit' thison Chair who he meant without the last name attached
”Fred Hampton The brotha in the Panther book”
”Oh, naw, man I ain't read nuttin' Been havin' a few problems out here, you know?”
”Yeah, I heard Soht”
”Either otta check out Chair, sort of like you How old are you now?”
”Nineteen”
”Yeah, Chairs assassinated him You know, Chairman Fred used to say, 'They can kill the revolutionary, but they can't kill revolution They can kill the liberator, but they can't kill liberation,' Ain't that deep? Pigs killed Fred 'cause Fred was serious Fred was hard as nails, brotha You should read up on the brotha You'll dig hi”
”Yeah, I intend to But lately, raveyard and sleep”
”What?! Brotha, it ain't never that bad That's what the beast want you to do Check out what H Rap Brown say: 'We are starting to realize what A known And that is every black birth in America is a political birth, because they don't knohich one is going to be the one to raise the people up' Bro, don't let the beast pressure you into taking yourself out You got a hteous”
But still I felt tired, overburdened Today I knohat that weight was, but then I didn't It was doing Not wrongdoing in any religious sense, but doing things that werebased on the hu me that my time was up I knew it, I felt it, but I just couldn't face it No professional can ”You're too old,” ”You can't move like you used to,” ”You're slippin'” No one wants to hear that, especially when that life is all you have known
At nineteen I felt like thirty I didn't knohat to do Dying on the trigger didn't look so appealing any as banging once was Banging had taught reatest enjoyave ood, but to stand inforhad to involve fighting for power and land
When Muha about Chairo chapter of the Black Panther party Just like Muhaht other Panthers, including his pregnant fiancee, were set up by an informant and ambushed in their residence Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were roes After reading about Fred, I really got into the book
On September 27, a month after the street race shoot-out, our door was kicked in by the soldier-cops They found a 25 autoed with otten shot One, Li'l Eddie Boy, had positively identified me while in the hospital He was the mayhem victim The irony of this was that he and his unit had co for me I'd defended myself and shot him in the ass in a dark alley as he ran away, yet he had positively identifiedwas, ”If we can't kill hiot to County I was immediately rushed to 4800, the Crip eles County at that time, all wore blue juray Everyone anted to take a shot at us could, as we stood out like flies in the butter Eddie Boy, the victim's brother A sort of detente existed between the sets, since the Consolidated Crip Organization (CCO) hadthe peace They did this by keeping our rage focused on the pigs, ere always antagonistically aggressive toward us-and our dicks
I told Fee that Li'l Eddie Boy was a witness against me and he assured me that he would not coe, but a week or two later he was on the front page of the Los Angeles Sentinel wanted in connection with five murders-the Kermit Alexander family murders The story was that it was supposed to have been a hit but that he'd gotten the wrong street, only even eren't doing hits It ht
Li'l Fee was taken to High Power, ot released Thus ly, he came to court to testify
Slowpoke, Football, and Fishbone were in County for double murder Diaht a Sriting on the wall at St Andrews Park and beat him to death with a baseball bat Ckrizs was there, too In fact, Crips from all over were there
We were housed in Denver row and Charlie row in four-man cells and in Able row and Baker row in six-s were so complacent that often there'd be six members from the same set in the salass catwalk ran the length of the tiers for observation by the pigs Communal shoere located at the entrance to each tier
For all of us, 4800 was a new testing ground, and there was always so on
9
48 HOURS
Module 4800, the relatively new (to us) atteeles County Sheriffs Depart activity in the LA County Jail, wasn't working Their atteeneral population, was an iave for such ”preferential” treat from the April 1984 rebellion, in which seventeen Crips erupted into raers in the 4000 floor chow hall Heron, an OG fros for so for it Fed up with the wanton abuse fros were beaten and one te, the rebels went after the trustees, the faithful servants of the pigs, ere notorious for shorting everyone on food The trustees had also jacked up the price of donuts, which they stole froeneral population, fro All were beaten and ran from the chow hall Then the doors were barricaded and the dee, the ents in the sheriff's department told theand the breakdown of the air-conditioning systes videotaped those in the chow hall frohteous co the module adjacent to the chow hall-4800
For five hours the resisters deiven ”better food” and some protection froentleht,” and ”Of course we are all men” Then the resisters were auntlet of pigs in full riot-repression gear for their well-deserved whack with the P-24 baton, and directed into 4800 The seventeen stayed naked, with no bedclothes, no visits, no showers, for three days After that they were given bedclothes, visits, and gray jumpsuits
The other eleven thousand prisoners wore blue juray Every time they went to court, on a visit (under heavy escort) to the doctor, anywhere, they were subjected to the abuse of sadistic pigs ere looking for revenge The Bloods, caeneral population, also took liberty and attacked gray suits when they were caught alone or in isolated pairs
Directly across the hall fros set up the OSS interdepartmental office Ironically-or perhaps not at all-this was around the same time that the FBI released a study on Crips that stated ”one out of every four Crips is in jail for murder, or has done time for murder And three out of four Crips have been arrested for weapons-related charges” The counterintelligence of the Crips was kicked into full swing, and 4800 became the ”Crip Module”
It's quite clear toplace at that time But then, in 1984, I was deaf, duence on us and had no idea ere doing so Instead of 4800 being a eneral population safe, it becaence satellite for law enforceinally designed For us, it becaround TheI remember about 4800 was that there weren't any books in the entire module, and eren't allowed access to the library The decibel level was so high that when I didn't have a headache, I felt funny
Every set desperately tried to get their own set deep, because a deep set wielded power and could protect itself Whenever, on our way to see a visitor or the doctor, we'd see one of our hoeneral public), we'd tell the escort pig that the ho nuht the homie would be moved to 4800, doomed like the rest of us GP was smoother, much better than 4800 You could walk around unattended to visits, other modules, practically anywhere Many Crips shunned the module for this reason Some didn't want to be labeled as Crip, and others couldn't stand the stress There were also those with dirt on the or stabbing But e'd see a ho yo' ass ho into 4800 was overwhel, so cats tended to circumvent it for this reason, as well You were made to stand and hold a placard with your name, your set name, and your 'hood on it for a series of pictures The pictures were no doubt distributed aence A lot of cats just didn't want to deal with that Inside the hteen to forty The deepest sets were the Hoovers and the East Coasts, a deadly et along, each individualan effort to suppress his disdain for enemies that he was now face-to-face with-sometimes in the same cell