Part 26 (2/2)

”What's up, Pie?” I said I knew all of them

”Monster, you packin'?” asked Lunatic

”You know I aot no gun Let's set outta here,” Ronnie Pace said veheot a better idea,” added Pie ”Let's take China froot nuttin' to do e got goin' on,” I said

”fuck that-” began China, but was cut off by Lunatic

”Man, this bitch been puttin' mo' work in than a li'l bit If we take her we can't leave Monsta”

”So what's up?” asked Pie

”Let's do 'e around nervously

”Naw, I'll tell you what You and Monsta go head up, Ronnie”

”What?” said Ronnie, as if not hearing right ”Head up? This nigga didn't go head up wit' our hoht slippin' Ain't no head up in war,” he shouted and drew his weapon ”And he ain't got no gun, 'cause he would have already shot us”

Ronnie was scared to fight o head up wit' cuz,” I said

”I'hter,” he shot back ”Now either we kill these two-”

”Let's go,” said Lunatic, interrupting Ronnie ”You owe me one, Monstayou too, China,” he said over his shoulder And they got in the car and drove off

China and I did an about-face, went back to my mom's house, and constructed a plan of attack

Not three weeks later, Tray Stone cahtieth and Halldale with Lunatic on the barrel of his gun-a prisoner of war Tray Stone was the happiest I had ever seen hio, Stone,” I said grudgingly

”What?!” said Stone, not believing he'd heard correctly

”I owe cuz one Turn him loose”

”damn, cuz, but this Lunatic Frank”

”I knoho he is Let hi, or knock his teeth out?”

”Naw, he let ht, so I owe him”

”shi+t!” exclaimed Stone And that was that

Now, six years later, he was hbor He went by the name Akili Simba and was CCO On the other side of ht Akili and I talked all night long on the ”telephone,” which wasout of the black rubber skin, and we used it for private conversations between cells

The next day I had to turn ence officer of CCO so he could make sure I wasn't a rat To those I didn't know I introduced myself as Sanyika, and I instructed those who knew me as Monster to call un, and I made a conscious effort to make attachments, connections

Akili and Kubwa Simba-Leebo from Front Hood, and my closest comrade-helped me sharpen my Kiswahili to a fine point Within nine months I had a small class of my own My education at San Quentin was made easy because there were New Afrikans who cared Asinia taught nize our culture as being distinct from Aht me to be scientific These brothas were Crips-CCO, scholars, and theoreticians

No English was spoken over the tier after six PM No foul language was permitted or used in reference to New Afrikan women or men We had a mandatory study period from seven AM to twelve noon The study period was also a quiet period where no talking was allowed Seven AM also heralded the ”alert” period, when every soldier was to be up and out of his kitanda (bed) and dressed At nine PM the alert period ended

Around this tiiven her his address to pass on to reat I began the first page with the nor, but then, naturally, the questions started to surface: Where have you been? and Why did you abandon me? Eventually it came to I needed you, man, and you weren't there for me and It's people like you who contribute to the destruction of people likepain that made s down at the tis

I wasn't able to finish the letter, just mailed it half-finished, like his fatherhood had been to me He never wrote back, which didn't surprise h this I learned that I had to be a real father tobecause of my parents' pro I wanted my children to feel

Blue June was slated as a month to remember the fallen soldiers and citizens of the C-Nation We went to the small SHU yard three ti the Universal Crip cadence Then we'd exercise and fall into our classes Only after this could we play basketball or lift weights After ten an to lead the exercises I quickly eant of arence officer

I believed in ere doing I was introduced to Fidel Castro, Mao Tse-tung, Ae Jackson My reading picked up, and so did iven a test on the contents of each book we read and were expected to write a book report about it The revieere stern, and there was no favoritism I failed so h, and in time became one of the sharpest in the cadre

Muha me literature, which helped a lot He sent one paels White Racists?, which I thought was outstanding Here were Marx and Engels, blowing about internationalis to include the majority of the world's people, ere of color

We all considered ourselves communists in the CCO Once, when I asked the unit if communism wasn't actually a Eurocentric philosophy, they jumped all over me as if I had committed blasphemy As I learned, communism as practiced in the Soviet Union was Eurocentric, and Soviet internationalist duty was looking more and more like imperialist conquests

But I still wanted to knohat movement ere attached to, and I cooal as an organization, and e trying to liberate? This is where their knowledge fell short No one was thinking that far ahead No one realized that the future was three ht years away As Tahtfully so I am an extremist, so I took our revolutionary prerew and an to see cracks and faults in our structure We werethe samerevolutionary ideals, trying to apply theht, those who could quote Marx, Mao, or Coan to irritate the hell out ofwith concrete conditions, and we had no mass appeal On top of this, our troops sent back out into Babylon were falling prey to parochialism and tribalism

One such case that caused a problem was that of Muet his homies to stop clockin' our 'hood, in an attein' and was clocked on Florence and Normandie The homies stepped to him and he dissed the 'hood He was executed

In response,homie Joker's door was kicked in, and his innocent sixty-five-year-old mother and fourteen-year-old brother were deliberately ht on Joker, who had supposedly executed Muht any uncultured Crip for killing a co Joker was involved in the war and had no idea of what CCO was at that time He was not responsible to us, but Mued in a free-fire zone If anyone should have been blue-lighted it was the cowards who s like this that caused anization Also, we had to contend with the new Crip organization-the Blue Notes They saw themselves as traditionalists and saviors of the Crip culture The organization was started on death row by Treacherous and Evil from Raymond Avenue Crips, and was supposedly headed by Tookie BNCO (Blue Note Crip Organization) gave uncultured Crips an alternative to the rigid, anization of CCO, which they accused of being too much like the BGF's They further accused the CCO leadershi+p of abandoning the protocols of Crip terrorism for some unattainable revolutionary utopia The BNCO blossomed quickly, because it appealed to the patriotic sense of Cripping They also had such stalwart generals as Tookie, Treach, and Evil, who are all extreeous

Other maladies befell the leadershi+p at Folso the war Two Hoovers were stabbed for bringing unsanctioned weapons to the yard Tony Stacy charged the Central Committee with tribalisn froine all the A out of the Democratic party The fatal blow careed to a peace treaty with the Mexican mafia, then turned around and declared war on the Blue Notes The Hoovers sided with the BNCO and shi+t began to fall apart

San Quentin was exeo, Rabbit, and Roho The Hoovers stabbed Notchie and Taliba The CCO struck back and stabbed Glen, Kencade, and Spark shi+t got crazy, fast I cut ht by a snooping pig They charged me with destruction of state property and billed me 180 for the bed