By this time my name and courageous exploits were ringing with alarming regularity in most ’hoods in the gang community. Crazy De was right beside me. We had finally broken through to the second stage of recognition. De, however, had been captured for a murder and was in juvenile hall awaiting trial. I was doing a solo while fashioning Li’l Monster, who had gotten released from camp by this time, Li’l Harv, Li’l Crazy De, Joker, and Li’l Spike into an awesome young fighting machine. They had begun to put in work on a constant basis, really getting a kick out of the whole thing.
We all were waiting for New Year’s, not necessarily to usher in the new year, but to hit the Western Surplus and procure the much-needed, desperately sought-after guns and munitions. We had grand ideas about launching a final offensive on the Sixties—our own little Tet offensive.
December 31, 1980, was an ordinary day, overcast and a bit chilly. Putting on my gear I took extra care to dress warmly enough so as not to have to come back home for a coat. We had all agreed to meet at the blue apartments on Eightieth, which in accord with our subdivision of the ’hood was now the South Side. At approximately 4:00 P.M. I left my house on Sixty-ninth Street, which was in the North Side. I was dressed in white Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star tennis shoes with black and white shoestrings, heavily starched 501 Levis, a blue sweatshirt under an XXL blue penitentiary shirt, and a thick Pendleton jacket. I had cornrowed my hair to the back, and over this I wore a blue flag in bandana fashion.
Feeling very confident, I walked through the ’hood, up through the Seventies to the South Side. Of course I had the Browning 9 millimeter in my waistband. I reached the South Side without incident. Upon entering the apartment complex I found China, Li’l Spike, Stone, and Spooney kicking back drinking Night Train wine and smoking pot.
As we began to talk, Li’l Crazy De and Joker pulled up on ten-speeds. Joe Joe, who we had been considering giving the name Baby Monster, also came up. It didn’t take long for the pot and cheap wine to start having its mind-altering effects on me. Never much of a drinker, I felt the alcohol hit me first. My equilibrium was shot.
By now it was dusk, and I was brandishing my 9 millimeter with abandon. I instructed Joker and Li’l Crazy De to go to my house and retrieve the double-barrel. I called from one of our supporter’s homes to let Li’l Monster know that the homies were coming after the strap.
By the time they returned I was even more intoxicated. Seizing the shotgun, I instructed everyone to come out into the street. Once all had assembled out in front of the apartments, I moved under the street lamp and shot it out. Glass fragments rained all over my head and shoulders.
As I stepped onto the curb to shake the shards of glass out of my hair and clothing, my peripheral vision caught a black-and-white police car hitting the corner. Spinning with surprising quickness, as I was quite drunk, I tossed the shotgun to Joe Joe and told him to “break.” But he was not aware of the police car and ran right into it. He was immediately apprehended. Remembering the 9 millimeter in my waistband, I broke through the apartment complex and discarded my weapon. I then made my way up to Peaches’s house for refuge.
Watching the goings-on from the window, I painfully observed the police finding and confiscating my 9 millimeter. “Shit,” I thought, “two damn weapons lost at once.” I consoled myself by keeping in mind our planned mission for midnight—the surplus.
Once the coast had cleared I made my way back out front. Joe Joe had been captured and taken, along with the guns. Standing around now unarmed, I felt naked and longed for the comfort of my gun. I had simply to go back down to the North to retrieve another gun, but I was reluctant to walk or ride anywhere unarmed. So we just hung around Peaches’s apartment and listened to music.
Darkness finally descended on the city. In front of the blue apartments it was especially dark, because I had neutralized the light. A car bent the corner off of Normandie and onto Eightieth with a precautionary pace that could have been misconstrued as a “shooter’s coast”. We shrunk back further into the camouflage of darkness in an attempt to conceal ourselves and avoid drawing unfriendly fire.
The car came to a California stop in front of the apartments. I was able to discern three occupants, all in the front seat. From their silhouettes it appeared that all three were female. This was still no less dangerous, for we had been using women drivers for missions as of late and this was not a patented tactic. Someone with a rifle, shotgun, or hand weapon could quite easily be lying down in the back seat waiting for the women, who seemed innocent enough, to lure an unsuspecting victim to within shooting range for execution. We watched and waited. After a couple of minutes of them trying to distinguish who we were and us trying to differentiate them as friend or foe, someone among us made their I.D.
“That’s Pam, Yolanda, and Kim,” whispered a voice through the darkness.
Pam was currently going with Li’l Hunchy. (This was the first Li’l Hunchy. He has since been replaced by a more righteous soldier.) She had, however, in the past dated a member of the Rollin’ Sixties. Shaky and elusive is the best description I can offer for her relationship with the set. Her sisters’ dealings with our ’hood fell even shorter than this. But she was Li’l Hunchy’s girl now, and those were her sisters.
I had met all three in a previous exchange about the escalated developments of the war. Their position in this matter was neither pro nor con in respect to us. In reference to the Sixties, they had taken the Fifth. I had never trusted them and had always kept my dealings with them to a minimum. Fence sitters disgusted me. Hell, I would have felt better if they had just come out and said they were pro-Sixties, which did not necessarily mean they were anti-us. But their ambiguity threw me off.
I sallied forth from my seclusion in calculated steps. I walked on the balls of my feet so that in case a shooter did materialize from the back seat, I’d be ready to retreat and would hopefully escape with minimal damage. When I got close enough for them to identify me Kim rolled down the passenger-side window. She leaned out with both hands open in a “I’m unarmed” gesture, and urged me to the car.
“Hi, Monster,” she said in a squeaky voice. “How you doing?”
“I’m fine,” I said, not biting. “What’s up?” I was clearly suspicious now.
“Oh,” she began, “we’re on our way up to the surplus and wanted you to come with us.” Her tone had suddenly turned pleading.
“Why you want me to go with you?” I asked. Something wasn’t right here. But my rational thinking was being impaired by the earlier consumption of alcohol.
“ ’Cause you aren’t going to let no one bother us,” she responded.
During this exchange I began to think of the advantages of going to the surplus with them. I could survey the site for our midnight raid, then have them transport me down to the North to secure another weapon and bring me safely back to Eightieth. Hmmm. The notion was quite appealing.
“Awright,” I said after debating it. “I’ill go with y’all.”
“Oh,” Kim continued. “Where is Diautri?” This was Crazy De’s given name.
“De is in jail,” I said, and then added guardedly, “Why?”
“No real reason, just asking. I know that’s your best friend, just thought he’d be with you.”
“Naw,” I said as I climbed into the back seat, “De is in jail for murdering Sissies.” (Sissies is a derogatory term for Sixties.)
In response to this I got silence. I made a mental note to sit directly in the middle of the back seat so as to monitor the driver’s eye movement. And in case we were ambushed I would be in the center and not by the door or the back window—an easy target. I tried never to make it easy for someone to destroy me. When we got to the corner of Eightieth and Halldale, I saw Li’l Hunchy rounding the corner on foot.
“Stop,” I instructed Pam. “Stop and pick up Li’l Hunchy.” I would feel better with another homie with me. Besides, it was his girlfriend who was driving.
“No,” Pam said with staunch conviction, “we don’t need him with us.”
Now my suspicion was really mounting. Why didn’t she want her boyfriend with us?
“Well, if he can’t go, let me out,” I said.
She pulled to the curb and I motioned Li’l Hunchy over and into the car. I made another note to inform him of Pam’s unusual behavior once we were alone.
Now, the surplus had two parking lots. One was primarily for customers and was situated in front of the store on Western Avenue. This parking lot was illuminated by a multitude of lights, not just in the lot but off the main street. Further illumination came from passing vehicles. The second lot, in contrast, was dark, barely lit by a small bulb that hung off the roof of the surplus. This parking lot was behind the store, on Eighty-fifth Street. Although this
