lot was for employees, it was also utilized as an overflow lot for customers. It was in this second, dark parking lot that Pam parked.
“Why you parking back here?” I protested, my security alarm going off.
“Look, Monster, this is my mother’s car and I can park anywhere I want,” Pam said in an almost hostile voice.
I decided to hold my tongue at this point because had I responded with what I was thinking there would have been an explosion in the car. My main objective was to survey the surplus for weak and strong points and retrieve another weapon from the North. Although I was in my ’hood, I felt very uncomfortable without a gun. This uneasiness perhaps would be equivalent to a businessperson leaving home without any credit cards. A weapon in South Central is a part of your attire, a dress code. “This gun goes with these pants and this shirt,” or “I can put this weapon here with this outfit and still be chic.” So my plan was to get my weapon for one, and also to check the site where we could get still more weapons.
Once the car was still I exited quickly, to get a bearing on the dark parking lot. I also wanted to avoid a clash with Pam. Li’l Hunchy followed suit. The girls, however, busied themselves with what I believed to be purses and jackets. Not wanting to be in their company, Hunchy and I started out around the side of the building on Eighty-fifth Street. I walked next to the building and Li’l Hunchy took the other track by the street. Realizing suddenly that the girls were nowhere behind us, I stopped and gave a small shout.
“Y’all better hurry up.” I waited a second, got no response, and turned to walk away.
As if out of thin air, three men had materialized in front of us. Wary now, because I was unarmed, I continued walking toward the three that were coming toward us. I put on my mask (a mask is an extended version of a mad-dog stare; it’s one’s combat face) and prepared for a possible confrontation. Taking in the attire of the three, I noticed no unusual bulges that would indicate they were strapped. And by their facial appearances they looked to be older, perhaps in their late twenties or early thirties. One had a full beard, another had a mustache. The third was clean-shaven. All three, I remember, were quite earnest, stern-looking cats. Their masks, if they were wearing any at all, were a bit more convincing than mine.
Li’l Hunchy felt the tension as well, for when I glanced over at him he looked nauseated. There was no sign of Pam, Yolanda, or Kim. The atmosphere quickly deteriorated to a kind of
And then, the moment of truth.
“Ain’t you Monster Kody?” the mustached one said. He seemed to be the one in charge.
Looking directly at him in my best confrontational stare—a combination of annoyance and insanity—I spoke through gritted teeth. “Yeah, I’m Monster Kody, Eight Tray Gangsters, what’s up?”
Without another word he swung into motion, reaching into his coat for his weapon. To my immediate left I saw another movement, this one equally disturbing: Li’l Hunchy had broke and left me.
Turning quickly on my assailants, I was just in time to see the first muzzle flash and hear the resounding Boom of his gun. Hit in the stomach first, I was knocked up and against the surplus wall with such force that shock and surprise overrode any pain. Once he saw that the wall kept me up on my feet and that the first shot was not fatal, he stepped in close to shoot me in the chest. My instinct shouted, “SURVIVAL!” I tried a desperate rush toward the gun.
BOOM!
Another shot. This time in my left hand, which had come within inches of the gun. The shot would have been a heart shot had my hand not been extended in an attempt to grab the weapon.
All the while the other two assailants were looking on approvingly, almost as if watching a movie. But I had had enough and decided to try an escape. Turning in the direction of Western Avenue I tried to run, but in midstride—
BOOM!
I was shot again in the back. This shot, like the first, had a devastating impact, and I was slammed to the ground.
Dazed, I struggled to get back to my feet. On one knee now, I was kicked in the side by the shooter, knocking me back down on my back. As they stood over me, aiming down, I had no other defense but to raise my legs in an attempt to avoid being shot in the torso.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! And then—
CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.
“Damn,” I remember wishing, “I hope they haven’t invented a seven-shot.”
Silence rained down like the deafening crash of cymbals; then I heard the sounds of running feet.
Lying there, looking up at the sky, I was swarmed by a million thoughts. My first one was sort of comical: He shot me like I be shooting people. And then the seriousness sank in as I saw a line of blood trickling down the sidewalk. My life was draining into the gutter, and I thought of all the things I had never done but wanted to do. I thought—for the first time—about my daughter, Keonda. She’d never know me. My thoughts were purely civilian. Payback was not even an issue. My thoughts gravitated toward things I had never done, people I’d never see again. And then I began to see, as if on a TV screen, everybody I had ever known in my sixteen years on this planet. Hundreds of people paraded past my inner vision, and they were as clear as day. Peacefully I lay there and watched the show. In that time, there on the sidewalk, I began to know what “rest in peace” meant. For until that moment I had lived only in war. Now the war was over. I settled back and waited to die.
And I’ll be damned if someone didn’t interrupt my peaceful fadeaway.
Li’l Hunchy had run around the whole block and come back to help me. A little too late.
Leaning over me he said, “What happened?”
I couldn’t believe this dude. With all the strength I had I said, “Muthafucka, I’m shot!”
Seizing me by the collar, he dragged me around to the front of the store, where someone else helped him get me inside. Now confusion hit in full swing. From within the gathering crowd I heard voices.
“Isn’t that Monster Kody?” And, “Ooh, it’s gonna be some shit now!”
Some girl who I didn’t even know was sitting on my legs crying and saying, “Calm down, calm down!” though I had not so much as moved since I’d been half-dragged, half-carried into the damn store.
In an attempt to console me, Li’l Hunchy said that I would be fine, that I had “only” been shot in the leg and the hand. These were my visible wounds, but I was burning elsewhere.
“I’m shot in the stomach and in the back, too,” I managed to say.
“No, no, you ain’t, I can see the holes.”
He was telling me where
Meanwhile, this girl I didn’t know was wailing away, crying out of control about me calming down—and she was more hysterical than anyone in the store.
My breath was getting short and my anger was growing. Trying to get someone to unbutton the top button on my coat was the hardest task. Each time I’d point to my neck for help, signaling for someone to unbutton my collar, Li’l Hunchy would pipe up.
“You ain’t shot in the neck, only in your hand and left leg.”
I was steadily losing breath.
“Calm down, calm down!” this goddamn girl was constantly yelling.
Turning my neck and looking around to possibly secure some sane help, I saw an elderly man come forth out of the crowd.
“Cut his shoes off, cut his shoes off of him.”
Oh, shit, I thought, it’s these fools that are going to kill me, not my wounds.
Finally, the ambulance arrived.
Before I was carted off I managed to tell the hysterical stranger, “Bitch, if I live, I’m gonna kick your ass!”
Astounded, she finally calmed down. Amazing.
