was requested by the authorities, she said. I didn’t give it a second thought, but I did ask if she’d still be my nurse, to which she replied she would.
“Now can I please have my shot?” I asked pleadingly.
“Yes, yes, chile, you can have yo’ dope,” she answered, and mumbled something unintelligible under her breath as she strode out of the room.
My roommate was gone, but I never asked after him. For what? He was a civilian. I got my shot and started drifting again. When I came to I had been moved to another room, a single-occupant room. The pain was not as intense, but I was even more dehydrated. Apparently another day had passed.
“Good morning, Mr. Scott.” An American, Dr. Blakewell, spoke to me over an aluminum clipboard as he jotted down some notes.
“Wha’s up?” I said through parched lips. “When can I go home?”
“Well,” he spoke in measured tones, “we have to keep you here a bit longer so as to monitor your development. You’ve had a difficult operation, but you seem to be faring well. Perhaps you’ll be ready for discharge in a couple of weeks.”
He lifted up my hospital gown and felt around my stomach.
“How’s the medication?”
“Awright, I guess.”
“Well, we are going to stop giving you shots and give you codeine fours. These will work just as well,” he said, humming now as he continued to write more notes.
“Yeah, well check this out, Doc, can I get one last shot of what you been givin’ me?”
“No, Mr. Scott, I don’t think it’s necessary. Your pain should not be that intense now.”
“How you gonna tell
“Yes, of course there is pain, Mr. Scott, simply due to the severity of the wounds and the extent of your operation. However, we must not allow you to become dependent on the pain medicine. Do you understand?”
I simply said, “Aw, man, save that shit.”
Dr. Blakewell left my room red as a beet.
When my nurse, Eloise, came to work that afternoon I was glad to see her. We had begun to develop a healthy rapport and her wit, in the face of my condition, was appreciated. Not long after she came in and we joked a bit about me shouting at Dr. Blakewell—which she got a tremendous kick out of—she brought me a telephone and informed me that I had a caller who asked for me by my full name. Perhaps it was Li’l Monster or China. I knew it wouldn’t be Tamu, because she had left the year before and gone to Texas.
I elevated myself up with the remote that controlled my bed and prepared to have a good talk. Gathering the phone from Eloise I held it to my chest, insinuating that I wanted privacy, and waited for her to leave the room. If this was anyone from the ’hood our conversation would definitely be about combat and, in this light, I could trust no one, especially a civilian. Once she left I cleared my throat and spoke into the receiver.
“Hello.”
Silence.
“Hello.”
And then, “You ain’t dead yet, tramp?!”
Stunned, I said nothing. After a few seconds of thought fueled my anger I exploded into the phone.
“Naw, punk muthafucka, yo’ homies got scared and couldn’t finish the job. Bitch-made Sissies!”
I got no response to this.
“Hello? Hello?”
The caller had hung up. Mad, nervous, and irritated, I sat there and fumed. The nerve of them muthafuckas, I thought, calling to verify my status. My head was spinning. When Eloise came in I snapped at her. She demanded an apology, for she is that type of strong sister, so I gave her one. After all, she was not the cause of my anger, and even if her son was in the enemy camp, she had not told him who I was. I explained to her that I needed to make a call and could she please excuse me. She readily complied and exited the room.
Still, I couldn’t come to grips with the chutzpah of my foes. Clearly they had wanted to quash the debate once and for all. Was I dead or not? The rumors ran hot and cold. Of course, this was also a scare tactic, one that was truly wasted on me. I phoned Li’l Monster, let the phone ring sixteen times, but got no answer. I knew my mother and older brother, Kerwin, would be at work. I hung up, a bit frustrated, and called Li’l Crazy De. When I reached him, he explained the latest developments.
Upon hearing of my shooting, the others had aborted the surplus mission. Li’l Hunchy, who was with me and had run when the shooting started, was questioned at length about the circumstances surrounding the ambush. No one had any idea that he had run out on me. He told everyone that the shooters had specifically wanted me. Li’l Monster, taking the call to colors, went in search of a crew of elite shooters, troops steeled in the ways of urban guerrilla warfare. That night they did nothing but plan. Several units were organized in the hours following my shooting, but just six individuals were selected by Li’l Monster to roll with him: Li’l G.C., Rattone, Al Capone, Li’l Capone, Slim, and Killer Rob. Others were organized to hit various targets, but this crew was specifically assigned to the Sixties. Search and destroy was the mission.
At dusk on January I, 1981, a van was commandeered by one of the selected soldiers to be used in the execution of the upcoming mission. Earlier in the day Li’l Monster had acquired two shotguns from an older supporter who had been informed of the shooting and wanted to give assistance in the way of arms. His offer was acknowledged and the weapons were secured: a double-barrel over and under, a 12 gauge, and a 20-gauge pump that shot six times. Because the mission was search and destroy, the weapons were not sawed off. Also in stock were an 8 millimeter Mauser that had ten rounds and looked like a Daniel Boone gun, a six-inch .357 magnum, an eight-inch 44 magnum, and a .38 Long. The driver was to be unarmed. Gathering at their respective launch sites, the crew began to fall out when darkness came. The order of the night was “body count.”
According to Li’l Crazy De, wasn’t no one on the streets but police and fools, the police not giving a fuck and the fools doomed by their own ignorance. How many fell that first night? And from what sets did they come? No one knew the actual count, except the recipient set and the parents who had to bury their children. And that’s what we all were, children. Children gone wild in a concrete jungle of poverty and rage. Armed and dangerous, prowling the concrete jungle in search of ourselves, we were children who had grown up quickly in a city that cared too little about its young. Males, females, dogs, and cats were all targets. Curfew was declared in enemy sets: dusk to dawn. Anyone caught out after dark and before dawn would be shot. The Tet had begun.
The first night was pretty much catch and clobber. The second night was a bit more complicated, as word traveled fast around the colony. The third night, I’m told, was harder still, as troops literally had to go house to house in search of “suspects.” It was in this climate that the officers from CRASH had come to see me. But prior to talking with Li’l De I had had no idea of the scope of the retribution and, for sure, I had not conspired with anyone to make it happen. Could I stop it? Perhaps, but why? “Fuck ’em” was pretty much my attitude then. And why was CRASH concerned about stopping the violence? They had been helping us kill ourselves, so why were they so interested? It is my contention that they simply wanted to go on record as having tried to stop the killings. Shit, if they wanted to stop the killings, they would have begun by outlawing the choke hold!
After being briefed by Li’l De about the Tet, I informed him that Li’l Hunchy had run out on me. He asked what I wanted to have happen to Li’l Hunchy. I said simply that he should not be allowed to run out on anyone else. That made the set look awfully bad. Li’l De gave me his word that he’d handle it. Putting the phone in its cradle I lay back and smiled inwardly, feeling extremely proud of the set. The mighty Eight Trays…
By my fifth day in the hospital, I had grown quite accustomed to the comings and goings of the orderlies. I had learned, for instance, that the Chicano woman who had attended me first was the mother of the candy striper who now cleaned my room and who was a gang member from Eighteenth Street. She and I chatted twice. But still I had no visitors, and I had not talked with Li’l Monster. On the afternoon of January 4, as I lay back in my bed thinking, I noticed three people standing in my doorway. At first glance, I took them to be ordinary people who were just passing through looking, as I used to, into anyone’s hospital room. But these people looked familiar—in no friendly way. Their look was menacing, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s them! The same three who had ambushed me! The mustache, the beard, and the clean-shaven one stood erect and alert at my door. No doubt it was also them who had called my room. What to do? With an I.V. in my right arm, a catheter in my penis, a tube in my nose, stitches in my stomach, a cast on my left hand, dehydrated and weak, I knew I didn’t
