placement—foster homes—looked up to those in juvenile hall, those in juvenile hall looked up to those in camp, those in camp looked up to those in Youth Authority, and those in Youth Authority looked up to those in prison. Most of us in the juvenile tank looked up to those in prison, because that’s where the district attorney was trying to send us. We were all under tremendous stress.
When I backed off of Taco’s gate, still looking in his eyes but also taking in the larger scenery of his cage—his bars, bed, sink, desk, and toilet—he seemed so content, so at home. And I wondered, had I looked like him just weeks, days, hours before? I didn’t want to stay here all my life, but I had no way to stop the wheels of fate, already set in motion long before I had a ticket to ride. If I just stopped gangbanging, perhaps I could avoid prison, an early death, and a few other occupational hazards. But to “just stop” is like to “just say no” to drugs, or to tell a homeless person to “just get a house.” It “just wasn’t happening.”
Prison loomed in my future like wisdom teeth: if you lived long enough you got them. Prison was like a stepping stone to manhood, with everything depending on going and coming back. Going meant nothing if you never came back. The going was obligatory, but coming back was voluntary. Going didn’t just mean prison, it circumscribed a host of obligatory deeds. Go shoot somebody, go take a car, go break into that house, go rob that store, go spray-paint that wall, or go up to that school. It never was “go and come back.” “Go” was something that you
In prison, one is thrown in with all the other criminals, gang members, outlaws, misfits, outcasts, and underworld people from all over California. Since every jail I have ever been in seems designed to be recidivistic, as opposed to rehabilitative, the criminal culture is very strong. It saturates every level of every jail, from juvenile hall to death row. And so each individual going and coming back learns a new scheme to be used in the ever-growing arsenal of criminality. The ’hood also gains yet another expert in another field.
“I love you, cuz,” I told Taco with a final salute of the “C” sign held high over my head.
“I love you, too, homie,” Taco responded, hitting himself hard over the heart with the “C” sign.
I quickly moved to Levi’s cell and rapped with him about standing firm in my absence. From his cell I went to Ben’s, Dirt’s, and Chico’s before shouting my respects down to Able row. At that, I was on my way.
It took most of the night for me to be processed out of L.A. County Jail. Ever leery of the homicide detectives, who might pop out from behind some partition or desk with those “gas your black ass” smirks smeared on their faces, as soon as I was finally released I bolted like a track star to an awaiting bus. Once on the bus I darted straight to the back and crouched down in the seat. The police are notorious for letting you think you have gotten away, and then just when you think it’s safe to go back in the water—
At Fifth Street a passenger of youthful age boarded the bus. On point, I scoped his dress code: blue khaki pants, white All-Stars, blue Adidas sweat jacket over a blue t-shirt, and a blue baseball cap with two golf-ball emblems fastened to the front. He definitely was a banger. The two golf balls could signify several sets. Back in the early eighties, we’d used numbers as codes of affiliation to circumvent police repression. All Trays, including three- time sets such as the Playboy Gangsters, Altadena Block Crips, and Marvin Gangsters, wore three golf-ball emblems on their hats. In contrast, Neighborhood sets and two-time sets like the 5-Deuces, 6-Deuces, and Raymond Avenue Crips wore two golf-ball emblems on their hats. Often, this alone would be a dead giveaway to set allegiance and quite enough to get one’s brains blown out.
The banger paid his fare and started right down the aisle toward the back, toward me. He caught me scoping him and tensed a bit—not out of fright, but as a result, I’m sure, of an adrenaline rush in preparation for a confrontation. I had gotten my rush when I saw him board the bus. Before I saw any movement a small caliber weapon appeared in his right hand—a .25 automatic, I thought. He wasn’t holding it in a threatening manner or aiming it at all. He was palming it as if to say “Yo, I’m armed, and if there is to be a confrontation this is my choice of weapon.” He sat across from me and to the left, on the long, four-passenger seat. We eyed each other tentatively. All the while he palmed the weapon. After a few minutes that seemed like days, he hit me up.
“Where you from?” he asked in a serious, you-better-not-be-my-enemy voice. For the first time in my life I was scared of being shot, scared to die. Still reeling from the mental strain of being shot six months before, I couldn’t summon the courage to die.
“I don’t bang,” I said and looked away in shame, fighting to keep down the bile pushing its way up. The banger broke his stare and looked elsewhere, totally dismissing me. I felt at a complete loss. Damn, I was trippin’. I couldn’t very well say, “Uh, excuse me, I made a slight error. You see, I’m from Eight Tray.” That would be even worse than not initially saying where I was from. I wanted to make it back to the ’hood, and not in a body bag. I would gladly die in a couple of months, but not now, not here.
We rode in silence the rest of the way. Then it dawned on me: the banger was probably unmoved by my disclaimer of affiliation and was going to ride the duration of the bus route to see where I got off. Then he’d know I was an Eight Tray and gun me down. Damn, I thought, while in the juvenile tank I’d had Termite, a Chicano from East Side Clover, write ETG on the back of my neck. For sure when I got off the bus he’d scope the set on my neck and unload his clip on me. Then I would die in shame.
Just as these thoughts were wracking my mind, he reached up and pulled the exit bell. As the bus slowed for his upcoming stop, he stood and pocketed the weapon and walked toward the back exit door. Pausing, he turned and said, “You should join a gang, ’cause you already got the look. Stay up.”
And he stepped down into the street without a backward glance.
I wanted to shout, “Muthafucka, I got a gang!” but that would just fly in the face of what had already taken place. I rode on in silence, though I noted that he had gotten off the bus in an area of downtown where the only gangs were Salvadorans. This could mean one of two things: he belonged to one of the Salvadoran gangs, or he was just out riding the bus lines hunting for enemies. I quite possibly would have been one. What number, I wondered to myself?
The bus was now occupied only by myself and two other people, both elderly women. It turned right on Santa Barbara—now King Boulevard—and I wondered where the driver was going. When we got to King and Crenshaw, the driver hollered that this was the last stop. What? Last stop? Never familiar with the bus lines in L.A., I had apparently taken the wrong bus. Now I found myself on the corner of King and Crenshaw at 11:30 at night. This was the borderline between the Rollin’ Sixties and Black P. Stone Bloods, and I had ETG on my neck and a folder in my hand saying the same thing. Shit, tonight just wasn’t my night.
I milled around in the shadows, ever-watchful, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “Wasn’t nobody on the street but police and fools, police not givin’ a fuck and fools doomed by their own ignorance,” Li’l De had said after my shooting. Now karma had reared its damn head and I was an ignorant fool, doomed. Every car was a potential tank manned by opposition troops. I had been dropped behind enemy lines and had to survive, had to get back to “my country.” The mission of going to jail only proved successful if I made it back alive.
I was so far back in the shadows that I almost missed the bus going in the opposite direction. I was going to ride back down King Boulevard to Normandie Avenue, get a transfer, follow Normandie to Florence and then take my chances on foot at getting home. Mom didn’t even know I was out. I could picture the utter surprise in her face when the police called.
“Uh, Mrs. Scott, this is Detective Joseph from L.A.’s homicide unit calling to regretfully inform you that your son Kody was murdered tonight.”
Mom would calmly say that the officer was making a dreadful mistake. “My son Kody is in jail,” she would say, probably right up until she had to I.D. my body in the morgue. She would never believe it could happen to me. But we had grown so far apart that if I were dying I would not have called her. Mom was the enemy at home. Mom was, to me, what antiwar protestors were to Westmoreland.
I rode to Normandie without incident, but while I was standing on Normandie and King, which is Harlem
