didn’t she smile at me anymore? Or laugh and joke like days of old? It wasn’t me who changed, I wanted to say. It was the times, the circumstances dictating my rite of passage to manhood. All this was crucial to my development. I became, without ever knowing when, a product of the street and a stranger at home. Life sure was a trip.
“Mrs. Scott?” an American nurse said.
“Yes.”
“You may as well go home and get some sleep, because the doctor wants to keep Kody here for observation tonight.”
“Oh, thank you, but if it’s all the same I’d like to stay with my son.”
“Okay, that’s fine. Would you like a blanket or anything?”
“No, actually I’m fine, thank you.”
“All right, the doctor should be in any minute.”
Mom looked at me and saw my eyes flutter.
“Boy, I sure hope you got on clean underwear.”
Good ol’ Mom, she never changed. Of course she had changed, I was just too preoccupied with my own little perverted existence to take in anything outside the gang world. The world could have been crumbling around me, but if it didn’t affect the set, it didn’t affect me.
When the doctor returned he explained that, miraculously, the bullet—apparently a hollow point—had exploded on impact. But instead of doing its job of ripping up my internal organs, it had simply stopped, and now there were thirteen small, detectable fragments throughout my upper back. He added that during his observation of the X-ray chart he noticed another bullet lodged in my abdominal cavity. I told him of my previous brush with death and he asked if I was a gang member. I said no. I was instructed to stay the night for further observation.
During the night I regained feeling and movement in my arm. The pain subsided under a stiff dosage of something shot into my hip. The next day, under the warm rays of the Southern California sun, Mom and I tooled out of the hospital parking lot. The radio blared with Stevie Wonder’s new hit, “Hotter than July.” It was July 2, 1981.
Once I got home and was safe behind the locked door of Mission Control—my bedroom—I called up Diamond to inform him of my clean bill of health. His grandmother said he wasn’t there, so I phoned Tray Stone, who answered on the third ring.
“Hello?”
“What that gangsta like, nigga?” I said into the receiver, recognizing Stone’s voice.
“West Side, the best side,” Stone shot back.
“Naw, if it ain’t North you short, fool.”
“What’s up, homie? You all right? What they say? Did the police come up there? What Mom say?”
“Wait, wait. Goddamn, man, ask one fuckin’ question at a time, all right?”
“Awright, Mr. Important. You okay?”
“Okay all day and even on Sundays.”
“Naw, I know that, I mean the bullet. What the Doc say?”
“I know what you talkin’ ’bout. I’m cool. Fool say the bullet hit my back, broke up and stopped.”
“You bullshittin’?”
“Naw, I ain’t. Doc say I’m too strong for a deuce-deuce to stop.”
“You puttin’ too much on it, now.”
“Naw, naw, Doc say, ’You must be some kind of Monster or something,’ you know, so I said, ’Yeah, from the notorious North.’ ”
“Now I
“Yo’ mama heard of the North.”
Silence.
“Cuz, don’t talk ’bout Moms. You ain’t right.”
“Yeah, you right, fuck her—”
“I’m gone, Monster.”
“Naw! Awright, homie, I ain’t trippin’.”
“Oh, we handled that other thang, too,” Stone said in a low voice, as if his father had come into the room.
“What other thang?” I knew what he meant, but I wanted to hear him say it.
“’Member that van that fool say he work so hard to get?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, he gonna be workin’ harder now, ’cause we fucked that muthafucka up!”
“What ’bout, fool?”
“He never came out and we didn’t know what apartment he stayed in. And there was like a whole bunch of apartments, like fifty.”
“Nigga, ain’t no fifty fuckin’ apartments on that damn corner!”
“Awright, ’bout sixteen then. Anyway, we kept fuckin’ up the van and nobody came out. So Joker said Tuck it,’ and shot up every apartment!”
“What?!”
“Yeah, cuz, the shit was crazy! People screamin’ and shit. He shot one window and a fire started. Aw, cuz, it was just like the movies, I ain’t lyin’.”
“Right, right,” I said, joining in on the excitement.
“But, cuz, you awright, tho’?”
“Yeah, yeah homie, I’m cool. I’ll be at the blue apartments later.”
“Awright, cuzzin, I’ll see you then.”
“Tray minutes.”
“Wes—”
Before he could get “West Side” out, I clicked him. I felt good to know that the homies had responded. It was sad, however, that Joker had gone to such extremes, but I overstood his rage and appreciated his concern. I washed up as best I could with the bandage and the stiffness from the wound, put on my dark-blue overalls, a blue sweatshirt, black Romeos, and a black Bebop hat, grabbed my 9 millimeter, and hit the street.
When I got to the blue apartments Bam, Spooney, China, and Peaches were out in front drinking Old English and talking. When China saw me she eased away from the group, insinuating that she wanted to speak to me privately. Amid jeers and greetings from the other homegirls, China and I went to the side of the apartments. She seemed to have something on her mind.
“Kody,” she began. Never had she called me Monster. “I can’t take you gettin’ shot no mo’. Baby, I be worried to death fo’ you. Everybody dyin’ and shit. I just don’t know anymore.”
“So, what you sayin’?”
“What I’m sayin’ is we don’t do nothin’ together no mo’. You be wit’ Diamond and them and I be all alone. I be worried ’bout you.”
“Yeah, well it ain’t like you don’t know where I live, China—”
“You know yo’ mama don’t like me. You know that, Kody. So don’t even try—”
“What?” I said accusingly. “Don’t even try what? Huh?”
“You know what I—”
“No, I don’t know shit. You know I’m out here, bangin’, bustin’ on muthafuckas daily to make it safe fo’ you ’round here, and now you complainin’. You done changed like the rest of them sorry muthafuckas that’s gone and left the set hangin’.”
“No, baby,
She began to cry, dropping huge tears onto her smooth cheeks.
“Do you remember the last place you took me, Kody? Huh? Do you remember?”
“Yeah,” I said, grudgingly. “I remember.”
“Where?” she asked, hands on her hips. Then louder, “Where?!”
