To me, “The Big Payback” was always the Crip theme song. I remember going up to Tookie’s house—he was the West Side Regional Commander of the Crips—to watch him lift weights and to hear the original Crip war stories. I couldn’t have been any older than twelve when I’d eagerly get dressed and scurry up to Tookie’s to hold audience with the general. A lot of us used to go to his house to get firsthand knowledge of Cripism.
Tookie was a Crip through and through—walk, talk, and attitude. He gave the name Crip a certain majesty and was a magnificent storyteller. For hours at a time he’d give us blow-by-blow rundowns on the old Tom Cross record hops at Sportsman’s Park. Or he’d tell about slain members who would have loved meeting us, cats like Buddha, Li’l Rock, and Moe, to name a few. He had a Cadillac and never drove it, preferring to walk everywhere. And if the walk was too long, he’d call up one of his drivers. His entire living room was filled with weights. No furniture whatsoever, just pig iron. Tookie was huge, beyond belief at that time: twenty-two-inch arms, fifty-eight- inch chest, and huge tree-trunk legs. And he was dark, Marcus Garvey dark, shiny, slick, and strong. He had the physique, complexion, and attitude that intimidated most American people.
I met the Original Crips at Tookie’s house: Monkey Man, Bogart, Godfather, Maddog, Big Jack, and Raymond Washington. I was a student of Crip, and Tookie liked me more than the others, as he saw that I was a serious soldier.
Every summer the city of Los Angeles held a Festival in Black at MacArthur Park and most everybody from everywhere would attend. Tookie and Jamael—who started the Avalon Garden Crips—would go to all the functions, concerts, parties, and parks and peel out of their shirts, amazing everyone with their size. Jamael’s light skin contrasted hard with Tookie’s dark complexion and made them look even bigger, like two gargant-uans. During the festivals in Black, Rennis and I would be designated by Tookie to carry the straps, which was more than cool with me.
Another time Tookie and I walked from Sixty-ninth Street to 107th Street so he could retrieve his shotgun. Eight Ball had been lent the gauge to bust on some Brims but had never returned it. So Tookie and I started walking to Eight Ball’s, but before we got there we went around to a homie’s house whose mother was selling angel dust— PCP. Tookie got two seams (a seam was a ten-dollar package in tin foil) on credit. He rolled each seam into a joint and we got high as we walked. By the time we reached the Nineties we were both whacked out of our brains. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, blurry and dark. When Took got high he walked like a cowboy in a
When we got to 107th Street we ran into some Original Hoovers: Sam, Jughead, Andre Jones, Jinks, and Cobra. They talked with Tookie for a while and mostly ignored me. (Later on they would come to know me.) Took got his hair braided by a Cripalette—a female Crip—and we made our way over to Ball’s house. I went to the door and got him.
“Cuz,” Took said, “where’s my gauge?”
“I put it under the mattress in the back where Bitch sleep.” Bitch was Tookie’s pit bull.
“You should’ve told me… ”
“I knocked, but there wasn’t no answer.”
“If my gauge ain’t there, I’m gonna kill yo’ mama.”
“It’s there—”
“It betta be!”
And we left.
Although Eight Ball was my homie, Took was the general. On our way back down Normandie, the police stopped us. Automatically they handcuffed Took.
“What’s his name?” the police asked me.
“Tookie,” I said, like don’t-you-know?
“No, his real name.”
Now, I knew his first name was Stanley, because he told us that before he got the nickname Tookie. They used to call him Stanley Livingston. I also knew that his brother, Li’l Tookie, was Wayne. Wayne Holloway. So I took it for granted that because they were brothers, Took’s last name was also Holloway.
“Stanley Holloway,” I said.
The police came back over to me and said, “Hmm, that’s funny. He says his name is Stanley Williams. Somebody’s lying.”
“Maybe I got it wrong, I just—”
“Why are you with this scumbag anyway, huh?” asked the officer, cocking his head.
“Well, he’s… uhm… my friend,” I said, but it didn’t sound right.
“Bull-fuckin’-shit! Who you think you talking to? Huh?” he said, grabbing me by the collar.
“But he—”
“ ‘But’ my fuckin’ ass. He is going to have you shooting up every goddamn Brim in L.A. He don’t give a shit about you. He just wants to make you a Crip, one of his soldiers. Wise up, boy, you’re still young.”
So he did know who Tookie was. They uncuffed Took and we began walking off. Took asked what I told them his name was and I replied Stanley Holloway. He slapped me hard across the back of the head.
“
“Awright, awright, I got it,” I said, rubbing the back of my head, which was stinging like crazy.
The payback song reminded me of Tookie. That’s all he played over and over as he lifted weights. He and Big Jack, his roommate, had an old eight-track rigged up to a speaker in a milk crate. On one tape he had four songs: “Payback,” “Girl Calling,” “Happy Feelings,” and “Reach for It.” I learned a lot of Crip etiquette from Tookie.
Most Crips have not had the opportunity to meet him, or any other founders, so they tend to believe that they “created the wheel.” No history whatsoever is attached to their banging. In early ’79, Tookie and two other Crips, who subsequently gave him up, were captured for four murders. In 1981 he was given the death penalty, and he now resides on death row in San Quentin.
As the Payback song played on, I found it hard to shake my trancelike thoughts about the old days. I soon became depressed. I wanted to sleep, to dream, to escape. For the first time I felt South Central choking me. I didn’t want to die without having made any substantial contribution to something. But what? Where was I taking this?
I slept as much as I could. That night the homegirls came by to see me. Spooney, who had a baby by Tray Stone; Bam, who was pregnant by Diamond; Prena, Crazy De’s sister; and Sharon and China were all there. The first thing Spooney said was, “Monster, don’t die on us!”
I promised her I wouldn’t.
“Why would you say that?” I said.
“Because,” she explained, “everybody seems to be doing it, like it’s cool or something. Monster, just be careful, okay?”
“All day!”
“We know that, just be careful, all right?” Bam pleaded.
We talked late into the night. Bam kept asking me if I had fucked any dudes in the ass while I was in prison. I assured her that I hadn’t, which I doubt she believed. The fire between China and I had died. It seemed that our only union gravitated around banging and it was quite apparent from our conversations that both of us had grown up and a little out of the banging circle. She even had a job.
“Where’s your daughter?” Prena asked.
“Over her godparents’ house. She’ll be here tomorrow if you want to see her.”
“I do,” said Sharon. China just looked away. I saw a glimmer of pain in her eyes. It still affected her.
When they finally left it was three in the morning. It felt good to see them. I called Tamu and we talked until the sun came up.
That afternoon Tamu brought Keonda to see me. She was three years old and I was scared to death of her! She looked just like me. We played and rolled around on the carpet together and bonded. Still, the responsibility of being a father hadn’t sunk in. How could it have? Mom was still taking care of me. Tamu was still living at home,
