I was momentarily dazed by his humbleness, for we had always heard that B.G.F.s were antagonistic toward Crips, offensive and hostile.
“I’m fine,” I said, looking for an opening. I had the broomstick on the head of the broom, but not screwed in. At the other end, covered by my hand, was the knife.
“You a B.G.F., ain’t you?” I said, hoping he’d get hostile.
“I am a revolutionary,” he said, “and the weapon is unnecessary. I’m not your enemy.”
“What?” I said, noting that my hand was no longer around the weapon, but on the handle.
“Do you know Suma?” he asked.
“Yeah, that’s my comrade,” I declared proudly.
“Ask him about me. He knows me well.”
At that I went back down the tier and repeated everything to Oldman. He agreed we should wait on Suma.
That afternoon I got a note from Suma saying that C.C.O. had no beef with B.G.F. and that if I could, to watch out for Salahudin. I’d almost made a costly mistake.
Salahudin and I eventually became good friends, and it was he who named me Sanyika.
Not long after that I left County with a sentence of seven years in state prison. My life has never been the same.
10. RECONNECTED
I arrived at Chino state prison on June 5, 1985, eager to begin serving my seven-year sentence. As soon as I got off the bus a confrontation started brewing with a Chicano who kept looking at me. We were herded into R & R like cattle. “Nuts to butts” is how the Correctional Officer (C.O.) explained the way he wanted us lined up. I was relieved that he didn’t have a flashlight. We were crowded into a cold, dim room with puddles of water on the floor, as if the ceiling had been leaking.
“All right, listen up,” the C.O. said in a deep baritone that seemed to shake shit loose from the walls. “The first thing I want you to do is take off your wristbands and throw them in this box. Next, I want you to strip naked and have a seat. If you want to send your clothes home, hold on to them. If not, throw them in this cart. Once you’ve stripped naked, we can follow through with the procedure.”
All the while this Chicano kept staring at me. Every time I looked at him he was looking at me. Even when I looked elsewhere, keeping him in my peripheral vision, he was watching me. I had already been briefed on our relationship with the Southern Mexicans: C.C.O. and the Mexican mafia—the Southern Mexican vanguard—were at war.
“If you think one of them has detected you,” Suma had told me on a visit, “take off first.”
Now here was this dude burning holes in the side of my damn head. I played it cool and went through the procedures that the CO. was explaining.
“Put your hands over your head. Let me see your armpits. Open your mouth and wiggle your tongue. Lift up your nut sack. Turn around, bend at the waist, spread your cheeks and give me five big coughs. Let me see under your left foot. Now your right…”
This was nothing new. We had to do this every time we came from court in L.A. County Jail. At first it bothered me a lot. I felt like a diseased piece of meat being examined by some pigs at an auction. A bunch of guys getting their kicks off of watching forty naked men moving into different positions of humiliation at the command of a voice. In all my days, months, and years of being a prisoner, I’ve never seen one of these searches yield anything.
What are they expecting? Some pig says, “Okay, bend at the waist and give me five loud coughs,” and
When I got dressed I started walking over to the Chicano who kept looking at me, but the C.O. asked me where the fuck I was going. I said to the head, to which he replied that it was behind me. And I’ll be damned if it wasn’t. A small urinal hung on the wall, closer to where I was than the Chicano. I acted as if I was using it, then sat back down. I had to be slicker.
But now the Chicano knew I was trying to get to him. To my surprise, he stopped looking at me, and as I looked more and more at him he seemed vaguely familiar. I knew I had seen him somewhere, but because there were no Chicanos living in or around my ’hood, I knew it had to be from a jail. But which one, and when? I continued to eye him, much like he had eyed me. I pulled up face after face, place after place on my memory bank’s screen, but I kept drawing blanks. In my enemy file I saw only the faces of Chicano gang members who had been running with the Sixties and, more than ever, dying with the Sixties. We’ve always tried to be equal-opportunity killers.
“Everybody stand up and follow the man in front of you. You are going to be fingerprinted several times and have your photo taken. One set of prints goes to the Justice Department, one to the F.B.I., one to the State Capitol, one to the…”
I didn’t even try to hear the rest. Hell, I had heard it all before in Youth Authority, where prints are taken and sent to the same groups of people. In youth camps run by the county, you are treated as a statistic by group. But in Youth Authority, which is run by the state of California, you become a potential case study as an individual. The F.B.I. and the rest of the authorities have the names of everyone who has ever been to Youth Authority in a huge data bank in Washington. When you go to state or federal prison, they simply update their data bank. If you get involved in anything they think is noteworthy—and everything is noteworthy to a hunter—they put it in your file in their data bank. They know what you may do long before it happens, as well as what you have the potential to do. Because gang actions are seen as self-destructive and not a threat to the security of this country, it’s not necessary for them to stop you. But if you begin to question the right of those in authority or resist the chains that constantly bind you, then you’ll be elevated as a security risk and more than likely put in the Agitators Index file. I’ve been in the Agitators Index since 1986.
I took the photos and went through the mundane routine of prints. (As if mine had changed since I’d left Y.A.) At my first opportunity I stepped to the Chicano, surprising him.
“What’s up, man, you know me or somethin’? Huh? You got a problem wit’ me?”
He was shorter than I and weighed thirty pounds less, which really didn’t mean a thing, because in prison, fighting was for those you liked. Stabbing was for the enemy.
“Ain’t your name Kody, Monster Kody?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Why? What up?”
“You don’t remember me?”
“Naw,” I said, eyeing him suspiciously. “From where?”
“Juvenile hall and camp. I’m Cooper from El Monte Flores.” And he broke into a wide, boyish grin.
Yes, I did know him! He and I were friends from the seventies. Every time I went to the Hall he was there. When I went to camp, he was there. I missed him in Y.A., but now here he was again in prison.
“Goddamn, yeah, I’m knowin’ you. What up, Copper? How much time you got?”
“Fifteen to life. And you?”
“Just seven.”
“I’ll be here when you get back!”
“Fuck that, I ain’t comin’ back.”
We talked a bit more before we had to break it up. This was not camp or juvenile hall, where our relationships were not governed by politics. This was state prison, where talking to the wrong person could very well get you killed. I wondered if he had gotten hooked up.
The group of us went through a few other stages of questions and answers before having to go get blood tests, immunizations, and physicals. After that we were given our bed numbers. Chino is the reception center for southern California. You go through all your indoctrination there: school testing, health testing, and a visit with a counselor for placement in a permanent prison. One usually stays at Chino for a month or two before being
