I looked out on the tier and a clear medicine bag with a white, thin line attached to it was in front of my cell, so I retrieved it.
“Pull it,” said the sender.
Attached to the line was a kite. I opened it and read.
Salamu Ndugu,
Where did you come from? I am Li’l Bit from Bounty Hunter. Next to you is an A.B. and on the other side is an E.M.E. Stay up, stay alert.
Blood Love,
Li’l Bit
“Hey, Li’l Bit.”
“Yeah?”
“I need a pen to get back.”
“All right, pull the line.”
I retrieved the pen and wrote back telling him that I was Sanyika from C.C.O. and that I came from Soledad. I told him of his people from Bounty Hunter who were down there and I added that I planned to bust on my neighbors at the first opportunity. He wrote back telling me to hold on that, he had to get to his tier captain. He withdrew his line from my cell and flung it down the tier toward the front with an ease that came from experience. When he pulled his line back, there was another line attached to it. He told me to grab it. I was now plugged into the tier captain. He told me to pull, and I reeled in his line. There was another kite attached to the end. It read:
Hujambo Sanyika,
I am Italo from the Black Guerrilla Family. Perhaps you know some of my tribesmen? All your people are in the back. We, B.G.F. and B.L., have a peace treaty with the A.B. and E.M.E. on this tier. I suggest that you get at your folks about a cell move.
In struggle,
Italo
Peace treaty? What was that? I wrote him and said that I overstood about their agreement with the Brands and the Flies, but C.C.O. ain’t got no treaty with them. But out of respect for the brothas on the tier, I wouldn’t jeopardize them. He then sent me
Three days later I was moved to the back bar, where my comrades were. I was put in cell 2-East-54. All around me were comrades and allies. My neighbor in 53 was Lunatic Frank from Rollin’ Sixties. Lunatic and I were in the Boy Scouts together in ’73. He and I were friends. We had saved each other’s lives during our participation in the war.
He and his homies, Pie Face and Ronnie Pace, had caught China and me on Denker and Seventy-fourth Street one night when I was not strapped. We had been at my house making love and she wanted to go home. I was walking her there, pushing Li’l Monster’s bike as we went, when they rolled up on us in Pie’s Monte Carlo.
“Damn, Sixties,” I whispered to China. “Just be cool.” They jumped out of the car.
“Well I’ll be damned,” said Pie Face. “If it ain’t the Bonnie and Clyde of Eight Tray—Monster Kody and China.”
“What’s up, Pie?” I said. I knew all of them.
“Monster, you packin’?” asked Lunatic.
“You know I am,” I shot back, lying.
“Cuz, that nigga ain’t got no gun. Let’s smoke these tramps and get outta here,” Ronnie Pace said vehemently.
“No, wait, hold it. I got a better idea,” added Pie. “Let’s take China from Monster.”
“Let her go, man, she ain’t got nuttin’ to do wit’ what we got goin’ on,” I said.
“Fuck that—” began China, but was cut off by Lunatic.
“Man, this bitch been puttin’ mo’ work in than a li’l bit. If we take her we can’t leave Monsta.”
“So what’s up?” asked Pie.
“Let’s do ’em, man,” said Ronnie Pace, looking around nervously.
“Naw, I’ll tell you what. You and Monsta go head up, Ronnie.”
“What?” said Ronnie, as if not hearing right. “Head up? This nigga didn’t go head up wit’ our homies he caught slippin’. Ain’t no head up in war,” he shouted and drew his weapon. “And he ain’t got no gun, ’cause he would have already shot us.”
Ronnie was scared to fight me, and I zeroed in on that and used it.
“Yeah, I’ll go head up wit’ cuz,” I said.
“I’m a killa, not a fighter,” he shot back. “Now either we kill these two—”
“Let’s go,” said Lunatic, interrupting Ronnie. “You owe me one, Monsta… you too, China,” he said over his shoulder. And they got in the car and drove off.
China and I did an about-face, went back to my mom’s house, and constructed a plan of attack.
Not three weeks later, Tray Stone came around the corner on Eightieth and Halldale with Lunatic on the barrel of his gun—a prisoner of war. Tray Stone was the happiest I had ever seen him. He wanted everyone to see his prisoner.
“Let him go, Stone,” I said grudgingly.
“What?!” said Stone, not believing he’d heard correctly.
“I owe cuz one. Turn him loose.”
“Damn, cuz, but this Lunatic Frank.”
“I know who he is. Let him go.”
“Can I just shoot him in the leg, or knock his teeth out?”
“Naw, he let me and China pass one night, so I owe him.”
“Shit!” exclaimed Stone. And that was that.
Now, six years later, he was my neighbor. He went by the name Akili Simba and was C.C.O. On the other side of me was a Northern Chicano named Curly.
That first night Akili and I talked all night long on the “telephone,” which was made out of a television cable. He had pulled all the wiring out of the black rubber skin, and we used it for private conversations between cells.
The next day I had to turn my paperwork over to the intelligence officer of C.C.O. so he could make sure I wasn’t a rat. To those I didn’t know I introduced myself as Sanyika, and I instructed those who knew me as Monster to call me by my Kiswahili name. The transformation had begun, and I made a conscious effort to make attachments, connections.
Akili and Kubwa Simba—Leebo from Front Hood, and my closest comrade—helped me sharpen my Kiswahili to a fine point. Within nine months I had a small class of my own. My education at San Quentin was made easy because there were New Afrikans who cared. Asinia taught me the necessity of mathematics, Taliba taught me to recognize our culture as being distinct from Americans, and Zaire (not the same man as my co-defendant) taught me to be scientific. These brothas were Crips—C.C.O., scholars, and theoreticians.
No English was spoken over the tier after six P.M. No foul language was permitted or used in reference to New Afrikan women or men. We had a mandatory study period from seven A.M. to twelve noon. The study period was also a quiet period where no talking was allowed. Seven A.M. also heralded the “alert” period, when every soldier was to be up and out of his kitanda (bed) and dressed. At nine P.M. the alert period ended.
Around this time, Tamu had somehow tracked down Dick Bass, and he’d given her his address to pass on to me. I tried to write to him, but found the pain too great. I began the first page with the normal greeting, but then, naturally, the questions started to surface:
