Monster

shopped at Buddah Market on Slauson Avenue, owned and operated by Orientals.

In the summer of 1980 my mother asked me to accompany her to Buddah Market to shop. I refused with vigor, but my resistance was in vain. Mom didn’t overstand the complexity of our conflicts with other gangs. We are trying to kill each other. Up till then she always took my spiel about our seriousness as melodramatic exaggeration.

I went to Buddah Market with her that day—and I weighed two pounds extra. I had a Browning 9 millimeter with fourteen shots. It was an unusually bright afternoon, and I recall feeling light and almost happy, content actually. Riding up Slauson past Crenshaw I remember tensing and cringing as I read line after line of their graffiti on walls and buildings. Amusing myself, I jokingly asked Mom to pull over so I could cross them out. In return I got a “you damn fool” look. Then I noticed Mom’s face cloud over with what I took to be utter helplessness. Ironically, I never gave stopping an inkling of a thought. This was my career, my “calling,” as church folks say when someone does one thing real well.

We traveled further west past West Boulevard, passing our old street. We both looked to the right briefly. Turning into Buddah Market’s parking lot, I tightened my belt and gave my appearance the once-over. G-down (short for “gangster down,” or dressed in gang attire) in my gear, I had on blue khaki pants, white canvas All-Stars, and a blue sweatshirt, with my hair in braids. Brownies—brown garden gloves worn by gang members for fighting and shooting—hung halfway out of my right back pocket, and a blue flag hung out my left. Crips wear their left ear pierced and their flag in the left back pocket. Bloods are on the right.

“Why don’t you tuck in that old rag,” Mom blurted out while she gave herself the once-over.

“It’s not a rag, Mom, it’s a flag,” I said, wishing she would for once see my seriousness here.

This was not some awkward stage of my life. This was a job to me, and I was employed full-time, putting in as much overtime as possible. Life from that vantage point seemed to be one big test of show and prove, pick and stick.

Mom went through her usual greetings with the Orientals. They had known each other for years.

I was on point. Not only was I in jeopardy, but with me I had Mom, who I was sure would try to talk an enemy into doing an about-face. Fat fucking chance of that happening, I remember thinking.

“You remember my son Kody, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes,” I heard the Oriental woman saying amid other comments such as “he’s so big, so strong looking.” After a few other exchanges we started down an aisle. Canned goods, no interest here.

“Mom, I’m going over to the cereal section,” I said and stepped quickly so she couldn’t call me back.

Turning the corner at the end of the aisle, I felt relieved to be alone, both for my safety and Mom’s. I had every intention of going to the cereal section when I was distracted by a nice-looking young lady in produce. I made a beeline for the vegetables, and that’s when I saw him. Damn! Enemy! Enemy! My adrenaline alarm was going off. Sonic booms of heartbeat filled my ears. My throat got tight and my movements became automatic. We both reached for our waistbands simultaneously. The young lady had still not looked up from her inspection of the vegetables, yet the tranquil surroundings of an otherwise routine shopping trip were about to explode around her.

I managed the drop and drew first. He was still drawing his weapon. Shit, had this been “Baretta,” or “Barnaby Jones,” he would have thrown his hands up and surrendered. Not bothering to aim, I fired.

BOOM!

Confusion and chaos swept the aisle like buckshot, screams following in quick succession. Damn, I’d missed!

I fired again and hit him in the torso. The bullet knocked him back, and his weapon discharged into the air. He had what sounded like a .22, a small-caliber weapon. Folks now knew that two weapons were involved—one loud, my 9 millimeter, and one not, his .22. I shot at him three more times to create an atmosphere of intensity, then turned and went in search of my mother. Since my last encounter with the ride-by shooters, where I had emptied my clip and was left vulnerable, I had learned to keep “exit” or “safety” shells.

Running aimlessly about, frantically looking for Mom, I totally forgot I had the gun in my hand. I tucked it while jogging down the household appliance aisle. Not finding her there, I panicked, remembering how I had been locked in the surplus store. I made my way then to the door and there, among the other scared-to-death shoppers, I found Mom. She was grief stricken and with her nerves in shambles; I grabbed her arm and ushered her away from the crowd.

“Boy, was that you?” she said, hoping against hope that it wasn’t. “Kody, what happened?”

I made no attempt to explain. My sole intent was a timely escape. We drove in silence, block after block. We never even looked at each other.

Back across Western Avenue I began to breathe better as I finally reflected on what I had done. Fuck him, he was going to shoot me. I justified my shooting of him with self-defense. This thing was very dangerous; we all knew one another. It’s like the CIA and the FBI going to war. There’s no escaping once sighted.

I thought for sure I’d be captured for this one. After all, the Oriental knew me, and folks had seen me with the strap (gun). However, my arrest was not forthcoming.

After getting out of camp in 1979, I met Tamu through my brother Kerwin and sister Kendis, who all worked together at the Thirty-second Street Market. Tamu was a looker, tall and graceful with a smile that shouted for attention; I was naturally attracted. However, she was older than I. In fact, we had nothing in common. She was tall, I was short. She had a job, I was an armed robber. She liked jazz, I liked funk. She had a car, I had a bicycle. She was drug and alcohol free, I smoked pot and PCP and drank beer. We clicked immediately.

Today she’ll say she didn’t chase me, but in actuality she did. Once she and I began to go steady, she’d let me drop her off at work and keep the car until she got off. Her shift was from 3:00 P.M. till 11:00 P.M. My attraction was not just physical, but to the fact that she was not of my world. She was a civilian. To me, that was most appealing. She was not with me because of my reputation or clout, but for me as an individual. So when I went around her I would present myself as Kody, without the Monster persona. I’d take my shades off, tuck my flag, and not let her know when I was strapped. I also would douse myself with some of the expensive cologne Mom had bought me. Later, Tamu told me that I had been using too much but that at the time she didn’t want to embarrass me, for she saw that I was trying to impress her.

I would take Tamu up to the market and kiss her goodbye, drive to the corner, make sure she was inside the store and out of view, then reach for the glove compartment. I’d open it, pull out my flag, put on my murder-ones (dark shades, also called Locs or Locos), button the top button on my shirt, put my strap in my lap, and drive on to the ’hood. I did so many ride-bys, drive-ups, drive-throughs, and chase-aways in her car that it’s a wonder she didn’t either go to jail or get shot. I guess everyone assumed the car was stolen. Then, too, we left few witnesses.

Tamu and I continued to date up until the time she told me she was pregnant.

“Pregnant?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes, pregnant,” she replied matter-of-factly.

I felt so young at that moment, just a baby myself. I panicked. Anything but a child. Things had gotten too serious, out of hand. I began to dodge Tamu.

“Tell her I ain’t here,” I would tell family members when she called or came by.

Mom, however, adored her, and they would sit for hours and talk. Often I’d come in from a hard day of campaigning, shotgun slung over my shoulder, and Tamu and Mom would be in the front room talking. I’d acknowledge them with a nod, then head on down the hall to my room and fall out in a dead sleep. I began not to care if she saw me as Monster or not. I tried to push her away with the raw reality of who I was. She wasn’t budging. Besides, Mom hated China for reasons I never knew—perhaps because she saw that she and I were on the same path, whereas Tamu could be a positive influence in my life.

I wasn’t by any means ready to have a child, though. To me that meant settling down, another obligation. I already had pledged my allegiance to the set, so I was in a rough spot. I had to pick either Tamu and my unborn child or my career in the set. This ate away at me for several months. Sure I liked Tamu, but not enough to forfeit my stature in the set. All I had worked so hard to build would be left to dangle in the wind, unfinished. Enemies, I