Part 3 (2/2)

I said, ”Man, you know I don't be stealing no cars, that's bulls.h.i.+t!”

”Yeah, we know, but it's best if you clear this up now.” His partner had now joined in on the ”friendly persuasion.”

I looked at Brown to see what he thought.

”Don't worry, Brown,” the first officer said. ”We'll bring Monster right back to the party.”

Still Brown said nothing. By now I was being handcuffed. I told Brown that I'd see him later and to hold down the party until I got back. He said he would. After we drove off, the jovial facade vanished.

”Monster Kody,” the driver said, as if weighing the poundage of my name. ”You are in big trouble.”

d.a.m.n. I felt claustrophobic, trapped and helpless.

”You cannot keep going around killing people and leaving witnesses.” He was shooting stares at me through the rearview mirror as he spoke. ”Now we got you. You done f.u.c.ked up this time. Yep, got an eyewitness who saw you plain as day.

”But listen,” he continued. ”What's been eating away at me is this . . . Was that you driving that burgundy Grand Prix that shot Lip Dog from Brim, which we chased and lost?” His eyes held mine for a moment.

”Naw, man, that wasn't me.”

'Oh, you can tell us, we don't give a f.u.c.k one way or the other. I just wanted to compliment you on your driving.” Now he broke a faint smile. 'Oh, incidentally, Lip Dog survived those four holes you put in his chest.”

”I told you, man, that wasn't me.”

”Well listen, Ace Rat said he saw you kill his homeboy D.C. last night.” He was speaking now in a matter-of-fact tone. ”We wouldn't even bother with it if he hadn't positively I.D.'d you.

”But,” he continued, ”Ace Rat ain't gonna be no good witness no way. h.e.l.l, he shot his own brother today.” With that he winked in the rearview mirror.

Now I was really wondering just what was going on. How had anyone seen me under the cover of darkness? Or, better yet, had anyone actually seen me? And if so, why hadn't there been mention of the others who had been shot? I distinctly remembered counting five people out there. From seventeen feet with a sawed-off, everyone was getting sprayed. Besides, they had been standing in a tight circle, and I had used 00 buckshot. Surely I'd also have some a.s.sault charges and perhaps attempted murder, as well. But this went unmentioned during our ride to the station. At the station, I found out more.

According to the homicide detectives handling the case, myself, Sidewinder, who had been captured, and an unidentified driver caught several Sixties on the corner of Sixty-seventh and Van Ness and opened fire with a 9 millimeter and a .22 rifle. I supposedly had possession of the .22 and had allegedly shot Delta Thomas, a.k.a. D.C., several times. He was said to have run half a block and then expired. Sidewinder had supposedly supplied cover fire. I had been positively identified as the murderer of Delta Thomas.

Of course I knew I had not shot D.C., but how could I explain that I had been at another site, possibly killing other Sixties? I had no alibi as to my whereabouts that night. I made no statement at the station other than, ”I want to speak to my attorney.”

I was asked a series of questions ranging from how old I was (most of the policemen couldn't believe I was sixteen) to what my body count was. I shook them off with ignorant stares and shoulder hunches.

Later, after what seemed like hours in the cooling tank-a deliberately chilled holding cell designed to keep its occupant freezing and uncomfortable-I was transported to Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. There I was strip searched, made to shower, dressed in jail clothes, and escorted to the box. The box is actually solitary confinement, where those being held for murder one are sent for seven days. I was not sweating the case in the least. In fact, once I was put in my room I went directly to sleep.

But when I awoke the next morning I felt the strain of being captured. Now I'm quite used to being trapped behind a heavy metal door or a barrage of bars. Even behind Pelican Bay's 8,200 holes-a metal slab over the entire front of my cell with multiple holes drilled in it-I can function quite normally. But back in those days, before my prison-life conditioning, I had a hard time coping with cell living.

In those days my writing and reading were bad. I couldn't compose a decent letter or even read a whole comic book. I began to think about my schooling and my relations.h.i.+p with my mother, which had deteriorated to a series of staring matches, when we could even stand to be in each other's company for any length of time. I felt she didn't overstand my generation. She, on the other hand, said I was a no-good hoodlum. Our clashes were frequent.

On my second day in solitary she came to see me. I strode out into the dayroom visiting area and sat next to her. For a few seconds she said nothing. Then she looked straight into my eyes with the most puzzling look and spoke through quivering lips.

”Kody, what has happened to you? What is wrong?”

And for the first time in a while I started to shed tears and could not speak. Raising my head to look her honestly in the eyes, I said, ”I don't know,” and meant it.

My life was totally consumed by all aspects of gang life. I had turned my bedroom into a virtual command post, launching attacks from my house with escalating frequency. My clothes, walk, talk, and att.i.tude all reflected my love for and allegiance to my set. n.o.body was more important than my homeboys-n.o.body. In fact, the only reason my little brother and I stayed close is because he joined the set. Anybody else I had nothing in common with. My transformation was subtle. I guess this is why most parents can't nip it in the bud. How?

I was six years old when the Crips were started. No one antic.i.p.ated its sweep. The youth of South Central were being gobbled up by an alien power threatening to attach itself to a mult.i.tude of other problems already plaguing them. An almost ”enemy” subculture had arisen, and no one knew from where it came. No one took its conception seriously. But slowly it crept, saturating entire households, city blocks, neighborhoods, and eventually the nation-state of California.

Today, no school, library, inst.i.tution, business, detention center, or church is exempt from being touched in some way by the gang activity in South Central. Per year, the gangs in South Central recruit more people than the four branches of the U.S. Armed Forces do. Crack dealers employ more people in South Central than AT&T, IBM, and Xerox combined. And South Central is under more aerial surveillance than Belfast, Ireland. Everyone is armed, frustrated, suppressed, and on the brink of explosion.

I had no adequate answer then for Mom about what was happening to me. Actually, I wasn't fully aware of the gang's strong gravitational pull. I knew, for instance, that the total lawlessness was alluring, and that the sense of importance, self-worth, and raw power was exciting, stimulating, and intoxicating beyond any other high on this planet. But still I could not explain what had happened to pull me in so far that nothing outside of my set mattered.

In the years since, I have battled with my intellect to find an adequate answer to that question. Not to justify my partic.i.p.ation, but to see what makes others tick. I have always been a thinker, not necessarily academically, but more on a psychological level. I have always been interested in how people think, what causes any particular thought, and so on. Action and reaction has always held my attention.

After Mom left I felt extremely bad and a bit torn. I was restless, and the day seemed to drag on forever. On my third day in Los Padrinos, my name was called for release. When I got up front to the administration building I found out that my case had been rejected for prosecution by the District Attorney's office.

Mom was there to pick me up. On our way home she tried to make me commit to stop banging and get back in school. I told her I was in school, and to this she angrily retorted, ”To learn, dammit, to learn!”

The fact is, I was being bused to an all-American (white) school in Woodland Hills: El Camino Real High. With some promises from Mom and some stern commitments from my probation officer, I was able to get in right out of juvenile camp. I went to school every day, but I never attended cla.s.ses. Academics just couldn't hold my attention. The only reason I went at all was because of the long trip from South Central to the San Fernando Valley, during which I was able to take in some awesome sights. Any relief from the drab grayness of the city was welcome, so I went along for the ride.

Once there, I'd get with the others who had no interest in academia and we'd stand around and pose in all of our cool South Centralness. The punk movement was in full swing at that time, and the Valley punk rockers initially mistook us-the eight of us who were steeped in the subculture of banging-for punk rockers because of our dress code. Perhaps they thought we were their New Afrikan counterparts from the city. We dressed almost alike, but it was only coincidence-we had never seen or heard of punk rockers before coming out to the Valley. A couple of us thought that they were Crips. We circled one another in an attempt to distinguish authenticity, then finally made a pact and began to hang out together.

But eventually I had to stop going to school there altogether, because the Sixties discovered the bus route, which ran through their 'hood. One day they stood and taunted the bus, and the next day they shot it up. By the third day I was not on that bus anymore.

Now, as if all other attempts would be useless, Mom gave up trying to persuade me.

I mad dogged every occupant of every car that came next to us, giving everyone a deliberately evil stare. I had perfected this look and no one except another serious soldier could hold my stare. I now overstand the look. It's not how you stare at someone, but what you've been through that others can see in your eyes and that tells them you're the wrong one to f.u.c.k with. Some refer to this as the thousand-yard stare.

Once I had gotten home, showered, and geared up, my shaken mentality of the day before vanished, as I was back ”in country”-in the war zone-and conditions dictated that I think in accord with my present situation. I called around to notify the homies of my release and my continued support of and partic.i.p.ation in the war, which had just escalated to another level.

Ckrizs's sister had been kidnapped by the Sixties from the L.A. County Jail after she had gone to visit him: She was a civilian with no ties to gang activity other than her blood relation with Ckrizs. So now kidnapping had been added to the list of tactics used to terrorize the other side into withdrawal. Back in 1980, unlike today, there were no ”high rollers,” or ”ballers,” substantially anch.o.r.ed in any particular 'hood (”high roller” is Crip terminology for a ghetto-rich drug dealer; ”baller” is the equivalent in Blood language). So the kidnapping had nothing whatsoever to do with ransom. This was a straight, ruthless move designed to strike terror in us. But, of course, it didn't work.

A meeting was held for a select few who, it was determined, could pull themselves a notch above the latest terrorist attack and commit an even more hideous act to show the Sixties that two can play this game. Only our target would be not a civilian but one of their troopers.

We plotted and planned most of the night trying to decide on which act would most grab their attention. We pondered castration, blinding, sticking a shotgun up the victim's r.e.c.t.u.m and pulling the trigger, and cutting off his ears. The latter, we felt, would be most significant. After all, killing him would be too easy, too final. No, we wanted him to live, to be a walking reminder of our seriousness.

After deciding our course of action and selecting those to carry it out, we sat and waited to hear the fate of Ckrizs's sister. Finally, after three days of suspense, she was found in one of the Sixties' school yards. She had been raped repeatedly, stabbed numerous times, and left for dead. Fortunately, she lived. That very night our selected crew was sent out to complete its first, but not last, extra-vicious act of warfare.

Combing the streets of the Sixties 'hood in a desperate attempt to find one of their shooters, the crew drove block after block, stopping civilians to ask the whereabouts of such notables as Peddie Wac, Poochie, Keitarock, Mumbles, or Snoop Dog-their elite crew of shooters. Finding none of them around, they settled for an up-and-coming Ghetto Star. They seized him, beat him into submission, and chopped off both his arms at the elbow with machetes. One arm was taken, and one arm was discarded down the street.

Later that night we parried and had a good time. The arm that was taken was brought to the meeting as proof of completion. There were no further kidnappings and our war plodded on in an ”ordinary” fas.h.i.+on after this. During the ensuing investigation, the police department's frustration arose not as a result of the act per se, but from their inability to find the victim's other limb. We learned from this that there was a deterrent to certain acts. We had quite possibly laid down a rule then that certain things just wouldn't be tolerated.

4.

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