Part 5 (1/2)

When I came to, I was in tremendous pain, in ICU. Three days had elapsed, although I didn't yet know that. A tube ran up my nose and down into my stomach; I had one IV tube in my arm and another tube in my p.e.n.i.s; st.i.tches extended from my hairline to my solar plexus; there was a cast on my left hand and three huge bullet holes in my left leg. The pain was almost unbearable.

A nurse came in and administered a shot, which took me up and away.

The next time I came to I was in another room. The nurse said my condition was stable. She gave me another shot. Weak, very skinny, and dehydrated, I drifted off again.

5.

CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP

I walked to the driver's side window and demanded his wallet, at which time he smiled with a baneful sneer, drew a pistol, and fired one round into my chest.

BOOM!.

The sound reverberated again and again, echoing away in my unconscious mind.

My own screaming woke me from my fitful sleep. Sitting up in the hospital bed, I struggled for clarity. Was it just a dream? I felt my chest for blood, a hole, anything that could prove or, for that matter, disprove my fearful thought of being shot again. I bad been dreaming-having a nightmare would be more accurate. But my dreams, or those I could recollect, have always been punctuated with gunfire. Gunfire directed at me, coming from me, or in my general vicinity. And never have I shrunk from the presence of such lethal violence.

Being chased by Randy's huge donut is quite another matter, one to which I could not attach any sort of logic whatsoever. That scared me. For years that d.a.m.n donut chased me around in my dreams. I was so deathly afraid of those donut dreams that once I had started banging I often contemplated destroying the huge plastic replica on Normandie and Century. Even today I loathe the sight of it. My screams alerted the on-duty nurse, not to mention scaring the daylights out of my roommate, who was also a gunshot victim. In minutes I was being attended by a nice-looking Chicano nurse who, as it turned out, had seen such postshooting behavior many times. She explained that it was quite normal and expected. My main concern at first was to make sure I had just been dreaming, and then my pride stepped in and I inquired about the tone and sound of my screaming. ”Was I really screaming or was I just shouting? Was it loud, or what?”

Against my worst fears of damaged masculinity, or what I perceived to be such, she confirmed that yes, it was a scream and it was very loud. Perhaps she felt she had been too literal for my young ego, as I'm certain she saw me slump into a mournfully sagging posture. She fell heavily into a spiel about my nightmares being ”normal,” ”natural,” and ”a result of the terrifying experience I had been through.” All that was fine and sounded good, but could she please go down to South Central and explain that to my homies? Or, better yet, my enemies, who would just love to hear of me having nightmares. This line of thinking caused me for the first time to question my roommate's origins and set affiliation. For if he belonged to the wrong set this could be very harmful to my reputation and perhaps make it all the more difficult to continue my ascent through the ranks. Monster Kody having nightmares? Unthinkable.

Shortly after the nurse's departure and before the morphine she'd administered took me under, I questioned my roommate. He was a hapless civilian, fresh out of the backwoods of a small town in Georgia, whose people lived in a highly active part of Los Angeles. He had been sprayed with buckshot from a pa.s.sing vehicle. The possibility that he was a civilian had never crossed my mind, perhaps because I always tried not to shoot civilians, unless of course the bangers outnumbered them in a gathering. Should we get some flack for that later on, we could always claim ”a.s.sociation.” We were hard-driven for results, for confirmed body counts of combatants. From what my roommate said, he was simply standing in the front yard when a pa.s.sing car unloaded some buckshot into him. After he told me of this and his immediate plans to depart for ”back home,” he repeated over and over in a strong southern drawl, ”d.a.m.nedest thang . . . d.a.m.nedest thang.”

He was totally taken aback by L.A.'s madness. But to me it all seemed quite normal. ”Normal” like the nurse had explained my nightmares were normal. It was ”natural” for me to retaliate against anybody as a ”result of the terrifying experience I had been through,” just like the nurse had explained. Of course I twisted her explanation of my psychosis into a perverted alibi for my continued behavior. I rationalized my actions continually, and with each successive level of consciousness I reached, my rationalization became less convincing to me. Questions were often left to hang in the balance because my conscience simply refused to process them due to such illogical reasoning. So I'd avoided questioning myself about my ongoing radical behavior. I'd deadened my conscience with PCP, alcohol, and friends, who themselves had done likewise. I dozed off under the soothing waves of the morphine, wondering how it must be to live a civilian life.

I just couldn't imagine living the life of a ”hook,” those seemingly spineless nerds who were always victims of someone's ridicule or physical violence, who never responded to an affront of any type. I had, while in primary school, been victimized by cats during their ascent to ”king of the school.” My milk money was taken. My lips were busted two or three times. Not because I decided to defend my dime or my honor, but because my a.s.sailant simply whacked me. Early on I saw and felt both sides of the game being played where I lived. It was during my time in elementary school that I chose to never be a victim again, if I could help it. There was no gray area, no middle ground. You banged or held strong a.s.sociation with the gang, or else you were a victim, period. To stress this when we made appearances at high schools, we'd often jump on hooks and take their money, leather jackets, hats, and such.

What's contradictory here, and is one of the irrational questions I battled with in my later years, is why are hooks victims of our physical wrath but unfair game in our lethal violence? The answer seems to be that hooks seldom, if ever, shoot back. Other bangers-whom I'm convinced, like me, have been victimized at some point in their lives and refused to let it continue-respond with the same violence they receive, if not something more lethal. Because of this, they must be smashed. Hooks are easy pickings for most anyone. But bangers know that there is no glory in killing a hook. In fact, it's frowned upon in most areas. To me, however, to be unconnected meant to be a victim. And I couldn't imagine that.

The next time I surfaced from my morphine-induced drift, I was in tremendous pain. Everywhere and all at once pain pounced on me with mind-wracking weight. My stomach, which had been surgically cut open to remove some shredded intestines, was now closed with sutures and staples. Since the surgery was so recent the cut skin had not yet started to heal, and in between the staples the openings looked pus-filled. The sutures were so tight that I could barely move without feeling tied down. My stomach resembled railroad tracks that in some areas had been blown apart by saboteurs. The sight of this alone caused lumps in my throat. To the left and slightly below my navel was where the bullet had entered. There was just a hole there, uncovered and open. I could see pink inside. My pain in this area came from under my navel and around the staples. The tube in my nose, which ran down into my stomach, was attached to a pumplike machine next to my bed. Looking at it caused pain. It was extracting green slime from my stomach and storing it in a clear jar. The nurse called it poison. I couldn't comprehend that and just a.s.sumed I had been hit with poison bullets. The catheter in my maleness ran from under the covers over the side of the bed and into what, I don't know. I never looked. This was also very painful. My left hand had been broken by the impact of the second shot and was in a cast. It, too, throbbed with pain.

I had taken three hits in the left leg, two side by side in the meatiest part of my front thigh, and one up a bit higher near my hip, almost on my b.u.t.t. Like my stomach wound these, too, had been left open and exposed. I had also been hit in the upper back. I a.s.sumed this hole was also left open. From every hole, or its surrounding area, I had pain.

Looking from my stomach to the catheter to the open wounds and then to the pumping machine, I just couldn't put it all together. My thoughts ran at lightning speed in an attempt to answer some of the questions now being submitted for clarification. I was seriously dehydrated. My lips were cracked and dry. I reached out for the nurse's aid b.u.t.ton hanging next to my bed, but my stomach pain was too intense, and I fell back in a heap. Frustration rose up like an evil serpent from a murky river, s.n.a.t.c.hed me, and drew me under. It was then that I began to realize the impact of my being wounded and all the mental strain that I had actually been under.

I lay p.r.o.ne for what seemed like a day or two, trying to piece together what had taken place in my life over the past five years. d.a.m.n, had it actually been five years? Yes, five years had elapsed since my joining up with the set. Although it seemed like a long time, it had gone very quickly. At the same time, the seriousness of my chosen path had made me age with double rapidity. At sixteen I felt twenty-four. Life meant very little to me. I felt that my purpose on earth was to bang. My mind-set was narrowed by the conditions and circ.u.mstances prevailing around me. Certainly I had little respect for life when practically all my life I had seen people a.s.saulted, maimed, and blown away at very young ages, and no one seemed to care. I recognized early that where I lived, we grew and died in dog years. Actually, some dogs outlived us. Where I lived, stepping on someone's shoe was a capital offense punishable by death. This was not just in a few isolated instances, or as a result of one or two hotheads, but a recognized given for the crime of disrespect. Regardless of the condition of the shoes, the underlying factor that usually got you killed was the principle. The principle is respect, a linchpin critical to relations between all people, but magnified by thirty in the ghettos and slums across America.

I had no idea of peace and tranquility. From my earliest recollections there has been struggle, strife, and the ubiquity of violence. This ranged from the economic dest.i.tution of my family to the domestic violence between my parents, from the raging gang wars to the omnipresent occupational police force in hot pursuit. Peace to me was a fleeting illusion only to be seen on TV programs like ”The Brady Bunch.” I've never been at peace, and nothing has ever been stable. Everything in my life has been subject to drastic change or subtle movement, without so much as a hint or forewarning. I've always felt like a temporary guest everywhere I've been, all of my life, and, truly, I've never been comfortable. Motion has been my closest companion, from room to room, house to house, street to street, neighborhood to neighborhood, school to school, jail to jail, cell to cell-from one man-made h.e.l.l to another. So I didn't care one way or another about living or dying-and I cared less than that about killing someone.

The set was my clearest vision of stability. Although changes took place in the hood, the hood itself never changed. To ensure that it didn't, we vowed to kill all who set out to eliminate it. This obsession has been evidenced by our carriage in warfare. The ultimate stability, however, was death-the final rest, the only lasting peace. Though never verbally stated, death was looked upon as a sort of reward, a badge of honor, especially if one died in some heroic capacity for the hood. The supreme sacrifice was to ”take a bullet for a homie.” The set functioned as a religion. Nothing held a light to the power of the set. If you died on the trigger you surely were smiled upon by the Crip G.o.d. On my homie Lucky's tombstone it simply says: ”My baby Brother taking a rest.” He was fourteen when he was murdered, but he had lived so hard through so much that he needed a rest. We all learned quite early through experience that it was sometimes better to rest in peace than to continue to live in war.

In Vietnam when a soldier was wounded badly enough he was sent home. Home was a place where there was peace. No real danger of the 'Cong existed stateside. The war was ten thousand miles away. In contrast, our war is where we live. Where do we go when we've been wounded bad, or when our minds have been reduced to mincemeat by years, not months, of constant combat? If Vietnam vets suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, then I contend that gang members who are combat soldiers are subject to the same mind-bend as are veterans of foreign wars.

For us there is no retreat to a place ten thousand miles away, where one can receive psychiatric attention with full benefits from the Veterans Administration. No, our problems are left to compound, and our traumatic stress thickens, as does our abnormal behavior caused by the original malady gone unchecked. Is there any wonder our condition continues to worsen?

Talking with any gang member one will quickly pick up on the high praise and respect given when, in the course of conversation, a dead homie is mentioned. Usually before or right after the name of the deceased is spoken, ”rest in peace” will be communicated in a very respectful tone.

Being wounded, on the other hand, can be taken two ways. In some cases, cats who've been wounded simply drop out of sight and use their injuries as an excuse to say ”enough,” which, of course, still leaves the set in the position of having to respond to the attack. All strikes against the set have to be answered in a timely and appropriate manner; otherwise the set's prestige wanes and eventually it collapses under the weight of the ridicule and military hegemony. But sometimes the wounded party utilizes their affliction to reaffirm their commitment to the 'hood. In so doing, they automatically climb another notch up the ladder toward that desired status of O.G.

Li'l Crazy De, for instance, has been shot thirteen separate times and is still committed to the 'hood. In the tenth unsuccessful attempt on his life he lost his left eye and a piece of his scalp. He is loved by few, hated by many, but respected by all. His legend is like that of the notorious gangster Legs Diamond, who had been shot repeatedly and survived. My wounding, however, fell deep within this second category, though there really was no need to reaffirm my commitment, for it went without saying that I'd be back. But the Sixties were certain that I had died. In fact, their premature celebration is what drew the set's attention to them as the possible shooters. We were at war with so many sets that it was hard to pin my shooting on any one 'hood, so the homies responded by hitting every 'hood we didn't get along with and a few that we did, just to be sure. The violence level rose dramatically in the days following my shooting-so much, in fact, that two officers from CRASH had come to the hospital with pleas for me to somehow stop it. When I'd gestured helplessly with my palms turned up they'd resorted to threats of conspiracy and accessory charges. I couldn't possibly help them.

When I finally reached my call b.u.t.ton, I was surprised to find that I was being attended by an Afrikan nurse. She hurried about the room, checking on my general state, and then informed me that I was to be moved to yet another room, on the ninth floor. She was very talkative and witty, perhaps in her mid-to late thirties, and buxom. I pegged her as a stalwart Christian who was a third-generation immigrant from the National Territory (that is, the rest of the United States). She was very dark and very s.h.i.+ny and her name was Eloise. When she spoke she lit up the room with a radiant smile generated by sparkling white teeth.

”Now what happened to you?” she asked, hands planted on both sides of her shapely hips.

”I'm in pain,” I responded. ”Can you give me a shot?”

”Fo' what, so you can turn into a junkie?” she shot back.

”No, so I can stop hurtin.”

”Baby, you been gettin' twenty-eight grams of morphine every four hours for three days now. I think it's time you slowed down.”

”What? Three days! What is the date today?”

”Today is,” she said, looking at the watch on her fat wrist, ”January third, nineteen eighty-one.”

I had no sense of time and just couldn't believe that three days had elapsed since I had been shot.

”Now, what happened to you?” she asked again.

”I was shot.”

”s.h.i.+t, boy, I can see that. But what happened?” She asked in a voice of genuine concern, so I felt compelled to tell her.

”g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gin'. I was shot by other gang members.” This sounded awkward to me, trying to explain it to her.

”And who shot you?”

d.a.m.n, I thought, was she some kind of detective or what, asking me all those questions.

”Don't know, maybe some Sixties, but I really don't know.”

”And where you from, the Eighties?” she asked, but somehow she already knew.

”Yep, how you know?” Now I was getting very uncomfortable.

”I know 'bout that war y'all got going on over there. My son is involved in that s.h.i.+t,” she said with disgust.

”Who is your son and where is he from?”

”Now don't you worry about that.”