Part 24 (1/2)
When I got dressed I started walking over to the Chicano who kept looking at me, but the C.O. asked me where the f.u.c.k I was going. I said to the head, to which he replied that it was behind me. And I'll be d.a.m.ned 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. h.e.l.l, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton. 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.
”G.o.dd.a.m.n, 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!”
”f.u.c.k 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 relations.h.i.+ps 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 transferred. It is old, dirty, rat and roach infested, and always cold. I was sent to Cypress Hall and put on the third tier. My cellmate was a civilian.
”How you doing, black man?” my cellie said with a big smile.
”Cool, asante.”
”Oh, you speak that Swahili, huh?” he asked.
”A little. My comrades have been teaching me. You?”
”Naw, but I want to learn.”
”Right.”
”Do you smoke cigarettes?”
”Naw, never have.”
”Oh, 'cause I have some tobacco. But if it bothers you I'll smoke only on the yard.”
”Naw, it's cool, it don't bother me,” I replied.
He seemed like a cool cat, right up until he noticed the knife in my hand.
”Man, where you get that? You gonna get us put in the Hole, man!”
He was bug-eyed with hysteria, frantically crossing and uncrossing his arms, and his feet would not keep still.
”I keistered it and brought it from L.A. County Jail. It's better to be caught with one than without one. We are at war, haven't you heard?”
”War?!”
”Shhh,” I said and reduced him to silence with a mad-dog stare.
”Look, man,” he began in a lower tone, ”I don't know what you talkin' 'bout. I ain't involved in no war. I ain't got no enemies. I got two years, man, and I want to go home.”
I looked at him and remembered what Salahudin had told me about brothas in the pen.
”Sanyika,” he'd said, which was what he always called me in place of Monster once I'd accepted it, ”Afrikans in the pen will use every excuse they can think of to avoid aiding you in a crisis. They will cite the Bible, bad health, the weather, any and everything to get out of having to endure perhaps a little hards.h.i.+p as the expense for saving your life. We are neglectful like that. But let a Chicano give a distress call and you'll have a hundred of them to deal with.” Prophecy.
”Check this out,” I said to him. ”This is my weapon, my beef. I'm not getting rid of it. If you feel safe without one, fine. I don't. If I had known you was gonna trip out I never would have let you know I had it. I'm a soldier and I ain't gonna let n.o.body stick s.h.i.+t in me without me stickin' somethin' in them, ya dig?”
”Aw, man, it ain't like that in here. Everybody cool with one another. Man, we-”
”How long you been here?”
”A week, but I-”
”You been to the pen before?”
”No, but I-”
”Well shut the f.u.c.k up then, 'cause you don't know s.h.i.+t, man. You don't know nothin' 'bout the politics here, man, nothin'!”
”Politics?”
”B.G.F., E.M.E., A.B., N.F., C.C.O., U.B.N., V.G., T.S., Four-fifteen . . . You ever hear of them, huh?”
”Naw, sound like some code or somethin'.”
”Fool, they run these m.u.t.h.af.u.c.kin' places, man. At any time they can have you murdered, man. But you don't hear me, do you? You think just because there ain't no guns going off 'round here now that everybody cool? Huh? All it takes is one order and any one of the cool people you kick it with will put a piece of steel right through your neck! Ain't no 'cool' in here.”
He was visibly frightened now. I had brought the raw reality of our situation fully down on his shoulders and said, in effect, Carry this! He was already sagging under the weight.