Inglewood, California 1993

“Hey ese, where you from?” someone shouts from a white Sentra. The windows are dark and rolled up except for a crack at the top.

            “This Center Park Bloods, fool!” I shout feeling my adrenaline kick in while hitting them up. This could be a test. The car could be full of Bloods. If it's a rival gang, they could shoot me right now. I have to stand my ground either way. The smell of fear is an invitation for persecution in the woods.

            The window rolls down to reveal a carload of pelones hitting me back up and mad dogging me. I can’t read their hands at all. They're shouting at me in Spanish, but they're talking too fast and I can't understand them. All I hear is Westside and thirteen.

            I’ve only been a blood for six months and all I know is to always claim the hood and swing first.

            “Fuck ya'll," I say approaching the car.

            I'm sick of this shit. Mexicans always want to fuck with me because I'm Latino. Crips fuck with me because I'm not black. That's why I joined the Bloods. I figured if I pick a gang at least someone would have my back, but right now it's four to one facing off in a forest of staple riddled telephone poles and streetlights covered with spray painted manuscripts.

            They open the door. I rush to kick it closed but the other three open in a flash. I'm too late. I swing in fear. The one clean punch I get hits a bald headed gangster's shoulder. Fuck. I'm hit from the side. I try to run but they grab my jacket flailing behind me and pull me down.

            "Fuck ya'll!" I yell automatically.

            A foot hits my forehead like a soccer ball. I cover my head with one arm and swing with the other. My fist hits knees and shins. I'm looking into a kalaidescope of arms and legs. They hit my ribs and my arm covering my face. I feel a leg stomp my head and I reach out and grab it. I hold on while my body is pumelled with rubber soles. A few punches pass my defense to my mouth and nose. This leg I'm holding isn't going to hit me again.

            "Hey! Hey, get off of him! Leave that boy alone!" an old man's voice pierces the rhythm of limbs thudding against my thin body. 

            "C'mon Homes leave this wannabe mayate."

            Another leg hits the back of my head and I roll over to try and grab it. It slips from my grasp and they all disappear. I'm looking at the sky. Clouds slowly moving. It's over and I'm still alive. Thank God.

            My head doesn't hurt, nothing does. I know it will tomorrow. This is the third time I've been jumped this year. The good thing is that when there are four of them they are all in each other's way and they can't really get a clean hit, each losing their balance and holding the others to stay standing so they can have something to talk about tomorrow. Four sets of limbs in chaotic fury is better than two sets in precise accordance.

            "You alright?" the old black man asks.

            "Yeah. I'm fine."

            He appears in my view of the sky with a hand extended. I don't take it. I don't need his help. I roll over and try to stand, but I end up back on my knees. I hear him sigh.

            "Back in my day we fought one to one."

            I look up and into his eyes, "I'm lucky they wanted to fight me at all. They could have shot me just as easily," I say.

            "They must have thought you were in a gang."

            "I am."

             I walk away from his concerned look. It must have been nice back in the old days. Everything was black and white. The way I hear about the March on Washington and the Vietnam War I wonder if there were any Latinos in America at all. My life is like no one else in history. 

            I walk my own destiny. Right now I march towards a place where people expect me to be. I must report for duty to a war going on right here in L.A. 

             I'm late. I had to finish trimming the hedges for my dad. He wouldn't let me leave until my chores were done. My mom rushed to the door to give me my jacket before I left and my ten year old brother begged to come with me.

             Shit. My jacket, they took it. Motherfucking pieces of shit asshole cocksuckers! My grandfather gave me that jacket. I need a fucking drink and a smoke and whatever else they have at the meeting. My head is starting to throb. I'm going to have bruises all over when I wake up tomorrow. There is a cut on the inside of my mouth and my blood is tainting my tongue with that iron flavor, the taste of defeat.

            A few more blocks to go. I hope I don't see that car again. My Chicago Bulls shirt is all I have on my back and my tan Dickies have shoe prints on them. I won't be too hard to spot. But my luck can't be that bad.

            I can't believe I'm a gangster. I thought it would be all love and brotherhood, but mostly I just have to do what the other guys tell me to do. When I need them the most they're not there for me like just now.

            I've robbed a man for his groceries, sold crack, and held a gun for an O.G. while he went up to his girlfriend's house. I thought he was going to get some ass, but it sounded more like he was beating her ass. 

            I'm at the entrance of the alley and I see some guys shooting dice. They look up at me. I do my best to try and look hard. My hands in my pockets and my head slightly down. One of them taps another one, it's Bad Habit. He says something to the guy that tapped him and smiles. I walk up to them.

            "What up, dog?" I say while reaching out my fist to greet him.

            "What happened to your pants? You know you gotta come to the hood looking gangsta?"

            "I got into it with some Mexicans."

            "Shit, ain't those your people?" he says mocking me.

            "I thought ya'll were my people," I say trying to get something positive out of him.

            "Next time, go home and change before you come up here. You embarassing me, nigga. Now go grab a beer from the cooler and chill, Blood."

            "Alright dog," I say hiding the anger I feel towards him.

            I turn and walk to the red cooler and pull out a beer. I see my boy Prince in the middle of a circle of fools. Looks like he's going to get put on. I finish my 12 oz. Bloodweiser in one stark guzzle and stand against the wall. 

            "Hit this, Blood," a guy with braids covering his forehead says and passes me a forty.

            "Thanks Blood," I say back.

            I take a huge sip and pass it on. Someone else hands me a blunt. I take a few puffs.

            "Who does this go to?" I ask.

            A hand comes out and takes the huge weed filled cigar. I'm feeling good now. I make my way to the circle and see Prince's stocky 5' 3" frame in a cloud of dust swinging and finally tackling a bigger fool to the ground. He knocks him out and gets off of him.

            "Yeah, nigga! Who's next nigga?" he says looking around.

            He sees me and winks. I smile back. Prince is the homie from before I was a Blood. He was always down for me. When I ran away from home I stayed with him and his drunk ass momma.

            I get passed another bottle, not beer. I take a swig and it stings, "Oh shit," escapes my teenage mouth without a thought.

            I hear laughter. Fuck that. I take another swig and I hear a few homies clap. I want to throw up, but I will myself not to by breathing out noxious fumes that curl my lip.

            "Let that Mexican get down with P," someone says. Whoever it is, he's referring to me.  I don't want to fight especially Prince and especially after that beating I just took, but I will.

            "Why don't you step over here big mouth nigga?" Prince says getting fired up. He extends his hand and I pass him the bottle of heat. He takes a swig and passes it to someone else.

            "Nah, fuck that. Fight the Mexican," the guy says stepping out.

            "Dirty ain't Mexican, dog. He's blacker than you bitch ass nigga!" he yells in anger.

            He knows I hate that shit. Prince grabs him and swings him into the only tree in the yard. They start fighting. I take a few steps back and I'm back on the wall. My head is spinning. I get passed a beer and I take a deep breath of carbonated bread. I pass it to an anonymous hand and a different hand passes me some weed.

            Fuck, I'm getting faded. I see Prince get knocked through the circle. A guy in a red flannel helps him up and Prince is right back in the middle swinging with the heart of a lion.

            The guys shooting dice start arguing and the circle around Prince breaks up. His beanie is on the ground and he's leaning against the tree catching his breath. I walk back to the cooler and grab another beer.

            It will take a while, but eventually I'll earn my respect. I just hope I don't die in the process or kill anyone. I don't know which would be worse, but I don't want to do either.  

            It would break my mom's heart to see me in jail or in a coffin. I just need to survive here until I'm old enough to take care of myself.

            A year ago I was going to the mall with my friend Lolieh and now I'm caught up in this shit. I'm not a victim. I take responsibility for my choices. Joining was a calculated decision meant to keep me alive longer than just being a oner. 

            I didn't know all of the facts when I decided. I was misled with romantic notions of criminal honor that couldn't be farther from reality.    

            Bad News is walking away from the argument he settled.

            “You and you are gonna do a CK tonight,” he says with a voice like a greasy steel wool pad pointing at Prince and then at me.

We’re being told that we are going to kill someone tonight. I’m all for a little murder, but not for any old reason and not because some jerk tells me to do it. No one cares that I just got jumped and now they tell me to kill some Crabs. 

Prince's eye is swollen and he’s out of breath. He fought three guys twice his size in the last ten minutes. Could a bare-knuckled boxer from the roaring twenties do that?

“Just point and I’ll shoot any motherfucker walking down the street, dog,” I say to the small crowd of gangsters gathered here in this house’s grass-spotted and dusty backyard that spills over into this common concrete alley. A fence separates it from Center Park.

“Me too dog, I don’t give a fuck,” Prince says after he swigs a forty and wipes his mouth with his red beanie. He’s a good guy and so am I. We’ve just been put in a bad situation.

“That’s what I like to hear from the little B.G.’s dog. Ya’ll are some down ass niggaz. Now relax, this shit’ll go down when the moon comes out gangstas. ‘Til then drink and smoke up ya’ll. We all family here,” he says to us throwing up the set. He has tattoos of the names of dead homies on his forearms. He has a huge CPB on his back in Olde English, and he is directly in charge of me. He’s Bad News.

The attention turns away from us as he makes his way across the yard to talk to the real bosses of this clique. Bad News got out of jail six months ago and the first thing he did when he couldn’t get any pussy was put me on. He asked if I’d hold his gun for him. I said, “Sure.” Next came a punch that knocked me into the side of a van. I tried to swing but it was useless. Before my lame punches came close to his face he had already knocked me down. I cursed at him because it was all I could do. I always did have a big mouth. He liked the fire in my eyes. He named me Bad Luck that night.

He brought me to this alley and had two of my boys that used to be from P.O.L.O. put me on. “Players Only Live Once” is the name of a crew that I joined so I’d stop getting jumped in my own damn neighborhood, walking home from school to my own damn house. We got too big and the Bloods started putting us on one by one, cornering us, catching us alone, and telling us we couldn’t exist in their hood.

I was waiting for my turn to become a part of something bigger than parents, bigger than school, and bigger than the police. I had just come by to hang out that night, have a beer and smoke a blunt, but I went home a gangster.

 I laid in my bed with blood dripping into my mouth from the corner of my lips. I’d swallow every once in a while when I felt it pooling up around my teeth. Blood in, blood out; I was a member now.  I just wanted to go to sleep on the bottom bunk when my parents came home and turned on the lights in my light blue room patched with stapled posters wherever there was space on my sloppily repainted walls.

My mom began to cry colorless streams of sorrow. I told them I’d been jumped and they took me to the hospital where a solemn white doctor gave me three stitches. Then we went to the police station and I filed a bullshit report against an attacker that hadn’t attacked me for weeks. I gave the description of one of the Crips that had jumped me earlier this year over on Slauson.

“Dog, that was a gangsta ass put on, in front of everybody and shit,” I say to Prince as he walks over to me. He gives me a pound and then passes me the forty he was sipping on. I don’t even know how much I drank today. I just take a huge guzzle every time someone passes me a bottle so the homies think I’m strong.

“Yeah, man, my head is fuckin’ ringing tho’ Dirdee.” Dirty, that was my name in P.O.L.O. It seems like a hundred years ago, before things were serious, but it’s only been six months.

“At least you don’t need stitches, blood.”

“Yeah, I know.” He gives me another pound and leaves me with his bottle as he goes to talk to some of the guys he knows. I don’t know anyone here but Bad News and Bad Habit, the two G’s I’ve been doing dirt with.

Prince grew up around all of these guys. He never wanted to join, but like I said, this P.O.L.O. thing put us in a bad situation. Me not knowing them, means they don’t know me either, which means they don’t trust me, which is why I’m doing a CK tonight.

Prince is just along for the ride. I’m nervous and uncomfortable here without many friends, but what’s new. I’m not like anyone anywhere. I’ve never been popular, strong, or friendly.  I’m the last outcast, a Colombian who barely speaks Spanish, raised by a black man from New York who moved to L.A. when he married my mom.

“Hit this, dog.”

“Thanks blood,” I say to the guy passing me a blunt. The smoke dances from the tip like a belly dancer from an old cartoon. I see the guys on the other side of the small yard looking at me, talking about me. I’m nothing here and I only joined to finally be something. I'm a double negative.

I hear two guys talking a few feet away.

“We should just knock that nigga out man.”

“Go 'head.”

“Naw, dawg, that’s Bad News’ little nigga mang.”

“Did you see him get put on?”

“Fuck naw, blood.”

“That little fucka got heart, he wouldn’t stop swinging and shit, even when he couldn’t stand, cursing and shit. Since then he’s been putting in work on the regular. He’s heartless. He almost beat some fool to death for his groceries. We had to pull him off of him. He’s gonna be a rida after tonight.”

I smile inside. Finally,  I get some recognition. I’ve been fighting since I was eight, but nobody ever cared. I never tell my family what I do out here, in the world, in this cold and filthy world that they tried to protect me from for so long.

“Who’s this go to?” I say trying to pass the blunt before I get so high I can’t shoot straight tonight.

“Right here, Lucky.”

“Oh shit, Lamar, I didn’t know you was here.”

“Just got here, Blood. What’s going down nigga?”

“Nuttin’ much, just chilling, you know.”

“I heard you was doing a CK tonight.” He pulls on the blunt in between sentences. Lamar is 13. He’s been banging since he was 10. He’s been real cool with me since I got put on. He was there, laughing and loving every swing and drop of blood that sprayed from my wounded face. “Don’t even sweat it dog, I didn’t even look when I did my first one, just started sprayin’ and shit, after that it gets easy tho’. You’ll be a killer in no time Lucky.”

He tries to pass the blunt back to me, but something is stopping him. It gets halfway to my hand and then stops. I reach out, but it begins falling to the ground in ultra slow motion. It looks like an old war plane crashing with a trail of smoke spiraling from the tip.

“Inglewood Police Department! Everybody freeze!” exits a megaphone and echoes my eternity.

One guy runs towards the cop car and tries to jump on the hood. He probably wanted to go over the top and down the alley, but he’s got tazer wires connected to him before he takes three steps. He hits his head on the cruiser's bumper and the pigs don’t even blink. A few guys run down the side of the house to the front, others just put their hands on their heads and drop to their knees.

The cops are wrestling with the guy who wanted to knock me out, he pulls a gun and then they swarm on him. I look towards the house in all the confusion and see Bad News jumping in through the window. I bolt across the yard to the door leading into the house and someone lets me in.

Bad Habit is halfway in the attic and standing on a stool while some other guys around him are passing him guns. He’s wearing a pair of black leather gloves. God knows how many they’re hiding up there. We’re all nervous now, not just me.

Their power is gone. They smell of terror and weakness. These men, who were going to put a gun in my hand and make me kill, are nothing more than scared coyotes in the fierce woodlands.

“Fuck was you doing out there Lucky?”  I hear Lamar say. I turn and see him looking out the window.

“Shit, I didn’t even know what the fuck was happening ‘til it happened," I reply.

“Not me, blood. I smelt some bacon coming up the alley, dog. Hehehe.”

“Come out with your hands up! You have 3 minutes guys and then we’re coming in!” the cops blare from the yard.

Will I ever make it home tonight? Am I going to jail? If I’m told to do something I can’t refuse I’ve given my fate to the coyotes.

The Bad Family is finally done stashing the heaters. Everyone comes into the living room where me and Lamar are.

“All right ya’ll we gonna walk out there in a sec. We not shooting our way out of this one,” Habit looks at Bad News as he says that. News nods back.

“What do I say when I get out there?” I ask in a moment of obedient spontaneity.

“They’ll ask you your name and where you’re from and you tell them. I’m Bad Luck from Center Park Blood Gang,” Habit says.

“What are you gonna say?” I ask him.

“They already know me, Blood," he replies boastfully.

And that’s it. Bad News yells out the window that we’re coming out. Then he opens the door and pushes me out. Stepping through this door is like a dream. Everything is hazy, a cop stands at the bottom of the steps with a tazer pointed at my chest, two more with guns drawn are about ten feet away.

“Nice and easy boy,” the tazer says, “Step to the right there.”

Then a hand grabs me and pushes my face into a patch of brown grass. Hands grab at my pockets as a voice reads me my rights. I wait for the end and say that I understand. They stand me up and take me to the side of the house where they ask me my name and where I’m from. I tell them. They take a Polaroid of me and write my info at the bottom of it.

The one Latin cop asks me why I’m hanging around these guys. I tell him that the cops aren’t much help at keeping me safe. He asks if I’m black and I tell him I’m half. I don't want to have to explain myself to this asshole.

He leads me back to the front, realizing I wasn’t really paying attention to him. It’s like there is no present now, everything is happening five seconds too fast. I can only see what I’ve just done or hear what I’ve just said. Guys are lined up in cuffs and now I’m one of them. Sitting here at the edge of the yard, I can’t help but wonder if these pigs just saved my life.

Why should I kill a Crip tonight? Why should I do a CK? What about those cholos that jumped me, no one cares about that? I don’t owe these guys anything, they’re not my family. One of them wanted to knock me out a few minutes ago; this is not brotherhood.

If I follow, I follow them straight into a coffin or a cell. I look over at Lamar, laughing and talking shit with some of the other guys. He never had a chance, but I do. If I go to jail I’m screwed, if not, I’ll be taking a life for sure tonight.

A couple of hours pass, day turns to night and me and Lamar are the only ones left at the edge of the yard. The others were all taken away. The cops are clearing out and taping up the house. They found all the guns, but no one claimed them so no one can be charged. I heard the cops say that one of the bosses Bad News was talking to in the corner was getting life. Life.

“How old are you, young brother?” the black cop asks Lamar.

“Who the fuck is you?” Lamar asks.

“You can call me Officer Bill. Now, you cut that tough talk out right now and answer my question or you won’t see the light of day ‘til you’re old enough to have grandchildren.”

“Thirteen,” he says coldly as he stares at the cops honest eyes.

“What are you doing with your life, son?”

“Shit. Gangbangin’ sir,” he tells him straight up.

The cop doesn’t even look at me.

“Well, Today is your lucky day gentlemen.”

Lamar looks at me and smiles.

“You guys are free to go on one condition.”

“What’s that officer?” Lamar asks.

“That you go straight home after I take those cuffs off. You boys are young and you still have a chance. These older guys have made their beds already and now they have to lie in them. But your bed is bare. You haven’t done anything too bad to turn back from.” Lamar looks down at his red all-stars. “Look at me boy. Go home tonight and stay there.”

This cop cares, but I wish he would just let us go and go get a donut. Mar doesn't care and I can't wait to get home and never come out again. He uncuffs us and we start walking down the alley.

“Where we gonna go?” I ask Lamar.

“Back to the spot,” he says.

The spot is two blocks from my house. It’s where Bad News knocked me into a van six months ago. It’s where P.O.L.O. used to meet up and chill. It’s where anyone who didn’t get caught would be.

I’m going to kill someone tonight.

We walk and talk. I try not to sound scared. Then an 86' Camaro pulls up with the T-top removed. Two Crips are in the front seat smoking a blunt and staring at us: blue Camaro, blue shirts, and blue baseball hats.  The back seat is empty. I look at them and Lamar stares at them.

They drive by really slowly and pass us as their eyes are deadlocked with ours. They turn around and come back towards us. Lamar is in a zone, his eyes aren’t moving from them. He is not a coyote, he’s a wolf.

“Where ya’ll from?” one asks.

“This Center Park Gangsta Bloods nigga,” Lamar says with the pride that a Harvard alumni would have in his voice when asked what school he went to. He throws it all up with his hands in a crisp finger ballet.

“60's cuz,” the Crip says in a stoned affirmation.

Lamar just puts his hands up. Anything can happen, we can live or we can die, but we can’t run. We can never run. Fuck these motherfuckers. Death is not my choice, but cowardice can't be my decision.

“What the fuck ya’ll wanna do, huh?” I yell out. I’m not scared of these two fucks. I don’t care what they have. I can taste the electricity in the air, like I have a thousand times before. If I die then I die with a clean soul. If I live then after tonight I would have done something that there is no turning back from.

We start approaching the car.  From the curb we’re cut-out ducks with targets on our bellies, but if we’re close and they try to get out we can kick the door back on them. It didn't work today, but that's because I was severely outnumbered.

If these two shoot we can run behind the car and they’ll have to be hanging out of it to hit us, their aim will be so fucked up and we’ll be zig-zagging, they’ll never land one like that. Never stand on the curb if they’re in the car, it’s plain logic. I'm always thinking. I wonder if Lamar ever thinks. He seemingly feeds off of his own instincts and it's easy to admire his ruthless simplicity.

The Crabs take-off. Sometimes a cold stare and a step forward go a long way. These coyotes will growl and sniff to see if they can smell your fright, if you step back they’ll chase, if not the fear they smell will be their own. Or maybe they just didn't want to ruin their high.

We start laughing and boasting, talking shit. It feels good. We keep walking to the spot and as we turn the corner all I see is this chrome nine pointed at us under a red rag.

“Where ya’ll from?” the gunman asks.

“Center Park dog, put that shit away,” Lamar answers.

“Oh shit, Mar, didn’t know that was you. Why you hangin’ with this Mexican? Some wetbacks in a Sentra just hit us up.”

“This Bad Luck, nigga we just came from the raid and shit. We backed down some bitch ass crabs in a T-top nigga.”

The guy turns away from me and him and Lamar start walking towards the house. Lamar’s arm is around his shoulder as he undoubtedly starts retelling the events of the night. I’m just standing there confused and completely overwhelmed.

I’m standing here alone.

They forgot about me. The door is closed. The moon is lighting the asphalt making it look like a pond of black glitter. In the house I’m staring at are determined killers getting ready to kill. They’re filling up old clips with new bullets and old glasses with cheap liquor.

I can prove that I’m one of them by taking part in taking lives. I might end up in jail. I might get killed myself.  I can walk in and become a killer tonight. Or I can walk a block to my house, get in my bed, and go to sleep.

I look around at the stillness of the night. At this moment I’m the only one on earth. I go deaf. I don’t hear any birds chirping or people talking loudly in the surrounding dwellings. I don’t hear any car engines humming or subwoofers beating so hard they rattle loose license plate frames. I feel the universe breathing around me. Then in the distance a siren breaks the perfect silence.

Fuck this shit, I’m going home.