Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member Part 4

AMBUSH.

By now, with the wars raging out of control and my paranoia peaking, I had ceased to recognize people-that is to say, gang members-by name. Gang members became recognizable as streets or sets. Further recognition fell into "enemy" or "friend" categories, which of course meant kill or let live. I forgot individual names, but I never failed to link a face with a set. With the exception of my particular homeboys and our immediate allies, I had no interest in storing names in my memory bank. I tried to store more crucial data, such as the addresses of enemy homes, the phone numbers of women belonging to enemy sets, and troop movements of potential danger.

I believe that I survived those chaotic times because I took my existence seriously. Since the time Tray Ball had first told me that banging was a full-time occupation, I have striven for professionalism. But banging falls short of the level of organization of, say, an inst.i.tution that was formally founded on the premise of being structured, so there is no compartmentalization. No individual has a specific duty a.s.signed to him, where his efficiency can be monitored by a superior. Therefore, the serious banger often finds himself handling several "jobs" in the course of his career. For years I found my position in the set to be manifold. At any given time I was the minister of information, which included such responsibilities as writing on walls, declaring who we were and who we wanted to kill, and verbalizing our intent at gangland supremacy on street corners, on buses, in school yards, and at parties; minister of defense, which entailed organizing and overseeing general troop movement and maintaining a highly visible, militarily able contingency of soldiers who, at a moment's notice, could be relied upon for rapid deployment anywhere in the city; teacher of war tactics, which, I guess, would fall under the heading of instructor; and combat soldier and on-the-job trainer.

All partic.i.p.ants are obligated to represent their allegiance to their respective sets everywhere they go. You are taught from recruitment that your set is something to be proud of. Each set actually functions like the different divisions of, say, the U.S. Army. For instance, one who is in the Army may belong to the First Infantry Division, 196th Infantry Brigade, Second Battalion, Delta Company. A member of a gang might belong to the West Side Crips, Eight Tray Gangsters, North Side Eighty-third Street, or West Side Harvard Park Brims, Sixty-second Street. My point here is the complexity of both organizations. There is the Crip Army and the Blood Army. Each has various divisions or chapters. These are noted by streets and initials or abbreviations. Sets use abbreviations much like everyone else: Eight Tray Gangsters would simply be abbreviated to ETG.

As of late, sets-which are the equivalent of a company in military jargon-have started to use individual colors, outside of the universally worn red and blue, to denote their particular chapters. Most notable is the purple flag of the Grape Street Watts Crips and the all-black flags of the Compton Santana Block Crips. Of equal importance is the green flag of the San Diego Lincoln Park Pirus, Skyline Pirus, and 5-9 Brims of the Bloods.

With each new generation of Crip and Blood bangers comes a more complex system, which is now reaching inst.i.tutional proportions. It is precisely because of this type of partic.i.p.ation in the development and expansion of these groups' mores, customs, and philosophies that g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ging will never be stopped from without. The notion of the "war on gangs" being successful is as realistic as the People's Republic of China telling Americans to stop being American. When gang members stop their wars and find that there is no longer a need for their sets to exist, banging will cease. But until then, all attempts by law enforcement to seriously curtail its forward motion will be in vain.

As November 1980 came to a close, several developments were on the horizon. We had forged an alliance with the Playboy Gangsters who, as we duly noted, were situated behind the Sixties. Their 'hood was far west, out of the chaotic labyrinth of South Central. This gave us an escape place to plot and plan, rest and retreat.

At this time we'd also seriously pondered the possible unification of all gangster sets, to roll back the united front of the city-wide neighborhood threat. And we were in desperate need of weapons. The Sixties had just hit an army surplus and secured hundreds of semiautomatic rifles and handguns, which they were putting to use nightly. Arms proliferation was definitely an issue. An arms race is what came out of this situation. And because there is no ceiling on numbers, or checks and balances, the proliferation continues to date.

Our goal was to wait until New Year's Eve, when the entire community would be openly armed and celebrating, and run a truck through the wall of the Western Surplus and secure as many guns and munitions as possible. This was a good plan, we thought, as who would supply security for a store on New Year's Eve?

It was also during this time that Crazy De and I took the "split-side" proposal to Sidewinder for possible approval. Sidewinder was the closest our set came to having a leader. He was the only one who lived on Eighty-third Street and was solely responsible for the set's break with Tookie's regime that involved the entire west side of Los Angeles. Tookie is the founder of the West Side Crips. Before there were any divisions by street, there was one big Crip army. Sidewinder, in effect, won liberation of the set, which was then simply called Original Gangster Crips (OGC). This is where the term "O.G." originated, from Sidewinder's usage of it to denote our break and thus our independence from Tookie's West Side Crips (WSC).

So, as I explained above, with each generation comes new, more advanced ideals about the continuation of Crips in general and of one's set in particular, as shown here with Sidewinder's idea of an individual set on Eighty-third Street. While remaining in conjunction with West Side Crips, the set would not necessarily be controlled by them. Its conception was to promote autonomy.

All attempts at new ideas are not successful. Sets fail, much like businesses. Much work goes into establis.h.i.+ng a set. With the success of a set comes universal recognition. Sidewinder reached Ghetto Star status by this act alone, but he still was active in all of our wars and still lends his experience to the set's ascent today.

Our proposal, our contribution, was based on war strategy. For it seemed like every time we'd neutralize one Sixty, two would be recruited. They have always had great success with recruitment. I would honestly say that today the Rollin' Sixties have the third largest set in South Central, following the East Coast Crips and then the Hoover Crips. We took notice of this threat early on and tried time and again to reduce their population by any means necessary, all to no avail. So our last resort was the psychological approach. Make them believe we were bigger than they thought-deceive them.

What blew me away later on, while I was a prisoner in San Quentin, was when I read Sun Tzu's Art of War and he said "War is deception." We had figured as much long before we knew who Sun Tzu or Mao Tse-tung even were.

Our deceptive tactic was this: We would seem to divide the entire 'hood up into sides-North, South, East, and West-thus making the Sixties believe we were so huge that we had to break the 'hood up into subdivisions. It was our belief that they'd fall into confusion, trying to find the sides they most wanted to attack. We also believed they'd feel enveloped by a larger, more entrenched enemy than they had originally antic.i.p.ated.

But when I explained this to Sidewinder, he rejected it out of hand, citing some abstract notion that this was, in effect, breaking up the 'hood. This was straight hypocrisy on his behalf, because earlier that same year he had concocted some off-the-wall idea about turning the whole set into a new gang, calling it "West Coast Gangster Trays" (WCG3s). Crazy De and I backed him on it and supported his idea, even though it was immensely unpopular amongst other O.G.s. He had even suggested we change the color of our flag.

Despite his adamant disapproval, De and I went forward with our plans. Ironically, the same O.G.s who had disagreed with Sidewinder's idea about the WCG3s backed our development of subdividing the set. Initially, we had four sides, but the East Side fell off the following year when its staunchest members were captured for murder. We began right away on our campaign to inform the Sixties and the entire gang community about our latest development. We went about this task with a vengeance, writing on walls, turning out parties ("turning out" means to disrupt with violence) and at schools-most anywhere we felt like shouting our presence out.

This campaign was actually carried out by no more than four dedicated soldiers: Crazy De, Legs Diamond, Tray Stone, and myself. What started out as a tactic began to produce serious strategic results. Just as we had antic.i.p.ated, confusion as to who was who set in over in the Sixties 'hood, and we were able to make some stunning strikes in the midst of their indecisiveness. In the meantime, our idea was gaining momentum in our 'hood. Others began to campaign for their respective sides, though all in unity with the original idea of deception.

In mid-December I broke into a house and secured two more weapons-another double-barrel and a Browning 9 millimeter. It was also around this time that we began to put serious dents in the Rollin' Sixties' offensive capabilities. On a cold, gloomy night, the Sixties tried to drop some of our West Side soldiers and were cut down. On the South Side a similar situation befell one of their units when one of their shooters hung out of the back window of a rolling car in an attempt to shoot some homies and was instead blasted back into the car with a full charge from a shotgun. The car sped away with the would-be shooter-turned victim-screaming in sheer agony.

Morale was picking up, and our level of recruitment also went up. One of the most damaging things we did to our own set during this time was to call meetings where we'd whip our troops and kick certain people off the set, taking for granted we'd always be strong. When we later found ourselves at meetings with as few as thirty-five soldiers in attendance, we began to regret our earlier acts of irresponsibility in regard to the treatment of troops.

I shot two people in December, but neither died. One I caught at McDonald's on Florence and Crenshaw, and the other I shot on Tenth Avenue and Hyde Park. Both I sprayed with buckshot. I liked to see the buckshot eat away their clothing, almost like piranha fish.

By this time my name and courageous exploits were ringing with alarming regularity in most 'hoods in the gang community. Crazy De was right beside me. We had finally broken through to the second stage of recognition. De, however, had been captured for a murder and was in juvenile hall awaiting trial. I was doing a solo while fas.h.i.+oning Li'l Monster, who had gotten released from camp by this time, Li'l Harv, Li'l Crazy De, Joker, and Li'l Spike into an awesome young fighting machine. They had begun to put in work on a constant basis, really getting a kick out of the whole thing.

We all were waiting for New Year's, not necessarily to usher in the new year, but to hit the Western Surplus and procure the much-needed, desperately sought-after guns and munitions. We had grand ideas about launching a final offensive on the Sixties-our own little Tet offensive.

December 31, 1980, was an ordinary day, overcast and a bit chilly. Putting on my gear I took extra care to dress warmly enough so as not to have to come back home for a coat. We had all agreed to meet at the blue apartments on Eightieth, which in accord with our subdivision of the 'hood was now the South Side. At approximately 4:00 P.M. I left my house on Sixty-ninth Street, which was in the North Side. I was dressed in white Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star tennis shoes with black and white shoestrings, heavily starched 501 Levis, a blue sweats.h.i.+rt under an XXL blue penitentiary s.h.i.+rt, and a thick Pendleton jacket. I had cornrowed my hair to the back, and over this I wore a blue flag in bandana fas.h.i.+on.

Feeling very confident, I walked through the 'hood, up through the Seventies to the South Side. Of course I had the Browning 9 millimeter in my waistband. I reached the South Side without incident. Upon entering the apartment complex I found China, Li'l Spike, Stone, and Spooney kicking back drinking Night Train wine and smoking pot.

As we began to talk, Li'l Crazy De and Joker pulled up on ten-speeds. Joe Joe, who we had been considering giving the name Baby Monster, also came up. It didn't take long for the pot and cheap wine to start having its mind-altering effects on me. Never much of a drinker, I felt the alcohol hit me first. My equilibrium was shot.

By now it was dusk, and I was brandis.h.i.+ng my 9 millimeter with abandon. I instructed Joker and Li'l Crazy De to go to my house and retrieve the double-barrel. I called from one of our supporter's homes to let Li'l Monster know that the homies were coming after the strap.

By the time they returned I was even more intoxicated. Seizing the shotgun, I instructed everyone to come out into the street. Once all had a.s.sembled out in front of the apartments, I moved under the street lamp and shot it out. Gla.s.s fragments rained all over my head and shoulders.

As I stepped onto the curb to shake the shards of gla.s.s out of my hair and clothing, my peripheral vision caught a black-and-white police car hitting the corner. Spinning with surprising quickness, as I was quite drunk, I tossed the shotgun to Joe Joe and told him to "break." But he was not aware of the police car and ran right into it. He was immediately apprehended. Remembering the 9 millimeter in my waistband, I broke through the apartment complex and discarded my weapon. I then made my way up to Peaches's house for refuge.

Watching the goings-on from the window, I painfully observed the police finding and confiscating my 9 millimeter. "s.h.i.+t," I thought, "two d.a.m.n weapons lost at once." I consoled myself by keeping in mind our planned mission for midnight-the surplus.

Once the coast had cleared I made my way back out front. Joe Joe had been captured and taken, along with the guns. Standing around now unarmed, I felt naked and longed for the comfort of my gun. I had simply to go back down to the North to retrieve another gun, but I was reluctant to walk or ride anywhere unarmed. So we just hung around Peaches's apartment and listened to music.

Darkness finally descended on the city. In front of the blue apartments it was especially dark, because I had neutralized the light. A car bent the corner off of Normandie and onto Eightieth with a precautionary pace that could have been misconstrued as a "shooter's coast". We shrunk back further into the camouflage of darkness in an attempt to conceal ourselves and avoid drawing unfriendly fire.

The car came to a California stop in front of the apartments. I was able to discern three occupants, all in the front seat. From their silhouettes it appeared that all three were female. This was still no less dangerous, for we had been using women drivers for missions as of late and this was not a patented tactic. Someone with a rifle, shotgun, or hand weapon could quite easily be lying down in the back seat waiting for the women, who seemed innocent enough, to lure an unsuspecting victim to within shooting range for execution. We watched and waited. After a couple of minutes of them trying to distinguish who we were and us trying to differentiate them as friend or foe, someone among us made their I.D.

"That's Pam, Yolanda, and Kim," whispered a voice through the darkness.

Pam was currently going with Li'l Hunchy. (This was the first Li'l Hunchy. He has since been replaced by a more righteous soldier.) She had, however, in the past dated a member of the Rollin' Sixties. Shaky and elusive is the best description I can offer for her relations.h.i.+p with the set. Her sisters' dealings with our 'hood fell even shorter than this. But she was Li'l Hunchy's girl now, and those were her sisters.

I had met all three in a previous exchange about the escalated developments of the war. Their position in this matter was neither pro nor con in respect to us. In reference to the Sixties, they had taken the Fifth. I had never trusted them and had always kept my dealings with them to a minimum. Fence sitters disgusted me. h.e.l.l, I would have felt better if they had just come out and said they were pro-Sixties, which did not necessarily mean they were anti-us. But their ambiguity threw me off.

I sallied forth from my seclusion in calculated steps. I walked on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet so that in case a shooter did materialize from the back seat, I'd be ready to retreat and would hopefully escape with minimal damage. When I got close enough for them to identify me Kim rolled down the pa.s.senger-side window. She leaned out with both hands open in a "I'm unarmed" gesture, and urged me to the car.

"Hi, Monster," she said in a squeaky voice. "How you doing?"

"I'm fine," I said, not biting. "What's up?" I was clearly suspicious now.

"Oh," she began, "we're on our way up to the surplus and wanted you to come with us." Her tone had suddenly turned pleading.

"Why you want me to go with you?" I asked. Something wasn't right here. But my rational thinking was being impaired by the earlier consumption of alcohol.

" 'Cause you aren't going to let no one bother us," she responded.

During this exchange I began to think of the advantages of going to the surplus with them. I could survey the site for our midnight raid, then have them transport me down to the North to secure another weapon and bring me safely back to Eightieth. Hmmm. The notion was quite appealing.

"Awright," I said after debating it. "I'ill go with y'all."

"Oh," Kim continued. "Where is Diautri?" This was Crazy De's given name.

"De is in jail," I said, and then added guardedly, "Why?"

"No real reason, just asking. I know that's your best friend, just thought he'd be with you."

"Naw," I said as I climbed into the back seat, "De is in jail for murdering Sissies." (Sissies is a derogatory term for Sixties.) In response to this I got silence. I made a mental note to sit directly in the middle of the back seat so as to monitor the driver's eye movement. And in case we were ambushed I would be in the center and not by the door or the back window-an easy target. I tried never to make it easy for someone to destroy me. When we got to the corner of Eightieth and Halldale, I saw Li'l Hunchy rounding the corner on foot.

"Stop," I instructed Pam. "Stop and pick up Li'l Hunchy." I would feel better with another homie with me. Besides, it was his girlfriend who was driving.

"No," Pam said with staunch conviction, "we don't need him with us."

Now my suspicion was really mounting. Why didn't she want her boyfriend with us?

"Well, if he can't go, let me out," I said.

She pulled to the curb and I motioned Li'l Hunchy over and into the car. I made another note to inform him of Pam's unusual behavior once we were alone.

Now, the surplus had two parking lots. One was primarily for customers and was situated in front of the store on Western Avenue. This parking lot was illuminated by a mult.i.tude of lights, not just in the lot but off the main street. Further illumination came from pa.s.sing vehicles. The second lot, in contrast, was dark, barely lit by a small bulb that hung off the roof of the surplus. This parking lot was behind the store, on Eighty-fifth Street. Although this lot was for employees, it was also utilized as an overflow lot for customers. It was in this second, dark parking lot that Pam parked.

"Why you parking back here?" I protested, my security alarm going off.

"Look, Monster, this is my mother's car and I can park anywhere I want," Pam said in an almost hostile voice.

I decided to hold my tongue at this point because had I responded with what I was thinking there would have been an explosion in the car. My main objective was to survey the surplus for weak and strong points and retrieve another weapon from the North. Although I was in my 'hood, I felt very uncomfortable without a gun. This uneasiness perhaps would be equivalent to a businessperson leaving home without any credit cards. A weapon in South Central is a part of your attire, a dress code. "This gun goes with these pants and this s.h.i.+rt," or "I can put this weapon here with this outfit and still be chic." So my plan was to get my weapon for one, and also to check the site where we could get still more weapons.

Once the car was still I exited quickly, to get a bearing on the dark parking lot. I also wanted to avoid a clash with Pam. Li'l Hunchy followed suit. The girls, however, busied themselves with what I believed to be purses and jackets. Not wanting to be in their company, Hunchy and I started out around the side of the building on Eighty-fifth Street. I walked next to the building and Li'l Hunchy took the other track by the street. Realizing suddenly that the girls were nowhere behind us, I stopped and gave a small shout.

"Y'all better hurry up." I waited a second, got no response, and turned to walk away.

As if out of thin air, three men had materialized in front of us. Wary now, because I was unarmed, I continued walking toward the three that were coming toward us. I put on my mask (a mask is an extended version of a mad-dog stare; it's one's combat face) and prepared for a possible confrontation. Taking in the attire of the three, I noticed no unusual bulges that would indicate they were strapped. And by their facial appearances they looked to be older, perhaps in their late twenties or early thirties. One had a full beard, another had a mustache. The third was clean-shaven. All three, I remember, were quite earnest, stern-looking cats. Their masks, if they were wearing any at all, were a bit more convincing than mine.

Li'l Hunchy felt the tension as well, for when I glanced over at him he looked nauseated. There was no sign of Pam, Yolanda, or Kim. The atmosphere quickly deteriorated to a kind of High Noon showdown-them walking toward us and us walking toward them. All the while our eyes were locked onto one another, trying to get an edge, if there was one to get at all. The closer we came to one another the thicker the tension became. My security alarm was screaming in my ear: "PROBLEM-DANGER-PROBLEM-DANGER!" But what could I do? Break and run? Although I have retreated in the past, as a tactic, I was not about to run now in the face of potential danger. They might not even be enemies, or they might not be armed, in which case we could handle the hand-to-hand combat. Three against two were winnable odds.

And then, the moment of truth.

"Ain't you Monster Kody?" the mustached one said. He seemed to be the one in charge.

Looking directly at him in my best confrontational stare-a combination of annoyance and insanity-I spoke through gritted teeth. "Yeah, I'm Monster Kody, Eight Tray Gangsters, what's up?"

Without another word he swung into motion, reaching into his coat for his weapon. To my immediate left I saw another movement, this one equally disturbing: Li'l Hunchy had broke and left me.

Turning quickly on my a.s.sailants, I was just in time to see the first muzzle flash and hear the resounding Boom of his gun. Hit in the stomach first, I was knocked up and against the surplus wall with such force that shock and surprise overrode any pain. Once he saw that the wall kept me up on my feet and that the first shot was not fatal, he stepped in close to shoot me in the chest. My instinct shouted, "SURVIVAL!" I tried a desperate rush toward the gun.

BOOM!.

Another shot. This time in my left hand, which had come within inches of the gun. The shot would have been a heart shot had my hand not been extended in an attempt to grab the weapon.

All the while the other two a.s.sailants were looking on approvingly, almost as if watching a movie. But I had had enough and decided to try an escape. Turning in the direction of Western Avenue I tried to run, but in midstride- BOOM!.

I was shot again in the back. This shot, like the first, had a devastating impact, and I was slammed to the ground.

Dazed, I struggled to get back to my feet. On one knee now, I was kicked in the side by the shooter, knocking me back down on my back. As they stood over me, aiming down, I had no other defense but to raise my legs in an attempt to avoid being shot in the torso.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! And then- CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.

"d.a.m.n," I remember wis.h.i.+ng, "I hope they haven't invented a seven-shot."

Silence rained down like the deafening crash of cymbals; then I heard the sounds of running feet.

Lying there, looking up at the sky, I was swarmed by a million thoughts. My first one was sort of comical: He shot me like I be shooting people. And then the seriousness sank in as I saw a line of blood trickling down the sidewalk. My life was draining into the gutter, and I thought of all the things I had never done but wanted to do. I thought-for the first time-about my daughter, Keonda. She'd never know me. My thoughts were purely civilian. Payback was not even an issue. My thoughts gravitated toward things I had never done, people I'd never see again. And then I began to see, as if on a TV screen, everybody I had ever known in my sixteen years on this planet. Hundreds of people paraded past my inner vision, and they were as clear as day. Peacefully I lay there and watched the show. In that time, there on the sidewalk, I began to know what "rest in peace" meant. For until that moment I had lived only in war. Now the war was over. I settled back and waited to die.

And I'll be d.a.m.ned if someone didn't interrupt my peaceful fadeaway.

Li'l Hunchy had run around the whole block and come back to help me. A little too late.

Leaning over me he said, "What happened?"

I couldn't believe this dude. With all the strength I had I said, "m.u.t.h.af.u.c.ka, I'm shot!"

Seizing me by the collar, he dragged me around to the front of the store, where someone else helped him get me inside. Now confusion hit in full swing. From within the gathering crowd I heard voices.

"Isn't that Monster Kody?" And, "Ooh, it's gonna be some s.h.i.+t now!"

Some girl who I didn't even know was sitting on my legs crying and saying, "Calm down, calm down!" though I had not so much as moved since I'd been half-dragged, half-carried into the d.a.m.n store.

In an attempt to console me, Li'l Hunchy said that I would be fine, that I had "only" been shot in the leg and the hand. These were my visible wounds, but I was burning elsewhere.

"I'm shot in the stomach and in the back, too," I managed to say.

"No, no, you ain't, I can see the holes."

He was telling me where I was shot!

Meanwhile, this girl I didn't know was wailing away, crying out of control about me calming down-and she was more hysterical than anyone in the store.

My breath was getting short and my anger was growing. Trying to get someone to unb.u.t.ton the top b.u.t.ton on my coat was the hardest task. Each time I'd point to my neck for help, signaling for someone to unb.u.t.ton my collar, Li'l Hunchy would pipe up.

"You ain't shot in the neck, only in your hand and left leg."

I was steadily losing breath.

"Calm down, calm down!" this G.o.dd.a.m.n girl was constantly yelling.

Turning my neck and looking around to possibly secure some sane help, I saw an elderly man come forth out of the crowd.

"Cut his shoes off, cut his shoes off of him."

Oh, s.h.i.+t, I thought, it's these fools that are going to kill me, not my wounds.

Finally, the ambulance arrived.

Before I was carted off I managed to tell the hysterical stranger, "b.i.t.c.h, if I live, I'm gonna kick your a.s.s!"

Astounded, she finally calmed down. Amazing.

In the ambulance I lost consciousness.