Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member Part 5

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."

"Is he from my set, one of my homies?" I asked anxiously.

"I ain't got nothin' to say 'bout it no mo'. It's a d.a.m.n shame how y'all do each other over some concrete no one owns."

Oh s.h.i.+t, I thought, here comes one of those sermons about how we are fighting for nothing and that we are all black people. Save it, lady. But she didn't say anything else, so I asked her why I was being moved. Because it was requested by the authorities, she said. I didn't give it a second thought, but I did ask if she'd still be my nurse, to which she replied she would.

"Now can I please have my shot?" I asked pleadingly.

"Yes, yes, chile, you can have yo' dope," she answered, and mumbled something unintelligible under her breath as she strode out of the room.

My roommate was gone, but I never asked after him. For what? He was a civilian. I got my shot and started drifting again. When I came to I had been moved to another room, a single-occupant room. The pain was not as intense, but I was even more dehydrated. Apparently another day had pa.s.sed.

"Good morning, Mr. Scott." An American, Dr. Blakewell, spoke to me over an aluminum clipboard as he jotted down some notes.

"Wha's up?" I said through parched lips. "When can I go home?"

"Well," he spoke in measured tones, "we have to keep you here a bit longer so as to monitor your development. You've had a difficult operation, but you seem to be faring well. Perhaps you'll be ready for discharge in a couple of weeks."

He lifted up my hospital gown and felt around my stomach.

"How's the medication?"

"Awright, I guess."

"Well, we are going to stop giving you shots and give you codeine fours. These will work just as well," he said, humming now as he continued to write more notes.

"Yeah, well check this out, Doc, can I get one last shot of what you been givin' me?"

"No, Mr. Scott, I don't think it's necessary. Your pain should not be that intense now."

"How you gonna tell me'bout pain, m.u.t.h.af.u.c.ka?" I blew up and surprised the s.h.i.+t out of Dr. Blakewell. "I'm in pain now," I continued, "all over, man, so what you talkin' 'bout?"

"Yes, of course there is pain, Mr. Scott, simply due to the severity of the wounds and the extent of your operation. However, we must not allow you to become dependent on the pain medicine. Do you understand?"

I simply said, "Aw, man, save that s.h.i.+t."

Dr. Blakewell left my room red as a beet.

When my nurse, Eloise, came to work that afternoon I was glad to see her. We had begun to develop a healthy rapport and her wit, in the face of my condition, was appreciated. Not long after she came in and we joked a bit about me shouting at Dr. Blakewell-which she got a tremendous kick out of-she brought me a telephone and informed me that I had a caller who asked for me by my full name. Perhaps it was Li'l Monster or China. I knew it wouldn't be Tamu, because she had left the year before and gone to Texas.

I elevated myself up with the remote that controlled my bed and prepared to have a good talk. Gathering the phone from Eloise I held it to my chest, insinuating that I wanted privacy, and waited for her to leave the room. If this was anyone from the 'hood our conversation would definitely be about combat and, in this light, I could trust no one, especially a civilian. Once she left I cleared my throat and spoke into the receiver.

"h.e.l.lo."

Silence.

"h.e.l.lo."

And then, "You ain't dead yet, tramp?!"

Stunned, I said nothing. After a few seconds of thought fueled my anger I exploded into the phone.

"Naw, punk m.u.t.h.af.u.c.ka, yo' homies got scared and couldn't finish the job. b.i.t.c.h-made Sissies!"

I got no response to this.

"h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo?"

The caller had hung up. Mad, nervous, and irritated, I sat there and fumed. The nerve of them m.u.t.h.af.u.c.kas, I thought, calling to verify my status. My head was spinning. When Eloise came in I snapped at her. She demanded an apology, for she is that type of strong sister, so I gave her one. After all, she was not the cause of my anger, and even if her son was in the enemy camp, she had not told him who I was. I explained to her that I needed to make a call and could she please excuse me. She readily complied and exited the room.

Still, I couldn't come to grips with the chutzpah of my foes. Clearly they had wanted to quash the debate once and for all. Was I dead or not? The rumors ran hot and cold. Of course, this was also a scare tactic, one that was truly wasted on me. I phoned Li'l Monster, let the phone ring sixteen times, but got no answer. I knew my mother and older brother, Kerwin, would be at work. I hung up, a bit frustrated, and called Li'l Crazy De. When I reached him, he explained the latest developments.

Upon hearing of my shooting, the others had aborted the surplus mission. Li'l Hunchy, who was with me and had run when the shooting started, was questioned at length about the circ.u.mstances surrounding the ambush. No one had any idea that he had run out on me. He told everyone that the shooters had specifically wanted me. Li'l Monster, taking the call to colors, went in search of a crew of elite shooters, troops steeled in the ways of urban guerrilla warfare. That night they did nothing but plan. Several units were organized in the hours following my shooting, but just six individuals were selected by Li'l Monster to roll with him: Li'l G.C., Rattone, Al Capone, Li'l Capone, Slim, and Killer Rob. Others were organized to hit various targets, but this crew was specifically a.s.signed to the Sixties. Search and destroy was the mission.

At dusk on January I, 1981, a van was commandeered by one of the selected soldiers to be used in the execution of the upcoming mission. Earlier in the day Li'l Monster had acquired two shotguns from an older supporter who had been informed of the shooting and wanted to give a.s.sistance in the way of arms. His offer was acknowledged and the weapons were secured: a double-barrel over and under, a 12 gauge, and a 20-gauge pump that shot six times. Because the mission was search and destroy, the weapons were not sawed off. Also in stock were an 8 millimeter Mauser that had ten rounds and looked like a Daniel Boone gun, a six-inch .357 magnum, an eight-inch 44 magnum, and a .38 Long. The driver was to be unarmed. Gathering at their respective launch sites, the crew began to fall out when darkness came. The order of the night was "body count."

According to Li'l Crazy De, wasn't no one on the streets but police and fools, the police not giving a f.u.c.k and the fools doomed by their own ignorance. How many fell that first night? And from what sets did they come? No one knew the actual count, except the recipient set and the parents who had to bury their children. And that's what we all were, children. Children gone wild in a concrete jungle of poverty and rage. Armed and dangerous, prowling the concrete jungle in search of ourselves, we were children who had grown up quickly in a city that cared too little about its young. Males, females, dogs, and cats were all targets. Curfew was declared in enemy sets: dusk to dawn. Anyone caught out after dark and before dawn would be shot. The Tet had begun.

The first night was pretty much catch and clobber. The second night was a bit more complicated, as word traveled fast around the colony. The third night, I'm told, was harder still, as troops literally had to go house to house in search of "suspects." It was in this climate that the officers from CRASH had come to see me. But prior to talking with Li'l De I had had no idea of the scope of the retribution and, for sure, I had not conspired with anyone to make it happen. Could I stop it? Perhaps, but why? "f.u.c.k 'em" was pretty much my att.i.tude then. And why was CRASH concerned about stopping the violence? They had been helping us kill ourselves, so why were they so interested? It is my contention that they simply wanted to go on record as having tried to stop the killings. s.h.i.+t, if they wanted to stop the killings, they would have begun by outlawing the choke hold!

After being briefed by Li'l De about the Tet, I informed him that Li'l Hunchy had run out on me. He asked what I wanted to have happen to Li'l Hunchy. I said simply that he should not be allowed to run out on anyone else. That made the set look awfully bad. Li'l De gave me his word that he'd handle it. Putting the phone in its cradle I lay back and smiled inwardly, feeling extremely proud of the set. The mighty Eight Trays . . .

By my fifth day in the hospital, I had grown quite accustomed to the comings and goings of the orderlies. I had learned, for instance, that the Chicano woman who had attended me first was the mother of the candy striper who now cleaned my room and who was a gang member from Eighteenth Street. She and I chatted twice. But still I had no visitors, and I had not talked with Li'l Monster. On the afternoon of January 4, as I lay back in my bed thinking, I noticed three people standing in my doorway. At first glance, I took them to be ordinary people who were just pa.s.sing through looking, as I used to, into anyone's hospital room. But these people looked familiar-in no friendly way. Their look was menacing, and I'll be d.a.m.ned if it didn't hit me like a ton of bricks. It's them! The same three who had ambushed me! The mustache, the beard, and the clean-shaven one stood erect and alert at my door. No doubt it was also them who had called my room. What to do? With an I.V. in my right arm, a catheter in my p.e.n.i.s, a tube in my nose, st.i.tches in my stomach, a cast on my left hand, dehydrated and weak, I knew I didn't have a chance.

As slowly and as inconspicuously as possible I reached for my nurse's call b.u.t.ton, hoping that Eloise was on duty. My a.s.sailants seemed indecisive and fidgety, looking around and, I guess, waiting for the proper moment to make their move. I figured they'd probably stab or suffocate me so as not to make much noise. I pressed my call b.u.t.ton several times, hoping to irritate someone, anyone, and have them rush to my room. This, I thought, would persuade my a.s.sailants to leave. All the while I was acting as if I was heavily sedated, so much so that I couldn't tell that I was being sized up. d.a.m.n, any other nurse would have responded by now. Just my d.a.m.n luck. I began to despair and settle for the final rest. Of course, I told myself, I was going to resist. I would swing as much as I could with the cast, kick with my right leg, and bite, if I could. But I was sure I'd lose, and I resigned myself to that end. Just then, as in a Hollywood movie, where the star never gets killed, in rushed Eloise, past the three and to my bedside.

"What's wrong, baby?" she asked, concerned that something was bothering me medically.

"Listen," I began in a low voice, "see those three people at the-"

"I can't hear you," she said.

"Shhh, listen, listen," I said, trying to control my voice. "See those three dudes at the door? Don't look, don't look!"

"What about 'em, baby?"

"They come to kill me!"

"Oh, there you go dramatizing, you need to-"

"Look," I said, grabbing Eloise by the collar and yanking her down face-to-face with me, "they come to kill me, now G.o.ddammit, do something!" I was speaking low through clenched teeth. For sure she now saw, perhaps for the first time, my thousand-yard stare.