Читать книгу The Roar of an Uncaged Lion - Frederick Howard Jr. - Страница 8

At the end of my ninth grade year, I met a group of Asian boys in San Francisco who let me hang out with them. There was Bo-Lo the leader, who was short and stocky, with fair skin, and a temper that always silenced even the mightiest of foes. The next in line was Trade, a 4’8” Cambodian with long hair and a mouth that always had us fighting. Loa was the artist who tagged our names everywhere; he was tall and slender, but was always up for a fight. We spent the hours we were supposed to be in school stealing cars to sell for money. Each of us could get into and hotwire a car in less than five minutes. I know this, because we often timed each other.

At different times we would meet up with other kids who also stole cars. For the most part, we kept to ourselves and protected each other from the gangs that roamed the high school. When the order was too big for us to handle, we would allow others to come with us. One day Bo-Lo entered the circle and said, “We got to get twelve cars today.”

Everyone all at once said, “How in the hell we gon do that!”

The most cars we had stolen in one day was eight, and that took all day. Stealing the cars was easy, but most of the time went into finding them—because we had special cars we were looking for. Bo-Lo’s solution was to allow this white boy who had been trying to get in on the action to come with us. His name was John; he was tall and lanky, and never stopped bragging about how fast he was when it came to stealing cars, but to us he was unproven.

After we met up with John, Bo-Lo said to him, “You get the first car,” and everybody agreed. While we were looking for the car John kept talking, he turned to me, the slowest of the bunch, and said, “Watch and learn, my nigga.”

I instinctually blurted out, “If you don’t do it in less than five minutes, we fighting!”

Bo-Lo said nothing. He just gave me the look that it would be fine with him. After about an hour, we spotted the Acura we were looking for.

John went to work; he got past the first stage quickly by opening the doors, but he faltered with the alarm and we sat in a car that wasn’t ours with the alarm going off for two to three minutes. Bo-Lo at this point was questioning John and his decision to let him come.

Looking at John, Bo-Lo said, “What’s up, man? I thought you knew what you were doing.”

John, now sweating and looking puzzled, barked back, “Give me a minute. I almost got it!”

Just then, an old lady with a small child walked up to the car and shouted, “What are yawl doing in there? That’s my car!” We all jumped out and ran back to the school, hoping to lose her in the crowds of teenagers who were out for lunch. Experience had taught me that if I were to get caught, my best bet was not to tell. But once again I got away and lived to feed my corruption again the next day.

As I grew, the principles that were formed in my youth became second nature as a young adult. No longer was I making logical decisions, but now I was just reacting impulsively—which almost always never turned out positive or good for others. There was a situation that arose in my fourth year of high school, which gave me the okay to drop out of school.

During the after-school hours, all the seniors would go to a rec-center called Peniel to shoot hoops and play video games. One day some of the Asian young men felt we were cheating at basketball—which was true—but they could not prove it, so we were allowed to stay on the court. These young men secretly plotted to retaliate, and it wasn’t on the court that they chose to avenge themselves. That night after Peniel had closed, we went and hung on our usual corner.

Out the corner of his eye, Jay-Jay spotted something and said, “A yawl there’s someone in the street.”

So we all got in the street to see, but Hen yelled out, “Run!”

The Asians from Peniel were strapped with bats, sticks, pipes, and sharpened screwdrivers to come pay us back. Everyone broke out and ran, and that day I felt defeated but mostly I felt like a sucka for running.

Once we got away, I remembered that one of the Asian young men was in my first period PE class, and I planned to have my own payback. I arrived at PE early and waited for him to show up. After about twenty minutes into class, he showed up. I wanted to really hurt him, so I brought my dad’s Nigga-Knocker (a short thick stick with tape around the bottom). Once class was over I waited outside the gym, and when he came out I ran up on him and punched him in the face. He then pulled out a sharpened screwdriver and started at me, so I pulled out the stick, but it dropped. When I looked up, all I saw was this mad, crazed Asian now had both weapons and was charging. Right when he got close enough to do some damage, a 6’6” basketball player saved me. The basketball player was so tall that he picked him up off the ground and held him in the air until the vice principal came. This antic boosted my rep but it greatly hurt me, because now all the Asians were trying to kill me.

Because the threat to my life was real, I spent more time around the house. On one hand staying home saved my life, but on the other hand it pushed my corruption to a height I would have never imagined it could get to. Before that time, Chantia and I had not spent much time together. She had her friends and her life and I had mine, but we always knew we could talk to each other if the need arose. Chantia would usually be asleep when I came home before the threat, and I never asked if she had eaten or not. However, now spending more time home I realized that many nights she had gone to bed hungry. Now that it was only Chantia and I living at home, I told her if there was any time she couldn’t find food in the house, she was to tell me and I would handle it. One night after leaving a friend’s house, I arrived home and found Chantia crying.

I asked her, “What’s the matter, Chantia?”

She said, “Mommy and Daddy spent all the money, and now we can’t go shopping for school clothes.”

I didn’t really care because I had dropped out after the fight, but I did feel for her. She turned to me and said, “Here.”

With an outstretched hand, she tried to hand me a crisp twenty-dollar bill. Grabbing the money, I asked, “What’s this?”

She said, “Mommy told me to give you it, and she gave me one too.”

As I sat there holding the money, a thought ran through my mind. Always provide for your family, and never be afraid to break the law to do it. I looked over at Chantia who was still sobbing. I remembered how it felt to go to school with the same clothes from last year and decided to do something about it.

I moved closer to Tia, and asked her, “Tia, do you trust me?”

With tears still in her eyes she looked deep into my eyes, as if she were searching my very soul, and said, “Yes, Tootie, I do.”

I smiled and said, “Give me your twenty. I promise you will have some new school clothes come Monday.” She handed me her money and I told her, “Don’t tell anyone what we talked about.”

She responded back with “Do I ever” as I climbed out the window. Once I touched down on the curb, I thought to myself, Please, let AJ be outside, and then I ran off into the night.

I found my friend AJ standing outside of Boedecker Park in the Tenderloin and immediately asked, “AJ, can I get some plug?” (Plug was double my money in dope.) AJ was a 5’9” dark-skinned man who never wanted me to be in the streets, and was one of the men who I counted on when I need to buy food for Tia.

His first words after my question were, “Man, don’t do it; just stay in school and play that ball.”

I said, “AJ, I just need it to help my sister and then I’m gonna stop.”

AJ just shook his head, reached into his bag, and gave me triple my money in dope. I didn’t understand at the time why he shook his head, because I really thought it would only be once. What I couldn’t see was that AJ was living a dreaded life with felony convictions, no education, and no marketable skills; he was trapped in a reality he hated, and he didn’t want to damn me to that same existence. I realize now that AJ knew what i didn't: the call of the streets, once heard, would always captivate the listener.

Some say in everything there’s either a choice for good or bad, but for me it was either bad or worse. I could have chosen to let my sister suffer at the hands of cruel kids, but for me that was unthinkable. So I chose the lesser of the two evils in selling drugs. At the time I thought with the mind of a child, so I saw no consequences. Selling dope was easy. I needed no references, work history or uniform, and I hung out with my friends. After an hour I saw Hen and Jay-Jay, who I found out also sold drugs at night in the Tenderloin.

Hen walked up to me and asked, “What are you doing out here so late?” I tried to hide the fact that I was selling drugs, but as we talked a man came up to him and asked, “You got something for ten?”

Hen barked back, “You got the whole ten?”

The man then said, “I got eight fifty.”

Hen’s response was, “Put the money on the ground,” and the man did as he was instructed. Then Hen did something that I didn’t understand: he spat something out of his mouth, which the man ran after. It wasn’t until the man had walked down the street that Hen told Jay to pick up the money.

Later that night it was explained to me that if you don’t make hand-to-hand transactions, it’s harder to get caught. We walked up and down the Tenderloin that night and as we walked, I watched and learned a lot from them. At about twelve thirty I was done so I wanted to go home, but I knew Tia would be sleep, or so I thought. I told myself that I would try calling the house and if she answered, I would stop by the booster’s house and then go home. Tia answered on the first ring.

I asked her, “Tia, Mommy woke?”

She said, “No.”

Then I asked, “Did they come in the room?

The answer once again was, “No.” She hesitated then asked, “Tootie, you got me some clothes?”

I said, “Not yet; I need your sizes.” Now excited, she gave me her sizes and we hung up.

I then went to the booster’s (A person who steals and sells clothes) house and picked her out three outfits and a pair of white and black Nikes. As I climbed back through the window, Tia immediately rushed for the bags. I turned to her and gave her ten dollars for lunch. Then I said to her “Tia, I’m leaving. I’m not coming back but if you need me, I’ll be at Peniel.” With that I turned and jumped out the window and, true to my word, I never went back. I was sixteen.