Chapter 13
"Insha Allah, I be dealing with some of your older homeboys. Rayford, Bacot, X-con. You know them?"
"Yeah, them my O.G. homies," I said with pride.
"Was all them brothas with you last week from Eight Tray, too?"
"Yeah, we twenty-three deep here."
"Why y'all brothas fall to the services like that?"
"Huh?" I said, as if I didn't overstand his question. I didn't know if I should tell him the truth or not. If I said we were having a meeting he might feel that we really were disrespecting his services.
"You know, like why was y'all so thick? Somebody got killed on the bricks?"
He saw that I was perplexed and didn't want to say too much, so he talked on.
"You brothas looked unified and strong. Insha Allah, why don't you come and check out the services tonight?"
"Naw, I ain't into no religion or nothin'."
"Well here, read this. And if you ever feel like checking us out, come on by. You're welcome."
"Righteous," I replied, looking down at the pamphlet he'd given me, ent.i.tled Message to the Oppressed.
We shook hands and parted company. That night in my cell I read the pamphlet, which began with a quote by Malcolm X: Out of frustration and hopelessness our young people have reached the point of no return. We no longer endorse patience and turning the other cheek. We a.s.sert the right of self-defense by whatever means necessary, and reserve the right of maximum retaliation against our racist oppressors, no matter what the odds against us are.
It went on to list food, clothing, and shelter as the immediate aims of the struggle, and land and independence as the sought-after objectives. The pamphlet was not as religious as I thought it would be. I had been so conditioned to believe that religion was synonymous with pa.s.sivity-from the Christian teachings to people of color-that I simply took for granted that Islam was like Christianity in this light. The material ended with another quote by Malcolm X: From here on in, if we must die anyway, we will die fighting back and we will not die alone. We intend to see that our racist oppressors also get a taste of death.
The language was heavy, and I was impressed by it. Of course I was trying to figure out how to fit my enemies into this language, for the word "oppressor" had little meaning to me then. Although I was, like every other person of color on this planet, oppressed, I didn't know it. I told myself that next week I was going to go and see just what was happening over there.
During the days before the services I read and reread the pamphlet. I had trouble clarifying words like "struggle," "revolutionary," "jihad," and "colonialism," but I kept on reading. It gave me a certain feeling, a slight tingle, and a longing sense of curiosity. Finally, the next week fell and I found myself walking down the ramp off the Rock and over toward the chapel that held Islamic services.
When I got there I was greeted by a brother named L.C., who was also a prisoner who lived on company S-T. There were about nine people altogether. After they went through their prayers, Muhammad read a short sura from the Holy Koran and then closed it. Standing there thoughtfully for a moment he played lightly in his beard, and then, as suddenly as thunder, he began a sharp tirade about the U.S. government.
"Brothas, it is inc.u.mbent upon you as male youth to learn of your obligation to the oppressed ma.s.ses who are being systematically crushed by the wicked government of the United States of America. They already know of your potential to smash them, so they have deliberately locked you up in this concentration camp."
Now, heated up, he began to pace the length of the church.
"Insha Allah, you will not be sidetracked from your mission. You are young warriors who are destined to be free! But you must be prepared to jihad till death!"
I was totally awestruck by his strength and language, not to mention his sincerity. He talked on about the government's deliberate efforts to rid the world of people of color-black males in particular. All but the simplest things went right over my head. But what I was able to grasp slapped me hard across the face with such force that I got goose b.u.mps. d.a.m.n, this s.h.i.+t must be real. It seems too heavy to be made up. And if he didn't know what he was talking about, how was he able to explain what I had been through in home, in school, in the streets, and with the law? No, this had to be real.
When the services were over I lifted myself up and floated to my cell, totally high on Muhammad's revolutionary speech. The week following the service, I must have read Message to the Oppressed thirty times. All I thought about was hearing Muhammad blow.
On Wednesday I got some devastating news. Crazy Keith from Harlem came for a visit and told me that Tray Ball was dead.
"What?" I said in utter disbelief.
"Yeah, Li'l Tray Ball just told me that cuz shot himself in the head playing Russian roulette."
"Where Li'l Tray Ball at?" I asked.
"I seen cuz on a visit."
"d.a.m.n!"
I felt at a total loss. I wasn't ready to hear that. Not Tray Ball. I had dealt with other deaths in one piece, getting solace out of being able to strike back. But here, on the Rock, there was no striking back. No drugs, no loud music to put me in a trance, no revenge, nothing of the sort. Just me and myself. It was almost impossible to deal with-the reality of him being dead, gone, never to be seen again. All the good times came rolling up on my mental screen. Times when Tray Ball would act as mediator in disputes amongst the homies, using his influence to mend breaks in the clique. Or using his persuasion to recruit yet another homie. Ball gave us foresight, hindsight, and a deepseated feeling of righteous worth. I couldn't imagine us without him. First we'd lost Eight Ball, and now Tray Ball. Symbolically, the set-Eight Tray-had been castrated by the removal of its b.a.l.l.s, the Eight and the Three.
I cried like a baby for hours. Not just for Tray Ball, but for the set. The 'hood was dying, didn't people see it like that? Our symbols were falling and no one seemed to overstand the significance of this. My nerves were in total disarray. What do you do when your homie commits suicide? Who do you strike at? Who is to blame? We all played Russian roulette, that mindless game of stupidity sadly mistaken as courage. Fortunately, our chambers clicked empty against the ping of the hammer. But for Tray Ball, it was a full chamber.
From what I was able to gather, Tray Ball, along with two or three other homegirls and two members of the Compton Crips, were in the shack-Tray Ball's backhouse-getting high. Tray Ball started playing roulette with a.38 snub-nose. One round in the chamber, a quick spin, put the barrel to the temple, and click or boom. After several successful attempts-or unsuccessful, depending on the players' disposition, and I don't know what Tray Ball's mind-set was that particular day-he became bored with the game. He exited the shack and went into the house.
Our first thought was of foul play. My initial instinct was to kill everybody who was there, including those from Compton. Later, I knew this was an irrational call based on emotionalism. I remained bitter the rest of the week.
When Tamu and my sister, Kendis, came to visit my brother and me on Sunday, I told them about Muhammad and the way he talked. I asked Bro to accompany me Monday night to services, and he agreed to.
On Monday Muhammad did as he had the week before, only this time he spoke more about the Black Panther party and its threat to the U.S. government. Seeing me and Li'l Monster there, he intentionally expounded on the lives of George and Jonathan Jackson, both members of the party. Jonathan was murdered in a heroic attempt to liberate three prisoners, including the Soledad Brothers-of which his Brother-Comrade, George, was one. Comrade George was a.s.sa.s.sinated the following year in a bungled attempt to escape from San Quentin.
"How old are you?" Muhammad asked, pointing at Li'l Monster.
"Seventeen," replied Li'l Bro.
"Jonathan Jackson was seventeen when he walked into the Marin County Courthouse and took the judge and D.A. hostage."
He paused a minute for effect.
"What set you from?" Muhammad asked me.
"Eight Tray Gangster," I replied.
"George Jackson was the field marshal for the Black Panther party. He was eighteen when he was captured. He was given one year to life for a seventy-dollar gas station robbery. He served eleven years before he was killed by pigs. He was twenty-nine years old."
He turned to Li'l Monster. "What you in here for?"
"For murder."
"Who you kill?"
"Some Sixties-"
"Black people!" Muhammad shouted.
"Yeah, but-"
"George Jackson corrected, not killed, corrected three pigs and two n.a.z.is before he himself was murdered!"
Muhammad seemed possessed.
"This is what I'm trying to tell you. As you kill each other, the real enemy is steadily killing you. Your generation has totally turned inward and is now self-destructive. You are less of a threat when you fight one another, you dig?"
We sat upright, clinging to his words.
"Jonathan knew chemistry, demolition, and martial arts. He was a man-child, a revolutionary. He felt responsible for the future of his people."
We sat there, stunned by the parallel between us and George and Jonathan Jackson. What made us sit up and take note of what Muhammad was saying about our self-destructive behavior was that he never talked down to us, always to us. He didn't like what we were doing, but he respected us as young warriors. He never once told us to disarm. His style of consciousness-raising was in total harmony with the ways in which we had grown up in our communities, in this country, on this planet. Muhammad's lessons were local, national, and international.
I put the word out that all Crips should come to Muslim services and hear Muhammad talk. Within three weeks attendance increased from nine to twenty-seven to forty and finally to eighty! The staff became alarmed, asking questions and even sitting in on some of the services, trying to grasp our sudden attraction to Islamic services. They never caught it.
Islam is a way of life, just like banging. We could relate to what Muhammad was saying, especially when he spoke about jihad-struggle. Of course we heard what we wanted to hear. We knew that Islam or revolution was not a threat to us as warriors. Muhammad didn't seek to make us pa.s.sive or weak. On the contrary, he encouraged us to "stand firm," "stay armed," and "stay black." He encouraged us not to shoot one another, if possible, but to never hesitate to "correct a pig who transgressed against the people." After every service let out, it was a common sight to see fifty to eighty New Afrikan youths mobbing back to their units shouting "Jihad till death!" and "Death to the oppressor!"
The Protestant following totally evaporated. Reverend Jackson could not figure out where his const.i.tuents had gone. In these times, gang conflicts involving New Afrikans were at an all-time low. Mr. Hernandez began to pull on the strings of his informants, which, without fail, led him to me.
One day he called me into his office for a fact-finding chat. He offered me a seat, but I declined. He then began his little probe.
"So, Mr. Scott-or is it Abdul or Ali Baba?"
I said nothing.
"Yes, well anyway I have called you in here because it is my understanding that you have been trying to subvert the inst.i.tutional security."
The term "inst.i.tutional security" is so far-reaching that whenever there is nothing to lock a prisoner down or hara.s.s him for, staff, correction officers, and most any figure of authority in any inst.i.tution will pull out this ambiguous term. It is precisely this wording that has me locked deep within the bowels of Pelican Bay today. I am a threat, and proud of it. If I wasn't a threat, I'd be doing something wrong.
"Inst.i.tutional what?" I asked, not yet familiar with the terminology.
"Security, Scott, security."
"Man, you trippin'-"
"No, Scott, you are tripping!" he yelled, slapping both hands hard on the table.
"I don't know what you talkin' 'bout," I answered with a blank stare.
"Oh, you don't, huh? Well how do you explain twenty-three Eight Trays, fourteen Hoovers, eleven East Coasts and a lesser a.s.sortment of other bangers cropped up in Moslem church for the past month, huh? Explain that!"
"Man, I ain't explainin' s.h.i.+t."
"Oh, no? Well how 'bout if I keep your bad a.s.s on the Rock forever, huh? How 'bout that?"
"I already been there two months for some s.h.i.+t that didn't involve me-"
"You are a d.a.m.n liar, you ordered that boy Layton to jump on c.o.x. And you been involved in a host of other s.h.i.+t. So don't tell me what you ain't done."
"You know what, Hernandez, do what you gotta do," I said low and slow, to let him know that I wasn't hardly giving a f.u.c.k about what he was stressing on.
"Yeah, I'll do that, I'll just do that. But you remember this when you go up for parole."
"Can I leave now?" I asked, bored with his threats.
Actually the Rock wasn't all that bad. I ate all my meals in the cage, showered every other day, and came out once a day for an hour, usually in the morning. I was able to have my radio and a few tapes. At that time I was exploring the blues. Jimmy Reed was my favorite. I still got my weekly visits, though I couldn't decide who I wanted to have come. At Y.T.S. they allowed prisoners to have only one female on their visiting list, other than mothers and sisters. Tamu really was not my first choice, China was. But she didn't have the mobility to be there every week, and riding the bus was suicidal. So I took her off my visiting list and replaced her with Ayanna, who was also from the 'hood. Her mother had moved her out to Pomona to get her out of the gang environment, and she now lived in close proximity to Y.T.S. Our visits went like clockwork, but eventually we grew tired of each other, so I took her off my list. For a short time I replaced Ayanna with Felencia, Tray Ball's sister. This didn't work out too well either, because she wanted me to stop g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ging and I just wasn't having it. I was not giving up my career for no female, so I ended up putting Tamu back on the list. As long as I got my visits and could keep my music, the Rock wasn't s.h.i.+t.
In my cell on the Rock, I reread for the hundredth time Message to the Oppressed. Malcolm came on strong: We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.
As I read on I felt the words seeping deeper into me, their power coursing through my body, giving me strength to push on. I was changing, I felt it. For once I didn't challenge it or see it as being a threat to the established mores of the 'hood, though, of course, it was. Muhammad's teachings corresponded with my condition of being repressed on the Rock. Never could I have been touched by such teachings in the street.
The prison setting, although repressive, was a bit too free. But on the Rock, the illusion of freedom vanished, and in its place was the harsh actuality of oppression and the very real sense of powerlessness over destiny. Because there was no shooting war to concentrate on, your worst enemy was easily replaced by the figure presently doing you the most harm. In prisons this figure is more often than not an American. An American who locks you in a cage, counts you to make sure you haven't escaped, holds a weapon on you, and, in many instances, shoots you. Add to this the fact that most of us grew up in an eighty percent New Afrikan community policed-or occupied-by an eighty-five percent American pig force that is clearly antagonistic to any male in the community, displaying this antagonism at every opportunity by any means necessary with all the brute force and s.a.d.i.s.tic imagination they can muster.
It was quite easy then for Muhammad's teachings to hit me in the heart. However, my attraction to the facts involving our national oppression was grounded in emotionalism, and eight years of evolutionary development in Crip culture could hardly be rolled back by one pamphlet and a few trips to Islamic services. But I did feel the strength. I called off the move on the Sixties after Tray Ball killed himself. Everyone asked why, but I really had no answer. I told them that we'd handle it in a little while.
Stagalee was my neighbor on the Rock; he and I would talk through a small hole in the wall. I sent him over the Message to the Oppressed pamphlet and solicited a response from him about its contents.
"Cuz," I said bending down so as to talk through the hole, "what you think 'bout that paper I sent over there?"
"I don't know, some of these words too hard fo' me, cuz. But I can see that this is some powerful s.h.i.+t."
"Well, what you could catch, what did you think?"
"Cuz, really, I think Muhammad is some kind of terrorist or somethin'."
"Stag, you trippin'. Muhammad ain't no terrorist. s.h.i.+t, Muhammad is down for us."
"Who?" he asked, "the set?"
"h.e.l.l naw, n.i.g.g.a, black people!"
"Ah, cuz, f.u.c.k all that, 'cause soon he gonna be tellin' us to stop bangin' and s.h.i.+t-"
"Stag, Stag." I tried to slow him down.
"Naw, cuz, I can't see me being no Muslim. I just can't see it. They be standing on corners selling pies and s.h.i.+t. Do you know how long one of us would live standin' on a corner, not even in our 'hood? Monster, let me catch a Sissy, Muslim or not, and I'ma blow that n.i.g.g.a up!"
"I don't know, homie, I just feel that there is something there."
"Yeah, m.u.t.h.af.u.c.ka, a bean pie!" Stag answered and broke out laughing.
"Stall it out, cuz," I said, feeling myself getting angry.
"Monster, you ain't thinkin' 'bout being no Muslim, is you? Cuz, don't do it. Muhammad cool and everythang, but cuz, you Monster Kody. Ain't n.o.body gonna let you live in peace. Plus the set needs you, cuz. Here, cuz."
Stag had rolled up the pamphlet and was pus.h.i.+ng it through the hole.
"Naw, cuz, I ain't thinkin' 'bout turnin' no Muslim. I'm just sayin' that what Muhammad be stressin' is real."
"Right, right."
"Well, I'ma step back and get some z's. I'll rap to you later. Three minutes."
"Three minutes."
I lay on my bed with the rolled-up pamphlet on my chest and thought about what Stag had said.