We got to the fence in the back of the school. We saw the kids we were there to see. I was surprised by how little they looked. I don’t believe I looked like them a year ago. There was like ten or eleven of them and also this random other girl. As soon as we got there, she ran off. Guillermo said that would happen.
We took a few steps up to the fence.
“Guillermo,” one of the little kids said. He was wearing a big silver cross that looked pretty thug, but his hair was all gelled like his mom did it. He pointed at me. “Who’s this fool?”
“This is the cholo I was telling you about,” Guillermo said. “The one who owns everybody at ball.”
“Señor Clutch?” another one said, looking at me. He was real short, like four feet tall, and kinda chubby. Fat baby cheeks. “Is it true you dropped forty points on Viejo?”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to brag about myself to these kids. They’re so little, I thought, they’d believe anything I said.
“Damn right it’s true,” Guillermo said. “And he was MVP of the city play-offs. If the refs hadn’t been so messed up, and if our coach wasn’t such a dumbass, we would’ve been champs.”
The kids all looked impressed. I have to say it made me feel pretty tight.
“And now,” Guillermo added. “Now he’s one of us. He’s part of the family. So if you all wanna roll over to our hood sometime, maybe he could teach you some moves. You know what? Matter of fact, we just headin’ there right now.”
I felt a little weird during all this. Yeah, it was cool that Guillermo had already told them all about me, but wasn’t it maybe kinda messed up for him to use my rep to try and get them to join with the Raiders? These were little kids, right? Babies, right?
But then I had to remind myself: I didn’t feel like a baby when I was their age. And I looked at them again. They were all standing there, heads up, eyes narrow. They were all listening, but none of them was smiling. They had the look.
“We know you haven’t decided if you’re gonna be Raiders or Destroyers,” Guillermo said. “And that’s fine. Y’all are free agents. But we just want to help you make up your minds. Once you see what we can do, you’ll see why you got to be one of us.”
He reached his hand into his pocket. I thought he was gonna pull something out, but he just left his hand in there.
Then I noticed something in the distance. It was the random little girl who had just run away, and she was coming back. She was walking toward us, and behind her there was a crew of maybe like, fifteen cholos in blue and white. They were walking with the same swag as us. Guillermo told the sixth graders to get behind the fence. He said watch what we’re about to do.
All part of his plan.
The Destroyers came up to like, ten feet away from us. Then one walked in closer. Guillermo went up to him.
“Thought we told you putas to stay away from here,” the guy said. He had a super fresh Dodgers cap and messed-up teeth. Guillermo’s told me about this cholo. His name is Arturo. The two of them went to kindergarten together. I guess Arturo’s teeth are so janked because Guillermo punched him hard in the mouth when they were little. I don’t know if I believe that, though. There are a lot of stories about Guillermo. They can’t all be true. I don’t think they can all be true. I mean, some of them are real bad.
“This is our turf,” Guillermo said all up in Arturo’s face. He wasn’t playing games. “You leave, or we stomp your asses.”
“Naw. You can’t just come up in here, man.”
“Why not? These kids want to join up with us.”
“They’re Destroyers by blood.”
“Why don’t you ask them what they are?”
“Ask me.”
Guillermo smiled. He took his hand out of his pocket. “You sure you want this?”
“Whatever, man, yeah. Do what you do. We’ll take you.”
Then, without giving any warning, Guillermo went. He threw his fist mad hard into Arturo’s stomach with one hand and slapped hard across Arturo’s face with the other. Then the Destroyers were running right at us, and then we were running right at them.
We all split up into smaller matchups. The first guy I ran up to was probably high school age. He was tall and he had a full mustache. But he also looked like a puss. I knew I could take him. I dove at him hard and tackled him to the ground, where I pinned him down and gave him two hard punches right in the cheek. Then another one in his eye. That’s how the Raiders do it.
I jumped up and I saw that Chuy was having some trouble with Juan Salcido. Juan’s in a couple classes with me and I actually know him better than Chuy, but Chuy’s my brother and I had to defend my brother. I ran up behind Juan when he wasn’t looking, and then when Chuy charged at him, Juan turned around to run away—only he ran right into me. I grabbed on to his shirt with my hands and flung him down to the ground, where Chuy took over. Two quick kicks to the chest and Juan wasn’t gonna get up.
I’m not gonna lie. During all this, I felt good. I was just going up to fools, whaling on them, then going for the next target. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m in the middle of a basketball game and I can’t miss.
The rest of our guys weren’t doing quite as good as me, but we were hanging tough. It was an even fight. I got a surprise when right after I knocked the fattest Destroyer to the ground, I felt a punch on my back. Not a hard one, it didn’t hurt. It was kind of low on my back, too. I turned around and I saw one of the sixth graders. It was one of the kids we were trying to recruit. Then I looked around the whole scene. All the little kids were fighting. Half of them for us, half of them for the Destroyers. They were doing their thing. They were in the zone too.
It was like that for a few more minutes. Crazy. Just going after anyone wearing blue, or anyone who was going after any of us. Even the little kids. I sort of forgot what even started the fight in the first place, but you can’t stop when you’re in the middle of a fight, you know?
Then, right away, everyone did just stop. At first I thought, Oh no. The cops.
But I didn’t hear sirens or see no one running away. Everyone was looking a little ways away from us, over near the trash cans at the end of the fence. What were they looking at?
Guillermo. He had his arms wrapped tight around the sixth grader with the silver cross. The little kid was squirming. Then Guillermo pulled something brown from his pocket. I couldn’t tell what it was. I had an idea, though. Real quick he pressed a button on the thing and there was a flash of silver and he brought it up damn close to the little kid’s throat, an inch away. And all of a sudden it got real, real quiet.
“All right, come on Guillermo, don’t mess around!” Arturo shouted.
“There’s little kids here!” shouted another Destroyer. “No weapons!”
Guillermo stared them down. No talking, just staring. He looked down the line at what seemed like every one of the Destroyers. Then he waited some more. He smiled again.
Then out of nowhere, he slapped the silver cross kid mad hard against the face with his hand that wasn’t holding the knife. The kid started to sniffle. Mad tears started to go down his face, like tears that he couldn’t control. Then, finally, Guillermo talked.
“Give them to us, Arturo,” he said. He said it real smooth, like he had it practiced. “Surrender this turf, and leave these kids to us. They’re ours, all right? They’re ours. And don’t try to play games with us. Don’t make one of them a spy or something like that.”
Guillermo gave a hard look to all the other Destroyers. Then turned back to Arturo. Then he said his next thing.
“You know what happened last time you sent us a snitch.”
Arturo’s eyes got big.
“You remember what we did when we found out he was ratting on us, ratting on his homies.”
I thought there was no way Guillermo was gonna say what he said next. He’s my friend. You don’t expect your friends to say certain stuff, because they’re your friends. Even when you’ve heard bad rum
ors. But I guess I don’t know Guillermo as well as I thought. Not based on what he said to Arturo.
“You remember Angel.”
Angel. Angel Calderon, the kid who was found stabbed to death on the Westside last year. My cousins knew him pretty good. He would’ve been in eighth grade this year.
I didn’t want to think about what Guillermo just said, what he meant by it. There wasn’t time to think anyway. I had to be ready. Couldn’t let a thing like Angel happen again.
Guillermo and Arturo kept staring at each other. Guillermo inched the knife closer to the little kid’s neck. Now it was pressing up against him, pressing hard, starting to make a little cut. There was some blood, like the kid’s face was leaking red. No one else moved. No one else made a sound. My heart was the one thing I could hear. It was pounding. It hurt.
After all of us stood there for I don’t know how long, I suddenly saw that same little girl from before running toward us all crazy. She was screaming.
“THE COPS ARE COMING! THE COPS ARE COMING! TURO, I CALLED THE COPS! THEY’RE COMING!”
Five seconds later, the area was empty. We all cleared completely, before the police had time to show up. I don’t know, maybe one person got caught. One of the Destroyers. Serves that fool right, whoever he is.
Some of the little kids ran with us, some with the Destroyers. About half and half. Maybe that’s the way it should have been the whole time.
That night me and the guys hung out at at Javy and Carlos’s. We welcomed the new recruits to the family. We gave the sixth graders their first sips of beer, and we all had a good time, laughing and telling them crazy stories. Those kids are so scared about getting jumped-in. We went on for a long time about how hard we’re gonna whup them. So funny.
It was as tight as a night can get. Remembering things about the fight, bragging about our best-ever hookups, giving all the new recruits wack nicknames. Like this one new kid’s pants fell down in the fight so we called him “Buttcrack.” Stuff like that. We had the best night. All those guys, it’s not fair to just call them gangsters and leave it at that. They’re my best friends. They’re the reason I’m a Raider for life. They’re my hermanos.
Plus, there’s this. When I got home late tonight, I got one more reason that reminded me why I’m a Raider. As I was sneaking into my room close to midnight, I heard some high-pitched noises coming from the Schwartz’s pool. I walked over to see what the sound was.
It was Hannah. I guess she heated the pool up or something, like we used to back in the day. It was all steaming, like a giant Jacuzzi. She was laughing real hard in there, so hard it sounded kinda like snorts. She was in her red string bikini. She was laughing, splashing around with that guy Chad who won King at the dance. The same fool who broke her heart by saying such mean stuff about her at the beginning of the year.
I watched them swim. I watched her float over to him and whisper something in his ear. Then I watched them make out.
Girls are whores. They will drive you crazy, lie to you, leave you just like that. But you’ve always got your boys.
I lost a friend this year.
He didn’t move. He didn’t go to a new school. He didn’t die.
He joined a gang.
I understand why someone would want to join a gang. I do. Gangs give you friends. They give you power. I want those things too. We all do. Wanting those things doesn’t make you a bad person.
I even get why gangs make bad stuff seem okay. When you’re with your friends, and when you’re having fun, you feel like you can get away with anything. Doing drugs doesn’t feel as bad. Selling them doesn’t feel as bad. Saying mean things about people seems fine. Even hurting people. It all feels more okay. You’re with your friends.
That’s the thing, though. You’re not with your real friends. Those are the people you left behind when you got jumped-in.
Your real friends are the people who really have your back. They’re the ones telling you that you can’t go on living like this. You could get caught. You could go to juvie, maybe someday jail. You could do something truly wrong. You could really hurt someone. You could get really hurt.
But you don’t care. You’ve got your familia now, and you don’t care about anyone else. You can be as selfish and as hurtful and as evil as you want, and the rest of us just have to take it.
But not me.
I lost a friend, yeah, but I’m not losing this war. Those of us who have been hurt by the existence of gangs, we can’t just accept it. We have to stand together. Comment to this post. Write about your experiences of friends and family members that you’ve lost. Share your stories. Send this post to all the gangsters you know. Help them see the light.
We can do it. We can fight the power of gangs.
HANNAH OUT.
alexsgurlie805
posted May 13 at 8:22 p.m.
like x 1000000. u said it hannah. gangs r the WORST!!!!! the only way we can stop them is thru people like you. your making such a difference! you inspire me.
Reply
QueenHannahDLS
posted May 13 at 8:26 p.m.
Thanks, Krist. Just trying to do my part.
Reply
MargotMackintosh
posted May 13 at 8:45 p.m.
Hi Hannah,
This is Margot Mackintosh—Jamie’s mom. Based on some of the things my daughter has said, I was expecting something different from your blog. Yet what you’ve written here is thoughtful and moving. I plan on taking your message to this month’s PTA meeting.
You should be very proud of yourself.
—Margot M. (Jamie’s mom)
Reply
QueenHannahDLS
posted May 13 at 8:49 p.m.
Thank you so much, Mrs. Mackintosh. I’m going to keep writing and fighting.
Reply
iluvLUZi
posted May 13 at 9:01 p.m.
we kno gangs do bad things. we dont need u to save the world for us.
Reply
QueenHannahDLS
posted May 13 at 9:08 p.m.
Thank you for your comment, Luz.
You say: “we dont need u to save the world for us.”
I say: why can’t we try?
Reply
lilbeachbabe777: hey honey
CHAD2.0nicechad: honey bunch
CHAD2.0nicechad: honey bunches of oats
CHAD2.0nicechad: lol
lilbeachbabe777: lol yeah
lilbeachbabe777: whats ^?
CHAD2.0nicechad: nm
CHAD2.0nicechad: well idk
CHAD2.0nicechad: im kinda pissed
lilbeachbabe777: why?
CHAD2.0nicechad: ok like
CHAD2.0nicechad: me al and avery had this plan 4 after school
CHAD2.0nicechad: we were gon walk to BV and chill there
CHAD2.0nicechad: maybe toss the disc around
CHAD2.0nicechad: whatever
CHAD2.0nicechad: but when we got there
CHAD2.0nicechad: like there were all these mexicans
lilbeachbabe777: the raiders?
CHAD2.0nicechad: ya
CHAD2.0nicechad: n that one dude danny
CHAD2.0nicechad: u no the dude that lives at ur house?
lilbeachbabe777: yes chad, i know danny
CHAD2.0nicechad: he just gets up in our face and hes like get off our turf
CHAD2.0nicechad: n i kinda wanted to kick his ass for like
CHAD2.0nicechad: bein disrespectful
CHAD2.0nicechad: but we bounced
CHAD2.0nicechad: cuz i was all like
CHAD2.0nicechad: i dont wanna go messin around with those dudes
CHAD2.0nicechad: not with a bunch of wetbacks
lilbeachbabe777: chad
lilbeachbabe777: dont use that word
CHAD2.0nicechad: wetback?
CHAD2.0nicechad: why
CHAD2.0nicechad: wetback
CHAD2.0nicechad: theyre just a bunch of bangers
CHAD2.0nicechad:
they were messed up to us
CHAD2.0nicechad: theyre like that to everyone
lilbeachbabe777: yeah but still
lilbeachbabe777: just cause you dont like them doesnt mean you call them that
CHAD2.0nicechad: but thats what they are
CHAD2.0nicechad: u dont like them either
CHAD2.0nicechad: i saw ur little blog thing
CHAD2.0nicechad: u no wat wetback means right?
lilbeachbabe777: chad
lilbeachbabe777: just plz stop
CHAD2.0nicechad: why
CHAD2.0nicechad: why babe?
CHAD2.0nicechad: wetback
lilbeachbabe777: good night chad
lilbeachbabe777 has signed off at 7:21 p.m.
CHAD2.0nicechad has signed off at 7:39 p.m.
35 • Jake Schwartz
Sunday, May 23
Putting together your own bar mitzvah slide show is a pretty strange process. I’m not sure whether I recommend it.
I’m an idiot, first of all. My parents told me that they would go ahead and hire someone to make a great video for me. My dad was all, “Should I give Robert a ring? You know, Robert…Zemeckis?” But I insisted—no, I demanded to make the thing myself. I thought that by putting together my own slide show, that I could, I don’t know, it just felt like something I should do. I thought that maybe I’d get…something out of it?
All I’ve learned is what a loser I am.
Danny’s in like, every picture. Every single freaking one. Well, not the photos that have been taken this year, obviously, but there haven’t been very many taken this year. Who wants awkward pictures of themselves in seventh grade? Even if the photos don’t look all that different from pics of me in fourth grade.
It’s going to be so brutal, having to sit there while everyone watches this entire thing, all fourteen minutes and twenty-two seconds of it. Fourteen minutes and twenty-two seconds of CELEBRATING JAKE SCHWARTZ’S MANHOOD. They’ll probably all hate my song choices, too.
“Elton John? What are you, gay?”
“Beatles? What are you, a walking cliché?”
Trash Can Days Page 19
