GANGLAND

by K'wan

  Gutter had gotten into gang banging about a year before Lou-Loc got put on the hood, but Gutter had solider in his blood long before his feet had ever touched Los Angeles soil. He was born in Algiers, but moved to the states a few years after when his father was killed. When he and what was left of his family settled in Los Angeles he began to see the world with new eyes. His uncles, aunts and all his cousins were Crips and filled their foreign cousin with everything they knew about being Crips. For Gutter to join the Crips was only natural, but for Lou-Loc it was an altogether different story.

  *

  When Lou-Loc was about ten, he and his father was doing some Christmas shopping in the Crenshaw mall, lost in the holiday spirit. As they were heading back to the car with all their packages they were surrounded by a group of young hoodlums. Lou-Loc didn’t know too much about gang banging back then but he knew they were Bloods from the red scarves covering their faces. The Bloods brandished weapons and demanded their packages. Lou-Loc was terrified but his father seemed strong and confident, but looking back at it Lou-Loc realized that he was probably afraid too but wouldn’t show it in front of his son. His father simply told them that they could have whatever little money he had left on him, but he couldn’t part with his families Christmas gifts. It seemed as if he would rather have died than see his family not have gifts for Christmas, so they killed him.

  Lou-Loc sat on the cold concrete ground of the parking lot, sobbing and holding his dead father’s hand until the police showed up almost thirty minutes later. Two detectives whisked him away to the precinct where they questioned him about what he saw. All Lou-Loc would say is that they were Bloods. The police showed him a book that contained pictures and profiles of active Blood gang members in the area hoping that he could identify someone. Of course Lou-Loc hadn’t seen their faces so it was impossible but he let them continue flipping through the book while he burned the faces of the men he saw into his memory. By the time they released him into the custody of his grieving mother Lou-Loc was numb. He tried to force himself to go to sleep that night but he couldn’t. The only thing he could focus on is revenge. He couldn’t identify the men who had killed his father so he would punish the Bloods as a whole. It was on-sight with his new enemies, and so began his walk into the darkness.

  It didn’t take long for word of Lou-Loc’s exploits to reach the older homies from his neighborhood, which was Hoover territory. Lou-Loc had given the Bloods enough grief for them to place a bounty on his head and have his name on the wire in every Blood hood. It was terminate on sight for Lou-Loc and with him not being connected to anyone it would only be a matter of time before someone collected on the bounty, so the Hoovers decided to intervene.

  Lou-Loc had heard through the grapevine that his presence had been requested by some of the older homies to discuss the heat he was bringing down on the hood, but he paid it no mind. He had too much work to put in to be sent for by anyone so he blew off the homie’s requests. When it became obvious that Lou-Loc wasn’t going to come to them they decided to go to him. He was coming out of Jack-in-the-Box when they rolled on him. He recognized the hulk of a man leading the pack as Big Gunn, a respected leader from Hoover Crip, but he did know the other five rag-tag gangsters he had with them. When Lou-Loc found himself in the parking lot surrounded by the angry Crips he was terrified, but kept his gangsta scowl to hide his fear.

  “What’s cracking, cuz? Where you from?” Gutter asked in a less than pleasant tone. At the time they didn’t know one another, but had seen each other in passing in the halls at school on those rare occasions when Gutter decided to attend. His face had always stood out to Lou-Loc because Gutter was coal black with pale green eyes. It was a trait many of the men in his family carried.

  “You don’t know me to be questioning me,” Lou-Loc tried to brush past Gutter but Big Gunn cut him off. The O.G. stood a full foot taller than Lou-Loc and covered in muscles.

  “That ain’t the right answer, lil homie. You can either answer my nephew’s question or I can fire on you right now,” Big Gunn raised one of his mallet-like fists.

  Lou-Loc looked around weighed his options. He would’ve knuckled up with either of the youngsters but the thought of getting a mouth shot from Big Gunn wasn’t something he wanted to experience. He looked Big Gunn directly in the eyes and answered him honestly, “I ain’t from nowhere.”

  Gutter sized Lou-Loc up. “You gotta be from somewhere with the kinda shit you’re out here pulling, cuz. Anybody decides to wage war on the Bloods by his lonesome has either got a screw loose or a motive. What angle you working, cuz?”

  “Ain’t no angle, homie. My beef with them is personal, so I’m gonna keep busting on them niggaz until I feel like we even, and from what they took from me we ain’t never gonna be even.” Lou-Loc said passionately.

  Big Gunn studied Lou-Loc. From the look of hatred in his eyes when he spoke of the Bloods Big Gunn knew that whatever crime they committed against the young man was a heinous one. He had seen the looks of the faces of many young soldiers who had been driven to gang life through tragedy so he felt his pain. “What they call you, cuz?”

  “Crazy Lou,” Lou-Loc said, as that was the moniker he went by in those days. He got the name based on some of the extremes he went to when he first kicked off his personal war with the other side.

  “I heard of this lil nigga,” another young Crip spoke up. “They say that fool tried to run up in the projects by himself hunting Bloods and almost got his fool ass killed when they mobbed on him,” he laughed.

  “Yeah, they was twenty deep chasing me up outta there, but I’m still here and two of theirs ain’t so who would you say came out on top in that one?” Lou-Loc shot back.

  The Crip stood toe to toe with Lou-Loc. “You think you hard, huh?”

  “Homie if you keep icing me like that you gonna find out first hand what I think and what I know,” Lou-Loc told him.

  “Fall back, cuz,” Big Gunn separated them with a sweep of his massive arms. “You niggaz wanna knuckle up then you’ll do it the right way, when we put lil cuz on the hood.”

  “Dig, I respect Hoover to the fullest, but I don’t need to join no gang for protection. I been doing okay protecting myself,” Lou-Loc told him.

  Big Gunn turned his green eyes on Lou-Loc. “Lil nigga, I ain’t trying to protect you, I’m trying to school you. I see lil dudes like you every day, angry lil hoppers running around with nothing and nobody, trying to find where you fit in. I been there homie and I know it ain’t easy, so I’m reaching out to try and ease some of that pain.”

  “What do you know about my pain?” Lou-Loc asked emotionally.

  “Lil nigga I’ve been killing and watching my homies die for over twenty years what the fuck do you think I know about pain? You see my lil homies,” Big Gunn motioned towards the young men with him, “to the outside looking in all we are is a gang, but we’re more than that, we’re a family. Yeah, you out here getting your stripes because you’re dedicated to busting on slobs, but we’re dedicated to each other. Each man here would kill or die for the other because we love each other, cuz, and that’s how family does. Are you ready to make that kind of commitment?”

  Big Gunn’s words touched Lou-Loc because they danced so close to the truth. His sister was still young and his mother was so busy trying to get over the loss of his father so there was nobody who truly understood what he was going through, but Big Gunn did. In the ranks of the Crips Gunn offered Lou-Loc something that he had been searching for since he’d lost his father, love.

  “A’ight, I’m in. What do I have to do?” Lou-Loc asked.

  “Survive.” Big Gunn said with a smile and stepped back.

  Before Lou-Loc could make heads or tails of what he meant Gutter stole on him. The blow dazed Lou-Loc but didn’t drop him. Lou-Loc came back with an awkward swing, which Gutter easily evaded, and hooked him in the gut. Lou-Loc doubled over and Gutter went for the knock out, just as he had expected. When Gutter swung, Lou-Loc weaved a
nd landed a crushing right cross to Gutter’s chin, which sent him spilling to the concrete. Before Lou-Loc could savor his small victory he was descended upon by the teenage Crips. They punched and kicked him in every exposed part of his body, but Lou-Loc gave just as well as he got. Someone caught him in the back of the head and dropped him to one knee. He knew that if he hit the ground they would surely kill him so he kept swinging. After what seemed like forever he heard Big Gunn’s voice.

  “A’ight, that’s enough,” Big Gunn parted the crowd and helped Lou-Loc to stand. Everyone who had participated in the fight was bruised or bloodied, but Gutter looked like he had caught the worst of it. He took a step towards Lou-Loc like he wanted to keep fighting but Big Gunn pushed him away. “I said enough, nephew. The lil nigga held his own so let it be. Lil cuz,” he addressed Lou-Loc, “you knew all you had to do was go to the ground and it would’ve been over, so why did you keep fighting knowing that you couldn’t win?”

  “Better to go out fighting then to just lay down and die,” Lou-Loc mumbled. He felt like his jaw was broken and his teeth felt loose.

  “Sho ya right,” Big Gunn patted him on the back, “and that is your first lesson about Crip’n, to stand up for what you believe in. Now you can go back to playing Rambo in these streets and possibly get yourself killed or bow down to something greater than yourself and become a legend.” Big Gunn took the bandana from his back pocket and held it out to Lou-Loc.

  Lou-Loc was hesitant. He knew that if he stepped through the door that Big Gunn had just opened there would be no turning back, but what did he have to lose? “Fuck it,” he took the bandana. The moment he did he was greeted by a series of whistles and cheers from the homies as if he had just hit the wining shot in a playoff game. Even Gutter, who was still upset about his busted lip, embraced him. For the first time in a long time, Lou-Loc felt whole again.

  As time passed he and Gutter would become thick as thieves. The two youngsters were recognized by the other members as loyal and efficient soldiers. They were the first to pop their guns and the last to roll out in every fire fight earning them reputations as young killers and when Hoover allied itself with an up and coming hood called Harlem Lou-Loc and Gutter’s legend grew even bigger. It was made clear to all gangs across L.A. County that Hoover/Harlem wasn’t to be fucked with. By this time Big Gunn’s protégé had become a respected young lieutenant on the set, and had dropped the Crazy from his name and started going by Lou-Loc. But for as notorious as Lou-Loc and Gutter were becoming it was a split second decision that had made them legends and wanted men.

  The O.G.’s from Hoover had called a meeting to discuss a narcotics detective who the homies in the hood had an arrangement with. They were already giving him forty percent of their weekly drug take but he got greedy and tried to up it to sixty five. When they refused to pay, the detective decided to send them a message and killed one of the lil homies from Harlem. When they found the kid he was hanging by his ankles from a streetlight on the corner of Hoover and 107th, in the center of their hood. Inside of his mouth was a note that read, “Pay or join your friend in nigger heaven.” The police had no idea who had done it or what the note meant, but the homies did. The murder was not only a slight to Hoover and Harlem but to their allies because they were all eating together. The leaders of several sets got together and decided that it was time to do something about Det. O’Leary.

  A home boy by the name of Fat Pat had a sister who did clerical work at the precinct O’Leary worked out of who provided them with the information they needed to pull off the caper. The plan was simple; break into O’Leary’s house, give him a good beating and bust the place up. They didn’t want him dead because it would bring the wrath of the entire L.A.P.D down on the Crips, but they wanted to teach him a good lesson, but things in the hood never worked out quite how you planned them.

  The soldiers selected for the mission represented several Crip sets. This was Big Gunn’s idea to promote the unity amongst their respective hoods. There was Stan from East Coast, Snake Eyes from Hoover, and Gutter who would represent Harlem. Lou-Loc wasn’t supposed to be there but because he and Gutter were crime partners he went along to back his homie up incase anything went wrong. The four desperados piled into the Buick they had stolen that morning for the mission, and headed for Carson.

  The particular house they were looking for was right off Carson Ave., near a housing complex that was still under construction. Carson was a relatively quiet town, but had a fairly large population of Crips. This was a bonus because in the event that anything went wrong and they had to get low they had several different pads to hide out in. The key to this mission would be Stan. He was one of those high yellow dudes, with good hair and Anglo features. In the right light Stan could pass for white, which is what they were all counting on. Stan would ring the doorbell dressed in a Fed Ex uniform to get O’Leary’s wife to open the door and the rest of the homies would rush the house and subdue the family and wait for O’Leary to come home and ambush him.

  “A’ight nigga,” Gutter said to Stan from his seat in the back, “once we get up in there, you go on up to the corner and look out for O’Leary’s car. There’s only one way to come down this street, so you can’t miss the nigga. When you see his car, dial my cell. Let the phone ring once, and then hang up. That’ll be the signal, you got me?”

  Stan was so busy scooping pinky nails full of cocaine into his nose in the front seat that he was only half listening. “Cuz, why you keep acting like this shit is rocket science?” Stan asked in an irritated tone.

  “Nigga, you need to put that powder down and pay attention. If we get caught up it won’t be no county time for us, we going straight to the big league,” Lou-Loc warned him.

  Stan wiped his nose with the palm of his hand. “Stop bitching like a nigga scared to go to prison, I was born in that mutha fucka so it’ll be like going home for me. I don’t see why we gotta do all this secret agent shit instead of just peeling this nigga’s wig back.”

  “Because killing a cop is a capital offense,” Snake Eyes spoke up, “which means if we get caught it’s a free ride to the gas chamber.” Like the rest of them, Snake Eyes was a gang banger and down ass Crip, but he was also a thinker. He had graduated at the top of his class from high school, and was in the middle of his third year of law school at UCLA. Much like Lou-Loc, Snake Eyes knew there was more to life than just gang banging and intended to make something of himself but he was fiercely loyal to Hoover Crip.

  “Fuck all that yapping, I’m ready to put this work in,” Gutter checked the .38 he was carrying. “You ready cuz?” he looked at Lou-Loc.

  For a long moment Lou-Loc said nothing. He sat there staring at the Tech-9 on his lap and wondered for the millionth time if he had made the right decision by going along on the mission. Since the day Big Gunn had put him on the hood he had come to love putting on work, but something about the caper they were on made him feel uneasy. At nineteen years old Lou-Loc had committed God how many crimes and shot at least a half dozen people, to it wasn’t feat that he felt, it was more like apprehension. Still he kept his reservations to himself and went along with the mission.

  “Cuz, if you don’t want to you ain’t gotta get dirty this rip. Me and Snake eyes can handle this,” Gutter whispered to Lou-Loc, noticing the worried expression on his face.

  Lou-Loc looked at his friend and mustered his phoniest smile. “What I look like letting you take all the glory so you can go back to the hood and brag on it. Let’s handle this and get it over with,” Lou-Loc got out of the car, followed by Gutter and the rest. They all covered their faces with red bandanas instead of the traditional blue so that when the deed was done the heat would fall on the Bloods.

  “Just so everybody is clear, we don’t touch his wife and kids. I could give a fuck what happens to O’Leary, but we take it easy with his family and when it’s over we turn them loose, dig?” Lou-Loc said seriously. Gutter and Snake Eyes looked puzzled but both agreed to it. Stan just
sucked his teeth and continued towards the house carrying the fake Fed Ex box. Lou-Loc felt it in his bones that Stan was going to be trouble.

  Stan walked up the few steps and rung the doorbell while his three henchmen concealed themselves in the bushes. The living room curtain fluttered and a few seconds later the locks came undone and the door opened. The young lady who answered the door was very attractive; with long blonde hair she wore in a ponytail, and tanned skin. Her crisp blue eyes looked Stan up and down playfully. The cool breeze coming off the Pacific Ocean caused her nipples to stand at full attention behind the thin baby doll T-shirt. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other and gave Stan a pleasant smile.

  After a long silence, and a bit of fantasizing, Stan finally found his voice. “Ah…package for the O’Leary’s.”

  The girl licked her lips and looked Stan dead in the eye. “Pretty big huh?” she said seductively, “The package that is.”

  “So where would you like me to put it?” Stan asked matching her tone. Before she could answer, Gutter stepped from the shadows with his gun drawn.

  “Don’t move bitch,” Gutter snapped. She looked like she was going to scream until Gutter placed the gun to her head. “Let’s do a little math, shall we,” he backed her into the house, “you screaming plus this gun equals a dead white girl, ya dig?” The girl nodded her head. “Good.”

  Lou-Loc and Snake Eyes stepped into the house, followed by Stan who was licking his lips hungrily. “Yeah, I need to taste a lil of that pink flesh,” he moved towards the terrified girl, but Lou-Loc pushed him back.

  “Save them freakish ass cravings you got for your own time, and let’s stick to the business. You got somewhere to be, don’t you?” Lou-Loc reminded him. He could tell from the way Stan was looking at him that he wanted to make something off it, but the East Coast Crip knew he couldn’t see Lou-Loc so he let it be, and left the house. Lou-Loc turned his attention towards the girl. He motioned for her to sit on the couch and then knelt down beside her. “What’s your name?” When she didn’t answer he tried being a little softer with her. “Look girl, ain’t no body gonna hurt you. Now, tell me your name?”