“Babes,” she said, almost turning completely around in her seat.

“Don’t turn around, watch the road!”

“I’m only doing fifty-five. It’s the regular speed limit.”

“Why it seem like we doin’ two hundred, then?”

“’Cause you ain’t been in no car in years, babes.”

“I ain’t gonna never make it home, you keep drivin’ like this.”

“Oh, boy, relax,” Mom said. “You picked a fine time to be scared of something.”

“I ain’t scared, I just—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tamu said, giving Mom a we-really-know look.

I tried to relax, but I couldn’t shake the excitement of being out. The last thing I wanted was to crash on the way home and fail the mission of coming back. Besides, this damn Toyota was awfully small for me. I was huge, muscles bulging from everywhere. Tamu and I kept making eye contact in the mirror, both our gazes dripping with lust. What would it be like to be with her again, I wondered? Even that seemed a bit frightening.

Cars zoomed past, irate drivers flipping fuck-you signs in our direction. I looked over Tamu’s shoulder at the speedometer: fifty miles per hour. She had slowed down, but still we seemed to be moving at an alarming pace. Of all things to die from, I didn’t want to go out in a traffic accident.

We swooped through downtown and up and over into South Central. It was dusk, and the sun lay somewhere out beyond Venice Beach, slipping into the water and bringing the deadly night to Los Angeles. To my right I saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp hovering over the Coliseum. Perhaps there was some function there. It always amazed me to see that huge football-shaped airship floating effortlessly through the air, displaying an unspoken peace of nongravitational bliss. Over to my left I saw two helicopters dipping, dodging, and cutting through the air in violent twists that telegraphed their aerial pursuit of someone. One helicopter was labeled POLICE, the other SHERIFF. Peace in the air to my right and war above to my left. Good old South Central: nothing really changed.

When we got on Normandie I started reading the walls. The Brims, it seemed, had resurfaced with a little force. Once we passed Gage and moved into our ’hood, the writing became more pronounced, more violently scrawled on things, no doubt the sign of a neighborhood at war. Graffiti, although mainly used for advertising, can also function as messages to enemies—evil spirits—that “this territory is protected and it’s not like we didn’t give you fair warning.” BEWARE OF EIGHT TRAYS was written in several places along Normandie Avenue. I found that amusing. Turning onto Sixty-ninth Street, I felt a pang of nostalgia for the block, my stomping grounds—my space.

As we pulled into the driveway I felt a stab of pain and a sense of loss. None of the homies from my combat unit was there. No one. Although there were at least twelve people from the set, they were not of my clique. Tray Ball was dead, Crazy De was in prison, and Diamond, who I had seen go home from Y.T.S., was already back in for murder. Tray Stone was dead, and my li’l brother was still in Youth Authority. But I did see Joker and Li’l Crazy De, which made it a bit easier to deal with the group. A few people I didn’t know at all.

When Mom opened her car door, a horde of homies rushed to help her out. Someone held the front seat up so I could lumber out of the constricting back seat. Once I had gotten out and stood to my full height, the comments from the homies fell from everywhere.

“Goddamn, cuz, you swoll like a muthafucka!”

“Damn, check dis nigga out.”

“Cuz’ arms big as my head.”

“What was they feedin’ you, Monsta, weights?”

I stayed out front a while, answering some of their questions and asking some of my own. Once this grew tiresome I shifted and asked to speak to Li’l Crazy De and Joker alone. We went into the backyard and left the others to mingle out front.

“Cuz,” I began, “I need a gat.”

“Yeah,” responded Joker, “we got some shit for you.”

“Right, right.”

“So, what’s up with them niggas across the way? Y’all been droppin’ bodies or what?”

“Aw, nigga, I thought you knew!” said Li’l Crazy De. “Tell him, Joker.”

“Monsta, we caught this fool the other night in the ’hood writin’ on the wall. Cuz, in the ’hood! Can you believe that shit? Anyway, we roll up on boy and ask him, ?ο, what the fuck you doin’?’ Boy breaks and runs and—”

“I cut his ass down wit’ a thirty-oh-six wit’ a infrared scope!” interrupted Li’l De. “Aw, Monsta, I fucked cuz up! He was like all squirmin’ and shit, sufferin’ and stuff, so—”

“I put this,” Joker said, pulling out a Colt .45 from his waistband, “and KABOOM! To the brain, you know. Couldn’t stand to see the bitch-made muthafucka sufferin’ and shit.”

“Who was he?” I asked.

“Shit, we ain’t heard yet, but he was probably one of they Baby Locs, ’cause he looked young, you know?”

“Have they rode back?”

“Naw, not that we know of. Most of they shooters in jail like ours.”

“Who killed Opie?”

“Word is that Sissy Keitarock did it. Anyway, cuz in jail fo’ it.”

“Oh, but De, tell cuz how we to’ shit up fo’ Opie,” said Joker excitedly.

“Aw, cuz, we shot so many—”

“Cuz, I need a gat,” I said, trying to insinuate to Li’l De that I wasn’t really interested in his war stories.

“Don’t sweat it, big homie, we got some shit fo’ you, cuz.”

“Anyway—” Li’l De tried to continue.

“When y’all get the gat for me come back. But like, right now, I want some pussy and some food. Now if either of y’all got some of that I’ll stay back here with you, but if not, I’m goin’ in the pad to get some,” I said, smiling.

“Aw, man, fuck you, cuz, we gone.”

“Oh, but Monsta, we be back in three minutes, awright?” Joker said over his shoulder.

“Yeah, but if I ain’t here leave the gat in them bushes right there, okay?”

“All day.”

“Righteous.”

I went in the house through the back door and made my way through the kitchen. I watched as Joker and Li’l De told the other homies that I’d be out later. The small crowd went one way and Joker and Li’l De went the other. Joker had the big .45 in his waistband, so I didn’t worry about them out in the street.

I had brought a collection of my best tapes home: Jimmy Reed, Otis Redding, the Temprees, Barbara Mason, and Sam Cook. I went into the den and put on Jimmy Reed. When it came out over the speaker it sounded foreign to me. Jimmy didn’t fit home like he fit jail. I couldn’t rightly put my finger on it, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be listening to too much Jimmy Reed out here. When I came back into the living room, Tamu was sitting there looking through my photo album. I sat next to her and played with her hair.

“Kody, let’s leave. Let’s go and be alone,” she said, never taking her eyes off the photo album.

“Awright, but let me eat somethin’.”

“I want to take you to dinner. I know a nice little place you’d like.”

“Okay, let me tell Mom we’re leaving.”

“She already knows,” Tamu said, looking up at me seductively.

“Well, well, what is this, a conspiracy?”

“No, babes, just natural instincts.”

“And what about this?” I said and fell hard upon her, crushing the photo album between us.

“That is called smashing your girlfriend.”

“And this?” I kissed her full on the lips, my tongue darting in and out of her mouth.

“That,” she said between kisses, “is called animal instinct.”

“Well call me King of the Jun—”

“Kody?” Mom interrupted, appearing in the doorway.

“Huh? Oh, Mom, yeah?” I stammered, struggling to get off Tamu.

“I’m going to lie down. If you leave, lock the house up, okay?”

“All da… I mean, yeah, sure Mom.”

I had been so used to our natural response to “okay”—meaning Sixty-Ninety killer—which would be “All day,” that it just came out.

Mom looked at me then turned on down the hallway.

“Let’s go,” I told Tamu, and we left.

She took me to a small restaurant on Crenshaw Boulevard called Aunt Fish. We could sit in the window and look across Crenshaw and watch the D.J. spin records at Stevie Wonder’s radio station, KJLH. We ordered jumbo shrimp and red snapper. Tamu, who ate like a horse, matched my appetite, and we tore that food up. The entire time I was eating, the woman at the cash register kept making hardcore eye contact with me. Naturally I flirted back, though only when Tamu wasn’t looking. We kept eating and the woman and I kept flirting, right up until it was time to pay the tab. The bill was forty-nine dollars. When Tamu went to pay she found that she was short ten dollars. The woman at the register gave me a look that clearly said “Help her,” but I didn’t have a dime. I was so embarrassed, as I’m sure Tamu was. But it was especially difficult for me because it became a “man thang” when I couldn’t help pay the tab. It took all the strength I had not to shout “I JUST GOT OUT OF JAIL!!”

Surprisingly, the woman offered to pay as long as Tamu promised to return with her money. Tamu thanked her and turned to exit. As I turned to follow Tamu, the woman cleared her throat to get my attention. When I looked, she handed me a restaurant business card with her name, phone number, and address on the back side. I put the card in my pocket and followed Tamu out to the car.

In the car I tried to console Tamu, who was really bent out of shape about not having the money to pay the bill. I almost told her about the flirting and of the woman giving me her card, but decided against it. We went to Tamu’s house and retrieved the needed money and drove back to Aunt Fish.

After paying the woman we went straight to the Mustang Motel on Western Avenue. From the moment I left the car I had a raging erection that threatened to tear a hole in the front of my pants. We hurried like eager children up to our room. Once behind the door we literally tore our clothes off. To my surprise, Tamu had on black stockings and garters. She knew I had developed a liking for such things while in Youth Authority. We wasted no time as we fell into one another immediately. We sinned for most of the night, taking occasional breaks to smoke pot, laugh, and joke. We really had a good time. By the time we were buzzed to leave we both were spent, and it was another day when we emerged from the room.

“You know, Kody,” Tamu began, talking in measured tones as she drove down Western Avenue, “I want to get an apartment together, for us. You, me, Keonda. But you have to get a job, babes.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, but I really had no intention of getting a job. Hell, I was going to do like Joker and Li’l De said they were doing: sell cocaine. Whiteboy Eric, who was like a cousin to me (we told everybody we were cousins) was already heavily into it. I knew he’d kick me down, but I didn’t want to tell Tamu that.

“’Cause, babes,” she continued, “with your job and my doing hair, we could get a nice little place somewhere.”

“That’s right, babes,” I said, not really paying much attention anymore, as I was now watching a familiar face in the car next to us watch me. The man slowly began to roll down his window, so I started rolling down mine, all the while cursing myself for not getting the .45 from Joker.

“Hey,” he hollered to me, “ain’t yo’ name Kody?” He didn’t seem to have any venom in his voice, but it could be a ploy.

“Yeah, wha’s up?” I said skeptically.

“Aw, nigga, you don’t ’member me from Horace Mann, Terry Heron?”

Terry Heron, Terry Heron… I turned the name over several times before it caught, and when it did it was too late. Enemy Sixty!

He recognized the stages of change in my face and knew I had computed him amongst the damned. Not only had I fought him in school long before the Sixties—Eight Tray conflict, but during the conflict I had shot him. Luckily for him I was unarmed, because I had ample time after the recognition to aim and fire. But to my surprise he was making no threatening moves.

“Aw, Kody, man,” he said as we drove along, “I ain’t in that bangin’ shit no mo’. It’s all about that money now. Nigga, you betta get wit’ it.”

“Awright then,” I said with a slight hand wave, more relieved than anything. Shit, I needed a gun. He turned right on Sixty-seventh Street and into his ’hood, and we drove two more blocks and turned left into our ’hood.

Tamu dropped me off and we made plans for later. It felt like my second day on a new planet.

The phone rang. It was Li’l Crazy De asking me if I had gotten the strap.

“Naw,” I said, “where was it?”

“In the bushes where you told me to leave it.”

I told him to hold on and went out back to retrieve the weapon—a .38 Browning semiautomatic pistol. I came back to the phone and told him I’d found it and asked how many hot ones—murders—it had on it.

“Oh, three or four,” Li’l De replied, “but don’t sweat it, ’cause you was locked down when they happened, you know?”

“Righteous,” I said and spaced the line.

I checked the weapon for rounds and went into the den to jam some sounds. I took Jimmy Reed out of the tape deck and put in a tape my brother Kerwin had lying around. “The Big Payback” by James Brown came roaring out:

I can do wheelin’, I can do the dealin’,

but I don’t do no damn squealin’.

I can dig rappin’, I’m ready, I can dig rappin’

But I cant dig that back stabbin.’

To me, “The Big Payback” was always the Crip theme song. I remember going up to Tookie’s house—he was the West Side Regional Commander of the Crips—to watch him lift weights and to hear the original Crip war stories. I couldn’t have been any older than twelve when I’d eagerly get dressed and scurry up to Tookie’s to hold audience with the general. A lot of us used to go to his house to get firsthand knowledge of Cripism.

Tookie was a Crip through and through—walk, talk, and attitude. He gave the name Crip a certain majesty and was a magnificent storyteller. For hours at a time he’d give us blow-by-blow rundowns on the old Tom Cross record hops at Sportsman’s Park. Or he’d tell about slain members who would have loved meeting us, cats like Buddha, Li’l Rock, and Moe, to name a few. He had a Cadillac and never drove it, preferring to walk everywhere. And if the walk was too long, he’d call up one of his drivers. His entire living room was filled with weights. No furniture whatsoever, just pig iron. Tookie was huge, beyond belief at that time: twenty-two-inch arms, fifty-eight-inch chest, and huge tree-trunk legs. And he was dark, Marcus Garvey dark, shiny, slick, and strong. He had the physique, complexion, and attitude that intimidated most American people.

I met the Original Crips at Tookie’s house: Monkey Man, Bogart, Godfather, Maddog, Big Jack, and Raymond Washington. I was a student of Crip, and Tookie liked me more than the others, as he saw that I was a serious soldier.