tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74073751473453251132024-03-12T21:24:59.745-07:00Smile Now, Cry LaterTroublehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07116685906004492737noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-55595298713333966452011-11-08T07:06:00.001-08:002011-11-08T07:29:09.999-08:00DetentionDetention has yellow concrete walls. Built in the 1970s, the seats are concrete slabs, polished gleaming by thousands of teenage butts. When you visit a client in detention, you check in at the front desk, speaking through a hole in a glass wall. You show i.d., write down the reason for your visit, and then a correctional worker comes out and pats you down, searching you for contraband. These searches are important. Visitors and family members have smuggled in items ranging from candy bars to porn, drugs and weapons. One gang member in our city was observed doing a strange kind of dance with his mother every time she visited him in detention. A later search of the client revealed small packets of cocaine hidden in his underpants. The packets had been passed from her body to his via the shimmying activity. She went to prison for her smuggling effort, he racked up a longer stay in a secure juvenile facility. <br /><br />When you've been cleared, the correction worker escorts you to a visitation cell. <br /><br />These cells have plexiglass and concrete walls, the better to see you with, and heavy metal doors that slam shut with a sound like a tomb. They are used by defense attorneys, parents, and case workers, to visit directly with incarcerated clients, review cases, and share brief moments of family interaction. Like the walls, the floors are concrete, with a drain in the middle of the cell so they can be cleaned more easily, with a hose. Doors slam in different sections of the building, echoing against the concrete and metal, and are the only sounds you hear for the long minutes spent waiting for your client to arrive.<br /><br />A youth corrections worker delivered Flaca to the visitation cell. Flaca took a seat on the concrete slab across from my own and looked down, apparently paying particular attention to the drain. <br /><br />We sat in silence. I stared at her, willing her to speak. She stared at the floor, avoiding my eyes. The silence stretched out like a yoyo spring, and I waited for the eventual rebound when she would be forced to open her mouth and speak. I can wait a long time, sitting in silence too loud for most kids to stand. It's a gift.<br /><br />I noticed that her yellow detention shirt was spotted with moisture, presumably from unseen tears, but still she didn't speak. Finally, her voice crept out into the quiet, rusty and muffled by her tear-thickened throat. <br /><br />"Sorry, Wedda."<br /><br />"Me, too," I told her. "It wasn't fun calling my department and telling my boss what a fool you'd made of me."<br /><br />"I didn't mean it like that. I just kind of lost it. I couldn't stand thinking of CeCe in here, alone. We were snorting coke before you got to the house, and I wasn't thinking straight. I went a little crazy."<br /><br />She openly began to sob. We sat again in silence, punctuated by her hiccups and snuffles. Finally, slowly, I stood up and walked across the gap between us. I sat on the cold hard bench beside her, and put my hand on her shoulder. She grabbed onto my arm, hard, and the sobs increased in intensity. When her crying slowed down and quieted, I said, "look at me." She looked up, red bleary eyes and wet cheeks, shining through her dark bangs. <br /><br />"What you did hurt me, Flaca. I trusted you. I'm really mad at you right now. But, I forgive you."Troublehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07116685906004492737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-11539685892504211652011-10-28T10:45:00.000-07:002011-10-28T10:57:42.721-07:00Cooling Their HeelsA week after Cecelia and Flaca were arrested, Judge V called me. "I've ordered Cecelia and Flaca to get in touch with you, apologize for their actions, and make amends," he told me. "Let me know when/if you hear from them, and how it goes."<br /><br />"I'm not happy, Andy," I told him, "I'm still pissed. I invested countless hours of my time in each of those girls, and they repaid my trust and support with public humiliation. Do you have any idea how long it is going to take me to live this thing down with the guys?"<br /><br />"Tell them," he said, "Those girls need to hear your anger, and understand how their actions caused you harm. I'm not going to release them from DT until they've made things right with you."<br /><br />It took three more days after his phone call for Flaca to call me, her voice cracking through the phone: "Hey, Wedda, would you come visit me at DT? I need to talk to you."<br /><br />"Okay. I'll come by tomorrow morning," I told her. <br /><br />"Thanks, Wedda." Dial tone.Troublehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07116685906004492737noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-39403535042257811832009-11-19T11:37:00.001-08:002009-11-19T11:49:44.644-08:00After you've been an idiotI drove the police car back to the office, and rode the cramped gray urine-scented elevator up to the fifth floor. My heels clicked on the hard tile floor as I walked back to the office.<br /><br />When I sat down, there was a hand-sketched cartoon on top of my desk. Me, in my little business suit. My car, up on blocks with no wheels. The caption: "But they're really nice kids."<br /><br />Harsh.<br /><br />The lieutenant called. "Come see me," he said.<br /><br />I walked back to his office, lingering in the doorway.<br /><br />"Come in and sit down." The words of doom.<br /><br />He stood up, closed the door behind me. Then he sat back down, and tipped his chair back a bit, putting his foot up on a drawer. He folded his hands across his chest.<br /><br />"So," he said, drawing the word out for at least 36 seconds, "Tell me what happened."<br /><br />I explained the events of the past two hours.<br /><br />He watched me intently as I talked, saying nothing. Then, he passed a sheet of paper across the desk to me.<br /><br />"This is a letter of reprimand for failing to control your police-issued vehicle. Read it and sign it. It's going to go in your file."<br /><br />I could feel the tears behind my eyelids, hot and bulging. My mouth filled with spit, my throat tensed up. Don't cry! Don't you dare cry! I told myself.<br /><br />I signed the paper and passed it back.<br /><br />His face softened. "We all fuck up," he told me. "The good thing is that you'll never fuck up like this again, will you?"<br /><br />"No, sir."<br /><br />"Well," he said. "Nobody died. It's still a good day." <br /><br />Then, he smiled, and said, "Why don't you take the rest of the day off? Spend some time with your own kids, and your husband."<br /><br />"Thanks, LT."<br /><br />I drove home. I stood in my family room, staring at the fireplace. I imagined the office the next day, when the guys were dishing shit to me, full force, and laughing their asses off at my stupidity. I thought about Cecelia and Flaca sleeping on concrete bunks in the DT.<br /><br />I can't go back there, I thought.<br /><br />And then I cried.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-3346018701213210402009-06-21T12:14:00.000-07:002009-11-19T11:49:55.979-08:00The worst phone call of my lifePeople always talk about having a heavy heart. But when your city-issued police car has just been stolen by gang members, your heart isn't just heavy, it's beating your stomach into a pulp. I felt sick, nauseated, full of dread.<br /><br />I asked the principal to borrow his phone.<br /><br />"Hey, Lt. A. Cecelia Martinez and Flaca Hernandez just stole my car."<br /><br />"Where are you?"<br /><br />"Sunrise Alternative School."<br /><br />"Which way were they headed?"<br /><br />"South on 14th East."<br /><br />"You drive the blue Lumina, right?"<br /><br />"Yes, sir."<br /><br />"Okay, you sit tight. I'm going to send a couple of guys over to pick you up, and we'll get your car back. You and I will talk when you get back to the office."<br /><br />I sat on a hard wooden chair in the principal's office like a misbehaving school girl, trying not to cry.<br /><br />I wondered if I'd lose my job. At the least, I was pretty sure I was going to get written up.<br /><br />What would the guys say, when they picked me up? They already thought I was ridiculously idealistic, and wasting my times with these kids--who were going to prison for sure.<br /><br />The 20 minutes I waited for the detectives seemed like forever.<br /><br />Finally, a sleek green Taurus pulled up in front of the building. I reluctantly abandoned my chair, walked outside, and climbed into the back seat of the car.<br /><br />Detective Young, who was driving the car, turned and smiled a sarcastic smile at me. "Heard you got stranded, Archuleta," he said. His partner for the day, Detective Dan Rosenberg, shook his head at me: "I told you that you were going to get in trouble transporting those kids."<br /><br />There wasn't much I could say. I leaned my head against the soft upholstery and looked out the window as we headed south on State Street. <br /><br />"They've recovered your car," Detective Young told me. "And, they're holding the girls. You have to go identify them and pick up your car."<br /><br />"That was fast," I said.<br /><br />"Yeah, when police cars are stolen, we take that pretty seriously," Rosenberg said. "We had a description and they were going straight south away from the school. Easy to find."<br /><br />In minutes, we'd pulled up behind a couple of marked police cars with their lights still flashing red and blue. They were sandwiching my Lumina. Two other Tauruses, that belonged to detectives from the gang unit, were parked nearby.<br /><br />Cecelia and Flaca were leaned against my car, handcuffed. Detective Young walked me forward to where they were standing. "Are these the girls who stole your car?" he asked.<br /><br />"Yes," I told him. The girls avoided looking me in the face, and kept their attention riveted on the ground. <br /><br />"Do you have anything to say to Ms. A?" he asked the girls. <br /><br />They said nothing.<br /><br />He told the girls to get into the back of the patrol car. The patrol officer opened the door, and the girls slid across the hard plastic back seat. The officer closed the door, got into the driver's seat, and pulled away.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-47855866128177668502009-06-17T10:45:00.000-07:002009-11-19T11:50:06.715-08:00No Joy in the RideCecelia - <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/mi-vida-loca.html">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-breaking-my-heart.html">Part 2</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-shaking-my-confidence.html">Part 3</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/school-days.html">Part 4</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/06/back-to-school.html">Part 5</a><br /><br />I talked with Cecelia the following day by phone. I'd spoken to her probation officer, and could report the following:<br /><br />Her probation officer had been notified while visiting the school that Cecelia had been suspended. The probation officer immediately notified the judge that Cecelia had violated her probation status. A bench warrant had been issued for her arrest, requiring her to appear before her juvenile court judge for violation of probation. <br /><br />Cecelia sat in silence after I gave her the update, on the phone. I could hear her breathing, but not much else.<br /><br />Finally, she said, slowly and meaningfully, "Daaaammmn. So, whuz gonna happen?"<br /><br />I told her that if a police officer happened upon her (a not unlikely scenario), she would be arrested and taken to detention. <br /><br />Or, she could take matters into her own hands, and turn herself in. By doing so, she could make the case to the judge that although she'd had difficulties at school, she was making a serious effort to own up to the consequences of her action and follow through.<br /><br />She was unpersuaded by my logic. Voluntarily going to detention? Yeah, right.<br /><br />"I dunno, Miss A. I don't think I want to go to DT. It sucks bad in there."<br /><br />"One way or another, C, you're going to wind up in there, anyway."<br /><br />"Yeah, but it could be months before I get caught."<br /><br />"Months that you won't be in school, won't be getting an education, and will be sitting in your mom's house bored out of your mind, hiding from cops, worrying every time you go on the street, and living in constant paranoia, knowing that it's hanging out there, waiting for you, when you least expect it."<br /><br />"Yeah. That's true."<br /><br />"I'll go with you. I'll take you there. I'll call the judge, and I'll explain what happened."<br /><br />"Really? You'd do that for me?" she asked me.<br /><br />"You know I would," I told her.<br /><br />"Would you do something else for me?" she asked.<br /><br />"Maybe. What is it?"<br /><br />"Would you help me get enrolled in another school before we go to DT, so I can tell the judge I did that, and I can start going to school as soon as I get out of DT?" she asked.<br /><br />"Yeah. I'll do that," I told her.<br /><br />"Would you do it tomorrow?" she asked.<br /><br />"Okay, we'll do it tomorrow. I'll pick you up at 9:00, first thing in the morning. We'll go to your school, and then we'll go to DT and you can turn yourself in." <br /><br />"Okay."<br /><br />After I got off the phone, I went to the Lieutenant and cleared my plan. It sounded crazy to him, but if a gang member was going to peacefully respond to a warrant, well, that was okay with him. <br /><br />"Just be careful," he told me.<br /><br />The next morning, at 9 a.m. exactly, I pulled up in front of Cecelia's weathered green house. She was standing outside, waiting for me, but she wasn't alone. At her side was Flaca, dressed identically to Cecelia in a white t-shirt, oversized dickies, and g-nikes. Both girls had their hair slicked back into ponytails.<br /><br />Cecelia climbed into the front of the car, and Flaca slid into the back seat. <br /><br />"Flaca wants to go to Skyline, too, Miss A," Cecelia told me. "We both want to go to the same school."<br /><br />"Doesn't Flaca already have a school she goes to?" I asked.<br /><br />The girls informed me, in unison, that Flaca wasn't in school yet, and wasn't registered to attend anywhere. <br /><br />"Well, okay. Is Flaca okay with going to DT, too?"<br /><br />Flaca's eyes got very wide, and she sat up towards the front seat. "What? Why are we going to DT? I don't wanna go to DT!" she screeched.<br /><br />I looked at Cecelia, who was suddenly slouching in her seat.<br /><br />"C, didn't you tell her what the plan was?" I asked.<br /><br />"No, MIss A. I didn't tell her that part."<br /><br />"What part," Flaca said, belligerently. "What part didn't you tell me?"<br /><br />"Cecelia has a warrrant for her arrest for probation violation, and she's going to DT after she registers for school."<br /><br />"Sheeettt, Cee Cee, what are you thinking?" Flaca asked.<br /><br />"I just have to get right with Judge V, and take care of my shit."<br /><br />Flaca sat back, closed her eyes, and ignored us the rest of the way to Sunrise Alternative School. She was clearly pissed.<br /><br />When I pulled into the school parking lot, Flaca refused to leave the car. She was so annoyed with Cecelia that she clearly didn't even want to register for school now. She sat, arms folded across her chest, and stated that she'd wait for us in the car.<br /><br />I looked at my purse on the floor of the car. For a second, I thought, "Maybe I should take it inside." Then, I asked myself, "Will Flaca think that I don't trust her, or maybe that I think she'd steal from me?" I made a decision and left my purse lying there. <br /><br />Cecelia and I went into the school, met the school secretary, and were ushered into the principal's office to discuss her enrollment at Sunrise. The principal's office was wide and bright, with a large plate glass window that faced the street, behind his back.<br /><br />As the Principal explained the rules and policies at Sunrise to Cecelia, I listened, and looked out the window.<br /><br />I watched as a light blue Chevy Lumina turned onto the street in front of the school. It looked familiar.<br /><br />Cecelia recognized it right away. "Shit, Miss A...Flaca is stealing your car!"<br /><br />Before I could even react, she jumped up, and ran out of the principal's office, and then the front doors of the school. I followed her, and as I exited the swinging exit doors, I watched as Cecelia jumped into my car with Flaca, and they drove away.<br /><br />I'd left my keys in my purse.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-34220121083398317492009-06-16T16:39:00.001-07:002009-06-17T11:20:19.054-07:00Back to SchoolCecelia - <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/mi-vida-loca.html">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-breaking-my-heart.html">Part 2</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-shaking-my-confidence.html">Part 3</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/school-days.html">Part 4</a><br /><br />Cecelia started school in August at Westside High School.<br /><br />On her second day at school, she called me.<br /><br />"Hey, Miss A, I got kicked out of school."<br /><br />What. The. Hell.<br /><br />I picked her up at her house, and took her to eat pie.<br /><br />She picked at her piece of apple with her fork, and told me the story across the dark green table.<br /><br />"Those fucking Levas, they started saying shit to me from the beginning," she told me. "I'd walk down the hall, and they'd call me names, call out at me, tell me I was a bitch and a puta."<br /><br />"What did you do?" I asked.<br /><br />"What could I do, Miss A?" she asked. "I can't let those Levas call me out and talk shit about my set."<br /><br />"So, what happened?"<br /><br />"This dude, Ben, from Aves. He called me a puta this morning, and I just threw down. I started hitting him, Miss A, until he fell down, and then I kicked him until they pulled me off him."<br /><br />"Damn..."<br /><br />"You know Ben, right? His whole family is in Aves, some judge from Califas told them to leave the state, and they moved here. He killed Pee Wee last year, but nothing happened. No one would testify against him because they were all scared. So, we said we'd handle it on the street."<br /><br />Cecelia got violated by probation for failing to attend school, and a warrant was issued for her arrest.<br /><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/06/no-joy-in-ride.html">Part 6</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-27715295053506401122009-05-29T04:51:00.001-07:002009-06-10T19:44:23.950-07:00Wired for SoundShe was sitting on the porch when the bullet passed through her chest, shredded the walls of her heart, and lodged in her spine. <br /><br />After, they remembered that the sounds were almost simultaneous: the gunshot and Estralita's soft moan before she crumpled and fell to lay on the faded paint and splintery wood.<br /><br />Then, the sound of a car accelerating very fast through darkened streets.<br /><br />When the police arrived on the scene, no one knew exactly what had happened. It was twilight, the air was too dim to show the gray car creeping slowly, soundlessly down the street. And, it happened too fast...the shot, the moan, the fall, and the way that Estralita hardly bled, because her blood all spilled on the inside of her chest. No one saw a license plate, and no one could even give an accurate description of the car.<br /><br />"Who would want to shoot her?" the police asked. No one knew, or if they did, they weren't saying. Her mom's sobs filled the background behind the detectives' questions.<br /><br />The detectives followed up the next day. Was it rivals from another gang? Was it someone from her gang? Her friends weren't sure. "Maybe," they answered, to every question. "Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know."<br /><br />The case folder filled with up with interview forms, witness statements, and autopsy photos, but there were no suspects, no leads, and an increasing amount of pressure from the media and the mayor's office for some kind of action. The shell, dug out of one of her vertebrae, was run through drug fire in hopes of matching it with a known gun with no hits. Her picture was flashed on the nightly news on all three channels for three nights in a row. She was smiling like an angel. A reward was offered for information.<br /><br />But, nothing came of it. The case was a black hole, with no light and no leads.<br /><br />No one in the department found it acceptable that a sixteen-year-old girl could be killed on her front porch on a summer evening without an arrest being made. The fact that she was beautiful made it even more difficult to contemplate. Such things shouldn't matter, but they do.<br /><br />Finally, one of the detectives went to the lieutenant with a suggestion.<br /><br />"What if we bugged her, L.T.? We could maybe hear something that would give us something to go on, anything that might break some possibilities open for us."<br /><br />The lieutenant thought it over. "Ask her family," he told them. "If it's okay with the family, then do it."<br /><br />The detectives met with the victim's mother. She agreed. Anything to get the person who had killed her daughter.<br /><br />Estrelita's body was prepared at the funeral home. There was no obvious trauma, nothing to show that she'd died violently, so unlike many shootings, her casket would be open for the funeral. Her mother dressed her in a white dress, with lace, sleeping beauty in a satin-lined coffin.<br /><br />The female crime tech wired the bug into her dark hair, and wound the wires down beneath her body to hide them. She sound-checked the microphone until it broadcast clearly. <br /><br />Estrelita was wired for sound. She was the trap to catch a shooter.<br /><br />The viewing was on a Thursday evening. By five, the parking lot was full. Three detectives loitered by the front door, in the lobby, watching. Sometimes, they spoke, when kids passed by that they knew. A few times, they traded conversations with one or two of the older members of QVO. Two other detectives walked through the parking lot, photographing cars and writing down license numbers. <br /><br />To the accompaniment of soft organ music, a parade of gang members passed through the doors of the funeral home to pay their respects. Several, both boys and girls, wore custom made shirts with "RIP Shy Girl" (Estralita's nickname) in olde English letters. <br /><br />As they passed through the viewing line, they left offerings: brown brown bandannas and rosaries and flowers and notes that lined the inside of the coffin, next to Estralita's body. <br /><br />Several of the teenagers and young adults leaned close and whispered words to Estralita, or kissed her face or hands.<br /><br />All the while, the spindles in the recorder under the coffin circled, quietly, so quietly that no one even heard.<br /><br />(to be continued later)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-90839257460160285022009-05-22T09:41:00.000-07:002009-11-19T11:50:17.649-08:00The 5-OsWhen Lieutenant A. hired me to work for the gang unit, he essentially hired me away from a job training program that worked with teens and young adults from urban areas around the U.S, many with serious gang problems.<br /><br />When I interviewed, he explained my role: "I expect you to work with 10 kids, knowing that 9 of the 10 will end up locked up or dead, and maybe only 1 will choose to turn his life around. But, you won't know for years which 1 of the 10 that single successful person will be, so I want you to work just as hard with 10 as you do that 1."<br /><br />I already knew I loved teenagers, so that was entirely do-able. Apart from the success ratio, any job with high risk teens entails a certain degree of failure, so I felt I was prepared for that, and told him.<br /><br />Then, Lieutenant A asked me what I knew about gangs. <br /><br />"I feel like I'm good at working with gang members in a structured setting. I know or suspect that several of my kids in my program had gang ties, and gang dialect is always around, on the edges. For instance--<br /><br /><em><br />In a classroom exchange, a male student turned to his seatmate and started discussing OG's. I knew that there was something inappropriate about this phrase:<br /><br />"Phillip, want to tell the rest of the class what you're talking about?"<br /><br />"Sure, Miss A. We were talking about OGs."<br /><br />"Feel free to explain to the class what an OG is."<br /><br />With a smirk on his face, he looked at me and said, "You're an OG, Miss A. It stands for Old Gal."</em><br /><br />--but it would be a mistake to say that I know much about gangs."<br /><br />Lieutenant A. laughed, and said, "I'll make sure you know everything you need to know before you go out on the street. We're hiring you to work with kids, but we are also hiring you to train people in the community, write proposals and manuals, brief elected officials, and help set gang policy in the community. It's a big job, but I think you can do it. Learning about gangs is the easy part."<br /><br />One of the first things he did (following the process of creating an extremely unattractive employee ID picture that made me look a lot like a ripe tomato thanks to an unfortunate red dress) was to send me for a week to a gang conference in California.<br /><br />My introduction to my co-workers occurred at the departure gate in the airport as we boarded the plane to California. On that day, I met the crew of 15 officers who composed the metro gang unit and the data analyst.<br /><br />One of my favorite officers in the crew would be Drew, who missed the flight because he checked in at the ticket counter with his loaded service revolver in his luggage. More on Drew, later.<br /><br />We disembarked in sunny Anaheim, and I immediately surrounded by over 1,500 law enforcement officers from around (mostly) the western U.S. I should mention that in those days, gang cops were about 97% male, so there was no waiting in line for bathrooms at the conference. That was a plus.<br /><br />We packed into a large, darkened hotel auditorium every day to listen to gang cops like Joe Guzman (a legend in the field of gangs) tell us about Crips, Bloods, Surenos, Nortenos, Folks, People, prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. I remember scribbling furiously on my legal pad, as I learned (ostensibly) everthing I would need to know to differentiate between a Crip and a Surenos member on the street. I looked around in the darkness and saw others doing the same thing on the narrow conference tables, frantically trying to catch every word. We saw hundreds of slides of gang members and their handsigns, graffiti, tattoos, and clothing items. Slide after slide of latino gang members, asian gang members, black gang members, and skinheads. We heard stories about the evolution of the Mexican Mafia in the California prison system and watched graphic videos of gang shootings, stabbings, and robberies. <br /><br />During the evenings, we kicked back around the pool at an open social hour with free liquor and beer for hours.<br /><br />I'd never worked with cops, and felt ambivalent in their presence. I liked the Lieutenant, who was very married, and middle-aged, with curly brown hair and a cherubic face. I liked his soft-spokenness and his dry sense of humor. <br /><br />But, my social services background hadn't prepared me to deal with an onslaught of such overwhelming maleness from thousands of cops. The testosterone was palpable: bulging muscles, deep voices, guns--I'd never seen so many guns in my damn life--and frat boy humor. The addition of alcohol exacerbated it all. Loud voices raised in loud laughter, mocking one another mercilessly, and incessant constant college kid pranks. It was--exhausting.<br /><br />I would go back to the room at the end of the day feeling like what I really needed was a cold shower and an early bedtime--by myself--in the peace and quiet--with a good book.<br /><br />By end of the week, it was as if these cops had opened up my head and tipped an entire "all you can eat" gang buffet into it. It was overwhelming, and I was sated to the point of nausea on gang know-how.<br /><br />I now knew what the number 13 meant and that a spiderweb on the elbow could be a prison tattoo, and it gave me a sense of confidence that was totally out of line with the practical realities.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">[fully understand that this post needs more work, and plan to do it.]</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-63270588648200340012009-05-21T05:25:00.000-07:002009-06-17T11:21:20.800-07:00School Days (Cecelia & Ghost, part 4)Cecelia - <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/mi-vida-loca.html">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-breaking-my-heart.html">Part 2</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-shaking-my-confidence.html">Part 3</a><br /><br />Ghost - <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-1_15.html">Part 1</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-2.html">Part 2</a>, <a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-3.html">Part 3</a><br /><br />Both Ghost and Cecelia weren't attending school when I met them. Ghost was expelled during the previous school year, and I met Cecelia at the beginning of the summer.<br /><br />When fall came, of course neither were registered, but they lived in nearby neighborhoods and were zoned to attend Westside High School. Ghost, in particular, felt a strong connection to that particular school school. <br /><br />I floated the idea of an alternative school:<br /><br />"So, how did you do at Westside when you went there?"<br /><br />"I got expelled at the end of the school year, and never went back."<br /><br />"How did you manage to do that?"<br /><br />"I was always getting into fights, and the principal got sick of it and expelled me."<br /><br />"Have you considered the idea that maybe Westside isn't a good school for you, given that there are so many different rival gangs there, and you got into so many fights?"<br /><br />"Nah. That's the only school I could go to. That's my school, that's where my boys go."<br /><br />"Will your dad take you to register?"<br /><br />"Nah, after I got kicked out last year, he told me I was on my own."<br /><br />Cecelia had similar issues. It had taken her 4 months in the previous year to get registered for school due to her mom's work schedule. Her judge wanted her in school from day 1 of this school year. I tried to meet with her mom, to talk about it, but her mom was never home on the days and evenings I stopped by.<br /><br />Finally, I formed a brilliant plan in my little pea brain. I'd take the two rival gang members at the same time, and register them myself. I probably should have run this plan past a more experienced person in my department, but being me, of course I didn't.<br /><br />Instead, I laid the ground work.<br /><br />"Dude, Cecelia, I'll take you and register you. But, you know Ghost from Diamond Street, he needs to register, too, so I think I'll take both of you at the same time."<br /><br />Silence.<br /><br />"C'mon, man. You're talking about something that is going to kill half a day for me. You two can put up with each other for half a day. I'll take you to lunch after."<br /><br />Finally, she agreed. After a similar conversation with Ghost, and a similar level of reluctance, he also agreed. One thing they both had in common: They wanted to get into school and were powerless to do so on their own without the help of a parent or adult. They needed me, so they were willing to put up with a hated rival in the same car for a couple of hours.<br /><br />The ground rules:<br /><br />1) No smack talking.<br />2) No hard looks at each other.<br />3) No attempting to start nonsense and act like knuckleheads.<br />4) No throwing up handsigns.<br />5) No wearing gang colors while they were with me.<br />6) No disrespecting other sets by using insults or slurs.<br /><br />Those were the standard rules I used when they were with me normally, so they were used to them. But, separately, I also I spelled it out to them further...I had no loyalty to either of their gangs. My loyalty was to them as individuals. And, I'd done a lot to earn their respect. Any attacks, verbal or otherwise, on the other person, I'd view that as disrespect to me, personally. I expected them to control themselves, at least for a short period of time. This was also a test to see how serious they were about attending school, and whether they were likely to have the self-control to succeed in doing so, at the same school.<br /><br />They agreed.<br /><br />I picked up Cecelia first. She immediately staked her claim to the front seat, tilting it back into the "<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gangster+lean">gangster lean</a>," and co-opting the radio to listen to the local rap station. She treated my car like she owned it. And, I let her, until I got sick of rap. Then I forced her to listen to alternative rock, which she hated. Occasionally, we compromised on oldies.<br /><br />We drove to Ghost's house. <br /><br />That sounds stupid, right? What was I thinking, driving her to the home of a rival gang member in rival gang territory. Looking back on those days, I'm fucking amazed at my level of naivete and idealism. I'm surprised it didn't get me or someone else killed. <br /><br />Except, they both already knew where the other gang member lived. In fact, I would not be surprised if they'd already shot up each other's houses before they ever met. Both were major players in their own gangs, both had participated in drive-bys, and both had also had their houses shot up. That's who they were.<br /><br />Beyond that, I trusted them to behave when they were with me. I trusted them to value our relationship enough to be respectable, for short periods of time. I felt like I knew their boundaries, and that they knew mine.<br /><br />Ghost, as usual, was waiting for us on the front step.<br /><br />Ghost and Cecelia looked at each other long and hard as he walked up to the car. I'm pretty sure that they'd never had a conversation, unless Cecelia yelling "Dick Street Putos" at him (or vice versa) could be considered conversation. I'm sure neither had ever been in the same car with a member of the other gang.<br /><br />Ghost climbed into the backseat, behind me, and stared out the window. We drove to Westside High School in a loud silence punctuated by the thumps of gangsta rap.<br /><br />When we got to the school, my kids and I went inside. The secretary stared at us nervously. Both kids had obvious gang tattoos on their hands, and were, to some extent, dressed down in dickies, white t-shirts, and g-nikes, though in keeping with my instructions, neither had on any colors. They looked like scary twins from different mothers.<br /><br />I was given the paperwork and sat down in the office to fill it out with each of them. In between answering questions, they stared each other down.<br /><br />"Cecelia, Ghost...knock it off."<br /><br />They looked down at the floor. I was a mom with the two most dysfunctional kids, ever. The secretaries never took their eyes off us.<br /><br />We finally completed the ordeal of filling out a stack of forms, in triplicate, and I handed them over to the registrar. <br /><br />In front of both kids, she told me: "Cecelia is welcome to come to Westside. He, on the other hand," she pointed at Ghost, "can't come here. He was expelled last year and never fulfilled the conditions of his expulsion."<br /><br />Ghost's face lost all expression. He cared, but he sure as hell wasn't showing it to this woman. He looked at the floor and never looked up again.<br /><br />I protested. "Is there someone I can talk to about this decision?"<br /><br />"Sure, you can talk to the vice principle in charge of administrative affairs, but he's out this week, on vacation. Do you want to schedule an appointment?"<br /><br />I scheduled the appointment. Then, I wrote a check for Cecelia's school fees (the other apparent hangup that had kept her out of school for half of the previous year), and we left.<br /><br />We drowned Ghost's sorrows with the promised Crown Burgers and chocolate milkshakes. Cecelia watched him from across the table. His face showed no emotion, but she knew what he was feeling.<br /><br />"Yo, Ghost, I'm really sorry, those people suck," she told him, "fucking puta at the counter didn't have to act like that."<br /><br />He lifted his head and really looked at her, for the first time. "Thanks, man," he said.<br /><br />We left, and I dropped her off at her house. On the ride back to Ghost's house, I told him that we would meet with the Principal and I'd use my clout from the police department to try and get him into school. But, if he couldn't get in, he'd have to attend the alternative school, and I hoped he'd do so.<br /><br />"You know, I'm not your mom, though, so I can't make you do anything."<br /><br />He looked over at me, face completely serious, and said, "You are my mom, Miss A."<br /><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/06/back-to-school.html">Cecelia, Part 5</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-14221137217610084382009-05-15T16:55:00.001-07:002009-05-18T12:11:29.584-07:00Cecelia, You're Shaking My Confidence Daily (Part 3)<a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/mi-vida-loca.html">Part 1</a><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-breaking-my-heart.html">Part 2</a><br /><br />Cecelia saw herself as one of the guys.<br /><br />There were only three roles for girls in her gang. There were the girls who were the sex toys of the gang, who got passed from guy to guy, and used sexually. There were the girlfriends of the gang members, who stood on a rung only slightly higher on the ladder of machismo. And, there were the girls who turned themselves into guys. Girls who fought like guys, dressed like guys, acted like guys.<br /><br />Cecelia was in that last category. It was the only possible category that she'd have allowed. She didn't like men in the first two ways. <br /><br />After we'd known each other a few weeks, Cecelia and I had plans to meet, but she told me that she'd be at her friend Flaca's house. I swung by to pick her up there.<br /><br />Flaca's house was significantly nicer, it was one of the newer subsidized housing properties in the city. Still in the middle of a high-crime neighborhood, but it had not yet succumbed to years of neglect.<br /><br />It was a hot summer day. The yard was dead, the flowers in their pots were dead, and it felt like it was about a hundred degrees with no humidity. The high desert heat was miserable.<br /><br />It looked marginally cooler inside through the screen door. It was dark inside. There was no air conditioning, but Flaca's mom had a living room with actual furniture that looked less than ten years old. The girls from La Raza were draped over a couple of couches, watching cable. It's a tired stereotype, but while these kids could do without a new bike or nutritious food, they could never do without their cable, their Showtime and HBO and MTV with the latest gangster rap videos to watch.<br /><br />I knocked on the screen door.<br /><br />I could hear the girls whispering inside.<br /><br />"Who's the <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=guera">wedda</a>?"<br /><br />"She's MY wedda, she hangs out with me every week because of Judge V."<br /><br />"Well, tell her to come in and kick it wid us."<br /><br />"Wedda, come in."<br /><br />I opened the screen door, and came inside, finding a spot on one of the chairs.<br /><br />If you've never seen homegirls, can you visualize them in your head? The high, darkened, plucked to death eyebrows. The long dark hair, brown skin. The brown lipliner on full lips, with dark brown lipstick. Heavy brown eye shadow all the way up to the eyebrow - never leave home without it.<br /><br />Cecelia looked and dressed like a boy in her dickies and oversized t-shirts, and no makeup.<br /><br />Flaca and her sisters though, these were the glamorous gang girls. Flaca wore a revealing tank top with her stiffly pressed <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dickies">dickies</a> and g-nikes*. Cecelia was androgynous, Flaca was all girl.<br /><br />At lunch, Flaca and Cecelia lounged against the booth, together, and told me about the day that Flaca was jumped into the gang.<br /><br />Cecelia was jumped into the gang by the boys. She was the first girl they'd allowed into the gang as a peer. Other girls had hung out, but Cecelia was an equal.<br /><br />Cecelia told me that she'd fought 2 boys for a minute and 30 seconds.<br /><br />"They were both hitting me with their fists in my head, shoulders and chest. It hurt, but they weren't trying to hurt me badly. They just needed to see if I was tough enough. My brother told me to stay on my feet and try to keep them from knocking me down, no matter what I did, so I couldn't get kicked. That's how you really get hurt. He told me to protect my head, too."<br /><br />"After the fight, everyone came around and hugged me. I had blood on my face, but I was so proud. And they were proud of me. I showed I belonged."<br /><br />Flaca didn't get jumped in until later. The boys from La Raza told her to recruit some girls, and put her in charge of them. Flaca was her best friend, and the first person that Cecelia jumped into the gang.<br /><br />"Flaca and I fought for a minute and 30 seconds. I told her to hit back. I hit her hard, but she did good. She kept her fists up, and was tough."<br /><br />Flaca laughed. "I had bruises everywhere...on my cheek, all over my shoulders. I had to tell my mom that I hit my face on the door frame. " Her parents had no idea that she was a gang member.<br /><br />I realized two things during this visit. First, Cecelia was showing me off to her girlfriends. She had this woman who came to see her, wanted to spend time with her, and took her places. She wanted to impress her peers with this fact.<br /><br />Secondly, she was introducing me to her family. Flaca and the homegirls were Cecelia's most important relationships. They were her friends, but they were far more than that. Cecelia was the leader of the girls. They were her siblings and family members. They gave her status, because she was the boss and they answered to her. The homegirls gave Cecelia a place to belong, and they gave her the respect and status she so desperately craved.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">*Nike Cortez running shoes</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-45424344589483935032009-05-15T16:54:00.001-07:002009-05-22T09:39:49.198-07:00Cecelia, You're Breaking My Heart (Part 2)<a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/mi-vida-loca.html">Part 1</a><br /><br />After that first lunch, Cecelia and I established a routine.<br /><br />About once a week, sometimes twice a week, I'd swing by her house, pick her up, and we'd go eat somewhere. At first, the conversations were mainly me conducting an inquisition to drag the words out of her, because she was not a talkative girl.<br /><br />Eventually, though, she started to tell me about her life. Cecelia was the leader of the girls in La Raza, a local street gang (hence the LR on her belt buckles). She'd first joined a gang called QVO, but then transitioned over into La Raza when it split off the larger gang.<br /><br />QVO was the largest gang in our city, a predominantly latino gang whose color was brown. It boasted about 200 members, and was a homegrown set whose name was taken from a magazine once printed in Los Angeles, literally "<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=q%27vo">what's up</a>." In 1995, one of the three most dangerous gangs in the city was called "What's Up." This was pretty much par for the course for a city that also boasted a gang called BDG: Big Dick Gang.<br /><br />QVO, BDG, and La Raza were separate groups, but also mostly allies in those days. They were the "brown pride" sets, gangs who claimed the color brown (or in La Raza's case, green), and aligned themselves against the local Surenos, gangs who had either been transplanted from Los Angeles, or modeled themselves after LA's Hispanic gangs. The Surenos gangs claimed the traditional black or blue, and included Avenues (a Los Angeles transplant), Diamond Street, Chiques, 18th Street (also an LA transplant), and a few others. <br /><br />The QVO sets didn't consider themselves Bloods, the traditional rivals of the Crips, but they did ally with local Blood sets at times.<br /><br />Westside, where Cecelia lived, was a smallish neighborhood that the detectives in my unit referred to as "drive-by alley." And, it was. In 1998, the year before I moved to Florida, we had over 300 drive-by shootings, almost one per day and most of them were on the west side. We had over 30 gang-related homicides that year, almost 3 a month. For comparison's sake, Dallas had slightly less that year, and was twice as large in population size.<br /><br />Most of the gangs didn't claim specific territories, although Diamond Street claimed sections of the Northside, and most of the La Raza and BDG kids lived in Westside. But their enemies did, too. Most of the Avenues (AVES) lived right in amongst their feuding rivals, a few blocks from where Cecelia lived.<br /><br />For the most part, the Surenos warred with the "brown pride" groups, Latinos fighting with and killing other Latinos. Sometimes, the Brown Pride gangs would also fight with another large group in the city, Tongan Crip Gang (TCG) whose membership rivaled their own, since there were many TCG members in Westside.<br /><br />You could see from the graffiti down alleys and along the sides of the street where members of rival gangs were living, fighting, and shooting one another. It definitely made retaliation and revenge a much easier game.<br /><br />And, Cecelia lived right in the middle of it, one of the spoons that kept the pot of gang-related violence constantly stirred.<br /><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-shaking-my-confidence.html">Part 3</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-36229637770299039022009-05-15T16:42:00.001-07:002009-05-18T12:09:27.545-07:00CeceliaOne of my lifelong heroes is a judge I worked with from the juvenile court. In around 1995, right after he was appointed to the bench, and I had started working for metro gangs, we had lunch. He told me that he was starting a sort of informal mentoring program for the kids on his caseload. He asked if I would be willing to work as a mentor for him, essentially donating 2 or 3 hours a week of my time to one of his kids.<br /><br />I was already spending 40 or more hours a week in the company of gang members, so mentoring a female gang member seemed to fall pretty neatly in line with my work responsibilities. "Sure," I said. "Sign me up."<br /><br />In those days, a lot of mentoring programs weren't very structured. There wasn't a rigorous background check, and there were very few rules. He gave me the name, phone number, and address of the girl he wanted me to mentor: Cecelia.<br /><br />I called her the next day, introduced myself as a mentor that her judge had assigned to work with her, and asked if she'd like to go to lunch. She said she would. She wasn't in school, and wasn't doing much. Going to lunch with a <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gringa">gringa</a> would be a novelty.<br /><br />I asked her what she wanted to eat, and she named a restaurant a few blocks from her house in the west side of town...La Frontera.<br /><br />I picked her up around noon at her house: 1383 West ___________. When I went to the front porch, I noticed that someone had graffitied over the house number (which was just spray painted onto the front of the house), crossing out both the <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=13">13</a> and the 38 with marker. The 13 probably represented the local Surenos sets, and the 38 was a reference to a specific Surenos gang, 38th street. I'd seen graffiti crossouts before, but never a cross out of a house number on the front of somene's house.<br /><br />I didn't know who'd crossed those numbers out, but gang members had definitely been in and around this house.<br /><br />Cecelia came to the door, and with her came the standard scent of the neighborhood: Old musty house, dirty carpet, unchanged diapers, and the smell of old cigarette smoke ground into all of it.<br /><br />Cecelia, like most gang members, smelled of soap and <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tres+flores">tres flores</a>. She was Chicano. Tall, dumpy and overweight, she was dressed just like a homeboy in a a baggy black t-shirt and oversized dickies, creased sharp and held up with a black cloth belt with two metal buckles with punched out initials: LR. The dickies fell low on her hips, and her hair was pulled back tight and hard away from her face. If you didn't know she was a girl, you'd have passed her on the street thinking she was a 16-year-old boy. No makeup, nothing soft about her, aside from her belly. <br /><br />Her voice was low and rough, and just as masculine as her appearance. I'd worked with homegirls before, but she was the most masculine girl I'd ever spent any time with.<br /><br />We slid into the brown naugahyde booths, facing one another, and I started trying to make small talk with her:<br /><br />"Do you go to school?" No. She'd been expelled at least 6 months earlier and had not re-enrolled. The school had made no effort to re-engage her, either.<br /><br />"Do you have any brothers and sisters?" Yes, she had two little half-sisters and a younger brother from the same father who was 14, and already a member of QVO.<br /><br />"Who do you live with?" She lived with her mom and siblings, but her mom worked several jobs as a cleaning lady, mostly motels, and was almost never home until 8 or later. Cecelia was the main person responsible for her siblings.<br /><br />Getting answers from her was like trying to pull pennies out of a coke can with your fingers...a consistent effort marked by grunting responses, silence, and sharp edges.<br /><br />Finally, she asked, suspiciously: "Why are you doing this, why are you here talking to me?"<br /><br />I told her: "I'm here for you. Your judge thought you might need someone just for you, someone to talk to, someone to help you, someone who mainly cares just about you."<br /><br />She stared down at the table, sullenly, and then looked up, and I was shocked to see tears in her eyes.<br /><br />And, that was the beginning of my relationship with Cecelia.<br /><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/cecelia-youre-breaking-my-heart.html">Part 2</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-46962043714550085092009-05-15T16:40:00.001-07:002009-05-15T17:34:47.608-07:00Ghost, Part 3<a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-1_15.html">Ghost, Part 1</a><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-2.html">Ghost, Part 2</a> <br /><br />Ghost's dad, Danny, was a small, wiry man with darkened, weathered skin from rough living and hair that looked like it had never seen a brush. He was rarely clean-shaven. I know he must have shaved at some point, because he always seemed to sport razor stubble, but apparently, I always missed that day of the week.<br /><br />He'd clearly used a lot of drugs in his lifetime, and they'd unwired his brain. That's the clearest way I can explain it. He was there in body, but not in mind or soul.<br /><br />His involvement with Ghost was minimal. Danny provided a place to live (in a minimalist sense), some clothes, and occasional fast food. That was the extent of his parenting. Ghost started washing his own clothes in elementary school. He never went to the doctor. He bought and cooked his own food. Ghost's mom wasn't around. She'd been hospitalized for schizophrenia years before and no one really knew where she was. So, that was Ghost's home life, in a nutshell. <br /><br />Home was a not very nice place to lay your head and nothing more.<br /><br />I do remember sitting on his couch, with bullet holes clearly delineated in some pictures in the wall above me, and the smell of nicotine so deeply ingrained in the house that I thought the smell would cling to me the rest of the week. <br /><br />The first conversation with Danny went something like this: <br /><br />"I'm really worried about Ghost."<br /><br />"Oh?"<br /><br /><em>(an atypically low-key response from a guy who'd just had his house shot up in a drive-by shooting the night before)</em><br /><br />"Yeah. Clearly, he's being targeted by QVO. Do you have any idea why QVO would want to shoot up your house?"<br /><br />"Not really."<br /><br />"Well, y'all should be careful. At least put the bookcase in front of the window or something. And you know, maybe you could keep Denny from hanging out with Diamond Street so much in your front yard."<br /><br />"I don't know if I could do that."<br /><br />It's hard to imagine that there are parents out there who aren't completely wigging about having bullets fired into their living room at 2 a.m., but there are. There are parents out there who have pumped so many substances into their bodies: heroin, crack, nicotine, that they are barely functional.<br /><br />That was Ghost's dad. <br /><br />A few months later, his house was shot up again.<br /><br />This time, our conversation was conducted through a screen door.<br /><br />"I'm really worried about you and your son."<br /><br />"Yeah."<br /><br />"At this point, it isn't IF he's going to get shot, but when."<br /><br />"Yeah."<br /><br />"Do you think you could keep him home more? Or maybe keep the gang members from hanging out in your front yard?"<br /><br />"I dunno."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-11438726191007671492009-05-15T16:39:00.001-07:002009-05-15T17:34:01.098-07:00Ghost, Part 2<a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-1_15.html">Ghost, Part 1</a><br /><br />Ghost and I settled into a routine. About every week or so, I'd go by his house and check on him. I'd chat with him and the Diamond Street (DST) boys while they played basketball or lounged on the front steps. I'd give them well-intended advice about baby mamas, homework, and dealing with parents. I'd tell them that I could help them find a jobs. I'd occasionally chat with Danny, his dad. Those conversations gave new meaning to futility.<br /><br />Ghost was not particularly receptive to these attempts at intervention. He liked being in a gang, it was exciting and fun, and it gave his life meaning and purpose. He was a loc in the truest sense of the word. Loc, short for loco, means "crazy" on the streets. In Ghost's case, this crazy translated into shooting at rivals, having your own house shot up in response, fighting whenever there was an opportunity, and provoking a response whenever he could, wherever he went.<br /><br />When at school, he was a huge pain in the ass for school administrators. He could always be counted on to do the most fucking stupid thing possible. While walking down a hallway, he'd give his rivals "hard looks," staring them down, and trying to provoke them in non-verbal ways. He might tip his head at them in a demeaning way, or make arm gestures while puffing out his chest, or throw up the distinctive DST handsign (a diamond, of course). He'd mutter insults under his breath at them: "Sewer rats," (a derogatory reference to Surenos, or "Levas" (an insult directed at the Avenues gang members, that means "lame"). He was also a prolific graffiti writer in the school, throwing up his gang's initials and his nickname EVERYWHERE.<br /><br />When he wasn't at school, which was a high percentage of the time, he was similarly occupied in his neighborhood. He lived to fuck with rival gang members. That was the one activity that seemed to give him nearly constant joy.<br /><br />By doing so, he also built his status in the gang..."He's loco" translates to: "He's fucking stupid, and might do just about anything violent." Other gang members feared his temper and willingness to fight/shoot/confront. His peers respected him for his craziness and the fact that he was clearly so down for his set.<br /><br />He liked me, though. And, I liked him. So, I kept trying, even when it seemed to be a constant exercise in futility.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-3.html">Ghost, Part 3</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-62908207247477871372009-05-15T16:16:00.000-07:002009-05-21T18:59:36.220-07:00Ghost, Part 1He was sixteen when I first met him. The guys from my unit suggested that he was an asshole that I could waste my time on.<br /><br />Ghost was gangly, tall, blue-eyed, and fair with blond hair so light that it was almost white, hence the nickname. He was a member of Diamond Street, whose distinctive diamond symbol and DST initials could be found all over the northside neighborhood.<br /><br />He lived in a tiny house in a neighborhood that had over time become a haven for blue collar families with young kids, immigrants, and retirees who'd lived in the area for 30 years or more. These groups shared an uneasy truce and very little understanding of one another.<br /><br />Ghost loved basketball. When I drove to his house, parking underneath a shady tree in the front, he was in his driveway, shooting baskets with a cheap basketball that had been burnished with the sweat of hundreds of free-throw shots. The ball was covered with repetitive scuff marks from the cement driveway. Ghost took shot after shot, rebounding his own ball as I walked casually up the driveway.<br /><br />I'd worked with hundreds of kids over the years, but those kids were facility kids, trained into structure and some degree of compliance. Ghost was my first street kid, and as I would soon learn, facility kids were different from street kids.<br /><br />Facility kids had something to lose.<br /><br />Street kids had already lost more than I could comprehend.<br /><br />I was nervous, and he was indifferent. I was just another well-intentioned white lady, a busybody there to meddle, but not to help. I told him that the department had received many complaints from his neighbors, and that I understood that his home had recently been hit in a drive-by shooting. Did he understand how dangerous it was to be in a gang? Was there anything I could do? He was sullen, and didn't have much to say. He didn't smile, and in fact, kept his lips tightly clenched across his teeth. I'm not surprised he didn't like me. Why would he?<br /><br />I was nervous, sweaty, and smiled a lot. Finally, he let loose with some information: that very day was his 16th birthday. I asked if he was excited, and what presents he'd received.<br /><br />He avoided the question, but I could tell it made him uncomfortable.<br /><br />I told him I hoped he had a happy day, and that I'd be around again, then drove away. He was back to shooting hoops as rhythmic as a clock as I left. On the way to the office, I passed a neighborhood bodega, and saw a basketball in the window. It was the first of many tiny hunches and gut impulses I would follow with Casper and other kids on the street. I bought the ball for less than $10, a small card to go with it, and drove the mile or so back to his house. When I handed them to him, he was clearly surprised.<br /><br />He took the ball, thanked me, and started shooting with it.<br /><br />I later learned it was the only present Ghost received that year.<br /><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-2.html">Ghost, Part 2</a><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/casper-part-3.html">Ghost, Part 3</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-36753800674363860722009-05-14T17:06:00.000-07:002009-05-18T12:03:36.506-07:00PTSDIt changes you to work with criminals for a living.<br /><br />Other people don't get it.<br /><br />There are a lot of stupid things I do because of traumatic things I've seen. It might seem crazy to you, if you watched my little routine, but if you'd seen what I've seen, it would make perfect sense.<br /><br />For instance, one of my clients, a female gang member, her little baby cousin was kidnapped out of an open window, raped and murdered, and left dead beside a canal. She was just a baby, only 2 years old, named Rosie. The case was never solved. And I had a daughter who was close to the same age. Working with that family, and my client, spending hours dealing with their agony and pain, and then going home to my kids...it fucked me up, a little bit.<br /><br />I don't let ANYONE in my house sleep with the windows open. It's been 12 years now. I just can't. I don't do it, I don't let my kids do it, even when the weather is perfect. I suck it up and pay the higher air conditioning bill.<br /><br />I think that's what ostensibly "normal" people don't understand. When you have seen the unthinkable, lived with it, gotten your head around it...it changes you.<br /><br />"Normal" people don't want to think that the unthinkable could happen. They go home from work, eat dinner, watch a little American Idol, and go to bed at 10 p.m., thinking they will be safe. They have no idea what happens on the other side of town at 2 a.m.<br /><br />There's a whole different world out there that normal people, if they are lucky, never see. Normal people keep from going crazy like me through use of the thin illusion of safety. They assume that dangerous horrible things will never touch them at the grocery story, or the shopping mall, or the movie theater.<br /><br />And I've seen the bodies of two kids who shot each other to death at a grocery store on a Sunday afternoon, and worked with their grieving families. They exchanged 30 rounds. Any one of those rounds could have hit an old lady, or a little kid, or someone's mom or dad.<br /><br />Life is so fucking random.<br /><br />The reality is that bad shit happens all the time to all kinds of people with no rhyme or reason, the worst things you can even imagine, that stuff really happens. You sleep at night by telling yourself it never could. You glance at the newspaper stories and quickly forget them because that could never be you, oh never be you. And if it does happen, the stuff of nightmares that you cram back into your tired brain at 6 a.m. when the alarm goes off, there is nothing you can do to protect yourself. It happens way too fast.<br /><br />There are kids in your community who would shoot you for hubcaps or kill your kid for a pair of shoes, and not spend a moment on regret.<br /><br />The world is a dangerous place. Most people in America don't realize how dangerous it really is.<br /><br />The kids I've worked with were always carrying guns. They had hair-trigger tempers. They could do the worst imaginable thing in the next second. Working with them changed me, forever.<br /><br />I can't go to the mall, or the movie theater, or the grocery store without watching my surroundings and paying attention to what is going on.<br /><br />I see groups of kids congregating at the local mall, they look like gang members, and I'm hustling my kids out of there. Other people aren't even paying attention.<br /><br />But, I've seen innocent bystanders get shot in the mall. or, in front of the movie theater. Or in front of a traffic light.<br /><br />I probably dealt with (easily) 100+ gang homicides in my years in the department, plus others that have involved former clients since that time. You see that stuff for years, and it changes how you think.<br /><br />I don't sit with my back to the door in restaurants. I'll always take the booth that faces the entrance if I can. <br /><br />I know, for example, that the safest place in or around a car, if shooting starts, is behind the engine block, down close to the ground, where a bullet can't pass through the metal, and you are unlikely to get hit by a ricochet. <br /><br />I learned never to sit in front of a window in my clients' homes, but to choose a seat behind a bookcase or an exterior wall. <br /><br />I learned never to drive a fancy car or wear much jewelry, you don't want to give anyone a reason to rob you. <br /><br />I learned to watch, always watch, everyone in my vicinity. I stare at people's tattoos, looking for gang/prison symbols. I look at their clothes, watching for gang paraphernalia. <br /><br />I don't park in parking lots at hotels these days, I only valet. I don't like the idea of walking around in a dark and lonely parking lot, may just well as slap a sticker on your face that says, "Rape me, please." <br /><br />My personal warning level is always at orange. People would probably call me paranoid if they really knew the thoughts inside my head. I call my ongoing hyper-alert form of paranoia a close relationship with reality.<br /><br />As my former boss always used to say, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean people aren't out to get you."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-32296727804667770042009-05-12T17:04:00.000-07:002009-05-16T09:41:25.337-07:00Karma<em>I have been spending a lot of time reading the blog of <a href="http://www.poorpenmanship.com/">a girl who is currently a crime reporter</a> for the Salt Lake Tribune. Just spending a half hour on her blog today dredged up some memories. <a href="http://letitblurt.wordpress.com/">Richard Whackman</a> asked me when I would tell a story. So, here is a story, about karma (sort of), inspired by Erin's blog.</em><br /><br />Once upon a time, in a mid-sized city, a gang member holed up in his room, brandishing a pistol and threatening to kill himself.<br /><br />Dave, the officer involved, spent about 4 hours talking to the gang member, and eventually persuaded him to give up his gun peacefully.<br /><br />The gang member was transported to a mental health facility, where he received counseling and therapy to deal with his suicidal behaviors. Post-treatment, he appeared in court for sentencing in a separate offense (an aggravated assault, which in layman's terms means attacking someone with a dangerous weapon).<br /><br />The judge ordered that the boy serve a sentence in a secure juvenile facility (juvenile prison, basically) because he felt that the boy was a danger to himself and others.<br /><br />The youth corrections caseworker, whose job was solely to transport the boy to the secure program, took it upon himself to amend the judge's order, and place the gang member in a non-secure group home back in the community.<br /><br />Within 12 hours, the gang member had fled from the group home, and was at-large. This outcome was not particularly unforeseen by anyone who had worked with this individual, the judge, or the officer involved. Even the mom of the gang member felt he should have been locked up. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but nothing happened for several months.<br /><br />Then, the gang member turned up. He killed two people and wounded 3 others during a robbery of a little taqueria on the west side of town. The taqueria was your standard immigrant Cinderella story: it was small, but successful, and was owned by a couple of honest, hard-working Mexican immigrants. One of the victims was the owner of the restaurant. Dave was the first officer to respond of the scene of the shooting. The gang member's take out of this robbery amounted to $16. Two people were dead, three people were seriously injured, for sixteen dollars.<br /><br />Eventually, the taqueria went out of business, and the owner's widow moved back to Mexico. All of the employees, including the ones who had been shot, lost their jobs. Dale ended up going to therapy for about a year to deal with his feelings of guilt for keeping the gang member from committing suicide.<br /><br />Fucked up, eh?<br /><br />So tell me: Do you REALLY believe in karma? Because I don't so much, anymore.<br /><br />There isn't any rhyme or reason to the universe most of the time.<br />Bad people do bad stuff, and more often than not, don't suffer for their actions. Just as often, horrible tragedies befall good people. Sometimes, life just sucks.<br /><br />There's a story, Richard. Not all stories have happy endings, unfortunately.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-69412914976631040212009-05-12T09:42:00.000-07:002009-05-16T10:02:07.994-07:00Terms I Use<span style="font-weight: bold;">13 or XIII - </span>Symbol of the Surenos gangs that was adopted from the Mexican Mafia. M is the 13th letter of the alphabet. Almost all West Coast style Latino gangs that aren't Nortenos use this number to identify themselves. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />14 or XVI - </span>Symbol of the Nortenos gangs that evolved out of the California prison system. N is the 14th letter of the alphabet and stands for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuestra_Familia">Nuestra Familia</a>. The NF prison gang members were primarily rural, Northern California Latinos who were being victimized in the prison system by the Surenos gang members and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Mafia">Mexican Mafia</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Brown Pride gangs</span> - Non-Surenos or Nortenos affiliated <span style="font-weight: bold;">cholo</span>-style Latino gangs that use the color brown to identify. They may or may not use the number 13, but will almost always use slogans like "Brown Pride" or BP.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chicano/chicana - </span>U.S. born person of Mexican descent.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Cholo</span>/<span style="font-weight: bold;">chola </span>- An old school Chicano gang member from Los Angeles (but cholo style gangs are now found around the U.S.).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dickies</span> - A brand of uniform pants popular with cholos, girls and guys. They're usually bought oversized, and pleated up using a cloth or leather belt to hold them low around the hips. Cholos usually buy them in khaki, black, brown and dark blue. They keep them immaculately pressed with sharp creases.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">G-Nikes</span> - Nike Cortez running shoes that are extremely popular with cholo-style gangsters. They are sold in nylon in a number of colors (black, brown, red, blue...convenient, eh?) and also in white leather. The gang members I worked with were very proud of their shoes. They kept their white leather g-nikes so damn clean, they practically glowed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gringa</span> - White girl (generally stupid and know-nothing about all things street).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Guero/Guera</span> (pronounced "Weddo" or "Wedda") - A very fair-complected Latino (or sometimes, a <span style="font-weight: bold;">gringo/gringa</span>).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mi+vida+loca">Mi Vida Loca</a></span>: Translated literally, my crazy life. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pUdl2TL60pU/SI24FH1qv3I/AAAAAAAABdY/C2zN9_B2Tkc/s200/3dots.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 100px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_pUdl2TL60pU/SI24FH1qv3I/AAAAAAAABdY/C2zN9_B2Tkc/s200/3dots.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> Tattooed as three dots, to represent the three words, it's the penultimate cholo tattoo. It's a life of drama, drunkenness, gunshots at 2 a.m., stealing beer from a convenience store, watching your back. It's cars creeping slowly down your street, lights off, waiting to catch you slipping. It's writing your graffiti on a wall, and running from the cops who almost caught you. It's 18 with a bullet: crazy, short, and fatal.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Respect</span>: A gang member's reputation is everything. A kid I know did a series of drive-by shootings. The police impounded his car but were unable to catch him. He started using his bicycle, and doing bike-by shootings. Crazy, right? Exactly the point. That kid, he might do anything. He might open fire in a crowded downtown mall, just to hit some punk. He's someone to fear because he's loco, loc'd out, insane in the membrane. Respect and fear mean the same thing on the streets. Show weakness, and you become prey. Gang members choose to be predators.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Slippin</span>: Letting your guard down, getting caught, dying because you were too stupid to watch your back.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Smile now, cry later</span>. It means: I'm going to do what I need to do now, I'm going to laugh today in the sun, because tomorrow, I may be dead. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img2.travelblog.org/Photos/22349/98233/f/641748-Smile-Now-Cry-Later-0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://img2.travelblog.org/Photos/22349/98233/f/641748-Smile-Now-Cry-Later-0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> I'm going to drink and dance, because a year from now, I may be locked up, doing time. I'm going to hold onto life with my hands clenched, digging my fingernails in, because life is short, and full of grief and pain. I'm going to put a smiling face on today, and I'm going to do what needs to be done, and tomorrow, when I have time, I'll cry about how much things suck. It's a battle cry, an affirmation, a stiff upper lip. This idea is often represented by two masks, one smiling, and the other crying. You see it in tattoos, doodles, prison art, and graffiti.<br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Surenos</span> - Type of gangs that originated in Southern California starting back in the 1940s with White Fence. These gangs are typically composed of Latinos, and gang bang cholo-style. A lot of what we think about as symbols of modern street gang culture originated with these guys...the sagging pants, the old-English style lettering, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">3-dots tattoo,</span> the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Smile Now, Cry Later</span> faces/symbolism, the prison tattoos used by a lot of the other gang sets these days. Surenos use the letters SUR and the number <span style="font-weight: bold;">13</span> to identify themselves, sometimes written Roman-numeral style as <span style="font-weight: bold;">XIII</span>, though the number <span style="font-weight: bold;">13</span> has been adopted by almost all other Latino gangs that aren't <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nortenos</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wedda </span>- My personal slang for<span style="font-weight: bold;"> guera</span>...this is what I thought kids were calling me, in my head, for a long damn time.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-50521734025799276612009-05-02T09:05:00.000-07:002009-05-21T11:39:18.702-07:00My HomiesIf I were going to start a gang, these are the people I'd invite:<br /><br /><a href="http://strangedarkgypsygirl.com">Gypsy</a> - <br /><a href="http://thecusp.wordpress.com/">Mongolian Girl</a> - She'd be responsible for providing snacks. <br /><a href="http://rassles.blogspot.com/">Rassles</a> - She'd have to bring the 40s.<br /><a href="http://www.poorpenmanship.com/">Erin</a> - gang photographer<br /><a href="http://gwenalisonwonderland.blogspot.com/">Gwen</a><br /><a href="http://formerlyfun.blogspot.com/">Chris</a><br /><a href="http://www.afreeman.org/">Down Under Chris</a><br /><a href="http://talesfromthedadside.blogspot.com/">Sci Fi Dad</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-31386953982202892432009-05-01T17:09:00.000-07:002009-05-21T09:48:13.619-07:00About Me & This BlogI'm a 43-year-old woman who has spent the majority of her life working in the field of gangs. The best and worst eight years of my life were when I was providing direct services to gang members in a program and on the street in my late 20s and early 30s.<br /><br />I realized this year that some of my stories are slipping away and that the details were getting fuzzy. I like these stories, they made me the person I am today, and I didn't want to lose them. So, I decided to write them down here.<br /><br />I wanted to remember the person I used to be. And, the stories of my kids deserve to be told. I want people to know about their lives.<br /><br />The basic facts about me are as follows: I'm a divorced mom with two kids, a daughter aged 15, and a son who is 11. I still work in the same field I've worked in for the past 19 years, but now I don't work directly with kids anymore.<br /><br />I never set out to work with gangs for a living. It just kind of happened.<br /><br />More about me:<br /><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/ptsd.html">PTSD</a><br /><a href="http://smilenowxcrylater.blogspot.com/2009/05/karma.html">Karma</a><br /><br /><br />Anyway, these are the stories. Most of them date from 1994 - 1999. In case you wondered, the names & locations have been slightly altered to protect the innocent, and the not-so-innocent.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-34836873456699021812009-05-01T10:05:00.001-07:002009-06-17T11:37:50.600-07:00Drop Me a LineYou can e-mail me at: <a href="mailto:smilenowXcrylater@gmail.com?">smilenowXcrylater@gmail.com</a><br /><br />I'd love to hear from you.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7407375147345325113.post-21506611783975281022009-01-16T16:52:00.000-08:002009-06-16T16:57:21.436-07:00FAQQuestions people have asked:<br /><br /><strong>Are these stories true?</strong><br /><br />Yes. And, no. These things actually happened. I have tried to be as true to my kids as possible. In some cases, I remember actual conversations, every word. <br /><br />However, I don't remember every word of every conversation. In a lot of cases, I've condensed conversations that happened over years into shorter segments. I spent thousands of hours with these kids, and I remember more than could ever be put down here. Beyond that, it's been 15 years. I write this blog so slowly because I have to think about each post and revisit my memories to try and be as accurate as possible.<br /><br />In the case of Wired for Sound, the victim in question WAS wired at the visitation and funeral. This case did happen, and the detectives in my unit actually used this as an investigative tool. However, I don't remember her name, she wasn't one of my clients, and I don't remember the actual outcome of the case. However, I have filled in the gaps with actual circumstances from funerals and homicides I do remember. Hope that makes sense.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0