Bleeding Perseverance - Episode 29

Autobiography Fridays

CHAPTER 12

A Few Little Orphans,

A Real Ninja,

And Two Faces from the Past

We weren’t sure if the Dodge Dart would make it all the way to L.A. but Mom had made up her mind, so we were on our way. By the time we got there we were already nearly broke and had to seek extra public assistance in order to get into a cheap hotel. Mom was so desperate for cash she sold the car for something like twenty or thirty dollars.

The cheap hotel we ended up at was inhabited by a street gang called The Little Orphans. Since I was sixteen, around their age, I didn’t know if they were going to start trouble with me. One day while I was going back up to the room one of them asked where I was from. Usually when a gang member asks you this, if you’re not from the same area they are, they’ll start to get defensive. I told him that we had just moved from up north and were trying to find a place to live. He then said the last thing I expected to hear.

“If you ever need anything just let me know. The Little Orphans got your back.”

From that point on, every time I passed one of them they gave me a friendly nod. I was really impressed. You always hear about gang members and how they’re so much trouble. Yet here these guys were, watching over their territory with class and sincerity.

After a couple of weeks in the hotel we managed to find an apartment in Inglewood. It was actually thanks to an agency that helped low income families find housing. And since it was close to Christmas, some hearts were open more than usual.

Inglewood had its fair share of gang activity, but our apartment on Venice Boulevard ended up being in an okay area. The unit was a one bedroom, which also had a space that was a little bit bigger than a walk-in closet. And so I converted this space into my own bedroom. We had managed to keep two of the cats, a brother and a sister, so they were with us as well.

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I’ll never forget enrolling at Inglewood High School. Daniel and the two younger kids stayed home while Mom and I went out. It was only about a twenty-minute walk, so this would be the way I’d go to school.

While Mom was filling out the registration paperwork I noticed she wrote down American Indian as my race. When she first started playing the Indian game I’d kinda go along with it and entertain the idea to make her happy, even though I knew in my heart that it was bullshit. But by now I wasn’t interested in living a lie, so I got upset at her for falsifying my information. After she refused to change it I said, “Fine, do what you want!” and left the office. I think I mumbled something to the affect of how she was always lying and it was overheard by two campus cops.

I realize that being a campus cop at a school that was prone to such gang violence could be a tough job, but one should never lose sight of the fact that students are individuals, not clones. So if you’re going to take on such responsibility you should have enough sense to know you can’t go along treating everybody like animals. This isn’t saying caution should not be taken, but come on, you know what I’m talking about.

These two particular individuals who were entrusted to responsibly watch over the school were definitely abusers of their power. After having noticed that I was upset, they told me to stay where I was and momentarily went into the office. They then came back out, threw me up against a wall, and held me in place. Mom came out and they asked her to explain things, all while keeping a small baton against my upper chest.

Of course she started in with her lies, saying how I was ashamed of who I really was. I tried to explain my side, but they wanted to hear absolutely none of it. To them I was nothing but a punk kid who was disrespecting my mother. I continued trying to defend myself, saying how the whole Indian thing was a lie. She’d then start running her mouth about documentation. Yeah, all fakes! When we lived in Sacramento I had witnessed with my own two eyes (that was back when they both worked) as she forged documents, then would photocopy them at the drug store to make them look authentic. No matter how hard I tried explaining the situation they didn’t care. It didn’t matter that she had been an abusive parent all of our lives. And that they had made a wrong assessment of me. That I was actually a good kid who had good grades and never once skipped school.

The asshole with the baton against my chest was the primary enforcer. A jerk named Officer Williams. He told me “how it was going to be”, then gave Mom his card and instructed her to call him if she had the slightest problem with me.

We had to go to the store before we went home, and I didn’t say a word to her the whole time. I was on fire inside. Not only could I not stand having been in such a defenseless situation, (I cannot stress enough how lucky that asshole was that I did not yet possess the knowledge of defending myself) but I had also felt betrayed by my own mother. But oh how she enjoyed it. For the next several weeks, every time we had a disagreement she’d threaten. “Am I gonna have to call Officer Williams?!”

Despite being a school with a lot of gang members, I never once had a problem with any of them. The only bully I had was that campus cop, who I’d sometimes come across between classes. The dumb fuck would always call me by Mom’s fake last name, then say something like, “You keeping straight? You keeping those grades up? Better be.”

This just proved what shit-for-brains he really had. He could have easily pulled my records, where he would have found my good grades and spotless school history. I should have handled the situation appropriately and put in an official complaint with his superiors and the city, but such things actually don’t go through a nerve-racked sixteen-year-old mind.

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Asshole Williams makes an appearance in my crime thriller,

Riker’s Calling.

Check out how things

unfold for him:)