L.A. Blues Read online

  The stranger continued in a swift barrage of Spanish. “Holmes, leave her alone. She’s a civilian. She’s not the enemy. They’re the ones in Simi Valley who started this mess. Remember La Familia.”

  Intuitively, I understood this young man seemed to have some type of power over the group. The three young men withdrew and slinked away like snakes going under rocks. Something about this dude oozed with confidence and swagger.

  “What mess?” I wondered.

  “Ah, fah-get it,” Roberto said and he and the other two turned and swaggered off together. “She ain’t worth it. No way. HIV puta.”

  I swallowed a humongous gob of saliva-laced fear and tried to hide my sigh of relief. Meantime, my good Samaritan stood, arms crossed on his chest, studying me. For the first time, I actually saw him. He looked like an olive-skinned gangbanger. Heavily tattooed himself, this guy had a cobra snake on his neck, a shock of wavy hair which fell over his left eye, yet there was a seriousness about him. He seemed to be just a bit older than the rest of the group, but they seemed to know, respect and even fear him. A leadership quality glowed in his face. It was as if he were the general in an army. On the one hand, he seemed at home, but on the other, he seemed kind of out of place with the environment that he was in. What did he mean by “La Familia?” I wondered.

  After the young men retreated and were safely out of my view, I threw up a birdie toward their backs. “Chillitos!” I hissed, mean-mugging my would-be assailants. I stooped down and picked up my tamales which were wrapped in cellophane and brushed the dirt off them, then slipped them back in my purse.

  “You really have a lot of gonads for a girl.” My Good Samaritan chuckled. I didn’t understand what he meant. He stood with his arms folded, looking bemused, as I clambered into my car.

  “What’s that?”

  “Balls. You got balls like a man.”

  I could’ve told my savior a thing or two. He just didn’t know. My mother, Venita, was one of the baddest female Crips back in her day. I’d seen her fight with men and the police just like she was a man. And she could shoot. My older brother, Mayhem, had been Cripping since he was eight and he’d taught me how to shoot a .22 when I was only eight years old. If I wanted him to cancel somebody, it wouldn’t be nothing but a word for him to drop a Cholo, so maybe that’s where my nerve came from. I don’t know.

  My savior continued to study me as I tried to start Old Nelly, my 1975 Mercury. Click click. Nelly wouldn’t turn over. That’s what I get for buying a used car. “I don’t have AAA. . . . Jeez . . .” My mouth twisted to the side in distress. Just when I thought I was out the frying pan, I was in the fire.

  Dude still had this amused smirk on his face, but he uncrossed his arms. “I don’t have any cables. Maybe I can bring my boy back later and check on it, but it’s getting late. How ‘bout if I drop you off?” He nodded towards his car, which he had pulled into the parking lot.

  “Well . . .” I thought about all the newsflashes about young girls last seen climbing in a stranger’s car, who were later found in the Mojave Desert. I hesitated.

  “Look. If I meant you some harm I could’ve helped those fools.”

  “Well, I don’t know. It’s kind of rough where I live.”

  “Any rougher than here?” He raised his hand in a flourish, taking in all of East Los Angeles.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Jordan Downs.”

  “I can give you a ride. I hear something’s jumping off down in L.A.”

  “What?”

  “It sounds like a riot.”

  2

  The Los Angeles Riots of 1992, also known as the Rodney King riots, were sparked on April 29, 1992 when a jury acquitted four Los Angeles Police Department officers accused in the videotaped beating of African-American motorist Rodney King following a high-speed pursuit. Thousands of people in the Los Angeles area rioted over the six days following the verdict. Widespread looting, assault, arson and murder occurred, and property damages topped roughly US$1 billion. Many of the crimes were racially motivated or perpetrated. In all, 53 people died during the riots and thousands more were injured.

  –Wikipedia

  I climbed into Romero’s silver Pontiac Sunbird. It wasn’t anything fancy, but, unlike my car, it was neat and clean on the inside. The white leather upholstery was butter cream soft and smelled brand new. As I clasped my seatbelt, I said, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea. Maybe you shouldn’t take me home.”

  “Okay. Crip territory. How ’bout if I drop you before you get home, but close enough to walk? Name’s Romero Gonzalez. Yours?”

  When I rattled back in Spanish ‘that will be fine,’ and gave my name, he looked surprised. “Zipporah Soldano. Mmmm. Unusual name.”

  “My mother named me after Moses’ wife. My father’s last name was Soldano. ”

  “¿Tu habla Espanol? Where did you learn it?”

  “My sister, Chica—well, she’s Chicano. My father was charcoal black, but he was from Belize and I remember him speaking Spanish to me when I was little.”

  Romero looked shocked, I guess, since I was Lady Godiva dark chocolate. I sported a short, naturally curly hair cut, which was not kinky. Sometimes people say they were surprised at the texture of my hair. I never knew what they meant by that.

  We drove through the streets, passing grocery stores painted like Easter eggs, cantinas, candle shops, paleta carts, and carts selling sliced mangoes mixed with lemons and cayenne pepper and papayas. We passed Mexican bodegas, brightly painted wall murals, vendor trucks known as “roach coaches”, some graffiti walls marking gang turf, and turquoise and sage colored ninety-nine cent stores. Finally, we jetted on to the Santa Monica Freeway 10 heading West to the 110 Harbor Freeway.

  “Thanks for helping me,” I said, when I felt comfortable that he was really helping me. My gut told me I was safe.

  “What are you doing on this side of town by yourself anyway?”

  “I’m a waitress at Maria’s Mexican Eatery. I know you think that’s not much, but I want to buy a house.”

  “Oh, you want the American Dream?”

  “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “No, I think it’s admirable. There’s nothing wrong with hard work. I wished more people felt like you did.”

  “I’ve always wanted my own home. When I was a little girl I used to go visit my father and his wife at his house in Compton. I wanted to live with my father. He lived in a house like they have on TV. He had a little white picket fence and a white stucco house, which I hoped to have one day. Then I can get my brother and sister out of foster care.”

  I became quiet. My mind drifted to how I would spend my two-hundred fifty dollars of cash that I hid from my robbers. I was even thinking about moving to Torrance, if I could find a low rent area, if and when my Section 8 went through. Right now, though, I lived in the projects not far from the building I grew up in.

  “Oh, where is your father now?” Romero’s question interrupted my reverie.

  The memory of my father lying in the floor, bullet wound in his chest, reeled across my eyeballs, leaped down in my throat and almost choked me, but I squashed it. “He died when I was young.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Were those Cholos?” I changed the subject. I was referring to my gang of would-be attackers.

  “No, they call themselves Junior Mexican Mafias. They just a bunch of wannabes.”

  As we traveled south on the Harbor Freeway, passing colonnades of palm trees on each side of the freeway, something came on the radio about a group of Black men pulling a white truck driver named Reginald Denny out of his car and assaulting him. Romero turned the radio up louder. “What in the world is going on?”

  The radio announcer’s words gave the answer. “An all white jury in Simi Valley acquitted the officers of beating Rodney King. We are now beginning to see what looks like the beginning of a riot taking place at Normandie Avenue and Florence. This place appears to be the flash
point area. People of all races are coming from all over to this cauldron of anarchy. Where are the police? People, stay in your homes.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Romero commented, shaking his head. “I heard something might jump off, but I didn’t know it would happen this soon.”

  All of a sudden, a wall of fire like a dragon’s breath flashed and flickered over the freeway, almost making us run into the Porsche in front of us. Romero hit the brakes in time to stop from hitting the car. A dark cloud rose up in the sky to the east. The air, filled with smoke and soot, felt like a furnace. Helicopters were circling overhead like buzzards, and the whirring sounds made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I was petrified. Would we wind up trapped and incinerated right here on the Harbor Freeway? “I’m scared. Did you see those flames?”

  “Let’s get off of here,” Romero said, “before we get trapped down here.” He pulled up on Gage exit and we traveled Compton Boulevard South the rest of the way to 103rd Street just outside the entrance to Jordan Downs. I noticed crowds swarming up the street heading north. A few buildings in the neighborhood were on fire and the smell of soot permeated the air. The sun was beginning to sink to the west, and the day was growing grayer.

  For a while I was quiet. My mind was on my younger sister and brother. Were they safe? Since I turned eighteen, I tracked my two younger siblings down in different foster homes, which were in Rowling Heights and Pasadena. Finally, I spoke out. “Can you tell me something?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why did you help me?”

  “Just say I’m trying to turn my life around. I’m going to L.A. City College now.”

  “Oh, yeah? What you studying?”

  “Criminal justice and psychology.”

  “Yeah?” I had no idea what either one meant.

  “Yep. I plan on getting on the L.A.P.D.” He nodded his head, as if in affirmation.

  Suddenly “Don’t be Afraid,” by Aaron Hall played on the radio.

  I hummed along to the line, ‘Don’t be afraid, girl.’ Yet I was feeling even more afraid. Something wasn’t right. What was going on in the world?

  I noticed the cobra tattoo on his arm as Romero changed the radio station to a Spanish station. He also had one on his neck. “You used to bang?”

  “Hey, you sure ask a lot of questions. Maybe one day we’ll meet again.”

  I glanced away and kept my face as hard as an iceberg, but, like the song, I was no longer afraid—at least not of Romero. “I think you should let me off here,” I said two blocks away from 103rd and Central Avenue. Romero nodded without saying anything. We exchanged phone numbers.

  Later, after the smoke settled, when I picked up my car, I found he’d had it fixed. I never saw Romero again, that is, until years later.

  Over the years that lapsed, sometimes I thought he was an angel I imagined.

  3

  After I scooted out of Romero’s car, I jogged up to 103rd and Central, the mouth of Watts. I sprinted past the gang graffiti on the wall, past the community garden, past the glass-splattered streets and past the brimming crowds, until I got inside Jordan Downs Projects. Suddenly it hit me. Where were all these people coming from and where were they going? More people than I had seen in a long time were milling about on the streets.

  A girl named Kenny, who lived next door to us in the same army barrack-style unit, flew by, eyes looking mad crazy. “Z, c’mon and roll with us.”

  I flagged my hand in dismissal. “No, I’m getting inside.”

  “Girl, we looting. Everythang free. It’s a fire sale! C‘mon!”

  “I’m good.” I waved good-bye. I looked on as Kenny leaped into a low-rider with four known Crips, their speakers blasting Ice Cube’s “Kill at Will”. They sped off, burning rubber like a mug. A tunnel of black smoke billowed up in the sky northwest of me and the wind made a swooshing sound. The loud roar of people shouting, glass shattering, and gunfire saturated the air. The wail of police car sirens blared in the distance. The ‘whoop whoop’ sound of helicopters hovering dangerously low buzzed in my ear. I could see the hysteria in people’s faces as they stampeded through the streets. The smells of marijuana and liquor permeated the air.

  I shook my head, as if to shake off my skin, which I felt like a stranger inside. I was walking against the crowd and everyone was heading in the opposite direction—toward the fire. I was just the opposite. I wanted to get away from the heat. I wanted safety.

  When I made it to the apartment, I eased my key in the door. Although it partially opened, it jumped back because the chain was on the door. I was locked out.

  I banged on the door with my fist. “Chica, let me in.”

  I heard her heels clackety-clack down the steps on the stair well. I figured she was upstairs and maybe she hadn’t heard me knocking. When Chica finally unlatched the chain, she had this goofy look splattered all over her face. She slung her waist-length hair to one side.

  Right away, I could tell Chica was high as someone on that shurm, primo, or PCP, or something, and she looked startled as a starved-out deer in somebody’s headlights. I knew she smoked a little weed in the past, but for the first time, I noticed she was losing weight off her size six frame. Plus, she was wearing a man’s shirt, which hung off her bare shoulder. Was she doing something stronger? I wondered.

  “What’s up?” I asked as I stepped in the door of our scantily-furnished apartment, looking around the living room, which led into our small kitchen. I was sniffing at this strange smell. Something wasn’t right. “Why the chain on the door?”

  “Oh, girl—” Chica’s voice dragged. She sounded as if she was speaking from under water. She tried to wave her hand but it seemed like her hand was too heavy to hold up.

  “Baby, who is that?” a baritone male voice called out.

  I gazed up the stairwell and saw Dog Bite—one of the most notorious drug dealers in Jordan Downs—standing in Chica’s bedroom doorway, which was at the head of the stairwell of our two-story apartment. He was wearing sagging boxer shorts and no T-shirt. He was buff since he’d just gotten out the joint, and he had tattoos all over his chest.

  “Oh, it’s Z,” he said nonchalantly. “I’ll be waitin’ on you, Chica.” He winked at Chica and licked his chapped lips. With that, Dog Bite strolled back into Chica’s room.

  “What the f—” I threw my hands up in disgust. I was so mad I spun Chica toward me, pointed my finger in her face, and called her by her real name. “Maritza, what was our pact?”

  Chica stopped, a smirk written on her face. She cocked her head to the right, then slid her hand along the side of her face in a “forget you, forgot you, never thought about you” sign. “Girl, you still on that virgin shit?”

  “No, it’s not that.” I paused. True, I was still a virgin, but apparently Chica no longer was, so what could I say? I cut into her to see if she was still the person I once knew. “What was our pact?”

  “I know, I know.”

  “What did we say?”

  When she didn’t answer, I spoke for her. “We said we weren’t going to let sex stop us from reaching our dreams.” When we’d moved back to Jordan Downs from Baldwin Hills, we were about the only ones on our street our age without babies.

  “Yeah, yeah. But see, Z, your dreams are bigger than mine. You want to go to college. I just want to go to beauty college. That’s only a nine-month program.” She started giggling.

  “You know what?” I grabbed Chica by her shoulders and shook her up and down like a raggedy Ann doll. “You look like a fucked-out, used-up crack ho.” I released her.

  “Whatever. Me and Bite love each other. Try it, you might like it, girl.”

  “Not with that drug dealer. Oh, hell na.” Suddenly I panned the room and spotted a glass pipe lying on our milk crate that doubled as a coffee table/dresser drawer. I got crazy mad then. “So yo’ funky ass usin’ that shit?” I went off on her. “Not the same shit that caused us to lose our parents, not the shit that got our brothers a
nd sisters spread all over kingdom come. Not the shit—”

  I sputtered, too stunned to continue. “Well, I be damned.”

  “Aw, fughetit, girl,” Chica’s voice sounded like she was speaking in a language called “glub-glub” under water, she was so high.

  Without thinking, I hauled off and slapped Chica so hard across the face, she fell to the floor. I stood over her, fists balled up, ready to beat her ass if necessary. “I’ll kill you before I let you turn out like that.” My look dared her to get up too soon.

  Chica just stared back up at me, holding her face in disbelief.

  She slowly climbed to her feet, and was standing so close to me, I got a whiff of her body odor—bodussy. I began gesticulating with my finger. “And another thang,” I added, “wash your behind because your ass stank. Better yet, take a douche since you so grown now.” Chica didn’t answer. She stumbled back upstairs into her room and slammed the door.

  Feeling hopeless, I flounced down on our only piece of furniture, a used futon, and stared absently as the news showed images of the rioters in the street, burning buildings and looting, when suddenly the screen blacked out. Where were the police when you need they ass, I wondered. When the screen came back on, a television commercial for L.A.P.D. recruitment flashed across it, asking if you wanted a career in law enforcement.

  I guess I was so sick of L.A., for the first time I actually paid attention to this Public Service Announcement. What had happened to me earlier that evening—almost getting mugged and gang raped—hadn’t been my first involvement with crime. Yes, I was sick of crime. Maybe this was the answer. Maybe I should become a cop. But how could I do this? I was born into a crime family. Now, I’d like to fight it. The first nine years of my life, I grew up seeing crime as a normal way of life, but after being raised in a decent foster home for the last nine years, I didn’t see crime as a good thing.