Black Eyes

Chapter Two: San Diego

Fresh out of Donovan State Prison in San Diego. Finishing-up a three hundred sixty-five-day vacation for men, was the day I met Jane. It was l**t at first sight. I had gotten out that night at around one in the morning from a parole violation. Many of San Diego county’s not so sunny residence did their parole violations there. Ninety percent of its population were seasoned criminals who viewed there stay at the facility as a vacation. I personally thought of prison as my second home. I had started doing time when I was about to turn 15 years old. For me it was my home away from home and knew one day it would become my retirement center. I just wasn’t sure how soon my retirement would start, though. I was only twenty-four years old and already had two strikes on my back. One more serious felony would end my freedom. I never gave the thought more than a few seconds in my head, and just accepted my self-made destiny. I had already graduated from these Californian institutions receiving my bachelor’s degree of science in criminology, with a minor in administration of criminal organizations. Earning these stripes were not easy, they were very costly. Many other pupils whether on or off campus never graduated and were permanently removed from the institutions. Never to return.

There were over thirty of these facilities all-over the state. The California Department of Correctional and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has housed a population of over a hundred thousand for the past twenty years. Even though, they were designed to only house no more than eighty-five thousand, so competition among its current undergrads is fierce. But as of today, it would no longer be my responsibility. I was done with my term. The big homies made sure I made it out seeing how there were things to do on the outs.

It was not easy for me, barely passing the many tests and assignments I was tasked with throughout the years by the institution’s permanent resident professors. Many of which had a Doctor of Philosophy (PHD) in the art of murder. This term was an easy one in comparison. Just spent most of my days doing exercise in the yard with the homies. We mostly did burpees, push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. Playing pinnacle, spades and chess. I had a lot of time to think, and knew changes were coming I could feel them.

At my age I was already teaching part-time, assisting the professors of these fine institutions located all over the beautiful state of Southern California with grading papers, student evaluations, research, and planning. During which time I had developed the off-campus program, and international student exchange program seeing how close we were to two borders. That program was very successful and catapulted me up the ranks. I was responsible for the many students working on their degrees in the satellite campus of southeast San Diego. Our degrees included sales, household entries, assault and intimidation, high-end armed robberies, racketeering, call center scamming, computer hacking, credit card services, escort services, etc. The only inconvenience was that we did not have any PHD professors from our campus, we were still new compared to the other gangs who had been around since the 50’s and 60’s, but we had new modern programs. Because of this we were handled by others nearby like Sherman Heights, Logan, and Shell Town. Meaning that even though we were allowed to operate we were not independent. This is what stopped those other gangs from coming after us. We were not given the respect we deserved, but I really didn’t care about that, our mentality was different, we were more business oriented and not stuck in the old ways. Our saving grace was the fact that we had encroached in a black g**g’s territory without going to war.

During my early studies the task of removing students would fall upon me. Nowadays however I mainly administrated, delegated, and organized these special assignments that were handed down to my campus. We were a fairly new institution that quickly grew. This was due to our aggressive recruitment program. We accepted new students from all over the county with different skills, which at first caused us many serious problems almost forcing us to shut down.

I remember when I had decided to start this new crew. I really didn’t know much about gangs seeing how I didn’t really have any experience with them back then, but I already knew I had to get the few Mexican families living there together if I wanted to survive the streets. There were only black gangs where I grew-up. The main g**g where I lived were the Lincoln Park bloods.

I lived on a street called Ocean View Boulevard; it ended in a cul-de-sac with no ocean in sight. An alley separated my family’s pink house from John F. Kennedy elementary school. Our house was marked with the numbers 4780 next to the front entrance. Lincoln Park bordered the school’s baseball field on the eastside, across the street from my house and it took about seventeen steps up to get to the park after crossing the street.

On the weekends cars always parked at the cul-de-sac playing loud rap music, R&B, or Oldies music from the 50’s and 60’s. They hung out drinking beer and partying late into the night laughing and talking loudly. Our family mostly tolerated it because we knew the consequences, but sometimes on Sundays my father would go out to ask them to turn down their music, but they never did. He would sometimes come back with a beer in his hands cursing in frustration when he got back in the house. I used to peek out the window when arguments rang out, ending in fights and occasionally a shooting would take place. Our house had been struck a few times during the years but luckily no bullets ever made it past the concrete walls, never hitting the windows. Whenever there was a shooting, the black gangs would stop coming around for about a month or so because police would come around more often knocking on our door after a shooting to ask if we had seen anything. We never did. So, when my father stepped out the house on Sunday nights to ask them to turn down their music my mother would worry to death, and they would argue afterwards.

This stopped once I turned 17 years old. On Fridays I would call my friends and some homies from other barrios mostly Shell Town 38th St. and a few I knew from Logan and we would have our own parties. I began to block off the entrance to the cul-de-sac at 47th street. I didn’t just do that from one day to the next, that would have been suicide. I grew-up there, many of the Lincoln Park Bloods I had known since childhood, we had gone to school together, grown-up playing basketball together, drunk 40’s together, smoked chronic together, pulled off some minor crimes along-side them, fought against them, with them. So, they knew me. Once I had more Mexican friends hanging around, we still kicked it but slowly started doing our own thing separating myself from them. We would still keep in contact by either buying from or selling to them. Occasionally we would do them a favor and vice-versa. Once we started making the spot exclusive only the top dogs from Lincoln Park were allowed in and even, they stopped coming around eventually. The way we pulled that off was diplomatic. It never amounted to real violence just a few fist fights to settle the ego. With a cold beer and a joint at the end to maintain the peace. Soon after that the Southeast Trece Lokos g**g was born, and everything changed for us. We would have not survived had we not kept a low profile and re-defined what a g**g was. We were not your typical g**g bangers; we didn’t really bang. Why draw attention to us. We were more than just a family but a corporation, whose vision statement was “Profit.” I thought back to those days as they were getting ready to release me, we had come a long way since then.

I was excited to be free again. Still thinking of how I was going to celebrate cause afterwards there was business to handle. I wondered who Thumper was gonna hook me up with. Probably one of the new homegirls. Some were fine and I imagined very tasty. There were many girls who wrote me. I guess I had a fan club while I was in there, maybe more of a s*x club. Some of the homegirls who wrote me during the year were promising me heaven on earth when I got out.

- “Whatever I wanted,” they wrote, - “anytime day or night.”

I would always tell them to write me what they wanted me to do to them, to tell me as if I was there. I was glad for the attention; it made my time go faster. The idea of heaven on earth, seemed funny to me, especially when you considered where I was. There was one homegirl I was really looking forward to hooking-up with, though. She was short about 5’4” small waist, firm medium sized breast with good hips. She had big brown eyes, that she always kept hidden by looking down most of the time. She only looked up in glances even when you spoke with her directly, nervously moving her right foot side to side, scraping the ground with the tip of her foot, forming an imaginary rainbow. Her face complexion was white and soft, with tiny little freckles sprinkled on top of her cheeks; her nose sat perfectly proportioned above her full lips. She had the ability to mesmerize anyone she stared at with those big doe-like eyes. I loved it when she giggled and looked up at you. It made her face brighten as her lips separated and arched up revealing her perfect pearl like teeth. Making the top of her cheeks get red. That look always made me smile, it was contagious immediately putting me in a happy place that erased the reality I was living. I was smiling again just thinking about it, but I quickly blocked it out each time it popped up. Couldn’t afford to have those thoughts or feeling while I was incarcerated. Hers was the only letter that stood out and she was the girl I wanted to hook-up with when I got out. The home-girl little puppet wrote:

Dear Joker,

I’ve been thinking about you lately, and I can’t wait to be with you when you get out. Things are not the same without you out here. It’s not just because I really wanna see you, but also because things are getting messy here.

Most of the young homeboys like Shadow and Chico have been starting to put in some work. Thumper took them both under his wings. But Lonely has been starting up a lot of s**t here, and disrespected Thumper the other day. Not going to get into it here but things are getting complicated. Lonely is not too happy that Thumper is putting Chico to work, he says he ain’t ready yet. We know it’s because Chico is Lonely’s little brother. Thumper got in Lonely’s face, and I thought they were gonna throw blows, but Bullet jumped between them when Lonely pulled out his knife. Thumper just turned around and walked away. Lonely called him a “lacra,” but Thumper didn’t even react, just kept walking away. And drove off in his Monte Carlo. Lonely, afterwards has supposedly been doing his own thing with some of the other homies without checking-in. Thumper is pissed-off but has not done anything. Homies are starting to talk.

Oh yeah before I forget we got into it with some fools from Sherman Heights, at a party that some stupid b***h invited Bullet to. He took three other homies. They got jumped at the party, that ugly b***h probably set them up. Flaco was the only one who got hurt, but he’s ok now. Anyway, Thumper didn’t want to do anything about it, but a couple of weeks later there was an incident over there. Rumors are flying that maybe two homies had something to do with it, but they are not saying anything. Can’t really say more than that. There are some other things happening too, but I don’t want to be a “chismosa,” but you told me to keep you posted.

Enough of that…

What I really want to tell you is what I wanna do to you when you are out…

I never considered myself a lady ‘s man but these hynas liked me and I liked them, especially the ones with tattoos. I was covered with tattoos myself, but none of them revealed my g**g affiliation, because I knew how that would make it easier for the police, detectives, F.B.I., and the D.E.A. to identify you. I had the number thirteen cleverly hidden on a back tattoo of two fine Chicanas playing pool. One was leaned back, facing forward with sad clown make-up on her beautiful face. One of her legs was bent, making a four with them. Her hands placed back on the side of the pool table, pushing her firm breast forward showing-off her cleavage on a tight-fitting shirt that had other clowns dressed as g**g bangers on it. She faces forward with a sad face. I had my homie Smokey color her eyes hazel brown like my mom’s. It represented all the sad, depressing, and disheartening moments I put my mom through growing up. The other girl had her left leg bent back, she is wearing converse sneakers, her body leaning over the pool table, boobs hanging down on a loose-fitting T-shirt showing off her cleavage. Her butt was sideways, forming a perfect half-circle. It was lifted high covered with tight fitting jean shorts. Her long hair hung to her left-side, held back from falling forward into her face by her shoulders. Her face was painted with clown make-up that made her seem crazy with an evil-playful smile. Her eyes intensely focused on the white ball. The pool stick she holds in her hands is nicely decorated. She aimed the white ball to hit the blue cue ball, which had the number thirteen on it, written in old English lettering to make it stand out from the rest. My tat was very nicely detailed representing the sad and happy times of my life. Times we all experience but affects each one of us differently. For me, however there was one memory that I would always go back to during those dark chaotic moments in my life. A cherished memory from childhood. A perfect moment that was now being played out in my minds’ eye as I sat there in the release area cell waiting for them to pop the gate.

Thumper, born Alberto Gonzalez, had already pulled up in his ’79 Monte Carlo. He had it all pimped out. He loved that car, more than his wife. He was hitting the switches to make the front lift higher as he arrived at Donovan. The rims he had on it were nice too, always glaring in the sun. Fifteen inch all chrome spoke rims. He parked it close to the gate I would be released from when he arrived at the prison parking lot. He turned off the engine, turned down the music and rested his elbow on the door making sure that the flannel shirt he was wearing did not get any dirt on it. He reached down to the middle console to get a cigarette from the Marlboro reds he had been smoking since he was sixteen years old. Set the smoke on his lips and reached into his shirt’s left pocket for his torch lighter and lit it. He took a long puff and exhaled slowly, quietly releasing some of the stress he had. Being the second in command was stressful, it was not easy keeping the homies in-line in order to continue producing dollars. And there was always s**t to take care of, people to keep in line and problems to fix. Plus, there were some things he needed to talk to Andres about. Thumper was from Logan Heights, a neighborhood in Southeast San Diego but had not yet been jumped-in to any g**g in that area when he first met Andres.

They met in Juvenile Hall when Alberto was sitting at one of the tables watching T.V. He was not known as Thumper back then. He had gotten up early that day to get the remote control to the television to watch Batman, he loved the new show on the Warner Brother network. He liked the animation, it was tight. The way Batman fearlessly fought was something he admired and wanted to emulate. This place will test whether you are a warrior or a punk. He worried about it because he was scared, he had already been inside for over two weeks, and nothing bad had happened yet. Even though he acted tuff he had a long way to go. And as luck would have it, on that day he would prove what he was made of.

“Hey, ese turn off the t.v., it’s almost time for breakfast!” one the older black guys barked at him. Alberto did not answer or turn off the t.v. It looked as if he just ignored him, but he actually froze, I noticed it when he swallowed hard, a sign of fear. Suddenly he started shaking his right leg up and down really fast like that rabbit from the movie Bambi. What was its name I had been thinking as I watched standing by the arch way of the entrance to the common area. Oh yeah ‘Thumper’ I remembered, that’s when the teron just walked up to Alberto and snatched the remote from his hand and turned off the t.v. Alberto just looked at him in shock. Trai-Trai turned back around and said “What!?” “We getting ready to eat man, told you to turn it off!” Alberto didn’t say anything, he just got off the bench, turned around and started walking towards his bunk. All the homies, the Mexican Americans who witnessed this silently thought the same thing, this fool is a punk. And honestly so did I, too bad cause I liked him. He was medium built back then and had potential. There was something in his eyes though, a sadness that filtered through. He acted tuff but this proved he wasn’t, so I spoke up, “Hey Trai-Trai, I was watching that man!”

‘Hey Jokes, man, you know it’s time to eat and they won’t come in if we have the T.V. on” he answered as he lifted up his shoulders with his arms making a ‘V’ shape, his palms facing up. Apologizing with his expression, but it wasn’t me he needed to apologize to. He then pointed towards the cell block entrance as the 12’X6’ heavy plexiglass door with metal framing slid open. Everyone stood next to their bunkbeds as the guard yelled out Row number and bunk numbers in blocks of 15 residents at a time to get their breakfast trays. There were only 6 octagon shape tables with 5 stools screwed and welded to the floor for each table, in the common area with only one t.v. The tables were segregated, two for the white boys, two for the blacks, and two for the Chicanos. No matter how many times the institution tried to change this it always reverted to how it was; segregated. This was the number one rule in prison. Stick with your own race, period. Even if there was a sit open, you could not sit there if it wasn't your race. “Numbers thirty-one through forty” the guard yelled, finishing up the count. There was only twelve of us in the dorm block. We always had room to sit on our tables. Alberto and I were part of the last block of numbers to be called. I could already tell what the other homies were thinking, they were going to put Alberto in check. This meant they would give him a chance to act or jump him. That evening Alberto acted. During breakfast we hatched out a plan. When Trai-Trai went in for a shower, Alberto and I followed. Boxers and tennis shoes on, towels hiding the socks we had filled with two locks each and we handled business.

Thumper, thought about his dad as he waited in the parking-lot. His dad was a hardworking man. He liked his tequila but wasn't really an alcoholic. With or without the alcohol Manuel was always verbally abusive towards Alberto. They say words are mightier than the sword, Alberto thought they cut deeper too. Never healing, hurting him more. Taking away his confidence and self-esteem. He hated his dad and felt worthless around him. His dad was too hard on him constantly insulting, always putting him down and calling him pendejo. He would not tolerate anyone calling him pendejo, he hated it with all his might. It would set him off, he'd tolerated from his father all his life, and he'd be dammed if he tolerated it from anyone else. He could never do anything right according to his dad and was destined for failure.

- “You ain’t no son of mine, pendejo,” he'd always say, after criticizing every task he did.

His father was Mexican, from a big city in the northeastern State of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Monterrey meant king of the mountain in Mexico. His father had grown-up there working 12-hour days in a machine shop until it closed. That’s when he decided to go north to cross the border settling in Logan Heights. Two years later he sent for Lupita, his wife. Who carried with her; her son Alberto who was only eight months old at the time. The drive to Otay Mesa had been a long one and his thoughts had floated to his dad, during the drive. Otay was close to the USA-Mexican border, nestled tightly in the mountainous valley area in the south side county of San Diego.

Thumper was waiting outside the car finishing up a cigarette when I saw him after they opened the gates to my freedom. I walked up to greet him wearing my black baggy 501 jeans that I always wore creased out, but not today. They had been waiting for me in a plastic bag for a year, along with my white T-shirt and black Dickies long sleeve shirt.

-"What's up Thumper?"-I smiled, trying not to.

My thick black short hair was plastered back, making it look as if it were pulling my head back and lifting my chin too with its long vertical chivo mustache. My eyes were half-way closed; it had been a long day after all. All the homies in my block were happy to see me go home, they even threw me a big spread. A spread was a meal prepared by taking a clean trash bag where they empty out top ramen soups mostly chili flavored. They then pour hot water, heated with an electrical prong. Afterwards the water is poured out and everything collected from the homies is thrown in and mixed. The result is a very tasty meal. They had put all kinds of meat in it. Meat that the workers from the kitchen had stolen. They added tons of Doritos, nacho cheese, in the huge top ramen feast. It was mandatory for the new blood to cooperate with something as a sign of respect. The big homies did not put anything in, they only made it happen. One of the Karnales wanted me to take care of some business for him on the outs, which was the major reason they threw the feast together.

I walked over to Thumper staring at him. Smirking as he closed in, grabbing my hand to pull me in to give me a one arm hug.

-"So, how’d it go in there Jokes?" -he asked smiling and nervously tapping his foot.

- “It was alright. You know somethings never change; some homies got put in check. But nothing really exciting.”

- “Did you get the package the homies and me sent you?” -he asked

- “What package fool?” -I answered him in a serious tone. I could see him shaking his leg faster, but before he responded, I smiled putting my closed fist in front of my mouth, moving my shoulders as if laughing. Looking at him sideways, as he untightened his forehead, and smiled.

- “Pinchi Joker, always clowning.”

- “Who you calling a clown, fool?”- I asked him in my serious tone as I punched him hard on his arm for disrespecting me.

“Ow man, that f*****g hurt “rubbing on his arm with his left hand. Seeing that I was getting ready to sock his a*s again, “Chill Jokes, no disrespect intended, homie.” He looked at me with a wrinkled forehead, then nodded towards the glove compartment. I did not turn my head just c****d my fist back,

“Chill homie, and open up the glove compartment, I gotcha a little something-something.”

I was baptized with the name Joker, after a fury of fists pounded on me over twelve years ago. The funny thing though it was not because I had gotten jumped-in to a g**g. I was never jumped-in to any g**g. How could I, since I was the one who started it. Normally after getting jumped-in to a g**g is when you officially get your ‘placaso.’ That beating came thanks to a group of about four blacks that had being playing basketball at the courts in the elementary school next to my house on Saturday afternoon. I was shooting hoops on the other side of the court by myself, waiting for George; one of my friends from the Lincoln Park Bloods who I had known since elementary school. They called him little G, and we always used to play basketball together. So, I was just waiting for him to arrive. I was practicing my free-throws when the four who were playing basketball came up. I didn’t recognize them. They must have come from the Bay Vista Apartments across the field. Most from that side were bloods too, but they were from the Piroo g**g. I knew some of them but not many, they rarely came to this side. One of them took my basketball; telling me that it was his now. I was almost twelve years old then but knew that I had to get my ball back or else I would be constantly targeted.

One was younger than me, maybe ten or eleven, the other three were about fourteen to sixteen years old. They thought I would be an easy target as I walked away, so it surprised them when the rock I had picked up from the garden area next to a big willow tree hit the one that was carrying my basketball square on his neck. The others looked back in shock as I ran towards them, pushing the tallest one down hard to the ground, I then turned quickly and threw a hard right on the third before he had a chance to c**k his fist back. He staggered back, as I saw my basketball roll down. The one I had pushed down was starting to get up, so I turned to kick him back down, that’s when the youngest one in the group kicked me hard on my the side of my leg, making me lose my balance. My momentum made me fall to the ground, falling forward on my knees and hands. That’s when I felt a kick to the middle of my stomach and a punch to the side of my face as I tried to get up to no avail. I felt more kicks and punches to my head and body as I curled up in a ball to protect myself. They were yelling at me, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then it all stopped, I looked up, and saw Little G and Anthony his older brother, pushing and yelling at them to stop. I got up full of adrenaline, sucker punching one of them before they ran off. As they ran, I tried to grab one of them but he was quick to push me away with a swift kick to my stomach. They had already reached the fence leading to the field by the time I recovered and gave chase. They were running back towards the Bay Vista Apartments. I was angry and still did not feel the pain of my injuries. I did not want my anger to turn into tears, so I started to laugh instead. George and his brother looked at me as if I were crazy. George then said with a contagious smile on his face “What’s wrong with you? Why you laughing like you crazy, looking like the Joker.” Afterwards everyone who knew me started calling me Joker. I was not the type of person who smiled or told jokes. They confused my shyness for being quiet. I didn’t like to talk much back then either. They thought I was crazy though, because I only smiled right before I did things out of impulse not caring about the consequences. That smile along with my high cheekbones made my face stretch like that of my D.C. comic book hero the Joker.