Four Feet Tall and Rising (5 page)

Grandma Bailey, Mama Myrt’s mother, was the matriarch, the woman in charge of the entire family. I could stop by her house at any time. She had a four-bedroom apartment, and there was a party every damn day ’cause so many of the kids lived with her. Grandma Bailey would always take care of you
if you were sick, or help you out if something was going on. That kind of unconditional support was something I’d never experienced inside my own house. In Texas, I had material comforts, a white neighborhood, and safety in the streets, but in the projects, I had love, and that’s all that mattered.

Having to fly back to Texas after spending the weekend with the Baileys was depressing. I never wanted to get on that plane. Robert would have to talk me into it. Life in Texas with Dad had gone from miserable to unbearable. It was the worst time in my life. Janet and Linda were both married and out of the house. It was just us Little People, but Dad kept the house as if tall people lived there. I wasn’t allowed to put my bed on the floor. I had to use a stool to climb into it. My parents had a bed so high off the ground you had to pole vault to jump into it. Mom had to take a running start just to make the jump. Being at home was physically uncomfortable. I didn’t wanna live my life, walking around my own home, inconvenienced.

The house had come with a microwave from the late ’70s or early ’80s (whenever they started making them), when they used to cost $500. It was a huge, monstrous piece of equipment that blew up and had to be replaced. Dad announced he could get a microwave for “real cheap,” and that he’d install it the next day.

The next day, Mom and I came back to the house and were looking all over the kitchen for this new microwave. It wasn’t on any of the counters. I said something like, “Don’t you have to plug the new ones in?” when I noticed Mom staring straight up, her mouth hanging open. All she said was,
“Oh my God.” Dad had installed a hood microwave over top of the stove burners, as high up as the exhaust vents. There was no way any of us could reach it without a stepladder. It was just so damn cheap and inconsiderate of him. I felt … resentful. I promised myself I’d never be that cheap. I’d never live in denial of who I was. I wanted to be the exact opposite of Dad.

My time in that Texas house didn’t last long. I don’t even remember what started the argument. Dad probably wanted me to do something and I probably mouthed off and said, “I’ll do it when I’m ready.” Whatever was said, Dad got mad. He was always mad. I was standing in the living room and we started going at it. Physically beating on each other. I was tired of taking it from him. I started fighting back.

The altercation ended up in the kitchen and I got so fucking fed up, I clocked him once, hard. I slammed him into the refrigerator and everything on the top shook and fell off. Mom got in the middle of it and yelled, “That’s enough! That’s enough! Both of you!” I ran out the door. I slammed the door so hard, the glass cracked.

I ran to Robert’s house. His parents were out of town for two weeks but I knew I wouldn’t be staying for long. I was going back to Los Angeles to live with Cerisse and Little Al. I’d take Mama Myrt up on her offer to “come back anytime.” It never even crossed my mind to call Elsie or to move in with her. She probably would have allowed me to stay there. She had a big house and no one in it with her, but I just wanted to be back in Los Angeles with my friends.

I couldn’t let my parents know of my plan, so whenever they would leave the house, I’d sneak over and pack my things. I sold my DJ set—two turntables and the whole setup, with microphones, the whole nine yards. I used the money to book a ticket on Muse Air. I bought a suitcase and boxed up the rest of what I wanted to take with me. It wasn’t much.

On the morning of my flight, Robert helped me load up his dad’s car. We got up super early, so Mom or Dad wouldn’t see us packing the trunk. Mom came out to get the newspaper. We ducked behind some bushes and almost got caught. I watched her go back into the house. It made me sort of sad to leave her with that man, but she’d made her choice long before I was even born. She’d never leave him. Robert drove me to the airport and that was that. I was headed back to the projects for good. This time, there’d be no prodigal return. I’d been in Texas for less than a year.

On my sixteenth birthday, Mom walked over to Robert’s house with a homemade cake and candles. Robert had to tell her I was gone. This time, they knew exactly where to look for me. Mom called Mama Myrt’s crying for me to come home. I refused. Dad threatened to send the police, but this time I’d done my homework. In Texas, when you turned sixteen, you were legally allowed to run away. You could petition the court for emancipation. I told my parents, “If you send the police in here to ship me back to Texas, I will just run away again and again and again.” So Dad just let me go. I never again set foot in that Texas house. Until I decided to reunite with my father. But that would be many, many years down the road.

Mama Myrt’s
project, the Nickerson Gardens housing complex at 1590 East 114th Street in the Watts neighborhood, was now officially my home. Nickerson was and still is the largest public housing development west of the Mississippi, but it isn’t anything like the projects most people have in mind when they think about low-income housing. Most people imagine tall brick buildings with barred windows, like they have in New York. But Nickerson stretched over fifty-five acres and had over one thousand units in 150 or so two-story stucco buildings, designed to look like townhouses with flat roofs and wide overhangs. The townhouses were situated in long rows, instead of towers, to create the impression of a smaller neighborhood. The apartments had large windows and open floor plans. They were supposed to seem light and cheery.

There was a community center in the middle of the complex, with curved streets radiating out from the center. That meant you could only see small sections of the project from any one point. Which meant you couldn’t always see danger coming. The project had its own gym and its own baseball and football fields, just like a prison. And just like prison, the Nickerson project apartments weren’t open to just anyone. It wasn’t easy to get in, but once you were in, you couldn’t get out.

Nickerson was supposed to be a place where low-income families could have a decent standard of living. By the time I got there in the ’80s, the place functioned as a self-contained
black ghetto. It was ground zero for the Watts riots and the birthplace of the Bounty Hunter Bloods.

The Bounty Hunters had been around since the ’70s, when two guys, Gary Barker and Bobby Jack, started it up. The gang got so big, it broke into smaller gangs like the Lot Boys, Block Boys, Bell Haven, Ace Line, Deuce Line, Tray Line, Four Line, and Five Line. Our main rivals were the Grape Street Watts Crips in the Jordan Downs Housing Projects. We were pretty much at war with the Crips then, even though they had the upper hand since they controlled the largest black gang territory in Watts.

Not everyone in the Bailey family was a Blood. There were some members working legit jobs, who had nothing to do with the gangs. There were some family members who were drug dealers, out there on their own with no gang affiliation at all. People assume that to be with a gang you had to sell drugs, but that wasn’t the case. Just ’cause someone was a gangbanger, it didn’t mean they were doing illegal stuff. There were gangbangers who had nothing to do with drugs. They had regular jobs. Guys worked for the city or the Parks Department. One of the guys worked for Starline Tours, driving tourists around to see celebrity houses.

Being a Blood was a social affiliation. There was a parking lot where everyone would meet at six o’clock, after work, to hang out, have a beer, and just shoot the shit. Then they’d go home to their girlfriend or wife or baby mama or whatever. That’s how it was in our project. Some communities, you couldn’t sell shit if you weren’t in a gang. In the Mexican
neighborhoods, you had to be a gangbanger to deal. But that wasn’t the politics of my ’hood. Not at that time.

I was never officially “initiated” by the Bloods. It’s not like in the movies where the Cosa Nostra or Mafia makes some guy kill another guy. There were some gangs that required you to get the shit kicked out of you before you were even allowed to hang around them, but mostly, kids became Bloods by association, just ’cause they grew up in Nickerson. I became a Blood ’cause I was a Bailey. I was well respected ’cause I ran with guys that were important—O.G.’s, older guys who were original gangsters. ’cause I was accepted by the O.G.’s, the younger guys looked up to me and left me alone.

In my gang, there was no one person in complete control. There was a troop of people that functioned like a commission. They’d determine where guys were allowed to sell or clear up any difference between people. Some of them I knew, some I didn’t. But in general, the ghetto gangs weren’t that organized. The more dirt you did, the higher your street cred and the higher you moved up the ladder. And of course, if you’d been to jail, you’d paid your dues, so you got respect.

Most of the time, the O.G.’s left me behind when they went to do their dirt. “Shorty, you stay here.” I don’t know why they didn’t involve me more. Maybe I was too noticeable or they were just protective of me. Either way, they kept me out of trouble as much as they could. There were moments, though, when trouble just happened. We’d be at a party and somebody would step on somebody else’s foot and three seconds later, four or five people would be shot. I never got into a car with
the intention to do a drive-by, but once you were in a car, stuff happened. I learned to protect myself. I carried guns. I used them for self-defense. But I couldn’t get behind senseless robbing and killing.

There were divisions within the Bloods. I had to be very careful of where I walked. Two blocks this way, you could get killed; three blocks the other way, killed; one block the other way, killed. On the north side, you ended up in other Blood or Crip territories. The Bounty Hunter Bloods were the most territorial. No one could step in that area if they weren’t one of them. On the east side, the worst place you could walk was into Grape Street territory. On the south side, you couldn’t walk into Carver Park, and if you headed west, you had to deal with the Avalon Crips.

It was on the borders, Imperial Highway or Compton or Central and 110th Street, that you had a chance of being shot. A trip to the liquor store was risky. One night, we went to get burgers on Compton at 110th. We were standing outside when these guys did a drive-by. The three people standing around me were shot and Mikey, standing right beside me, was killed. My height saved me. I was low enough to the ground not to get hit. Going to a funeral was a monthly, if not a weekly, event.

With that said, it was always safer to be inside Nickerson than on the outskirts of it. Inside, no idiot could do a drive-by. But by eleventh grade, the Thornton family and the Hawkins family were in the middle of a huge war over drugs and money and there was shooting in the streets constantly. Neighbors stayed inside their apartments more, watching from their
windows as people chased other people with rifles and guns. I saw lots of people get shot. A body would lay in the street for nine or ten hours before the police would ever show up. They had to wait until they could gather six or seven patrol cars to come in as a force. It wasn’t safe for a single police car to roll through.

It didn’t take long to become numb to so much violence. That year was like watching a violent movie. I felt so distanced from what was going on, like an observer and not a flesh-and-blood person, right there in the moment. But losing Mikey was hard. It was a grim reminder that having close friends was a bad idea. Caring about people just caused pain.

Like loving Nonnie. Mom and Dad had put Nonnie in a nursing home and it was killing me to know she was stuck in that place. Yes, her body was deteriorating and she wasn’t doing well, but I was fucking pissed that they’d left her to die, alone. I yelled at Mom, “She’s your mother. You’ve got rooms! Put her in the house with you!” but Dad had made up his mind. Nonnie would rot away by herself. She was my favorite person. She didn’t deserve to live like that. His actions strengthened my resolve to stay away forever. They also made it clear: if I was gonna invest in loving someone or something, it had better be a dog.