I could knock, the door swung open and out jumped my three cousins. Demetri was a brown-skinned, curly-hair young black kid. He was the oldest and had a mind of his own which he never had a problem speaking. Then there was Conrad, a short dark-skinned young man of about twelve who was quiet but always watching and learning. The baby was little Bobby. He was light-skinned, with red freckles, and sandy red hair. These three had never played outside on Oakdale, but that was soon to change. My cousins were happy to see me for their own reasons, and I was glad to see them because of mine.
As we ran upstairs, little Bobby turned to me and asked, “Tootie, you want to play with me on my Super Nintendo?”
I responded, “Sure, why not.”
As we played upstairs, we heard a car crash. We ran to the window to see what had happened and expected to see only a fender-bender; we would have never guessed that we would see a real live shootout between two carloads of heavily armed young men. This was my first day on Oakdale and I loved it.
The Nine-Deep
I can remember clearly the moment I wanted to be a gangster: it was during a celebration for a young man from Oakdale who was gunned down. This young man was remembered with a celebration every year since his death. This was the first time I had ever seen anything like it. All the kids, young men and women gathered together in a spot where this man’s name had been spray-painted on the wall. They turned the music on in their cars and opened the doors so the sound would carry throughout the block. The older men barbecued and passed around big bottles of Hennessey and cans of beer, as everyone told stories of the young man’s life. For a corrupt kid who always felt as if he had something to prove, that scene excited me. As I took in the scene, I thought to myself, This is how I can live forever. Not soon after the party, Demetri, Conrad, and I started to hang on the upper part of the block. Once we started to hang outside, we met other boys and girls who were on the block but not part of the block.
We banded together and formed our own gang, which we called the Nine-Deep. It consisted of a bunch of ragtag youths who had none or very limited parental guidance. We called ourselves Nine Deep mainly because there were nine of us who started the gang—Conrad, Demetri, Chucky-B, the twins, my best friend Linin, David, Larry, and me the leader—though we added a kid we called Jala a few months later. I became the leader because there was no one around who could beat me. The Nine as we called ourselves wasn’t from Oakdale: we just lived on the block. We spent most our days going from one gym to another playing hoops. However, we did beat up any kid we found wearing a hat that repped his hood.
I remember during the summer of 1991, the Nine was ten deep and we were headed to the Nowally-Valley gym in the upper part of the Mission district in San Francisco. As we walked, Conrad and David —the two youngest of the bunch—came to me, pointed out a boy my age, and said he had tried to beat them up at their school. My anger flared and before I knew it, we were surrounding the young man.
He asked, “What’s up?”
As I pointed to David and Conrad, I asked, “A, you know them?”
Smiling as if he was cool with them, he said, “Yeah.”
I asked, “You tried to beat on them?”
He said, “They jumped my little brother.”
I called both David and Conrad to me and barked at them, “Hit him!”
Both were scared because he was twice their size and four years older than them, but I was there and I wanted them to know he was flesh and that he could be hurt. At this time my corruption was spilling over onto the members of the Nine, and they were soaking it up like grass soaks up water during a hot summer day. As I turned to the boys, both looked as if I had told them to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge or something. So I looked straight at David and said, “Hit him.” David gave a halfhearted swing and connected, but I wasn’t satisfied so I barked, “Hit him again, and this time really hit him!” Once again David’s hit was as if he were hitting a child, so I swung and dropped him to his back. Then I looked at the boys and said, “That’s how you hit someone.” This lesson of corruption the boys would remember and live by, carrying their corruption to a height not even my feeble mind could have imagined. We were a tight bunch, but at age nineteen I felt there was nothing on Oakdale for me. With the same conviction I had when I left my mom’s house, I just walked away and never went back to my auntie’s house. Now I was really on the streets with nothing but my intellect and heart; but nevertheless I was in the game, and that was more than enough for me to make it.
My first task was to find a come up, so I found AJ and asked, “Can I get a come up?”
He responded with “No!”
I asked, “Why not? I don’t have a place to stay or food to eat. I need it.”
See, in the game all the older men are trying to find a way out and all the young men are trying to get in. AJ knew what I didn’t: he had seen the good, the bad, and the ugly about the streets and didn’t want to start me on my way to hell.
He pulled me to the side and said, “Go home!”
But I said, “If you don’t want to help that’s cool, but I’m not going home!”
I walked off mad, because I could not see into the distant future that AJ dreaded I would encounter. I got my come up money by snatching a purse. Never gave any thought if the woman was a mother whose money was for her rent or food for her kids. I had completely lost my conscience and my feelings were nonexistent, but it would get worse.
In the Tenderloin I made a name for myself; my corrupt morals were now manifesting themselves in my interactions with others, and the people were now recognizing me. In an environment where everyone has heart, mine shined. One day a friend and I were hanging in front of a store with three very pretty young ladies. Three men from Sunnydale (a section of San Francisco) named J.T., Kofi, and Joe parked their car, and also stood in front of the store. J.T., the oldest and leader of the men, said to one of the girls, “Can I get your number?”
She responded, “I got a man.”
I saw that the girl wasn’t interested in him, so as they roughhoused to get the girls’ attention, I slid in and got the phone number. As we talked, J.T. came up behind me and hit me on the back of the head. Not knowing what was happening I stumbled into the store, but when I turned around and saw that it was him who hit me, my rage grew. I grabbed a bottle on the counter but before I could throw it, J.T. said, “Throw it, but how you gon get out” so now it became a test of heart. I slammed the bottle back on the counter and said, “I’m gon walk out!”
I then walked straight for him and as I passed him, once more he hit me in the back of the head . Not knowing if they had gun or not, I ran around the corner and picked up my friend and went to go get my gun. It was a short four blocks to the hotel where the gun was stashed, but it felt more like ten miles. After picking up the gun we rushed backed to the store, and when we arrived they were still there. When I turned the corner and saw them, murder was on my mind. But before I could get close enough to shoot him, they turned around and saw me. As J.T. pointed towards the gun he asked, “What you gon do with that?” I barked back, “Nothing! You a man I’m a man—we gon fight! The gun is to make sure that no one jumps in.”
J.T. was what we called penitentiary built, at thirty-six years old standing 5’11” and weighing 210 lbs. He had been in the streets since a boy. I on the other hand was 5’9” 175 lbs. just coming out of boyhood, but like the young lion that challenges the old leader, I stood ready to attack. I let off the first five blows; these were usually my knockout punches,
