Israel “Iggy” Phillips, or “Dizzy” as his family calls him… isn’t a gangster, he is into art and music. All kinds of music, soul, post punk, industrial, rap, noise, Japanese speed metal. He is almost 14, kind of nerdy but still has a slight build and childlike glow. Trying to deliver a love letter to a white girl from school named Clair who has a crush on him. He was too shy to respond in person so he is telling her he wants to be together in a poem he wrote. He found her house one day selling candy for a school trip and didn’t even know Clair, but she knew him and started talking to him in middle school. Israel feels uncertain being on the North side of the freeway.
Even being neutral, his family isn’t… which makes him a target for any one trying to make a name for them selves. He was doing his best to make a name for him self. Secretly in the shadows, writing in creeks and under bridges. He was a tagger, not a tag banger or claiming any thing. Just into art and racking paint. He had a couple names he gave away or passed on, Glass, Jaguar, Plastic, Night. He gave those to homies from his crew once the names were up “all city” which over here meant any part of LA county you could ride a bus or train to. “Headcase” was his current name, or Heck FN, for Fucking Nobody! Something his old girlfriend used to yell when her mom asked who she snuck in her room. His best friend in the Boy’s Camp writes Sawyer, but he got caught smashing TV’s onto the tops of buses, off the parking garage at the mall in the white neighborhood of Torrance. Made a driver swallow her false teeth and have a stoke, so Sawyer is gone for a county year.
Leaving his neighborhood he looks at all the old names carved into the sidewalk. He sees graffiti so old it might as well be from the Pharaohs. Nicknames and lovers initials with years carved into these sidewalks when they built the 10 freeway in 1957. Gangs and love affairs of a bygone era. Back then having Black and Mexicans so near the beach was a new thing so there was kkk marks right next to hippie era slogans and early Ghost Town Crips marks from the 70s in the curb which must have been poured later. Stories about all the old time gangs filled his mind. Rebel Rousers, Green Jackets, Blood Alley, Harlem Godfathers, The Businessmen, The Chain Gang, Avenues, The Gladiators and The Slausons. Tough guys back in the big hair and blues era of the 1950s. Fighting over members only jackets and cardigans emblazoned with the name of their club. A more noble era of formal meetings for fist fights with rules and referees. These days your own family will sell you out to be killed for 10 sack of crack or meth.
“GTC.” Thats his dads gang, like a long stain on the family because his dad was on death row for shooting a college student and her sleeping parents in a take over robbery at the same store he has to walk past every day to school. Now run by his uncle Elmer who was was supposed to be working that same night but called in sick. In the middle of the skywalk GTC and SSM tags cross each other out in red, blue and black layers. Even the metal hand rail is inscribed with gang threats. Back in the 70s his moms side were the “Graveyard Groovers” which became Gangster Bloods was their rival to the east across Washington Blvd across the Venice city line in an area called Bohemia. Enemies of the “Ghost Towns” and “Sepulveda Barrio Fantomas,” the older generation of “The Muertos.” All the gangs here had such severe names. No body knew for sure but rumors of old Indian graveyards being disturbed is the local lore.
This neighborhood was always Ghost Town but according to his older family members it was all orchards and little shantys on the other side where illegals picked cherries, apples, plums and citrus. Some time in the 60s the apartments were built and south of the freeway became a slum. Back in those days racial division wasn’t a thing. Every body was united against white gangs that grew up and became cops. The racism isn’t overt. He said his dad started the gang to be safe from groups of surfers who would chase the poor kids off the beach, burn their cars and hit them with bricks when riding home from school. The white gangs had named like “The Drifters,” “Imperials,” “Road Devils,” “Rooks,” but they are long gone, white flight and desegregation of schools made all the middle class whites flee to the San Fernando valley.
While pondering the geopolitical insights of turf wars and forgotten names engraved in sidewalks he is crossing out every name. Not writing his name, just hacking tags, slashing hoods, dissing RIP memories and putting X’s through heart felt testaments to the eternal love of high school sweethearts. Crossing the pedestrian walkway the feeling of the neighborhood changes. The largely mixed and working class character of Ghost Town changes into a treeless stretch of hundreds of sand colored apartments marked up in severe looking graffiti. Old English scrawls mark out the territory. Sepulveda is written in 8 foot tall letters on one side, broken up by a beautifully rendered Virgin Guadalupe with skeletal face paint. This is Santisma Muerte, the patron saint of criminals in Mexico. A religion of traffickers and gunmen. “Santa Muertos” on the right side. The entire wall 60 feet long marked up in a gang roll call and a memorial for slain members.
Riding past the mural he does a big squiggly line through the entire sets placaso. Stopping to cross out each members name in a roll call with names of dead members and those in prison. Turning to admire his work he hears a bottle kicked into the street among a dark stand of trees and bushes that hides an electric box. Perfect place to lie in wait for outsiders to come across the bridge disrespecting. Iggy feels a chill in his bones. The bottle doesn’t brake but the sound it makes rolling roughly over stones up to meet the tip of his shoe is so loud in the stillness of his side of the street where a freeway wall divides the apartments from the residential row houses on the other side. The street looks deserted, music booms from somewhere behind the apartments. Reaching the corner he zooms into the residential side street where Clair lives in a duplex with her cousins. She isn’t an orphan but her mother is MIA and her dad was deported back to Mexico for touching other little girls. Clair is blonde with green eyes and looks white but her family is much more convincingly Brown-Latino. Pulling up to the alley between the houses, Israel comes up to Clairs window and does their secret knock. Giggling Clair peeks out the curtains and opens the window. They are both bashful but Israel has snuck out so he has to get back to his side of the freeway. Passing the note and says he’s “gotta go.”
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Clair doesn’t want him to leave and starts crying. This brings unwanted attention from her cousin’s mom who doesn’t approve of Clair having black friends, especially after dark showing up to knock on her window. The scowling silhouette in Clairs door slams the door and went back to bed. Israel hears an aggressive whistle coming from the roof of the car port. He sees the face of a kid his size, his face wearing a ski-mask and flashing gang signs. Israel takes the hint and kisses Clair through the hole in the window screen and jumps on his bike into the night. Looking back the alley he was just in have 3 more gang members warning Clair to not bring outsiders into their turf. Israel tries to go the long way out onto Sepulveda and around back north to Pico where he is safe.
Before his eyes adjust to the dark he hears a voice so deep and full of authority it stops him in his tracks. “SSM!” To his horror the entire street is full of older teen agers blocking the long way out of the neighborhood beyond the illumination of the street lamps. This doesn’t have the air of coincidence, alerted to the outsider the horde of gangsters sprint at him, some have bikes too and as he rushes back to the way he came and pedestrian bridge he can hear gunshots pop off and the super sonic whizzing by of bullets close enough to his ear. He feels one pierce the sole of his foot. Losing all composure he doesn’t have the chance dive off the bike in a controlled way, losing balance he goes down hard on one knee with such inertia he slides on his palms and face another 10 feet. Getting his bearings he just barely gets on his bike as a chain and padlock send sparks off the asphalt he just popped up off.
Feeling a pinch in his arm, he thought maybe a bee stung him. Having a can of silver spray paint he uses it to get some distance between the other youths on bikes who on his heels. Filling one guys eyes and nose with paint, catching another in the teeth with the bottom of the can. Sending the first guy onto hands and knees choking, the second wailing from a rush of blood where his front teeth used to be. This was enough to get about 20 feet away from the pack of shadowy gang members accosting him. Making it to the pedestrian bridge he pushes past a group of Mexican caballeros, granny trannies and homeless blocking the approach. Pushing past the throng of creeps he rushes onto the pedestrian bridge while looking back for trouble. Being over the zooming traffic made him feel at ease. Looking back he saw the Santa Muertos all stopped at the entrance watching. Hearing a nasty whisper... “Diablo”, he turns back to the bridge and sees a tall thin shape blocking his way, swinging a long gold chain and pocket watch. Dressed like an old time zoot suiter with fedora hat and a face a heavily tattooed face that looked like the angel of death. The visage of peril has definitely seen all the names crossed out. Stalking the skybridge, pacing back and forth, waiting for retribution.
Iggy doesn’t even see the punch coming. Just feels a crushing impact into his chest that feels like it popped open his ribcage like an autopsy. Feeling all the air knocked out of him, he lays on his back looking up at the cruel visage. He had heard the members of Santa Muertos who had killed for the gang were allowed to tattoo a skull face over their own. He was too terrified to say a word and the pachuco on the bridge snarled in a whisper like somebody with throat cancer. “Get the fuck out of Sepulveda territory! If i see you again I will throw you off my bridge! Its only because I know your mom that you aren’t getting poked full of holes and strung up from a phone pole like Jesus!” The voice was awful. Israel had heard of the old days when people would have their throats cut from ear to ear damaging the larynx. Snatched up off the ground like he weighed nothing he is slammed down on his bike so hard the back of the peddle digs into his heal deep.
Trying to peddle but the chain is off, he is shoved so hard from behind he loses control and slams into the steel anchored cement pole at the end. He tries not to cry where the gang leader from Santa Muerte can hear him. He sees he is alone again and tries not to scream from the horrifying impact he just suffered. He can’t even make a sound, the wind is knocked out and his brain isn’t controlling his lungs. He panics laying there on the dirty cement. He gasps so aggressively it disturbs biting ants crawling all over the sidewalk. Trying to pick him self up, the heel of his palm feels broken and his elbow is dug into broken glass and sharp pieces of metal like little cork screws. Limping home he feels and uncontrollable need to purge his soul of the humiliation he just suffered. Getting to his door he wants to cry, a pressure is building up behind his eyes that feels like a bomb went off and his blood vessels are trying to hold up his skull like a blown up house in Gaza.
His mom is gone, house is locked and the way he usually gets in is useless as his fingers feel cold and broken. Tears streaming he picks up a brick to smash the window to get inside and his neighbor sees him and gives him a funny look like, “are you retarded?” This neighbor is a rocker dude, an engineer for industrial bands. Iggy wipes his face and can’t talk. He just lets his neighbor “Torment” ask the questions. Torment sees blood and ushers Iggy inside where 2 goth-punk rocker chicks Maledicion and Lucinda sit working on homework and drop what they are doing to clean him up. Iggy forgot he got shot, his whole leg hurts like he broke it.
His knee hurts a whole lot more, probably dislocated the knee cap. As soon as he takes his shoe off and a quart of blood comes out with a strange suction sound like stomping through a marsh. The gothic girls realize this is no laughing matter they pile in Torments souped up black 1970 Ford Ranchero GT with yellow and orange racing stripes like something out of Mad Max, the back end lifted in a muscular stance. Packed in like sardines, race to the ER across town. Iggy appreciates the feminine energy. Even though these punk rockers have safety pins through eye brows, crazy hair and black clothes… they are better Christians than any one he heard rant about hell and brimstone. Torment has a tape of his newest project from a Chicago noise band. Iggy nods his head but loses the struggle to unconsciousness.