By: “Z” – Originally Published on The Beat Within
A ”ditching party” rocked in full swing at my mom’s house. A dozen teenagers and a couple of adults, drinking, smoking, having sex, blasting gangsta rap.
My mom and step-dad were at work. Mom had told me she preferred that I party at home, and I took it literally.
On this day we got extra rowdy. We launched empty beer bottles onto the middle of the street and at passing cars. Eventually someone called the cops.
I refused to answer the door when the cops came. I told everyone to be quiet and I closed the blinds. Maybe they’d just leave, my 13-year-old brain thought. Right.
Soon the block was swarming with cops. When I heard my mom shouting outside, I thought that for sure I’m not coming out now! I opened a big TV we had, where I usually stashed my illegals, and everyone hid their items there, drugs and a few guns and knives.
The cops smashed through the front window and stormed inside. About ten of us huddled in a bedroom. They kicked the door open, aiming guns at us, yelling commands which we obeyed.
Soon after, we were being led to the front yard, each of us handcuffed. I couldn’t even look at my mother; she was fuming, hurling curses at us, and crying.
Soon, they had run all our names through their system and found that the adult with us, Porky, was on parole. They put him in a squad car and took him to jail. The rest of the people who were still there just received tickets and a ride back to school, stuffed in two police cars.
I’m still not sure why to this day, but the cops took me and my homie Lo to the police station. When they called our parents to pick us up, his mom came right away for him. But my mom― she had already been screaming at the scene ”I don’t want him! You can take him with you!” ―didn’t come for me.
The cops only had one option. They booked me for some petty crimes, including Resisting an Officer and Disturbing the Peace. And they took me to juvenile hall.
At 13, this was my first time going to jail.
Secretly Afraid
I was quiet, secretly afraid. But I put forth my best effort to seem strong and unfazed. I had heard stories, and I put it in my head that I’m not going to be a victim, I was going to fight, even though I felt so afraid I couldn’t sleep and I cried at night in my room, under my blanket. I felt like a tiny insect, an ant trapped in a milk carton, wondering what the giant humans might do to me next, felt they had already squished me.
I saw gang enemies and I didn’t say a word, I was that scared, so I just walked up to them, without saying anything, and attacked them. But soon people began to think I was ”crazy,” and I earned the ”respect” I desperately craved, because it meant I was somebody, and it made me feel safer.
Eventually they had to move me to a unit for older kids that were locked up for violent crimes. A couple of staff members got angry at me for continuing to attack the other kids, and they punched on me in the bathroom and emptied two spray cans over me. I just took it, didn’t say a word, didn’t cry, just tensed my body up and shut my eyes tight, left to burn for a couple hours there.
My mom came to visit me then, while I was in the hole for that last fight, and my body was peeling like a snake from that pepper spray drenching they had given me. She began to cry and rub on my peeling, irritated forearms, and I pulled away and didn’t say anything. I had no words, and I was angry at her.
Tears almost got away from me, but I squeezed my body and held them in. She wanted to know what happened to me, and I didn’t know what to answer. I didn’t even want to hug her when she left. But when I was back in my room, alone, I missed her. All of them. The world. And she didn’t come again anytime soon.
And she kept telling them she didn’t want me, so I stayed in that horrible place, fighting, being pepper sprayed, abused by staff, turning into a little monster, wondering why my mom wouldn’t come get me, was I that bad?
But all this inner pain was quickly turned outwards, and I guess it’s one way jail hardens a little kid, because when I finally did come out months later, I wasn’t the same anymore, I was cold and detached.
What Happened to Us?
Well, my friend Porky, he got shot and ended up paralyzed. That day he had been smoking crack in the kitchen, I sold it to him. He had a serious problem. Soon after being shot, he was still hanging around the hood, and he got shot again, and this time didn’t survive a bullet to the head.
Lo, he got 30 years in prison for shooting at a car of gang enemies at a gas station. He’s here with me, my childhood friend, now my prison peer. Gabe, he went into hiding; he told on some people and got them life in prison and people are looking for him.
Liza, one of the girls there that day, last I heard about her, she was hanging out in front of a Burger King, asking people for spare change, addicted to dope. Tina, another one there, she has about 12 kids and six baby daddies, all members of the gang. She’s alone and living off the government now, still trying to party and get high.
One good story, Shadow, he moved away to the Valley and got married, has a job, a house, and a family, making the best of this life we’re given.
And me, here I am, my friend.
Still strong, still hurting, still fighting, and wondering when, or if, I’ll ever go ”home.” I mention these other people, because one facet of criminal justice reform, involves bringing in more social services. All these various problems, have only one answer: THE POLICE.
That day, teens needed counseling, to find out what’s wrong, some love and guidance. Porky had a serious substance abuse problem, and needed treatment, not jail.
The same with most the people in that house that day. But the cops were the only ones called to address all these issues, because there’s no one else to call.
All these socioeconomic dilemmas and disparities, and the only answer they have for us is the police and jail.
Even our parents who can’t be there since they have to be at low- paying jobs to try to buy us what we need.
Poverty, my friend, costs a lot. It costs happiness, costs opportunities, costs lives.
Freedom exists inside of you, and once you find it, you will never be imprisoned again.
