Today is a bit more history about me.
I first lived in the country, actually on a chicken ranch. My relatives all lived in the same town and they were ranchers. But my folks moved to “the big city” about the time I started school.
The neighborhood we lived in was decent when we first moved there, but it went down quickly. By the time I was in fourth grade I was already in a gang. It wasn’t like the gangs you think of today though. It was more territorial. We had my block and one block north. That was our turf. There were other gangs on every side of us. You just belonged to the gang that controlled your area, no questions.
As long as you stayed on your turf, you were ok. If you had to pass the other blocks, you used the main streets. If you ventured onto their turf you had BIG trouble. In this part of the city, youths were killed at the rate of about 3 a month. It was a very dangerous area. It was even listed back then as one of the most dangerous areas in the US.
I did experience my share of crime and trouble, but I was never in a life and death situation. Until . . .
The city established a BUSSING policy. The goal was to comingle kids from different neighborhoods for racial equality. I lived in a Hispanic area, and we were the only white family. I was bussed to an African American part of town. They absolutely didn’t want us there, and we definitely didn’t want to go there.
Many kids from my area changed to a catholic school in the area, dropped out of school, or their families moved. So there were only four boys and one girl my age that went. My older sister had to go as well, and there were only three in her class.
As a white kid we had restrictions imposed by the other students. The faculty feared opposing these restrictions. So I was not allowed in the cafeteria or the library. That wasn’t a big deal though. I had no interest in being in the library and my folks were too poor to give me lunch money, so I had peanut butter and jelly every day, and I could eat that anywhere. The white kids chose to eat at the bleachers on the football field.
About once a week, we would be charge by a large group of kids. We would just drop or lunches and run. We had a hole in the school fence we slipped through and we would disappear into the woods. We usually made our way back around 2:00 and just slipped into whatever class we were supposed to be in.
The biggest problem I had was when I went out for the football team. I was told by the coach that white kids weren’t allowed to participate in sports as it would cause too much turmoil. That killed me. I had to play Little League Football for another year.
My world got screwed up near the end of the first session. My sister was getting beat up regularly. I had my share of fights, but it was always one on one so I held my own. My sister was being attacked by a group of girls. So my dad instructed me to follow her around and protect her. She was my sister, so without a doubt I would do this.
On the second day I saw a commotion by her locker. She was pinned against her locker, crying and begging some girls not to hit her. About 30 kids had surrounded the scene and were cheering a fight on. I pushed my way in and shoved the leader back.
Her male friends stepped up. There were about 6 of them and all of them were older. Some weren’t even students. I knew I was about to be “whooped” so I figure why not take the first shot and make it count. I hit the biggest kid right in the mouth with all my might. I felt his teeth break off.
That’s all I remember. My sister told me the rest days later when I woke up in the hospital.
One kid had a bat. He was behind me and right after I swung he hit me in the back of the head with his bat. I was knocked out. Apparently they then made an announcement about how they would make an example out of me. I was beaten with the bat. They took turns jumping up and down on my back and head. They drug me by my ankles up and down concrete steps. And then hung me upside down on a fence and used me as a punching bag.
The police finally arrived and ended the attack.
My sister was fine, and my folks moved us the next week. But I did spend my summer riding the bus back to that area and one by one hunting down each of the six guys. And believe it or not, I ended up doing better than my friends.
John was found dead hanging in the school gym one morning. David was drug into the showers and raped with an umbrella. Chris was shot while sitting in the bleachers, but lived.
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