The Bad Crowd
I remember back when I was in third grade, my older sister threw a party at our
house. At the time my sister and her friends were hanging out with a group of guys who
belonged to a gang. All these guys came to our house. They looked like typical
gangsters. Gang tattoos, shirt collars up, leather hats to the side. But even though they
looked like delinquents, they were very respectful to the house and my family.
The party was going along pretty well. Being the typical, little pain-in-the-ass
brother, I was all over the place messing with my sister’s friends. And they thought I was
cool for a little kid. The guy’s would give me beer, and I would dance with the older girls
who were two feet taller than me. Then I remember one of the gang members, named
Orlando, asked me If I had ever been in a gang before. Of course he was playing,
knowing I was in third grade. But it was funny because he asked me very seriously. So
I told him no, and then he told me “Now you are. You’re a Y-Lo”. And he showed me
how to do the gang sign with my hand.
I felt cool as hell. I would go to school telling kids that I was a Y-Lo, throwing the
sign up all over the place. Of course they could care less, being in third grade and all,
but it didn’t stop me. And when my sister’s friends would throw parties, they would tell
her to bring me along. She hated it, but would usually end up bringing me along
anyway.
I started to dress and talk like a little gangster. However I still always did in
school. I only saw the fun parts about being in a gang. I never saw a fight or anything. I
thought it was all fun and games. Until I got older.
I always tended to hang out with the delinquents. When I was in seventh grade,
I worked at a park near my house for community hours (not court-ordered or anything,
just for school). After work I played basketball with the neighborhood kids, and I started
to hang out with these two guys, Ivan and Pedro. Ivan was seventeen and Pedro was
eighteen. I was only thirteen. We would hang out a lot after basketball, and that was
when I first started smoking weed. I would smoke, kind of scared because it was my first
time, but I would act like I had done it before. In the beginning I would get so high I
didn’t know what I was doing. But later on I could control myself better.
One day after playing basketball, Pedro and I were walking to his house high as
usual, and it started to rain. We were pissed because we were far from the house,
getting rained on, and not getting anywhere. Then we saw this shiny, chrome bike on a
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front porch down the block. Pedro said we should take it, half serious/half playing. So to
prove I was tough, I ran to the front porch, took the bike, and rode off. So we could both
ride, I let Pedro ride it, and he towed me on the handlebars.
Later on when it stopped raining, we brought the bike to Ivan’s house, the
business man. I just wanted to get the stolen bike off my hands, Pedro and Ivan wanted
to make money off of it. So I told them to sell it, just not to get caught.
To make a long story short, the pawn shops wouldn’t buy the bike, because they
knew it was stolen, with the serial number scratched off. The owner of the bike spotted
Ivan on the bike, and called the cops. And Ivan snitched everybody out. Ivan and Pedro
got arrested. And all I got was a court paper telling me to go to some juvenile
delinquency counselor.
I went to the counselor with my parents, (who thought their son was the devil),
and she informed me that I was charged with grand larceny (a felony, because the bike
cost over $400.00), and that if I signed up for the JASP program they would drop the
charges. If I signed up for the JASP program I would have to be home by 7 PM on
weekdays and 9 PM on weekends for six months. I would also have to do like 300
community hours. My dad said let’s take the chance and see what happens when it
goes to court. I was a juvenile, it was my first offense, and I had a very good academic
record (my grades), so we were hoping they’d drop it without the JASP program.
So thanks to my dad’s decision, they closed the case (It doesn’t appear in my
juvenile record), and all I got was a year of probation. This probation didn’t bother me
because I wasn’t going to get in trouble again. But then I realized how what I did
messed me up. My friends that I planned on hanging out with now, the ones who stayed
out of trouble, weren’t allowed to hang out with me, because now I was a delinquent. All
of their mother’s formed this little group of David haters. They were straight out. If they
saw me talking to their kids in the street, they would yank their kid into the car with no
shame, and drive off. This happened a couple of times. Most memorably one
Halloween when I didn’t have any friends to go around with. I was very lonely.
But any way, with time I made other friends, most of them good, and I was
staying out of trouble. I smoked weed occasionally, and would skip school every now
and there. But I didn’t do much of either. And I was doing great in school with my
grades.
Then I started to slip up again. I began hanging out with this group of low lives
and I became one myself. They were a group of delinquents who were all tied to or who
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were part of a gang called Disciple. It didn’t matter because most the stuff we did wasn’t
gang-related. By this I mean we weren’t throwing up gang signs all day, or beating
people down because of the colors of their clothes. Even though we got into fights, and
had more than a few enemies, we leaned more towards straight up delinquent acts
(explained more in the next paragraph). I hung out with kids named Fish (a loud mouth
drunk, who I fought over three dollars), Kilo (somewhat psychotic, would try to fight a
gang of twenty kids by himself), Lazaro (who when bored would go hopping around
people’s back yards looking for valuables), and other winners like these.
Some activities we partook in where riding in stolen cars (this kid Glen could
steal any Camry with a pair of scissors), stealing radios and speakers from cars, doing
beer runs (running inside the Amoco, grabbing two twelve packs each, and running),
backyard exploring with Lazaro (you had to be drunk to do it right), and other acts of
delinquency. People would also come around and give us stuff (usually weed), if we’d
go along with them to a fight and back them up. We had to be either high or drunk all
the time. If we were driving, we had to be under the influence. And if we went to a
party, we ran it. We’d clique up and have at least twenty people there, drunk and
looking for fights
We were untouchable. Being the only one that would go to school, I would do
the same thing I did back in third grade. Walk around like I was a gang member. I
would usually tend to wear black and blue (Disciple colors) and I would walk around like
a bad ass with a mouth full of gold teeth. I would stare down the kids that thought they
were hard, and after school my friends would come around and we’d walk around the
halls like a little army.
Then things started to change. All my friends started to go to jail. Glen and
Lazaro were running around doing strong-arm robberies, yanking chains from people
walking around at night, and it caught up to them. One day we were all hanging out at
Glen’s house in the front yard, when a white van pulled up full speed onto the yard, and
the Hialeah gang unit jumped out with guns and yelled at us to get on the ground. They
went around, searched everybody’s pockets (thank God, I didn’t have anything), and
hauled off Glen and Lazaro. I didn’t see either of them for about a year and a half.
Amaudi, who had just finished doing three years, stole a car and went on a police
chase around Hialeah. He ended up smashing into a cop car, and then fighting a couple
of officers, throwing him right back in jail. He’s not getting out for a long time. One of his
many charges was attempted man-slaughter. The strange thing is I had never even
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seen him fight someone. I guess he just really didn’t want to go back in. Kilo got
charged with stabbing some kid with an ice pick. There wasn’t too much evidence
against him so they charged him with something that gave him a year of house arrest. I
don’t think he even did, he just had a bad reputation with the police.
That’s just a small amount of arrests that happened. Some of these kids got
caught with home invasions, another with two ounces of coke, who isn’t getting out till
February 2003, and a bunch of other charges. That’s when I got kind of scared. Even
though I wasn’t that bad, I felt like I was next. I was going to get caught with something.
So I started to slow down a little with the hanging out all day. I started hanging
out more with my girlfriend, began working at my dad’s office (he gave me the job to
keep me out of trouble), and I concentrated more on school.
However these were pretty much my only friends, so I would still chill with them
once in a while (the few not in jail). Then I realized how useless these kids were. On
Labor day last year, we went to the beach. It was filled with gangs. We only had about
five people there; five more were on the way. In the water a friend of ours, Lester, got
into a fight. He beat some kid’s ass. Little did he know the kid was with about 50
members of the INP gang. The scene started to get ugly. People were picking up bottles
and we only had about five people, and I was with my girlfriend. So we started to leave.
We were way outnumbered.
We were about halfway to the parking lot. I was trying to get myself, my
girlfriend, and her friend out of danger. Then I see Lester running with like five people
chasing him. I look back and I see about thirty people running towards us. Then
someone just jumps in my face, talking about “INP!,INP!, what you claim?! (what gang
was I in)”. I tell him “I wasn’t looking for problems, and I was just trying to get out of
there.” I’m not stupid. The kid had thirty of his friend’s coming over. Then he yanks my
chain from my neck. The last thing I expected. At that moment I realized $500.00 was
taken from me. So I start punching him. He starts backing up. And then out of no
where I felt a “SMASH” on the back of my head. I said “FUCK!!!!” and fell to the ground
clutching my head. They broke a bottle over my head. While I was down three of them
started stomping me. Then they ran off. I felt my head and it was gushing out warm
blood. I stood up, dizzy as hell, and saw my girlfriend and her friend in shock, crying.
To shorten the story, I went to the hospital, they stitched me up (more painful then the
bottle to the head), and they actually caught the kids who did it. That’s another story
though.
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At that point was when I realized I had to completely separate myself from these
kids. They started the fight, but where the hell were they when I was getting stomped
on. I needed some new friends and I pretty much needed to start over.
So all these things added up. Once again I concentrated on school, worked a lot,
and chilled with my girl. But this time around there was no going back to hanging out
with these guys. I mean its not like when I see them I ignore them. I just don’t hang out
with them.
With my concentrating on school, I got myself a scholarship. Seventy five
percent of my tuition paid. And on top of that, FIU gave me and extra $1000.00 a
semester. I actually get money back. So college was taken care of. I actually started
doing something with my life. I started hanging out with normal kids that didn’t get in
trouble. And I started doing things kids my age should be doing like going to grad night
and prom. And I was just having more fun then I used to have when I was a “thug”.
And now I’m a college student. I feel mature and adult-like. I love the
environment. The people are so much nicer and I just relax while in school. I don’t have
to be looking over my shoulder when I’m walking down the hallway, thinking about
getting jumped. Also I’m doing a lot at my dad’s job. I’ve learned a lot about law. No
more clerical stuff. I actually spend most my time preparing bills, and bothering people
to collect money, and scaring them by threatening to sue. So because of me, my dad’s
making a lot more money. Because he’s making more money I get paid better.
So in the end (finally), I’ve seen a complete change in direction in my life. Since
I’ve separated from this group of delinquents, my life seems to keep on getting better.
When I bump into them, they actually congratulate me. I thought they would look down
on me for doing good. But that’s not the case. So it’s as if everybody’s proud of me. My
family, my friends, and most of all, myself. It feels good.