Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade Read Online Free PDF Page B

finally
took me, in my dreams I cried for my dog, and for myself.
    I
awakened among boys in a world somewhat reminiscent of John Barth's Flies. Around me were boys from Jordan Downs,
Aliso Village, Ramona Gardens and other housing projects. Others came from the
mean streets of Watts, Santa Barbara Avenue, East LA, Hicks Camp, and elsewhere
throughout LA's endless sprawl. Most came from families without a father on
hand, back then called a "broken home." If a man was around, his job
was probably going to buy the heroin with the money the mother made selling
herself. If she went, she could expect them to sell her lactose for heroin or,
if they didn't have that, they might just take her money and cut her throat as
an afterthought. It was a quid pro quo relationship between two junkies. It worked
for them but wasn't conducive to raising a thirteen-year-old who was already
marked with blue tattoos and the values of vatos
loco (crazy guys). This was a mish-mash of young testosterone and
distorted machismo and hero worship of an older brother already in la pinta.
    Until now, whatever my problems may have been I had
been entitled to the privileges of the bourgeois child. Now I was swimming in
the meanest milieu of our society, the juvenile justice system. Hereafter I
would be "state raised." Its values would become my values: mainly
that might makes right, a code that accepts killing but forbids snitching. At
first I was an outsider, the precociously educated white boy with the
impeccable grammar. I was picked on and bullied, although that didn't last long
because I would fight, even if I was slower and less strong. I could sneak up
and bash a tough guy with a brick while he slept, or stab him in the eye with a
fork in the mess hall. My perfect grammar and substantial vocabulary quickly
changed to the patois of the underclass. For a while when I was fourteen, my
English had a definite Mexican accent. I had an affinity with Mexicans or,
rather, with Chicanos, with their stoic fatalism. Instead of wearing the Levi
jeans that were de rigueur in suburban white
high schools, I preferred the Chicano-styled surplus Marine fatigues, with huge
baggy pockets along the side. Often dyed black, they were worn loose on the
hips and rolled up at the bottom. That way the legs were very short and the
torso was extra long. I wore a ducktail upswept along the sides, so thick with
Three Flowers pomade that running a comb through it brought forth globs of
grease. Pomade wasn't allowed in juvenile hall, so we stole margarine and used
that. It had a rancid stench, but kept the ducktail in place.
    I
went all the way. My shoes had extra-thick soles added on, horseshoe taps on
the heels, and other taps along the side and the toe. To run was difficult, but
stomping someone was easy. My pants were "semi," which meant
semi-drape, or semi-zoot suit. A zoot suit was "full drape," but they
lost favor before I became concerned about style. The music I liked wasn't on
the "Hit Parade". It wasn't Perry Como and Dinah Shore that thrilled
me, but the sounds and the funk known along Central Avenue and in Watts —
Lonnie Johnson, Bull Moose Jackson, Dinah Washington, Billy Eckstine, Ella,
Sarah and Billie, Illinois Jacquet and Big J. McNeeley on sax, with Bird as the
icon of everyone who was hip.
    In the four years following my arrival at juvenile hall,
I moved swiftly and inexorably through the juvenile justice system. I was in
juvenile hall eight times and twice went to the state hospital for observation.
I talked sanely, but behaved insanely. The hospital officials weren't sure
about me. I escaped at least half a dozen times, living as a fugitive on the
streets. I could hot wire a car in less than a minute. Once when I escaped from
the Fred C. Nelles School for Boys in Whittier, I stole a car. Halfway into Los
Angeles, I stopped to urinate behind a Pacific Outdoor sign. When I got
underway again, I failed to turn on the headlights. In San Gabriel a police car
parked at