War of the Bloods in My Veins: A Street Soldier's March Toward Redemption - Hardcover

THE BEGINNING OF AN END

A plant with dreams to be a treePlaced in a gardenA garden unlike the garden of his birthBitter with the taste of impure waterFor the garden was poisonBitter water for the timesNow is later to become oh so sweetVictory was not the plant's sweet tasteDefeated before the start of his growthThese marked the signs of the plant's beginningThe start of my ending

Death and turmoil are hot on my heels. They pursue me with relentless passion. In their anger and contempt, they torture me -- body and soul -- beating me, wounding me, and robbing me of my ability to value life -- my own or any other. In the darkness of the streets, my childhood is murdered; innocence is shot. Yet, in the dawn of a new nightmare I am resurrected with earned power and respect. I am reborn -- a gangster.

* * *

It's summer, 1990, and without forewarning, my younger brother, Derrick, and I are ordered to pack up and head out by Mama. We are moving across country from New Jersey to Phoenix -- a long way from home, friends, and our mother. I am nine years old and leaving her behind.

Those who have been to Phoenix, or the P-zone as we call it, can relate to my experiences there. If asked before moving to Phoenix of my opinion of its natives, my answer would have been that they are a bunch of funny-talking country bumpkins compared to the fast-talking city slickers back east.

My uncle flies to my aunt Claudette's house in Irvington, New Jersey, just to drive my brother and me to Phoenix. My mother isn't taking the trip with us; she'll fly to Phoenix in the weeks to come. My older brother, David, is already there. Our journey cross-country lasts four days.

Every summer my relatives Abdul, Irshad, Quadir, and Samad visit us in Jersey. This year will be their last; we're going back with them for good. The carpool consists of six kids, with Irshad and me being the oldest of the bunch.

Uncle prepares himself for the drive by making one last prayer. Inside the house, I am getting my last hug from Mama. Uncle is down on all-fours. His forehead is touching the ground. What's he doing?

Our trip takes us through many states, but none longer than Texas. Everything is so different I feel like I'm traveling through a foreign country. The air is so hot and the humidity so thick it's like trying to breathe through cotton stuffed up your nose. There are weird-looking trees and birds I've never seen before. I'm completely out of my element. The only knowledge I have of mountains, deserts, and cactus comes from what I've seen on television when I used to watch old Western movies at my stepfather's house.

We finally arrive in Phoenix. The air is even thicker and heavier than Texas. The trees catch me by surprise. I thought trees like these could only be found on islands. And the streets are in better condition than the potholed roads in Jersey.

Derrick and I move to Aunt Sabrina's house on East Chipman Road between 18th and 19th Streets in Park South Phoenix. The house is crammed. My two older relatives, Belinda and Athena, share a room. In my room, I sleep on the bottom bunk with my older brother, David. On the top are Irshad, Derrick, and Abdul. It's not the most comfortable setup and being separated from my mother makes me unable to relax in this new environment.

A few days later, I receive a phone call from Mama.

"Hey Mommy! Mom, when are you coming? I miss you!"

"Soon baby. I'll be there before you know it. So do you like it down there?"

"I dunno. I wanna come back home, Mommy. Why we gotta all sleep in the same room?"

"Who's in the room with you baby?"

"Mom there's no room. I have to sleep in the bed with David and he always pushes me out."

"Listen baby, please be patient, you gon' have to make do for now. It's all we have right now so tough it out for a few more weeks. Things'll change when I get there, I promise. Okay?"

"Yeah Mommy."

"Let me speak to your brother, I love you -- you hear me?"

"I love you too Mommy."

Park South covers an area from 16th to 24th Streets bounded by Baseline, Broadway, and Roeser Roads. Buckeye Road -- 24th Street and 24th Avenue -- is home to the majority of the city's Black population. It also is the 'hood of Phoenix's most hostile street gangs -- both Bloods and Crips. Hispanic neighborhoods are between Greenway and Bell Roads and 32nd Street and Cave Creek Road. Fifteenth Avenue, 23rd Avenue, Southern Avenue, and Broadway Road belonged to the Lindo Park Crips.

My aunt's house has three bedrooms with four closets. The kitchen counters are tile with specks of Black. There's a stone fireplace with an exposed stone chimney in the living room and a beautiful beamed ceiling. Behind the house is a spacious yard. It's ideal to have BBQs and take full advantage of the Western atmosphere. The front lawn is gigantic with a palm tree in the front that provides remarkable shade in the summer.

Just as I feared, things change in weird ways within days of us moving in. Already, I begin feeling lonely with the absence of my mother. Why did Mommy send us here? Maybe she don't want us no mo'. I know I'm not the best kid, but what did I do for us to get shipped out? Why didn't she send me to my father's house?

Oblivious to the fact that my aunt, uncle, and all my relatives I now live with are Muslim, I have to dramatically change my life. I don't even know what Muslims are let alone how to live as one. They wear these funny outfits, with caps on their heads. Prayer controls their lives because they pray all day.

I thought people only prayed before eating dinner. Back home, I had the luxury of doing what I wanted, going to bed when I wanted, eating what I wanted, and celebrating Christmas and Halloween. Back home I was a wild child, undisciplined, and free from adult supervision. All the things I'm not allowed to do now that I'm under my aunt's supervision merely went unnoticed by my mama in Jersey.

Here, pork is forbidden, and you can forget about seconds at dinner. Rated-R programs are restricted and bedtimes imposed. I never realized the luxuries I had until I was deprived of those very same things.

My aunt Sabrina is a fourth-grade teacher so she believes in year-round schooling. Cs and Ds are not acceptable and she possesses patience to a T as she tutors us on our weakest subjects.

I hate the house rules because everything here is so systematic and I'm not used to all this routine. There's a chart for who'll wash the dishes, who'll take out the garbage, who'll set the table, and even what we'll eat for the entire week.

I wallow in homesickness much of the time. Throughout my stay, my asthma is aggravated by the atmosphere and stifling heat. Sometimes I have to struggle to breathe in the air, which makes my asthma pump sacred.

Unhappy as I am, my stay does have its benefits. The scenery, for one thing, is dope. Across the street from the house looms a stunning yard with colorful flowers and statues. This is a profound contrast to Jersey's poverty-abandoned buildings, pimps, bums, fiends, and junkies. In Phoenix, I don't have to worry about the ghetto landscape of gutter rats, possums, and man-eating cockroaches. Here, there's room to enjoy simple things.

During the summer, I experience new things: water fights, chasing snakes, scorpions, lizards, and horny toads. I've never seen a lizard before, let alone a scorpion. My relatives are comfortable being hands-on with these creatures. In addition, I'm welcomed by my first fierce sandstorm. While everyone else goes into prerehearsed maneuvers, I'm left to feel the wrath. I learn that the storms can hit without warning, and other times you can tell one is coming by the knots of dust devils discoing their way across the wasteland. Once the wind grabs the sand, you can only see a few inches ahead of your face. If you can't find a car or side of a house to take cover when the storm ripens, you best cower down and shut your mouth and eyes.

Adjusting to the Muslim way of life is a whole new challenge and makes me feel like I'm living in someone else's world. Aunt Sabrina is devoted and completely addicted to her religion, allowing no room for clemency in our gradual conversion. I feel imprisoned. Going from an unrestricted lifestyle to an absolute dictatorship is culture shock.

My aunt is a medium-built woman with a coffee skin tone. She wears blossoming house dresses and sandals. She's strict, religious to the bone, but at times has a wonderful sense of humor.

My uncle signs me up for his Pop Warner football team. He has a full beard that he always combs, and a bald head that makes him look scary. His dark brown eyes see only two possibilities for doing things, his way and the wrong way. His deep, threatening voice commands your attention, and he is adamant about discipline. His face projects a weathered ghetto roughness, yet he looks youthful when he smiles. His facial expression hardly ever changes as he wears a mask of proud distress.

During my first day of football practice, I'm approached as I cross the field.

"Where you from home-bwoy?" a boy taller than me asks. He has on a red shirt and a red pair of Jeepers, which is what they called Chuck Taylors. He speaks with a funny accent.

"New Jerzey." I hold his stare.

"Say what! What set chu from fool?"

Ignorant to his question, I ask him, with a puzzled expression, "What...what I'm from?"

He looks at me like I'm crazy and even laughs.

"What street chu' live on?"

Trying to get hold of the conversation, he makes a weird barking noise as four other boys close in on me. I don't turn. My chest tightens.

"Who you down wit'? Who put you on the set?" demands a shorter boy. Is this a challenge? I feel they are interrogating me, waiting for the wrong answer. I don't know the right one. My heart begins to pound and my mouth gets dry.

I fight off their confusion with an aggressive response. "What set I'm from?"

"Hey Blood," the shorter one says to the taller boy. "I think that's the nu kid from Nu Joisey, Coach's son. Remember he was telling us his ...