Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Excerpt from Street Creds



You know how you hear about bangers always talking shit about “bustin’ caps in some fool’s ass”?  Well, sometimes they mean it!
Doughboy from St. Pauls 13 had just come home on a home visit.  He’d been in a Proctor home in San Marcos by court order, and he was allowed to go home on rare occasions to see his mom.  He’d been home in the city less than 24 hours when this shooting happened (it’s also noteworthy that while he was in San Marcos, they had numerous drive-by shootings and gang activity increased noticeably...hmm...wonder why that was?).
Anyway, Doughboy met up with Roberto Vega, another SP-13 gang member that had been in another “rehab program” back east.  They hung out at Vega’s house, playing video games for a while, then decided go for a walk to another friend’s house.  Both Vega and Doughboy had been out of the city for several months, so they went out walking in their old neighborhoods, talking about the girls they’d met during the time they’d been gone and comparing notes on their latest sexual conquests. Suddenly, they ran into several South Side 18th Street gang members, Neto Arredondo and his cousins.
Arredondo was South Side 18th Street and had it tattooed on his chest.  He was very proud of his gang membership, but his parents hoped it was a phase that he would soon outgrow.  This particular day, his family was having a wedding.  His sister was getting married, and he and his cousins had come to the house to get wedding decorations.  They were standing in the front yard of Arredondo’s house, taking a smoke break from loading their truck.  As Doughboy and Vega walked by, the two groups exchanged words.  It started out with “Whatchu claim, man?”, then went downhill fast from there.  They were sworn rivals that hated each other by their gang affiliations.
Doughboy was a huge kid; at 16, he looked like a 35-year-old man.  He was 5’8” and easily 250 lbs. – and he feared no one on the streets.  He was one of only two Black kids that claimed St. Pauls 13 at the time; the other was already in prison for a shooting.  Black kids in St. Pauls 13 were rare since it was a Hispanic gang homegrown and unique to St. Pauls.
Most Black gang members in the city ended up as Crips or Bloods; Dough, however, had grown up hanging out with the homegrown Hispanics and felt an allegiance both to them and the Blacks in the city.  He was a very unique guy in a lot of ways.
Anyway, Doughboy jumped the small fence in the front of the house and called the Arredondos out to fight.  St. Pauls 13 called the 18th Street gang members “in-betweeners” and sometimes “sewer rats”; 18th Street, on the other hand, called the SP-13 members “Chochas”, “Dirtheads”, or “Fakers.”  So, Doughboy challenged the “sewer rats” to a fight.  The South Side 18th Street members outnumbered him, but he was huge – and he could fight.
The 18th Street members kept talking shit to him as they backed away, telling him to get the fuck off their property and get the fuck out of there.  Meanwhile, Arredondo went around the back of the house and went inside to get his father’s 44 mag.  He then came out the front door of the house and confronted Dough, telling him to “get the fuck off of his property” or he’d kill him.  Doughboy called his bluff and stood his ground, talking shit back to Arredondo and telling him that he was going to kick his ass for trying to scare him with some fake ass gun.
That was a huge mistake - because Arredondo wasn’t bluffing.  He shot one round at Doughboy’s head, narrowly missing it; the round ended up burying itself deep into the telephone pole behind Doughboy and to his left.  At that point, Doughboy quickly realized that maybe it was time to leave, so he turned and tried to run, jumping the short fence with Arredondo in pursuit.  Doughboy took a couple steps, and Arredondo shot again; this time, he hit Dough right in the ass, the bullet driving deep into the muscle of his right ass cheek.  The bullet’s impact was so forceful, it knocked Dough right out of his shoes.  Still, he continued running as fast as he could, limping now and bleeding.  Arredondo shot one more round at Dough as he ran past another telephone pole, again narrowly missing his head; the third round also got buried in the telephone pole.
Meanwhile, Vega was in high-speed “get the hell out of Dodge mode,” running as fast as he could from the area.  He wanted nothing to do with the fight; he was on probation and nowhere near the soldier that Doughboy was on the street.  Vega never looked back, leaving Doughboy wounded, bleeding, and running for his life.  Asshole and elbows was all Doughboy saw; Vega was gone, leaving him to live or die on his own.





***Want to win a copy of Curb CheK?  The first book by Zach Fortier? He is being kind enough to offer a signed print copy to one lucky follower of my blog! PLUS this giveaway will be open INTERNATIONALLY! So no matter what country you are in be sure to come back between March 17th through March 22nd to enter this awesome giveaway!***




No comments:

Post a Comment