If you've read my previous article -- The Day I Started a Gang -- then you already know that 6th grade was a complicated year for me. Simply put, elementary school in the Bronx for me meant fighting everyday. When I got to middle school, I came to learn that the individuals with whom I had engaged in confrontation with were still plotting against me, and that they had become more organized and sophisticated.
I've since come to learn that Francis, my mortal nemesis at the time, ratted out his own brother in a drug case, and is doing time. Moyehita has been deported to the Dominican Republic, José X is locked up for stabbing a pimp, Tocallo is doing life for murder, and el Verdugo is currently a federal fugitive. Jointly and severally, these individuals made my school experience in the Bronx a living hell, but I did the same to them.
At one point I walked out of IS 117, and found that the entire crew was waiting for me. At the time my knuckles were freshly calloused, so I couldn't fight to the max, and it would have been stupid to take on a crew of 10. I ran to the nearest payphone, hoping that I could contact my associate in the Latin Kings, with the hope that he would arrive in his graffitied van and shoot up the school, but he was indisposed at the time.
I started running across Grand Concourse, through traffic and all, before the crew caught up to me outside of a building. José X produced a silver, metallic gun and I immediately punched him in the wrist before bopping him in the nose. One of Mr. X's associates produced a box cutter, and I knew that it was too many guys, so I ran into a building on 176th street. An old lady had seen José X pull out his gun, and she buzzed me into the building. I locked the door, entered her apartment, and she called the cops.
The cops came to the apartment, and they asked me what gang the individuals who produced the gun were involved in; "the PP-30," I said, but the cop thought I was saying perpetrators. Nonetheless, I owe my life to that random lady in that building, for if she had not buzzed me into the building, I would surely be dead.
After that incident, I consulted a member of the Familia. Yes, the Familia family in my building, they don't need a gang, the patriarch had 20+ kids and one of them taught me everything I know about self-defense. "You have to go berserker," one of them said to me.
"Bite the ear, gouge the eyes, yell like you're crazy, and they'll leave you alone," he informed me. My 12-year old self took his advice, and I knew that I had to go berserker on José X. Don Familia then showed me some of the tactics that he had employed.
Endowed with that power, I returned the next day to IS 117 determined to put an end to my persecution. When school ended, I knew that José would be waiting for me, and that he would have a weapon. I was wearing my Jets jacket, and before I even realize it, the right upper pocked got sliced. José was wielding a boxcutter, so I bearhugged him, and went Mike Tyson on the motherfucker. I bit into his right ear, until the blood dripped down the side of my lips and I did not release until I knew that he understood that a knife was civilized in comparison to what I would do to him. When I released him from the bite, I shouted wildly "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" for the whole crowd to hear.
All those gangbangers were dismayed, for although they were used to brutality, they were not prepared for wild insanity. After that day, no one picked on me. 7th grade was the last time I had to use physical force against another individual. I'm eternally grateful to the lessons I received from the Familia.
