Catch A Fade
After a fairly productive day I hop on the train downtown heading to Inglewood, not too far from the airport. I’m feeling effervescent, examining the California smog and cloudless sky listening to Kendrick Lamar’s song “Money Trees”, enjoying the quintessential west coast evening feeling good, feeling great. After about 10 minutes riding my smartphone dies and sadly I have no more tunes to provide the soundtrack for the way home, but you know me, ya boy stay strapped, strapped with a good book that is. The book I had that evening was a doozy too, Ken Wilbur was waxing poetic about Western Psychology and the world’s wisdom traditions. This particular read was one of those Cornell West ass books where you have to read every sentence really slow, and look up every other word, yeah one of those. So I’m saying, to even comprehend an inkling of what this intellectual had to say you had to be in a zone of deep concentration, and I was building up to that deep rhythm when there was an interruption. My focus on the cryptic writing was immediately halted by the crazy loud music of 3 young brothas entering the train at the Firestone station. These young bloods turned what was a semi quiet cab into the damn King of Diamonds (famous strip club in Miami). They had this unbelievably small but effective external speaker that was connected to their phone, and it was pumping sound like you wouldn’t believe. Now mind you the bus was a smorgasbord of grown adults, children with a nice sample of elders, this was about 6 o’clock in the evening and these cats came on like they was Kid Capri, Funkmaster Flex, and Dj Vlad, totally dis-gracious. Now the rules of the train/bus are that no music is tolerated without headphones but its a rule that is routinely broken with no security to continually enforce, so any music played aloud is wrong, but these knuckleheads here were just straight up disrespectful. The lyrics that spewed out of those speakers were enough to make a seasoned whore blush. I’m talking about the most vile, raunchiest music that you could imagine. You heard of triple X lyrics? Well multiply that 3 by 10 and ud have what we on that train were being subjected to.
The Black brothas, I guessed were aged between 18-21, young men by any standards still hella moist behind the ears but old enough to recognize that playing foul music in a public platform is out of pocket especially when elders are present. As the music became increasingly unbearable I looked back to get a good look at these cats to see what was really up with them. The general white world would have prosecuted them hoodlums based on saggy pants, and the deep melanin in their skin, but my trained eyes and ears immediately were able to deduce that they were gang banging fareal. One of the brothas had a prominent C tattooed in Old English on the right side of his face, and the other two had tattoos all representing the block and set they claimed, but if that isn’t enough evidence for you they were all blue berried up and every sentence they spewed ended with the Crip dead giveaway “cuh”.
“You got that blunt cuh?” “Yeah cuh, I got that bitch, now sit yo basic ass back down cuh”
As I ear hustled further into their conversation I was able to gather that they were from the rolling 60’s Crip card. Regardless of affiliation these young men could be my little brothers, cousins or just young hard heads from the Sacramento community I grew up in. Back home in Sac, my age of 32 qualifies me as a triple OG on the block. One of the roles of the original gangsta whether they affiliated with the street or not is to check the wrongs of the young homies when you see them fucking up, following the time honored tradition of it “takes a village…” but with a hood flavor. In my day a youngin would get punched dead in their chest by a real older G or even mollywhopped if the infraction was severe enough. Real OGs in my day would protect the square community from the bullshit of the streets if they could. Disrespecting elders was just one of the cardinal rules that if broken would get you straight bitch slapped by a real gangsta who had put real work in, in the hood.
So in my zeal to correct the disrespectful infraction I pondered on the right things to say to these thunder cats who were obviously oblivious to the passive-aggressive stares some folks on the train were giving them. The look of disappointment and shame that were on the faces of elders who could see their own grandchildren in these young brothas beckoned me on to think fast about a possible solution.
First I asked myself, is speaking up really worth a possible altercation? Gangstas especially youngins can have hair trigger emotions and tend to be hyper aggressive when presented with a challenge, and my request to turn off the music no matter how meekly put, could be looked at as a direct face-off. Was I truly ready to catch a fade for this infraction? (Catch a fade for you square bears is a Southern California term meaning to engage in fisticuffs)
Secondly I reasoned that regardless of the consequences, I’m on the side of righteousness and I can’t be afraid to act on the common sense my mind was pumping. I come from a family and a community that drilled the importance of maintaining respect for the elders. Like I alluded to earlier, when I was a teen, doing what these dudes were doing would illicit immediate repercussions, either a stern reprimanding or a swift ass kicking no questions asked depending on the enforcer. Back in those days’ gangstas could be as ruthless as Monster Kody but still have a regard for the elders in the community. Type of thugs who shoot up the block on Saturday but take their grandmas to church on Sunday morning. Though I never banged, I always carried and revered these ghetto ethics which again were firmly rooted in the African traditions.
I didn’t want to fight these Black men, but I also did not want fear to trump me out of doing what I knew in my soul was the right thing. I understood immediately that I couldn’t just go the Joe Clark “Lean on Me” route with these ninjas, so reasoned that I had to finesse em, feed them honey to dilute the vinegar and that’s exactly what I did. With my heart beating a mile a minute I figured something was going down whether negative or positive it was finna go down faster than a fat bitch using a wind breaker for a parachute.
Here’s the dialogue:
Looking the leader with the C tattooed on his face dead in the eye I said,
“Peace patna, that lil speaker you got pound playboy, but you know it’s some elders on the train, and its hella outta pocket to be playing that jawn with them on here, btw them Ken Griffeys on ya feet hard fam where you get that color?” (What color do you think they were?)
“Aw my bad big homie, we was tripping with the volume. Cuzz I got these round Foxhill. Turn that shit down cuh you heard that man”
“Word lil bruh thanks”
Now don’t get it twisted what I did, could have turned into “when keeping it real goes wrong” quick fast and in a hurry, but what type of man would I be if I didn’t face my fears. So many times we see our kids living savage and we just treat em like wolves letting them roam the hood with impunity. But if I fashion myself a freedom fighter, what type of revolutionary would I be if I’m scared of my own children?
Following my heart has never guided me to an ass whooping, and don’t think for one moment that ya boy cant thrown them thangs, but fear handicaps most of our people. Fear of our children is what got them acting so crazy out of control in the first place. Most of the times, these young folk know better, but they do things to make people realize they exist. If you feel invisible the best way to get some attention is to show out. Judging by the overt tattoos and loud music, these cats just wanted to be seen, to be acknowledged, to show that they were indeed alive. That moment taught me a valuable lesson, and my OG’s from Oak Park would be proud of the way I stepped up to the plate.
Over and out.
Zilla