Hood Legends

By Michael Jourdain

What you are about to read is the first part of a multipart story about my life, parts of my life that involve gangbanging and not just any kind of gangbanging but gangbanging of the deepest type. Gangbanging on the notorious streets of South-Central Los Angeles. Moreover my life evolved from gangbanging to a leading role in America’s drug culture. While these things are true about my life, I want to make one thing very clear: nothing that you are about to read is meant to glorify either gangbanging or drug culture; in fact, it is my sincere hope that the telling of my life story will steer the youth and others away from both paths as they literally lead to dead ends. So if you are reading this, know that if I had it to do all over again, I wish that I had been dealt the kind of cards in life that would have prepared me for an Ivy League college like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc. rather than state and federal prison.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662424861

Book preview

Dedication

My lovely wife, Charlotte, who never doubted me.

In memory of my mother, who loved me unconditionally.

Preface

This book is based on a true story. I was encouraged to write this book based on the economic and political challenges of children growing up in South-Central Los Angeles which is recognized and labeled as the hood. Every state has them whether it is Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta etc. All four corners of the world has what is known as the hood. This book brings you face-to-face with the reality of the gang and drug culture here in the United States of America and around the world. This book will also emphasize the fact of proper education and without. This vicious 360° circle will only repeat itself, unless we as a collective people, no matter what race, creed, or color make a drastic change to our psychological thinking pattern. We must start at ground zero, The Hood.

Hood legends

Michael Jourdain (a legend in the flesh)

Thomas Reese (Tootie Reese, RIP)

Stanley Williams (Tookie Williams, RIP)

Michael Conception (a legend in the flesh)

Ermias Asghedom (Nipsey Hussle, RIP)

Growing up in South-Central Los Angeles was really challenging as a child growing up with three sisters and one brother with no father in the home. I could remember getting up in the mornings around 6:00 a.m., just walking up and down the street with my little red dog named Champ. Champ was a mixed fox terrier. He would walk with me while I would be waiting for my friends to wake up. They were somewhat late risers; some of the elderly ladies on the block would see me, and they would say, Michael, what are you doing? and I would say, Just walking up and down the street waiting for my friends to wake up so I will have somebody to play with.

So Ms. McKinney said, Would you like some bottles? You could take them down to the corner store, turn them in, and get a refund and have some money in your pocket.

I said, Sure.

So she said, Meet me in my backyard.

So I started walking to the backyard. There was Ms. McKinney. She had a smile on her face, and she had a big bag full of bottles. So I gladly walked down the street to the corner store. I turned the bottles in for a refund, and the store clerk gave me my refund of $1.50, so I bought some candy, potato chips, and a soda pop. I was really smiling. It really felt good to have money in my pocket and not to have to ask my mother for it. I went back on the Block Haas Avenue. Some of my friends were up now sitting on their porch waiting for me. I shared my potato chips, candy, and soda with them. They asked me, Where did you get the money to go to the store?

I said, I got up real early. While you guys are sleeping, I’m making money.

And they just laughed.

I said, No, I’m serious. Watch, you guys. I’m gonna have money. I’m gonna have lots of money. They laughed and said, You’re just dreaming.

Once everyone came outside, we all went to Van Ness Park where we would play football. We would always see older guys hanging out. They were in a gang (Van Ness Gang). It was always some fighting or shooting, so we had to watch out, make sure we wasn’t a victim. We would see guys in lowriders or fancy cars, wearing jewelry. There were girls wearing short skirts and high heels. Welcome to South Central Los Angeles; they were our role models. Pimps, prostitutes, burglars, robbers, counterfeiters, and some murderers.

A beautiful day. My sister and I were walking down the street to play with some of our friends. There was a family that lived in our neighborhood called the Halls. Everyone was afraid of the Halls. They were the bullies on the block. Most of them have been in juvenile hall, boys’ and girls’ homes, county jail, and state prison. I was eight years old, and my oldest sister was eleven years old. I really didn’t wanna walk past their house. They made everybody walk across the street, and no one could walk on the public sidewalk pass in front of their house. One of the guys who hung out there on the porch drinking and smoking weed started talking to my sister, and we kept on walking, so he walked off the porch toward us, approached my sister, and started pulling her pigtails. I told him to leave my sister alone, but I was only eight years old. He didn’t pay me any attention. He told me just to shut up. My sister started crying, then she started running home, and I ran behind her. My mother met us at the door, and she asked my sister what the problem was. She was crying, saying this guy Chester was pulling on her hair. My mother told her to calm down and gave us both a glass of water. She asked us what happened, and we explained to her step-by-step. After my mother heard our story, she told us to go watch TV. I heard her pick up the phone. I was wondering who she was talking to. She was talking to my father. She was explaining to him what happened. The next day, my father and uncle came over to our house. He said, Michael, I need to talk to you.

I said, Okay.

My father served in the United States Army; he was a sergeant. He just finished serving his tour. Killing was what the United States government taught him to do. He reminded me of a gangster. Sometimes, my brother and I would watch gangster movies on TV—Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart. He said to me, Michael, show me the guy who put his hands on your sister. I told him I didn’t want to because I was scared. He told me, Don’t fear this guy. Fear God and him. I hesitated. We walked two doors down. All the guys and girls were sitting on the porch, smoking weed, drinking, cursing, and laughing. He asked me, Which one pulled on your sister’s hair? I pointed out the guy. My father pulled out a .45-caliber automatic pistol from his waistband. He did it so quick. He hit the guy over the head. The guy fell to the ground. All I saw was a pool of blood. He shouted out and told all of them, All these straight hair kids that you see in that house belong to me, and if you ever put your hands on anyone of them again, I will kill you. My father was from New Orleans—French Creole.

The next day, I got up, walked out my front door, went to my backyard, and got my dog, Champ, to walk toward the bullies’ house. I was very confident they were sitting on the porch. The guy Chester was with a bandage on his head. I looked at them with a smile on my face. Not only did I walk on the sidewalk past their house but I walked on their grass like, Now what? They just looked at me. Chester held his head down with Shane. I proceeded down the street. I saw some of my friends playing football in the street. I sat on the curb, waiting for one of my friends to come out the house so I could play, then I saw Jonathan. I waved him over. I asked him if he wanted to play football. He said yes, so he was chosen to play on one team, and I was chosen to play on the other team. The game was getting real physical, so we all decided to go up to Van Ness Park and play there on the grass. While we played football, the gang members would be on the sideline smoking weed and drinking and watching us play. They would encourage us to play hard and to do our best. My best friend was from Cleveland, Ohio. He didn’t play football. He really didn’t play sports, so he spent more time on the sideline watching all of us play. He would interact with the gang members (Van Ness gang) even though we were much younger. The game was over, and it started getting dark, so we knew it was time to get home before the streetlights came on. On the way home, we were walking and talking about how people respected the gang members or how they feared them. So it was a thin line between respect and being feared. My friend asked me if I had ever thought about being in a gang. I said, No, not really. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Monday morning, I heard my mother walking down the hallway. Get up, Michael. It’s time to go to school. Get up, brush your teeth, wash your face. Your breakfast will be ready. I lay there for a while trying to think of a way to make an excuse so I wouldn’t have to go to school, so my mother came in my room and said, Michael, did you hear what I said?

I said, Yes, mom. I don’t feel good today.

She said, That’s okay. You’ll feel better later.

So much for that. So I went to the kitchen, ate my breakfast, kissed my mother goodbye, and walked three blocks from my house down to Fifty-Ninth Street—school. I was thinking to myself, I sure will be glad to get out of school. But then it was junior high school, so my next step was Horace Mann Junior High. I still had a few years to go before junior high school. I walked in my classroom. The teacher had a special seat for me right in front of the class right in front of her where she could watch me. When I was first assigned to her class, I had a seat in the back of the class, which gave me a lot of room to talk and play with my friends and not pay attention to the task at hand. I felt somewhat neglected because for some of my friends, the father and mother lived together with them. I loved my father very much, and he did come around to make sure we had the things that we needed like clothes and food. But I still felt neglected. I truly believed that a boy needed his father to help him grow up to be a upright citizen and be a man. However, my mother did the best she could, and she did a great job. I knew some teachers, maybe some people, may have thought she didn’t do such a good job. But raising five kids in South-Central Los Angeles alone was not easy. In my eyes, my mother was the closest human being to God. And I still feel that way today. Everyone should feel that way about their mother.

Today we moved from Fifty-Ninth and Haas Avenue to Sixth Avenue and Sixtieth. We were moving to a different area, but Sixth Avenue and Sixtieth was only four blocks away, which was fine with me because all my friends went to Fifty-Ninth Street School, and now a lot of us would be going to Horace Mann Junior High School. Moving into our new house, I had a lot of friends coming over ringing the bell and knocking on the door. My mom yelled out to me, Michael, your friends are at the door. So I answered the door and went outside to hang out with my homeboys. We all were getting older, so our focus was on different things, like money and girls—in that order. My homeboy Dewey from Cleveland, Ohio, he would meet me on the corner of Second Avenue and Sixtieth, and then we would walk across the tracks to school. It was basically like a rule of the boys in the hood not to cross the tracks, stay on your side of the tracks. It always was a problem. However, I always went where I wanted to go. I always had the mind of a boss. As a child, I learned from my father how to deal with an adversary. You show respect, and you demand yours. As we were walking to school, we ran across some hard heads, but it was some of the same guys I went to Fifty-Ninth Street school, with so some of us were cool, and some were not.

So one of the guys walked up to me and my homeboy and said, What are you guys doing across the tracks?

I said, Man, we’re not looking for trouble. We got to go to school, Horace Mann.

So one guy said, How much money you got?

At that time, Dewey’s mother gave him fifty cents a day for lunch. My mother gave me thirty-five cents, which was lunch in the cafeteria. So I told the guy, Whatever I have in my pocket belongs to me.

So he said, Whatever I find in your pockets, I could have.

So I said to him, Let’s get them up. So I hit him in his jaw. He got a couple of punches in, and then I knocked him out. That was the respect you demand.

First day at Horace Mann Junior High School. Things would be different having different classes, different teachers, different friends. However, I saw a lot of students here who went to Fifty-Ninth Street Elementary School with me. And there were a lot of other students here I had never met before. Meeting new people and new attitude was always a challenge for me. The bell just rang, so it was now time to go to homeroom. I saw some students hanging out in the hallway. I asked them if they knew where room 225 was. They responded no. So I said, Okay, thanks. I saw a hall monitor, so I walked up to him and asked him if he knew where my homeroom was. He gave me directions, and I said thanks. I finally found my homeroom. The door was open, so I walked in to a great big smile. A friend of mine was there. Her name was Tracy. She and I went to Fifty-Ninth Street school together. She always liked me, but I was shy. I said, Hi, Tracy. You’re in this homeroom? She said yes. I asked her, Do you know the teacher’s name?

She said, You should turn around and read the blackboard. It’s right there.

I said, Thanks. Eventually, I would have done that smart mouth. She smiled. Tracy had long brown hair, hazel eyes, and very fair skin, and had a crush on me. She was Creole like myself. She was really pretty, but there was a problem. She looked like my sister Sheila, and I couldn’t get over that, so I never looked at her any other way other than just being a good friend. It was break time. I was thinking let me go out to the yard, see what was going on, walk around school. I saw people whom I knew, people I didn’t know, and lots of girls. I could tell those guys over there thought they were the tough guys at school. It was gonna be a problem. Not that I think I was tough. It was just those guys with that type of mentality, most of them were bullies and like to run in packs like hyenas. Or maybe I was wrong. Maybe I needed to get my own crew. That was just how people roll in South-Central Los Angeles.

Crewed up. I was walking around the school to see if I could see familiar faces worthy of being part of my crew. I saw my homeboy Dewey. He asked, Mike, what are you doing? Where are you going?

I said, Going around to put a crew together, man. That’s the way we got to roll. I’m not taking no shit from nobody. So me and Dewey walked around the school, looking. We stumbled up on a dice game I remembered Dewey’s mother would give him $0.50 a day for lunch, and I had $0.35, so I asked Dewey to loan me the $0.50, and I would share my winnings with him. He said okay. I was that confident, so I got into the dice game and started shooting dice. I started with $0.85. I won $18.00 dollars. The school security came, so we had to break it up. Everybody ran for their third period classroom.

Later that day, I ran into three of my homeboys. We all lived on the same side of the railroad tracks—Michael, Willy, Tony. I told them I was putting a crew together, and they were worthy of my crew. So I explained to them what I expected of my crew—loyalty, trustworthiness, being true to oneself, and no snitching. We can talk about it at lunchtime. You guys meet me by the bungalows over on the bleachers. I’ll see you guys there. On my way to my math class, I saw the bullies again there checking me out. One of them asked me where I was from. Then another guy said, Where do you live? Which side of the tracks do you live on? I told him I lived on Sixth Avenue and Sixtieth across the tracks. So he said, Why are you going to our school? I told him it was not my choice, that that was just the way it was.

So one of the guys said, You sure have a smart mouth.

I said, I’m getting ready to go to class. I’ll see you later.

The bell just rang for lunch. I headed over to the bleachers by the bungalows where I wanted to talk to my crew. I walked over toward the bungalows. There everybody was sitting on the bleachers. What’s up, everybody? Check this out. I’ve seen these bullies. Have you guys seen these bullies around the school grounds? We had some words. They asked me where I was from and where I lived. I said in the Sixtieth on the other side of the tracks. I am not trying to start trouble, but we’re not gonna run from any trouble. I told him I would see him later, so we need to go over to where they hang out and talk to them, get some things straight. Let’s go look for them. You know they gonna be over there in the cafeteria checking people’s pockets, asking them for money. And when someone tells them no, they come back with whatever I find I can have. Let’s head over to the cafeteria. There they are sitting at the lunch tables. Hey I am going over to the water fountain and get some water. You guys lock down a table. I’ll be back in a minute, but before I go, you guys want to get something to eat? Don’t worry about the costs. It’s all me. I won eighteen dollars in a dice game. Okay, like I said, I’ll be right back. Well, I see you guys got something to eat. I really don’t know how you guys can eat all that. Dam Dewey, looks like you try to get two of everything. Man, you greedy. I don’t know what you gonna do without your homeboy because you ain’t got no hustle, man. Check this out, you guys. When I went to get some water, I looked outside the gate on the side of the school. I saw a whole lot of guys over there. I saw some guys. They didn’t go to our school. They were older than us. But I heard some people talking. They say they came from Washington High School. This guy, man, he’s really big. He looks like he was a muscle builder. They called him Big Tookie. This girl I saw earlier named Francine. I saw her talking to Big Tookie. He hit her up like she was his little sister. This is the same girl I was telling y’all about. She was trying to get at me the first day of school. But I heard she was fucking around with one of them café niggas named Rodney. That’s okay because I know she really wants to get at this Creole nigga. You know she is the prettiest girl at school. So I might have to tap that for a minute. I know it’s gonna cause some trouble, but that’s one thing we don’t start—trouble. But we don’t run from trouble either. The lunch bell rang. It was time to go back to class. Check this out, guys, at our last class for the day. Everybody, meet me on the bleachers. That way, we walk home together.

The bell just rang, ending our last class for the day. On my way over to the bleachers to meet my crew, Francine was walking out of her classroom. She said, Hi, Michael, where are you going? I told her I was going home. She asked if I would walk her to her first period class. I said sure. Then she asked if I wanted her phone number.

I told her, That would be cool. I’ll get it from you tomorrow. I need to be somewhere right now. She said okay with a smile. I started walking over toward the bleachers. I saw my crew. Everybody was there but Michael. So I walked up to the bleachers and asked everyone if they had seen Michael.

Dewey said, I see him. Here he comes. Look over there. I told him it was very, very important to be punctual because time don’t wait for no man. He apologized, so we proceeded to the exit and started walking home. Dewey said, You guys hungry? With no money in his pocket, he could not pay for everybody’s meal.

So Willy said, I’m hungry too, man.

So I said, No problem. Hostess Bakery is right there, so we can get some pies, Twinkies, and cupcakes. They have trays. They’re loading up the hostess trucks. We walked past the bakery all the time on the way to school and the way back home across the tracks.

"I’m letting you guys know right now lunch was on me. You guys have to fend for yourself at the Hostess Bakery. So we proceeded to walk home, cracking jokes, telling stories, talking about girls in our classrooms.

Tony asked Dewey, Are there any fine girls in your classes?

Dewey said, Yes, it’s a lot of fine girls at this school. They live around here in the Seventieth, Eightieth, and Ninetieth.

Tony said, Yes, I know. I saw at least three girls in my classes. It’s one that I like. I’m gonna get at her.

I said, Bet we will see tomorrow. Check this out, you guys. Remember the girl I was telling you about named Francine? She was talking to that guy Big Took. She wants me to walk her to her class in the morning tomorrow.

Willy said, I thought you said she was talking to one of those café boys named Rodney.

I said, That’s right. I don’t care. I am going to walk her to her class anyway.

So Tony said, We will be on point because that guy Rodney thinks he’s tough.

I said, Cool. So I thought for a moment. I said to myself, out of my crew who would be my ride or die, I thought about Tony. He was from South-Central Los Angeles, born and raised there like me, but I saw weakness. But I knew he would get them up. He was like a little Joe Frazier. Then I thought about Michael. He was born and raised in South-Central Los Angeles also. So I said to myself, we were only thirteen years old, and Mike had an alcohol problem. I knew it wasn’t his fault because his mother and father were alcoholics. So I really knew his character. I couldn’t count on him. So I started thinking about my boy Willy and how he would react in a situation. He was originally from Alabama, a real good dude. He wasn’t scary, so I knew I could count on him. So I started thinking about my homeboy Dewey. He was originally from Cleveland, Ohio. He loved boxing. On the weekends, he would always run around with a pair of eight-ounce Everlast boxing gloves he brought from Cleveland, Ohio. But my thing was what would he really do without those gloves. Would he really be down? I came to this conclusion. I knew he was a coward, but he was my homeboy, like a brother to me, so I didn’t really care.

Tomorrow came. I told everybody to meet up on Sixtieth and Gramacy before we walked across the tracks every morning on our way to school. Dewey lived on Second Avenue and Slauson. Since I lived on Sixth Avenue and Sixtieth, me and Dewey were always at the spot before Michael, Willy, and Tony. Michael and Willy lived on Third Avenue and Fifty-Seventh. Tony lived on Fourth Avenue and Fifty-Fourth Street, so it would always take them a little longer to get to our meeting spot. Now that everyone’s here, let’s walk across the tracks. Did you guys eat breakfast? Are you guys hungry? The Hostess Bakery is right there. I sure can eat me some of those chocolate cupcakes.

Everybody said, Cool. Let’s go. We’re hungry too.

It seemed like being thirteen and fourteen years old, we stayed hungry. It wasn’t like we didn’t get food at home. We were just high on energy, burning everything off, growing by the day. We had three more blocks to go, and then we would be at the bakery. Hey, Dewey, what are you going to get? I bet I know you like Twinkies.

Willy said he was going to get some chocolate cupcakes. Then I said, Tony and Michael, what are you guys going to get? Both of them said they didn’t