Windy City Gangster

By Erick Charles

In this installment, Windy City Gangster provides a vivid and uncensored tale of one man's journey through life, from childhood, adulthood, and everything in between. Here, the author, Erick Charles (also known as Rico G), shares his view of life growing up in the gang-plagued neighborhoods of Chicago's North Side. From the slums of the West Indies to the urban jungle of the mean streets of America's third largest city, the author (Charles) manages to adapt while learning and utilizing the tools provided from an array of characters, from drug dealers to pimps. Though riddled with personal trials and tribulations of his own, he manages to survive. From behind the walls of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Charles provides an outlook of his own hardships, along with numerous lessons which would later become the soundtrack to the life of one of the city's most feared yet revered Insane Gangsters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638819158

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Foreword

Intro

Chapter 1: Trust No One

Chapter 2: The Setup

Chapter 3: The Visit

Chapter 4: Growth and Development

Chapter 5: The Surprise

Chapter 6: Unforgettable

Chapter 7: Family Ties

Chapter 8: Club Fed

Chapter 9: Two-Faced

Chapter 10: The Big Twist

Chapter 11: Bloody Beaumont

Chapter 12: No Justice

Closing Thoughts

Fly High, Baby Boy!

In Memory of Tammy

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Windy City Gangster

Erick Charles

Copyright © 2023 Erick Charles

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 978-1-63881-914-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63881-915-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

This is a true story of Chicago's notorious way of life, as lived and told by Erick Charles, a.k.a. Rico G, and the Insane Gangsters of the city's North Side.

In the early '70s, a young man had recently moved into Chicago's Cabrini-Green Housing Project, which is located between two worlds competing against each other: the blacks of the projects and the Latinos of Humboldt Park area, to the Northwest of the city. This story is of the young man's inner struggle and the complexities of the war between the two factions: the Insane Gangsters and the Latin Kings, who fought to create their own boundaries within a multiracial environment. The young man from the island, whose father sent him to have the same opportunities for a positive advancement in life. Instead of a positive outcome, however, he faced nothing but trials and tribulations.

This is not a perfect world, so therefore, you can't be perfect. All you can do is try your best. When you walk into a room, speak when spoken to and hold your opinion. Always shoot for the moon. If you miss, you will land among the stars. This is a world of angels and demons, predators and prey. Which one are you? Sometimes I feel like a wolf in a flock of lambs.

Stay in your lane! All the gangs from the city are combined into two: Folks and People. And this is a true story. Don't believe none of that bullshit!

The Insane Gangsters of the city's North Side were led by the authority of the originator, Don Bo John, and his iron rule. His assassination is the prequel to the ultimate structure and the unification between his successor, Don Smokey, who led the Insane Gangsters in Chicago. In 1981, Don Smokey and the other gangsters came to the decision to embrace the new concept and convert to Gangster Disciples.

In 1992, the Gangster Disciples embraced the new concept, which became a political force of thousands of members, whose organizational concept known was growth and development as a new way of life. Through generations of struggle, blacks, Latinos, and a minority of whites, together have become a power to reckon within Chicago. This was all sought by the vision of our honorable chairman.

Intro

This is a brief history of a great and beautiful city. Although beautiful, Chicago can also be a very dangerous place. In August of 1830, the city of Chicago received its own seal and became an incorporated city within the state of Illinois.

On March 4, 1837, the now Cook County had been a corporation after having its own seal. Then in 1871, tragedy struck when a terrible fire burned most of the city to the ground. Over 300 lives were lost because of that terrible tragedy. At that time, the population in the city rapidly grew to over 324,000. The city was rebuilt and became known as a high-quality engineering and architectural marvel.

On July 27, 1919, the city suffered a racial riot because of segregation. On this day, a young black man, age seventeen, was enjoying the cool waters of the beautiful Lake Michigan, when his makeshift raft was whisked away by the strong currents of the lake that pushed him beyond the imaginary lines set between the blacks and the whites. Upon noticing the young man in unfamiliar territory, the whites, who were also at the beach, started throwing rocks at the young man in the raft.

One of the rocks hit the raft, puncturing a hole in it, and caused it to deflate almost instantly. As a result, the young man drowned, as like most black youths at the time did not know how to swim. Subsequently more casualties followed because of the incident. Among them, twenty-five blacks and thirteen whites lost their lives, along with hundreds more who were injured.

In 1920, a young Italian American man by the name of Al Capone moved from New York City to Chicago. Al Capone started an outfit known as the Mafia. To some, Capone was loved as much as he was feared. As some compared him to a modern-day Robin Hood, he was known to others as the mastermind behind the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

The federal government created Chicago Housing Projects to help contain and house the black immigrants coming from the South. All of this was an experiment, sort of speaking, coming for a better life. Those housing projects were known as Robert Taylor Homes, Henry Holmes, State Way Garden, the Village, and the Cabrini-Green Housing Project. These same projects are where many of the modern-day street gangs originated from. You also have the white area, which is in Bridgeview's community, where the Daley family used to stay. If you were caught as a person of color anywhere in Bridgeview, the police would beat you, harass or arrest you.

The city came about from different groups such as the Black Stone Rangers and the Black Gangster Disciples, the Devil Disciples and the Black King Cobras on the South Side. The Vice Lords were primarily from the West Side of the city. The Insane Gangsters, in this particular area, the Cabrini-Green Housing Projects were on the North Side. All of these street gangs started off with good intentions but slowly started to clash within one another after the US government infiltrated the street gangs and supplied them with guns and drugs, which started the gang wars.

Chapter 1

Trust No One

Now I'm in the hood with my homies, and people from around the city are calling us the Crazy Crew, but we're yelling Insane Gangster!

That's what we called ourselves at the time. We used to go to the $1 theater downtown every weekend. They would let us watch three films for a buck on Sundays. After the show, we thought that we were Bruce Lee. Only, we went looking for trouble. We had it out with two different street gangs: The Vice Lords and the Latin Kings. Most of the time, we came out on top.

Anybody that wasn't one of us got the business. White boys stayed away from the Green; they knew better. When they saw one of us, they swore they'd seen a ghost. The city was very racist. As a kid, that was the shit. But as years went by, I knew that a change was necessary. In my life, I have seen many of my main homies laying in a box. I had to make the decision to change myself and become a better man for the sake of my family and my life. Life can be detrimental in Chicago. So I decided to move to the North Side (which we called the North Pole) with my sister Carole and her family.

In Chicago, if you don't stay on your Ps and Qs, there are consequences. Gotta keep your eyes open. So I stayed awake. If you give a motherfucker an inch, they will try to take a yard. If they tried me, though, I had no problem blasting their ass. I stayed to myself for the most part.

My number 1 rule: trust no one!

I bounced back and forth to and from my sister on the North Side of Green. I was loved by many, hated by few. My number 2 rule: weed out the few! And that was the Chicago Police Department (CPD). I hate them with a vengeance, as you will soon find out why.

A strange thing about being on the North Side is if you are black or Puerto Rican on the street after seven o'clock, they would harass you. Being a minority puts a target on your back. So you had from 3:00 p.m. after school till 6:45 p.m. to get all of your hustling out of the way. If they caught you with anything illegal, you were hit. Period. I was staying between three colleges. I used to sell a lot of weed to the college kids. I was staying at 1149 West Wrightwood. There were a lot of white girls out there that loved me. Everyone in the projects would say white people hated us. And they couldn't fight. That was a damn lie because one white dude that was a member of their Peanut Butter Crackers (PBC) kicked my ass. Then when he finished, he told me to leave before he kicked my ass again. So I went back to the block and told the homies that five of them had jumped me. I had too much pride to admit that it was only one guy that had fucked me up. But I told them where one of the guys stayed.

Man, I sure got his ass back. We fucked him up so bad the police were saying he must have been whooped by the devil himself. And I liked it. What I didn't like was that I needed help to whoop one guy's ass. Especially over me trying to steal a bicycle that was on his front porch. I had just turned fourteen, and I guess the whooping was a late birthday present.

Gangbanging wasn't easy in the '70s, but it was fun. The only thing I found more exciting was fucking different women. At my age, that was what thrilled me. I didn't get much love at my house, so I found it in the streets. Selling weed, fucking hoes, chilling with my homies was my way of living. My father didn't care, and if he did, he never showed it. He had a new family, who I did love unconditionally. Especially my little sister Gegie. She followed me everywhere in the house when I was home.

At night, I would sneak out of the window to hang with the homies. We would break into apartments. I was the youngest in my crew, so they would boost me up to open the windows. I would crawl in and unlock the front or back door for them. Then we would ransack the house looking for anything worth of value. They always paid me what I thought was an equal share. Until one day, my field marshal named Ace told me he had a lick to hit.

When I asked him what it was, he told me a big house in the suburbs. He said I would get paid better than what my crew was paying me. So I was down with it. He came to pick me up in a Cadillac Seville. Nice, clean, all black with white walls. When I got in, he put in an 8-track with some James Brown. I was feeling good about the situation. Especially with one of the top dogs for the Insane Gangsters sitting in the driver seat. So now we were off to the highway. Finally reaching our destination, we parked in an alleyway behind the garage of the house. We got out of the car together and peeped out surroundings.

It was dark and quiet. Next thing I knew, Ace was stepping onto the hood of his Cadillac and telling me to take my shoes off and climb up. So I did just that. He squatted down and had me stand on his shoulders, lifted me up, and I jumped on top of the garage. Walking across to the other side, I used the gutter drain to find my way down.

Once I was back on ground level, I went inside the garage and opened the door so he can pull his vehicle in. Grabbing a ladder, we walked it to a bathroom window that we saw cracked. I climbed up into the window like I've done many times before. The coast was clear, so I opened the balcony door for him to sneak in as well. We automatically went into the master bedroom, finding jewelry, weapons, and some brand-new clothes with tags still on them. We even got down to taking the piggy bank filled with more than what I expected to ever find in a kid's room. Man, those people had money!

I continued getting into trouble, so my older brother Joseph took me in. I respect him to the absolute fullest. Only difference is, he lived in the notorious South Side of Chicago, in the Englewood area, 7132 South Wood to be exact. The main reason is because the founder of the Insane Gangsters, Bo John, had gotten into it with a man by the name of Country. Before Bo John started the gangsters in the Greens, he was a member of Black Deuce. When he switched up, Country wasn't having it.

Don Bo John took me with him to handle some business. He handed me a loaded .38 and told me if this dude tried anything, shoot him without hesitation. While Bo John was kicking his ass, Country pulled out a knife and stabbed him in his stomach. So I shot the motherfucker three times.

But he didn't die. I only paralyzed him.

That same night, Don, a few brothers, and of course myself, had a meeting with the Maniac Latin Disciples' leader by the name of June Bug. We needed confirmation that the peace was still held between us. Everything went accordingly and turned out fine. They will always be our cousins as Latin Disciples.

Although Joseph was not in a gang, the gangsters on Sixty-Ninth and Wood as well as the MCs (Mickey Cobras) on Seventy-Fourth and Wood both had mad respect for him. I was young, light-skinned, handsome with curly hair. And I was cool as fuck. Every hoochie momma around the hood wanted a piece of me. And better believe they got this dick like they wanted. Some of these females had boyfriends that found out I was fucking their girl. They wanted to fuck me up but never made a move because of the fear and reputation Joseph had. My brother was a very observant person. He knew things without anyone telling him. Just like he knew I was fucking his girlfriend's daughter, Kathy. But he never told me anything about it.

I then got into it with three guys one day on Sixty-Third and Ashland under the CTA A-train. A brawl broke out, and while kicking one guy's ass, the other two decided they wanted to jump in. So I evened the odds and pulled out my knife. It was seven to eight inches long, sharper than a razor, and had a nice grip.

I never intended on using it until that day. But it was better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it! I stabbed two of them bitches, and the last guy took off as soon as he heard his friend's screams. Next thing I knew, the police were there to pick me up from Joseph's. They took me to the foster home.

I started fresh with an Italian family that same night. I received a welcoming party, which felt different, especially with my new surroundings and environment. As the night went on, a girl that also lived in the same home pulled me aside. She was nice and very pretty. We didn't talk much before we were messing around. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember her telling me her name, and she was already sucking my dick. I wanted to fuck, but she told me that she was a virgin and saving herself. But I can't complain because the head was amazing.

A few months went by in the home before the courts released custody to my sister Carole. So there I was, back to the North Side. That's when shit got real. She wasn't living that deep in the North Side when I was with her a year ago. This area was filled with all types of white gangs. They thought they were tough.

The Simon City Royals, The Howard Street Greasers, The TJOs, The Playboys, The Black Mobsters, The Stoney Hoods, The Young Mack Boys, and last but not least, The Howard Lords.

The Lords were the only ones that I fucked with. A lot of their members lived in the same building as Carole. They invited me to drink and smoke with them when we first met. I liked their style because they were always having fun and always had pussy around. They didn't care that I was Insane Gangster. As a matter of fact, some of the Gangsters started hanging out too.

The Simon City Royals and the Greasers, on the other hand, were some prejudiced pussies. We had to rumble with them any and every time we ran into one another. The leaders of the Lords that went by the names of Big T and Hillbilly were both big motherfuckers. Hillbilly was a white boy with long hair. He stood about 6'2" and was from the South.

Big T was about 6'4" and solid. He weighed about 260–270 pounds. He played linebacker for Sullivan High School. That's where they all attended school. Big T had a beautiful younger sister named Robin, who had a baby girl from Charles, the only black member of the Howard Street Lords, who were an all-white gang.

The Greasers came one day to parlay with Hillbilly and Big T about a possible alliance with the two gangs. Snake, the leader of the Greasers, said out of his mouth, You can all become Greasers except that nigger! We don't allow their kind in our gang!

Big T answered, Everything sounded good until you called my brother-in-law a nigger. Now get out of here!

Then Hillbilly said, If y'all don't leave, I'ma start shooting.

The Greasers put their hands up and said, All right, we're out of here.

From that day forward, it was an all-out war between the two gangs. The war in the streets back in the '70s were nothing nice. You had the Gangsters from the Green that were coming up North to fuck up the TJOs. The police didn't know what was going on until it was too late. We were blasting their ass and going back to the Green.

CPD used to be the ones shooting, but now the tables were turned. In Cabrina-Green, us Gangsters didn't give a damn who you were. If you were not with us, you were the enemy, against us. We were fucking up anything that got in the way.

Those bitch motherfuckers out in the North caught my big homie Hillbilly in an alley and stabbed him with a thirty-inch sword, hitting his heart. He died there in the alley. After the funeral, the Howard Street Lords, not to be mistaken with the Vice Lords (there were a lot of guys that called themselves Lords on the North Side), they flipped Kings. So they, too, became enemies. The Gangsters took over the North as Insane Gangsters, as well as Howard Street.

There was a guy named Fifty who was watching me for a couple of years, and