How Long Will I Cry? (5 page)

MY LIFE WAS ONLY WORTH A FEW
GUNS

JAIME MIRANDA

Jaime Miranda—not his real name—is a
17-year-old high-school student who lives on the West Side of
Chicago. Because he recently quit his gang, Jaime fears for his
life and wants to keep many details of his past confidential. He’s
hiding from his former associates, whom he tricked into believing
he was moving out of town.

During his time in the gang, Jaime
witnessed, and took part in, “terrifying things that still give me
nightmares.” These acts of violence have traumatized him—but he
can’t confide in his parents because he’s never told them about
joining the gang. Jaime is a short, intense young man with
close-set eyes that tend to dart around the room. When he describes
his fear, he looks down and speaks in a somewhat shaky tone.

The first time I fell in love I was on
vacation with my family in Mexico. I was 11. I met this girl and,
as soon as I seen her, I was like, “Man, she’s the one.” I bought
her flowers the second day. I was there for about three months and
every day we would be together, we would spend time together. We
still stay in touch. We still have a connection from our
childhood—knowing that I was her first boyfriend, she was my first
girlfriend. We talk, Facebook and everything. I can’t recall
anything else in my childhood that made a good memory for me.

I have older brothers, but I never grew up
with them. I have no idea where they are. I’ve never seen one of
them. So to me, the members of the gang were like my brothers. I
just seen these guys as my family. The first day that I joined, my
friend told me, “I’m not going to look at you as my friend anymore.
I’m looking at you as my brother.” If I needed something, the gang
would get it for me. If I was hungry, they’d go get me something.
They’d buy me clothes. They’d look out for me; I’d look out for
them.

Even before I joined, they used to do a lot
of things for me. One day they told me, “Hey, would you like to
join with us?”

I said, “Fuck it, let’s do it. Let’s go.” And
that’s how, pretty much, my life started going down as soon as I
said, “Let’s go. Let’s do it.”

At first, I’m thinking it’s fun. You know,
I’m enjoying myself, being with my friends on a daily basis. What I
used to like about being with them was that, on the weekends we’d
have cookouts. You know, all of us just drink—you know, have our
own fun. Those are things that I used to like.

There was only about five of us from the gang
in the school, but we would still keep our reputation up. If we see
one of the other gang members throwing the gang signs up, and if we
see them throwing ours down,4 then we’ll go confront them. We’ll
fight them wherever it’s at. In front of the office, in front of
the principal, it doesn’t matter. If we show fear, our own friends
would deal with us, because that’s not what they want in a gang.
They want people that are willing to do whatever it takes to
protect—and just do what’s needed.

Once you’re a gangbanger, the only thing
going through your head is, “Fight. Do what you’ve got to do.” The
one thing that gangbangers like is that fear. Personally, I used to
walk through the blocks around the school being feared. When people
used to look at me, they used to hide behind cars, go back to their
homes or whatever. I wouldn’t even have a knife or a gun on me. No,
they were just afraid of me. ‘Cause they know if they do something
to me, then everybody’s gonna be involved.

Every Friday, it was mandatory, we have to be
at the block. We’ll all pack up in a car; we’ll go to the block;
we’ll do, you know, our routine. Just walk around, two, three, four
blocks, make sure nobody’s tagging where they’re not supposed to.
If we see anybody that doesn’t belong, we’ll deal with him. One
thing that I was told was, “Don’t mess with people that live in the
’hood.” If we see a kid walking around and we know he lives around
here, we’re not able to touch him. But there’s days where, if we
don’t see nothing going on, then we’ll start the trouble.

There was times when we’d go with a bunch of
people to a different block and try to take over. A lot of times
we’d succeed and sometimes we’d fail. It pretty much came down to
whether they could outgun us. It was like 40 to 43 of us around
there at one point. We went with that perspective that, “We’re
going to make our point be noticed.” You know? At first, it was…I
found it fun. I found it, like, “Man, I have all these people with
me. There’s no way I’m gonna get hurt.”

But once a person becomes a gang member, he’s
easily targeted by everyone. There was a few times where I would
come close to being abducted by other gang members. I didn’t know
if they had a gun. It was last year, during the middle of my
sophomore year, when it first happened. It was on California, about
to hit Division. I was coming out of school. Both of my friends
that were usually there with me went to a gang meeting that I chose
not to attend.

Apparently, these two rival gang members knew
that I didn’t go and, as soon as I was going to step into my car,
they slammed the door and they hit me in the head. I fell. They
picked me up, put me in the backseat of their car. It got me dazed.
As I gained my consciousness back and noticed that the car was
moving, I panicked and I started hitting them both. They stopped
the car and both came out. They started beating me.

Something in me told me, “Don’t give up. You
need to survive. Do what you’ve got to do.” I got up and I fought
them both. By luck, I got a few good hits in on them and, as soon
as they both fell to the floor, I ran. The guy in the passenger
side chased me for about a block and a half.

I went back to the school. As soon as I got
into my car, I called my mom and told her, “Mom, I’m gonna be late.
I’m gonna be doing some after-school activities.” Then, I went back
to the block to tell them what had happened. They gave me a gun and
three of us went driving around their ’hood. Whoever we found would
have been an S.O.S.—shoot on sight. Luckily, we didn’t find anybody
out there.

I’d carry a gun most of the time. The first
time I got my gun, I—I was terrified. I didn’t know even how to use
it, you know? That’s what always kept going through my head, like,
“Man, if I get caught with this…what’s gonna happen to me?” But if
I said no—well, there’s punishments for us as gangbangers, even
with our own brothers. There’s a lot of things that I would like to
say, but I can’t. Um, the hardest moment that I’ve gone through was
shoot or be shot.

My parents never knew what I was doing. I
really wish I could tell them—but at the same time, that would
freak them out about being with me. Them trying to go with me to go
see a movie or something, they’ll be afraid. I decided never to
fight in my own neighborhood ‘cause that could bring trouble to my
house, that could bring trouble to my family, to myself. That’s
just too much, too much to be going through.

I messed up once by coming to the house
stoned. I came home way out of my mind. I’m thinking, “My parents
are sleeping. It’s 1 a.m. They’re sleeping.” I just got dropped off
at home. I stumbled going to the bathroom and that’s when my
parents came out and: “Oh my God, look at your eyes; they’re ruby
red!”

I had to sit down with them: “Mom, I smoke.
I’m sorry.”

She had, like, a nervous breakdown. My dad
wanted to kick me out the house for that. Imagine if I would have
told them what I used to do? My mistake was that I didn’t show my
parents the same amount of love that they showed me before I joined
a gang.

I was involved for about two and a half
years, starting freshman year. It got to where I didn’t like being
on the block. I preferred to be in school than to be at home. The
only place where I’m able to be free is in school. I get along with
all my security guards and all the school faculty so, you know, if
they see me doing something wrong, they’ll come and talk with me. A
security guard at my school was the one who told me I was pretty
much throwing my life away.

I told myself, “You know what? I can’t be a
part of this. This is pretty much me living life through hell.”
Being in the gang was very scary to me: knowing that four out of
seven days of the week I have to be in the block. I have to risk my
life those four out of seven days, and there’s times where I had to
stay weeks at a time. I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t do nothing,
‘cause I had to stay in the block.

I got arrested about six times for having
drugs on me or for robberies—just little things. But if you tell
cops information about the gang, if you snitch, you’re pretty much
signing your death waiver right there. That’s one of the things
that a gang member has to live with.

I would never be able to bring my fellow gang
members home to my house because they’ll have tattoos of the gang,
or tattoos on their face, and my parents don’t like that. Before I
left the gang, they wanted me to get my back tattooed with the
initials of the gang. I refused. They wanted to threaten me by
giving me a beating, and I told them, “If you guys are going to do
that for me not wanting to get a tattoo, then go ahead. Beat me
then. It’s okay. I’m not getting a tattoo.”

They were telling me, “Why? Are you planning
on leaving the gang?” And in my head, I don’t want to let them know
that.

It’s hard to be in a gang and to try to
leave. It’s really hard. When I started wanting to leave, there
wouldn’t be a day where I could go to school and not be afraid.
Every day I was afraid for my life; every day that I didn’t hang
out with my friends was a day that I would get a beating for not
being with them. That drove away a few of my girlfriends. If I told
the guys, “Hey, is it okay if I hang out with my girlfriend today?”
They’d say, “Nah, nah, we need you here, man.”

There was times where I couldn’t even walk
with my mom to get groceries, because I was afraid of them doing
something to me or to my mom. She’ll tell me, “Let’s go through
here,” and I’ll be like, “Let’s go around.” ‘Cause if I go through
there, I’m pretty much risking my life and my mom’s life. My mom
asked me plenty of times if I gangbang. There were a few times
where my mom would pick me up from school and there would be
bottles thrown at the car and my mom would be like, “What’s going
on?” I’d tell her that I just have problems at school with people
that didn’t like me.

I got cut in a knife fight about two weeks
before I left the gang. It was my final march around the enemy
’hood. I used to love to fight. No matter who it was, how big he
was, how old he was, I would fight. But after me getting cut,
that’s when something in my head said, “I can’t do this.” I have a
scar about five inches long, by my stomach. It scared me. It scared
me to know that somebody would always be better, somebody would
always be stronger, somebody would just not care. That’s what
freaks me out.

In the end, my chief told me, “In order for
you to leave the gang, you have to get a violation—a beating for a
certain amount of time.” But I didn’t choose that way. I told him,
“You know what? Fuck it, I’ll stay.”

So I stayed for a while, about another month,
and I told him, “Is there any other way, instead of me getting a
violation out that I could do?”

And he said, “You could pay a fine, about
$600.” Or I could just give them my personal weapon and four to
five other weapons that I had to go purchase. That kind of made me
feel useless to know my life was only worth a few guns to them. It
made me feel like I was just being used. It made me feel bad about
myself.

Around that time, one of my old friends came
by the school and he told me that he was personally coming after
me. And I thought, “Man, my own brother’s trying to kill me now? My
own family, the ones that I would take a bullet for, they are
trying to do this?” But in the end, if you try to leave, all that
was just for nothing. According to them, I wasn’t a man for not
letting them beat me. They were calling me a wuss, because I
preferred to choose a different way. It’s all or nothing with
them.

Since I left the gang, my life has been so
much better. I began to dress nicer—more appropriate. I don’t sag
my pants anymore. I don’t have them below my waist anymore. I would
like to go to college: DeKalb, Northern Illinois University. Get an
apartment over there, something like that. I haven’t took my ACT
yet. I’m nervous about it.

I’m more involved with my family now. I love
to hang out with my cousins. They look up to me; I’m pretty much
like a role model to them now. When I used to be in my gang life,
they used to hate hanging out with me. They used to be like, “No,
man, I’m afraid. I’m literally afraid.” Ever since I took that step
to leave, I told my cousins, “I don’t gangbang anymore. Let’s go
hang out.”

My cousins are not the type to be involved in
gangs. They’re mostly about living their own lives under their own
rules. If somebody tells them to do something other than their
parents, they gonna look at you and say, “Who the hell are you?”
And I’m the type that, if I go out to parties with my cousins and I
know that something’s gonna happen, I tell them, “Let’s leave.” I’m
willing to do anything for my family.

I’ve been able to walk with my mom. I don’t
have to keep looking behind me every 5, 10 seconds, making sure
nobody’s behind me. Nobody’s running up or anything. Now I’m able
to walk through any—well, not through
any
’hood, but mostly
everywhere. There is certain spots where people know that I left
the gang life, but they still want to get at me for fighting one of
their members, beating them, or stabbing somebody, or just
basically shooting at them.

It’s hard to know that you have to do what
you have to do in order to stay alive. It’s terrifying. But when
you join a gang, it’s necessary for you to fight with other gang
members, no matter what the cause is. I’m happy that I’ve been able
to change my own life around. But to tell you the truth, I don’t
think the violence will ever stop.