The Death Class: A True Story About Life (16 page)

Norma looked him up and down. She would eventually learn all of Israel’s stories. She would come to see all that he was ashamed of, all that he wished he could change. The gang members he’d rolled with. The crimes he’d committed.

“There’s something about you,” the professor said to him that day. “I’m going to let you in.”

A
WEEK LATER
, Israel sat at his computer, contemplating what to write for his first class assignment. Even with his arms extended over the keyboard, his medicine-ball biceps would have appeared clenched to anyone peering into his room, as if they were in a state of permanent tension. He had worked out hard to get them. Seventeen inches around, solid as stone. A tattoo of barbed wire encircled the right bicep. Strong arms were good for many important things, such as lifting weights, picking up girls, or throwing punches. But typing?

There was no getting around it, Israel was a
college student
now—a title no one from his youth would have ever guessed he would hold. He’d traded his street gang affiliations for a college fraternity long before. He wore his Greek letters with pride and lived by the motto “Opportunity for wisdom, wisdom for culture.” If only he’d had a sliver of that wisdom in his youth.

“Write a good-bye letter to someone or something you have lost, Norma had told the class on the first day of Death in Perspective. It was just a week ago that she’d given those instructions. “Go to the place that immediately came to mind,” she’d said. “Go where it’s scary.”

Sure, Israel had made his pitch to the professor to let him into the class at the last minute, and she’d taken a chance on him. But this letter had him stumped. Guys like him didn’t talk about parts of their past that could give away their weaknesses. One part of his past would lead to another, and another, and pretty soon he’d be wading through territory that talking about could get him locked up or even killed. If he started this letter honestly, there was no telling what might spill out of him.

What would his new professor think about him if she knew the truth about his life? Norma seemed like a nice enough lady, the kind who hugged strangers. She didn’t seem like someone who could even for a moment understand the darkness he knew.

Ten years earlier

I
SRAEL PUT HIS
finger on the trigger and pointed his gun at his enemy’s face.

Two words ran through his mind:
Kill him.

The room began to echo and blur. Israel could hear people screaming and crying and shouting and cursing all around him, but the noise came rushing through him like waves. He felt as though his ears were popping and ringing, but none of it felt real. More like he was inside of a movie. Was he dreaming?

Israel blinked and looked at the young man kneeled before him, body trembling. Israel was seventeen. The guy wasn’t much older, maybe nineteen. Israel felt his hands shaking too, as he fiddled with the trigger.

A sound in the room broke through the ringing in his head. It was the only voice Israel could hear clearly, distinctly—the young man’s mother. She was crying and begging “Don’t kill my baby. We’ll move to Puerto Rico. We’ll leave. You’ll never see us again. Please don’t kill my baby!”

How had he gotten here? How had this happened to him? Israel’s life, from childhood to now, had been one rapid ride of misfortune, wrong turns, and bad decisions. It had all led Israel to this moment—one that would surely change his life forever, transform him from teenage boy into teenage killer.

His hand steadied around the metal of the gun. All it would take was one shot.

I
SRAEL HAD BEEN
a scrawny kid, growing up wearing washed-out clothes donated from churches. His skin was so fair for a Puerto Rican that he looked like a white boy living in a neighborhood of dark-skinned Latinos and African Americans. When he was four, he’d moved to New Jersey from Puerto Rico, where his family used to live in a tin shack, after his mother had fled his abusive father. In New Jersey, Israel, his brother, and his mother lived with three others in a studio apartment. Israel barely spoke English.

He’d had no choice but to fight back whenever someone picked on him, and with so much practice he became good at it. By middle school, he’d grown into a street fighter who was recognized around town for getting into boxing matches in alleys and scraps on corners. Once he beat up one guy, a bigger guy would want to take him on. But the bigger and bulkier Israel got, the fewer could beat him. He soon realized he didn’t have to wait around for the fight to come to him. He could use his skills to get things he did not have: sneakers, Walkmans, pagers, jewelry, jeans. By fourteen, he was waiting outside schools until kids came out with something he wanted.

By fifteen, he’d moved on from jumping kids after school to picking car-door locks with screwdrivers. Israel and his friends cruised North Jersey for the hooked-up cars—the ones with shiny rims and expensive stereo systems. They’d strip them down, take the valuable parts to a chop shop, and earn $200 to $400 a job. When they were done taking the cars’ valuable parts, they’d barrel down some empty road—going a hundred miles per hour—then swerve rapidly until they toppled over. Israel and his friends earned a few bruises that way, as well as broken bones, but man, was it a thrill. After a while, the chop shops started getting closed down, so Israel and his friends moved on to a more lucrative venture: they started selling weed.

But there was a lot of product and not enough profit. A dime bag sold for $10. He could make three times as much if he sold to the white kids in richer neighborhoods, but that was a hassle and riskier. Plus, everyone around him sold weed. It was about as competitive as trying to become a professional boxer. So Israel turned to selling cocaine. The money was good. He showed up at high school in $150 Parasuco jeans, $300 Vortex boots, and thick flat gold herringbone chains. A lot of it came from the addicts who showed up with stereo systems and jewelry in exchange for drugs. His mom was working two or three jobs to make ends meet. Israel would stash his expensive clothes in a bag at a friend’s house and change before going to school.

One day a neighborhood gang leader asked Israel if he wanted to get out of street peddling and gain a little more responsibility; he could do pickups and dropoffs. Israel was seventeen now, and it seemed like a good idea. He wouldn’t have
to dodge undercover cops or local police on the streets or deal with snitches setting him up with fake sales. All he had to do was drive across the George Washington Bridge to New York, pick up a load of drugs, and bring them back to New Jersey. Israel happily started his new job. But he had no idea that if he got caught, his punishment would likely be worse than it would be for selling—he wouldn’t find out until later that crossing a state line with narcotics was a felony.

Israel bought a gun for protection. It cost $250 from a guy on the street who was also selling a grenade for $600.

One day, while passing through another neighborhood, a group of three guys from a rival gang cornered Israel’s Mustang at a stoplight. One walked up and punched Israel’s friend in the face through an open car window. Israel got out to fight. But he saw two more guys come out of nowhere.

“Yo, let’s go,” Israel’s friend said to him. “Don’t be stupid.” It was just the two of them against five.

Israel got back into the driver’s seat and put the car into reverse, trying to hit their attackers. They dodged out of his way. As Israel sped off, he heard gunshots. They’d fired at his Mustang, hitting it twice.

He rushed home and grabbed his gun, calling up three more friends, who also had guns. “We’re not going out like that,” Israel told them.

Together they went back to the neighborhood. Just after 10
P.M.
, they rolled up to the house where one of the rivals lived. Two of the guys were on the porch, with the others scattered near their car. Israel and his crew pulled their triggers.

Israel had never fired his gun at anyone before, but now he and his crew were popping off rounds in every direction. The rivals dived under the porch and ran inside. Israel thought he’d seen at least two guys get grazed.

His crew wanted to leave before cops showed up, but Israel wasn’t finished. He wanted to do more damage. He grabbed an emergency flare from his car and tossed it into one of the enemy’s cars, then sped off. The car blew up.

It was a windy day, and the explosion caused a chain reaction that Israel had not anticipated. Three other cars next to the first blew up. The whole block had to be evacuated. The incident made the local newspaper.

But
there was a street code that Israel’s crew and his enemies lived by: never snitch. Ever. No one did. And Israel and his friends never got blamed.

They were more than friends by now, actually—they were a gang, affiliated with the Latin Kings. The guys that they’d clashed with were members of a rival gang. And the beef was not over. The others came back for revenge. But this time they went after Israel’s mother. She had an office job as a receptionist, and somehow they found out where she worked. The gang members bashed in the glass door of her office and barged in, screaming “We’re going to kill your son!”

Israel’s mother came home crying. “What have you gotten yourself into? What have you done?”

Israel snapped. They had messed with his family. They had crossed him for the last time. You threaten mine, she thought, I’m going after yours.

W
HEN
I
SRAEL GATHERED
up his gang and headed to the rival leader’s house that day, he had made up his mind: he was going to kill him.

The guy’s dad answered the door, and Israel busted it in, bashing the man in the face with his gun. “Motherfucker, get on the ground!” he screamed.

The dad still tried to stop them, but they pummeled and kicked him until he fell on the floor, his head bleeding. They knocked down his mother and little brother too, as Israel went for the gang leader, beating his face with his gun and then aiming it at his face.

With everyone crowded into the tiny living room, Israel knew this was his chance. The punk-ass had shot at him and threatened his mother.

Besides, Israel had made a real show of it now. He’d always understood: if you pull your gun, you damn well better use it. If he didn’t kill the guy, Israel and all of his gang members would be as good as dead, and probably their families too.

But those cries. The wrenching pleas from the young man’s mother: “Please don’t kill my baby!”

He’d shot in this guy’s direction just days ago and could have killed him then. But that was nothing like this, just inches away, the gun to his head,
looking into his eyes. Israel noticed the guy’s eyes watering. Or were those tears?

“Do it!” Israel heard his crew yelling. “You can’t leave him like that!”

But he couldn’t pull the trigger. He couldn’t kill him.

“Naw,” Israel said, hitting him a few more times before turning to the rest of the guys. “Let’s go.”

“Y
OU’RE FUCKING STUPID,”
one of the other guys said to Israel on the ride home. “You broke the rules.”

Now what? The rival gang would come back for revenge. Israel and his gang would have to look over their shoulder at every turn, grabbing their guns at every knock on the door.

A few days passed. Israel and the rest of the guys jumped at sounds, dodged cars, avoided malls and open spaces. But no one came for them. The word on the street was that the gang leader’s family had stayed true to his mother’s word. They had packed up and left for Puerto Rico.

Less than a month later, Israel had resumed his duties under the leader of his gang, driving to New York, picking up drugs, and bringing them back. The gang leader leased a car for Israel to drive under the boss’s name.

One afternoon, Israel visited the gang leader’s house and decided to walk to the corner store two blocks away. On his way back, he noticed cop cars swarming the block. They had surrounded the house and were raiding it. Officers had discovered the arsenal of weapons and mountains of drugs, and the gang leader was arrested. The leader took the rap for everything. He could have pointed the finger at his workers too, but he didn’t do it. He was sent to prison. Again, the rule of the street—no snitching—had saved Israel from getting caught too.

Israel owed the gang leader big time. Israel looked up to the man, who’d started at the same low level as he and progressed up the ranks. He went to visit him in prison. The gang leader knew that Israel had been messing up in high school. School counselors had referred Israel to attend a boot camp for juvenile delinquents. But Israel didn’t want to enlist and considered going AWOL. He had a job to carry on in the streets.

The
leader came out of his cell in a jumpsuit, officers escorting him. The two sat across from each other in the prison. He looked at Israel gravely and said, “You’re a smart kid. You’ve got a lot going for you. You don’t need this life, this gang.”

Go to boot camp, he told Israel, get out of the gang. He had his permission—his blessing.

Israel shook his head in disbelief. Was he acting all weak now because he’d gotten locked up? This didn’t seem like the same hardened man he’d looked up to. Besides, everyone knew there was no getting “released” from a gang. You got killed before you got out. But the gang leader insisted. He gave him his word as the leader, the boss—he was letting him go.

“Okay,” Israel said, uncomfortably. But he didn’t know what to think. Go and do what? Israel had always just assumed that he would die young living the gang lifestyle. That was all he knew. He went home and thought about what the gang leader had told him. He thought about how close he’d come to killing a man. He wondered if he had any good left in him anymore, if he really could change.

A few days later, Israel decided to try to find out. He checked in to boot camp.

He stayed for the next six months, earning his GED, and after he got out, he felt new. “Change places, people, and things.” That became Israel’s new motto. He would treat his life as if he were a recovering alcoholic or drug addict.