180 Degrees-Tae's Yesterday

By now, my mother had arrived, baseball bat in hand, swinging at the nearest person to her. The guy yelped, snatched the bat from my mother and then punched her. And I'm not talking about some girlie punch, this asshole balled up his fist, leaned back a little, and punched my mother dead in the face. She fell, hard, and it stunned me for a moment quite honestly. Until I wigged the fuck out, fists blazing, kicking, screaming, scratching and biting at whoever was holding me. I felt a barrage of fists punching me in the head, the face, the side, everywhere, until I was on my knees and then I felt boots and sneakers kicking at me, knocking the wind from me. Still I refused to go down, worried about my mother who was back up and clawing at the guy who had punched her. This continued for a spell until I felt cold metal against my cheek and heard a click that sounded like no other click I'd ever heard. I had seen guns before, how could I not hanging with gang-bangers, but never one this up close and personal. The click was loud enough to stop my mother. The idiot who had punched her now mushed her forehead, sending her to the floor again, and the others grabbed me up and rushed me from the apartment. I could hear my mother crying, screaming for them to leave me alone...it was a sound I never wanted to her from my mother again.

They had some tricked out car waiting downstairs. And it's a scary thing when people from your neighborhood see a group of gang-bangers dragging you to a car and they turn the other way because they don't want to get involved. It screams how much trouble you're in and it was certainly starting to sink in for me.

The car ride was short. Then I was hauled up two flights of stairs and tossed into a tiny, empty apartment. It smelled of sweat, old food, liquor, tobacco and some other shit. I heard the locks on the door click into place and then listened to voices right outside that door. They were speaking Spanish and just because I'm half Puerto-Rican doesn't mean I can speak or understand it. I did catch a few words, however. Someone was going to stay to make sure I didn't escape. The others were going to report to Marcos.

I looked around. It was a very small apartment, just one large room really and a door that led, I assumed, to a bathroom. A tiny kitchen area was in one corner. It was probably a gang hangout based on the wall tags. Old, ratty sofas and chairs, a worn mattress in one corner, a huge television and a very nice entertainment system. Probably where the Netas hung out, had parties...or worse sold drugs and pulled trains. I sat on the floor in one of the corners, my arms wrapped around my legs. They hadn't asked me a damn question, just showed up to drag me here and make me wait. And wait I did, for hours, because it was dark when I finally heard someone undoing the locks on the front door. I was hot, confused, hungry and scared out of my damn mind. I had no idea what I'd done to warrant this kind of attention from the Netas.

I hadn't turned on any lights, not wanting to move from my safe corner, so when someone flicked on an overhead switch I was nearly blinded for a moment. There were four of them. Three I recognized from my mother's apartment. The other face was new.

It was the new face that grabbed a chair and set it before me, allowing me to remain crouched in the corner. He straddled it and simply stared at me for what felt like a long time but was probably only a couple of minutes. As Puerto-Rican men go, he was rather attractive, although it was an odd observation on my part for sure. He had rich, dark hair, cut close to the scalp, dark eyes, thick brows, and a light beard that covered a square chin. He was as tall as I was, but much more muscular. In fact, I'm sure I looked down right scrawny compared to him. He waited another few seconds before speaking.

"Chica, where's Jaffy?"

The question confused me. Jaffy? Why the hell was he asking me abouther?

"What?"

Wrong response because one of the goons at his side rushed toward me and punched me in the head. The pain radiated through me for a moment, my eyes glassing over with tears. My body already hurt terribly from the pounding I took earlier, I didn't need any more bruises.

"Don't fucking bullshit me Chica, where's that bitch?"

I closed my eyes and licked my lips for a moment, trying to figure this out. I don't know what Jaffy did to these guys, but I didn't want to be the one to get her killed. Of course, I also didn't want to get myself killed...

"Uh, I don't know. She was supposed to come by last night, but she never showed up."

I don't know why I thought the truth might work. It didn't of course. He stared at me for a moment with those intensely dark eyes, and then I saw him nod. I don't think I want to see that man nod ever again in my life. Because when he nodded, the idiot that had just punched me, and one other jackass, proceeded to beat the shit out of me. They rained blows on me as if I was a dude, no mercy. All I could do was ball up into the fetal position and beg them to stop. When that didn't work, I just took as much of it as I could. At one point, I thought I was going to black out. Someone kicked me in the stomach so hard I thought my insides would be on the outside soon. Finally they stopped and I lay there, gasping, crying. I think I wet myself. I didn't care. There was nothing for a moment, no noise, no one moved, no one said anything. I think they were waiting for me to pull myself together. But I wasn't a guy, I didn't have to save face. I continued to lay there, sobbing. Finally, I heard Marcos speak again in his thick Spanish accent.

"You tell me where she is, we leave you alone. You and your mother. No problems, no worries. Okay? Just tell me."

If I had known, I would have told them. So much for chivalry. But I didn't know. I didn't know. And I was scared. I didn't want them to hit me anymore and I didn't want to die. Not for a girl I barely knew. Well, not for anyone, really. I was only 19 and much too young to die. Although at the moment I might prefer a bullet in my temple to the beatings.

"Tell me you fucking nasty-ass, dyke," Marcos snarled, his nice routine over and done with, "where's that bitch?"

I really, really wanted to give him an answer he would be happy with, but I didn't have one.

"I don't know." I finally muttered. I had no choice.

He sighed, as if he was genuinely pained by my answer. "You want to protect that puta? You know what she did? She stole from me. Stole drugs and money from my home. I heard she spent it on you and some other niggas from Chelsea. Fucking bitch takes Fulton money, Neta money, and spends it on the fucking faggots in Chelsea? She's dead when I find her. You better tell me where she is or you're dead too."

I had managed to sit up, despite the pain, and wiped my face. I was trying to breathe normally, but my middle really hurt. Something was causing shooting pains to radiate through my body and it wasn't just the bruises forming slowly but surely all over. It was painful to even breathe, but I kept doing it. And I looked at Marcos, sitting in that chair, his attractive face probably the last face I would ever see in my life.

"My mother has nothing to do with this. Leave her alone. And I don't know where she is, I swear."

We had a stare contest for a moment or two, and a part of me hoped, prayed, that he believed me. What woman would take that kind of beating from a bunch of guys and still lie? But the ray of hope was dashed pretty quickly when he stood, turned his back and said two words that I would hear reverberating in my head for the rest of my life.

"Do her."

Okay, let's take a moment. I'm telling the story and I said this all happened years ago, right? So, relax. They don't kill me.

I don't know what was louder, the guy's heavy footsteps as he made his way toward me, gun already pointed at my head, or the pounding on the tiny apartment's door. But it was the pounding at the door that made everyone pause. Marcos nodded for someone to open it. Another guy, replete with gang tattoos, rushed in and went over to Marcos to whisper something in his ear. It was eerily quiet, so most of us heard what he said. It was in Spanish, so I didn't understand it, but I did hear Don Carlos, a name that seemed to shake a few of the goons in the room to their core because suddenly everyone was still, even the idiot waiting to "do me," watching to see what Marcos intended to do next.

This guy sure had a lot of power wrapped up his nod, because a moment later I was being rushed downstairs and into another tricked out car. I didn't care that I would stain their seats with my urine. I sat there quietly, not sure what was going on, trying to remember how to breathe without pain. This was a longer car ride and I wasn't sure where we stopped. I'm not sure I cared. Two guys held me up as we rode in an elevator. Moments later they tapped on a door and handed me over to another guy. This guy looked me up and down, frowned at the guys who had handed me off, and then slammed the door in their face. He led me into a room and sat me down on a wooden chair. Then he left.

Some time later, I'm not sure how long because this all felt as if it took forever to me considering I just wanted to die from the pain, two young women, very attractive Latino women, helped me up from the chair. They took me to a bathroom, helped me bathe and changed me into clean clothes. Before they dressed me, one wrapped an ace bandage around my middle, which seemed to take a little bit of the pain away. The other dabbed at the cuts on my face and body with some kind of stinging antiseptic and then fed me two pills. They walked me down a long corridor past a number of rooms with open doors. I saw other Latino women, all young, all very attractive. I saw kids playing, I saw nice furniture, huge televisions...it was a massive apartment. They helped me into a study or den and sat me down on a burgundy leather sofa. Then they left.

I sat there for a while as the pain dulled a bit and my head grew to be a little fuzzy. Then I think I fell asleep.

There was someone in the room, staring out of a window, when I came to. He was older, his hair was almost entirely gray and he walked with a cane. He turned when he heard me moving and his dark eyes settled on me. I didn't recognize him.

"You're awake. How do you feel?"

I nodded, it was the only way I could lie. I felt horrible. I was in a lot of pain and my middle was shooting daggers of pain through my body again. He smiled a bit and then turned back to the window.

"This girl they're asking about, do you know of her?"

He had a thick Spanish accent, but his English was very good.

"Yes," I answered weakly, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Do you know where she is?" He asked, turning and walking slowly to stand directly in front of me. My eyes met his as I repeated the truth once again.

"No."

He watched me for a second longer and then nodded, sitting down in a chair adjacent to the sofa where I sat.

"I believe you. You have your mother's eyes. I could always tell when she was lying."

I stopped fidgeting as the words settled over me. He knew my mother?

We sat in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again.

"I gave her some money for you. You'll stay at a hotel near your school and then move back into the dorm. Don't come back here. I'm going to find a place to move her also."

There wasn't much to say about that, clearly all the decisions had been made. But I was confused about why this man would help me and my mother. I didn't get it. I sat quietly for a moment before I could think of a polite way to ask.

"How do you know my mother?"

He sighed, toying restlessly with the cane resting at his side.

"She was the only woman that could keep my idiot son out of trouble. When she threw him out, he wound up in prison for 20 years."

The answer stunned me. This man was my grandfather? My father's father? One of the leaders of the Fulton Netas? That would explain why Marcos had turned me over to him instead of killing me.

"It wasn't her fault, of course. He kept cheating. He always was a fucking idiot. When she threw him out that last time, even I begged her to take him back. But she said no. And, of course, he couldn't stay out of trouble."

He sighed again.

"Hard to imagine, me begging your mother to let my son stay with her. When they first met, I wanted to have her killed. The daughter of one of my enemies messing around with my son? But I knew my son would never forgive me. When I came to know her...she has a good head on her shoulders, your mother."

I was trying to keep up as he continued to drop bombs. My mother was the daughter of some big time gang-leader in Chelsea? She never talked about her father since he'd been killed before I was born. I clearly had no idea just how bizarre the relationship she'd had with my father had been.

"Anyway, when he was sent up, I told her if she needed anything, anything at all, to call me. She's never taken me up on that offer. Struggling to pay her bills and to keep you out of trouble...but today? Today, she called me crying."

He rubbed the bridge of his nose, those dark eyes settling on me.

"He had every right to kill you, but he didn't as a favor to me, do you understand? Now you'll leave, okay? Your mother is downstairs. She'll take you to the hospital. I think you might have some broken ribs. Then you go back to Long Island and stay put, comprende?"

I nodded. You didn't need to speak Spanish to understand what he was telling me. He called to one of the women who had helped with my bath. She brought him a business card. He handed it to me. It had a few phone numbers on it.

"You need anything, ever, you call me, understand?"

I nodded again. I watched as he stood, grabbed hold of his cane, and then left the room. Carmen, the woman who had brought the card, waited with me. I struggled to stand and she escorted me to the elevator, not saying a word even as the doors closed between us.

My mother's cheek was swollen and had already turned black and blue. She was crying when she saw me. She hugged me, but my swift intake of air had her releasing me quickly. She looked me up and down, trying to stem the tears. I touched her bruised cheek and said only two words to her.

"I'm sorry."

She had a cab waiting. And sure enough, my bags were in the back. We went to the hospital first. She actually had the cab wait for us (she told me the driver was a friend of Don Carlos'). They wrapped my middle section, I had bruised ribs, but none broken. The cab dropped her off in Chelsea and then drove me out to a hotel in Long Island, less than a mile from my college. Two weeks later, I was sitting in class again as if nothing had happened. I never returned to Chelsea and I never heard from Jaffy again.

Fifteen years is a long time, but when I think about that incident, it feels like yesterday. The pain of those beatings, the gun pressed against my cheek...I still have my grandfather's card. I finished junior college and then joined my mother in Pennsylvania. She'd bought a house in the Poconos (well, I learned later on my grandfather had paid for the house). I completed my last two years of college up there and then joined up with, of all things, the New Jersey State Troopers. Talk about irony.