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Chapter Six A Gang Life Turning his stingy-brim hat around in his hands and contemplating its shape and the red feather in the headband, Bebee thought about his life in the projects. Born and reared in the projects, knowing no other life than public housing and support, he had been able to survive even though he had done almost ten years in prison for a killing. As a member of Cuatro Flats from the early 1970s, he had established a reputation as a reliable black Chicano , one who could be trusted to back someone up but not go off the deep end and start unnecessary trouble. Almost everything that could happen to a person to funnel and compel him into a gang had been a part of Bebee’s life: poverty, displacement, single-parent household, no male role models, early street socialization, trouble in school, and friction with law enforcement . Yet he eventually matured out, his prison experiences aiding natural maturation, and returned to the barrio to become president of the Residents Advisory Council to help initiate and supervise various programs to aid the betterment of the residents. Bebee was raised in a family of seven children—two brothers, four sisters , and himself. His mother was born and reared in Texarkana, Texas, that region of East Texas that is adjoined to western Louisiana and sent a large number of rural black migrants to Los Angeles in the early to mid-twentieth century. His mother had been with a common-law husband in Texas and had had the six older children with him, and then she moved to L.A., leaving her daughters with relatives in Texas and bringing only her two sons with her. In the late 1940s, she needed assistance, so she settled in public housing. She met another man and had Bebee and his twin brother, who died as an infant. A Gang Life 95 Bebee has no memory of anything before he went to school at the age of five years, except for stories his mother told him. One such story has him crossing the street to go visit relatives who lived in a different section of the projects, an event that shows either how adventurous he was or, as Bebee put it, how stupid he was; he used the word “stupid” a lot, to cover all the attitudes and behaviors that get gang youth into trouble. Until his stepfather came into his life around the time he was in junior high school, Bebee and his siblings were raised by just their mother. Memories of their first apartment are doubly tragic: both Bebee’s twin bother and his grandmother died there. The family soon moved to another address nearby, however, and most of Bebee’s memories during his elementary school years revolve around this second apartment. He also had fond memories of his then–“road dog” (close buddy he spent most of his time with), an Okie named Norman Green, who belonged to a family of twelve with an abusive, alcoholic father. Norman and Bebee were inseparable as they grew up together in elementary school, walking to school every morning, playing after classes ended, and, especially, rummaging the dumpsters behind every light industry factory by the river for sugar, cereal, bread, Hot Wheels, T-shirts, school supplies, jawbreaker candy, and any number of other products. Bebee loved school, or at least the social part of it. He attended Second Street Elementary and had fond memories of kindergarten, especially of nap time, during which he liked to look up the girls’ dresses and also the teacher’s dress when possible. Unfortunately, Bebee was removed from kindergarten after being diagnosed with tuberculosis and was quarantined in a section of Olive View Hospital in the San Fernando Valley for an entire year. Bebee recounted a particularly traumatic event during this time, when an older child, about twelve years old, jealous of the gifts Bebee’s mother would bring, tried to smother him with a pillow. After Bebee had endured such experiences, it was later determined that he had been misdiagnosed and did not have TB, so he was sent home. Nevertheless, he had to stay home and received home schooling for a few months after that; he hated having to look out the window and watch all the kids go to school while he just waited drearily for his home teacher to arrive. With this unsettling start and near-death incident as a child, Bebee never was able to...

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