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Everybody who’s anybody in the hood has got a street name. Some of the a.k.a.’s inspire danger like Monster or Lil’ Killa. Others are kinda playful such as Loopy or Mouse. A few make no sense at all but sound cool, such as Z-pop and Quysm. Meeksha Livingston became known as Lil’ Gal Blinkie — Blink for short.
And Blink was out of control.
At the age of nine Meeksha shouted, “Eat my ASS!” to a teacher. At the age of eleven, Meeksha got busted for trying to shoplift a pair of brass knuckles at the Swap Meet. At the age of thirteen, Meeksha got caught stealing a car stereo out of a Toyota Camry and was confronted mid-act. When the 53 year old woman said, “Give it back,” Blink responded, “Okay,” and slammed the 3 pound metal box directly into the white lady’s face. A jagged edge of hard metal ripped the soft flesh from the lady’s lower lip, broke three teeth and caused a gush of blue and black colored blood to pour from the old woman’s gums like a faucet turned all the way on. Despite multiple attempts at plastic surgery this nice old grandmother, who had only stopped in at the local Target to get some laundry detergent for the housekeeper, was permanently stuck with a smile that made her look like a demented clown.
Meeksha got away. The police’s description of a 5’4″ black girl with black hair and a short sleeve, light blue t-shirt only matched about 300,000 other young women in the area.
Not only didn’t Meeksha get popped by the po-po for her crime, she bragged about it. This was her first real mission to see if she was down for the hood.
Obviously, she was.
Someone passed Meeksha a hit of weed.
“So, wutz it gonna be?” a raspy voice asked in a tone of approval. It was late at night on the back stoop of a house where no one lived any longer.
The question was simple. As a girl, there were two ways to join a gang. The first was to get jumped in. That meant getting into the center of a circle and fighting your way through an attack of 4 to 6 other gang members as they stomped and beat and kicked and punched until you proved your worth by proving your heart.
Would you fight for your homies? Would you represent for your homies? Would you die for your homies?
The circle was where you proved it.
But girls had another way in, too. They could be sexed in. That meant giving up a piece of lovin’ to every member of the crew.
“So, like wutz it gonna be?” the voice asked again.
Meeksha looked up.
“Both.”
“Both?” the leader said with a smile.
“You heard me,” Meeksha said. “Both.”
Four girls – gangsta girls – started taking off their earrings so their lobes didn’t get torn off during the fight. Then they circled Meeksha. Six other dudes drank 40 ouncers of Malt and got ready to watch the action.
“Yo, let me tag some of that boo-tay before ya’ll whoop up on her,” one of the guys shouted with a smile.
“Too late,” replied a hard-core chola with a nasty look in her eye. If Meeksha was gonna be sexin’ her man, she wanted to make sure that it would be a one time event associated with a lot of pain.
BAM! An overhand left flew and the beat down was on.
Meeksha fought like a wolf. Black and brown fists and feet flew everywhere. The 22nd street Merks (short for Mercenaries) were a clique made up of both Blacks and Hispanics. Their crew wasn’t about color, it was about territory. Meeksha wanted in. Ever since she was 6 years old, all she ever wanted was in. The Merks were her idols, her role models, her ultimate fantasy. Tonight was a night Meeksha had dreamed about for years and years. She sucked in school. Her mother was a drug addict. She never met her father. Causing trouble was only thing Meeksha ever seemed any good at. Finally, it was paying off. Meeksha wasn’t just getting pounded – she was getting a family.
Gangsta love is what it’s called.
Meeksha’s next twelve months became even crazier. She started sniffing glue, putting in work for her crew and getting tatts. Merks 4 Life was scripted across the top of her left breast, the 22nd Street logo just over her heart.
Smoking. Drinking. Flunking. Fighting. Dropping out. Building a rep. Running up a criminal record. In Juvee Hall. Out of Juvee Hall. Doing drugs. Selling drugs. Beefing with the Oh-One-O’s.
Oh yeah, beefing big time with the Oh-One-O’s.
The 0-1-0′s got their gang name from the middle three numbers of their neighborhood zip code and they were the arch enemy of the 22nd Street Merks. Nobody knows how many teenagers had died in the years that they’d been feuding, but the bitterness was long and deep. Even if there was only one Merk and six Oh-One-O’s, a Merk was expected to claim their hood and fight, pain and death be damned. The brawling had been going on for so long that adults in the community didn’t even try to interfere any longer. Random violence had become a part of everyday life, like stop signs and supermarkets.
On a Tuesday afternoon, it happened. Meeksha heard the jingly little bells of the ice cream truck pulling into the park and decided she wanted something sweet.
“Gimme a Chocolate Bomb Pop.”
“That’ll be $2.00.”
“Here.” Meeksha pulled out a $10 dollar bill and slapped it on the counter.
“Sorry, I’m out of singles,” the ice cream man said. “You have nothing smaller?”
“Naw, this all I got. Hey girl, you got change for a ten dolla’ bill?”
“Maybe…”
As Meeksha waited to see if her ten could be broken, a crew of gangbangers rolled up creepin’ style in a brown Ford Escort. They had caught Meeksha slippin’.
“No, it only looks like I have eight…”
“Oh Shit!”
“That’s right, Bitch… Oh-One-O!!!”
Blap! Blap! Blap!
A semi-automatic handgun sprayed Meeksha with bullets. She tried to run but only made it five feet before her chest was pumped with eleven hollow points.
The ice cream man dove to the floor of his truck. Little kids screamed and took off for the playground. The girl who had tried to make change for the $10 bill didn’t even try to run. She didn’t know Meeksha. All she wanted was a Rainbow Éclair.
“Oh-One-O, Homegirl!” Blam!
And that’s how Tina Maryssa Anderson died. With eight dollars in her wallet at the age of fourteen.
RP, RT.
That’s how Tina’s death was known around the hood. It was nothing more than a simple RP, RT — wrong place, wrong time. Deeper answers than that might never be known.
Each of the various members of the Anderson family took the news of Tina’s murder in a different way. Mrs. Anderson, Tina’s mother, was devastated. Losing her baby girl to gang violence created an empty, hollow stare in her eyes. It was as if rain clouds came to rest permanently in her gaze. Anyone who looked at her could tell a searing wound had been inflicted upon her soul that might never, ever heal.
Never, ever.
Pops, Tina’s father, was equally hurt, but the depth of a mother’s pain always seemed to outweigh that of a father’s. Guilt, sadness and grief filled his heart. As a dad, he viewed his role in the family to be both provider and protector. Now his baby girl was dead. He had failed.
Andre, Tina’s oldest brother, known affectionately as The Hoopster, was both disturbed and dismayed by the events. Andre had known adversity, attack and victimization in his own teen years but nothing he had ever gone through approached the depth of this. Reflective by nature, he emotionally struggled with how to handle his feelings. Andre became thoughtful and introspective, a thousand thoughts crossing through his mind but very few finding their way to his lips. His silence spoke for him.
Theresa, Tee-Ay as she was called by her friends, rushed back from college as soon as she heard about her sister. Confusion and shock took over. “How could something like this happen again?” was the question that rolled over and over through her mind. The aftermath of teens with guns had affected her life a few years past and now bullets were flying through her life yet again. “I just don’t understand?” she said to herself. Like a broken stereo playing the same song over and over and over again she kept asking the same question over and over. “I just don’t understand.”
Maybe she never would.
Teddy, however, the youngest brother in the Anderson family, felt none of these emotions. At seventeen years old, he had grown to be 6′ 1″, weighing 195 pounds — all of it rock rippled muscle. Sadness wasn’t his style. Nor was hugging, consoling, grieving, weeping or moaning. T-Bear, that was Teddy’s a.k.a. on the streets, only cared about one thing…
Revenge.
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