RAW

by Lamont U-God Hawkins

  I was taking that punishment, and it made me tougher. I was an only child, so I had no older siblings to fight for me, so I just took the beatings as best I could. I never lay down or ran away, though; I always tried to dish out as much as I was taking. At least after they beat me up, they knew who I was and would have a little more respect for me. Sometimes you can fight and lose, but still gain respect from that because you stood up for yourself.

  And I carry that confidence with me everywhere I go. That’s why I’m not scared to go anywhere. After getting beat up so much, you have no choice but to get better with your hands, too. I could dodge punches and weave my way out of the circle and dip if need be. I used to call that the Scooby-Doo. But it wasn’t easy to get good at fighting; the only way was simply to fight. That came with a lot of beatings.

  I’d be the one in the park punching other kids in the face over the swings or some shit because I was growing up in the projects. If you know anything about how most ghettos are, you know the projects are like the slum within the slum. Living in that environment kind of gave me a sixth sense. It showed me what to look for before it even popped off. It taught me how to hone that instinct and protect myself at all times.

  Sometimes, we ran and got away, sometimes we couldn’t. My man Looney, though, he could shake the Avenue Crew like Herschel Walker. I couldn’t shake dudes like he could. He had the moves. He made the big kids chasing him fall on their face. He was that swift and agile. He was the illest shake artist. He would have the Avenue Crew slipping and sliding and falling in their British Walkers and Playboy shoes. He’d run up the ramp to the building and juke his way down the stairs and then run down the hill and hide behind a wall, and when the Avenue Crew would run past he’d run back up the hill and shake a few of them at the top of the hill, too, just for good measure. They couldn’t ever catch him.

  I remember once they burned down our clubhouse in retaliation for us having hit them with water balloons while they were all fresh in their new clothes and shooting dice. One winter they caught us out on the pond when it had frozen over. The motherfuckers started jumping on the ice to crack it so we’d fall into the water. We probably would’ve died if the ice had cracked.

  It was like a cycle. We’d try to fight back, but we were just little kids. We had to form our own crew. Since we were so young, we became the BCC—the Baby Crash Crew. It was made up of little kids in the neighborhood. We all started sticking together. It was Kane, GC, Vinny, Raekwon, Killa Kane, Zabo, Love God, Chaz, Miser, Hersch, Looney, Sea Bass, Cab … it was a lot of us.

  We ended up forming the Baby Crash Crew on our own, which did calm things down in our project. It was made up entirely of the younger kids coming up in the neighborhood. From the BCC, which lasted from grade school to junior high, we became DMD, which stood for Dick ’Em Down, in junior high school. That eventually morphed into Wreck Posse in high school, which I’ll get to later on.

  *

  We moved out to the Island, but we always kept our Brooklyn ties. I’m a mixture of Staten Island and Brooklyn, because I spent a lot of time in Brooklyn. When my mother was off work for a few weeks and wanted some alone time, she’d send me to my grandparents, who lived in Brownsville, Crown Heights, and Clinton Hill. I saw so much shit going on there, it was crazy. All parts, too. I would be with my grandmother in Brownsville, or with my cousins in Tompkins Projects. My grandfather lived between St. James Place and Cambridge Place, right down the block from where Biggie was from.

  Brooklyn was a different kind of rough. It was just grimy. You had twenty or thirty projects over there: Brownsville, Fort Greene, Marcy, Tompkins, Red Hook, Gowanus, Bushwick. All these fucking neighborhoods, it was like concentration camps for poor black people. Same with the Bronx.

  The really crazy shit was that I used to have to go from Staten Island all the way to Brooklyn by myself. My mother would give me the money to go there. I was so young, only eight or nine years old. I actually had to go on the train. I had to go take the ferry to the other side. Jump on the 4 train at Bowling Green, go to Eastern Parkway, get on the bus there, go to Brownsville, get off at the OTB on Pitkin Avenue and go see my grandmother. That amazes me. These kids nowadays, they wouldn’t understand how independent we were at such a young age back then. Today, a parent would get locked up for child abuse for letting shit like that happen.

  It was different back then; no adults fucked around with kids all that much. I’m sure there were probably abductions and all that weird shit, but for the most part, you stood on your own. My mother used to send me to get fucking cigarettes from the corner store at eight or nine years old. You can’t do that now. They gonna be like, “Shorty, get the fuck out of here.”

  My grandfather was a war veteran. My grandmother was an accountant for the government. My grandfather didn’t teach me anything. Most of my whole family didn’t teach me anything. I got love from them, but I didn’t really get any guidance on how to live my life, on right and wrong, about what to do and what not to do.

  I got my guidance from the streets. I didn’t have no father. My mother was my guidance a little bit, but she was more or less worried about food and clothing, stuff like that. When I had problems or drama in the street, I couldn’t go to my mother and ask her how to handle that shit. I had to figure that shit out myself. Sometimes I made the right choice, and sometimes I made the wrong choice. You just learn as you go. That’s how it is with a lot of black kids growing up.

  Every so often when I visited my grandfather, I’d also see my favorite uncles—Uncle Matt and Uncle Jason—who used to take me all over Brooklyn.

  Jason, my quiet younger uncle, has a humble spirit. But the humble ones are the ones you gotta watch. I’m a real humble dude as well, real nice, but don’t push my buttons until I get angry, ’cause I just go berserk. It takes a lot to piss me off, but when I get pissed the fuck off, watch out. Jason was the same way—calm and quiet until it was time to let off, and then he would bring the thunder.

  Jason was younger than me. He was my uncle because my grandfather got married twice and had children from both wives. Me and Jason used to run around in the streets all day long.

  Uncle Matthew, on the other hand, had a friend named Q., who was like his twin. They weren’t blood, but they looked exactly alike. Uncle Matt was notorious in that area—he and Q. and their friends showed me the definition of maniac. Back then, you had to have a reputation so other motherfuckers wouldn’t fuck with you.

  I recall Q. as a fucking maniac, too. I was maybe eight or nine at the time. I’d say he probably killed a couple motherfuckers at least. He’d rob you for your shoes, rob you for your chain. Punch you in the face, stab you, cut you, shoot you, whatever. He was just that type of man. He loved me, though. He used to put me on his shoulders all the time.

  We’d be out at night, running all around Brooklyn with these crazy motherfuckers. They’d do robberies right in front of me. Once they hit some guy in the head with a brick and took his boom box. Bashed the shit out of him and kept moving. I just looked at the dude twitching on the ground, then ran to catch up with Uncle Matt and his friend Q. That thug shit kind of influenced me a little bit, too—as a kid, I looked up to both of these guys, and to them, this was normal behavior. It was just another part of my upbringing.

  I didn’t really let that stuff get to me too much. The sad thing about ghetto life is that crazy shit like the shootouts, the stabbings, the piss-filled staircases, and the junkies become the norm. You grow a thick skin and get desensitized to the environment around you.

  It shouldn’t be that way, though. There were some deaths that should’ve been reflected on more, that people should have honored more. Like this little girl, only about seven or eight years old, who got killed. She was in my class in public school. She was raped and thrown off the roof at the back of the building by this mentally disabled kid we knew as Big A., who walked around the neighborhood looking goofy all the time.

  This fucked everybody up. When we hea
rd what had happened, everybody cringed. We were all in disbelief that this shit had gone down. When we found out a rapist was walking around the hood, that affected everybody. Even though they caught him pretty quickly, the presence of the crime lingered for months. At school, they emptied out her desk during class. The thought of her being there one day and dead the next was surreal.

  Years later, you walk right by that same place where they found her body, and it’s as if nothing had ever happened there.

  *

  A lotta shit went down on the roofs of the projects; they were like our clubhouse. When I was nine or ten years old, we’d just run across the roof because we weren’t supposed to be up there. Then we moved to throwing rocks off; then, when I got older, we were smoking weed, slap-boxing, rhyming, moving product, watching for cops.

  Of course, other things happened up there, too. One guy tried to kill himself by jumping off 141, a seven-story building—not once, but twice. He survived both attempts, landing on the fence near the day-care area, and only broke his arm. Eventually, he ended up in the asylum.

  Maybe despite all this, my mother did what she could to try and maintain my innocence and ensure I was a good kid. We had dinners together on Christmas, and she’d let me say grace and try her best to keep me mindful of God and the good things in life. It worked a lot of the time. I stayed in school and made good grades for the most part and didn’t get myself into too much trouble.

  At least, not yet.

  3.

  RUUUUMBLEEE!!

  Fighting—the art of hand-to-hand combat—was a big thing growing up. You had to know how to use your hands. Guns weren’t the weapon of choice until later—you used your fists or a knife. That’s one thing about Island dudes; they know how to throw their joints.

  I didn’t have older brothers to hold me down, so I had to fight my own battles against kids my age and pretty much anybody else who tried me. To this day, fists aren’t my last resort, they’re my first.

  That’s why I sometimes have trouble relating to people who have never fought or who have never been punched in the face. How much can you know about yourself until you’re in a physical altercation? There are people today who have never been punched in the face. That’s why they’ll knock right into you as they walk by in the street and not even excuse themselves. They have no basic respect for anyone around them. Not enough people living in New York today have been punched in the face. They could use that lesson, though. I feel that confrontation brings respect. People who keep doing sneaky shit keep getting away with it, often because no one’s willing to call them on it.

  Whether in humility or self-confidence, they need that lesson. Getting tested lets you find out who you are deep down. And I found out that deep down I’m a scrapper. I’m also respectful, though. If I bump into someone, I excuse myself. I’m a humble warrior. You can’t go around looking for trouble, but you have to be ready when it comes. You can’t walk around trying to be the toughest, because there’s always someone tougher.

  *

  Just to join little crews and be cool with certain people, you had to fight. You had to shoot the joints. Can you imagine? Even the Avenue Crew, who used to beat us up, had to fight to be able to chill on the avenue. They had to deal with older dudes trying to push them off the block.

  To be down with any crew, you had to slap-box: whoever got the most slaps off with an open hand won. Just because you lost the fight didn’t mean you didn’t get in, though. Win or lose, if you had heart to fight, you got in. Some kids didn’t want to fight, so they couldn’t be down. You couldn’t be scared to fight.

  I’ve gotten the shit slapped out of my face for five minutes straight when my hands weren’t good yet. All that fighting and getting jumped and sometimes taking a beating is why I’m not afraid to scuffle to this day. And I will hold it down and do my just due with my hands. I prefer my hands to a gun any day. Guns and hands are two different games. A dude knows that you’re good with your hands, he’s not gonna fight you, he’s gonna shoot you.

  The problem with a gun is that it’s a coward’s weapon, because anyone can use it. I could put a gun in the hands of a two-year-old, blindfold him, and tell him to squeeze the trigger, and he’d kill somebody.

  Now, for someone to come up on me, actually say something, and we get it on, we rumblin’, and I catch him with an uppercut, a cross, kick him in his fuckin’ abdomen, break his fuckin’ leg and break his jaw with my right hand, knock him on his ass, do you know the satisfaction in that? It’s huge, and not just for the winner. That feels better than shooting someone, because he’ll get up and say, “Damn … that was some shit I just went through. I’m not fuckin’ with that dude no more.” Or he might be the kind of dude who thinks: You know what? I like how he did this or that, I’m gonna go learn and practice, and we gonna fight again. He might be one of those guys. But at the end of it all, we both get to walk away and go see our families, and fight another day.

  With a fight, there’s a clear winner and a clear loser, and (usually) no one gets seriously hurt. Guns and drugs changed everything; but growing up, fighting brought out the real men on the streets.

  There is a science to fighting. Balance, technique, speed. Speed kills. Fuck what you heard. Fuck all that slow, I’ll knock you out, big dude shit. No. Speed kills. I’ve seen David and Goliath stories my whole life. I’ve seen little small dudes knock out dudes ten times their fucking size and weight based on speed and speed alone.

  When you tap someone’s jaw properly, their brain rocks. The human brain is encased in fluid, and it has no shock absorbers, so when it moves, it’s going to hit the side of the skull. When someone gets hit, the fluid shifts and the brain shakes, and they get knocked out. If you get hit and it wobbles your brain, no matter how big you are, you’re going to be fucking discombobulated, and you’re gonna fuckin’ fall.

  And your size doesn’t matter. That was one of the things that fighting in the streets (and later in jail) etched into my psyche. Size does not matter one bit. I’ve seen big dudes get scooped by small dudes and slammed on their heads. And I’ve seen small dudes jump to punch a big man in the face and still knock him right out.

  Back in the day, you used to run out of your apartment when you heard two motherfuckers fighting. It was like Clash of the Titans. It was like a Mike Tyson main event. People would run out of their apartments and come out of the building to see certain people fight. Instead of being on TV, the shit was right in front of your face. These were our heroes growing up.

  We’d sit there and they’d go at it and shoot the five until one dude was knocked out. It wasn’t just entertainment for me like it was for most spectators. I wanted to watch so that I could learn. I studied dudes like Tameek. Billy Johnson used to knock guys out. Buddha knocked some people out. Arkim and Dupreme and Ubar all knocked people out, too. And they all used the 52 Hand Blocks.

  They were superstars with the knuckle check. These dudes could rock a gold chain, and nobody would fuck with them. Back then, you couldn’t rock any type of jewelry just like that, because someone was going to test you or rob you. If you were wearing a chain, you had to be someone who was known for shooting or cutting or knocking dudes the fuck out. And someone who didn’t know you may still try and test, so you couldn’t really rely on your rep to save you every time. You had to be ready to show and prove.

  Now anybody can wear a chain in the goddamn hood. Nobody’s doing shit to them. You can wear your Jordans and leathers and jewelry in good faith. Rarely are you gonna get tested. At least in comparison to when I was coming up. Fighting was just a way of life then. It was pretty much a given that you were going to have to fight or at least stand up for yourself if you hoped to keep whatever little fly shit you had.

  *

  Everybody wanted to be Bruce Lee back in the day. He was the main dude on TV, and played a major part in the 52 Hand Blocks. The 52 is like “the Continuing Fist” in tae kwon do. No matter what kind or how many punches you threw, if your
opponent had mastered it, it was hard as hell to hit them. The 52 Blocks is both an offensive and defensive style that was developed on the street. It’s elbows, arms, and a combination of hand movements that combines techniques from a half-dozen martial arts, including tae kwon do, monkey-style kung fu, jeet kune do, and who knows what else. That’s why 52 Blocks was such a major advantage if you could master it. Size or ability didn’t matter if you could block everything your opponent threw at you, then retaliate.

  For whatever reason, the OGs didn’t pass 52 down to the younger generation. Maybe it was because guns became more of a factor in settling disputes. Whatever the reason, 52 Hand Blocks is nearly a lost art today, with only a scarce few remaining who claim to know it. So few that people think it’s a myth. It’s not, though. If you tangle with one of these old heads that knows the 52, you’re gonna get hit with a tornado. He’ll hit you from your kneecaps to both sides of your dome.

  Sha-Bon, or Shabby, who was down with the Avenue Crew, had a brother named Tameek who was a master at 52 Hand Blocks. You could not get your shit off with Tameek. He was a knockout artist in every sense of the word, and there is an art to the knockout. He had big ol’ mitten hands, and he could knock you out with either one. His defense skills were impenetrable. You could not land a single punch on this guy, and he would land all his. Believe it or not, this dude used to catch your punch and kiss your fist, then bust your shit.

  I wanted to do a documentary with Tameek about the 52, but he got killed before I could. He was in the life, and tried to take over a drug building, and got shot in the back of the head. I wanted to interview him because he knew the blocks. He knew defense, but he also knew offense, how to come back from the block. Once he had neutralized his opponent’s attack, he knew the best way to strike and drop them with one punch. That’s lost knowledge. That died with him. That’s a damn shame.