Once a King, Always a King: The Unmaking of a Latin King

by Reymundo Sanchez

  Although the freedom to do the simplest things on your own schedule is no longer an option, little else is missing from life in prison. Drugs, alcohol (homemade), and sex (usually homosexual, but heterosexual sex is possible with the right connections) are readily available. And of course you get three meals a day and free medical and dental care. The only deterrent I found for coming back was convincing myself that I didn’t have to be there to begin with. I did just that.

  I used my prison time to gain the self-confidence and common sense I had been without for so long. I took advantage of the educational programs offered by the Illinois Department of Corrections and prepared myself for my release back into the world. I guess that if my plans had been to return to gang society and climb up the leadership ladder, then my best bet would have been to hit the weight pile and build up my body to endure the punishment that lay in store. But I planned on never again being part of any correctional system. I went through a process where I thought about and regretted everything I had been involved with in the past. I started to piece together memories and recollections that made me aware that I should have been, and still could be, a different person. I realized that in order to achieve this, it was in my best interest to strengthen my mind.

  THE ADVICE LEO gave me that day in the yard at Shawnee has made me wonder over the years why inmates with short sentences are not required to successfully complete some kind of educational goal as a condition of their release. I, for one, am convinced that if I had not taken it upon myself to gain even a minimal amount of education while incarcerated, I probably would have returned to gang society instead of integrating myself into normal society. The fact remains, however, that I may not have had the opportunity to do my time in peace and on my own terms if I hadn’t been a member of the Latin Kings.

  8 Almost Free

  STATESVILLE MINIMUM-SECURITY facility was a work camp for inmates who were either waiting to go on work release or at a very low risk of escaping. At Statesville, I woke up at five-thirty in the morning, ate breakfast, and then hit the road with the streets and parks clean-up crew. It was hard work, but that didn’t bother me as much as being seen on the side of the road, with a Department of Corrections jumpsuit on, picking up garbage. Citizens drove past us, staring at us, laughing at us, scared of us. It was a humbling experience. “This isn’t for me, this isn’t for me,” I kept saying to myself. While other inmates liked the idea of looking passersby in the eyes and making facial expressions in an attempt to make them nervous, I chose to give my back to onlookers. I was not at all proud to be out there, nor did I have anything to prove to any of these strangers.

  Since Statesville is located just a couple of hours’ drive from Chicago, Lilly was able to visit me there. The facilities were somewhat comfortable. Although there were two inmates to a room, the beds sat across from each other as opposed to the customary bunk bed setup. The room was a bit more spacious than your typical prison cell. Just about every inmate at Statesville was a step away from freedom; therefore the atmosphere was very relaxed, even with the presence of many gangbangers. In fact, I was surprised how well rival gang members got along at Statesville.

  There was a Latin King named Cuco who shared a room with a Latin Disciple. Cuco’s roommate was in fact a menace and an enemy to the Kings of his section. The vision of freedom such a short distance away made even this odd couple of roommates see the best in each other. They got along so well that Cuco actually set the Disciple up with his sister-in-law. This action would have gotten Cuco seriously hurt in just about any other Illinois correctional facility. It didn’t help that Cuco’s sister-in-law was an incredibly attractive woman. There was certainly talk among the Latin Kings regarding Cuco’s actions and what should be done about him, but not one was willing to risk losing his chance at freedom over it. A few, however, did swear to take care of Cuco once they got out onto the streets.

  I spent most of my evenings playing cards with and talking to older Latin King brothers. I gathered in particular with five older inmates, all in their forties and fifties, who had been Latin Kings from the beginning. They felt bitterness over what the Latin Kings had become—street thugs. They cursed the current social status of the Latin Kings and blamed the new generation of Kings for the social ills that afflicted the Puerto Rican community in Chicago. They did acknowledge, however, that it was the greed and criminal mind-set of a few of their comrades that had set the Latin Kings in this direction. They acknowledged that the drug dealing and weapons stockpiling had begun during their generation, but in the same breath they quickly clarified that even those few misdirected brothers never intended that the criminal activities of the Latin Kings be directed at other Puerto Ricans. They put the responsibility of the Latino-against-Latino gang wars on the ignorance and lack of education of the new generation. Not surprisingly, these older Kings shied away from ones like Cuco, cocky brothers who they felt had no sense of loyalty. They tried to take brothers like me under their wing and give them advice.

  From these men I received daily advice on how to keep myself from being a repeat offender. They bombarded me with the concept of self-improvement through education. They felt that they had sacrificed their futures to ensure that future Puerto Rican generations could take advantage of opportunities to succeed without fear of harassment due to their race. It angered them to see so many brothers choose to be criminal statistics rather than become educated individuals who could help with the prosperity of the Puerto Rican community. All their rhetoric made a lot of sense, but I felt compelled to question why all the leaders of the Latin Kings were incarcerated and running a criminal empire from the inside. Repeatedly they pointed out that it was my choice, not anybody else’s, whether I continued to be a convict or not. They explained that I must be a leader, not a follower, and that meant knowing which leader to follow and what leader to dethrone. The present state of the Latin Kings was one where all the leadership was based on fear, not on intelligence. Of all the times I had heard the “be a leader, not a follower” phrase spoken, this was the only time it actually made any sense to me.

  It became clear to me that for all the years I had used violence as a way to be accepted, I was following blindly. I realized that if I were really tough, if I were a real King of the Latin people, I would have rebelled and stood up against the destruction our so-called leaders inflict on our neighborhoods. Of course, I also realized that I would probably never have joined the Kings had it not been for the abuse I had suffered at home. In any case, the whys and how comes that revolved inside my mind were beginning to get answers.

  I looked into the faces of these older brothers and saw their regret for allowing themselves to follow the thankless paths they had taken. I saw a deep sadness in their eyes that told all who cared to see how all the sacrifices they had made were all for nothing. Their expressions clearly said that if they had to do it all over again, they wouldn’t. Suddenly I started to recognize this same regret whenever I looked in the mirror.

  Because these men were veterans of the Illinois correctional system, they had many connections that allowed them to know, do, and have things most inmates didn’t. They knew which guards were on the Latin King’s payroll, where they were stationed, and their work shifts. It turned out that two guards employed by the Latin Kings routinely worked the visiting room on days I was allowed to have visits. The older Kings arranged it so that I could have sex with Lilly during visitation in exchange for her carrying drugs into the prison for the Kings. She would also have to bring along a family member of one of the other Kings for visitation.

  The visiting area at the Statesville work camp did not have partitions separating inmates from their visitors. Inmates sat at tables across from their visitors. Although holding hands across the top of the table, and hello and good-bye hugs and kisses, were routinely allowed, all other touching was prohibited.

  On Lilly’s first visit, she did not have to bring in any drugs because of the short notice. That day Lilly surprised me by
showing up with my mother. My heart fell into my stomach when I saw her. I fought tears as I stared into the eyes of the person I blamed for all my tragic memories. There in front of me stood the woman who gave birth to me and then allowed me to live a life filled with abuse. After a few seconds of silence, we hugged each other tightly.

  I thought about how she left me at age four in the care of an aunt whose eighteen-year-old son raped me. I thought about how she allowed the men who came into her life to physically abuse me. How she left me in the care of her drug-dealing stepson when she returned to Puerto Rico with my stepfather. And how she left me to fend for myself on the streets of Chicago at age 13. I realized that I had no memory of her ever telling me she loved me.

  When we hugged, I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to be cradled and caressed. I wanted to hear her say that she loved me, that she missed me, and that she was sorry for what she had allowed my life to become. The hug lasted forever, but not a word was spoken.

  After the guard broke up our long hello, we walked to a table and sat across from each other. After only a few minutes of staring at my mother, I felt indifferent about seeing her again. It was as if nothing significant had happened in my life. I didn’t feel that we had a lot of catching up to do or that I never wanted her to leave my life again. To the contrary, I wished she had stayed in Puerto Rico and never found out how my parentless life had turned out.

  I was at a loss for words throughout that visit. I just sat there nodding in agreement to whatever Lilly said. I waited patiently for my mother to declare her love for me. She updated me on the current state of various members of my family. She told me that she had left Pedro and returned to Chicago to get away from all his ranting and raving. Hearing that, I found myself phasing out her words. What she talked about from then on were things that I couldn’t have cared less about. I wanted to hear why she let things happen to me the way she did and why she hadn’t protected me. Ever. I wanted to know why she didn’t decide to leave Pedro’s ranting and raving years ago when he had beat me bloody or when he had pointed a gun at me with the intention of killing me. I wanted to hear her apologize to me and tell me that she wanted to explore the mother–son relationship we never had a chance to have. I wanted her to look me in the eyes and tell me she loved me. It never happened.

  Because of my mother’s presence, I passed up the chance to have sex with Lilly. After the visit was over it felt as if my mother had never existed. I still felt the same void I had felt since I was eleven or twelve years old. I had this overwhelming need to know why I was dispensable to my own mother. I went to my room and cried. I lay there wondering what I had done that was so wrong that it had caused me to lose my mother. For one brief moment, as I lay there, I felt like getting under the bed to hide from the terror I imagined was awaiting me, just as I had done to escape beatings as a child.

  My mother continued to come with Lilly on just about every visitation day. She never asked me about what had transpired in my life after she sent me to live with her drug-dealing stepson. Maybe it was because Lilly had told her everything already. Maybe it hurt her too much to think about or accept that she was responsible for how my life had turned out. Or maybe she had absolutely no clue or didn’t care. I kept my desire for answers to myself; it was how I chose to deal with it. Life went on.

  From the second visit on, Lilly and I had sex on every visitation day. My mother, or whoever else accompanied her, would wait at the table while we went and took care of business. Lilly would go into the men’s or women’s bathroom, whichever was available, and I would join her a few minutes later. She would go into an empty stall and ready herself for sex while she waited for me. Lilly made sure to wear dresses or skirts on visitation day so that the task of getting ready for sex would be an easy one. A couple of minutes after Lilly went into the bathroom, I would ask the designated guard if I could go to the bathroom. He would then escort me there and wait outside for my return. It was common knowledge to all inmates and their visitors what was going on, and they all played along. Failure to play along would probably have resulted in some form of repercussion, most likely to a family member on the outside.

  Reconnecting with my mother as a prison inmate and not as a successful member of society bothered me, but for only a split second. In a way, I was happy that she found me there so that she could bear witness to what she had created. Unfortunately, I don’t think she saw it that way. She didn’t seem to be affected by the knowledge that her son was a convicted criminal. The fact that the mother I had not seen in years sat alone at a table inside a prison while I had sex in a bathroom stall told the story of our present and future relationship. I guess that, from my point of view, my mother had not earned enough of my respect to justify my choosing to sit with her over my sexual pleasure. I wondered which one of us would open the dialogue that would lead to at least a respectful relationship, if not a loving one. Apparently neither of us found it necessary.

  Lilly mostly brought in drugs that were used for selling within Statesville. On several occasions, however, she brought in cocaine to pay off guards. In fact, because it was powdered, cocaine was the easiest drug to transport into Statesville, but she also brought heroin on several occasions. Lilly’s method of transporting the drugs was to hide them in her vagina. At the entrance of the visitation room, guards routinely patted down visitors and searched their purses, but they never gave Lilly a strip or body cavity search. This method of transporting drugs, coupled with paying off the guards, made the exchanges easy. I passed the drugs in turn to the older Kings, who completed the transport. The guards being either members of the Latin Kings or an affiliated gang, or being paid off, made this seemingly risky task simply routine. As for Lilly, after the first time, she began to enjoy the sexual aspect of my retrieving the packages.

  I was amazed and turned on by how much Lilly could fit inside her vagina. The process of retrieving the drugs from inside her made for some incredible sex afterward. In fact, the sex Lilly and I had at Statesville was the most passionate we had had without the assistance of being high. Lilly didn’t mind being a mule. We actually started to make a little bit of money on our own on the outside by charging other inmates to bring in their drugs. Lilly would meet associates of inmates at a destination of her choice and would collect the money and drugs to be transported. The packages were always small, but we still charged fifty dollars for up to a dime of marijuana, a hundred dollars for up to an eighth of an ounce of cocaine, and two hundred dollars for up to an eighth of heroin. On the several occasions when she couldn’t bring in everything herself, Lilly brought a friend, who would carry in the remainder. We justified our prices by playing on the risk factor.

  It is common for women to do for their men in jail what Lilly did for me. For the most part, it gives them an adrenaline rush from living dangerously. For many, however, being a mule and daring to have sex with an inmate can be a career coup that earns them respect within gang society. In fact, women lucky enough to be involved with a leader could have more power on the street than any foot soldier and sometimes even street leaders. Lilly, on the other hand, had nothing to gain from transporting drugs for me other than knowing that I would be safer in prison because of her acts. Lilly, a veteran of the mule profession, knew that for every woman who didn’t want to carry drugs for a known gang-banger, there were ten who did. Arranged sexual encounters were almost always reserved for these women. Lilly knew that, too.

  My time at Statesville seemed like not doing jail time at all. It was easy to see why very few people feared incarceration. After about two and half months at the Statesville work camp, I was transferred to a work release center in Chicago.

  9 Work Release

  IN EARLY FALL I was taken by van to a work release center on Roosevelt and Ashland Avenues in Chicago. I wasn’t handcuffed on the ride there, and I wore street clothes that Lilly had brought me for the occasion. At the work release center, I was far enough away from the neighborhood to feel safe, but close eno
ugh to where I felt like I was back in the ’hood. That, along with the cold weather beginning to set in, made the temptations of street life easy to ignore.

  At the work release center, I was to start the process of integrating myself back into society as a law-abiding citizen. I wore street clothes all the time and was known by my name instead of by a prison number. I was trusted to go out in public on my own to seek employment and to attend Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings, which I was mandated to attend.

  The NA meetings were held at St. Elizabeth Hospital, in what was once Spanish Lords’ ’hood, and also where I had originally been introduced to gang involvement. The Lords and the Spanish Cobras violently shared the Tuley School area. The Spanish Lords could no longer hang out at Tuley as safely as they once had. From the work release center, I took a bus that headed north on Ashland Avenue. I got off on Chicago Avenue and took the bus there to Western Avenue. From there I would take the Western Avenue bus to Hirsch Street, where I got off and walked to the NA meeting. Although this route seemed long and complicated, it allowed for the least chance of running into any gang-bangers. Once I got off the bus to walk to the hospital, I always felt nervous about the possibility of running into any members of the Cobras, or even the Lords, for that matter. Time and time again, I walked past the mouth of the alley where Afro had been gunned down when I was getting my first taste of gang life at age twelve. Afro was a sixteen-year-old member of the Spanish Lords, shot to death by the Spanish Cobras as he went to buy beer for some other kids and me. We waited for him sitting on the steps of a closed-in porch about fifty feet away from where the shooting took place. I could have avoided walking past there now, but for some reason I didn’t. Each time, I looked down into the alley and saw the faded spray-painted “R.I.P. Afro” on the very spot where he had died. I saw myself staring down at Afro’s bloodied body, feeling nothing. I saw myself running toward the end, trying to get home before the police showed up. I realized now that having to walk past there, where all the madness of my past had started, was by far more therapeutic than the NA meetings. I also began to realize how lucky I was to have avoided Afro’s fate.