Jumped In

by Jorja Leap

  DCFS assigned a caseworker to further investigate. After one week, the worker reported that there was no evidence of sexual abuse. I understand why. On the continuum of what DCFS has to investigate—child pornography, fathers making their children engage in sex with animals, the parenting skills of Mel Gibson—this case was low on both risk and lethality. But for Joanna, the damage was done. She returned Joaquin to his drug-abusing mother and managed to reassure Lupita that she was safe.

  This all unfolded just as Bullet was getting released from thirty days at rehab and instructed to attend 12-step meetings every day. Homeboy was in the midst of a hiring freeze and there was nowhere else he could find a job. Instead of working, he went back to meth.

  “Where did he get the stuff? And how did he pay for it?” I ask Joanna.

  “It was that fuckin’ Angel Duarte. You know he’s trouble. He got it for him.” This was the same Angel who Joanna had described as “very high up in the drug industry.” I had never liked Angel, and I already knew that he had bailed out from a previous charge. But he had been arrested two nights earlier for drug dealing. When federal agents broke into his apartment, they found a cache of weapons and meth. Angel had kidnapped someone from Saint’s neighborhood and beaten his face and skull with a baseball bat. “Your problems are bad, but they’re not that bad,” I tell Joanna. She quickly agrees.

  “What happened with Bullet?” I ask, not sure what to say at this point.

  “We went to Walmart on Saturday and I see he’s wearin’ sunglasses inside there and a towel around his neck. I got suspicious. But I let him spend the night. I woke up at three in the morning and he’s starin’ at the TV. So I asked him, ‘Are you usin’?’ and he acted really mad, ‘No!’ I asked if I could see his arms and he told me no. But the next day we’re at the park. Bullet reached out to hug Marcos—he forgot and I saw his arm had track marks. I told him to get out. I told him I wasn’t gonna ask him for any child support—but I wanted him to stay away from us.”

  The depth of her betrayal is evident. Although Joanna protests that she doesn’t need anyone, she is still heartbroken that Bullet relapsed. She has no tolerance and openly admits it.

  “I said bad things to him because I’m so fuckin’ mad, but it’s ’cuz I’m so hurt.”

  The situation with Bullet is a no-win. To further complicate matters, after throwing Joaquin and Bullet out of the house, Joanna took Sonia up to visit her father, Flaco, in prison. I am beginning to need an organizational chart for Joanna’s offspring. Bullet was upset that Joanna took Sonia to see Flaco, insisting that Joanna was still in love with him. This whole notion is laughable—except for Bullet’s jealous rage. Meanwhile, Joanna says that she was proud that Sonia confronted her father and told him that she can’t trust him because he’s never around. I refrain from pointing out that he’s not around because he’s in prison.

  Instead, I go looking for Elena, who is peacefully chopping vegetables in the kitchen of the Homegirl Café. I hate to admit it, but she is glowing and looks even more beautiful.

  “Oh, Jorja,” she squeals in delight when she sees me. “I’m so happy and Kevin is doin’ so good.”

  I feel like a complete phony, but I smile. “So tell me how you are feeling—what are you doing—how far along are you?”

  Elena cradles her belly. “I’m about three months along—we go to see the doctor next week. Kevin’s mom is so happy, and my mom is so happy. Kevin has really calmed down. And he has started a new business.”

  Now what? I think, then brace myself, asking what this might be.

  “He’s workin’ on producin’ his music. He says he is gonna make money. Y’know he could do this, Jorja. Kevin could be a rap star.”

  Of course. Kevin was always interested in the fast buck. I have already met too many homies planning their careers in rap music or hip-hop. This has replaced sports as the gang exit strategy. No one is interested in athletics—instead, everyone dreams of being Snoop Dog. Kevin is no exception.

  “I don’t mind that he goes out at night—I know that he’s tryin’ to get his music business goin’ for us,” she says. “We’re living with his mother now—so the money pressure is off of him too. We just couldn’t afford the rent.”

  “So let me know what happens after the doctor next week?”

  “For sure!”

  Who knows? Maybe something good will come out of this mess, I think. Joanna has seen me talking to Elena, and comes over to me afterward.

  “You know Kevin has been beatin’ her.”

  “I know.”

  “You know he is one crazy motherfucker.”

  “I know.”

  “Jorja, now that she’s pregnant, he gonna beat her even more. That’s what my man who beat me did. They beat you if you don’t have a baby. They beat you if you’re pregnant. They beat you if you wanna leave them.”

  “I know.” I sound like an idiot. I can’t think of a thing to say. At the end of our marriage my former husband got physical with me. He also took a knife and slashed the canvas top of my car. He pretended that he threw my keys into a dumpster and told me he thought of strangling me in the middle of the night. I want to tell Joanna that I had experienced domestic violence, but I was a middle-class woman with a therapist, a lawyer, and a credit card. All I can say is, “Joanna, you’ve been through it and I’ve been through it, but Elena won’t get better until she’s ready.” Joanna listens carefully and then responds in a soft voice.

  “Y’know, most of us—we don’t know when we are victims of domestic violence—it goes so far back. I was fourteen years old the first time a guy beat me up. I hit him back, but I’m learning it didn’t matter even if I did hit him. I’m still traumatized.” She is serious in a way I have never seen her before.

  “I’m so worried about everyone here. Look at Rosa—she’s alone, her new baby is blind, she doesn’t have any papers so she can’t get any welfare. She’s on relief and all she gets is a hundred dollars. And every time her baby daddy comes over, he beats her up.”

  “Why is she taking this?” I ask, and Joanna rolls her eyes and explains that the baby’s father is a notorious shot caller.

  “He’ll kill her, Jorja. He’s had three babies with three girls. He told Rosa, don’t count on me. I don’t belong to you, I belong to the neighborhood. He doesn’t care about his woman, he doesn’t care about his baby; he only cares about his fuckin’ neighborhood.” Joanna is disgusted. “Fuck him. I told Rosa, ‘Come over, you can stay with me.’”

  Rosa is the latest in the continuing line of women whom Joanna has mothered since Luisa. She is forever the tattooed earth mother of the neighborhood. I ask her why she takes care of people.

  “I think I’m trying to give people what I never had,” she says without hesitation. Her insight takes my breath away. “And I know I’m so guilty about my son dying—I wanna make up for that—that’s what I’m always doing. And I wanna stop all the domestic violence.”

  This is the problem with no name. On the laundry list of issues including child neglect, poverty, lack of education, drugs, unemployment, jail, and mental illness, domestic violence is absent—it’s almost as if the neighborhoods and social services conspire to make sure nothing more is added. And, for most of the homegirls I know, domestic violence is “normal.”

  Two days later, Joanna and I continue our discussion of relationships in the neighborhoods. I am also beginning to understand just how complicated Joanna’s domestic arrangements are. Roberto lives downstairs from her and is her landlord. He is the “good boy,” the husband who only joined Florencia to please Joanna.

  “He used to sit in the car while I did things,” Joanna said, making it sound like she was completing a few household errands rather than the armed robberies she would routinely commit. “He would wait there, with the motor running,” she continued. “He never really knew what was going on—he said he didn’t know. But we had two kids together and he was a good father.”

  Joanna knows I’m h
aving trouble keeping track of her children. “I’ve had five kids,” she tells me, and I try to count them up. She had two children with Flaco: Flaco junior, who is now dead, and Sonia. Then, with Roberto, she had Juan and Lupita. Finally, with Bullet, she has Little Marcos. I have never known Bullet’s real name—but finally Joanna tells me it is Marcos. Joanna suspects she is pregnant again, but it turns out to be a false alarm.

  “Now I want to be a mother, I can’t get pregnant. In the old days, I didn’t want to stay home. I used to batter Roberto when he wouldn’t let me go out. I wanted to go out and bang, and he’d tell me to stay at home with the kids; he didn’t want me to go out,” Joanna confided. “He was a big, stocky guy with a good body, but he never hit me. I hit him.”

  I sit and digest the information that Joanna was a batterer as well as a battered spouse.

  “Has he ever gotten married again?” I finally ask.

  “No.”

  “Has he ever been in love with anyone else since you?”

  “No.”

  “He’s still in love with you,” I tell Joanna.

  “No, he says he can never get married again because he was traumatized by me.” Joanna is laughing when she tells me this. “I felt kinda bad whenever Bullet stayed over—I would ask if Roberto heard us.” Her meaning is clear.

  “Roberto puts up with everything—including Luisa.” I know that Luisa has surfaced again with a brand new tattoo: a mustache. She is living at Joanna’s.

  “I’m worried about Baby Girl.” Joanna shifts gears abruptly. We both know what Luisa is doing. It is not enough that she wants to shed her skin as a woman and live as a man. Luisa has now decided to switch gangs—something no one does—leaving Florencia and reinventing herself as a Playboy Crip. She is playing an incredibly lethal game and lacing it with the cyanide of drug use. Luisa has admitted as much to me, explaining, “When I get high, it’s a rush, I’m afraid my homies are gonna kill me.” It is Russian roulette, neighborhood style. I ask Joanna why Baby Girl is doing this.

  “I don’t know—she wants to commit suicide I guess.” Joanna has never heard of the DSM—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—but she diagnoses on a daily basis.

  “I’m gonna have to kick Luisa out if she keeps this shit up,” she says.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Joanna goes into a long soliloquy about “the lesbian thing” and how “women in love with women are just as fucked up as women in love with men.” But she also looks thoughtful, as if she’s performing some sort of internal calculus.

  “Y’know as women we really seem like we like pain. Like my mother—my father really abused her and she still loved him. He’s dead and she says he’s the only man she’s ever loved. It’s crazy. And I stayed with Juan, my boyfriend who battered me—I just thought I couldn’t go. I didn’t think I could make it on my own.”

  I nod while she talks, remembering my own experience. I had been afraid to leave my first marriage—unwilling to surrender either my status or my security. The memory of that marriage has faded, but what I vividly remember was that I was terrified that I could not make it on my own. Joanna struggles with the identical dilemma. She still required a man by her side.

  “I wanna find an older guy,” she is telling me. “I want someone who is responsible. But I am afraid they can’t get it up.” I reassure her on this point. She listens raptly when I tell her that Mark is as old as her father, then graphically explain that there has never been a problem in the physical aspect of our relationship. Ever.

  Joanna is shaking her head. “These fools use glass and then they can’t get it up. So they use more glass and then they really can’t get it up.”

  “I know how you can find a new boyfriend,” I say. Joanna is all ears. “Don’t look.”

  She is laughing and I ask her, “Did you ever wish you met Roberto now?”

  She nods, but adds, “I can’t go back there. But y’know he was the only man who didn’t abuse me.”

  The problem of abuse seems to be dominating her thoughts. “Y’know, Jorja, things have changed in the neighborhoods. They used to say it was okay to hit a woman. Now it’s not.”

  I have finally thought of a way to help Joanna financially without raiding my checking account. Several Los Angeles County agencies request training on domestic violence. I draft Joanna and a member of the Homeboy staff—Agustin Lizama—as instructors for the daylong session. It is organized for forty people. Ninety show up.

  I open the session with a brief overview that includes the stages of domestic violence, but the real education begins with Agustin. His story is complicated. He was battered by his girlfriend and battered her in turn.

  “I met her in January, she was my girlfriend in March, and by April she was pregnant. She had a good job, but then she got pregnant and she was on maternity leave. That’s when the trouble between us started. Everybody is different—everyone goes through different experiences—but the one thing I will tell you, you don’t know how to respect shit in a relationship. The neighborhood never teaches you that. I learned that the hard way.”

  Joanna then takes the stage and announces, “My boyfriend battered me. He told me he was afraid I was gonna leave him. No one batters because they feel strong—you batter because you are angry—and weak.” The room is silent as Joanna continues.

  “This is not an easy group to work with—gang members. You gotta go after layer after layer of stuff—they have fifteen to twenty years of learning to do things this one way. When I’m working with gang members who are batterers, I’ve gotta break it down to them in certain ways—in a street way. The challenge for me is learning how to humble myself and work with them. They are all batterers, but they don’t know any other way. Maybe because they learned it from their fathers who were batterers.”

  Joanna talks about working with the women like herself, insisting that it’s often difficult to tell who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.

  “I knew these two people,” she recalls. “The man told a woman to leave the house, she said no, and he went to get his keys to leave. She bit him, he called law enforcement—but they refused to make an arrest because the man claimed to be the victim.”

  After the training, Joanna can’t stop talking.

  “Y’know, there’s a lot I couldn’t say. There’s a lot more that happens behind closed doors, but the neighborhoods teach us we can never call the police. This isolates women in the neighborhoods more.”

  It’s obvious that no one with even the most distant connection to a neighborhood ever trusts the police. Never. When Mark comes in to volunteer at Homeboy, I watch while Joanna reacts to him with a mask of hauteur.

  “Your husband intimidates me,” she finally admits.

  Mark is a little over two years out of the LAPD. He spends most of his time on community projects, sitting on advisory boards, doing a little consulting, and—unbelievably enough—helping out at Homeboy. He is still in therapy. I am still in therapy. But I know he is a different person. Two weeks earlier, Daryl Gates, the longtime chief of the LAPD, succumbed to cancer. The current chief, Charlie Beck, called to invite Mark to the funeral. Mark, pleasantly noncommittal, thanked him for the invitation. I was already picking out what I would wear when Mark told me, “I don’t want to go.”

  I was stunned. This was heresy. Daryl Gates was the Los Angeles Police Department. Even the New York Times had noted his passing.

  “Why not?”

  “Daryl Gates was not a nice man. Let’s just say that.”

  I want to tell Joanna how different Mark is. But I leave it alone. She’ll discover this herself.

  After the domestic-violence training, I arrange to meet with Elena. I am anxious and determined to make sure nothing happens to her.

  “You didn’t get yourself out of MS-13 to get into more trouble with Kevin,” I tell her.

  Elena has bruises along the side of her face and her arms. It is clear that the abuse is escalating. But s
he will not call the police. I urge her to go see the Homeboy attorney Elie Miller, who is smart and compassionate.

  “I will,” she promises, but I am not so sure.

  I know that despite the abuse and the problems, Elena loves Kevin. She wants to believe he will be better, that he will leave the neighborhood. Like so many women, she holds out the unexpressed hope that her man will go straight.

  And every once in a while, there is redemption. I witnessed this the day that I sat in a pew of Dolores Mission Church and watched while Louis Perez married Judy Viramontes. Louis kept telling me this was going to be a “real homie wedding,” although the homie had long ago left the neighborhood and his bride sold life insurance. Their wedding, with a reception at the home of the bride’s mother, represented the triumph of love over the neighborhood. All Louis and Judy wanted was a home, children, and a normal life. It is something Louis has never experienced.

  Gangster family relationships, just like everything else in the neighborhoods, are dysfunctional. Is anything in gang life simple? I want to scream. Still, there are certain constants. The father rarely figures in the family narrative. Fathers remain offstage and absent—dead, incarcerated, or with another woman. The mother is a major player, and she is universally revered—African American or Latino, whatever the ethnic mix. Sometimes the mother doesn’t necessarily deserve this; she too might be missing in action. Most discussions surrounding “gang family structure” invariably focus on the “father wound.” But I often found myself wondering about the mother wound. What about the absentee mother—whether it was drugs or partying or incarceration—who abandoned her children to raise themselves? What did she do to her family? And what about those mothers the homies cried over—single parents, well intentioned, who worked three jobs to care for their children but were never at home?