Children of the Knight

by Michael J. Bowler

  Copyright

  Published by

  Harmony Ink Press

  5032 Capital Circle SW

  Ste 2, PMB# 279

  Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

  USA

  publisher@harmonyinkpress.com

  http://harmonyinkpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Children of the Knight

  Copyright © 2013 by Michael J. Bowler

  Cover Art by Reese Dante

  http://www.reesedante.com

  Cover content is being used for illustrative purposes only

  and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.

  publisher@harmonyinkpress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-62380-655-2

  Library ISBN: 978-1-62380-925-6

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-62380-656-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  June 2013

  Library Edition

  June 2013

  This book is respectfully dedicated to all the kids I’ve worked with over the years who have inspired me, most especially those incarcerated youth who shared with me their deepest, darkest secrets, who opened up to me the horrors of their upbringing and the degradations life had perpetrated upon them, and yet who never ceased to amaze me with their resilience, their undying hope for a better life, and their unlimited capacity to love. Specifically, to those of you who inspired the characters of Lance, and Jack, and Reyna, and Esteban, and most especially Mark—you remain in my heart and soul forever.

  Chapter 1

  ONCE upon a time in the City of Angels, chaos was king, and carelessness ruled. Street gangs roamed the city. Politicians bettered their own lives, not those of the people they were elected to serve. Police corruption ran rampant through Rampart and other crime-ridden districts. Neighborhoods declined to slum-like conditions. The Los Angeles school system stumbled headlong down the road to total Armageddon. And the most victimized segment of the populace?

  The children. The teens. The next generation.

  Limited choices and often abusive or neglectful home lives forced hundreds, if not thousands of children, into the streets to join gangs, turn tricks, do drugs, sell drugs, drop out of school, get arrested and sent to prison for life, and in all ways subjugate their goodness in the name of survival.

  All hope seemed lost. Until the mysterious “tag” appeared throughout the city, spray-painted on walls and over graffiti, obliterating gang markings without mercy, without favoritism, with impunity.

  A “tag” that became the symbol of a revolution.

  Boyle Heights in East Los Angeles had become a flashpoint for immigrant traffic and gang warfare as far back as anyone could recall. The gangs usually clashed over turf or drugs.

  Tonight it was about disrespect.

  LAPD officers fought to contain the brawling, screaming gang members, firing rubber bullets, banging heads with nightsticks, slapping cuffs on tattooed wrists. These rival Latino factions from different neighborhoods clashed often, especially on this street, a dividing line between the two ’hoods.

  Scrawled on the wall behind the brawling youths and struggling cops were various gang monikers and names, indicating the back and forth struggle for control of the area. Above all these, written in beautifully articulated lettering and accompanied by the drawing of a dove flying over a rainbow and partially scribbled over by graffiti, was painted: “Pray for Peace in the Barrio.”

  Anarchy reigned as cops in riot gear struggled to apprehend the fighting youths, while other gang members ran helter-skelter between numerous police and local news media vehicles attempting to escape the police cordon. The news cameras rolled, taking in every violent moment while the flashing red lights of police and paramedic vehicles cast a dramatic strobe-light effect over the scene.

  As the situation slowly settled into containment, with most gang members either restrained or dashing off into the darkness, the last two boys were roughly pulled apart by four cops. These two boys fought so furiously that two officers were required for each boy to keep them from killing one another.

  Esteban Gallegos and Jaime Villalobos, for the present, at least, called the shots for their respective neighborhoods. The real power brokers seldom got their hands dirty, much like the generals, or presidents, in any war. Now nearly seventeen, Esteban had grown up in the streets, having been jumped into his gang at age eleven by holding his own in a three-on-one fight, the other three being older, stronger kids. As a boy, the strength and power of the local gang members had drawn him in like a magnet. Now a strong, buffed-up teen with unkempt facial hair and a nearly bald head, Esteban wore a torn wifebeater that revealed several gang tattoos on his naked, muscular arms.

  Jaime was sixteen, clothed in a muscle shirt that revealed his own assorted tattoos, which included his name on his neck and Our Lady of Guadalupe on his right forearm. Jaime had been born into the gang. His father was a gang member who never grew out of the lifestyle and had been in and out of prison during Jaime’s formative years, for often-violent crimes. Growing up, the boy seethed with pent-up rage over his inability to choose his own path in life.

  As cops shoved these boys toward different police cruisers, their faces slashed by the flashing red lights, Jaime kicked and screamed, shrieking furiously at Esteban, his face red with rage, “You’re dead, Ese! Dead!”

  Esteban, calm and composed now that the fighting had ceased, merely gazed solemnly over his shoulder at his raging rival. “You ain’t gonna touch me,” he announced quietly before being forced into the backseat of a police car. The doors slammed and locked behind him. The other officers shoved Jaime violently into the back of another cruiser before the youth could shout a response. Suddenly, the bedlam ended, and the cleanup began.

  The two men in charge of the operation observed the various police cruisers moving off with their captured warriors. Sergeant James Ryan, a veteran of the LAPD since college, wore his fifty-five years more like a weary sixty-five or seventy, his hair having turned almost completely gray, his craggy face worn and weathered by stress. Of medium height and build, he had been on the gang detail for over a decade, and he could no longer separate misguided children from hard-core gang members. In his view, the only good gang member was a dead or imprisoned gang member. Rehabilitation? Forget it. Tonight’s episode was further proof—these kids were so far gone they’d kill each other over a stupid tag. Man, was he burned out on this shit!

  As a black youth growing up in South Central, Sergeant Robert Gibson had no father in the home (nor did most of his friends), but he did have the blessing of his domineeringly strong mother who’d kept her son in check. She’d felt nothing but contempt for the gang leaders who recruited children and brainwashed them into thinking they had power, that they were doing something great for themselves and their neighborhood, and she wasn’t afraid to tell them so. Gibson had always been more afraid of her than the gangbangers.

  Gibson became a cop right out of high school and had moved quickly up the ranks. He was now pushing forty, tall and imposing, with broad shoulders and a well-gr
oomed mustache. As a young, intelligent, committed African-American officer, Gibson became a poster boy for the LAPD and willingly joined the Gang Task Force as a tribute to his mother, who’d sadly succumbed to a heart attack last year.

  Unlike Ryan, Gibson believed that most teen gang members, if given another alternative, would gladly ditch the gang and move forward in life. He’d seen ample evidence of this through Homeboy Industries, a program started by a Jesuit priest, Gregory Boyle. Homeboy Industries sought to rehabilitate and obtain lawful employment for gang members who wanted out, and had proven wildly successful in its twenty-five years.

  But statewide, more and more punitive laws were passed each year against children, and fewer and fewer programs to help wayward kids get back on track were created or amplified, while failing schools and deteriorating home life had taken their toll. In some ways, Gibson felt older and more burned out than Ryan because he still cared.

  Ryan surveyed the mop-up operation before him and shook his head in absolute disgust. “Shit, Gib, tagger’s been here too!”

  Gibson looked just as dismayed. “We’ve got to nail this guy, Ry, ’fore he ignites the whole city.”

  They gazed at the brick wall before them. Painted in bright purple paint or ink, was a simple, but unusual symbol. This symbol, having been painted over the gang logos and gang names, and appearing on walls and buildings throughout the city in recent days, had precipitated this and other outbreaks of gang-on-gang violence. Both sides in these clashes believed the other had disrespected them by placing this “tag” over their own.

  The symbol, a large A with a sword thrust down through it, now adorned the wall, clearly asserting its dominion over what had previously been claimed.

  Helen Schaeffer, a blonde, leggy, very attractive, and ambitious thirtysomething newswoman for a local TV station hurried over to Ryan and Gibson with her cameraman in tow. The bright light of the camera fell on the furious faces of the two officers, momentarily blinding them.

  “Sergeant Ryan, any comment on this latest incident?” Helen asked with authority, her mic shoved professionally up under Ryan’s chin.

  Ryan shoved it away. “Yeah, it stinks!” He turned and strode back toward his car. Gibson shrugged as Helen swung her microphone toward him and quickly followed his partner.

  Helen turned back to the camera, flashing her very expensive, perfect, television teeth. “As you just saw, the police still aren’t saying much about this latest outbreak of gang violence.”

  WITHIN the Hollenbeck Station Gang Task Force Division, activity was at a premium due to this latest gang brawl. Paperwork was rushed through as gang members, some as young as twelve, were booked and carted off to juvenile hall while phones rang off the hook. No surprise to Gibson was the obvious lack of parents checking on the health and welfare of their kids. Nope, he’d noted upon entering the squad room, not a single one present and accounted for.

  Ryan, chewing absently on a pencil, and Gibson sat watching a flat screen TV mounted on the wall above them. Other cops bustled past, a few stopping to glance at the broadcast before moving on.

  On the screen, Helen’s blonde and curvaceous beauty shone through. Ryan figured she’d been hired for her looks, not her journalist talents, but he had to give her a smidgen of credit for being tenacious on this “tagger” case.

  Helen spoke directly to the camera, the last of the police mop-up going on behind her. “This is the seventh large-scale gang fight in the past two weeks, and the police refuse to comment. The only connection seems to be this strange symbol.”

  The camera cut to a close-up of the A symbol while she continued in that dispassionate newscaster tone, “or ‘tag’, as the graffiti artists call it. Is this—”

  Gibson angrily clicked off the TV with a remote. Sitting in a straight-backed chair beside them, shackled at the wrists and ankles, Esteban chuckled.

  “I think it’s you guys, Ryan,” the relaxed boy stated calmly.

  Gibson leaned forward, right into Esteban’s face. “You think it’s us, huh, Gallegos?”

  Esteban merely smirked. For a cop, Esteban knew, this guy wasn’t too bad, but Ryan was a real loser, like one of those old, burned out cops in movies who always get outsmarted by guys like him. He and Ryan had danced around the law for several years now, with Ryan usually losing. As far as Esteban was concerned, he was the smarter of the two, and Ryan would never nail him for anything serious.

  Ryan put down his pencil and leaned forward. “Look, the only reason you’re up here, Esteban, is cuz you’re probably the only one a these punks who don’t got shit for brains.”

  Esteban nodded. He and Ryan knew each other too well. “It all fits, man. You guys’re tryin’ ta get us ta wipe ourselves out. You makes us think each other’s doin’ it, we fight, and you win. End of story.”

  Ryan sighed with exhaustion. “If it was that simple, kid, you an’ yer homies’d been dead long ago.”

  Gibson tried the “good cop” routine. “You have any idea who’s doing this, Esteban?”

  Esteban snorted derisively. “Like I’d say if I did? Don’t be a dumbshit.”

  Gibson’s temper suddenly flared, and he made a grab for Esteban. “Watch yer mouth, punk!”

  Ryan’s hand on his shoulder restrained him. Esteban merely continued smirking while Gibson pulled back his clenched fist.

  “Not now!” Ryan barked. “Just get ’im outta here.”

  Regaining control, the frustrated Gibson stood and roughly yanked Esteban to his feet, shoving him toward the exit, almost causing the boy to trip from the ankle shackles. “Back to the hall, Gallegos.”

  Esteban retained his balance and just laughed. “Home sweet home.”

  Ryan watched them exit, frustrated and angry. He snapped the pencil he’d been fiddling with and threw the pieces onto his desk. He reached for a sketchpad and picked it up, gazing in irritation at an artist’s rendering of the A symbol. What the hell was going on in his city?

  LENNOX, a one-mile square unincorporated neighborhood between the cities of Inglewood and Hawthorne, much like Boyle Heights, seemed a magnet for Latino immigrants, both legal and illegal. Crime and poverty ran rampant in Lennox, with gunshots and police sirens practically a nightly ritual.

  A small, lean Latino boy appeared at the mouth of an alley and darted quickly into the protective shadows behind a large dumpster. A sheriff’s car cruised slowly past the mouth of the alley and then continued on out of sight. The boy stepped from his hiding place and dusted himself off. Lance Sepulveda, a fourteen-year-old loner, warily glanced around him. Between avoiding gang members and cops, he lived a very cautious life.

  The gang members liked to beat him up, and the cops just put him in juvy as a runaway. There was no place in Los Angeles for runaway kids like him who didn’t commit crimes, so they had to bide their time in juvy to wait for yet another group or foster home to take them. Since Lance was at that “difficult teenaged stage,” most foster parents wouldn’t touch him. So it was group homes—which sucked big time—or the streets.

  A smart, clever boy with unusually green eyes—which drew derisive comments from other Hispanics—Lance preferred the freedom of the streets, living for a time with this friend or that friend, having no set rules or curfews, no ties to anyone. Getting close to people meant getting hurt. Really hurt. He’d been there, and done that. Not for him. He mostly went to school because he could get food and use the bathroom, and it was something to do to kill time. He knew the high school would never drop him, no matter that his attendance was shaky, because it got money from the state every time he attended.

  What a stupid-ass system, he’d often thought. Getting money just for a kid showing up. Didn’t matter if he learned anything or not. And the classes? Everybody had to learn the same crap—no choices at all. Who the hell ever thought everyone was the same anyway? And who the hell ever decided that everybody should go to college? That’s all he ever heard!

  His plan was to be a pro skater and compet
e in the X Games. He had the gift, and he knew it. He was vastly superior to everyone he skated with, and he had the right “look,” or so skaters at all the skate parks had told him. That’s why he kept his hair long. His hair was his good luck charm. It gave him strength, like that Samson guy from an old Bible story he’d heard as a kid. Not physical strength, survival strength.

  Derisively nicknamed “Pretty Boy,” because of that long, flowing brown hair and soft facial features—not to mention the green eyes—Lance smirked at his easy evasion of the cops and strutted boldly along down the alley. Tonight there were no unusual sounds save the occasional plane practically landing atop Lennox on its approach into LAX.

  Lance wore a pair of baggy overalls with the straps hanging down and a gray hoodie flipped up to obscure his face. He’d been given these relatively new clothes by a skater friend’s mom, who felt sorry for him and often let him crash at their pad. He lugged a bulging, ratty-looking backpack in one hand and an old skateboard in the other.

  From the shadows around him suddenly loomed two large black youths. Dwayne and Justin were both sixteen-year-olds who ran the streets of neighboring cities slanging drugs for a pair of big-time dealers. Justin quickly snagged Lance from behind, gripping one strap of the overalls and spinning the much smaller boy around to face him. The skateboard flew from Lance’s grasp and clattered to the concrete. He gasped in surprise and fear.

  Broad-shouldered, muscular Justin sneered at the fear flitting over Lance’s startled face. “What’s the hurry, Pretty Boy? We got business wit’ you.”

  Reaching out one arm, he slapped the hood off Lance’s head, allowing the boy’s signature locks to tumble about his shoulders, and then snatched the old backpack away so hard it tore open with a loud ripping sound, scattering old clothes, candy, and other wrapped junk food onto the ground.

  Taller and built more for basketball than boxing, Dwayne sneered at the junk. “Shit, man, what a loser!”

  Lance fought down his fear and glared at both boys. Justin grabbed him by the front of his shirt and practically lifted him off the ground. Lance fought and struggled, but he was no match for the incredibly strong boy. “Mr. R. says he had a talk with you about workin’ these streets for him.”