Chapter 18: Culture Shock

Going to school in Los Angeles was a unique experience. Unlike all my previous schools which occupied a single building, Henry Clay Junior High School was a sprawling campus-style affair with scores of classroom buildings assembled in neat rows.

My other adjustment was to the incredible ethnic and cultural diversity. All my other educational experiences involved attending lily-white schools devoid of other races. Henry Clay was a blended rainbow of black, brown, white, and Asian faces. Well, we did not actually blend; we clumped together like spoiled milk.

The first thing I learned was not to talk to or associate with anyone whose skin tone did not match mine. An armed truce of sorts kept the level of tension between each group just below the boiling point. Seriously, there were kids in each cluster who carried guns to school along with an assortment of brass knuckles and switchblades.

Racism has never been a part of my upbringing but survivalism was. When in Rome, I did as the Romans did. I followed the prevailing social norm and kept on my side of the color line.

I was personally shot at was while walking home from school.

A friend and I were taking a shortcut home after classes. We were crossing a tumbleweed-filled field when a gang of six or seven Hispanic kids took exception to us walking on their dirt without their permission.

They were older kids from high school and most of what they said or yelled was lost to me since I did not speak Spanish. The hostility in their voices did not require a translation.

My friend who made up for in volume what he lacked in diplomacy yelled back something, which began with, “Fuck you!” and ended in, “Eat shit and die, mother fuckers.” His next words to me were, “Run for your life!” as the gang of Hispanic kids charged after us.

We took off across the field like scared jackrabbits. Fear and adrenaline fueled my flight and kept us about fifty yards ahead of the angry mob. Within a few minutes, we came across a massive erosion gully where rainwater runoff had carved a scaled-down version of the Grand Canyon.

The ditch was about two hundred feet across and fifty feet deep with steep, nearly vertical sides. The sun-baked soil had the consistency and texture of reinforced concrete. We raced along the edge of the cliff until we spotted a crossing point where the slope allowed a minimum of footing and a few handholds.

We tumbled, slid, or fell to the bottom and scrambled up the other side as our pursuers reached the top of the cliff we had just come down. They were above us and we found ourselves under a hail of rocks, stones, and curses.

We gained distance and the rain of stones stopped. In their place, we heard a series of cracks, pops, and bangs. As I climbed, I paused and turned to see what was making the strange sound and saw three or four kids with handguns firing at us amid the laughter and encouragement of their comrades.

“Holy shit! They’re shooting at us,” I yelled at my friend.

“Don’t sweat it and keep moving. Those guys are using cheap Saturday Night Specials, and they couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with those things,” was his less than comforting answer.

As he spoke, the dirt head-level with me and about five feet to my right exploded in a puff of sand and dust as a bullet slammed into it. What our gun-toting rivals lacked for in marksmanship they made up for in volume of fire. Slugs were peppering the hillside all around us as we climbed.

I did not know much about guns, but I knew if you threw enough lead down range your chance of hitting something increased exponentially. Within a few minutes, we made it to the top and continued to run until we were well out of range.

Once we were safe, I asked my friend, “Why the fuck did you piss them off?”

“They were already pissed off and were going to beat the shit out of us no matter what we did. I just thought I might as well make it interesting,” was his reply.

That was the last time I used that shortcut to get home from school. It was also the last time I used that particular friend as a native guide. Great! I had moved from a world of bullies and blowjobs into a world of bullies with bullets.

Not much of an improvement.