January 1990, a day after my 13th birthday, I still felt euphoric from the alcohol and weed I smoked the night before. But my euphoria this morning wasn’t from alcohol nor drugs, my high stemmed from the cold perfect grip of the 38 snub-nose in my hands! A birthday gift from “King Gato” my uncle, who I considered God, and everything I wanted to be!
King Gato to my young, ignorant eyes had it all … beautiful women, cars, motorcycles, money and more money! Popham Avenue in the Bronx was under his control and the streets knew it — he made sure to enforce it with extreme violence. 176 Street Building #1652 was the center of it all, and where I lost my innocence and self…where at 13 years old I watched Almighty King Gato kill a man, after he himself got shot 7 times — one head shot and six throughout his body!
Today — when I reflect back on the education King Gato was schooling me with — I feel like an idiot for accepting it, but I also understand that then I was just a little boy, impressionable, ignorant and malleable.
When on my 13th birthday before Gato gave me the snub-nose 38 revolver, he told me, “You’re no longer a peewee cub. Before I put this in your hands, you need to understand what it represents and why it’s given to you on your 13th birthday.
(**King Gato’s teachings and indoctrination at the end of this story…]
Today — when I reflect back on the education King Gato was schooling me with — I feel like an idiot for accepting it, but I also understand that then I was just a little boy, impressionable, ignorant and malleable. He took advantage of my illiteracy and planted his own seeds in my mind, and each day would water those seeds with more nefarious propaganda, such as, “We as a nation must rely on each other and never give our trust to the 1 percenters of the world (blancos, whites and negativos, blacks). We’re to them the undesirable elements of life. Look around you and pay attention to all the subtle systems meant to eradicate us!”
Eradicate us little by little. We don’t cooperate with five-oh (police) but we can use them to play chess with our enemies. Back then I’d listen to him and admire his vocabulary and his knowledge, especially how he presented himself to the whole hood…how he was big on charity and would give complete strangers money, or how in the morning he would give out bags of heroin to mothers with children, kids my age and pregnant females. He would say, “Give little to the streets and they in return will bless you.” It all made sense simply because King Gato expressed it. He made everything sound legit and impeccable, and I thirsted for more faithfully.
King Gato had a network of suppliers from the Bronx, Manhattan and New Jersey. Jersey was a mortician and would supply gallons of embalming fluid for 115 grams of cocaine. This fluid would then be sold on the streets as “licky-lick” or dipped, menthol cigarettes for $5 a cigarette. Manhattan was a narcotics cop who would bring us guns, bulletproof vests and bullets of different calibers out of the 34th precinct. Bronx was a lawyer who we paid in grams of cocaine. I actually delivered 250 grams twice to him in a Bronx Supreme Court on 161st. No lie! This is the same lawyer King Gato used when he got shot 7 times and killed Chichi in the hallway of Building #1652 Popham, 176 Street. He turned the whole thing around and said Chichi was our friend!
Our friend who got killed by the same people who shot King Gato that night. It wasn’t true, and the investigators on the crime scene knew it because description and bullet holes and blood all over the hallway spoke something else. King Gato used me to lie and corroborate his story to the police because I was a young kid and more credible.
King Gato was admitted to Bronx Lebanon Hospital, and even while he was being driven by Pupi in his own Z28, he dictated to me and Pupi: “What did you do with the guns?”
Pupi answered, “The two 357s and the 44 are under the elevator shaft.”
“Saul, they gonna come talk to you. Make sure you tell them Chichi was with us in the hallway and some dudes robbed us, shot me and Chichi! Tell ‘em it was that piece of shit Flaco, Negrita’s boyfriend, and two others you don’t know. They might show you a lineup with his picture. Pick him out as the shooter with the big gun! Say exactly that, ‘Big gun!’
“Remember Saul, he’s the enemy and you can’t fuck this up or I’ll get fucked! Tell them you was there and saw it all. Remember me and Chichi are friends.” King Gato stressed this point to me several times. Today I understand why. I was a minor and more believable if I pointed out details complex to a kid. King Gato understood that I was a good witness and the perfect alibi to clear him from murdering Chichi. In that moment I didn’t question any of his instructions or contradictions, because I believed in him. So indoctrinated was I, that I couldn’t see the wrong in King Gato. Pupi stayed with King Gato in Bronx Lebanon Hospital and I returned back to 1652. As soon as I entered the vestibule I was approached by a homicide detective.
The detective asked me my name and age and where I lived in the building. I answered his questions and he walked me to my apartment, where my mother stood in front of the door. The homicide detective asked my mother to accompany them to the station because they needed to interrogate me and she needed to be present due to me being a minor.
Once in the police station I recited verbatim what King Gato told me to say. I was thereafter asked if I saw Flaco again, could I identify him? I said yes. They proceeded to bring these huge books full of pictures of dark-skinned Hispanics for me to flip through and pick who I recognized from that night being there as a participant. I spent two hours flipping plastic pages of hundreds of pictures before I saw one of Flaco from like 1970-something.
Flaco’s mug shot made him look mean and dangerous, and I stared at it longer than I did with any of the other mug shots. The detective noticed and said, “That’s him kid,” and it didn’t sound like a question, but more like he was annoyed with me and wanted to get it over with. “That’s him kid!” I was told, “If you’re sure and able to recognize him, tell me who he is and what role he played tonight?”
I told the detective, “I’m sure that’s Flaco who shot my uncle and his friend Chichi. He’s the big gun! I watched him shoot my uncle in the head and around his body. He had another gun and shot Chichi with the other gun.”
“Okay, place your initials on the picture and sign here.” A written statement drafted by them which I wasn’t asked to read, just sign.
After I signed the pre-written statement I was told we were done and that someone from the DA’s office will contact me in a few days. “Ya free to go,” we were told. They didn’t even offer to drive us back home. Once outside the station, my mother turned to me and asked me why I said those things. “Gato told me to say them,” I answered her. She asked about Chichi, who was he? I filled her in on the little I knew about him (Chichi). “All I know about him is that he is Cuban and was always with Flaco.”
“Why did they move on Gato?” she asked.
“Gato says Flaco owes him 500 grams of heroin and was trying to get out of not paying, and used Chichi to hit him up!”
The very next morning at around 10, one of the roof lookouts calls down and reports three suspicious vehicles up the block on the hill of 176 Street slowly idling down the block toward our building. We immediately knew they weren’t cops. Cops move fast when they’re gonna raid a spot. This was something else, so Pupi, second in command, yelled out, “Suit up! On point on point! They ain’t five-oh, if they leap light ‘em up!”
As the vehicles approached slowly, everyone looking at them was tense and on high alert. King Giz, considered a loose cannon by everyone, stood on the edge of the curb on full display: blue bulletproof on, and wrapped around his hands a fully auto Uzi with a long suppressor aimed at the approaching vehicles, itching to let loose. Pupi looked at Giz and said, “Chill Giz, let’s make sure! Chill!”
Giz was in that deadly zone he gets into whenever gun play was a possibility, but he wouldn’t disregard the chain of command. “You hearing me Giz?” Pupi shouted.
“Yeah Leon, I’m with you,” Giz said back without turning, not an inch, still focused on the vehicles. In that very instant, about 30 yards from the building, a hand reaches out of the passenger front window of the leading vehicle, a brownish Crown Vic. The hand waved a stop motion to the two other vehicles, and all three vehicles came to a complete stop. The hand exited his vehicle and started to walk toward the building, with both hands half-raised, yelling, “Venimos en paz! Venimos en paz!” [We come in peace! We come in peace!] “Queremos solamente habla!” [We simply want to talk.]
As the man approached, Pupi came forward and said, “12 deep in peace?”
The man brushed it off with a smile and simply said, “It’s security, we not from around these parts. Our Outfit is stationed in West New York, Jersey.”
We all heard the word “Outfit” and knew he meant Mafia. Pupi understood it as well, and asked, “What community you rep?”
The man answered, “Cuban.”
So we all basically understood he meant Cuban Mafia. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering why the fuck we were being approached by the Cuban Mafia? The man reached his hand out to Pupi, and introduced himself as El Mucaro [the owl]. Likewise Pupi shook his hand and said, “I’m King Pupi. How can we be of service to you or the Outfit?”
El Mucaro smiled and said simply, “We’re here for Chichi’s body.”
I felt a strange sensation inside of me when I heard El Mucaro’s words and how he said it. I looked at King Pupi and noticed the confusion on his face. Giz was still focused on the other two vehicles 30 yards away, and upon hearing El Mucaro’s words turned his head toward El Mucaro and stared at him hard. After a few seconds of silence, King Pupi said, “What?”
El Mucaro didn’t deviate nor show any physical fear at being within a circle of armed individuals far from his territory. “We came for Chichi’s body to ship him back home to his familia in Cuba.”
I thought to myself, this dude is fuckin’ crazy! He actually believes we were holding onto his body! Maybe that was their modus operandi and thought we operated the same way? Fuck!
King Pupi was considered the diplomat of the Nation for good reason. He never folded under pressure and thought everything carefully through. And at this very moment he was being extra cautious with how he handled El Mucaro. “With all due respect,” King Pupi began, “We don’t hold onto dead bodies. The police coroner took the body. You’d have to get in contact with their office.”
El Mucaro took a moment as if to digest what King Pupi was telling him and finally said, “I hear you make a show of hanging them under the elevator? Is Chichi there now?”
King Pupi answered El Mucaro, “Nah man, that’s an old myth started a long time ago. There’s no body there, you can check if you like.”
El Mucaro said, “Not that I doubt what you say, but I have to report back and answer to my padrino [boss]. I have to check. I must do so with a witness from the Outfit.”
Pupi answered, “That’s cool. Pick two of your men and have yourself a look.”
El Mucaro walked back to the other vehicles, said a few words to the rest of his crew, walked back with two other Cubans, and proceeded toward the entrance of the building alongside the escort Pupi appointed to guide them to reach the elevator. I stayed outside because I wasn’t ordered to be part of the escort. I watched them enter the building and disappear inside. I wondered what they’d find in the elevator, because ever since I could remember, I too heard the stories about a dead guy resting in there. Since before moving into the building, we would hear the other kids speak about 1652. “Yo, that building is haunted! Wild people died in there and are buried in the walls of some of the apartments. Why you think it always stinks all around that spot?” (1652 did have an offensive smell.) I didn’t know what to believe!
But I still stayed far from the elevators. They weren’t even functional, not used since I had lived in 1652, but for some strange reason, there was always movement within them elevators. I mean, I knew about the stash spots on the third floor, about the guns and drugs in that part of the elevator. King Gato was always in and out that one, putting stuff away and retrieving stuff out.
I also wondered about the guns Pupi hid in them last night. As I stood there with a thousand thoughts racing through my mind, through my periphery I caught movement from Giz raising his Uzi. I turned my vision toward what had him jumpy and immediately understood why. The rear doors to the brownish Crown Vic came open and two more Cubans stepped out and walked toward the middle car, another Crown Vic, but this one was dark blue with four dudes inside. I watched them, as did Giz, and they appeared relaxed in conversation with the four who sat in the vehicle.
Pupi also noticed but didn’t seem concerned with them. I think he was more worried with Giz and the weapon in his hands, because once again he tells him, “Giz, chill the fuck out and ease your finger off the trigger! Relax bro, ain’t shit poppin’!” But Giz’s paranoia was legendary and inadvertently expressed.
“Nah bro, you gotta be on point with these niggas and not let ‘em rock you to sleep cuz if you entertain that shut-eye for a few, you might not ever wake back up! You can’t trust these Marielitos.” [In 1978 and 1980, the U.S. agreed to accept political prisoners released by Cuba, some of whom were criminals and mental patients. “Mariel” was the name of the boat on which they sailed to America, hence, Marielito.] “Them niggas are wicked, not even Fidel Castro wanted to deal with them and pushed them all out, shipped the worst of the very worst to America! Plus,” Giz continued, “the majority of ‘em are Paleros.” [A male Voodoo practitioner.] “Damn bro, you shouldn’t have shaken his hand!”
Pupi gave Giz a look, looked at his own hand, and said, “What the fuck you talking about Bro?”
Giz continued, “Paleros can harm you with just a touch!”
Pupi appeared to be giving Giz’s words serious thought, gazing toward the building entrance and rubbing his right hand with his left as if in pain. In that instant, thirty-something minutes later, El Mucaro, his two men, and the escort were exiting 1652. King Noel, A.K.A. Psycho, leader of the escort, approached Pupi.
“Bro, he wanna check the basement elevator area because he can’t see the bottom part from up here.”
“Damn! This fucking dude is starting to annoy me!” Pupi said. “All he gotta do is call the coroner’s office and ask. Alright! But Psycho, keep ‘em away from the boiler, keep ‘em on the elevator sections,” Pupi finally said. I looked at El Mucaro and his two men as he stood in front of the building emotionless, waiting to be allowed into the basement. Pupi nodded at him and El Mucaro, returned the gesture with a hand wave as well.
“I bet they got a small arsenal in ‘em cars,” Giz said to no one in particular, still focused and aiming his suppressed Uzi at the two vehicles thirty yards away. “Yo, Leon,” Giz whispers to Pupi, “they might have explosives with them, like apple grenades or some shit!”
“Hold on,” Giz said a little louder. “That nigga said West New York, right?” Giz faced me, and I said, “Yeah, the Outfit, Bro.”
Giz continued, “I think these clowns are cops, dirty cops! Remember awhile back that Hell’s Angels dude from Elder Avenue that was pushing the AR-15’s? Them niggas were cops from West New York as well!”
“So what, you think they fronting about looking for that body and are under cover investigating us?” I asked Giz. “I don’t think them West New York cops can do that on this side of the river, something about jurisdiction.”
“Nah, that’s not what I’m thinking,” Giz continued. As if speaking them up, El Mucaro and his two and the escort appeared from the basement, still with that emotionless expression on his face.
“Satisfied Pupi?” asked El Mucaro. “Sí, haceres podemos hablar?” [Yes my brother, can we talk?]
Pupi just shrugged and said, “Sure why not.” El Mucaro requested in private, but Pupi informed him, “I too need un presente [a witness] so Saul will stay as such.”
El Mucaro nodded his assent.
El Mucaro said, “First and foremost, we apologize for what transpired with Chichi and your brother King Gato.” That wasn’t sanctioned by the Outfit. Chichi was controlled by his addiction, which as you can see affected his judgement and ability to foresee the consequences to himself and those he represented.”
I listened to El Mucaro speak and watched his demeanor. I saw sincerity and no fear. He wasn’t just expressing himself out of trepidation like most street dudes do when they find themselves in a highly sensitive situation. El Mucaro said, “Please tell King Gato we offer our services in whatever capacity required. Plus, the value of extended merchandise to Chichi and Flaco in full. I understand they were in the hole for 500 grams of tequi [heroin]: $40,000. Is that correct?.
“Well, actually more like $80,000,” Pupi said.
“Really!” El Mucaro remarked with a smirk that transformed his facial expression from unreadable to ominously oblique. “We all notice the change.”
Pupi prided himself in being an impeccable mad-hatter, ace-of-all-trades, pseudo psychologist. He understood El Mucaro’s reason and offered an explanation. “The tequi was headed to Holyoke [Massachusetts]. $400 a gram!” (In NYC, one gram of heroin’s street value varies from $80 to $90. If you’re buying a kilo or more, you can obtain it for $70 a gram—$70,000. In Massachusetts, one bag of heroin is $20; one gram is $400.)
“Holyoke!” in a low tone, El Mucaro repeated, as if he knew the place somehow. He appeared to contemplate the Holyoke matter. Or maybe, I wondered if he was entertaining whether he was being played this very instant.
Pupi must’ve telepathically felt my fretful thoughts, because he immediately catered to clearing up El Mucaro’s apparent mental dilemma. “Haceres, we’d be fools [idiotas] to try and play you,” Pupi said. “You’re also extending respectful compensation where you need not. Yet, here you stand like a man making amends.”
El Mucaro looked at Pupi unintelligibly. And just like that, his expression once again transformed in a nano-fraction. His eyes no longer held the obfuscation from a moment ago. El Mucaro smiled and gave Pupi an appreciative look. “Coño! Haceres, todo bien, todo bien!” [Damn! My brother, all’s good, all’s good!] I looked at El Mucaro’s new demeanor and was amazed at how quickly he metamorphosed. Then again, I knew men like him were used to adulation from other men, especially those at the top of the hierarchy.
El Mucaro was satisfied with Pupi’s explanation/adulation, so much that he gave him a manly hug. While still embracing Pupi, he shouts to one of his men, “Hasema, busca la maleta!” [Hasema, go get the briefcase!] I watched Hasema jog a fast pace to the blue Crown Vic, watched as he leaned into the driver side window and spoke to the driver, who then reached with his right hand behind his seat for something. Through the front windshield I could see the driver struggle a little with maneuvering the briefcase past his massive weight and out the window to Hasema. It was a little comical watching them negotiate the right-angle past the huge driver. Hasema’s frustration was visible.
I glanced over at Giz, still gripping his suppressed Uzi and staring at all the vehicles. He shook his head from side to side, also amused with the scene thirty yards away. I heard Hasema say, “Esperate!” [Wait!] I gazed back to the Crown Vic, when I heard the agitation in Hasema’s voice. Hasema stood in front of the driver’s side door with both hands extended outward, in a stop motion. He reaches out with his right hand and opens the door, and with his left grabs the briefcase wedged between the huge driver and steering wheel. With a little effort, he pulls it free and gives the huge driver a hard stare before forcefully shutting his door. He composed himself as if his clothing were wrinkled, and with the same pace jogged back to where El Mucaro awaited. He steadies the briefcase in his arms to allow access to its contents to El Mucaro.
I noticed the briefcase was one with the side combination that you had to roll numbers in the correct space in order to unlock it. El Mucaro didn’t touch the numerical roller, just pressed the two sides on the bottom outward, and with a click the two side bars shot open simultaneously. El Mucaro lifted the top half, and I couldn’t believe what my eyes were communicating to my brain. Horizontally as well as vertically, I stared at rubber-banded stacks of hundred dollar bills! I’d never seen so much money in one place at one time!
El Mucaro grabbed nine stacks and turned to Pupi, handed him eight rubber-banded stacks ($80,000). “Please give King Gato our condolences and apologies. We wish him the best of health and a speedy recovery. And this…” El Mucaro holds out the nineth stack in Pupi’s direction. “… is for your valuable time today, time spent on indulging us and our requests. It should cover the few hours of lost productivity.”
El Mucaro extended his right hand toward Pupi and shook it. “If ever you find yourself in need of any assistance, pick up the jack and call me.”
Pupi nodded his head and said, “Thank you!” As if on cue and without prodding from El Mucaro, Hasema extends his hand with a business card and gives it to Pupi. Pupi nodded at Hasema and pockets the card. We all watched as El Mucaro and his two men casually walked toward their vehicles.
I watched El Mucaro, stopped on the passenger side of the blue Crown Vic, reach into the left-side inner pocket of his sport jacket and come out with a cigar which he ran past his nose to take in its aroma. Next he bites the back end of the cigar and spit it sideways into the air. Instead of a lighter, El Mucaro produced a box of stick matches, which I hadn’t seen since I last traveled to Puerto Rico. In my grandmother’s house, she used them to start off her propane stove.
El Mucaro used one stick match to light the cigar and nonchalantly turned toward the side street entrance to 176 Street. I watched him lift his arm into the air, cigar in hand, and wave a circular motion above his head. I looked past El Mucaro and the vehicles and observed a white van previously packed, now in motion behind them.
“You see that?” Giz, always on point, asked me.
“Yeah, I see them.” They came prepared to kill us all.” Internally, I was relieved that no blood was shed. I watched El Mucaro and his army leave, and I was happy.
Latin King teachings:
360° can only be reached through death. The degree is a key to enter and understand, 3 feet apart, 6 feet under, 0 circumference of infinitude. The true father of ‘ism’ and under Almighty Yahweh on earth is Pedro Albizo Campos, not Luis Felipe (King Blood) nor Lord Gino. Albizo was the first and only Puerto Rican 33° Mason and founder of the Macheteros in Borinque, A.K.A. Puerto Rico! Let the world know that we’re Reyes Latinos [Latin Kings], peaceful Tainos and warrior Caribes.”
The number 13 holds a myriad symbolic meanings. Albizo stressed that a boy became a man on his 13th birthday. Like the “Caribe Indio,” he also must be given a weapon and sent out by himself on a hunt for 13 days. Today we substitute 13 days of fasting and prayer for the actual hunt. King Gato explained, we recognize January 6th as Kingism for the 3 magus, wise kings who brought King Jesus the power of the word. On this day we observe King Solomon’s aphorisms from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse 1-8. Because there truly is an appointed time for everything! We respect KMC and bloodline but we’re universal, Almighty LK and QN under the pyramid alongside the 21 Nations.
On Sunday we give back to the community whatever help we can extend. On this Sunday we represent black and gold and abstain from negativity, that includes handing out poison to the people. Any lion caught violating this mandate shall be sanctioned TOS. King Gato broke down many other edicts from the 13th edification on this night. Once he was satisfied, he said your attribute under the sun in the light is King Saul, but whenever you step out of the sun in the manifesto of darkness you’ll be King Nemesis. When indulging the darkness you shall never display your 360° crown (bead necklace consisting of 360 beads, 180 black and 180 gold).
