A little later that ninth grade year we had another move in a
hardcore little girl who was in a gang. Well, at least she said she
was in a gang. She was a tiny little vicious thing that walked around
the halls all elbows and bluster with the strut of a douche-bag
twice, maybe three times, her size. She wore the thrashed out clothes
of a hard rock aficionado and was quick to draw an anarchy symbol or
a 666 on whatever thing she could. Her favorite thing to draw though
was a gang symbol from her old 'hood which she would tell anyone, who
would not actively flee, about. The gang was the Wicked Crosses and
the insignia was a jaggedey Metallica-esque 'W' with a Gothic looking
cross over the top. This whole concoction was drawn as bad-A looking
as possible and as often as possible it seemed. It was a poor choice
graffiti-wise because there was only one known member of the Wicked
Crosses and that made plausible deniability implausible. She sat at
the same table with me and two other boys in foods class and it was
honestly the highlight of my day to go and listen to her tales of
street corner skullduggery. She would always start one of her
lectures with a feigned start where she would realize suddenly and
audibly that she had left something very expensive and very cool
running at home.
'Ohmahgawd, I just remembered I left my Laser Disc playing when I
left the house. Crap, my mom is going to kill me.' She would then ask
if any of us had a Laser Disc player. Couldn't say that I did,
neither did the other boys. On the fifth or sixth day of her
realizing in a fluster that her consumer good was in a precarious way
back at the homestead the other boys and I started also remembering
that we to had left some consumer good in possible jeopardy. I would
startle and slap my head in feigned despair and say something like,
'Oh dang it guys I think I left my refrigerator running when I left
my house.' They would be appropriately interested and sad and say
that they too may have left an appliance plugged in and functioning
and were just now recalling it out loud for people to hear. She
didn't seem to notice or care what we were doing and would keep up
the same pattern for several more weeks. After her daily material
panic she would ask us what we knew about some gang related type
thing and then magically segue into a class periods worth of stories
with that thing as a lynchpin. Did we know about drugs? She did. Did
we know about killing a man? She did. Did we know about weapons? She
did. She was telling us about gang culture and her gang every day in
what I now know was grooming because not long after we we regaled she
invited us to join. We were of course curious what kind of curriculum
vitæ would qualify us for membership and what requirements of time
and resources might be expected of fledglings like ourselves. She did
not disappoint in her flamboyant descriptions of the checklist for
membership consideration. We had to know how to use ten weapons, know
how to kill a man with our bare hands, know how to make and sell
drugs, and we had to have had sex. Crap, dang, and double crap. I
told her I only knew how to use seven weapons, I knew how to
incapacitate a man with my bare hands and I had never made or sold
drugs but I could make some awesome caramel from scratch and y
biscuits were not bad either. Not bad at all, light and fluffy with
the right about of crispness on the crust. Sadly I was even less
qualified sexually in that I had kissed one girl on the mouth and I
was not really happy with the process there either. The other two
boys at the table lamented there slight under-qualification for
inclusion in the prestigious Wicked Crosses. She considered our
failings, oblivious to our joke, with some real teeth sucking and
head shaking gravity. With magnanimity we didn't deserve she decided
there on the spot at our shared table in foods class that she was
going to allow us all to join even with our flawed resumes. That was
huge relief to be needed and wanted. Unfortunately none of us were
able to take her up on the offer but one of the boys at the table did
her one better and formed a rival gang.
