My friends and I created a crew, as is traditional in the NYC world of graffiti writing. I'd like to say that we gained a good amount of recognition in the city, but in the grand scheme of time and all 5 boroughs we only held down a small window of modern city history. but there are a lot of "old school" writers (old as in late 80's and early 90's, which is to some, new school) who remember us and who we were.
One thing we were really good at, besides street art and getting into trouble, was annexing real serious hoods from the upper west side, when it was littered with "thugs" and the like. i had a friend, Zar, who had childhood friends from the local projects and they were really kind of fun to hang out with, plus they were GREAT allies in times of need. at one point i remember rolling down Broadway with 30-40 guys and basically "wilding". stealing stuff from newspaper stands, terrorizing pedestrians, and making cops somehow disappear. they used to vanish when real trouble came around, i picture them seeing the rukus, and slowly backing up a side street until they were out of sight. a trait that they used to be skilled at in the times of Mayors Koch and Dinkins. I am not really ashamed of those times, at least not as much as i should be, considering the person i am now. in retrospect, trying to understand how important it was for young guys like us to finally feel empowered in an otherwise hostile environment is something that doesn't really apply anymore, now that i am older and the area in question is TOTALLY tame and benevolent. it's really hard to explain to people these days, why that felt good. but back then, after years of getting chased for no good reason by crews of scary characters, when i was just trying to walk home. it was nice to suddenly be the chasers, rather then the chasees. once we did it a few times we could basically sit back and ride on our laurels or reputations. we did some pretty high profile things, like crash big parties and in essence just take over. we took all the paint and writing materials from several writers in other crews, one notable was a relative of Robert Deniro's. not that dropping a name like that really meant anything in the world of graffiti but it did spread quickly through the NY social networks at the time.
another thing we became good at, was defending ourselves. a group within the crew, the core of it, formed a rock band, named DISBAND. it was a hardcore/ska band and just about EVERY time there was a performance, there ended up being a fight. I like to think that it was because people in the audience were jealous of the band's skills, and also of how their girlfriends seemed to swoon a bit. but it was really more a result of the hardcore sound of the music and the lead singer's LOUD vocals. like the time we got into an all out pitched battle at CBGB's over a heckler who had targeted the singer. i ended up fighting side by side with my friend Half-E's golden glove champion ex-marine father. but really, all these incidents started with one guy. the star and the lead singer, Self-Uno. He was the voice of the band, and he was also the friction manifest-er, he never backed down, and we never let him fight alone. he could pick a fight easier then he could pick his nose. One time he refused to stop singing at a private school on the east side and he ended up in a tussle with a big union maintenance man. I had to jump up and sock the guy because he seemed to think he could hit a kid without the kids friends getting involved. his mistake.
one of the more "epic" battles that we got into, which is legendary in our group. was upstate in a town called Croton. One of our friends from our school lived up there, and somehow he ended up throwing a huge party with most of the kids from the local high school...and their football team. Disband was asked to perform for the party and so we all went up to accompany them and to party. well, one thing that wasn't expected was that the football team would not be into the Hardcore flavor of the music. it was a very hard sound and most of these guys were fans of Bon Jovi so the music didn't really match the crowd. after a song or two the football guys made a few loud comments and of course, Self made some back through the microphone.
one thing led to another and a huge brawl broke out. a brawl that was quickly won by my side despite being outnumbered and out-sized by a large margin. the Croton guys didn't expect the ferocity of the our crew in fighting. more specifically the cold blooded tactics we were comfortable using to win. like grabbing furniture and turning it into weapons and projectiles. the bassist, Half-E, grabbed a sock and filled it with batteries, and...well you can imagine what these podunks went through when the weaponry started raining down on them. My friend Lefty was swinging a wooden lawn chair like a gladiator would swing a medieval mace. Lefty is a guy who once had to get tackled in a fight because he had a canoe oar and had it cocked back for a large swing at this weight lifting college frat guy. had he not been tackled by a "friendly", he might have beheaded the guy since the oar was rotated in such a way that it would have hit the guy edge-wise rather then the flat way. The guy realized what had almost happened to him and he backed out of the fight instantly, despite his size. at least he wasn't such a muscle head that didn't know the fact that crazy beat strong everytime.
at one point a large Crotonite managed to catch and grab Lefty's chair mid swing. they tugged on it for a second or two, the bigger guy showing that he could fling Lefty's smaller weight around, until Lefty reached back, grabbed another chair and swung that overhead to crash down on the bewildered football jock's head. that was just how he rolled.
the first fight ended with one of the football guys having a rather large laceration on his head. so they retreated and left the house, apparently to go to the hospital. i think that my friends were MUCH more used to the idea of fighting in a lopsided battle and employing whatever methodology to avoid losing and being injured then the country boys were. maybe they thought my friends would just lose the fight since they were outnumbered 3 to 1, and that's just what happens out there. but that just made my crew more frantic.
we settled down and started recanting the minute details of the victory, as some of our crew returned from a beer run...it wasn't even all of us in the first fight. we thought it was over and just continued to drink and be merry. until about two hours later, a large crowd suddenly showed up in the drive way. it was basically a lynch mob, country style, and it was lead by the guy freshly out of the hospital with bandages on his head. we all hid inside the house and looked out at the angry mob. unfortunately we couldn't hold our position because one of us had been caught by the mob. they were beating him pretty bad against the front steps. i was completely drunk and almost done drinking my 40 oz. Olde English and somehow got the "rage" in me. i ran out and confronted the whole gang with the bottle in my hand as a weapon. i had no plan, but i knew i needed to stay at the top of the steps looking down, what limited military strategy i knew had me aware that having the drop was the best way to maintain any kind of advantage. i was up against some rather thick hedges so i knew there was no way to quickly escape gracefully.
i remember sizing up the situation, seeing my friend holding his head at the bottom of the steps and all the angry faces looking at me. i was next.
"yo, hit him again and see what happens!" i can't believe that's what i said, but it is. maybe i thought i could bluff them into being scared. it didn't work. my friend looks at me like i am crazy, he goes "what?!" and sure enough the bandaged guy kicks my friend and then looks at me with a shitty grin. i lost it.
i had to jump. there was no backing out now. i launched down half the steps and knocked this guy right in the bandaged head with my bottle. i knew not to swing the bottle with all my might. i had seen that done several times in the city and it was the kind of thing that could end really bad and with possible jail time. so it was more of a controlled swing with little real force behind it. but it successfully met its target without shattering and made a very audible "TINK!" sound. the impact wasn't crushing, but it was hard enough to knock him down clutching at his bandage, groaning. what happened next is something that i can say happened to me more then once. i got BUM-RUSHED. like 30 guys ran at me at the same time. you would think that the outcome of that situation is obvious, but the 3 times it happened to me in my life, i found out that a large group of very drunk, very angry guys can often end up in chaos. the kind of chaos that can give the me an edge in escaping. the crushing weight of all these guys hitting me at once made me fly back up the stairs, but i tripped on the top step and ended up falling backwards into the thick hedges. they fell with me, and in the dark chaos of the crazy melee, i actually managed to wiggle out of the way of the flying fists and feet. the guys who were the first to get to me and the hedges ended up catching most of the blows and by the time they realized i had ran back to the house in the shadows, they had already punched each other many times.
we locked the door and hid in the garage while we heard things like plant pots and windows being broken outside, and a hell of a lot of yelling. i guess they finally realized they would have to break down a door to get in. their good ol' country upbringing must have gotten the better of them because they eventually dispersed, leaving us the clear victors once again. i'd like to say that i am ashamed of these memories now that i am in my 30's and consider myself a collaborative member of society, but really, the stories still make me laugh with my old friends. we never tire of bringing them up. and this is really just one out of MANY.
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