Chapter 3 – The Line Ends in LAX

Weeks went by since the shootings in Lakewood and things returned to normal in LBC. I woke up to: “Time out of mind” by Steely Dan on my alarm clock on a weekday in June. I ran downstairs to eat breakfast with dad before he left, we’ve created a relationship that I haven’t had since mom died and the great thing is…I’ve loved every moment I’ve had with him.

After I got ready, I walked to the Highlanders house to see them and to see how Layla was doing after getting out of the hospital a week ago. The house was on the corner of Loma Ave. and 3^rd Street, which was just two blocks north of the apartments.

As I got there I noticed Victor Junior there waiting in his power-chair at the bottom of the stairs. I came up to him and started a conversation with him even though I could only somewhat understand him. He told me that Mike was at work and rode over from their house, which wasn’t too far away. While we waited, the Highlander twins pulled up in Peter’s black-out windows with blue and running black down the middle of his 2013 BMW M5; as they got out they were carrying bags of groceries to make lunch for Layla, and dinner for us that night, which was hot dogs and hamburgers with Dr. Pepper and Coke.

Both boys said “Hi” to Victor Junior as they walked by, I then followed them in and they looked at me and told me to bring Victor inside the house because it was getting too hot. I was hesitant as to what to do and how? So I asked them what I was doing. Peter looked at me with a questioning look on his face, as if I hadn’t been paying attention to the past few weeks since I had moved in. He thought that I would have learned and should have known by now that everyone took part in helping and giving to the needs and wants of Victor Junior; in making sure especially that he may live an active life beyond our doings, and the only thing we’re doing is helping him obtain his goals in life, and that goes to bringing him into the house without hesitation or questions.

As I walked outside to Victor Junior, only knowing somewhat of what to do, he looked at me with a surprised look because of how dumb I was, so he called me a dumbass. I could almost hear in clear affirmation that was the word he would use to nickname me by for however long he wanted to.

During that moment while I stood there, thoughts started running in my head, strategizing of how to do this in the best way and if I was strong enough to carry him. Victor Junior then instructed me by saying that I should be sitting on his lap and he’ll have his arm wrap around my neck, then while we both stood-up I kept one hand on his waist and the other hand holding onto his hand and guiding him to stand-up. After a few seconds, we finally were up on our feet; next thing he told me I needed to do was to hoist his body up onto my back and piggy- back him up the six steps into the house and carry him to the back of the house into the family room, where everybody hangs out.

There in the family room, I sat Victor Junior on the lazy-boy; both Peter and Porter just stared at me and said: “Now you can be called a dumbass.” Victor with a laugh, said: “Yup!” I knew right then and there of my many life lessons and more coming thereafter, that it was dumb thinking on my part to actually question myself, or even more so, Victor Junior’s abilities to not only tell me how to take him in but also for my “dumbass” mind and ears to listen to him; and more importantly learn that whatever my legs want to do something like walk inside the house; that I should always consider in asking Victor Junior if he wanted to come inside or whatever it may be to never look at others to do it for you or ask you to help out in any way especially when Victor Junior is involved.

Moments later, as we stood there thinking of what to do, Layla came down for something to drink as Peter left to go to work. As I knew from Porter, Peter was a model for a famous agency from London that set up shop here awhile back and are well known for their worldwide GQ-Magazines in providing models for pictures and who couldn’t blame them for taking in Peter, who looks just like Porter. He is 5-10, 194lbs. with dark blond hair, blue eyes, and a body that goes to the gym six times a week, he takes good care of his figure and makes sure there’s no hair at all except on his head. And even though they look alike with different personalities, the Highlander twins could have any girl if they wanted to.

After Layla drank some water, she was still weak and still needed to stay in bed. Porter was busy getting the hamburgers ready to be cooked outside tonight, so he asked me to walk Layla back upstairs to her room and into bed. As we got into her room, I couldn’t stop staring at her good looking body as she climbed into bed and I must say, she looked a lot better than Mary-Ann. Or maybe it was how she looked in her sweats-pants and sports-bra that made myself want to kiss her at that moment, but I couldn’t take her trust in me away and surly didn’t want her to think that I was a creeper guy and most definitely didn’t want to take the honesty of me out of the twins either.

As I went back downstairs, I saw that Porter was in his room doing something. I asked what he was doing, he replied back saying: “Preparing for the race!!” and I had a questioning look as he explained to me what it was.

While in the family room with Victor Junior, Porter on his laptop showed me this email from another gang out of Los Angeles that read that they’ll be in Long Beach that night to hold a four-person race that will start here and will end in LA; the race starts at 1:00am sharp in the LBC; the cost to enter the race will be $100 for each race-car and $25 for each follower that follow their gang behind; the winner of the race will get 45% of the proceeds; all racers and gangs should meet at the light of Ocean Boulevard and Long Beach Boulevard right in front of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center and will end at the Evergreen Memorial Park & Crematory at the parking lot of the church. The email ended with a heed warning that: “ALL racers are RACING at THE RISK of being CAUGHT by the LBPD and LAPD Law Enforcement…Don’t get caught!!”

Afterwards, we ate lunch and by 1:00pm got into Porter’s car with Victor Junior. As we drove to the car shop to have Porter’s 1979 Ford Cobra and all of the other cars that were racing tonight checked and retuned by Andrew and Uncle Jay. The four cars with the Cobra that were getting ready for the race tonight were: Luke’s 1975 Z25 Chevy Comoro, RJ’s 2011 Ford Shelby GT500, and Peter’s 2013 BMW M5.

As we waited, we sat in the office when Uncle Jay walked in; at that moment that was the first sight of seeing my family and were my first meeting with my Great Uncle. He looked at me as if I was the younger side of my Dad. As he walked towards me I stood up, he put forth a hand to shake mine, as I did the same our hands met with a firm grip of a handshake. At that moment, he gave me a hug with the other hand and saying with a strong stable voice saying: “Hi, I’m your Uncle Jay, great to finally meet you for the first time since birth.”

After that emotional interaction with my Dad’s Uncle, it brought a feeling of comfort to finally meet a family member and it felt like I could finally say that I do belong to the LBC and have deep roots.

By 4:05pm, we all met up at the Highlander’s house for an early dinner and a place to hang out while we waited for the cars to be done before everyone had to go back to the shop. As we were being dropped off in Uncle Jay’s tow truck, we saw Chang with Michael in his Coupe, and Mike in his SUV with Adam, Peter, Luke; as Mary-Ann got out from her 1975 Ford Mustang II as they all pulled up at the house. As soon as Mike got around to the tow-truck to see Victor Junior I got him into his push-chair, Mike said to me with a smile: “Hi Dumbass!” I just took it with a smile on my face and said: “I deserve that!” while everyone laughed.

As Chang pushed Victor Junior into the house, Mike with his right-arm over my left shoulders said to me that it was great to see and heartwarming for me to take the initiative in helping his brother and was a great moment to see his brother also laugh at others’ funny moments in life.

While we sat in the dining room, we talked about the race and named off the who’s who of the gang that’ll be there racing. Mary-Ann was the know- it-all kind of girl in the gang because she knew some of the girls in LA that could get any information. They were also the group of girls that would go out on girls night out and talk about the in’s and out’s of each gang because most of the girls’ fathers were indeed high-power attorneys that were lawyers to these guys. Some were both good and bad guys and each of the guys came from either high-power business families or a mafia crew of families that were “loaded” with cash money.

Mary-Ann told us that four gangs including us would be racing tonight. The three gangs that’ll be in the race would be: The Pacific Boulevard Gang, which is a middle-class gang from Huntington Park which is just like ours; The Eagle Rock Prep Gang, which was indeed from Eagle Rock City but also went to Occidental College and all are students that are a part of a co-ed Fraternity group called: Zeta Tau Zeta; and lastly are The Valley Ridge gang, which is an all-African-American gang from View Park-Windsor Hills.

By the time we got done eating, we went to the backyard for a nap on the cool grass and comfortable chairs on the backyard-deck. Adam piggybacked Victor Junior down to the blanket that was placed on the grass and by 6:45pm the sun was setting over the horizon. We took it all in, hoping for a nice long nap there; as it was getting dark, not long after, we were all asleep while listening to the tunes of the radio as they played Eric Clapton’s “My Father's Eyes.”

By 11:30pm, we were awakened by “nature” calling us and we all took each bush in the backyard. Mary-Ann was not trying to have to see us boys peeing in bushes, so of course she went inside. We then drove back to Jay’s to get the cars and get to the race by 1:00am at the front of the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center.

While waiting in the shop for the cars to be tested and ready to go, both Adam and Mike put together $50 to put in their SUVs as followers and another $400 towards the four cars that would be racing. By 12:45am: Porter, Luke, RJ, and Peter got into their cars; meanwhile Michael, Chang, Victor Junior, and I rode with Adam in his 2011 Escalade ESV; while Mary-Ann, and Andrew rode with Mike in his 2011 GMC XL Denali.

By 12:55am, we got to the light of Ocean Boulevard and Long Beach Boulevard. The LAX Regulators, a gang out of East Los Angeles was the ones that organized the race for us and were already waiting nearby to see and meet the competition that came through. As we got out, we met with Paul McDougal, second-in-command of the gang.

We then got to meet the four other drivers of each gang, as we got ready to line up. First: John III, Brandon, Gordon J., and Philip John Junior was from the Valley Ridge Gang; then Sarah, who was the only girl racing, Austin, Water, and Taylor made up the Pacific Boulevard Gang; then lastly from the Eagle Rock Prep Gang had Timothy, Richard III, Quinton, and the head boss of their gang: W. Young IV. Each gang had their followers behind them, in total there was a sight of 16 cars racing: four mini-vans, eight SUVs, and two other cars in all; we looked like we were about to cause a traffic jam at one o’clock in the morning.

As we all huddled inside Adam’s Escalade waiting for the race to start, we were all worried that the police would show up and see the vast amount of vehicles on Ocean Boulevard facing west. Then Jake King one of the LAX Regulators members stood between the cars of Richard III and Porter as he counted down and within seconds the race was on!!

First in line and storming through the light getting out front of the pack was Richard with his 2012 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Behind him RJ followed as they headed west on Ocean Boulevard while Adam decided to follow him, everyone else went in different directions. Minutes later, Mike called in and said that they’ll follow Peter, since he had one of the fastest cars out of our group and just to make sure he made it to the finish line without foul-play from the other drivers.

The race should have lasted at least thirty minutes and a 21-mile drive to the park in the city of Hazard, which is two miles North of East Los Angeles.

As we got onto the on-ramp heading North on I-710, we saw that two more racers joined in on the fun; it was Taylor from the Pacific Boulevard Gang and John from the Valley Ridge Gang.

Minutes later, RJ was ahead of Taylor and still behind the other two cars but took an unexpected exit off the 7-10 onto the I-410 heading west. We took aim following behind and weren’t the only ones because Taylor followed suite behind the Ford Shelby.

Things were about to get onto the fast lane as speeds clocked in at 85 MPH and with that Taylor put it into fifth gear passing RJ on his right, seconds later speeds got up to 115 MPH with no cops around us.

Within ten to fifteen minutes we passed the busy Interstate-110 and cities Lawndale, and Del Aire. We went as far North until we got onto the I-10 to head east. Culver City exit came up and we knew that we were about twenty minutes from the park. That’s when RJ took speeds up again but this time he made his move to pass Taylor and his 2012 Pontiac Grand Prix GXP at 120 MPH.

Within ten minutes, we then interchanged off from I-10 and onto Interstate-5 to get to the exit of East Cesar Chavez Avenue; making a quick right turn heading east.

For the next eleven blocks we took speeds upwards again of 75 MPH on the two lanes of East Cesar Chavez Avenue passing blocks with names of: Cummings Street, St. Louis, Soto, and Mott Street until we took another quick right turn onto Evergreen Avenue then hung a left turn to reach the Evergreen Memorial Park & Crematory and saw a sign that the church was at the South mid-section of the park. All the while Taylor was just a few feet behind RJ the whole way through.

As we got to the church, to our surprise, Peter and his 2013 BMW M5 beat out the head boss of the Eagle Rock Prep Gang: W. Young IV and his 2011 Chevrolet Corvette Coupe.

Minutes after our arrival, the rest of our Sun-Street Gang got there with all of the 30 vehicles parked in the parking lot of the church. At the front of us was an all-black entourage of a 2013 Mercedes-Benz GL-Class SUV and two 2013 Mercedes-Benz C250 Sport Sedan. Out from the driver of the SUV were Paul McDougal and Mac Young IV; head boss of the LAX Regulators came out from the right-rear door. 

From what I heard earlier in the day, the Young Family were the head masters of gangs in the Los Angeles area and had deep roots that dated back to the 1940s that everyone within the parking lot knew to be very true. From the SUV, Mac came walking over in his three-piece suit and announced to everyone that was there that the Sun-Street Gang was the winners of this event and had won $877.50 of the cash-winnings of the race.

And just like that, everyone left home and by 3:25am in the morning we decided to stop by an I-HOP restaurant near home to eat. As we sat there the drivers then divided the winnings by giving Peter $292.50 and spilt $146.25 up five ways to: RJ, Porter, Luke, Adam, and Mike; all the while listing to La Roux’s “Bulletproof” over the speakers.

Written by: Junior F.

Edited by: Alexa G.