Diary 33

Dear Diary,

“You can’t go against your own people, your own blood!”

Those words kept ringing in my mind as I walked down the courtroom

aisle to sit in a cold, empty chair next to the judge. I kept telling myself,

“Get your shit together, you don’t want to contradict yourself on the witness

stand, your homie’s future lies in your hands.” I was convinced that I had to

lie to protect my own, the way I was always taught to do. As I walked

through the courtroom, I kept my eyes focused straight ahead, afraid to

make eye contact with anyone. It was so quiet that the only things I could

hear were the steps I took walking across the marble floor and my heart.

As I sat in the chair, I felt as if I was exposed to different eyes. Those

eyes, in some strange way, were touching a part of me that was deep inside,

everyone was waiting for my reaction.

When I sat down, I noticed that the courtroom was divided. On one

side, there was my family and my friends. Most of them are from one of the

most notorious gangs in California. They had all come because they were

worried about what the other side might do to me after the verdict. Even

though they were there to protect me, I didn’t feel safe. I guess it was

because they couldn’t protect me from the one thing I was actually afraid of,

the guilt I had inside. But all I had to do was look in the eyes of my people

for them to reassure me that I had no choice but to take care of my own. I

had to protect Paco no matter what went down. We all knew, that no matter

what, I wasn’t going to rat on my homeboy. He would give his life for me,

without hesitation, the same way I would give mine for his. All I had to do

was sit there and lie about what had happened that night. The night when

Paco was only proving, once again, that he would do anything for his main

girl. He was only protecting me, and sending out a warning not to mess with

me again.

On the other side of the courtroom were the family members of the guy

who was being falsely accused of murder. Those people, his family and his

friends, of course, were looking at me with rage. I knew why, but I didn’t

care. I wasn’t afraid of them. They were our rivals and they had it coming.

They had already killed one of our friends, and they had jumped me a

couple of weeks before. Then one person on his side caught my eye. Her

look wasn’t filled with rage, there was strength and sadness, which made it

painfully familiar. She looked at me, tears rolling down her cheeks, and

hugged the little girl on her lap.

When I saw her tears, a little voice inside of me whispered very quietly,

“Doesn’t she remind you of someone you love more than anyone else in the

world?” I tried to ignore the little voice, but then the voice spoke louder. It

told me that this woman was my mother, and that little girl was me. I

couldn’t help but stare back, imagining how life would be for that little girl

without her father. I pictured her waiting for her father to come home,

knowing he wasn’t. I pictured her visiting him, and not being able to touch

him because of an unbreakable window, and I imagined her wanting to

unlock his cage, knowing she couldn’t. The same memories I have of my

father in prison. The woman looked at me again, and I could see that she

was suffering the same way my mother suffered when my dad and brother

went to prison. I wondered how they could be so different. My mother is

Mexican and this woman black, yet the emotions that made them cry came

from a heart that was tearing apart the same way.

Throughout my life I’ve always heard the same thing: “You can’t go

against your own people, your own blood.” It got so engraved in my head

that even as I sat on the witness stand, I kept thinking of those same words.

“You can’t go against your own…” Yet, my so-called familia, my so-called

people, had put me in the worst position of my life. My feelings were

starting to change, I began to have second thoughts. I was convinced that I

was going to lie before I entered the courtroom, before I saw the woman,

before I saw the little girl, but now I wasn’t so sure.

Suddenly, his lawyer interrupted my thoughts by busting out with

questions. Who shot the guy? Then I looked at my friend. He was just

staring at me with a smug look on his face. He wasn’t worried about

anything even though he was guilty, even though he knew I had witnessed

everything. When he shot the guy he looked at me and said, “This is for

you.” He knew I was going to lie, he knew that I had always had his back

before, so I had no reason to turn on him now. I turned to look at him, and

my eyes stared getting watery. He was surprised, as if it wasn’t a big deal,

but this time it was a big deal.

Then I glanced at my mom, she shook her head, and it was as if she

knew that I wanted to say the truth. I never told her what actually happened

that night, but she knew my friend had done it. When she had asked me

what I was going to say, I told her, “I’m going to protect my own…you

know how it is. You have to know, you and every other person in my family

taught me about my own.”

“I know how it is, but why does it always have to be that way?” She

never spoke that way to me before, after all, my father is in prison and most

of my family is in a gang. I always figured that my mom accepted how

things were. That’s just the ways things go when you’re in a gang. Then she

asked me, “How does it feel to be sending an innocent person to prison?

You probably feel like that man that sent your father to prison knowing he

was innocent, you know, he was only protecting his own, too.” And for the

first time in my life, the image of my mother made me believe that I could

change the way things were. Because at that moment I locked eyes with

Paco and said, “Paco did it. Paco shot the guy! ”

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