Inside the Crips: Life Inside L.A.'s Most Notorious Gang
By Ann Pearlman, Colton Simpson and Ice-T
4/5
()
About this ebook
Inside the Crips is the memoir of the author Colton Simpson's life as a Crip--beginning at the tender age of ten in the mid-seventies--and his prison turnaround nearly twenty-five years later.
Colton ("C-Loc") Simpson calls himself the only gang member ever allowed to quite the Crips--and one of the few to survive into his thirties. Simpson--son of a ballplayer for the California Angels and a mother who was relentlessly rough with her sons after their fathers left her--became a gang member at ten. Inside The Crips tells the remarkable--and at the same time, all too common--story of gang life in the 1980s in immediate and descriptive prose that makes this book a gripping true-life read. Inside The Crips covers the rush that comes from participating in gang violence and the years-long wars between the Bloods and Crips. Simpson's story also puts the reader in the middle of the struggle between the Crips and corrections officers in Calipatria prison. It covers gang life from the mid-seventies to the mid-nineties, and introduces characters it's impossible not to care about: Simpson's fellow gangbanger Smile; and Gina, the long-suffering friend and mother of two sons who married Simpson in prison.
Ann Pearlman
Ann Pearlman is a writer of both fiction and nonfiction books, including Getting Free: Women and Psychotherapy and Keep the Home Fires Burning: How to Have an Affair with Your Spouse, Inside the Crips, The Christmas Cookie Club, and A Gift for My Sister. Her memoir, Infidelity, was nominated for a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize and made into a Lifetime movie by Lionsgate. Also an artist, she recently illustrated a short story, Other Lives, which is available as an ebook.
Read more from Ann Pearlman
The Christmas Cookie Club: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Gift for My Sister: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Christmas Cookie Cookbook: All the Rules and Delicious Recipes to Start Your Own Holiday Cookie Club Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHis Eye is on the Sparrow: An Engagement in Black and White Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Inside the Crips
Related ebooks
Game Over: The Rise and Transformation of a Harlem Hustler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blood in the Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War of the Bloods in My Veins: A Street Soldier's March Toward Redemption Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Black Hand: The Story of Rene "Boxer" Enriquez and His Life in the Mexican Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Undercover Cop: How I Brought Down the Real-Life Sopranos Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Growing Up Gangster: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of a Notorious Hustler Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Loyalty & Betrayal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Original Gangster: The Real Life Story of One of America's Most Notorious Drug Lords Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Next Stop: Growing Up Wild-Style in the Bronx Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America's Deadliest Biker Gangs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gangland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood In, Blood Out: The Violent Empire of the Aryan Brotherhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5THE HARLEM PLUG: THE RICHARD 'FRITZ' SIMMONS STORY Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Parental Discretion Is Advised: The Rise of N.W.A and the Dawn of Gangsta Rap Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lock Up Diaries: An Inside Look at Drug Wars in Prison: Drug War & Prison Stories BEFORE CHRIST book 1, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGangs and Society: Alternative Perspectives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEl Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Corruption Officer: From Jail Guard to Perpetrator Inside Rikers Island Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Once a King, Always a King: The Unmaking of a Latin King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crips: The Story of the L A Street Gang from 1971-1985 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico's Most Dangerous Drug Cartel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maximum Security Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gangland: The Rise of the Mexican Drug Cartels from El Paso to Vancouver Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghetto Cops: On the Streets of the Most Dangerous City in America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChaos Merchants Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Organized Crime For You
Hidden War: How Special Operations Game Wardens Are Reclaiming America's Wildlands From The Drug Cartels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKilling the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wiseguy: The 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Sentence: The Brief and Tragic Career of Baltimore’s Deadliest Gang Leader Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Circle: Danny Casolaro's Investigation into the Octopus and the PROMIS Software Scandal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Rule the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gotti Wars: Taking Down America's Most Notorious Mobster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Innocence Lost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCop Without a Badge: The Extraordinary Undercover Life of Kevin Maher Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Last Yakuza: life and death in the Japanese underworld Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMS-13: The Making of America's Most Notorious Gang Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPutin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer: The Autobiography of a Mafia Hit Man Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vory: Russia's Super Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico's Most Dangerous Drug Cartel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Somebody's Daughter: Inside an International Prostitution Ring Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Johns: Sex for Sale and the Men Who Buy It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Original Gangster: The Real Life Story of One of America's Most Notorious Drug Lords Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exposing the Illuminati's R.E.M Driven Human Cloning Subculture, Frequently Asked Questions, Volume 2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gangland: How the FBI Broke the Mob Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wilful Blindness: How a network of narcos, tycoons and CCP agents infiltrated the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Inside the Crips
30 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Colton's brutal honesty and transparency about his experience is healing for broken and tormented souls trapped in the vicious cycle of recidivism and the streets. His painful portrait of his own despondency serves as a powerful advisory of what lies ahead for any lost souls looking for validation in bangin.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Meh, not the best written and a bit hypocritical given the main subject was busted for a jewelry robbery two years later
Book preview
Inside the Crips - Ann Pearlman
ONE
Transformation
There is an abundance of hope, but none for us.
—Franz Kafka
Events are lined up like dominoes falling so fast I don’t have time to think about one before the next one tumbles. Most of my life, I’ve been at war. If there’s a time before war, it’s the time before remembering.
And so my first memory is when I am four and in a motel room down the street from our home. It’s Los Angeles, 1969. I race matchbox cars on a light stripe on a brown rug. The sun shining through venetian blinds creates my road. Damon, my brother a year older, crashes his blue car into my truck. Bam. Krr,
he growls and knocks my truck from the road to lie on its side, the small wheels spinning.
I look up to complain about my brother’s violence and see my mom. She stands with one leg bent, sliding the strap of a shoe over her heel as she tilts toward the wall, supported by her outstretched arm. The wall is in an unfamiliar room in a motel, but I don’t know why we’re in a motel so close to home. This is my first memory of my mother as she leans, her long hair waving toward her waist, a slice of sun dazzling over a dress the same color as her beige flesh. Her face is oblivious of her splendor, of us. The only thing that exists is gliding the black strap over her heel. Nothing else is important but that moment. Not me, not Damon, not the room with the pale green walls. This moment, this brief space is my peace, her paused on one leg like that, her palm on the wall. As I notice her, I realize how fine she is, her face is that restful. Like the statues of the Madonna in church. I’m splashed with the shafts of white light and her glory. Safe. I am safe.
Wham. A man backhands her and she crumbles onto the unmade bed, hair splayed out. I only see the man’s back, and then as he turns toward me, a brass buckle on his belt, his navy pants. I don’t see his face; I don’t know who he is. These images contain no sound, just pictures. There is no blam his fist makes on her cheekbone. I do not hear a groan, or a surprised gasp for air from my mother. She falls silently to lay on the bed over a green and gold comforter. She doesn’t move, doesn’t rise.
And me. And me? I cover my head with my arms and cry.
My mother sits up, wipes her nose. Her feet are on the floor, but she doesn’t stand, doesn’t go after him, and doesn’t defend herself. Just allows him to tear away at her beauty and end our harmony. He’s gone. I don’t remember the door slamming as he leaves.
Why didn’t she sense her danger? How could she have been so innocent?
I should have seen it coming. Something—a movement, an expression, a sound, and a gesture—must have warned me. I need to pay more attention.
Why didn’t she fight?
* * *
After that I see less of my father. He’s away for weeks playing baseball for the Los Angeles Angels, and brings home joy and soap wrapped with decorated paper and shampoo in small bottles from his hotels. And then my brother Marc is born light skinned, lighter even than my mother, a baby pale as a fish. Blue squiggly lines run under his skin.
I can tell Moms loves him the most.
When my father sees him, he shakes his head, sadly. The baby doesn’t make Pops seem huge by contrast, but turns him frail in spite of his hard arms. My mother and father fight all the time now. Then one day, Pops calls the police. He tells them, Her new boyfriend is always threatening to shoot somebody. I want you to witness this. The stereo system is all I want and I’m outta here.
My father has angular features, a high beaked nose, and cheeks that cave under his bones. Colton,
Pops leans his elbows on his knees so we’re at eye level, I’d take you with me. But she won’t let me. And I have to leave or my temper will get someone dead or someone serving time.
Then he stands. You’re my son and I love you.
He places his palms on my shoulders. A baseball he’s given me is clutched in my hand. Remember. Always remember. You, Colton, are my son.
He leans back on his heels. I tried to get custody of all of you, since she’s so harsh, so evil and conniving, using her beauty as a trap.
Pops stands and crosses his arms. But she flirted her eyelashes at the judge, acted meek while she cried about how much she loved her sons. So.
He nods at the burgundy velvet sofa, the wood dining table, the white ceramic lamp as though counting, as though counting something, saying good-bye. Every motion resounds through his body in a dance of tendons and muscles. It’s all hers now. But, Colton, you have my temper, so watch yourself,
he warns.
Pops is everything I dream of becoming—tall, respected, a celebrity. The police help him load his stereo and jazz records into his car. He drives away.
We’re alone with Moms. Your father don’t care about you. He ain’t no good,
Moms shrugs as she winds a strand of hair around her curling iron.
Pete, a White man with a red face and soft flesh around the middle, moves in. He’s not long lean and lanky like Pops, built like a tank rather than a rocket. He plays I Can See Clearly Now
and Witchy Woman
over and over. I miss Coltrane and Miles.
We’ll go hunting for rabbits,
he booms, but first you have to learn how to shoot.
One day, he lines up tin cans on the fence of our backyard and shoots at the cans. Ping. Ping. I come out and he hands me the .38. Here.
He shows me how to sight the target, lining up the little bar between the arms of the V, and to slowly pull the trigger. When I pull the trigger, power surges through my arm, my shoulder, but my bullet topples the can. Just like that I find my