The last real gank

You will have to bear with me nerding out a bit to get to the good part. Sorry for ya. Deep down I'm just a nerd.

I won't lie. I'm a gamer. It's one of my favorite drugs. I've gamed as hard as I've done most other things. First it was Ultima Online, then EverQuest, then World of Warcraft, and after finally getting tired of the grind; League of Legends. I player killed so much in Ultima Online that I was famous on the server. I quit playing when the Japanese players that we warred against all the time figured out a bug and looted my house. That was a game in which one could loot the players killed. I had amassed and incredible amount of stuff. In that game, player killing was such an issue they eventually changed the dynamics of the game to get rid of Player Killers. I guess you could say I had something to do with that.

I checked out of reality once for almost four straight years during my first marriage playing EverQuest. It was the first of its kind. An absolutely huge game. It was amazing. It would have been an ungodly amount of play time if I could have, or would have added it up. Then came WoW, which was a huge step up from EQ. Incredibly addictive. There is a function in WoW that will tell a person their total game played time for each character. I added this up once, and I had over half a year played time in total. I kept playing the game long after that tally too. I had four maxed level healers, with decent gear, and a geared out PvP shaman. My brain still drools sometimes thinking about jumping into a battleground, and turning the tide in a 40v40 with the mad heals.

If only I could somehow convert all that played time into even more book reading; I'd be one of the smartest, most knowledgeable humans alive.  No joke.

My favoritist thing ever was the player versus player, otherwise known as PvP. I loved for the pvp. I love to win team fights. I love to win. These games let me let loose with the competitive side of myself. So naturally, League of Legends is to me the best game ever made. League is not a Mass Multiplayer Online Role Player though, it is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, and these are two totally different things.

In League of Legends it's always a 5v5, with the same map, but with a huge variety of champions to choose from at the beginning of each match. I'm not going into the specifics, but the point is twofold. One is the ganks, the other is the insta-karma, and these two things go hand in hand. Ganking is a gamer term. To gank is to take something which is not yours. You can gank kills, read here other players, gank monsters, gank towers, gank wins. My win/losses in League is in the thousands of games played.

You see, I noticed playing League what I call insta-karma. Say someone keeps getting ganked on your team, and you talk shit to them for sucking; next thing you know you've been ganked. That's insta-karma. It happened so much, either my own karma, or watching others in game, that it kind of got creepy. I noticed with the video games, because so much of it was totally random, that the synchronicity was much higher, it happened much more. Who was deciding who gets qued with who? Shit was random. And this is why I know it to be creepy: It can be looked up; the human psyche effects random number generators. Happens to not be so random with the karma.

This is the story of the last time I ever ganked anyone in real life. Unlike in the video games, where the insta-karma can happen literally within seconds, in real life it usually takes a bit longer. In video games there's no real danger. No friends lost. No blood shed. No life changing karma. In real life it can get really ugly.

I don't remember exactly why I didn't like this guy. Goofy ass white guy named Arnold. I think he said some dumb shit to me like he was smart. I hate that shit. On top of this I wasn't afraid of him physically. Problem was, I was still in two house, still a noob. This house was 90% blacks from mostly St. Louis. It was something he said, something he did, he rubbed me wrong. Thinking back on it I can't believe I did what I did. None of the whites approved, but I didn't bother checking with them either. I was still riding solo. I didn't know anyone.

Anyways, for some reason Arnold went to the hole. My time for retaliation for his smart mouth had arrived. In Booneville, there are metal lockers between the bunks, and one at the foot of the bunk, out in the aisle. Whoever is on the bottom bunk, gets their lockers between the bunks. Arnold had been in prison long enough to have a bottom bunk. The bay he was in had eight or nine bunks on each side of the room, with a good ten foot gap for an aisle down the middle.

The lockers are rectanglish, about 3.5 feet high, 3 feet wide, 3 feet deep, with a common style dial a number padlock to keep it closed, which they sold at the canteen. Same kind of padlock your parents probably bought you for your gym locker in high school. The lockers were made of the same type of metal like public school lockers too, you know, thin enough if you grabbed a corner, you could make the door wobble by shaking them vigorously.

Well, it makes way too much noise to use something to hammer the lock off. The guard would hear a boot smashing at the lock, so if you want in someone's locker you have to peel the top and bottom corner down towards the middle, much like you'd fold a paper airplane. The locker had a bottom compartment with two shelves. Arnold's bunk was in a different bay than the one I stayed in, so while he was in the hole I just rolled into his bay, and started pulling at the top corner. Man oh man was I a fucking noob.

Before I even got the top corner really pulled down at all, the gangsters jumped in. Seemed like at least ten of them were swarming in like that shit you see in Black Friday videos. I just jumped into the deep end of the pool not knowing how to swim. In other words, I really didn't even get anything out of the locker. They took it all. Had no idea a locker could be emptied that fast. His prison issue shit was all that was left behind. You can bet money they had all done that shit many times before.

Listen to me, I was so noob I didn't even know these dudes' names yet. When Arnold's locker got swarmed like that I knew I had made a terrible mistake. They practically shoved me out of the way to get at this guys stuff. I was just another punk ass white boy to them. They didn't even know my name.

Guess what? Can you guess? I bet you can't. A gangster was keeping his shit in this Arnold guys locker. Said gangster was also in the hole. When said gangster got out, guess who all the gangsters who took his shit said got his shit. You guessed it, the noob ass white boy in the other bay. They didn't even know my name. They just pointed me out. Turns out there are minimums on how much shit one can have in their locker, so this gangster was keeping his extra shit in the white boys locker. That's a hustle. This white boy Arnold was relying on a gangster for protection. I had no idea who was who. None of the other whites were going to come to my aid; I had made a bitch move. Man was I feeling low.

I had to wait for the blow back. I didn't see it coming either. I thought that Arnold just lost all his shit even though I didn't get any of it. I was wrong. It was a week later when the gangster got out of the hole. Arnold had already been out, but he was powerless. He never said anything either. No one was saying anything to me. Even knowing it was me who started the locker peel, there was nothing he could do. Let's call the gangster Red, he was what they call a red skinned black guy.

The same day Red was out of the hole he was in my bay questioning me, demanding his shit back. I kept telling him I didn't have his shit, to which he asked, who does? Now, look here, I'm not totally fucking stupid. I wasn't so noob that I didn't know I couldn't tell him, and even if I had wanted to tell him, I had no idea the names of these other gangsters so I would have had to literally go and point them out. I didn't know their level of power or which gangs they were in, and that mattered more than anything. I had already made a terrible move, but now it would get even worse. One more wrong move and I could easily have half the prison hating me. I could mark myself for straight up hell. A couple of those gangs were ridiculously large, and every member would have had associations with other gangs, not to mention the Islamic Brotherhood and the Muslim nations. One wrong move and I'd have the entire lower hill on my ass.

One wrong move had already put me in tremendous danger. Luckily for me though, Red wasn't in one of these notorious gangs, he just had his own crew. I didn't know this though. I had no way of knowing. I was shooting craps penitentiary style. When he kept pressing me, I eventually smarted off, and told him that if he was so gangster he shouldn't need me to tell him who gots his shit. I wasn't the only one who hit that locker. Check mate. Well, sort of.  He wasn't finished with the issue. He wanted his shit back. He tells me he's coming back, and when he gets back he wants his shit. Turns out he didn't have enough gangster power to actually get his shit back, so pressing me was his only option.

Man the tension was fucking thick. My childhood of violence had prepared me anatomically for this type of stress. I wasn't going to crack. I know for sure he wasn't coming back alone, and remember, I was in a housing unit with one hundred inmates and only about twelve of us were white. Who knows how many gangsters were in there just looking for any reason whatsoever to whoop a white boy.

There were two other white boys in my bay. They both had been in for awhile. Long haired chill type of cats. I went to them for advice. I didn't even bother to ask them for help. I could tell thy were just looking for a good show. They explained to me how it was going to go down, the house politics and what not. They ended up playing an old school Metallic song for me to get me even more pumped. I ended up getting one of them to let me barrow their extra padlock, which they weren't supposed to have, which meant a guard wouldn't know where it came from. So now, not really feeling relieved at all, I am at least armed. I now had a padlock in each hand, with the ring over my middle finger. The extra weight of the locks also helps land nice solid punches.

I could feel it. The air around me was humming. Always the cacophony. Those housing units were always a fucking circus of gangster shenanigans. He was getting his boys together. I could sense it. I was just sitting on my bunk, heart pounding, waiting for them to come into the bay. Mentally going over all the different scenarios I could imagine. How I was going to fight my way out. I had a real advantage at this time that they did not know about. I grew up getting the shit beat out of me by a step dad. I wasn't afraid to get my ass beat. Been there, done that. I was just wanting to get it over with. I can't stand the waiting.

Soon as the guard went down the hall to the rec room, here comes Red with six other gangsters. I could hear them pumping each other up. The bay I was in was a small one. There were only eight bunks down one side of the room, and I was third from the end away from the door. I had plenty of time to see them coming. Because the guards always liked me so much I had gotten myself moved to this quieter bay. The guards loved me for keeping it real as they say. The space between the lockers at the foot of the bunks, and the wall wasn't enough room for three people to stand shoulder to shoulder. I stood ready to fight in that space. Before Red gets to me with his boys I'm standing in position so they can't surround me. I've cut them off tactically. This was incredibly important. You can't ever let them surround you.

Red is acting even more gangster now that his boys are with him. His speech is dramatically gangster with his boys. I was still struggling with the ghetto speak. It can be really hard to understand. They are all fidgeting. He again demands his stuff, and again I tell him I don't have any of his stuff. That I didn't get anything from the locker. He looks at my hands and asks me why I gots a padlock in each hand, and I immediately respond, for the same reason there are seven of you?

Believe you me, I was going to wreck one of these gangsters. One of them wasn't going to make it out of that bay unscathed. They could feel it. Believe it or not, because of my fearlessness I had the advantage. With two padlocks in my hands the cops were going to get involved. There was going to be blood. With it being a six on one, I wasn't going to get into any real trouble for maiming a gangster. Straight up self defense right there.

Red turned and walked away, talking shit of course, but he turned and walked away. None of his boys were willing to fight me for someone else's shit.

It was going to be awhile before I was safe though. It was going to be awhile having to, even more than normal, watch my own back. I had some sleepless nights.

I've never ganked anyone in real life since that day I hit that locker. I swore off stealing from others. I realized then, how that shit goes. It was a spiritual moment. I reaped what I sowed. What comes around, goes around. I got mines. Turns out real life goes just like those video games. Insta-karma.