While we were young

Part 1. My ENTER to the GYM

For get into the gym, you had to be invited, no other entrance. Invitation meant guarantee automatically. If something goes wrong, the first who will be responsible - the one who invited. It was a great responsibility, to the gym invited not anybody, but only those who were “normal”. Regarding the circulation of the youth, in a week we could have 10 newcomers, and the same number of people we expelled. Over the years, many hundreds of people have passed through us.

In order to be allowed access to our gym, you needed a special invitation. By invitation, I mean you needed a referral by someone already deemed normal by those in the know. Keep in mind though, if you’re going to be referring people to the gym, it’s your ass if they don’t live up. Back when we were kids, lots of people wanted to be a member of the gym, but only a select few were allowed. Some weeks we’d get ten new “applicants”, and coincidentally, the same amount would suddenly no longer be coming to the gym. Over the years, a lot of gym members suddenly stop showing up.

We communicated, grew up and helped each other. Our assistance was mostly all the same principle - one for all and all for one. I do not remember why I did, but I became responsible for the phone calls, collecting all our young community if necessary. A necessity has been until we were young, almost every day. Almost every day we ran from district to district, inspired fear in the local gang, solve problems or help solve them parallel gyms. After we met in gym and discussed everything that happened, draw conclusions, and work on the mistakes.

Back when we were kids, we thought we knew it all. It was all for one and one for all kind of shit. In that neighborhood, your fellow gang members were your family. Most times, they were the only people you had to talk to and if you didn’t have his back, he may end up being the one ramming a knife into yours someday. Early on, I was put in charge of the phone calls that came in and making arrangements for me and my fellow gym members to make collections. Making collections was the part we really liked because it gave us the opportunity to run from district to district, striking fear into rival gym members and letting them know which gang was in control. It was back at the gym where we would plan this all out and perfect our collecting abilities.

Real story of our frostbitten

To imagine our young degree frostbitten, I tell the story of how we went to 10 people to visit their brothers is the last tram in the neighboring district. Many of us smoked cigarettes back then, and we were not shy to do it right in the wagon tram. The conductress was afraid to come up and make a remark, and I understand it .. with us do not really wants to engage in conversation. During the movement one of us noticed the girl on the street to stick a guy, and she actively fights back.

There was this one time, we were heading up to a rival district. It was so fucking cold my hands were nearly frostbitten. I mean I need my hands in my line of work, so we’d take the damn train as much as possible, all ten of us, raising hell and pissing everyone off on the train. I mean we would just light up a smoke right there and who gave a shit what the damn conductor lady said. Most times she kept quiet. I scared the hell out of her back when she was new on the job, by telling she reminded me of this girl from my district that stuck this fucker right in the street when he was putting his hands on her. District girls were like that. the conductor wasn’t, but I think she liked it when I said I would come back to take her out sometime.

We jump, shout to machinist, that he stopping wagon immediately, solved problem with violence, allowed the girl to leave, and advised to him not to do it more. Then boarded to tram, smoked again and drove on. It was evident that the conductress had no objections over: “Do whatever you want…”

I think the conductor broad and the engineer had something going on because she was always looking at him whenever we would ride their train, like he would protect her. Both of them stayed real quite though. Afterall, we needed them to run the train for us.

Get to the point, we are with wild air shaking notified area about our arrival. Everyone must hear that we are here. On the way to meeting place, we knocked around, what could only knock noise all that could only make a noise, and it is in the first hour of the night. Then, still at the door one of us he pulled out a gun and gave a few shots in the air. All. We are here. Anyone know.

I guess I should get back to the damn point and tell my story. You see, that train ran buy the beautiful conductor was one in particular that ended up at this hard ass district we were sometimes sent to for collections and what not. As soon as we arrived and got off the train we’d start yelling our fucking heads off crazy like , just to let the damn local district bastards we were there and to stay out of our way. it didn’t matter if it was the middle of the damn night, we’d knock their trash cans over cuss the whole way over to where we were going. You see, this particular place we were headed wasn’t the kind where yelling or fists were going to do the job. We brought guns this time.

We are not afraid of anyone

We are not gave way to anyone and were not afraid of anyone. Police? Yes, take us away! What will you do with us? We are minors, we have the green light to all! - We knew it firmly and always remembered. We showed the teeth to anyone who did not want to give way to us. We felt permissiveness.

I’m not sure if the police up there left us alone because we were just kids or maybe it was who we were working for and they knew better. I wasn’t really interested in bringing attention on ourselves too much, I mean the boss would want to get a call from the local police about us showing our teeth too damn much, but it would be my ass if anything went wrong, so me and my gang knew what to do.

We can not put the prison. Maximum can scold, judge and give a conditional sentence, - that we are not scared. We are made to feel the fear of oncoming people, and proud of it. We felt our power, and we were really strong. Not only when all together, but one by one too.

Besides, it didn’t really matter what the police thought. We were kids and there was only so much they could do to us legally. We couldn’t be put in prison more or less and the most a judge could give us was a conditional sentence. It’s hard to describe the feeling of power you have when you’re that young, the cops and judges fear you and no one wants to stand in your way.

Yogurt story

The following story happened to one of my close friends. The reason this story was a girl who wanted to punish Yogurt (brothers nickname), and ask her friends about help. Their help was to beat him and scare, but they did not realize with who they contact.

The most unbelievable part about all of this is we were just kids when all this was going on! Still in school, I remember this time when my brother “Yogurt”, (not his real name) had this problem with a girl. Understand, women from our district are not to be taken lightly. They’re pretty tough and if you get on their bad side, you’re probably in a lot of shit. This girl got some pretty rough guys, guys we normally wouldn’t go out of our way to fuck with and convinced them to beat on Yogurt and scare him. This is usually stuff that happens everyday, but he’s brother, so we couldn’t just let it happen.

We had information that we can expect something like that, so the olders instructed accompany Yogurt everywhere - from the school to the home, and even in the toilet (yes, we were then still at school!). But for some reason him friends were delayed by 10 minutes in that day, and Yogurt came out of the house alone..

Bad part about this situation was the Old Time bosses in our district got word of it and out of loyalty to me I suppose, put out an order to protect Yogurt no matter what. I remember the orders like it was yesterday, “All of you follow Yogurt everywhere! I don’t care, home, school, even the damn toilet, just make sure they don’t get anywhere near him!” For days we’d been following order like usual. One day though, we were about ten lousy minutes late and Yogurt left the house alone.

According to him, restored to my memory:

“Coming out of the door, I felt a blow on the head from behind, knocked unconscious. I woke up in the trunk subwoofer hammer, head aches, driven somewhere. Here we are, I have unloaded. In appearance it was a sawmill. They began to beat. They beat cleverly, sometimes hands, sometimes something firmer. Beat 8 hours in all, I guess. They put on the table by a circular saw. Start the engine, they began to frighten that will cut right now, I gave them older phones. Not smart enough to call and threaten to them.. Everybody losted me, and here such impudence .. “

The bastards jumped Yogurt when he wasn’t looking. He told me as best he could remember. Understand he’d been beaten pretty bad:

“Coming out of the door, I felt a blow on the head from behind, and must have been knocked unconscious. I woke up in the trunk of a car and the only thing I could hear was the thumping sub-woofer of their damn stereo. It made my skull ache bad. It made me pretty scared, because all i could think was they were trying to hide where they were taking me.”

“When we finally stopped, the trunk popped open and they drug me inside a building. When I was able to finally see, I could make what seemed to be a sawmill and I thought I was dead for sure. Then they just beat the shit out of me. They had to be experienced crew, because they were clever how they did it. Fists mostly, but sometimes a little with what seemed like a pipe. They let me rest, then started beating more, probably eight hours total.”

“The worst part was at the end when they held me down on a circular saw and turned it on, then off, fucking with me and swearing they would cut me up. I thought I was dead for sure.”

Older agreed to meet, but they not bring us - the problem is too serious, they decided then going only older team in full force - it is mainly those who lived through the criminal war 90th. When our brothers arrived at the meeting place and saw that Yogurt is alive and here, no further conversation did not work - the kidnappers broke into place.

On problems like that we drove dozens of complete and armed to the teeth machines, blocking the streets, so that all members of the gang managed to drive. Always acted skillfully - create complete cycle and total destruction, and it is what olders taught us.

The involved Elder Bosses all agreed to meet in regards to this situation. Despite being my brother, my crew and I were not allowed to attend. Instead the older members were tasked with handling what needed to handled. Mostly these were men who lived through the criminal war 90th. These capable men did indeed find the kidnappers, as well as Yogurt, still alive. All I am able to say about this situation is that the elders, armed to the teeth made this situation right. It was handled the way our most respected leaders taught us.

Since that time Yogurt have traumatic brain injury and he is not recommended to boxing. A little later, there did not stop him to service in the Russian special forces - there is reason to his will, and played a great desire…. Now he has all right, lives with his family, raising children. Strong man spirit is not broken in a difficult situation, not begged for mercy, and behaved with dignity.

The worst part about all this was Yogurt had a lot of potential as a boxer. Because of the beating he took, the doctors wouldn’t allow him to fight in the ring anymore. Yogurt did go on to serve in The Russian Special Forces and with great will and desire, made all proud of him. Now he lives with his family and raises his children. That day, he showed us all a strong willed man who’s spirit could never be broken in a difficult situation, never begging for mercy and behaving with dignity.

Special operation to expel drug traffickers

Another story happened in the central region of our group. The area is famous for being full of drug addicts. It is unclear, it was as such because many addicts in the region and therefore a lot of pharmacies have worked for them for 24 hours, or on the contrary, a lot of pharmacies was because there a lot of drug addicts? I have no answer up to now.

Then, in the evening, we were standing in a small circle in the center of the area, talked and chewed sunflower seeds. That place - it is a public transport stop, around which is always teeming with a lot of fans to thrust himself dose. Nothing special, if one of them not came to ask us money..

There was another incident that happened in the Central Region of our District, while we were all hanging around chewing on sunflower seeds one day. The central area was notorious for drug activity and it’s a favorite place for all the addicts to hang around and get loaded. Most times, they’re just looking for some poor fool to rob or turn a trick for drug money. For some fucking reason, there really seemed to be a lot of 24 hour pharmacies opened up in this area, I’m just saying.

Anyway, we were all hanging around near the bus stop, chewing away at sunflower seeds and smoking and this fucking derelict drug addict came up to us asking for money. We all knew he was just going to get high with it, and we knew him from the district, so we didn’t kick his ass and let him wander off.

About that time, one of my gym friends notices this police car trying to hide down the street. like we wouldn’t notice them, sticking out in our district. The seemed to be eating damn donuts like cops always were, so we didn’t pay them too much attention. The police mostly knew what was going on in our district, but usually left us alone because of who we worked for. I mean, it just wasn’t worth the hassle for them to bother us, plus on of their superiors might give em a slap for bothering our elders.

The next day, I got summoned to the elders and was given specific instructions to rid the outer forest area of as many drug heads as I could, by any means necessary. Many of them hadn’t been paying their drug debts to the elders, so something had to be done.

See, the outer forest is a secluded place, far away from the district, but still controlled by the elders I reported to. I think the police watching us had something to do with all this, but who knows. Orders are orders, so we all grabbed a fucking baseball bat and headed to the forest. No guns this time, I mean some of these durg users were former friends of ours, so they needed a beating to send a message, but didn’t deserve to die for it.

We told politely and calmly, that money is there, but we will not give to him. He insisted. Then he received, but bit to the teeth. Oh, and what began .. We dispersed all who were there, someone ran off, someone had not. As I remember, next to the bus stop was a police car, having dinner. They knew who and who are struggling and would prefer not to intervene until they were called.

The next day, we have developed a special operation to expel drug traffickers from the forest, which was some distance from the place yesterday, but also in our region. We knew that they had except the dose is always with the money, and we were not against pick their. Armed with big clubs, we went to a location drug traffickers.

The first round we did reconnaissance, just imagine who and where, how many, and passed. Assign roles, turned, came closer, got the stick and went on the attack. Against us it was about 8, but the big bulls .. We were about the same, but the fight was unequal due to the effect of surprise and our heavy weapons.

I remember how easy it is to break a big bull with a stick blow on his legs .. It is necessary only swing the stick into the flight, everything else it will make its own weight.

When we got up to the forest, we all just hid at first while I sent a few of my best guys in to do reconnaissance. I don’t like going into a situation unless I knew exactly what was going on. My people came back pretty fast and told me how many were there and where they were hanging out at. I know what to do. I assigned roles to my crew and started sneaking up to where these idiots were hanging around.

Some of these druggies were former tough guys, so it wouldn’t be easy, besides most of them were high on dope and wouldn’t feel the beating too much, making it harder to put them down most times. me and my closest buddies ran up onto three of these fuckers and just start beating on them. Legs and arms mostly, we didn’t want to kill them, just send a message.

“Ah !!!” - and big bull falls on strike under the knee.
“Where’s the money, filth!?” - I shout at him.
“I dont have!!! Not me!! ”
Boom!
“Where is the money ????” - I continued, running a club on the other side ..
Bull protested. Then I thought that he did not have the money, it seemed to me sincere that it speaks through pain. I figured that if he had no money, then perhaps someone else, and I just was not lucky - I chose wrong.

I start beating this one fucker on his damn knees, and falls immediately to the ground.

“Where’s the money at you filthy bastard!” I yell in his face.
“I don’t have it, not me!” the bull cries out in agony.

I hit him again in the other knee.

“Give me my fucking money you rat bastard!” I say a bit calmer, wanting to scare him even more.

He just curls up in a ball and starts wailing. I figured he didn’t have the money on him. He knew who we were and would have given it up easy once we started beating on them. Turning around, I began to break away on the car, to which at the moment has switched all of our brothers. On the front seat sat a girl and covered her head with hands until we heartily thrashed car and jumped on the roof.

The money is likely be with her, but no one had touched - the girls can not touch. The fact that they were drug dealers - no doubt we did not, we knew everyone on the area and the pre-specified the exact place of their location.

The correct our actions were or not? My personal opinion is still the same - we did everything right. The police did not solve the drug problem, although everyone knew from where this infection going. We decided it for one night, more merchants in the place was not. In this whole story is not fiction, it’s all the truth of my life and the lives of my surroundings. Next will be only harder .. We grew up

I turn around and notice a couple of my brothers beating on a rusty old car with their clubs. There’s this drug girl inside screaming her fucking head off and I instantly knew who was holding the money. It was smart letting her hold it. You see, where I come from it’s generally understood that you leave the girls alone out of respect. It just wouldn’t be honorable to act like a tough guy on some girl. Might get your own ass kicked for something like that.

I go over to the car where’s she’s crying on the front seat. All I do is point my baseball bat in her face and she produces a big fucking wad of money. That much cash, I instantly knew they weren’t just drug user, but dealers as well. Now I knew why the elders sent us in to set an example.

I tell her, “Stay out out of our district if you’re not going to pay for the privilege of dealing there.” She nodded her head and went back to crying.

This all might seem pretty harsh, but it was just everyday life for us. This was my district afterall.

This story has been art edited by @vegascomic. I express special thanks for the help.