Entering my teenage years as the hated black sheep rebel of the family. Becoming more and more of a street kid, hanging with some bad influences. The more my parents gave up on me, the more free and rebellious I became.
Starting life over in a ghetto school.
Enrolling into Virgil Middle School.
My parents tried to enroll me in another MAGNET school but they didn’t accept me. They had no choice but to enroll me at Virgil Middle School (the closest one to our house). I remember when they came home one afternoon after having checked out the school for themselves.
My dad said it was a bad school, and with bad kids. When he first drove up to it, he saw kids jumping the fence to ditch school. And he told the school staff about it. After meeting with the staff and successfully enrolling me in the school, when him and my mom were driving out…they saw the ditched kids getting arrested and put in handcuffs by the cops.
This school looked more like a prison than a school. With super high fences and some areas with barbed wire to prevent climbing. Graffiti all over. So many kids inside were dressed like gangsters, and were probably actually gangsters as well. Drug dealers hovering around the corners outside school. Cop cars patrolling the surrounding neighborhood.
My dad’s straight-A’s fantasy continues
My dad said at the beginning of the school year. “Look, now you’re in a shit school with shit kids. But maybe the classes are easier now and you can get straight A’s and still have a chance to get into a good college. Don’t screw up your second chance.” He was right in a way.
But then he went on to add other things for extra emotional impact:
- “All your cousins have straight A’s. So what’s wrong with you? We know you’re not stupid.”
- “Did you know your mom loves you? When you were a crying baby and you couldn’t breathe because you had mucus in your nose, your mom used to suck it out with a straw…right into her mouth.” (Kinda gross imagery but did well to make me feel so guilty.)
- “Look at how hard your mom studies, the least you could do is study a little bit like her. We’re not asking you to clean the house and cook dinner for the family.”
- “Did you know your our friends’ kid had perfect straight A’s, and even received an award certificate signed by the US president? And here you bring home report cards with C’s…and did you know your mom cried because she had a kid like you, instead of one like her friend’s daughter?”
Ouch. Massive punch to the gut. Maybe he thought it would motivate me, but again it did the opposite. I just felt like it was more and more impossible to meet their standard. That it wasn’t even worth trying. My best would never been good enough to match these impossible feats and I would never be worthy of love. So why even try?
The worst part was that I really did start believing that maybe something really was wrong with me. That I was truly lazy to the core and just didn’t have what it takes to get straight A’s. It wasn’t until much later that I realized some individuals are just different at the core and cannot be motivated to do schoolwork or to work in a corporate environment. It’s kind of like how some kids can’t sit still and maybe should be dancers or something.
I wasn’t crazy…I was just different and needed a different type of outlet for my personality. School and rigid structured environments were not a good fit. But of course, my parents didn’t understand this…so I was constantly criticized and demonized for my differences from other kids.
Ridiculously easy classes
The first friends I made at Virgil were absolutely not on my level. It pains me to say because it sounds like I’m talking down on somebody or being racist or classist. But it’s truly how I felt when I was in the class. The whole time, I was thinking…
- “What the hell is wrong with all these kids?”
- “And why are they so dumb?”
I couldn’t understand it. The classes were so pathetic. You could tell they weren’t really classes. The teachers weren’t hired to teach, they were hired to babysit and just keep the kids off the streets. Our school was like a teenage daycare. You figured the state/city realized providing free education made perfect financial sense. Because it was cheaper to put kids in schools rather than to put them in jail.
I remember having class assignments like:
- An English teacher would write 10 words on the board. All we had to do was write the words down on paper and write out the definition of each one. And we were free to use a dictionary. It was a completely mindless task and anybody with a brain would’ve been done in 10 mins and then just sit around for the rest of the hour doing nothing but talking in class. Somehow, many kids still managed to fail a class this easy.
- Or a math class that was still teaching basic algebra to 13 year olds. The same stuff taught at my elementary school to 8 or 9 year olds.
- Will write more when I remember other examples. Basically, it was super easy braindead assignments.
It was hard to make friends because I just didn’t relate to anyone, at least not intellectually. I felt like a college student in 1st grade class. But there were some nice guys and girls that I spoke with and we sometimes had our meals together. I also became a popular guy in class because I let everybody copy my homework freely.
Telling a teacher about my orange folder
I got so bored of my easy classwork and homework that I randomly remembered what my old history teacher told me about the orange folder.
- So I went up to my math teacher and said, “Hey…I don’t know what this means. But my old history teacher told me to tell anybody in my new school that I have an orange folder.”
- She looked at my doubtfully and said, “Hmmm…ok, take this little test here and give it back to me when you’re done.” And she handed me a paper with math problems that were supposed to be hard.
- Except only they weren’t hard. I finished it in 10 minutes and handed right back.
- She was really shocked as she probably expected to take 1-2 hours or even take it home and come back with the answers?
You should have seen her face. Her jaw dropped as she looked at it. All the answer were not only correct but you could tell that the answers were so easy for me. I had done all the work in my head and could see the answer as quickly as I read the math problem.
She said grabbed my wrist, “Come with me now!” She took me to her desk and wrote something on a note and told me to take this note to the main office.
I read the note as I walked to the main office.
- “This kid is gifted! He claims to have an orange folder. Please find it.”
When I showed it to the staff at the main office…they said “hmmm” and started looking up my files and records. At first they couldn’t find anything. And then they found it and understood my whole academic history.
- They saw that I was in fact a former kid in the MAGNET program. That I used to have really high nationwide test scores.
- They also saw why I was kicked out of the MAGNET program.
- They explained that the school (Virgil) doesn’t have a MAGNET program and they can’t help me get into a MAGNET program but they do have their own internal program with classes for gifted kids. And that they would be changing all my classes ASAP to put me in with those kids.
I had entirely new classes when I went back to school the next week. And this time with much nicer and much smarter kids. Were they as gifted as the ones in the MAGNET program? No, or at least not all. But you can tell they were good kids, smart kids, and intended to go to college…whereas the rest of the kids at school probably had no plans or desire for college.
Becoming the lead violinist
I was also put into the orchestra at my new school. And right away, I could see the massive disparity between Virgil’s orchestra and Madison’s orchestra. Madison clearly had better music teacher, better students (more engaged & more interested), and Madison’s program probably had more acclaim and more donations (from richer parents).
Virgil’s orchestra was sad in comparison. Even their 3rd year players were hardly as good as 1st year players at Madison. The music they played was so tragically simple and boring, and yet still we couldn’t hit the notes. It was a mess of players who I wondered if they even liked classical music or ever heard at all. Our music teacher was well-intended and did her best to try to get the ghetto kids interested in classical music…but the atmosphere just wasn’t right for it. We’re talking about kids whose parents were probably still listening to gangster rap and trashy butt-shaking music.
From day one, as soon as the teacher did the exercise where everyone plays a small piece one-by-one…everyone could see the gap in my playing ability versus all the other kids. And I was even rusty since I spent the last part of my 7th grade in the dean’s office instead of music class. Yet I will able to play harder parts and do the vibrato thing whereas no other kids could. To them, I looked like a professional player from another planet.
Immediately, my teacher changed our our pieces to fit me…Virgil’s new superstar violinist. Traditionally, your chosen music pieces would fit the orchestra in this manner:
- If your orchestra was big and with many good players – you play complex pieces with many layers, to highlight all the different music talents in your group. And with all parts of the orchestra playing complex bits.
- If your orchestra was small or had very few good players – then you would pick music that has long solo sections (to showcase your 1 or few good players), and use everybody else as just background support.
Well guess which one they used for me? They picked music full of long violin solos to make the best use of me. And just like that, I was the superstar during Virgil’s music concerts. They also didn’t have me sitting in the chairs with the rest of the orchestra. No….I was standing up in front of the whole orchestra right by the mic, to put as much spotlight on me as possible. The way our concerts went…if I played good, the whole orchestra sounded good. Nobody else had much impact. The 2nd best player was a really nice girl who was self-motivated and played decent. She stood up next to the mic as well, playing the complimented B-part during certain pieces.
Later on in the year…my teacher (Ms. Quan) signed me and her up to audition for a music scholarship. She gave me a really hard part and gave the girl an easier part. The girl practiced real hard whereas I didn’t. The girl got a little scholarship. And I got nothing. I messed up so many times during the audition that it was painfully obvious that not only did I not practice…I also didn’t attempt much outside the beginning of my piece.
Once 8th and middle school ended, I stopped playing the violin (much to my father’s dismay) and didn’t join the high school orchestra. My father used to preach that boys who play violin get girls. He told a story of a friend who practiced in the window every night, and sometimes his neighbor would hide behind the tree in his front yard to watch/listen to him. She fell in love with him and they later got married.
I could care less about the violin…because I would soon find something even better…
Home in the Echo Park neighborhood
Self-discovery at the public library
While I was at Virgil, my brothers (Brian & Harry) were both studying at my former elementary school (Plasencia). And nearby their school was the Echo Park Public Library. Since my mom was now in her last year of her bachelors degree, she was staying at school longer to study. And my parents wanted me to meet with my brothers at this library and do homework with them there until either or both of our parents would pick us up at 7pm to go home for dinner.
The library had many computers and internet and we didn’t have internet at home yet. And also not enough computers for everybody to do their homework (typing essays). Looking back…I feel this arrangement fit my dad’s affairs perfectly. Without my mom or the kids there, he was free to bring Mai over for their usual affairs.
But it worked out nicely for me. I actually had a self-initiated affinity for reading developed to avoid engaging in family dinners. I felt the conversation was usually negative or un-constructive criticism. I hated the family and wanted to partake in as little of it as possible. And a good tactic was to just read a book at dinner. And my parents were happy to see me reading. So it was a win-win for all.
Having all this free time at the library combined with easier homework and without the long bus rides home from school, I started randomly reading different books and developing interests in things I never thought I would like. I also loved checking out videos and learning all sorts of skills from them.
Thanks to the books and videos at the library, I learned how to swim (something many ghetto kids don’t know how to do), how to give massages, how to read faster, how to build and repair computers (buying and assembling all the parts), and countless other skills. I can’t remember now.
But the one thing that got me so hooked was this video of skateboarders doing tricks. Jumping around flipping their boards.
Becoming a skateboarder, becoming Crazy Johnny
I was immediately hooked. It looked so damn cool. I played and replayed and slow-motioned that video at home a hundred times. Trying to see how they moved their feet to make the board jump up and flip. And somehow with zero experience or without anybody to teach me….I actually figured it out for myself.
I taught myself how to jump. And then how to flip the board. My first tricks were very simple, but soon after came much harder ones. Skating around the neighborhood, it wasn’t long before you met all the other skaters in the neighborhood. And we all made friends easily.
For whatever reason…being a skater gave you some kind of street cred. It made you “cool”. Guys wanted to be cool like you. Girls liked skater boys. And gangsters respected you because they saw you doing dangerous jumps that they were too scared to try. And if you can do tricks that other skaters can’t do, they quickly look up to you and want to be your friend. And they want to hang out with you all the time because it makes them look better as a skater. All skaters want to hang out with skaters better than them. It’s a status thing.
But the skateboard also gave me another validation, that I didn’t know I learned to crave. Kids called me, “Crazy Johnny”. And I don’t know why…it just felt so good to hear that. I felt like it really validated who I was. (Looking back, I see it was just a false identity my parents gave me that I later embraced.) But I loved it. I would do crazy tricks and people would call me crazy (but of course, they meant it in a good way).
In what seems like a little instrument of adrenaline and danger. Was actually a symbol of freedom and self-confidence for me. Through the skateboard, I learned that whatever I dreamed of…I could achieve. And that I could do anything I wanted if I put my mind to it. Just me against the world. Nobody else, nothing else. I could be my own Superman.
Protected status as a skateboarder
Being a skateboarder really helped my status a lot in the neighborhood. Since now that I was walking home from school instead of taking the bus, I was exposed to many more different neighborhoods and different blocks with different kids and gangs, etc.
Thanks to my status as “Crazy Johnny” that really amazing Asian skateboarder kid, I was able to meet many more people around the neighborhood. Who now respected and let me pass through their neighborhood freely. Many gangsters were becoming cool with me, showing me respect. Which in turn kept other people (or other gangsters) from not messing with me…since they didn’t want to accidentally be on bad terms with my gang acquaintances.
While Echo Park was notoriously a really bad area with many gangs, it was actually a safe haven for me. It was my home. I could be on any street at any hour of the night and I was safe. Nobody would mess with me. Nobody would rob me. If anything, everybody wanted to say hello and bump fists and cheer my name “Crazy Johnny”. They might even request a trick and once I did it for them, they’d all cheer like they did it themselves.
I was really lucky to find this hobby because without it, I wouldn’t been so free in my neighborhood like this as a minority Asian kid in latin gang neighborhoods. Some years later…they even extended this protection to my brothers. One time my brother told me he almost got jumped and robbed. A group of street kids saw him skateboarding by and they wanted to steal his skateboard and maybe even his money and shoes. But one of them said, “Hey, he kind of looks like Crazy Johnny.” My brother told them he was my brother and they went from threatening to friendly and let him go.
Finding more trouble
Breaking into cars.
Through skateboarding, I met 2 other skater friends…Daniel Geron & Kimo De La Fuiellez. These two are best described as also being troublemaking kids in the neighborhood. But they were nice folks, just trouble-makers. Together we learned to break into cars and rob them. You can point to any car in the street and I can tell you how I’d break into it. It’s a fascinating art & science if you can look past the illegal aspect of it.
There’s lots of strategy:
- Location – where the car is parked and how much people are nearby. You don’t always want isolation and quiet. Sometimes, just a bit of noise helps to mask the sound of you breaking windows and potentially setting off alarms.
- Type of car – certain cars are just easier to break in because of how their windows and doors are designed (easy to pry open), or their lock mechanism placement (easier to pick at).
- Likelihood of valuables – some cars are more likely to store more valuables. I’d SUV’s are the best target.
- Team strategy – trying to keep a lookout and be quiet can sometimes take forever. A simple smash and grab can work so much easier. Especially if you’re in a neighborhood with tons of little sidestreets to disappear into.
- Time of day – night can have less people around and easier for you to hide in the shadows. But it’s also when vehicles are less likely to have things in them.
Anyway, these are just some random examples for fun. You need more knowledge than this to be good at it. I really enjoyed the thrill of it.
My most evil heist was when we broke into a van and stole tons of boxes and envelopes. Turns out they were boxed gifts and envelopes of money, intended as someone’s birthday present. The van was parked outside a church. I do feel really bad about having ruined some good kid’s birthday.
Failed ice cream truck robbery.
There’s also a funny story of the time, I came home from school to see this weird little metal tool on the table. It looked like a thing metal pen with a small disk at the end of it. Like a pen-sized version of a pizza cutter. My mom told me it was my grandfather’s tool that he used for cutting glass earlier in the day. You should have seen the evil grin across my face when I heard it could cut glass.
I immediately thought of infinite possibilities with this thing. I no longer had to do noisy window-breaks, I could just stealthily cut through glass like the infamous Catwoman scene in Batman Returns movie.
I immediately took the tool with me that night and went out to our street in search of a target vehicle. My eyes landed right on our neighbor’s ice cream truck with huge glass windows. You should have seen how excited I was. I went over to it and after looking left and right to make sure nobody was around, I started trying to cut the glass.
Well….one thing I learned was that it takes tremendous skill and patience. You have to have a steady hand and keep rolling the disk over the part. Or else you won’t cut deep into the glass. Also the disk cuts very slowly (so as not to stress/break the glass). Basically, it can take a beginner probably half an hour to make a line.
I was probably there for an hour and still barely cutting a line. I was having a hard time running over a consistent line. And that’s when I heard my mom’s voice, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I freaked out and ran back inside sheepishly and just gave her the tool. She didn’t tell my dad and we both acted like nothing happened. Maybe she thought I was only being curious and playing, she didn’t know I really intended to rob that truck.
Getting kicked out of the house
All the other times, I had run away from home on my own accord…like when I got my first F. But this time was my first time getting kicked out of the house.
It was because I wanted to get a job. I was tired of my shitty $1/week allowance (that’s what I was able to get out of my mom). I wanted to be able to buy my own clothes, and games, and go out with friends. And basically be self-reliant. I was tired of being the poorest kid among my poor friends. Even they had money to buy snacks and food whenever they wanted.
I kept applying for a student job at school but they didn’t hire me. Somewhere on the street, I saw some paper on a telephone pole that offered a job for kids as well…but it did look a little shady. It claimed to be some sort of sales job. My parents let me apply to the school job but they didn’t like this one. (Rightfully so.)
And when my dad came to my room to say, “No, we’re not letting you apply for this shady sales job.” I was upset and cried under my blanket, refusing to respond or make eye contact with him. My lack of compliance really pissed him off to say the least. After trying to talk nicely to me, he just gave up and got super angry. It’s how he’s always been. If he can’t have his way, then he just explodes and uses anger as the ultimate trump card.
He was walking out of my room, opened the door while standing outside and suddenly exploded….“GET OUT!!!” yelling so loudly the entire house shook.
- My mom tried to calm him down. She yelled, “Nooooooooo!”
- But it was too late. My dad was already angry and nothing could calm him down.
- “GET OUT!! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
And just like that I got up and walked out. Once again…with nothing on me but my clothes and my house flip-flops, not even proper shoes. That night, I slept outside the house behind the stairs…and my 3 dogs slept on top of me to keep me warm. I am forever indebted to them for that. And will forever love and speak on the loyalty of dogs. I was homeless this time for about a week, same deal with my brothers sneaking me food and change of clothes, before my parents sent out the signal that my dad wasn’t mad anymore and it was safe for me to come home.
This whole running away from home was so inconvenient this time because it didn’t happen in the middle of summer, it happened during school. So I was going to school feeling dirty and not well-rested. And feeling ashamed even though my friends didn’t know it. It also made me learn to hate that my dad could just kick me out of the house anytime he wanted just by being angry.
But it was ok. I was soon going to be 18 and be free of this hellhole once and for all. I could almost taste my freedom coming.
Comfortable with defying authority
During one of the school days, I just didn’t feel like going to school. So I went all the way to my rooftop and hid my backpack there on our roof (it’s 3-stories, you can’t see it from the ground) and then walked around the neighborhood.
I decided to go to a store called RiteAid and steal batteries for my toys. I stuck the batteries in my pockets and as I was walking around the store pretending to buy stuff, the security comes over and grabs me. He took me to the back room and demanded that I gave my home phone number and address. He wanted to call my parents and have them come over, pay for the batteries, and pick me up.
But I was already getting comfortable with not obeying adults. I started coming up with excuses. I told him that I just moved to a new house and can’t remember my new address. And that I had a new phone number as well. Him and the store manager and other store staff kept saying, “C’MON STOP PRETENDING! GIVE US THE INFO!”
But I refused. I held out like a stubborn captive. And their “interrogation tactics” weren’t working on me. Hours passed. And finally, I said “I can’t. My dad will kill me if he finds out what I did.” One staff lady even tried to say, “Maybe he should kill you. Maybe you deserve to die because you’re a criminal.”
But right then and there they knew. That I was more afraid of my father than I was of them. And that I was never going to give them any info. They even considered calling the police but probably felt it unnecessary for a little kid stealing just batteries. After what seemed like days (in reality, was 8 hours). The security guy came in and said that the store manager told him to let me go. And so he did.
I went outside and walked the wrong way for a while to make sure it wasn’t a trap and they weren’t following me to see where I lived. And then I went home…so happy to have escaped so much trouble. I felt more and more confident in myself in dealing with bad situations. Perhaps even feeling invincible and more emboldened to try riskier things. I was, after all…the famous Crazy Johnny.