Ready, Set, Go!
From Skateboards to Muscle Cars — Growing Up in Los Angeles
Apollo Franco’s thin, long fingers grip the leather steering wheel while the tires of his midnight-blue Ford Mustang screech and form a cloud of smoke. Dozens of people, mainly in black and white clothing and baseball caps, gather around the spinning sports cars while Nipsey Hussle’s songs blast from the booming speakers. The energy is high and the temperature is low somewhere in Mid City Los Angeles on a Friday night when the crescent moon shines on the glossy coats of the cars.
Franco’s eyebrows furrow while he skims the open pavement to calculate his movement and space with the people inching closer to record it all on their phones. Just a few feet away from Franco’s Mustang is Vincent Luna’s obsidian Dodge Challenger, which is matching the speed of Franco. Luna glances at the crowd and at Franco with a bright smile on his face revealing dimples on his cheeks. The clouds of smoke start to cast a veil around the parking lot making it hard to discern the silhouettes of the crowd. The crowd’s screams become rowdier when a white Camaro and gray BMW pull up behind Franco and Luna, engines revving. Franco’s green eyes glance at the rearview mirror and he smirks a bit while he mutters, “Fucken Tony and Benji.”
Later, Franco’s 2016 Mustang V-6, Luna’s 2014 Challenger SXT, Antonio (Tony) Guerrero’s 2012 Camaro LS, and Benjamin (Benji) Castro’s 2012 BMW 335is roll up next to a green Mexican food truck in Koreatown. After staying at the car meet for around an hour, they all decided to leave early when it got too packed and rowdy. This is the first time they are getting up from their leather seats after a couple of hours of being behind the wheel. They all dap each other up while talking about the car meet and staring at the menu.
Guerrero adjusts his black LA cap and says, “That dumbass in the white Toyota ‘86 was pissing me off man! He kept getting too close to every car.” Luna chuckles and responds, “Why do you think his shit is all fucked up from the sides?”
Castro goes up to get his carne asada burrito and tamarindo-flavored Jarritos before telling Franco his order is ready. Franco makes his way to his car with some tacos al pastor and a large horchata. He leans against his car and Guerrero starts cracking up while telling Luna, “Look at Franco’s dry-ass tacos. He never puts any salsa on them.” Franco clicks his tongue and says, “Shut the fuck up, you always say that shit.”
Luna starts to reminisce about the times they were teenagers skating around Koreatown. “Remember that one stand we used to always go to after skating a few blocks down from here? The quesadillas were fucken good.”
“Remember when Tony ate shit trying to eat while jumping the stairs,” Franco comments after sipping on his horchata.
“Man, fuck you!” Guerrero says in between bites.
“Damn. That was a while ago, huh?” Castro says to them and they all nod in agreement.
“Good times, huh?” Luna asks.
“Good times and bad times,” Franco responds while looking down the empty main road.
Franco and Luna are cousins who ended up living at each other’s houses for some periods during their childhood. Luna and his mother, Sonya Flores, lived with Franco’s family in a one-bedroom apartment in Koreatown when Luna was seven years old. Luna and Franco became close during that time when they would play Super Mario Bros on the Game Boy and Street Fighter on the PlayStation 2. Eventually, Luna and his mother moved out, but they would visit Franco’s house often over the years. Luna and Franco would watch Spider-Man films, the Dragon Ball series, and scary films like Paranormal Activity while eating peach rings and Little Debbie treats.
When Luna reached his early teenage years and Franco was a pre-teen, Luna brought Franco the film Lords of Dogtown to watch on his PSP. After they watched the film several times, they asked their mothers to buy them skateboards to learn how to skate. They watched skateboarding videos on YouTube to learn how to do tricks such as pop shove its, kickflips, backflips, and crooked grinds. Franco mentions, “It was cool seeing how many stairs I could jump. I remember practicing every day.”
“We would spend hours trying to increase the number of stairs we could jump over and we had lots of videos of our failures and successes,” Luna adds.
Sonya Flores recalls, “These boys were crazy. They still are actually, but they would come home at night with bruises, cuts, dirty clothes, and shoes that would wear out too often. I knew it was dangerous for him to be around other kids who would just go out to skate in the streets. I worried about him, but I had to work two jobs to pay for rent, so I could not be observing him all the time.”
Flores was not the only mother who was worried about her child’s whereabouts or safety. In fact, hundreds of other teenagers in Los Angeles would go out to skate in the streets.
The early 2010s was the time when skateboarding was at its peak for their generation. Teenagers started to grow out their hair. They would wear a lot of beanies and skating brands such as Vans, Nike SB, Emerica Baker, Girl, and Thrasher shoes and clothing. This was also around the time when the skating figure, Steven Fernandez, rose from the streets of Compton to fame in Los Angeles. He gained attention from skating brands, famous figures, and teenagers, especially girls. He became known as “Baby Scumbag” after partnering up with Dirty Ghetto Kids (DGK) and was also known as “Lil Cloud.” He was associated with the brand Honey Co. and DGK gear. Some of the gear included the design of a Cup of Noodles or the face of Fernandez on a Tapatio bottle because he liked eating that.
The skating community that watched videos of professionals like Paul Rodriguez on YouTube to improve were focused on growing their skills. It was a time when everybody wanted to be a skater, Guerrero and Castro included. The two grew up together, attending the same schools and pursuing the same interest. Castro says, “Tony and I would always play tag, soccer, basketball, and other games with some kids from the apartment in the parking lot and we suddenly started seeing a lot of skaters passing by the gates more often. We ended up watching some cool videos of guys skating on Instagram and we decided to give it a try.”
Guerro says that at the peak of the skating scene, local skate parks were always packed and it was rare for 10 minutes to pass by without seeing someone staking down the street. “We would bring our boards to school where they ended up becoming banned because the school hated skateboards, but we loved them,” Guerrero recalls.
With Franco living in Echo Park, Guerrero and Castro living in East Hollywood, and Luna living in Koreatown, they were all bound to end up crossing paths while skating the city streets. They all eventually met at a spot near Staples Center where a spacious and usually empty flight of stairs attracted skaters from all over. “We ended up being chased by a few security guards who were fed up with skaters skating near there,” Luna recalls, his smile revealing his dimples.
“We didn’t know our way around downtown since it was sketch as fuck, but we saw Tony and Castro who looked sure of where to go to lose the guards so we ended up following them,” Franco adds.
“I remember thinking who the fuck were these guys following us, but we were more worried about the angry guards,” Guerrero comments, letting out a goofy laugh.
Castro recalls, “When we were sure we lost them thanks to Tony, we ended up smoking weed together before eating Yoshinoya. Tony knew his way around these streets so he’s always the person we follow when we are being chased. He even knew what buses and subways to take to go somewhere. He was hella rowdy, though, when people on the streets would insult us.”
Franco chuckles before saying, “That shit was funny, especially when they would try to call the cops on us or chase us. Benji and Tony were cool though because Benji would film videos of us and another homie of theirs back then would edit our videos.”
“We still skate together or by ourselves, but not as much as we used to,” Franco admits.
When they got their licenses and their first cars, they discovered a new level of independence that became part of their identity. Before Franco’s parents separated, his father used to take him to American Muscle car shows and races when he was a kid. He used to cruise with Franco in his 1971 Chevrolet Camaro and blast rock n’ roll music. In his childhood home, Franco had dozens of toy cars and there were models and pictures of American Muscle cars on the walls and cabinets. His dream car is a 1974 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.
Castro grew up close with his uncle who was into the Lowrider culture popular in East Los Angeles and his uncle would take him on cruises and bounce on the streets. Both Guerrero and Luna mention that they were most likely influenced by the shows and films they would watch about racing cars. “I think many kids grow up liking toy cars and they like the idea of going fast. A movie that was also really cool to watch was The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,” Guerrero adds.
“Paul Walker was cool as fuck. The first few movies from the series were cool so that probably influenced us when we were younger, but we could never actually ride like them when we were younger,” Luna says.
These young men no longer have long, shaggy hair and are no longer covered in fresh bruises and wounds. They all do, however, have a few scars on their legs and arms that seem to be fading. Now, they have fresh fades, buzzcuts, clean clothes, and expensive shoes like Jordans that are taken care of to keep them looking new. Now, their mothers grip the handles on top of the windows and pray while they are in their sons’ cars. “We don’t need to go to any roller coasters when the scariest one is being in the same car as him,” Flores says, laughing.
Something that has not changed is their smoking habits. The strong scent of weed in Franco’s car is proof of that.
The lights of the liquor stores, laundromats, and food stands are blurry, probably from going over the speed limit on the streets in Franco’s Mustang at around 9 p.m. The other day, they did some burnouts in an empty parking lot near downtown, but it was not a huge event for just anyone to come. “Mostly now, we like to cruise around. I feel like we have mellowed down a bit. After all, we are older ya know,” Franco, now 23 years old, the youngest one of the group. Luna is the eldest of the group at 26. Both Guerrero and Castro are 24 and their birthdays are just three days apart in October.
It’s cool to race and you get that adrenaline rush that makes you feel like you’re in an action movie you would watch growing up, but sometimes we take a step backward to ask if this is helping my future out.
The guys are all gathered on the beige couches in Castro’s childhood home in East Hollywood eating diced fruit that Castro’s mom, Esmeralda Avila, serves them. They are talking car crews and why, despite their love of car culture, they haven’t joined one.
“I feel like they make their crew their whole life and we got other things going on. We still value education and financial stability, and we want to give back to our mothers and family, especially since many of us are the only male figures at home or are the eldest ones,” explains Castro, eating a piece of mango. “This is fun, but we know we have to work for the future we want to have. We need to be focused and consistent with our goals.”
Guerrero, holding a piece of melon, laughs and shakes his head. “We knew people who went to the takeovers on the Sixth Street bridge, but we’ve been arrested too many times, so we weren’t tryna get caught. We have gotten a few speeding tickets and have gotten our cars taken away by the police, too.”
“Shut the fuck up. You just ain’t slick like that,” Luna laughs, before adding, “But, yeah, it’s cool to race and you get that adrenaline rush that makes you feel like you’re in an action movie you would watch growing up, but sometimes we take a step backward to ask if this is helping my future out.”
“You’re going to have to sell that Challenger for a minivan soon anyway, huh?” Guerrero asks the soon-to-be-father, Luna. “I’ll still beat you in a race with that minivan, you fucker,” Luna responds to Guerrero, and they all have a good laugh.
Castro’s six-year-old little brother, Xavier Castro, walks up to the coffee table the guys are sitting around and grabs a piece of mango in one hand while he holds two Hot Wheels cars in the other hand. Guerrero ruffles Xavier’s hair and asks him, “You wanna race cars like us, too?”
“No, I wanna be a police,” Xavier responds.
“Aw, nah, he wanna ride with 12,” Guerrero jokes and munches on some watermelon.
Xavier looks at Guerrero with a puzzled look in his big brown eyes while he eats mango. “It’s all good, little man, as long as you don’t give me any tickets alright? We cool,” Guerrero bumps his tiny fist and laughs.
Xavier goes to the living room and comes back with his box of toy cars. Everyone takes a car from the box and races them on the wooden floor to see which one reaches the farthest. Franco gets a Firebird, Luna a white Corvette, Guerrero a green Camaro, and Xavier an orange Chevelle. They placed their cars on the floors making sound effects for the noises while Xavier counts down: “Ready… Set… Go!”
