Sept 29th, 2008
Since the age of three, Tyler Pitts had been in the California foster system after his mother decided drugs were more important. The day she abandoned him at the Health and Human Services office and signed away all rights to him, Tyler was placed in a foster home where his future “brother,” Nestor Wallace (now known as BRADDOCK) was also placed. They remained in that group home in Fresno for the next nine years when they were both sent to a home in Stockton.
About the age of eleven, Tyler and his brother began to rebel, they began skipping school, drinking (whatever they could steal from their parents and/or shoplift,) and very quickly, fighting. By the time they were fifteen, they both had dropped out of school and had each spent almost two years in a “boys home.” In reality, it was a juvenile home made to look like a college campus. Lots of landscaping, a pond, a tennis and a couple of basketball courts, as well as the Dormitory which was built in the Sixties and modeled after a medieval castle.
It was in the boys home that they discovered their artistic talent. Where there’s a will there is a way and they quickly moved on to learning how to tattoo. They were both released within a couple months if each other and, soon after, ran away from their group home.
They crashed on couches of friends who's parents were either sympathetic to their plight or, more common, weren’t around to kick them out. They both obtained their G.E.D.’s in the boys home and became gainfully employed; Tyler worked for a landscaping company while his brother got on at a wrecking yard. He stripped cars of anything valuable whenever they got a new wreck in. It was here where he learned how to work on cars.
For the next three years, the brothers worked their jobs while tattooing out of the studio apartment they eventually shared. It was during this period that they also got into lifting weights. They both can say, with pride, that they have never used steroids. Tyler is solid but not as bulky as his brother and never was.
BRADDOCK has loved to fight since his first fistfight he had ever been in. Nothing got him high like fighting and he has tried just about every pharmaceutical high he could trying to recreate it. But nothing compared to fighting. Every punch, every kick, whether he delivered it or was on the receiving end, flooded his brain with endorphins.
He started out fighting other kid’s his age in the backyards of abandoned houses around Stockton. Kimbo Slice was HUGE at the time and BRADDOCK wanted that same notoriety. While he may not have achieved national notoriety he did become well known in and around Stockton. His fights moved from backyards and into abandoned, foreclosed homes and/or dive bars who were trying to make a little extra dough.
Tyler was behind his brother the whole time. He set up the fights, helped his brother train, and took care of his cuts and bruises after the fights. He also dealt with payments and took a twenty percent cut for his own. And, even today, Tyler manages his brothers business.
On this night, BRADDOCK had just won a fight that was held inside of an empty swimming pool in the backyard of a foreclosed home and Tyler was collecting his winnings. He was counting the cash to be sure they weren’t cheated when he hears someone yell his name. When he rushed over to there the kegs were standing in kiddie pools of ice, he finds his brother unconscious on the ground.
BRADDOCK collapsed after taking a whippet, Co2 inhaled out of a balloon, and passed out. He fell and nobody tried to catch him. When Tyler arrived at his brother’s side, he finds him with a fresh knot on the back of his head. Blood blooms like a red rose on a piece of gauze taped above his left eye and Blood weeps from a scrape on the side of his head; all damage he received in his bareknuckle fight just minutes ago.
Tyler kneels beside his brother and shakes his shoulder, bringing BRADDOCK out if his brief slumber. He barks out laughter and wraps his hand around the back of Tyler’s head. He pulls his brother in and kisses him on the cheek. ”I fuckin love you man!” he bellows and they break out into laughter.
The music was so loud that nobody heard the “whup-whup-whup" of the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s helicopter as it approaches. But, laying on his back, BRADDOCK saw the blinking green and red lights on the skids of the chopper and, when his eyes narrow to try and concentrate on the lights, Tyler follows his brothers line-of-sight. He eyes widen when he sees the lights and he helps his brother who is already scrambling to his feet.
Tyler follows his brother through a hole in the yards fence and into the alley. They quickly hop the fence across the alley and just in time, too, because three squad cars turn into the alley and begin creeping towards the party just after the duo clear the fence. They scramble across the backyard and exit out a side gate before ending up in a cul-de-sac. The spotlight on the chopper cuts through the dark and Illumina the backyard the duo just fled. The overhead lights of nearly a dozen squad cars explode into flashing red-and-blues. Over the p.a. on one of the squad cars, and officer gives instructions to the party goers but they, for the most part, don’t listen and scatter like roaches under the helicopters spotlight.
The brothers walk with their heads down. ”You ok, bro? You got rocked a couple times…” he asks, concerned.
”Yeah,” he says with a laugh. ”That guy hit like a bitch! He only split my eyebrow because we butted heads. I said I was gonna beat his ass….”
”And you did…”
Friday, Sept. 22nd 2023
The camera opens on BRADDOCK who is sitting on a picnic table. He sits on the table part with his feet on the bench. He is wearing a pair of cut-off black Levi’s and a “Cheech and Chong" tank top featuring the duo driving the ice cream truck in their classic film, “Nice Dreams.” His Mohawk is on point and his eyes are shielded from the sunlight with a pair a thick, black framed “Spy" brand sunglasses.
”Again I am bein used to punish some f(bleep!)kwit over something has nothin to do with me. A couple weeks ago it was that tubby bitch and, now, S.C.W.’s answer to Lamar from ‘Revenge of the Nerds.’ I don’t know the guy, Hell, I’ve never seen one of his matches. I even followed the guy on Twitter, or ‘X,’ or whatever the f(bleep!)k you wanna call it. I follow him on there and didn’t even know it was him!
Now, I'm not sayin that as a knock against him….I probably don’t know who two-thirds of the people I follow on Twitter. But, when I found out it was him that I’m facin, I had to laugh. I’m gettin paid good money to beat the sh(bleep!)t outta people I don’t even know! To be honest, I can’t think of a better gig.
H.B.C., I got nothin against you. But I’m still gonna beat your ass like you stole somethin from me almost the same. We are in my hometown, where I was born, where I was left to fight and fend for myself since my first breath. I know you would like this win…but I don’t think it’s in the cards for you.”
From a small black plastic bag resting next to his feet, BRADDOCK produces a package of Twinkies and sets them on the table top next to him. He also pulls out a Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboy and pops the top. He guzzles four gulps from the can before letting out a rumbling belch. He sets the can of beer next to his right foot before he suddenly, and violently, smashes the package of Twinkies with his left hand. His fist causes the cream filled sponge cake to explode out of the plastic wrapper and across the wooden tabletop.
”I f(bleep!)kin hate Twinkies! I’m more of a Ho-Ho guy, myself. See ya soon, Slim…” he says while shaking his hand and flinging bits of sponge cake and cream to the ground before picking up his can of beer. He chuckles to himself as he walks off camera. ”I’m gonna f(bleep!)k you up…”
