Homeage To A Homeboy -- Gang Member's Tribute To A Deceased Friend May Be The Start Of An Art Career

By sheer size and force of emotion, the graffiti-art piece can't help but dominate the exhibit. The black that drips off and envelops the word "Gage" seems to separate and protect it from the circle of fiery red and orange that surrounds it. In the background is a cross, inscribed, "R.I.P."

This is Alailima Tagoai's powerful homage to a deceased friend. The late George Fossi was a member of the Mad Pak street gang, to which Tagoai still belongs. On the street, Fossi was "12 Gage," because of his attraction to guns and the havoc they wreak.

Of all things, it was leukemia that struck down Fossi. He went quietly, surrounded in a hospital room by his grief-stricken Mad Pak homies. Recently, Tagoai saw "Icky" take a .38-caliber bullet in the chest. Another homeboy, "Charlie," was stabbed in the back of the neck. Neither had as profound an effect on him as the comparatively silent passing of "12 Gage."

Fossi's death and the developments that ensued helped show Tagoai, as his mentor, Dean Williams, a local illustrator, put it, "the possibility of making a living, instead of a dying."

It was, after all, Tagoai's art, included in an exhibit at the Pacific Arts Center at Seattle Center through Sept. 29, that caught the eye of Bruce Clark. His Clark Productions was conducting a search for a graffiti artist. A client, M'otto Enterprises, had expressed an interest in using graffiti in one of its display and sales booths at a major men's sportswear show in Las Vegas this week.

"After seeing the piece, I knew right away he'd be ideal," Clark says. "It looked like art; it didn't look defacing. It had integrity."

At Williams' suggestion, Tagoai was commissioned to do the work for M'otto, one large panel and six smaller ones. He also designed a silk-screened T-shirt that M'otto is distributing at the show.

More than a career breakthrough, the job could have life-changing ramifications. Most of Tagoai's $3,000 in fees will go into a trust fund, to which Clark Productions and M'otto are contributing an additional $1,500 apiece. If Tagoai graduates from high school, the trust will be used to pay for his college education.

"Before this, I never even thought about going to college or even finishing high school," says Tagoai, a senior at West Seattle High School. "Now I've got a purpose. And I don't want good money to go to waste."

Mark Dellplain, M'otto's creative director, says, "What we like about this is that we can actually affect the life of someone, and we know exactly who that person is."

For those who don't, Tagoai's street name is "Olde E," a reference to his since-lapsed affinity for a certain malt liquor. He is an engaging, innately intelligent, soft-spoken 17-year-old who unsuccessfully tries to conceal a smile that might soften an otherwise menacing facade. Fists of fury and a can of spray paint just happened to be the most convenient means of expressing his anger and sense of hopelessness, as well as slaking his thirst for attention.

Though an actor in the increasingly violent drama that is being played out on the streets of inner-city America, Tagoai doesn't seem to fit the part.

"He's really not like that," says his girlfriend, a junior at West Seattle High. "If you get to know all of them (gang members), it seems like none of them are like that."

"He's dependable and hyper-intelligent," Williams says. "The stuff he knows, you don't learn in school - not at that age."

His, rather, are the lessons of a fast-forwarded life. Born in American Samoa, Tagoai now lives in West Seattle's High Point housing project with his father and stepmother. His natural mother and sister live in Hawaii, and a brother attends college in Arizona. He says he has siblings spread across the country to whom he has never been introduced.

Tagoai's start in the street-gang lifestyle was a fortuitous one. The Mad Pak gang began as a loose affiliation of neighborhood friends who hung out and drank, looked out for one another and occasionally got into fights. The influx of organized gangs into High Point prompted them to follow suit, inserting Tagoai into a violent, illogical dead-end cycle.

"We might fight Crips one day, and that goes on for maybe a week," he says. "The next week, we fight someone else one day, and that goes on for a week. Then, the next week we might go back to fighting the Crips again. It's like a cycle, and there's no real reason behind it."

Not, for instance, like the act of whipping out a can of spray paint and tagging names and designs on a wall. Tagoai first tried it when he was in the fifth or sixth grade. Then, he sprayed giant letters as tall as he, and kept going until the word spread 10 feet in width.

"Ala," it read.

"I just did it so other people could see my name," Tagoai recalls. "The other kids were into it. They liked it. It's like art - to me, it is."

But his are fleeting expressions. Most of Tagoai's creations, which have dotted the city, have been painted over.

Until his piece was hung in the current exhibit, Tagoai never had seen any of his artwork a second time. The ode to "12 Gage," and the work he's done for M'otto, have a quality of permanence that Tagoai enjoys.

"It gives me a chance to do pieces legally," he says. "I don't have to worry about the police, the lighting or the weather. I can just concentrate on my art."

And the future.

Tagoai is taking a full load of classes at West Seattle. Several credits short of true senior-year standing, he also has enrolled in four night-school courses. Once he catches up and graduates, he wants to study art, probably at Seattle Central Community College.

This new direction is increasingly at odds with the dangerous path Tagoai has blazed through High Point. For once, he is pondering the consequences of his actions and decisions.

"I think about it all the time," Tagoai says. "With the gangs, it's kind of like who's going to get who first. Right now, I could go up and say I won't want to be in the gang anymore. People think it's easy, but it ain't. It would make me an easier target for the other gangs. Plus, my homeboys are like my family. I could never leave them."

Then again, George Fossi did. And homeboys like him do it all the time. Usually, by death do they part.

As a recent interview ends, Tagoai asks for a few, final words.

"I just want to say rest in peace, 12 Gage," he says.

Maybe now, he can.