Gang Leader for a Day Read online

  I shut my mouth for a while, but some other men stopped by, and they were more talkative. I learned that the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) was indeed tearing down the Lake Park projects in order to build condominiums and town houses. Some residents were staying on as squatters, and the gang was helping them by pirating electricity.

  It was clear to me at this point that the young men I’d stumbled upon in this stairwell were junior members of a broad-based gang, the Black Kings, that sold crack cocaine. The older members explained that the gang was trying to forestall demolition but that it wasn’t a pure act of charity: When this building was torn down, they would lose one of their best drug-selling locations.

  Once in a while, I tried to interject a research question-What kinds of jobs did the people who lived here have? Why weren’t the police in the building?-but they seemed less interested in answering me than in talking among themselves about sex, power, and money.

  After a few hours, J.T. returned with a few other men, each of them carrying a grocery bag. More beer. It was late, and everyone seemed a little punchy. The air was stale, and some of the young men had been wondering when they might be able to leave. For the moment, however, the beer seemed to settle them down.

  “Here,” J.T. said, tossing me another bottle. Then he came closer. “You know you’re not supposed to be here,” he said quietly. He seemed to feel sorry for me and, at the same time, curious about my presence. Then he, too, began talking about the scheduled demolition of the Lake Park projects. He explained that he and his men had holed up in this building partly out of protest, joining the residents to challenge the housing authority’s decision to kick them out.

  Then he asked me where I was from.

  “California,” I said, surprised at the change in topic. “Born in India.”

  “Hmm. So you don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  “See! I told you this nigger was a Mexican,” said one young gangster, jumping up with a beer in his hand. “We should’ve beat his ass back then, man! Sent him back to his people. You know they’re coming around tonight, you know they will be here. We need to get ready-”

  J.T. shot the young man a look, then turned back to me. “You’re not from Chicago,” he said. “You should really not be walking through the projects. People can get hurt.”

  J.T. started tossing questions at me. What other black neighborhoods, he asked, was I going to with my questionnaire? Why do researchers use multiple-choice surveys like the one I was using? Why don’t they just talk with people? How much money can you make as a professor?

  Then he asked what I hoped to gain by studying young black people. I ticked off a few of the pressing questions that sociologists were asking about urban poverty.

  “I had a few sociology classes,” he said. “In college. Hated that shit.”

  The last word I expected to exit this man’s mouth was “college.” But there it was. I didn’t want to push my luck, so I thought I’d just keep listening and hope for a chance to ask about his background.

  By now everyone seemed fairly drunk and, more alarmingly, excited at the prospect of a gang war with the Mexicans. Some of the older men started talking logistics-where to station the gang members for the fighting, which vacant apartments could be used as look-out spots, and so on.

  J.T. dismissed their belief that something was going to happen that night. Once again he ordered two of the younger men to stay with me. Then he left. I returned to my seat, sipping a beer now and then. It looked like I would be spending the night with them, so I tried to accept my fate. I was grateful when they said I could go to the bathroom-which, as it turned out, was another stairwell a few floors up. Considering that water, and probably urine, were constantly dripping onto our own landing, I wondered why they didn’t use a lower floor instead.

  The young men stayed up in the stairwell all night, drinking and smoking. Some of them strayed out to the balcony once in a while to see if any cars had pulled up to the building. One of them threw an empty beer bottle to the ground six stories down. The sound of broken glass echoing through the stairwell gave me a fright, but no one else even flinched.

  Every so often a few new people came in, always with more beer. They talked vaguely about gang issues and the types of weapons that different gangs had. I listened as attentively as I could but stopped asking questions. Occasionally someone asked me again about my background. They all at last seemed convinced that I was not in fact a Mexican gang member, although some of them remained concerned that I “spoke Mexican.” A few of them dozed off inadvertently, sitting on the concrete floor, their heads leaning against the wall.

  I spent most of the night sitting on the cold steps, trying to avoid the protruding shards of metal. I would have liked to sleep also, but I was too nervous.

  Finally J.T. came back. The early-morning sun was making its way into the stairwell. He looked tired and preoccupied.

  “Go back to where you came from,” he told me, “and be more careful when you walk around the city.” Then, as I began gathering up my bag and clipboard, he talked to me about the proper way to study people. “You shouldn’t go around asking them silly-ass questions,” he said. “With people like us, you should hang out, get to know what they do, how they do it. No one is going to answer questions like that. You need to understand how young people live on the streets.”

  I was astounded at what a thoughtful person J.T. appeared to be. It seemed as if he were somehow invested in my succeeding, or at least considered himself responsible for my safety. I got up and headed for the stairs. One of the older men reached out and offered me his hand. I was surprised. As I shook his hand, he nodded at me. I glanced back and noticed that everyone, including J.T., was watching.

  What are you supposed to say after a night like this? I couldn’t think of anything worthwhile, so I just turned and left.

  As I walked back to my apartment in Hyde Park, everything seemed fundamentally different. Crossing from one neighborhood to the next, I speculated about gang boundaries. When I saw a group of people huddled on a corner, I wondered if they were protecting their turf. I had a lot of questions: Why would anyone join a gang? What were the benefits? Didn’t they get bored hanging out in stairwells-and how could anyone possibly stand the smell of urine for that long? The surveys in my bag felt heavy and useless. I began to worry about my relationship with Professor Wilson. He certainly wouldn’t approve of my experimental journey, done without his approval, and I wondered whether he would pull me off the project if he found out what I’d done. The voice of my father-a professor himself-entered my head. He had always given me advice about education. Throughout my college years, he stressed the need to listen to my teachers, and when I shipped off to Chicago, he told me that the key to success in graduate school would be to develop a good relationship with my advisers.

  I took a shower and thought about the rest of my day. I had books to read, papers to write, some laundry to do. But none of that seemed very significant. I tried to sleep, but the rest was fitful. I couldn’t get the previous night out of my head. I thought of calling someone, but whom? I wasn’t close with any other members of Wilson’s research team-and they, too, would probably be upset to find out what I’d done. I realized that if I truly wanted to understand the complicated lives of black youth in inner-city Chicago, I had only one good option: to accept J.T.’s counsel and hang out with people. So I headed back to the Lake Park projects to see if I could once again find J.T. and his gang.

  I wasn’t really scared as I walked north along Cottage Grove Avenue. A little nervous, certainly, but I was pretty sure that J.T. didn’t see me as any kind of a threat. Worst-case scenario? Embarrassment. He and his gang would ask me to leave or they’d laugh at my desire to get to know them better.

  It was maybe two o’clock in the afternoon when I arrived. This time I came bearing a six-pack of beer. There were about a dozen young men out front of Number 4040, standing around their cars.
r />   Some of them began to point at me. A few others were playing handball by throwing a tennis ball against the building. As I drew close, all of them turned to watch me.

  “You got to be kidding me,”I heard someone say. Then I saw J.T., leaning back against a car, smiling and shaking his head.

  “Beer?” I said, tossing him a bottle. “You said I should hang out with folks if I want to know what their life was like.”

  J.T. didn’t answer. A few of the guys burst out laughing in disbelief. “He’s crazy, I told you!” said one.

  “Nigger thinks he’s going to hang out with us!”

  “I still think he’s a Latin King.”

  Finally J.T. spoke up. “All right, the brother wants to hang out,” he said, unfazed. “Let him hang out!”

  J.T. grinned and opened up his bottle. Others came around and quickly grabbed the rest of the beers. Then, surprisingly, they all went back to their business. They didn’t seem to be discussing anything very pressing, nor were they talking about any criminal activities. They mainly talked about what kind of rims to put on their cars. A few of them took care of the drug customers, handing vials of crack to the people who walked over from nearby buildings or drove up in run-down cars. In the distance I could see a few churchgoers on a Sunday stroll. A handful of gang members stood guard in front of Number 4040, and after a time some of the guys hanging out near the cars relieved them.

  J.T. had a lot of questions for me: You always use those surveys? Can you get a good job after you finish with this research? Why don’t you study your own people?

  This last one would become one of his favorites. I felt a strange kind of intimacy with J.T., unlike the bond I’d felt even with good friends. It would have been hard to explain then and is just as hard now, but we had somehow connected in an instant, and deeply.

  I tried to act nonchalant when J.T. asked me these questions, but inside I was overjoyed that he was curious about my work. I had a feeling that I was talking to someone about whom most people probably knew little. I didn’t know exactly where our conversations might lead, but I sensed I was getting a unique perspective on life in a poor neighborhood. There were plenty of sociological studies on economically disenfranchised youth, but most relied on dry statistics of unemployment, crime, and family hardship. I had joined Bill Wilson’s team in hopes of getting closer to the ground. My opportunity to do just that was standing right in front of me.

  Every now and then, J.T. went inside the building to meet in private with someone who had driven up in a car.

  I played a little handball and, showing off my hard-won suburban soccer skills, bounced the tennis ball off my head a few dozen times. Some of the older gang members were curious about my identity, my role at the university, and of course the reason I had returned. They all looked as tired as I was, and it felt as if we were all taking some welcome comic relief in one another’s presence.

  In general, I said very little. I asked no “meaningful” questions- mostly about their cars, why they were jacked up so high and whether they changed their own oil-and quickly saw that this strategy might actually work. I had learned the night before that they weren’t very receptive to interview questions; they probably had plenty of that from cops, social workers, and the occasional journalist. So I just made small talk, trying to pass the time and act as if I’d been there before.

  When J.T. returned from a trip into the building, everyone straightened up a bit.

  “Okay!” he shouted. “They’re ready, let’s go over there.” He ordered a few younger members into the building’s lobby and motioned the others to get into their cars. He looked at me in a funny way. He smiled. I could tell that he was wondering what to say to me. I hoped he was going to invite me along to wherever they were going.

  “You got balls,” he said. “I’ll give you that. We have to run. Why don’t you meet me here next week. Early morning, all right?”

  This offer took me by surprise. But I certainly wasn’t going to turn him down. J.T. put out his hand, and I shook it. I tried again to think of something witty to say. “Yeah, sure,” I said, “but you’re buying next time.”

  He turned and hustled toward his car, a shiny purple Malibu Classic with gold rims. All of a sudden, there was no one left standing around but me.

  TWO. First Days on Federal Street

  I began spending time with J.T. We’d usually hang out for a little while with some of the more senior members of his gang, and then we’d go for a ride around the South Side.

  Although it would take me a few years to learn about J.T.’s life in detail, he did tell me a good bit during our first few weeks together: He had grown up in this neighborhood, then gone to college on an athletic scholarship and found that he loved reading about history and politics. After college he took a job selling office supplies and industrial textiles at a midsize corporation in downtown Chicago. But he felt that his chances of success were limited because he was black; he got angry when he saw white people with lesser skills get promoted ahead of him. Within two years he left the mainstream to return to the projects and the gang life.

  J.T. loved to talk about black Chicago as we drove around-the history of the neighborhood, the gangs, the underground economy. Like Old Time and the others who frequented Washington Park, J.T. had his own personal version of history, replete with stories about great gang leaders and dramatic gang wars. He took me to his favorite restaurants, most of which had their own lively histories. One of them, Gladys’s, was a soul-food restaurant where elected community and political leaders used to meet in private. Another marked the spot where two gangs once signed a legendary truce. J.T. always offered to pay for our meals and I, out of appreciation and a student’s budget, always accepted.

  J.T. once asked me what sociologists had to say about gangs and inner-city poverty. I told him that some sociologists believed in a “culture of poverty”-that is, poor blacks didn’t work because they didn’t value employment as highly as other ethnic groups did, and they transmitted this attitude across generations.

  “So you want me to take pride in the job, and you’re only paying me minimum wage?” J.T. countered. “It don’t sound like you think much about the job yourself.” His tone was more realistic than defensive. In fact, his rejoinder echoed the very criticisms that some sociologists applied to the “culture of poverty” view.

  J.T. and I often passed time together at a diner. He might sit quietly, working through the details of his gang’s operations, while I read for my sociology classes. Since he didn’t want to generate tangible evidence of his enterprise, J.T. didn’t write down very much, but he could keep innumerable details straight in his mind: the wages of each one of his two hundred members, the shifts each of them worked, recent spikes in supply or demand, and so on. Occasionally he drifted off, muttering calculations to himself. He didn’t share many details with me, but he did sometimes give me a sort of quiz.

  “Okay, I got something for you,” he said one day over breakfast. “Let’s say two guys are offering me a great deal on raw product.” I knew enough to know that “raw product” meant powdered cocaine, which J.T.’s gang cooked up into crack. “One of them says if I pay twenty percent higher than the usual rate, he’ll give me a ten percent discount a year from now, meaning that if the supply goes down, he’ll sell to me before the other niggers he deals with. The other guy says he’ll give me a ten percent discount now if I agree to buy from him at the regular price a year from now. What would you do?”

  “This all depends on whether you think the supply will be affected a year from now, right?” I said.

  “Right, so…?”

  “Well, I don’t have any idea how this market works, so I’m not sure what to do.”

  “No, that’s not how you need to think. You always take the sure bet in this game. Nothing can be predicted-not supply, not anything. The nigger who tells you he’s going to have product a year from now is lying. He could be in jail or dead. So take your discount now.”<
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  As fascinating as I found such conversations, I rarely took notes in front of J.T., because I didn’t want to make him cautious about what he said. Instead I waited until I got back to my apartment to write down as much as I could recall.

  We often met a few times a week, but only when he wanted. He would phone me to arrange our meetings, sometimes just a few minutes in advance. J.T. didn’t like to talk on the phone. In his soft voice, he’d tell me where and when to meet, and then he’d hang up. Once in a while, I didn’t even have time to answer that I couldn’t meet because I had a class-and then I’d cut class and meet him anyway. It was pretty thrilling to have a gang boss calling me up to go hang out with him. There were times I wanted to tell my professors the real reason I missed class now and then, but I never did.

  Occasionally I hinted to J.T. that I would really, really like to learn more about gang life. But I was too meek to ask for any kind of formalizedarrangement. Nor did he offer. Every time he dropped me off in front of my apartment building, he’d just stare out the window. I didn’t know whether to say “Good-bye,” “Hope to see you again,” or “Call me sometime.”

  One morning, after I’d been hanging out with him for perhaps eight months, J.T. said we’d be visiting a different housing development, the Robert Taylor Homes. I had heard of Robert Taylor; everybody had heard of Robert Taylor. It was the largest public housing project in the United States, about ten times bigger than the Lake Park projects, with twenty-eight drab high-rise buildings stretched along a two-mile corridor. It lay a few miles away from the U of C, but since it ran alongside the Dan Ryan Expressway, one of Chicago’s main arteries, pretty much everyone in the city drove past Robert Taylor at one time or another.

  “I’m going to take you to meet somebody,” J.T. said, “but I don’t want you to open your mouth. Do you think you can do that?”