Love is The Thing (an excerpt)
It was two summers ago. Back when my life didn’t make no sense, when I didn’t know if I was coming or going. I knew racism was still alive, like some monster that refused to die. Racism lived and breathed on both sides of the line.
The summer of 2012 was hot as hell. That was great because the weather in the Chi had been so jacked up for the last few years previous. Winter seemed to wanna hang on longer than normal. Back when I was a little shorty, as soon as March hit, you used to hear the birds singing and having in flight battles, they were so excited about spring. But lately the hawk was out until at least April and them birds were mute as hell. Didn’t make no sense.
When spring did show up, it would be gone in a flash. Then summer and fall would roll in one right after each other. Maybe that’s why there was so much strife in the last few years? Maybe that’s why the rest of the world started to call us Chi-raq, cause we had all this pent up frustration due to lack of sun and warmth. I don’t know for sure.
But that summer came in like a drunk man at a house party, loud and knocking shit over. We loved it. But with that heat, more brothers was out and about, just hanging and that’s when bad shit jumped off.
It was a Thursday and surprisingly the block was chilling. No body was loud and starting nothing, just laid back. Our neighborhood was South Shore.
It used to be a Jewish community back in the forties and such. The black folk who chased out them Jews, was hard workers and they kept the houses up and in-tact. Honestly, if somebody rolled down the street and no one was out, you wouldn’t even know it was a black hood. Each block, from 79th to 67th from Stony Island to Yates was tree lined with houses as big to have four to six bedrooms. Hell, Jesse Jackson even lived in a secluded section of South Shore called the Jeffrey Highlands.
Some parts felt straight up suburban. But in the end on Friday or Saturday nights, shots would ring out, and it didn’t matter if the houses was big and there was trees and shit. It was Chicago. And being Chicago it was only a matter of time before some gangster ass shit was about to go down.
I sat on the stoop of my father’s two flat on 72nd and Merrill. I squinted my eyes against the hot sun. I was hanging with my best friend, Bryan and his brother Troy. I didn’t like Troy at all. To be honest, he scared me. He looked like some demon. He was black as hell and since he smoked Swishers all day, his eyes were blood shot. He had a widow’s peak hairline and pointy ears. He looked like a straight up vampire. He was three years older than us and still lived at home with their moms. He put in some hours here and there at UPS down on Roosevelt, but mostly he just hung around the hood still gangbanging like he was 14 or something. Bryan didn’t look like Troy at all. I’m sure they had different fathers but Bryan never admitted it. He was a bit shorter and the color of a brown paper bag. The girls at CVS where we went to school would stare into his hazel eyes and purr.
Me?
They just walked on by like I was a street sign or something. My momma, when she was around, used to say that she didn’t marry my daddy for his looks but for his heart; and since I looked just like my daddy, I had better find a girl that wasn’t shallow and caught up in looks and such. My momma used to say all types of stuff that when you really thought about it, made you feel like you was two inches tall.
It turns out that Bryan was a little scared of Troy too. Bryan would stay out of Troy’s way on weekends when he would be drunk as shit, cussing and hyped up about one thing or another.
Bryan was cool but he could get real quite and sad sometimes. Like somebody just sucked the life out of him. He would just sit on the stoop and stare up the block like he was waiting for something.
Bryan was my man from back in grammar school. We fought together, whenever the Mo’s would get rowdy at school. He would be the first to round up all the Folks to get they ass back in line. I guess I was a de facto Gangster Disciple since I grew up in the same hood as them. It used to make sense but as graduation was getting closer, I drifted more and more. My head just wasn’t in it anymore. Bryan was getting deep into it. I think he could feel my drift so he was getting clingy. We both had the same issues on our heads and that was at 18 years old, what exactly did the world have for us? We would wonder that if the world didn’t wanna give up dreams and hopes and shit, then how exactly were we supposed to get it?
On the stoop we was throwing out cusses and threats to one another. It was all in fun. As long as you didn’t go in on Troy too hard, he wouldn’t beat your ass. So I never talked about how black and ugly he was. But I did talk about them red ass eyes.
Bryan and I were tag teaming him when Pookie from around the corner came running up the block screaming about one of the white dudes that moved in on Chapel was around there tripping on the crew. Pookie told us the white dude called them all a bunch of niggas. Troy jumped up and ran over there, Bryan and I followed. It didn’t sound right that a white dude living in a black neighborhood would scream out nigga. Even dumb ass yuppies got more sense than that. But who knows?
Things had been bubbling for a while with white people trying to take over the neighborhood again. Some of the old heads down at the barbershop called it gentrification. They said it started with Bronzeville, Woodlawn, and now South Shore. Hell, my cousin had told me they were talking about building a Whole Foods on 63rd street in Englewood. Ain’t that some shit? For years, Englewood didn’t have nothing but them funky Arab stores, with they wilted lettuce, spoiled meat and bad ass attitudes. Now as soon as white folks move in, the city wanna give the green light to build a super store with fruits, veggies and fancy cheese.
That was the part that pissed people off the most. When it just be brothers in the hood, city hall ain’t got shit for us. Now that white folks come with their golden labs and poodle dogs, jogging around like this shit is the North side, then all of a sudden they got money for some shit.
What got to me the most, personally, was the fact I be having to watch my back right up the street from where my grandmother was born, as if I don’t belong over there. If I go past certain streets, some blocks be a no go if you ain’t in they clique.
But, white people?
Them motherfuckers just be jogging through like they Teflon, like they know, nobody bet not touch a hair on their angelic heads or else the governor himself gonna push the button and blow all our black asses away. That shit would get me heated.
So, when we came around the corner we saw this white BMW slanted in the middle of the street. It had metallic rims and the license plate read “Dr. Law.”
I wasn’t sure if dude was a doctor or a lawyer or if he was just trying to be funny and he wasn’t either.
The crew, look like twenty of them was around the car. The driver was this white man that had moved in to Mrs. Johnson’s old house. It was a two story brick joint. He had taken off the green metal shades and had it tuck pointed to lighten it up. He even cut down the bushes and planted new grass. The fact that it looked better, made me super mad.
The white man was in a panic. He was trying to get the hell out of there, but folks weren’t with it. They was blocking him as he tried to move back and forth. There was kids as young as ten up to about twenty. Tremaine and Carl, two knuckle heads that would steal cars, drive the shit out of them and then simply put ‘em back exactly where the stole them from, put their hands on the BMW’s hood. Tremaine’s fat ass was going in. Banging the hood and screaming about whitey go home. Bryan and I stood back on the curb. Bryan had his arms folded and was chill. Troy had taken off his shirt; his jet-black skin was slick with sweat. He was thin as a rail but strong as shit. He looked like a jungle cat ready to jump in on some prey.
“Hey! What the fuck,” he called. All the lil homies turned toward the sound of his voice.
“Watch that honkey. He gonna run ya’ll asses down.” The crew took a collective big step back. Pookie spoke up,
“So this motherfucker come out the crib on ten. Tripping because Carl was leaning on his car. Carl was like that shit shouldn’t be in our hood no way. They get to arguing back and forth. White dude jumped in the car, I guess he thought he was safe or some shit. He rolls the window down and calls us all a bunch of niggas.”
“Word,” Bryan said.
“Word. I heard it.”
“Carl and Tre was probably trying to steal his shit,” I interjected.
Pookie looked at me like I had two heads.
Just then the car leapt forward and knocked Tremaine to the ground. He screamed like somebody shot his ass. The white dude got this wild look on his face; his eyes were wide as wheel covers. He picked up his cell phone and with his shaking hands tried to make a call. All the crew jumped onto the curb and oohed and ahh'd. Carl bent over Tremaine
“This motherfucker hit Tre!”
Pookie screamed, “hell naw.”
Without saying a word, Troy went over to Mrs. Thomas’ yard next door and picked up one of her decorative stones. That shit had to be twenty pounds. He was non-chalant as hell and walked right up to the passenger side of the car. Dr. Law gazed out the window with this look on his face like a surfer about to get crashed by a tidal wave. Troy held the pink stone over his head. His body stretched out like black taffy. He looked 7 feet tall. He brought that stone down and through the window.
Smash
The crash shook the block as we all ducked. The white man balled up to protect himself from the shower of glass. Troy pulled the door open and reached in.
My heart jumped into my throat. Even though Troy hadn’t been drinking, he had his crazy face on. Last time he got it was on a Vice Lord from Chatham. He left a pool of blood on the corner of 79th and Evans. They said it took ten stitches to close the gash over dude eye.
“Troy gonna kill that dude,” Pookie laughed.
Bryan ran over and helped Troy pull Dr. Law out. Law fought like a wild man, clawing at the seats of the car and screaming at the top of his lungs.
Pookie ran over and helped grab Dr. Law by the head and all three started going in on the man. His head flopped side to side with each punch. The side of his face grew beet red. Some of the lil homies got in some kicks. The rest had out their phones recording the beat down. This shit was gonna be on World Star before the streetlights came on.
I was frozen.
I didn’t know what to do. It was like a mini-civil war broke out inside of me. When I heard about the ‘nigga’ being used, I wanted to beat some ass. I felt a lot of frustration about a lot of shit and I wanted to take some of that out on somebody. The white dude seemed like the perfect target. Now seeing my boys fuck him up, I wasn’t sure anymore.
Troy slammed his knee into the side of his head and a stream of blood started to pour down his face. Bryan pulled his arm way back and slammed his fist into Dr. Law’s left eye. It made a squishing sound like an orange smashed on the concrete.
Just then Mr. Moore from the corner house called from his porch for them to stop and to leave that man alone. Troy paused and they all looked toward Mr. Moore.
Dr. Law took off like a sprinter. He pushed his way past some lil G’s and was off the block in the blink of an eye.
Troy shook his head and threw his hands in the air and let his arms flop down and smack the sides of his legs.
“Why ya’ll let him go?”
“Let’s get his ass,” Pookie called.
Tremaine was up and hopping around
“I’m a fuck his ass up!”
Troy raised his hand in the air and brought it down swiftly and the crew was after the white man like dogs un-leased from their cages.