The Old Neighborhood (50 page)

Suddenly, my father's massive hand slammed down on my shoulder and clutched my shirt into a ball. I turned to see his face. Pinkish splotches hazed around his pale skin at the cheeks like a spattering of clouds on the horizon at dawn. The stale gray light from the ceiling panels glared off his forehead. His lips curled into a frowning grimace and trembled under his thick white mustache. He'd put it all together—the blood on me from a shooting, and this nightmare the retaliation. What would have happened if he hadn't stopped me from getting into that Lincoln earlier that night? He knew it was the same TJOs that had taken his firstborn son from him years ago. Hooks dragged through my intestines. He yanked me toward him. Something snapped and clinked to the hard linoleum floor. He shoved me forward and through the door that led out into the hall. My sneakers felt like they stepped atop mush, and I heard Tonya's voice rise up again. “Quit it, T! Rose in dere! She might be dyin' right now!”

“Well, you shot yo own sista, mothafucka! How de fuck dat feel?!” T's voice twisted and followed me down the corridor like the blistering tail of a comet.

My legs felt loose, like two strands of cooked spaghetti. They just dangled and fell, one by one, in front of me.
Why? Why the fuck would he say that to me?
I cupped my heart where the wound was.
Why would someone say something like that to me? Why.
The nurses and doctors in teal scrubs rushed in all directions. We passed Ma at a payphone. Rich and his wife Nancy had arrived. They all spoke with urgency in their eyes.

“Stay with her,” my father spat at Rich as we rushed past. “And stay out of that goddamn waiting room.”

Rich nodded as his jaw dropped around his beard. He stared at me, at the blood.

Dad pushed me through the doors and out into the cool black air of the parking lot. My sneakers caught and scraped over the blacktop. The wind rushed up off the lake, cold, and sent a spray of goosebumps across my neck and face. When we got to the passenger's side of the van, he spun me around and shoved me against it. My back slammed into the side panel, and I felt the sheet metal give, then pop flat against my back. I looked down at the ground and waited for it. I hoped it would put me out cold and drive me deep into some black-tar abyss that would erase all of it. It never came.

“Get in,” he said flatly.

We pulled up in front of the house. The block was calm and empty. The trees rocked slowly in the wind.

“Go in there and pack a bag,” he said, looking straight ahead as he gripped the steering wheel. His knuckles bulged out like large white marble stones. I swung the door open and started to step down. “And say goodbye to that house, that's the last time you'll step foot in it.” He brushed the back of his hand across his lips.

I went in and packed a bag in the dark. I didn't know where I was headed. Dad switched to his pickup truck. A warm, throbbing tremble coursed through me, rising and surging like it would snap the wires at any moment, explode through my skin, and float up free.

I stepped out onto the porch and saw my block one last time as resident.
Guess I am the baddest kid on the block after all—
it only summoned a great wealth of sadness. I walked down the steps, turned, and looked back at the house. The old, gnarly siding, the wooden porch where I'd had my first real kiss. Suddenly, there was a hand on my shoulder. It was soft and strong. I turned and saw my father's trembling blue eyes.

“Ahh, Joe…. Ah, Joe…,” he said softly, his lips nearly motionless under his mustache. I felt that connection again, like when he'd told me about Lil Pat in the basement that night.

•

WE TOOK ASHLAND TO FOSTER,
cut over to Lake Shore Drive, and rode south. The small pickup rattled as gusts surged off the lake and got up underneath the small truck bed, lifting us up like we were riding the wind. The buildings slowly thickened, rose, and sloped upward. The lake was a black-gray glob swaying and peaking to the east. The moon was full and low on the dark horizon, emitting a brownish-orange glow that fluttered and flecked across the undulating surface of the water. Ahead was the Drake Hotel's gleaming, neon-pink sign. The John Hancock seemed to rise up straight out of it like an Erector set of cold steel and black glass.

We took Lower Wacker to the Dan Ryan and drove past Comiskey in that canyon-like valley. There were five lanes both ways with the Red Line tracks in between them. He never even looked my way. We drove on past the high-rise projects of the Robert Taylor Homes—all of them lined up like dominoes, ready to fall. The red smudge next to my belly button began to tingle. A lotta shit ran through my mind. I thought of Rose, and I thought of Angel. Then, I thought of Ryan and our .25, and the first day I held it in my hand so many years ago when I was still a little boy riding with Rich down at Maxwell Street—the deceiving weight of it; how my hand felt big around the squared-off, white grip enclosed around the spring-loaded clip and those five small rounds; its nickel-finish barrel; how the weight of the barrel was too much for the grip and made it want to point downward; how holding that pistol made all the fear in my 9-year-old mind disappear and marvel at all the potential right there in my hand; how it made me grin like I knew a joke no one else knew. Guess the joke was on me.

He shot her.
It was an accident, but Ryan shot my sister. The wires cut deeper into my mind. My skull slowly filled with blood.

I realized it was over. The TJOs would never survive losing Mickey, Wacker, Fat Buck, and Ryan to murder raps. No matter what guns the bullets were traced to, each of them would eat the three counts. Ryan might get out in four years when he turned 18, or they might charge him as an adult. Either way, it was over. I thought about the neighborhood without them—without the trouble that followed them at every step. The street numbers on the exit signs rose. A northbound Red Line train roared past, rattling up a spray of sparks, then it was gone and left just the sway of traffic and the burnt-orange, ever-present light that stained the concrete.

“Somebody told me something the other day,” I said, looking to the side out the window. “Said you started the TJOs.”

Just then, Da swept in through my open window with the street lights. He swirled around in the cab and slid over our shoulders and kept our arms and hands from moving. Da swallowed all the rage that was there in that truck.

I could almost hear Dad thinking as he shifted and gripped the wheel. Many years later, he'd put those thoughts to words. By then, I was a grown man with a family of my own, but now they just floated and swirled with Da in the cab of the pickup between us. I leaned against the door with my arm resting on the ledge. The wind poured in through the half rolled-down window and splintered my slicked-back hair. The streetlights approached slowly, then darted past in my periphery like so many sunsets.

‘I started Bryn Mawr after Devon broke up… It was different back then… Back then, it was about protecting the goddamn neighborhood so your grandmother wouldn't get mugged walking home from the grocery store. There were drugs around back then, sure, but nothing serious; a garbage bag of rag weed, a couple sheets of acid, a few stolen cars—small time, you know? Kinda stuff kept food in your kid's mouth when you were laid off. Back den, it was about street fights—maybe someone gets hit with a ball bat. There were guns back then, too, but you didn't go shooting into a crowd of people! You wanted somebody gone, you go in and get 'em. Get it done right—close enough to be sure, bury 'em in the fucking alley… I hand it off to Ganci and Kellas, and they want to run it like a goddamned syndicate. Collecting from the businesses on Clark Street… Come on, that's not what dis was about. I tell him 'no.' Tell him he's got to change the name... TJOs, the judge in that juvie court was right. That's all they are: a bunch of jag offs… And what they did to those black kids at the school; it was wrong. Then, heroin comes in, lays the entire North Side on its back, from Uptown to Howard Street. And these little jags think they're big dealers. They're selling that crap to each other, can't they see that? It's gotten so there ain't no neighborhood left to protect. It's gone… Tearing my family apart. It's over.'

He didn't say none of it. Not a word of it. He just glanced over, reached out, and gripped my shoulder with his calloused, brittle hands.

“I love you, son.” It was the first time he'd said it that I could remember.

I looked him in the eyes, then I looked ahead and squinted. One healthy tear rolled down from my eye. He didn't see it. “I love you, too, Dad.”

We took 90 towards the Skyway. It was empty. I looked across at the flat and slanted rooftops that floated past at eye level. I could see the Skyway Bridge—it loomed ahead like a steel-framed mountain. Then, my father's voice broke the silence.

“We're selling the house. You're gonna stay up at Grand Beach 'til we get this all sorted out.” He paused. I said nothing. “We've been looking out in the suburbs, near your Aunt Cindy.” He looked straight ahead at the bridge he'd spent years building and rebuilding. They'd been planning it for months, with the trouble Rose and I'd been getting in, knowing there was no doubt we'd soon be locked up with Lil Pat or dead if they didn't get us away from the city. It was their last chance to save us. Their only chance.

We creaked to a stop at the toll booth and strange Middle Eastern music leaked into the cab of the truck. I looked over, and there in the booth was the Assyrian—five years older than the last time I saw him dead on those green tiles in the pharmacy. There was no wound, no scar—no sign of any harm or hardship. He'd cleaned up, wasn't gangbanging no more. There were family photos in the booth with him—children. He did have children. The Assyrian sang along to the joyful, flowing, rhythmic whine. He grinned and gave my father the change.

“Thank you, sir. You guys have a nice night,” he said with almost no accent.

Dad waved, and we pulled off. I glanced through the back window as we rolled away. The Assyrian watched us go. He looked me in the eyes with a pleasant smirk on his lips and waved goodbye. I waved back. All the wires that'd twisted so tightly around my heart and mind for so long, something sliced them, and they fell away. I sighed, turned forward, and whispered, “Goodbye.”

It wasn't the Assyrian, of course; it was just another person who deserved to live.

My throat ached as we began the steep ascent. I thought of Hyacinth, and I knew I should let it be, let it go. I thought of Ryan and Angel and Rose and Lil Pat. I felt for my crucifix, but it was gone. Then, I looked out off the bridge at the steel mills and silos that towered beside us; their burnt-orange lights in the windows blazed like lit torches. A pack of seagulls disturbed by the windstorm soared in the light. I glanced back from where we'd come from. A murky, purple nebulous cloud hovered over the city, and the street lights pierced the haze in tiny gold dots like baby stars. I gazed out at the lake. The shoreline arced and spanned out northwest and northeast to the horizon. Then, it vanished into the vast black void of the night sky, and I wasn't scared anymore. I thought about the neighborhood, and I wondered what life would be like in the suburbs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I met my wife the same day I started writing this novel. Enid, you fanned my flames from the absolute beginning. I wouldn't have made it here without your love fortifying my life. Thank you.

My family: I apologize if any of the characters resemble you in any way. These characters are not some twisted opinion of or vendetta against you. These characters are monsters who live in a dark world and do strange things. I forbid any child in my family under the age of 18 from reading this book. Also, if you can't comprehend the concept of a fictitious memoir, stop reading now and don't pick it back up until you can. I love you all, you've all give me tremendous gifts that I am truly in awe of.

I was diagnosed with learning disabilities as a child. Brother Peter Hannon and St. Joseph High School taught me that hard work and focus overcomes all. You changed my life, Brother. I want to thank the Elmhurst College English Department and Ron Wiginton, who inspired me and acknowledged I had something and gave me the tools to pursue it. Thank you, Chicago Boxing Community and the Chicago Golden Gloves, you opened the doors to sacred places both physical and spiritual that changed me very deeply and you showed me the world.

Thanks to Fred Burkhart and your Underground for the deep upwelling of inspiration you gave me. I want to thank Marty Tunney, who picked me out of the choir. Thank you Marc Kelly Smith for helping me find myself on stage. Thanks to the Columbia College Fiction Department staff and the Story Workshop Method for supplying me with the tools to take my work to the next level. Thank you Johnny Brown for believing in me and giving me so much. Thanks to Thom Jones for the help and inspiration. Thank you Nichiren Daishonin for giving me and the world the tools to change our destiny. I want to thank my dear friend Jacob Knabb who believed in the novel from the beginning and chose it for publication. Thanks to Victor David Giron and his beautiful publishing house, Curbside Splendor. I want to thank Leonard Vance and Naomi Huffman for their excellent work in editing this book.

Thank you, Irvine Welsh for your friendship and taking the time from your insanely busy schedule to read my manuscript with care, and for working closely with me on re-writes. You are one of my heroes. It was an unreal honor.

Thank you to the haterz, all the people who stood in my way. Karmically speaking, you may have given me more than anyone else. Please keep being the petty, malicious, people you are. No, but really, I wish you all well and hope you find happiness.