There Are No Children Here (22 page)

8 packs of sausages

12 dozen eggs

6 loaves of bread

8 packages of hot dog buns

10 packages of hamburger buns

3 gallons of milk

6 gallons of orange juice

2 gallons of apple juice

4 six-packs of fruit juice cartons

6 packages of sliced American cheese

12 boxes of cereal, including oatmeal and grits

24 cans each of ravioli, Campbell’s soup, peas, carrots, mixed vegetables, applesauce, creamed corn, whole corn, baked beans, spaghetti, peaches, fruit cocktail, tomato paste, and tomato sauce

24 boxes of corn bread mix

4 packs of hamburger patties

14 round steaks

2 canned hams

7 packages of chicken

4 packages of pork chops

8 pounds of ground beef

20 packages of hot dogs

4 pot roasts

2 pounds of veal

4 packages of beef liver

10 packages each of salami and bologna

4 packages of ham

5 packages of frozen perch

2 boxes of frozen fish sticks

4 packages of cookies

4 packages each of doughnuts and Danishes

6 boxes of spaghetti

12 boxes of macaroni and cheese

6 cans of Spam

14 cans of sardines

and assorted fresh vegetables, including cabbage, onions, carrots, lettuce, collard greens, tomatoes, and potatoes, as well as sugar and seasonings.

As a special favor for Lafeyette, she had bought some cans of oysters, which he loved to eat with just a touch of hot sauce. For Pharoah, she bought ripe pears. For all the children, to celebrate the restoration of her benefits, she bought apples, grapes, plums, peaches, and Popsicles. The treats would all be gone within a few days.

Lafeyette and the triplets raced out of the building to help their mother carry in the bags of food. Timothy grabbed two containers of milk. Tiffany and Tammie rummaged through the bags for the sweets. Lafeyette, who was growing taller and stronger, picked up two heavy sacks, teetered for a moment, and then walked back toward the building. Where was Pharoah? LaJoe wondered. He always showed up to help. She had told him she was going shopping. Maybe he forgot. That was just like Pharoah to forget, she thought. Daydreaming again. Oh, that Pharoah. Still, she wondered where he could be.

Three blocks south of Horner sits a condominium complex called Damen Courts. Its manicured lawns and graffiti-free walls seem immaculate next to the rubble of Horner. The three-story red brick buildings look elegant and proper beside Horner’s grim and worn high-rises.

Pharoah can’t recall when he first discovered this small paradise, but when he did, he retreated regularly to the comfort of
the lush lawns that circled the buildings. He was there when his mother returned from shopping.

The grass carpet offered a quiet resting place; it was like going to the beach. Pharoah found a shady place on the lawn and shot marbles or read a
Captain America
or
Superman
comic. Or, if the mood fit him, he just sat and daydreamed. He thought about school and next year’s spelling bee. He urged on the Chicago Cubs and imagined himself a professional wrestler. It was at Damen Courts that he came up with the name for a scraggly gray cat that was now staying with the family: Useless. “He hardly don’t catch no mice. He just want to freeload off our heat,” he explained.

Pharoah had long sought such a refuge. For a few months last spring, he’d attended Bible classes at the First Congregational Baptist Church. Washington Boulevard was lined with churches, but most of them now served people who had since moved from the neighborhood. Churches had lost their authority in areas like Horner. Pharoah grew bored with the classes and began to question whether there was indeed a God. He often prayed to him, asking that he let them move from the projects. But, Pharoah would say, “I be praying but he don’t do nothing. Maybe there ain’t no God.” It was as much a question as it was a statement.

At Damen Courts, Pharoah found some respite. No one knew of his discovery, not his mother, his cousin Porkchop, his friend Rickey, or Lafeyette. He wanted it that way. He wanted a place that he could escape to by himself, where nothing would interrupt his daydreaming, where no one would try to fight him, where he didn’t have to worry about gunshots or firebombings. When his mother asked where he was going, he said to the corner store to play video games. He didn’t want anybody to know about his hideaway.

In the weeks immediately following Jimmie Lee’s conviction, an unusual calm descended over Horner. Several other gang leaders had been jailed. The drug dealing and beatings didn’t stop, but they certainly slowed down in comparison with the relentless battles of the previous summer.

With fewer shootings and a reprieve from some of the family’s troubles, Pharoah’s stutter became less noticeable. In later months, it would recur, but never would it get so bad that
it would immobilize or silence him as it had during the past year. LaJoe had taken Pharoah to the Miles Square Health Center, where a counselor urged Pharoah to slow down when he spoke. Think about what you want to say before speaking, he told Pharoah. The stuttering is partly due to nerves, he explained. Pharoah was bewildered. “What’s it got to do with nerves?” he later asked his mother, who did her best to explain that when people started fighting and shooting, he got nervous and scared and would begin to stutter. It acted as a kind of warning mechanism to himself to be vigilant and cautious. Pharoah understood. He always seemed to understand—when he wanted to.

With the uneasy calm, Pharoah found other distractions in addition to Damen Courts. He and Lafeyette frequented the outdoor swimming pool in Union Park, four blocks to the east, and in this large pool filled with flailing bodies, both boys learned to swim. They also regularly visited the Boys Club to play basketball or shoot pool or to get free sandwiches, which had become endearingly known among the children as a “chokes.” Or they might just hang about their building, playing basketball on the jungle gym or wading in the permanent pool created by the fire hydrant. Sometimes Red, a small man in his fifties who lived in their building, would ride around the high-rise on his adult-size tricycle with presents for the neighborhood children stuffed in his basket. He found the used gifts in trash bins or behind stores. He’d give the little girls plastic necklaces and metal pendants; the little boys got tennis balls. To LaJoe and the other mothers, he presented gladioli and daisies which, in their late bloom, florists had thrown away. Over the years, Red had become like a year-round Santa to the building’s kids. The triplets in particular adored him, and on his arrival on his tricycle could be heard screaming, “Red, oh, Red! What it is, Red?” as they ran up and surrounded him and gave him hugs in exchange for the presents.

Pharoah continued to badger Lafeyette and Rickey and any other older friend he could corner to take him back to the railroad tracks, which he remembered for the quiet and solace he’d found there. But no one would take him. The stories from last year of lost legs were still fresh in their minds. And now there were exaggerated children’s tales of “raper mans” and other
loonies hiding in the buildings by the viaduct. So, with the older boys’ refusal and his own fear of what he might meet at the tracks, Pharoah spent more time at his private sanctuary.

He stayed on the lawn at Damen Courts until a security guard or janitor shooed him away, but he always left happy and satisfied. Being there for even an hour gave him a chance to catch his breath, to find the tranquillity he treasured.

On this particular afternoon, after his mother had finished putting away the groceries, Pharoah wandered through the front door, his head cocked slightly to one side. “Where you been, Pharoah?” his mother asked.

“Nowheres,” he said, turning away. It was hard for him to lie, especially to his mother.

“Pharoah?”

Pharoah thought about telling her but didn’t. “I been playing video games with Porkchop,” he said and walked back to his room.

In later weeks, he finally confided in his mother about his discovery. “My mind be cleared of everything there,” he told her.

Fall 1988–Winter 1989

Sixteen

   
IN THE INTERVENING MONTHS, Lafeyette and Rickey had become friends or, in Lafeyette’s word, associates. Closer in age, they seemed a more likely pair than Pharoah and Rickey. LaJoe speculated that Lafeyette first started hanging out with Rickey because he wanted to keep a close eye on Pharoah. But Rickey and Lafeyette took a liking to each other.

Rickey introduced Lafeyette to some of his friends, many of whom had been in trouble with the law. A group of them, including Rickey, had been arrested regularly for what was
known as “smash and grabs.” They smashed the windows of cars stopped at the traffic light on the corner of Damen Avenue and Lake Street and then grabbed jewelry from the motorist or snatched a purse or valise from the passenger seat. It had become such a troublesome problem at Horner that the police had assigned two young plainclothes officers to watch for the thefts. Rickey had also been picked up for stealing a car. The police caught him and a friend driving it around Horner’s parking lots; Rickey could barely see over the Cadillac’s steering wheel.

Rickey had been arrested at least half a dozen times and was known by all thirty officers in the Thirteenth District’s tactical unit. “By the time he’s eighteen, he’ll be dead or in the penitentiary,” one cop prophesied. They had once found two bullets in his bedroom—which they searched after Rickey’s mother gave them permission. And Rickey’s close friend Terrell had been picked up for possession of a zip gun that was constructed from a toy plastic pistol.

Because of Rickey’s troubles at Suder, he had been sent to the Moses Montefiore School, a school for troubled boys. It enrolled 152 children from throughout the city and provided them with individual counseling and special instruction. No class ever had more than eight students, compared with as many as thirty at Suder. Most of the students had behavioral problems and tested at two to six years below grade level.