There Are No Children Here (36 page)

It wasn’t just her home that was crumbling; the neighborhood was too. It all was the perfect metaphor, LaJoe thought, for what was happening to her spirit.

Henry Horner now had 699 vacancies, 188 more than last year, further fueling speculation that the city had plans to tear down the complex to make way for a new stadium. In the high-rises west of Damen, the CHA discovered it was missing heating
coils in every single building. Without these small pieces of metal, none of the apartments could be heated come the cold weather. And the early spring wading pool, which was formed by an open fire hydrant immediately in front of LaJoe’s building, became a bottomless gulch. A boy playing by its side waded a few feet into it to retrieve a ball. Seconds later, he disappeared from sight. He had fallen into an uncovered sewer opening that was concealed by the muddy water. Luckily, some young friends pulled him out. After the near drowning, the CHA called the city for a new manhole cover. It took three months. In the interim, the maintenance staff rolled a trash container on top of the opening.

Last July, the Miles Square Health Center, which was founded in 1967 with federal funds in response to organized community pressure, declared bankruptcy. It now appeared it would fold for good. A combination of forces had killed it. In the early 1980s, Illinois cut back its Medicaid payments to doctors, so agencies like Miles Square, which served a large Medicaid population, limped along underfunded. Also, there had been allegations of mismanagement. With both Miles Square and the Mary Thompson Hospital closed, residents were forced to use the Cook County Hospital, where waits to see a physician were so long that many people packed lunches for their visits.

Hull House considered discontinuing a first aid care team at Horner. It kept two medical technicians at Horner twenty-four hours a day to respond to emergencies. But it was becoming dangerous. There were too many shootings and robberies. Also, Ralph Garcia, who had run a corner market called Little Joe’s for eleven years, just picked up and left. No one knew why, though in recent months he’d been frustrated in his efforts to protect his store from robbers. The police had confiscated two handguns, a .38 revolver and a .380 automatic, which he kept for protection. Though he monitored the small, two-aisle store with a camera and microphone, he had estimated that he lost between $25 and $50 a day in shoplifting. Ralph had been particularly friendly to LaJoe. When she had the triplets, he gave her extra boxes of Pampers free.

And the Boys Club’s indoor swimming pool, which had been reopened and rededicated on February 27 after nine years of inoperation, was having troubles. The very night that Mayor
Eugene Sawyer cut the ribbon to dedicate the renovated pool, the ventilation fans on the roof were stolen. The thieves presumably sold the aluminum to a scrap yard. By the summer, the pool’s underwater and overhead lighting, as well as the locks on the doors leading into the pool, needed fixing. In August, the club would have to close the pool down again, because it lacked funds for the necessary repairs. During the hot summer months, at least, the children still had the outdoor pool at nearby Union Park.

The only evident new wealth in the area were two buildings three blocks south of Horner. The structures stood out like two rose bushes in a field of weeds. The building at 1759 West Adams was a contemporary, red brick, four-story apartment complex with a three-car garage. Just across the street was the one building, though, that caught everyone’s eye: a two-story, recently renovated single-family home with a garage large enough to house eight cars; it also had a solarium and a $20,000 television satellite dish on the roof. There had been talk about what might be inside, but even the most vivid imaginations couldn’t do it justice. The house was magnificently furnished. Gold faucets in the bathrooms. A marble staircase and Persian rugs. A wood-trimmed fireplace. A Steinway piano. And a finished basement with sunken tub and Jacuzzi. The owners, Jonathan and Clara Penney, allegedly ran a vast drug network in Illinois, Michigan, and Iowa. They purportedly sold cocaine and heroin. On April 5, federal authorities seized the Penneys’ property, which included seven other pieces of real estate and ten cars. They did so under a law that permits such seizures if there is evidence that the property and goods were used in, or acquired through, criminal activity. Few at Horner knew the Penneys, though they had envied their lavish digs from afar. It was here, in fact, that a year earlier LaJoe, at the insistence of Lafeyette, had inquired about renting one of the Penneys’ new apartments. She didn’t even bother to view one after she learned the rent. It was more than her entire monthly payment from Public Aid.

Pharoah and Porkchop ran up the three flights of stairs. Out of breath, they banged on Dawn’s door.

“Who is it?” Dawn hollered.

“Pharoah and Porkchop,” Pharoah hollered back.

She let in her cousin and brother. The two boys often came to visit Dawn, who since graduation had continued to live illegally in the building. In recent weeks, though, Dawn had been so depressed that she occasionally pretended she wasn’t home. So the boys were glad when she came to the door.

“You got any quarters, D’won?” Pharoah asked, hoping she might be able to provide him and Porkchop with some change to play video games. Dawn shook her head. Pharoah and Porkchop lingered.

Pharoah admired and respected Dawn, but he couldn’t understand why she still lived at Horner. Why she hadn’t left? After all, it was nearly a year since she had graduated from high school and now she was attending a two-year college. Why was she still hanging around the projects? “That don’t make sense,” Pharoah would tell his mother. “When you moving?” he’d ask his cousin. Lafeyette, too, was puzzled. “She should move,” he’d urge. Dawn had placed her name on the housing authority’s lengthy waiting list. Public housing was all she could afford, with her four children. It bothered Lafeyette and Pharoah. Here was their family’s one success story—hell, they used to brag about her to friends—and she was still living in the projects. Dawn began to feel that she was failing her family.

Since her graduation from Crane and the party at LaJoe’s, it had been a struggle. She still lived with her boyfriend, Demetrius, but they had postponed getting married. Neither had a job, so they couldn’t afford the money for rings or for a wedding. Dawn had been unable to find work. She hoped to find a retail job and had filled out applications at numerous clothing stores, including the Gap, the Limited, the Foot Locker, and Marshall Field. She also applied for a job with the county. But nothing materialized. She remained on public aid, receiving each month $452 in financial assistance plus $277 in food stamps.

Dawn’s apartment was sparsely furnished. The living room was bare except for a battered stereo. She and Demetrius shared a mattress on the floor with a color television at one end. They were saving up for the box spring. Their four children shared two beds.

Despite these difficult times, Dawn continued to maintain a close-knit family. To Patricia Johnson, a former Horner resident herself and now a counselor with a YMCA-sponsored
group called West Side Future, which provided guidance and aid to young mothers, Dawn seemed an unusually responsible mother. Patricia had first met Dawn two years earlier, when Dawn was having trouble at home and had considered dropping out of school. Like LaJoe, Patricia encouraged her to continue. Dawn sought Patricia’s advice often. Over half the young mothers Patricia worked with were on drugs. They had, Patricia would say, given up on themselves. Their children’s fathers had deserted them. Some of these women, in fact, had turned to other women for support and love. It made perfect sense to her. Whom else could they turn to?

But Demetrius was an attentive and loyal dad. Patricia would often see him in the playground with one child in each hand and another on his shoulder. He baby-sat for the kids while Dawn took classes in business administration at nearby Malcolm X Community College. His friends kidded him about being such an upstanding father. They jokingly called him “the nanny.” This was a big turnabout for him. As a teenager, he had been a member of the Disciples and had spent a short time in the county jail. He had stolen cars, shoplifted clothes, and had occasionally wielded a pistol against rival gang members. He still has the gang’s insignia, a pitchfork, tattooed on his left biceps. Now, though, he took care of the children and repaired cars to help supplement Dawn’s income. Having children had slowed him down. He no longer hung out with the gangs.

Dawn and Demetrius never let their children out of their sight. Dawn read to them in the evenings or, when she could afford to, bought them Mother Goose tapes to listen to. Patricia bought her books when she could. Now, she was trying to help Dawn get an apartment outside Horner. Patricia, like Pharoah and the others, wanted desperately to see Dawn make it.

Pharoah and Porkchop glanced at the cartoons on TV. Dawn’s four children were gathered at the end of the mattress, entranced by the animation.

“What you do at college?” Pharoah asked his cousin.

“You pick your own days to go to school and pick your own credit hours,” Dawn told him.

“What are credit hours?” Pharoah asked.

“Each class is three credits.”

“What if you pick four classes?”

“You get twelve credits,” Dawn patiently explained.

Pharoah pondered that for a moment, then beckoned to Porkchop. “Let’s go,” he said. The two waved to Dawn as they walked to the front door. It made Pharoah sad that Dawn hadn’t gotten very far. It worried him to think that even if he made it through high school, he’d still be stuck in the projects. It worried him a lot.

“When you gonna get a job?” Pharoah asked.

“I’m trying,” Dawn replied.

As Pharoah walked out the door and down the long dark hallway, he turned around as if he’d forgotten to tell Dawn something. “Have a nice day,” he called out. It had become one of his favorite expressions. “Have a nice day.”

Summer 1989

Twenty-six

   
ON FRIDAY, May 19, LaJoe and Rochelle taped the last of the streamers to the walls; the narrow strips of crepe paper crisscrossed the living room like tangled vines. Balloons hung from the ceiling and bounced unfettered on the floor. Party hats and party favors lay on the table, which was covered with a paper cloth adorned with Disney cartoon characters. A gold crown, also made of paper, sat to the side for the birthday boy. Eleven candles circled the strawberry shortcake, which read:
I LOVE YOU. FROM MAMA AND ROCHELLE
.