| Palm Springs Lofts |
Previous Chapters can be read by clicking on the above Archives.Prologue
The wind was blowing down Broadway off of Lake Michigan like a fan inside a refrigerator, strong, silent, and freezing cold. Gary Indiana’s steel mills had been a warming source for these strong, sometimes gale force winds, for several decades. Many of the mill’s open-hearth furnaces have since been silenced and their fires extinguished. Many businesses that had located on Gary’s main street, Broadway, are now closed. Broadway is now a funnel emptying its cold windy contents onto anyone who is brave enough or so determined that they would challenge its power.
The early settlers of Gary did a good job of laying out Gary’s downtown streets. The streets just seemed to splay out of the steel mills like fingers from a palm. The main thoroughfares were named and built like most cities, in a grid pattern, with Broadway as its epicenter. The streets to the west were named after U.S. presidents, in the order they had served, starting with Washington.
To the east of Broadway they were named after individual states, and streets running horizontal to Lake Michigan were avenues in numerical order starting with First Avenue.
Gary, once a prosperous city, has begun to fall on hard times.
Several steel mills had once sat on the southern shore of Lake Michigan and for years they had employed several thousand workers.
A workforce made up by many nationalities and races that had moved to Northwest Indiana with hopes of finding work in one of these mills. For several decades there was plenty of work for everyone and the pay and the life it supported was a good one. This held true until the dreaded sixties arrived.
That was the decade that started Gary’s downturn. The employment situation deteriorated quickly as the steel mills began to have massive layoffs. The reduction of the workforce continued until most of the mills were operating with only a minimum staff. Lacks of orders caused by a staggering economy were responsible for many of the smaller mills closing. To find other work many the white families started moving out of Gary. Leaving the downtown or what was then known as the “District”, mostly populated by black and Hispanic families, and fewer white families who could not afford to move or just would not leave the home they had occupied for years.
Street gangs, composed of young adult blacks and teenagers who either had lost their jobs or just couldn’t find one, slowly began to rule the streets of Gary’s downtown. Stores, which use to be thriving businesses, closed leaving Broadway and its adjacent streets in ruins.
Driving down Broadway after dark was as if you had crossed into another dimension. On many nights not a soul could be seen walking in the downtown area.
If driving through, a white person knew better then to stray too far off of Broadway. Numerous stores either had their windows boarded up or gated with steel bars. Street lighting was now minimal at most. Several of the light poles were now nothing more then big grey steel sticks bearing the remnants of tattered signs of some long ago would be politician. Their bulbs had burned out several years ago and had not been replaced. If they were fixed they would only be broken out again within days.
Gary, as had been reported in the Federal Bureau of Investigations
Uniform Crime Report, was the murder capital of the United States. More people were murdered in Gary, percentage wise, then in any other city in the United States. If these statistics, along with the reported drug stats, were accurately gathered, Gary also was one of the largest drug distribution centers in the Midwest.
In the midst of all this children were being born and raised by many parents who had no opportunity to find much needed work to support their families. Many children and young adults were left to wander the streets and exist as best they could.
Their homes became the street corners and for many their vocation became drug dealing and prostitution.
Eventually the money being earned just to exist became money to be used for the nicer things in life, such as fancy cars and big flash rolls.
The Family Street Gang composed of black drug dealers, thieves, and killers, with its ruthlessness, got its foot in the door and took control of Gary and its streets.
This story is about two black kids raised in Gary during this period of time. It is about their lives and their downward spiral into drug dealing, murder, and prison.
Chapter One: Business is Good
Twenty-five blocks south of the lake, on Broadway, was the center of most of the drug activity in Gary and Lake County. It was said that more drugs and narcotics were peddled on this one corner in one hour, than anywhere else in the Midwest. The drug-dealing operational center was a phone booth at the corner of Twenty-fifth and Broadway.
It was a winter night and the wind was howling its way through Gary’s deserted streets as if it was looking for the warmth of another steel mill furnace.
Two lone figures hunkered down next to the only telephone booth that still worked on Gary‘s south side. The telephone company had decided long ago that it was useless to try to repair any telephone booth that was not inside a building or protected by the lights of a nearby business. In Gary drugs were now considered a major industry and where else could you score a few dollars to buy your drugs so easily than a phone both. A nail puller or even a claw hammer could do the job, a quick pry down and out, and the coins would just tumble out onto the filthy alcohol and urine stained floor.
The two black men were doing everything they could to stay out of the freezing wind, but their efforts to use the phone booth, as a windbreak wasn’t working very well.
Most of the phone booth’s windows were broken out, but it still served its purpose, it was Jimmy and Jerld’s office. As long as the phone worked they would be there. Not only were they using the phone booth as a windbreak, they also were making sure that no one damaged “their” phone.
Regardless of the wind, snow, freezing rain or the heat of the summer, their business depended on them being there to answer the phone when it rang. Their job depended on a working phone; each ring was to them like a cash register bell, bringing in more money. They understood very well that to exist on the streets of Gary, money and bullets were the only conversation everyone understood. The night’s business had been unusually slow but it was soon going to pick up.
This corner was like a lot of the neighborhood corners in Gary. Everywhere you looked regardless of direction, you could see boarded up buildings. Except for an aging mission for derelicts and the homeless, located across the street, there were no other buildings lighted for several blocks.
This now rundown area had been a vital and busy section of Gary only a few years ago, with numerous mom and pop storefront businesses.
Now the buildings looked as if terrorist had set off a bomb knocking out every pane of glass within eyesight.
Vacant buildings, like old soldiers, stood watch over the streets with their drapes, like shoulder epaulets, flapping out the second story windows.
Their deteriorating and dilapidated condition and the vacant lots scattered with beer bottles, cans and used condoms had turned this once thriving business corner into a no man’s land.
It was a December night and Northwest Indiana was its usual sub-zero dumping ground for winter’s angry ice and snow. The rap, rap, rap sound of car tires was all that could be heard as they slipped and slid down the ice covered streets.
Suddenly the two lonely figures stood erect as a car slowed and Jimmy whispered “Business.”
Jerld and Jimmy had been standing on their corner for about fifteen or twenty minutes when they saw a carload of honky kids drive slowly by. The driver made the usual pass trying to get up his courage and also to trying to decide if the two black men standing on the corner looked like they were dope dealers.
Jerld didn’t mind this ritual car dance that all the younger kids did.
He knew if he looked as if he expected them to stop and then gave them the flash, a hand in and out of his front pocket quickly, that they would summon up enough nerve to stop.
Jimmy hated these drive-bys for two reasons. One, he always suspected it might be a rival dealer out to put his competition out of business with a shotgun barrel out the window and a couple of shots and no more J & J.
Reason number two was he hated whites and whites were the ones who always had to do the drive-bys first before they stopped.
He would always say to Jerld, “I ain’t no fucking animal in the zoo to be stared at.”
Jerld would just smile and say, “You can leave and I’ll take their white-assed money. It all spends the same.”
Jimmy would growl, and then as he was paid to do, he would look up and down the street making sure there were no cops or anyone else nearby to interfere with their business.
This carload of white kids was not familiar to Jerld or Jimmy. They had a lot of whiteys that were regular customers. They would come to Gary from the surrounding counties, and Jerld and Jimmy had got to know some of them as good customers. They also could recognize some of their cars, which was very important in their line of work.
This was an older faded Pontiac and it had Kentucky license plates.
Jerld wondered what these Cracker Kids were doing on the south side of Gary.
Whites only came here to collect the Black Wheel Lottery payoffs or to buy dope.
Jerld thought to himself, “If them kids get on the wrong street tonight they will be a nice target with their white skin and what looked like two young blond ladies in the back seat.”
He felt sorry for some of his customers. They would drive up in their fancy cars and would want to buy some “Coke” or “Smack.” They acted and thought they were cool the way they would dicker for the price.
“Hell this is the seventies now, not the sixties, the Smack, (heroin) he sold was what was called salt and pepper. It was cut and diluted so bad that you had to do several “Dimes” or a couple of “Quarters” to even get a runny nose, but the kids didn’t know that. They just wanted to get high.
So they just kept coming back time and time again.
It was good for business, but Jerld still had a goal, he wanted to be known as the dealer with the best and the most. If and when that ever happened he would then be able to deal quantities, and would be living on easy street for the rest of his life, with a lot of nice “Bitches” and nice “Rides.
The white kids in the Pontiac returned and started to pull up to the curb. Jerld motioned to them to drive around the corner and park on 25th.
They did, and a young male in the passenger seat rolled down the window as Jerld walked over and leaned in. The driver was holding a sawed off shotgun, and it was pointed right at Jerld’s nose.
The passenger said, “Don’t move your black ass one inch or your dead.” Jimmy had moved away from the car and had returned to the corner to watch Jerld’s back. Jerld just stared into the both barrels of the shotgun, which looked like two small cannons pointed directly at his face.
The driver said, “Give me all of your dope or I will give you a new face.”
Jerld could see out the corner of his eyes that there were two very young teenage girls in the back seat and they were giggling and slapping each other as if they were laughing at a funny joke they had just heard.
Jerld thought, “Man this ain’t funny.” They had parked right in front of a boarded-up building and the plywood had several knot holes that had been punched out, fallen out, or had rotted out from age. This was J & J’s corner they knew every inch of it and could see it with their eyes closed.
The passenger said, “Didn’t you hear the man? We want your dope or your shoulder pimple is going to be splattered all over that plywood.” As he motioned with his head toward the boarded up building.
Jerld’s legs were trembling, and it wasn’t from the cold that had bothered him so much a few minutes ago. He felt like someone had just kicked him in the groin and his balls had come up into his throat and were trying to climb over his tongue to get out. Jerld looked for Jimmy and could only see the tip one of his shoes without turning his head. It looked like they were miles away, not just the fifteen or twenty feet that it actually was. Jerld had been sizing up his would-be killers, as he stood transfixed. He stood very still not moving or doing anything that would make this white kid a hero in his friend’s eyes, by having killed a nigger.
Jerld had heard that there were families down in Kentucky that go nigger hunting just for fun on Saturday nights. He didn’t want to make these two punk-ass kids heroes in their “Cunts’ eyes. And sure as hell he wasn’t going to give up his dope to them or anyone else.
The driver looked to be anywhere from fifteen to eighteen years old. The passenger was probably a little older. Neither one of the little “Back Seat Bitches” could be much over fourteen years old.
It was very cold out, and the tank tops that these little “Prick Teasers” wore were white, and almost see-through, their tiny nipples showed their excitement.
The two in the front seat were typical “Crackers” they each had on a cowboy shirt and wore boots and Levis.
Both had what looked to be belts with buckles as big as the pancakes Jerld’s momma made.
The only difference between them was one had a double barrel cannon in his hand and that hand was starting to shake.
Jerld thought to himself “Think of something quick or your going to be a sidewalk lollypop for some stray dog.”
“You Crackers had better think twice before you come up into this nigger’s face with a gun in my town” Jerld said in the coldest and calmest voice he could summon up.
There was a quick look of fright on the driver’s face.
Jerld continued. “Do you see that plywood over there?” He said, gesturing with a sideward nod of his head toward the boarded-up building.
“You punk-ass kids want to shoot me, do you?”
“Each hole that you see in that wood over there has a loaded scatter gun behind it, pointing right at all your white asses and this ratty old piece of shit you’re driving.”
“If you want to check it out pull that fucking trigger, you dumb ass hillbillies, why do you think I had you pull around the corner and park here.”
Jerld could see the questioning fear in their eyes. The little “Tits” in the back had quit slapping each other and were sitting with their hands in their laps, just as if their mothers had often told them to do, “Sit up straight and be good”.
There was no doubt that the “Big Heroes” in the front seat were now frightened shitless. Jerld leaned further into the car and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and wrenched it out of the driver’s hand. As he was pulling it out, he took the butt and hit the passenger right in the middle of his forehead. Blood flew; it splattered all over the front of the driver’s shirt and made it look like it was made with red and white poke-a-dotted material.
The two petrified bitches in the back seat let out a sound that could only be described as a whimpering, silent scream. Blood decorated their hair, face, arms and legs. Their white t-tops were covered with splatters of every shape.
The passenger groaned and rolled down onto the floor and gagging and gurgling sounds spewed out with the blood as it dripped on the floor.
In the same motion he turned the gun around and pointed at the driver and said, “Get out your money and I want it all. If I find out you are holding out on me I will blow your asses back to Kentucky.”
All four of the would-be dope robbers grabbed for their pockets.
They started handing their bills and change to Jerld just like a cashier at a drive through window. It kept coming from one hand or another. The driver grabbed the passenger’s; who was stilled curled up in a bloody pile on the floorboard, wallet out of his back pocket and handed it to Jerld. Jerld was surprised without counting it; it looked like they had given him several hundred dollars.
Jerld stuck the gun in the driver’s neck and said, “You should have been out of my town yesterday, get your asses back to Kentucky before you find out what us northern niggers do to hillbillies on Saturday night.”
Tires shrilled like a referee’s whistle as the driver slammed his foot down on the accelerator. As the car pulled away, from the back seat came a cry of shear terror. It faded away like the siren of a passing fire truck.
Jimmy quickly turned around and saw Jerld standing there with a shotgun in one hand and a hand full of money in the other.
Jimmy came running over with a quizzical look on his face and said: “What happened? I can’t leave you alone for a minute.”
Jerld just looked at the hand full of money and said, “Business is good Jimmy, Business is good”
Chapter Two: Cost of Doing Business.
A couple hours had passed when another car pulled slowly up to the curb, but stayed some distance down the street. It wasn’t unusual for first timers to do this. They wanted to see what they had to do to score some dope. If you got to them in time before they lost their courage you usually could make a fast buck. First timers would say very little. They would ask for what they wanted, pay for it, and then they would get the fuck out of there as fast as they could.
Jimmy quickly approached the curb, while Jerld hung back in the shadows. It was a dark older model big car with little or no chrome. It had driven up very slowly as if they were looking to score some dope, but Jerld sensed there was something wrong. It was dark inside the car and you could barely see that it had two occupants, and both of them were black. They slouched down in the front seat so only their heads stuck up and could be seen.
It came to Jerld what was wrong, just as the car slowed to a stop. Jerld shouted quietly, “Jimmy it’s the man”.
Jimmy quickly turned and started to walk north on Broadway and the two cops in the car knew they had been recognized as narcs.
Gary’s entire police department only had three unmarked cars available to use for clandestine investigations, all black four door Fords. They had been used for so long that all the drug pushers knew them on sight. The driver wasn’t familiar to Jerld, but he knew the passenger. The large black man rolled down the passenger side window as the car pulled up to the telephone booth. Jerld recognized the man as a cop they all called Jacob.
Last names on the streets of Gary were not necessary and were only used on “Rap Sheets” when you were arrested and booked at the Gary City Jail. This applied to the cops also. If the street thugs knew your last name, they could find out where you lived which was not good for cops or their families. It made them easy targets for some spaced out junkie trying to even a score.
Detectives Jacob and his partner Terrance had been working the drug scene in Gary for over three years now. They hadn’t requested or enjoyed being assigned to the narcotics squad. They were assigned to that job because they were black and they had no choice. The black cops in Gary weren’t tripping over each other to become narcs. Many of the street cops had friends from high school or their neighborhoods who were in the business of drug dealing. Some suspected their own relatives were dealing drugs, but out of necessity not by choice.
Jacob and his partner Terrance didn’t like the narc job and both had threatened to resign from the force shortly after they had been assigned to undercover work. The Assistant Chief of Police at that time had been a police academy buddy of Jacob’s, and he was able to talk both of them into trying the drug assignment a little longer.
It didn’t work, shortly after they had agreed to stay undercover a drug dealer threaten to have both of them and their families killed. Jacob and Terrance went looking for the dealer, and one evening they found him at is house. Jacob walks in to the bedroom and shot dealer while he was still in bed. The only word uttered was “Shit” as the drug dealer open his eyes and saw Jacob. From the next room a female screamed “it’s the cops”. Then another shot rang out and the drug dealer’s bodyguard fell to the floor, shot in the back of the head by Terrance. There was the usual obligatory hearing before the Police Chief and the Police Commission, and they all were presented with the same false information.
The investigating officers, along with their investigative reports told a story of a two guns being recovered at the scene and how although it neither had fired, one was reported to have been found in the drug dealer’s hand and the other laying on the floor by the bodyguard hand. Both had reportedly aimed them at the two officers before they were shot to death.
As stated by both Jacob and Terrance in their “Official Testimony.”
Statements to the Commission, said the drug dealer’s bodyguard did what he was paid to do. He stepped in front of the dealer and took a bullet meant for is employer.
After a few weeks of studying the facts of the case, the Chief announced that he and the Commission had found the officers guilt-less. He further went on to say that Jacob and Terrance were to be honored for their fast actions that “Could have caused them or an innocent bystander to be killed or injured.” Of course the news release quoted the Chief in the headlines, “Shootings ruled justified.”
The whole police department knew what really had happened, but you just don’t rat on a fellow officer. The rumor around the police department was that the Assistant Chief felt as if it was partially his fault for his not taking Jacob and Terrance out of the undercover assignment when they had asked. So he helped cover up the shooting.
Jacob and Terrance were no longer considered to be “Good Cops” by the honest police officers, and the dishonest officers were afraid to be seen associating with them. So they became department outcasts. They were left to roam the streets of Gary doing whatever they wanted as long as they stayed out of the local nightly news.
Police work became secondary to their new job. Shaking down drug dealers and prostitutes became their main occupation. For them it was very profitable and they became very good at it.
Jerld had dealt with Jacob before and knew how the game was played. You only had to slip Jacob a few coins then he and his partner would leave a street dealer alone, at least for that night.
Jerld had also heard that Jacob and his partner were now working for a big drug supplier out of Chicago and they did the supplier’s collecting when a drug deal went bad, or if a debt was not settled as it should have been.
Street rumors of Detective Jacob and his partner having shot the two drug dealers a few years ago and nothing had happened to him, made them respected by some and feared by most of the street level drug peddlers. Jerld remembered the newspapers headlines that had reported the Police Chief had said it was a justifiable shooting. One of the dealers was supposed to have pulled a gun on Jacob, but everyone figured both guns were probably drop guns that they had taken away from some other street dealers.
Jerld didn’t know much more than that, but what he did know was Jacob was a cop and in Gary the cops did what they wanted and covered each other’s asses.
Whenever Jacob had an un-cooperating dealer he would remind the dealer of the two dealers that they had shot and just smile a big wide grin showing all of his rotten teeth. Jerld had been warned before by Jacob and knew that he had to pay or else.
Jerld felt his anger rising and his fingers starting to shake as he slowly walked to the curb.
He disliked all cops, and he showed his distain for them every chance he could. He was not this cop’s or any other cop’s nigger and he was not going to be treated like one.
Most of all, he wasn’t too anxious to part with any of the money in his pocket tonight. With what he had gotten from the hillbilly kids, he would be able to buy double his profit for the night, increasing his and Jimmy’s cut of the profit. The kids’ money was money his supplier didn’t know he had gotten, so he wouldn’t have to split it with him. Each day’s supply had to be paid for no matter what else happened. If you didn’t pay for yesterday’s dope you wouldn’t be fronted anymore until it was paid for. Jerld’s supplier was not one to be taken lightly and Jerld was more afraid of his supplier than he was of this money pimping cop.
“Jerld, what’s happening tonight? Tell Jimmy if he runs from me again I’ll cut his dick off and feed it to his mother, you understand?”
Jerld stood up as tall as he could so he was looking down on the two detectives. He liked the momentary feeling of superiority that it gave him.
Jacob looked up and said “Get your face down in this window before I blow your balls off.”
Jerld took his time before he leaned into the rolled down window. He could see that Jacob was getting pissed off, and he smiled ever so slightly, which seemed to anger the “dick-head” cop even more.
Jacob reached out the window and grabbed Jerld’s left ear and said as he twisted it, “Thomas and I are hungry for a steak, can you shit heads loan us a couple twenties? I’ll pay you back the second Thursday of next week”. Jerld wrenched back from the detective’s grip and reached into his jacket pocket, as he did he felt the cold steel of his gun. It was a 45 caliber that he had gotten a few years ago, and he was never without it. As he caressed the gun’s grip, Jacob glared at him and said, “Go ahead you little fucker my piece is pointing right at your love muscle. Now give it up so we can go eat.”
Jerld hesitated wondering if he could shoot both of them before they got out of the car. Suddenly Jimmy appeared out of nowhere and handed two twenties to Jacob.
Jacob nodded his head toward Jimmy and snarled “Jerld, tell Jimmy what I said about his mother and thank him for saving your life.”
Jerld and Jimmy stood quietly as the dented up undercover car slipped on the ice throwing snow and slush from its tires as it roared off.
Jimmy was there again to save my ass, Jerld thought, but I could have taken care of the situation myself. Jerld knew that Jimmy would have backed him up no matter what had happened.
He also knew Jimmy would have taken a bullet for him, if it would have been necessary.
This time Jimmy had done what was best and Jerld knew it. He just patted Jimmy on the shoulder and went back to the phone booth.
“Hey Jimmy, why is it so damn cold tonight?” Jerld asked, not even expecting an answer.
“How the hell do I know, do I look like a white-ass weather man?” Jimmy said with a crack of a smile lifting the corners of his large lips.
Jerld and Jimmy looked up at the sky and both folded their arms in an effort to warm themselves.
Chapter Three: Growing Up.
Jimmy and Jerld always did things alike. Jimmy’s mother’s live-in boyfriend, Hobie, always said that, “If you looked at Jimmy and Jerld together, then maybe the white honkys are right, we all do look alike.”
Jerld had just celebrated his twentieth birthday and Jimmy’s twentieth birthday was only three months away. But they were as different in looks as any two young black men could be. It irritated Jerld whenever Hobie joked that they looked so much alike, but Jimmy would cozy up next to Jerld and bristle with pride.
The two Js, as their friends called them, could always be found standing at their spot, the corner of Twenty-Fifth Avenue and Broadway. This corner was notorious for its drug dealing and that was exactly why they were there, hanging at the outside public phone booth, hoping for it to ring. Everyone who drove by knew what they were doing they were dealing dope. “Boy,” “Girl,” “Crack,” “Smack,” whatever you called it they could get it for you. They didn’t do much “Weed,” marijuana was too balky and hard to stash nearby.
The white kids, from the next county over, loved to have fancy names for the heroin, cocaine, and the other drugs they bought and used. In the drug world, on the Gary streets the shorter the conversation the better.
“Two dimes of Smack” said it all.
What a picture the two of them made. Jerld was strikingly handsome with olive colored skin. He was six foot tall and weighed around one hundred and sixty pounds. His face and body reminded you of a sleek, small, jet plane. His dark-brown hair was always cut as short as he could get it. A razor cut part started at the middle of the left side of his head and slightly drifted to the center of his forehead. His dark-brown eyes were the windshields for his dancing and always darting pupils. His lips served as a small frame encasing his alternately spaced gold and porcelain top teeth.
Jerld’s head seemed to always be moving from side to side in an arc like fashion, not to fast or to slow. This was the movement of a seasoned street level drug dealer and can best be described as cool and cautious. This was a trait of most street level drug dealers, always watching for the cops, or an attempt of a quick rip-off by some spaced out junkie. Jerld’s ears were very small and they laid gently against his head like two air foils waiting to be opened when they were needed to stop the side to side head movement.
His nose was his most attractive feature; it sloped gently forward like the nose of a jetliner. As if it was positioned that way to break the wind and the nostrils gracefully flared and were swept back like small wings.
He knew he was good looking, it showed in his confident smile, his carriage, shoulders and back held straight so as to support a head held high and a chin that jutted out and lifted upward.
His dress was always the same. No hat, a black simulated leather below the waist coat. His coat had seen better days, and now was weather cracked, threads had pulled loose in the side seams and now waved as banners in the wind. A belt was tightly tied around his waist in an effort to support and hide the Beretta that he always carried.
Jerald liked his coat tied tight that way so it would cause his gun to bulge in his jacket pocket. This let everyone know that he had a “piece” and it was handy. You didn’t deal dope in Gary without a gun nearby.
He wore light, faded, yellow pants, and they ended at his sharply pointed Spider Shoes. He always joked that they were pointed that way so he could kill the Black Widow spiders that infested the corners of his momma’s house. Jerld always had two weapons with him everywhere he went, the gun and Jimmy.
If Jerld looked like a sleek jet plane, then Jimmy, in comparison, had the appearance of a blunt-nose helicopter. Jimmy had a complexion that you definitely couldn’t see in a dark room.
It was as if God had made Jimmy to be seen only when he was outside in the sunlight or in a lighted room.
Jimmy was proud of his very dark colored skin and made it a point to brag, “At least you can tell me from those “white skinned rich boys.”
Jimmy was five foot seven inches when he stood up straight and weighed in at anywhere from two hundred and sixty to two hundred and seventy pounds. This depended on how many times he had eaten at home over the last few days. Jimmy’s mother believed that bigger is always better and her boy was just healthy looking.
Jimmy liked his hair long like some of the white kids wore theirs. But they didn’t have the kinky curls to contend with like he did.
His hair resembled a flock of birds that had just flown into a helicopter’s rotor blades. His forehead was like the rounded pilot’s cabin and his eyebrows protruded out like a couple of sun visors. He had the eyes of a combat veteran that had seen too much death and dying, but now he was home and was bewildered as to what was expected of him.
The only time Jimmy’s eyes smiled was when he was told by Jerld “Good Job.” Then his eyes would shine for a minute and the corners of his lips would curl up slightly and then nothing.
He really didn’t have any ears. It just looked like there was supposed to be something there, but some sort of intense heat had melted them into the sides of his head. Only tiny little holes were seen when he turned his head. What chin? There was none. His face just seemed to fade into his chest. It was just another part of the rounded, odd, shaped bulb that sat directly on his shoulders.
There were no signs of a neck at all. The best description of Jimmy would be one large mass of skin, muscles and hair, balled up and balancing on two squat and crooked legs.
Like Jerld he always wore the same clothes. A white t-shirt covered by a high school letter jacket with a big “F” on it, which he was told stood for Froebel High School. He never played any sports at all and he hadn’t attended Froebel either. He wore it because he knew it was an all black school, and he wanted everyone to know he was proud to be black.
Jimmy didn’t really have much of a choice, his skin matched the color of Jerld’s black coat and looked as tough as the fake leather it was made of.
Old baggy blue Levis and black, ragged, work boots made up the rest of his attire. When you saw Jimmy, you didn’t have to be told Jimmy was not anyone you wanted to mess with.
His temper and lack of control made him feared by the young and old.
He had caused many junkies to wish they had paid Jerld for their dope. Jimmy carried three weapons, his two fists and his pride and joy. A sawed off shotgun that he had rigged up to hang under his armpit. Everyone on the street knew that if Jimmy approached you and it looked like his right sleeve was empty someone was in trouble, big trouble.
Jerld and Jimmy had been friends all their lives.
Their friendship began when they first shared a playpen together while their mothers sat and smoked and gabbed about Aunt Jordine’s latest old man. Their mothers were second cousins and both families had always lived in the same housing project or at least in the same neighborhood.
When Jimmy moved from Marshall Town to the projects called Ivanhoe, his mom would say “Well we’re still within “spitten distance.” They had always lived on Gary’s Eastside. To some it was considered one of the worst parts of Gary, Indiana, to Jerld and Jimmy it was home.
Jerld’s house was a two flat walk-up. The projects where his apartment was had several two and three story rundown buildings. There were six down the middle with parking on each side and the parking lots were enclosed by four buildings placed long ways on all four sides of the center building.
Each was identical except for how they were situated on the lots.
Jerld’s building was one of the worst as far as its condition. It sat in the very back of the projects with only a view of the large abandoned and uncared for wasteland. Years ago this area had been the home to hundreds of Slavic immigrant families from Northern and Eastern Europe. The now vacant homes that once housed these families are the playgrounds for the kids from the projects during the day, and served as flop houses and shooting galleries for the homeless and heroin addicts after the sun set.
As Jerld had grown up he and his sister and mother had moved around a lot until the last few years when they had ended up here. The rent was the cheapest and the government subsidized everyone for living in these squalor and rat ridden stacks of humanity. To Jerld and his family it became their home and the center of all their activities. The apartment they lived in had four rooms, one being a small kitchen and bath combined. It hadn’t been built that way, but had been created out of necessity.
A wall with the doorway had at one time separated the two rooms, but a prior tenant had used the apartment for dope den and had torn down the wall. Too many addicts couldn’t make it from the kitchen table where they shot up their dope, to the toilet before disgorging the contents of their stomachs. The wall had only served as an obstacle on a much traveled path of vomit, urine stained carpet.
The three other rooms in the apartment were combined into a bedroom, shared by Jerld and his sister, and sitting room. Jerld had slept with his mother until he was nine years old and now had a small cot in with his older sister. His mother slept on an old sofa in the sitting room and used his sister’s bed when she was gone. Jerald was glad that his sister had “Kopper” for a boy friend. She spent most of her time with him and just came home when she needed money or a favor.
If it weren’t for the wooden balcony facing out onto the center parking lot they would not have had any social life at all. In the heat of the day everyone in the projects would be out on their balconies or they would be walking and hanging out in the parking lots. With just a holler you could start a conversation with all your neighbors at one time.
Jerld and Jimmy attended school together all the way from first grade up to ninth grade at mostly all black schools, there were a few Mexicans and fewer whites. The Mexicans and whites knew their places and tended to stay to themselves. “These were Black Schools”, and they knew the rules.
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