At Von Humboldt, the day’s final bell is something of a call to action. A reminder to holla at that girl before she leaves school, to square up with buddy who was talking shit in Geometry, to sprint back home if you were buddy talking shit or if you're a lame or if your kicks ain’t fly enough or if they’re too fly.
Luckily, I ain’t the lamest dude on the block and my black Air Force Ones are as neutral as kicks come, so I haven’t had much to run from lately.
Still, I never know what to expect from my walk home.
I live five minutes away, near Campbell and Lemoyne, but five minutes can feel like years in the hood. Some days nothing’ll pop off and I’ll get home without a story to tell. Others, I’ll look at some dudes the wrong way, accidentally rock the wrong colors or walk down the wrong block at the wrong time, and shit’ll pop off.
That’s just how it be.
Ma prepared me for this though, her instructions so specific they had to come from lived experiences. Her instructions loop through my mind as I begin the walk home:
Walk quickly, but never too fast. You don’t wanna seem like you’re running from something. Don’t smile, nod or stare. But also don’t look away. Stand your ground, but run if you have to (this don’t change what I said earlier). Hit the cut, hop the gate, climb the roof, just don’t get caught. Walk with someone else if you can, your odds are better that way. Getting stomped together won’t make it any less painful, but it’ll feel that way sometimes. Someday you’ll laugh about this. Someday you’ll laugh.
I haven’t managed to laugh yet, which is why I hesitate whenever I reach the corner of Talman and Hirsch. Hirsch is my go-to cause it’s a straight shot home. Lemoyne used to be an option until the Campbell Boys came around, pushing weight and hollering wild shit at women that walk past.
They also stomp anybody who looks at ‘em sideways. So when Ma gets holla’d at, I don’t say shit, I pretend like my ears are busted and march ahead (like the soft motherfucker I am).
So Hirsch it is. It’s not so bad walking past Von Humboldt, with the kids running around and the security guards patrolling. Yea, they’re loud, but it’s nice seeing people enjoying themselves for a change.
That all fades when I approach Maplewood. The block is lined with abandoned buildings and trash. There’s a car with a busted window, the glass like a puzzle on the asphalt. People are shouting at each other and some to themselves, the noises from their mouths sounding more like gibberish than words. Beer and piss smother the air.
A random guy approaches me—he smells like ass, his breath hot with liquor, his back locked in a slump. Aye shorty, lemme cop a hit off you, he says and reaches for my bookbag. Just a lil hit to keep me going.
And when I say I don’t have nothing on me, he says: Don’t lie to me, lil nigga. He says: I done seen you running shit up and down this block.
He’s convinced I’m a drug runner and nothing’s gonna change that. A few more junkies gather behind him and suddenly I remember what Ma told me:
Hit the cut, hop the gate, climb the roof, just don’t get caught.
Hit the cut, hop the gate, climb the roof.
Hit… hop… climb…
I cut into the alley and hop a nearby gate and climb onto the closest garage and watch the junkies search for me. They split down the block in military formation, like I dropped bombs on them or some shit. I chuckle—a hand sheltering my voice—thinking how proud Ma would be of my escape.
After a few minutes of that, I climb down and sprint toward Potomac. Sure, the Campbell Boys post up there sometimes, but it’s the safest option I got today. They won’t be around long anyway. Bucktown’s getting expensive, so yuppies are invading Humboldt Park now. That means condos and condos mean money and we ain’t got no money so soon we won’t have no hood.
Nobody’s on Potomac when I arrive. The only signs of life come from a stereo bumping A Milli by Lil Wayne. I get lost in the beat—the shit knocks and rattles my brain—and for a second I forget where I’m at. The stereo’s vibrations sway me into that smooth dance I imagine cool guys doing at house parties. Two-stepping against the wall as they wait for the Bacardi to kick in.
Men are posted on the corner of Maplewood and Potomac. Their bodies are a sea of blue. A police camera is flickering above them, the red light exposing them before the blue light erases them again.
I wonder if I’ll be erased like them. I wonder if it’s possible to disappear before they notice me. I wonder how my pops navigated the streets back in the day, if that’s when he mastered his disappearing act. I wonder, but it don’t make a difference, it never does.
It’d make sense to cross the street now, but that would mean crossing back a block later, which would make me more vulnerable. It’s too risky to turn in front of them. A look, a tremble, a brush of our sweaters and I could be on the ground, kissing the soles of somebody’s Jordans.
Only five houses away now, their faces are clearer. I recognize one of them, some kid with a messy afro—lined up tight but untrimmed. Puerto Rican, no doubt. He’s obviously the youngest one there. Smaller than everyone else, but stocky. All ears.
Carlos. We go as far back as a couple of 13-year-olds can go. Rode our bikes around the neighborhood, climbed trees, tore the caps off fire hydrants, that kinda deal. Our moms were close, went to bingo in Logan Square every Saturday, had conversations from their windows, his moms shouting down to mine from the third floor.
I haven’t seen Carlos since he left school—about a year ago. His hair is longer and his face is serious, but I still recognize him. We recognize each other and he looks at me with the same sadness he did whenever our moms caught us getting home late.
I thought we told you to come back before the streetlights came on, they’d say and we’d swing our heads around to search for excuses.
You know the block is hot, they’d say and we’d watch their eyes soften.
I’m not sure what the Campbell Boys are telling Carlos but he keeps looking at me. The longer he looks, the sadder he seems. I wonder if he can sense how badly I want to turn around and detour around the neighborhood until I find a route that doesn’t end with him.
I wanna cross the street but it’d be too obvious at this point. I gotta keep walking. And breathing. I gotta breathe but not too heavily cause then they’ll know I’m scared, which means they’ll feel more confident and the last thing you want is to leave a street motherfucker feeling confident about anything.
They want Carlos to move on me. I can see it in his posture and the way the Campbell Boys are setting their dead eyes on me. I wonder if Carlos remembers all the times we received those stares, the promises we made to ride together.
Like when his brother, Javy, talked shit at the basketball courts and we showed up the next day and some dudes looked at us like we killed their homeboy and we took the beating together. We laughed as we limped back home because crying woulda been too difficult.
One house away. Three of them are looking at me now. Carlos isn’t. He’s gonna snake me. He doesn’t have the courage to look at me when he does it, so he’s gonna wait until I’m too close to escape.
I gotta turn in front of them, onto Maplewood, show them I ain’t soft. I’ll probably get my ass whooped anyway, so I might as well gain some cred in the process. I’ll turn in front of them and walk my ass home, run if I have to.
I just wanna go home. To sit in my room, peek through the bars of my window and watch other motherfuckers work the streets.
But instead, I’m here, five steps away.
I gotta make this turn.
Aye what you is? I hear one of the Campbell Boys ask.
Yeah, shorty, what you is?
I raise my head to eye level but don’t look at either of them as I turn the corner.
I’m a neutral, I say, looking through the clouds of Carlos’s eyes…
What the fuck is Alex thinking, walking down our block and crossing us like that? He knows the Campbell Boys don’t play.
I know you ain’t gone let shorty clown you like that, Carlos, Pito says to me and that’s when I know I gotta do it.
I don’t have a choice. Pito said to bust on the next nigga that walks down our block and Alex is that nigga. It don’t matter if he neutral. You only neutral ‘til the streets decide you ain’t, then you fair game.
Show us you a real one, Pito says, looking like a ghost in his white tee.
I thought this shit was real sweet, chillin’ with the Campbell Boys like we was homies, but then the bitterness kicked in. Got told to stomp my homie. And it’s stomp or be stomped out here, somebody gotta hug the asphalt.
Alex ain’t making a good case for himself, walking in front of us like he on one. He know the Campbell Boys’ll whoop his ass without hesitation, but he still did it. Why ain’t he just cross the street and turn on Maplewood? I could’ve pulled that shit off easy and saved both our asses.
That nigga ain’t worth our time, I woulda said nonchalantly (that means indifferently, Alex taught me that). Ain’t no gain whoopin’ on somebody everybody else whoops on, I woulda said.
I wish it wasn’t Alex they saw, that it wasn’t a nigga I spent summers running around the hood with, jumping in front of fire hydrants to cool off, splashing water at girls we were feeling. Life ain’t never been that sweet though. Punk niggas get away while the real ones get hemmed up. Like my brother, Javy, and Alex.
I can’t let Alex get too far, he’s already halfway down the block.
You gone let shorty clown you like that? Chavo says, heaving all over my neck and shit. Making my hair stand.
I ignore him and watch Alex. His tee is so dingy you’d think the shit was naturally yellow, Air Force One’s have all kinds of holes in ‘em. Nigga’s making me feel bad for even considering this shit.
Ain’t nobody clownin’ me, I say, tryna to sound like my stomach acids ain’t rising to my throat then splashing down onto my lungs. I wonder if it worked.
Can Chavo notice how uncomfortable I am? That I can’t breathe?
I don’t know what I’m doing here, frontin’ like I’m on one. Like I’m made for these streets. I shoulda learned better after Javy got hemmed up, after he took the fall for that bullet he never released. Now he’s in for twenty years and I’m alone, getting pulled into this bullshit when all I wanna do is get out. Outta this click and outta the hood and outta Chicago.
I fuckin’ hate Chicago. A real bitch of a city. Feels like I’ll never get out.
My moms said don’t nobody make it out without knowing what they wanna be first.
All those little fuckers out there are lost, she reminds me every time a memorial hugs a tree, a gate or a stop sign. And they’ll always be lost.
Well I know I wanna be alive, but niggas only seem to make it out dead. So I guess I’m lost, too.
I hate that Alex walked down our block. I hate that Javy got locked up and left me to deal with this shit. I hate that Pito made Javy take the fall, then dragged me out here. Soon I’ll be locked up too, and then what? What’s my moms gone do?
You can’t trust nobody out here, especially the motherfuckers that swear by you. Shit don’t make no sense, but that’s how it be.
I don’t think Carlos a real one, Pito says. He’s in my face now.
Javy woulda stomped shorty on sight, he says. No matter who he is or what he rep.
I got no choice but to stomp Alex. Pito’s hovering over me like I owe him a dub or some shit. I don’t know why Javy ever got mixed up with this nigga.
I got that nigga, I say.
I start walking down Maplewood, breathing slowly through my nose so my body don’t shake. People are starting to get home from school and work. I’mma have to get my hits in quick and dip before anybody recognizes me.
I gotta walk faster, Alex is almost on Hirsch now. He keeps looking to his right, pretending to scope the block while car windows tell him where we are. He noticed me, I can see it in his step. I’m sprinting now. Alex is faster than I remember.
A few cars cut between us, their stereos bumping something nasty. The bass has my heart jumping, like when tires screech before a drive-by or when I kiss my girl for the first time in a while. It don’t feel right but it do. You know?
Alex almost ducks out in somebody’s gangway, but the fence is too high for a clean hop, so I snatch him down by his bookbag and toss him on the ground. Behind me, the Campbell Boys are yelling fuck him up, bust his shit open, prove you a real one.
Thrash that nigga, Pito yells. Chavo is heaving down the street. The others are scattered across the block like vultures.
Alex tries to escape, yells, I’m a neutral, I’m a neutral... Come on, Carlos, you know me, he says and I remember who he is and I wanna lift him up and fight every single one of these motherfuckers, these low-lives, these lame ass niggas who don’t have shit better to do than force some shorty to stomp his homie. The homie he shot hoops with, the homie he got jumped with, the homie he swore to ride with ‘til he stopped breathing.
I’m a neutral, Alex says, but I don’t hear him anymore. His voice blends with Pito’s and Chavo’s, swinging around my head like a siren as I pin him down and his face changes and I don’t recognize it anymore and I want to but I can only look past him now, past the glaze in his eyes, ‘til he disappears and becomes nothing to me.
Contributor Notes
RANDY WILLIAM SANTIAGO is a writer from inner-city Chicago. He is a Fulbright Scholar, a PERIPLUS Collective Fellow, and a Michener Fellow in Fiction at the University of Miami. Randy’s writing has found a home in The Blue Nib, Craft, Litro Magazine, Lunch Ticket, The Masters Review, Rigorous, and Storm Cellar. Find him on Twitter @hoodliterati.
