what I assumed was Arabic. He was in his early forties, clean-cut, with a short-sleeved, collared shirt. He broke through the crowd, pushing people aside. Some pushed back, but he managed to unlock his car and get inside.
But Boo-Boo followed him. She started throwing liquor bottles at the car. One burst on the hood, another missed entirely. The crowd started hooting, and some of the men grabbed her. We all watched as the car sped off, with Boo-Boo falling down in the middle of the street, still screaming, “You raped my baby girl! You raped her, you Ay-rab!”
Price walked slowly out of the store, accompanied by an older man I recognized as the store’s manager. He also looked Middle Eastern and wore a striped dress shirt and khakis. He had a weary look about him, as if running a store in this neighborhood had taken a grave toll. He was talking quietly while Price stared straight ahead, nodding once in a while; the manager appeared to be pleading his case. Finally they shook hands, and Price moved aside, his foot soldiers trailing him.
Then the manager started to carry out cases of soda and beer, leaving them on the sidewalk. The crowd pounced. Most people grabbed just a few cans or bottles, but some were tough enough to wrest away a six-pack or two. The manager hauled out more and more cases, and these disappeared just as fast. He set them down with little emotion, although occasionally he’d glance at the crowd, as if he were feeding birds in a park, and wipe the sweat off his brow. When our eyes met, he just shook his head, shrugged, and walked back inside.
Price watched from a distance. I saw him speaking with Ms. Bailey, a woman in her late fifties who was the tenant president of the building where J.T. lived. I had met Ms. Bailey a few times already. She smiled now as I approached, then grabbed my hand and pulled me into a hug. She turned back to Price.
“We can’t have people treat women like that, baby,” she said to him. “You-all know that.”
“I know, Ms. Bailey,” Price said, exasperated. “Like I said, I’m taking care of it. But if you want to do it, go ahead!”
“I’ll deal with it in my own way, but for now I want you to talk with him tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay, Ms. Bailey, we’re on it,” Price said matter-of-factly. “J.T. or I will take care of it.”
Ms. Bailey started yelling at a few women who stood arguing with the store manager. “Everyone get your pop and get out of here,” she said. “And you-all leave this man alone. He ain’t the one you’re looking for.” She walked the manager inside and again told everyone to go home.
I caught up with Price and asked him to explain what had happened.
“That Ay-rab slept with Coco,” he said with a smirk. “But he didn’t give her no disease. That little girl got that herself-she’s a whore. Sixteen and she’s been around already.”
“So what was all that about, then?” I asked. “Why the screaming, and what’s up with the beer and soda?”
“Like I said, the man was sleeping with Coco, but he was giving her diapers and shit for Coco’s baby.” I had heard rumors that some store owners gave women free food and household items in exchange for sex. Some residents were very upset at the practice. In fact, I heard Ms. Mae regularly plead with J.T. to put a stop to this behavior. J.T.’s answer to his mother was nearly identical to what Price now told me: “You can’t stop that shit. It’s been happening like that for the longest time. It’s just how people do things around here.”
I asked Price what his role had been today. “I told Boo-Boo that I would go over to the store with her and let her yell at that man,” he said. “She said she was going to cut off his dick, take a picture of it, and put it up everywhere. He freaked out. That’s why he ran. Then I told his brother, the one who owns the store, that he had to do something, ’cause people would burn the store down if he didn’t. He said he’d put all the soda and beer he had on the sidewalk if people would leave the store alone. I told him, ‘Cool.’ But I told him that I needed to speak with him tomorrow, because I don’t want Boo-Boo killing his little brother, which she will do. So tomorrow we’ll figure all this shit out so no one gets hurt.”
I was just about to ask Price why he was responsible for mediating a dispute like this. But he preempted me. “That’s what BKs are about,” he said. “We just help keep the peace. We take care of our community.”
This explanation didn’t satisfy me, and I wanted to talk to J.T. about it. But he was so busy these days that I barely saw him-and when I did, he was usually with other gang leaders, working on the political initiatives that the BKs were putting together.
And then, just before Labor Day, J.T.’s efforts to impress his superiors started to bear fruit. He told me that he was heading south for a few days. The highest-ranking BK leaders met downstate every few months, and J.T. had been invited to his first big meeting.
The Black Kings were a large regional gang, with factions as far north as Milwaukee, southward to St. Louis, east to Cleveland, and west to Iowa. I was surprised when J.T. first mentioned that the gang operated in Iowa. He told me that most Chicago gangs tried to recruit local dealers there, usually by hanging out at a high-school basketball or football game. But Iowa wasn’t very profitable. Chicago gang leaders got frustrated at how “country” their Iowa counterparts were, even in places like Des Moines. They were undisciplined, they gave away too much product for free, they drank too much, and sometimes they plain forgot to go to work. But the Iowa market was large enough that most Chicago gangs, including the Black Kings, kept trying.
J.T. had made clear to me his ambition to move up in the gang’s hierarchy, and this regional meeting was clearly a step in that direction.
In his absence, he told me, I could hang out as much as I wanted around his building. He said he’d let his foot soldiers know they should be expecting me, and he left me with his usual caution: “Don’t walk too far from the building. I won’t be able to help you.”
After J.T. told me about his plans, I was both excited and nervous. I had hung around Robert Taylor without him, but usually only for a few hours at a stretch. Now I would have more time to walk around, and I hoped to meet more people who could tell me about the gang from their perspective. I knew I had to be careful with the line of questioning, but at last I’d been granted an opportunity to get out from under J.T.’s thumb and gain a wider view of the Black Kings.
I immediately ran into a problem. Because I’d been spending so much time with the Black Kings, a lot of the tenants wouldn’t speak to me except for a quick hello or a bland comment about the weather. They plainly saw me as affiliated with the BKs, and just as plainly they didn’t want to get involved with me.
Ms. Bailey, the building president, was one of the few tenants willing to talk. Her small, two-room office was located in J.T.’s building, where she lived as well. This was in the northern end of the Robert Taylor Homes, sometimes called “Robert Taylor A.” A few miles away, at the southern end of the complex, was “Taylor B,” where a different group of gangs and tenant leaders held the power. On most dimensions daily life was the same in Taylor A and Taylor B: they had similar rates of poverty and drug abuse, for instance, and similar levels of gang activity and crime.
But there was at least one big difference, Ms. Bailey told me, which was that Taylor B had a large Boys & Girls Club where hundreds of young people could shoot pool, play basketball, use the library, and participate in youth programs. Ms. Bailey was jealous that Taylor A had no such facility. Even though Taylor B was walking distance from Taylor A, gang boundaries made it hard to move freely even if you had nothing to do with a gang. It was usually teenagers who got hassled when they crossed over, but even adults could have trouble. They might get searched by a gang sentry when they tried to enter a high-rise that wasn’t their own; they might also get robbed.
The best Ms. Bailey could offer the children in Taylor A were three run-down apartments that had been converted into playrooms.
These spaces were pathetic: water dripped from the ceilings, rats and roaches ran free, the bathrooms were rancid; all these playrooms had were a few well-worn board games, some stubby crayons, and an old TV set. Even so, whenever I visited, I saw that the children played with as much enthusiasm as if they were at Disney World.
One afternoon Ms. Bailey suggested that I visit the Boys & Girls Club in Taylor B. “Maybe with your connections you could help us raise money for a club like that in our area,” she said.
I told her I’d be happy to help if I could. That Ms. Bailey saw me, a middle-class graduate student, as having “connections” said a lot about how alienated her community was from the powerful people in philanthropy and government who could actually make a difference.
Since Taylor B was controlled by the Disciples, a rival to J.T.’s Black Kings, Ms. Bailey personally walked me
