have to wonder if the ambulance or police would bother responding. People in this community shouldn’t have to pay a go-between like Ms. Bailey to get the services that most Americans barely bother to think about. No one in the suburb where I grew up would tolerate such inconvenience and neglect.
But life in the projects wasn’t like my life in the suburbs. Not only was it harder, but it was utterly unpredictable, which necessitated a different set of rules for getting by. And living in a building with a powerful tenant leader, as hard as that life could be, was slightly less hard. It may have cost a little more to get what you needed, but at least you had a chance.
SIX. The Hustler and the Hustled
Four years deep into my research, it came to my attention that I might get into a lot of trouble if I kept doing what I’d been doing.
During a casual conversation with a couple of my professors, in which I apprised them of how J.T.’s gang went about planning a drive-by shooting-they often sent a young woman to surreptitiously cozy up to the rival gang and learn enough information to prepare a surprise attack-my professors duly apprised me that I needed to consult a lawyer. Apparently the research I was doing lay a bit out of bounds of the typical academic research.
Bill Wilson told me to stop visiting the projects until I got some legal advice. I tried to convince Wilson to let me at least hang out around the Boys & Girls Club, but he shot me a look indicating that his position was not negotiable.
I did see a lawyer, and I learned a few important things.
First, if I became aware of a plan to physically harm somebody, I was obliged to tell the police. Meaning I could no longer watch the gang plan a drive-by shooting, although I could speak with them about drive-bys in the abstract.
Second, there was no such thing as “researcher-client confidentiality,” akin to the privilege conferred upon lawyers, doctors, or priests. This meant that if I were ever subpoenaed to testify against the gang, I would be legally obligated to participate. If I withheld information, I could be cited for contempt. While some states offer so-called shield laws that allow journalists to protect their confidential sources, no such protection exists for academic researchers.
It wasn’t as if I had any intention of joining the gang in an actual drive-by shooting (nor would they ever invite me). But since I could get in trouble just for driving around with them while they talked about shooting somebody, I had to rethink my approach. I would especially have to be clearer with J.T. We had spoken several times about my involvement; when I was gang leader for a day, for instance, he knew my limits and I understood his. But now I would need to tell him, and perhaps a few others, about the fact that I was legally obligated to share my notes if I was ever subpoenaed.
This legal advice was ultimately helpful in that it led me to seriously take stock of my research. It was getting to be time for me to start thinking about the next stage: writing up my notes into a dissertation. I had become so involved in the daily drama of tagging along with Ms. Bailey and J.T. that I’d nearly abandoned my study of the broader underground economy my professors wanted to be the backbone of my research.
So I returned to Robert Taylor armed with two objectives: let people know about my legal issues and glean more details of the tenants’ illegal economic activities.
I figured that most people would balk at revealing the economics of hustling, but when I presented the idea to J.T., Ms. Bailey, and several others, nearly everyone agreed to cooperate. Most of the hustlers liked being taken seriously as businesspeople-and, it should be said, they were eager to know if they earned more than their competitors. I emphasized that I wouldn’t be able to share the details of anyone else’s business, but most people just shrugged off my caveat as a technicality that could be gotten around.
So with the blessing of J.T. and Ms. Bailey, I began devoting my time to interviewing the local hustlers: candy sellers, pimps and prostitutes, tailors, psychics, squeegee men.
I also told J.T. and Ms. Bailey about my second problem, my legal obligation to share notes with the police.
“You mean you didn’t know this all along?” Ms. Bailey said. “Even I knew that you have to tell police what you’re doing-unless you give them information on the sly.”
“Oh, no!” I protested. “I’m not going to be an informant.”
“Sweetheart, we’re all informants around here. Nothing to be ashamed of. Just make sure that you get what you need, I always say. And don’t let them beat you up.”
“I’m not sharing my data with them-that’s what I mean.”
“You mean you’ll go to prison?”
“Well, not exactly. I just mean I won’t share my data with them.”
“Do you know what being in contempt means?”
When I didn’t reply, Ms. Bailey shook her head in disgust. I had seen this look before: she was wondering how I had qualified for higher education given my lack of street smarts.
“Any nigger around here can tell you that you got two choices,” she said. “Tell them what they want or sit in Cook County Jail.”
I was silent, trying to think of a third option.
“I’ll ask you again,” she said. “Will you give up your information, or will you agree to go to jail?”
“You need to know that? That’s important to you?”
“Sudhir, let me explain something to you. You think we were born yesterday around here. Haven’t we had this conversation a hundred times? You think we don’t know what you do? You think we don’t know that you keep all your notebooks in Ms. Mae’s apartment?”
I shuddered. Ms. Mae had made me feel so comfortable in her apartment that I’d never even entertained the possibility that someone like Ms. Bailey would think about-and perhaps even page through-my notebooks.
“So why let me hang out?” I asked.
“Why do you want to hang out?”
“I suppose I’m learning. That’s what I do, study the poor.”
“Okay, well, you want to act like a saint, then you go ahead,” Ms. Bailey said, laughing. “Of course you’re learning! But you are also hustling. And we’re all hustlers. So when we see another one of us, we gravitate toward them. Because we need other hustlers to survive.”
“You mean that people think I can do something for them if they talk to me?”
“They know you can do something for them!” she yelped, leaning across the table and practically spitting out her words. “And they know you will, because you need to get your information. You’re a hustler, I can see it. You’ll do anything to get what you want. Just don’t be ashamed of it.”
I tried to turn the conversation back to the narrow legal issue, but Ms. Bailey kept on lecturing me.
“I’ll be honest with you,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “If you do tell the police, everyone here will find you and beat the shit out of you. So that’s why we know you won’t tell nobody.” She smiled as if she’d won the battle.
So who should I be worried about? I wondered. The police or Ms. Bailey and the tenants?
When I told J.T. about my legal concerns, he looked at me with some surprise. “I could’ve told you all that!” he said. “Listen, I’m never going to tell you anything that’s going to land me in jail-or get me killed. So it don’t bother me what you write down, because I can take care of myself. But that’s really not what you should be worried about.”
I waited.
“What you should be asking yourself is this: ‘Am I going to be on the side of black folks or the cops?’ Once you decide, you’ll do whatever it takes. You understand?”
I didn’t.
“Let me try again. Either you’re with us-you feel like you’re in this with us and you respect that-or you’re just here to look around. So far these niggers can tell that you’ve been with us. You come back every day. Just don’t change, and nothing will go wrong, at least not around here.”
