Gang Leader for a Day

by Sudhir Venkatesh

  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 over to the Boys & Girls Club and introduced me to Autry Harrison, one of the club’s directors.

  Autry was about thirty years old, six foot two, and thin as a rail. He wore large, round glasses too big for his face and greeted me with a big smile and a handshake. “You got any skills, young man?” he asked brightly.

  “I can read and write, but that’s about it,” I said.

  Autry led me into the poolroom and yelled at a dozen little kids to come over. “This young man is going to read a book to you,” he said, “and then I’d like you to talk about it with him.” He whispered to me, “Many of their parents just can’t read.”

  From that day forward, Autry was happy to have me at the club. I quickly got to know him well. He had grown up in Robert Taylor, served in the army, and, like a few caring souls of his generation, returned to his neighborhood to work with young people. Recently he’d gone back to school to study criminal justice at Chicago State

  University and was working part-time there as a research assistant to a professor who was studying gangs. Autry was married, with a three-year-old daughter. Because of his obligations at the club and at home, he told me, he sometimes had to drop classes and even take a leave of absence from school.

  In his youth Autry had made his fair share of bad choices: he’d been a pimp and a gang member, for instance, and he had engaged in criminal activity. He’d also suffered the effects of project living- he’d been beaten up, had his money stolen, watched friends get shot and die in a gang war.

  Autry sometimes sat for hours, leaning back in a chair with his skinny arms propped behind his head, telling me the lessons he’d learned from his days as a pimp. These included “Never sleep with your ladies,” “Always let them borrow money, because you got the power when they owe you shit,” and “If you do sleep with them, always, always, always wear a condom, even when you’re shaking their hand, because you just never know where they’ve been.”

  We got along well, and Autry became a great source of information for me on how project residents viewed the gang. The club, it turned out, wasn’t a refuge only for children. Senior citizens played cards there, religious folks gathered for fellowship, and social workers and doctors provided free counseling and medical care. Just like many of the hustlers I’d been speaking to, Autry felt that the gang did help the community-giving away food, mediating conflicts, et cetera-but he also stressed that the community spent a lot of time “mopping up the gang’s mistakes.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “They kill, sometimes for the most stupid reasons,” he said. “ ‘You spoke to my girlfriend…’ ‘You walked down the sidewalk in my territory…’ ‘You looked at me funny- That’s it, I’ll kill you!’ ”

  “So it’s not always fights about drugs?”

  “Are you kidding me?” He laughed. “See, the gang always says it’s a business, and it is. But a fifteen-year-old around here is just like any fifteen-year-old. They want to be noticed. They don’t get any attention at home, so they rebel. And at the club we’re always mop-ping up their mistakes.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Well, we settle shit when it gets out of hand. Like the other day-Barry knifed somebody from a different gang because the other boy was hanging out near his building. Just for hanging out! So I called my friend Officer Reggie, and we let the two fight it out.”

  “Fight it out? I thought you said you settled it.”

  “We did. That’s how you settle shit sometimes. Let boys fight each other-no
guns, no knives. Then you tell them, ‘Okay, you-all see that you can fight without killing each other?’ ”

  Autry told me that the club played a broad peacekeeping role in the community. He and other staff members worked with school authorities, social workers, and police officers to informally mediate all kinds of problems, rather than ushering young men and women into the criminal-justice system. The police regularly brought shoplifters, vandals, and car thieves to the club, where Autry and the others would negotiate the return of stolen property as well as, perhaps, some kind of restitution.

  I never saw any of these mediations in person. Autry just told me about them after the fact. It didn’t seem as if he were lying, but perhaps bragging a little. He told me that he even invited rival gang leaders to the club late at night to resolve their conflicts. My conversations with Autry were a bit like some of my conversations with J.T.: it was not always easy to independently verify their claims.

  One busy morning Autry surprised me by asking if I wanted to come to a private meeting at the club later that day. He explained that a few neighborhood organizations were planning a midnight basketball league.

  It would be open to all teenagers, but the real goal was to attract gang members. Local community leaders liked the idea of getting unruly teens to play basketball at the club instead of spending their nights on the street. For the young men, the price of admission was to sit through a motivational speech by a pastor or some other speaker before each game. In exchange, the teenagers would get free sneakers, T-shirts, and the chance to win a trophy.

  Autry’s work would soon command wide attention, when the Clinton administration used the Chicago midnight basketball league as a model for a nationwide movement. In reality there was only anecdotal evidence that the leagues reduced teenage violence, but in a climate where few programs were successful on any level, policy makers were eager to showcase an uplifting idea like midnight basketball.

  When I showed up at the club that afternoon, Autry was sitting at a table bearing coffee and doughnuts, a handmade sign behind him on the wall: MIDNIGHT BASKETBALL MEETING IN CONFERENCE ROOM.

  “Welcome, Sudhir,” Autry said, beaming. “Everyone is inside.” He mentioned the names of several tenant leaders, pastors, a Nation of Islam official, an ex-police officer. The basketball league was turning into a big deal for Autry. It represented his entrée into the elite group of community leaders, whom Autry very much wanted to join.

  “You sure they won’t mind if I sit in?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” Autry said, shuffling some papers. “And the niggers won’t mind either.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Man, we got them all!” He rubbed his hands together excitedly.

  “We got all the leaders-Disciples, Black Kings, MCs, Stones. Everyone is coming!”

  “You didn’t tell me they’d be there,” I said meekly.

  Autry could tell I was concerned. “Don’t worry. Just sit in the back and keep your mouth shut. I’ll say you’re with me. But help me with these first.” He handed me three sets of flyers that needed to be passed out to everyone. One of them was titled “Rules for Buy-In,” which specified the mandatory donation of each sponsoring “organization.” Each gang was expected to contribute five thousand dollars and field four teams of ten players. The money would be used to pay for the referees, uniforms, and the cost of keeping the gym open at night.

  “You’re getting the gangs to pay for this?” I asked. “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “What would you rather that they do with their money?”

  “Good point,” I said. “But something doesn’t feel right about it.”

  “I see.” Autry put down the flyers and pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “Two thousand niggers in this project making money by selling that poison, killing each other, killing everyone who buys it. We can’t do nothing about it. And now we tell them that if they want to be selling that shit, they have to give back. They have to step up. And you look at us funny? It’s them you should be asking these questions to.”

  “I would if I knew them,” I said.

  “Don’t lie to me, nigger.”

  Autry knew I was on good terms with J.T., although I’d been cagey about the extent of our relationship. Many times he’d told me I needed to have the courage to ask J.T. more difficult questions about the gang, even if it would upset him. “At least you can ask one of these niggers the question,” he said. “And he’ll be here tonight.” Autry let out a loud laugh and went outside to smoke his cigarette.

  Shit. It would be the first time I’d seen J.T. in several weeks. I was usually careful to ask his permission before attending any event involving gangs, both to show respect and because I needed a patron. Otherwise, as he always told me, my personal safety couldn’t be guaranteed.

  I decided to wait outside the club to talk to J.T. when he arrived. Autry offered to wait with me. We stood on the sidewalk and watched the busy, noisy traffic along Federal Street. The club sat in the shadow of a project high-rise. You could hear people yelling from the sidewalk up to the open windows-there was no intercom system-and you could smell the smoke of marijuana and menthol cigarettes.

  Before long, J.T. and the leaders of the other gangs began pulling up with their respective security entourages. The scene was straight out of a gangsta-rap video. Each vehicle-there were sports cars, fancy trucks, and one long, purple Lincoln Continental-was immaculate, rims sparkling from a fresh wash. They drove up in a line, as if in a funeral procession, parking across the street from the club. The first man out of each car was a bodyguard, even if the gang leader was the one who drove.

  Autry crossed the street, as nonchalantly as his excitement allowed, to ensure them that the club was safe, neutral territory. They were all dressed similarly: new tracksuits, white sneakers, and plenty of gold on their wrists and around their necks. As they approached, each leader was trailed by one or two bodyguards, with another one or two staying behind with the cars. All the bodyguards wore sunglasses and baseball caps.

  J.T. noticed me standing there and pushed his bodyguards aside. “You-all go in!” he shouted to the other gang leaders, “I’ll see you in a bit.” Then he turned to me. He shrugged his shoulders and glared, the universal signal for “What the fuck?”

  Autry intervened before I could answer. “Hey, man,” he said, “no worries, he’s with me.”

  “He’s with you?!” J.T. wasn’t smiling. “You know him?”

  “Yeah, big boss man, today he’s with me.” Autry smiled, his front teeth glistening as he leaned over and hugged J.T.

  “Oh, so he’s with you now,” J.T. repeated, shaking his head. He pulled out a cigarette, and Autry lit it for him.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I haven’t seen you in a while. Autry and I just met, and he said I could come to this meeting. I should’ve told you.”

  “Yeah, the brother didn’t mean nothing,” Autry said. “Not a big deal. No taping today, right, my brother?” Autry loved to walk into a room with me at the club and yell, “Sudhir is from the university, and he’ll be taping everything you say today!”

  “Not a big deal?” J.T. said, turning to Autry. “You’re more ignorant than I thought you were. You pulled all these people together, and you’re going to fuck it up like this.”

  “Whoa, my brother. Like I said, he’s with me.”

  “And what if he comes by my building? Is he with you then? Huh? Is he with you then, nigger?”

  “Fuck, no!” Autry laughed. “Then he’s with you! ’Cause I ain’t stepping foot in that motherfucker. Hell no!”

  Autry ducked inside, grinning broadly. He seemed to be having great fun.

  “That’s what I thought,” J.T. said, turning to me. “If you walk in there, the first time all these other niggers see you, then you’re with Autry, not me. You didn’t think about that, did you? You’re a motherfucking impatient nigger. And an ignorant one, from where I stand. You walk in there and I can’t do nothing for
you. No more. So it’s up to you.”

  “I didn’t think about any of this,” I apologized. “I didn’t know how-”

  “Yeah, nigger, you didn’t think.” J.T. started walking inside. “Like I said, you’re with me or you’re with someone else. You decide.”

  Inside, I could see Autry, giggling at me. “Come in, boy!” he yelled. “Come in, little baby! You scared?”

  I decided I wasn’t willing to jeopardize my relationship with J.T., even if it meant missing an opportunity to learn more about the community and the gangs. So I turned and walked away. I started toward the university, and then I stopped. The last time I’d had an uncomfortable episode with J.T.-his beat-down of C-Note-I’d made a mistake. I’d waited too long before speaking to him about it. That made it harder to get a satisfying explanation. So this time I headed straight for J.T.’s building, figuring he’d go there when the meeting was over.

  He did. He still seemed upset and started yelling at his mother. “No one understands what I deal with!” he said. “No one listens and does what I say.” He sent his bodyguards out to buy some beer. He sat on the recliner and grabbed the remote control. He barely glanced at me.

  “You pissed at me?” I asked.

  “What the fuck have you been doing around here?” he asked.

  I explained that Ms. Bailey had introduced me to Autry and that I was interested in what went on at the club. He seemed surprised that he no longer knew all the specifics about the people I was meeting. “I guess you were going to make some friends while I was gone,” he said, and then he asked a question I’d been hoping he’d never ask: “What exactly are you doing around here? I mean, what are you writing about?”

  He started changing channels on the TV. It was the first time I’d ever been with him when he didn’t look me in the eye.

  “Well, honestly, I’m… I’m fascinated by how you do what you do,” I stammered. “Like I said before, I’m trying to understand how your mind works, why you decided to come back to the neighborhood and run this organization, what you have to do to make it. But if I don’t get out and see how others look at you, how you have this incredible effect on other people, then I’ll never really understand what you do. So while you were gone, I thought I’d branch out.”