by Neal Griffin
“Go for it.”
“Do you…” He hesitated. “Do police officers rather…”
When he stopped again, Tia looked his way. “Go ahead, Sam. Just ask. Do police officers what?”
“I just wonder, do they ever stop and think about the impact they have on communities? Communities like this one, I mean. North side of Milwaukee.”
“’Course we do.” Tia had been ready for a challenging topic and was surprised how easy his question was. “We’re pretty damn proud of what we do. Keep people safe. Take bad guys off the street.”
“Bad guys. Right.” He nodded. “I figured that’s how you’d see it.”
“What other way would there be to see it?”
Tia looked his way but Sam ignored the question and seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. He tapped the passenger-side window with his finger.
“About six miles in that direction,” he said, “just down the Ninety-four, there used to be an Allis-Chalmers plant. In its heyday, it employed over fifteen thousand workers. Machinists, welders, skilled assembly workers. The kind of jobs that let people live in good neighborhoods. Be part of healthy communities. This part of Milwaukee was solid middle class. Good families. Schools. It was the kind of place where the police just didn’t see any need to get all that involved. People took care of themselves.”
She wasn’t sure where he was going with it, so she stayed quiet. He went on, “That’s all gone now. That whole world is gone. The jobs. The communities. The life. Nowadays, this part of Milwaukee has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. And it’s not just the unemployment. Drug addiction, eviction, school dropout rates, single-parent households. All the things that pull communities apart are right here. And the only thing society has done about it? I mean the only thing? Is to send in the police.”
Tia had been down this road plenty of times. In fact to her it was like a broken record that blamed the cops for all the social ills that plagued America. “Okay, but all the things you’re talking about. Lost jobs, no opportunity. How is that the fault of the police?”
He smiled. “Exactly. It’s not your fault, so why involve you? The cops, I mean.”
“Sorry, Sam. I’m not following you.”
He turned to her and his face was serious. “The police didn’t create the problem but they’ve been sent in to fix it. Or at least contain it somehow. How does that make sense?”
Tia stopped at a red light and saw that on three corners of the intersection were boarded-up businesses. The fourth corner was a check-cashing store with an armed guard stationed at the front door.
“Well then, tell me,” she asked. “Who are you going to send in to handle the drug problem? Social workers?”
“In some cases, yeah.”
“No offense, Sam, but I don’t think you have a realistic view of the problem.”
“I live in this neighborhood, Tia. I think I have a very realistic view.”
Tia looked out her window and saw a lanky teenage boy giving her the hard look, practically bouncing on his toes. Tia figured on taking the preacher to school.
“Watch this.”
Tia hit the brakes and opened her car door. She put one foot on the street and the boy took off at a dead run. He whistled in a way distinctive enough to stand for something. Some sort of warning.
Tia shut the car door and looked back across the seat. “They probably aren’t actually flushing the dope yet, but they’re at least getting ready to. No doubt barricading the door. You think what? You could talk your way in? Reason with the homies?”
“Cheap cop parlor trick.” Sam waved her off. “I’m not talking corner boys and dealers. I’m talking about the other ninety-eight percent of the people that live in this ten-block area. Those people? They watch the cops come and go every day. And all they see is their neighbors, husbands, and sons getting chased down, cuffed, and hauled away.”
“That’s not all we do, Sam. We don’t just try to put as many people in jail as we can, all right?”
“Really, Tia?” Sam looked directly at her. “Don’t tell people in this neighborhood that’s not what cops do. Because it is.”
“How’s that?” She knew she was sounding defensive but she couldn’t help it.
“Tia, you’re now driving through the neighborhood with the highest per capita incarceration rate on the planet.” He stopped to let it sink in. “Not the state. Not the country, mind you. The planet.”
Tia had no comeback.
“And we’re not talking about major dope dealers, or killers, or rapists. More like shoplifters and pot dealers.” He shook his head and she heard a bit of disgust in his voice. “Justice system? I swear, Tia, call it whatever you want, but it’s anything but just.”
Before Tia could think to respond, Sam pointed out the window. “Turn in here.”
She pulled into a large lot in front of a three-story brick building that stretched out over the entire city block. A dozen or more cars and trucks sat parked in front, and Tia could see men unloading lumber and Sheetrock. A banner hung across the tall windows of the second floor. It looked to be at least fifty feet long and in bright yellow letters against a black background it read:
53206 TRANSFORMATION PROJECT
“Hopefully, you like good home cooking,” Sam said, his voice back to its lighter tone and filled with enthusiasm.
Tia followed Sam as he walked toward the building, waving to the workmen, calling them by name.
“So far, we’re just employing about fifty men on the construction project. Getting the building back up to code. It’s been empty for almost thirty years. All the workers are local from right here in the neighborhood.”
Tia looked down the block at the imposing structure. She could barely see where the building ended. The red brick was turned mostly black with a half-dozen smokestacks jutting into the blue sky, imposing but silent, as if lying in wait, ready to churn back to life. The building made Tia feel as if she’d walked onto a movie set depicting a world gone by.
“What’s the story on this place? Looks like it’s got some history.”
“When it was first built just before the Civil War it was a tannery,” Sam said. “After that, it had a pretty good run as a textile mill. Wasn’t nearly as big back then. Around the time of the Second World War it was expanded and outfitted as a tire plant. Employed over five thousand men, running twenty-four hours a day. Closed down about twenty-five years ago.”
Tia saw that even Sam was awestruck, like he was meeting the building for the first time. She felt it, too. It was one thing to look down from the interstate onto the shuttered factories that dotted the Milwaukee skyline. It was another thing to stand in their shadow and sense the power they once possessed.
“We should be able to house a few dozen small businesses,” Sam said. “We’ve already got on-site day care. We hold NA and AA meetings two nights a week. Pretty soon, we’ll have a community center, job training. Neighborhood clinic. All under one roof. After that, we’ll start opening up for-profit businesses and ship the merchandise all over the country.”
She heard the excitement in his voice, and even though it sounded like pie in the sky, she didn’t want to come off rude. “Hell of a project, Sam. Really something.”
Tia followed Sam inside the building, where the smell of hickory barbecue caused her stomach to come to life with pangs of hunger. A large collection of tables and chairs, mostly occupied, were set up on the first two levels, just inside the entrance. Tia figured the large, open space, which took up the first and second floors, was once the lobby for a business, or maybe a showroom of some sort. The high ceilings had been painted flat black, leaving the original ventilation piping exposed. The walls were redbrick and decorated with large black-and-white photos that looked to be pictures of nineteenth-century Milwaukee. There were other color photographs of people and places of the current neighborhood.
Tia couldn’t help but notice the mixed crowd of people. Some looked to be from nor
th Milwaukee, but several tables were occupied by men and women in business attire whom she guessed had come from the south side.
“A member of my congregation had a rib joint just a few blocks from here. He’d been robbed three times in a month and was ready to give up. I convinced him to set up in here. Says he’s done more business in two weeks than he did in the last six months at his old place. He’s going to need to hire a couple of more cooks and waitstaff, too. And with the crowd of people always around, well … the bad guys, as you call them, have stayed away.”
Sam introduced Tia to the owner, and some of the young people waiting on the crowd and busing tables. A few minutes later Tia and Sam were seated on the upper balcony, in front of a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the city. A biracial woman wearing a shirt marked 53206 brought over a plate full of baby back ribs covered in barbecue sauce along with sides of baked beans and cornbread.
“Here y’all go. Dig in.” She smiled at Tia and winked at Sam before hustling away.
“I said a burger, Sam.” Tia stared at the mounds of food. “I’ll sleep for a week if I eat all this.”
“No worries. I can take it back to the church. It’ll be gone in five minutes. Just try it.”
Tia helped herself and found it hard to hold back. “I’m no authority on soul food, Sam, but this is amazing.”
She could hear the pride in his voice. “I’m trying to get the Journal Sentinel to come do a review, but really, I think word of mouth is all we need. It gets busier every day.”
The talked while they ate, and once again the conversation turned personal. She found herself opening up more than she typically did in work situations. She told Sam about her time in the Marines. She talked about Connor and his long recovery after stepping on an IED. She even mentioned her own on-duty injury, a near fatal shooting, and the difficult months of recovery. She gave her family history a light pass, mentioning that her dad was a dairy worker, but staying away from the early years she spent in migrant camps, when her family had followed the picking season from state to state. But what she did tell him left an impression.
“Sounds like you’ve overcome a few obstacles of your own.” His voice was respectful. “I hope I didn’t sound all preachy before. Giving you some kind of sermon.”
Tia picked up a short rib and bit into the meat. She winked. “Maybe a little, but hey. You are a preacher.”
Sam looked back across the table like he was sizing her up. Drawing some sort of conclusion. “You’re what I call the Abraham Lincoln factor.”
Tia laughed. “Oh man. Here we go again. Sermon number two.”
Sam smiled. “No, seriously. People like you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps. Overcame adversity. Took the bull by the horns. All that jazz.”
Tia used the almost clean rib bone for a pointer. “Exactly. Seems like everyone ought to do that.”
“Don’t you see? That’s the problem.” Sam leaned across the table and squeezed her hand. She felt his excitement, not anger. “You think since it worked for you, why doesn’t everybody do it, right?”
“Yep.” Tia nodded her head. “And not just me. What about Darby? Dad locked up, husband, too. Doesn’t look to me like she’s hitting the crack pipe or getting loaded on Mad Dog 20/20 every night crying ‘woe is me.’”
“Well, Tia, I wish I could take what you and Darby have running through your veins and inject it into that boy back on the corner. I wish I could give every young father in this zip code the kind of internal fortitude that your dad must have. I wish it was that simple. But unfortunately, the human spirit doesn’t work that way.”
“No?” Tia asked. “Then how does it work, Sam?”
He smiled. “Mysteriously, Tia. Very mysteriously.”
Tia sat for several seconds and stared at him. “I like sermon number two better. Abraham Lincoln? That’s pretty damn inspiring.”
He waved a hand at her and turned away smiling. She laughed to let him know it was all in fun.
“I need to get back, Sam.” Tia pulled a twenty from her wallet, knowing it was her last one until payday. She put it on the table.
“Hey, this was on the house,” he said. “Seriously.”
“That’s okay.” It didn’t matter if it was her last few bucks. Tia didn’t take free meals. “I’ll be back and I’ll bring some friends. That was amazing food.”
They both stood to leave and Sam said as he led the way out, “Come back in a couple of weeks. Big celebration.”
“How’s that?”
“We’re closing escrow. After that, we can really start getting this place in operation.”
“Place like this? That check is going to have some zeroes.”
“We’ve got donors and philanthropists lined up. We’re depending on the generosity of a lot of people but it’s all finally coming together.”
They walked outside and the sun was warm on her face. She looked over to see the construction crew was still hard at work. “How about your dad’s congregation?”
“Oh yeah,” Sam said. “They’re a big part of this. But the way I see it, they damn sure ought to be.”
“How so?”
Sam kept walking and looked toward the men still unloading the truck. “They live an hour from here, Tia. But it may as well be…”
He stopped and shook his head in frustration, his hands on his hips. “You ever think about how much of life comes down to the womb you fall out of and the zip code you land in?”
Tia smiled, thinking of her own life. “That’s an interesting way of putting it but, yeah. I know what you’re saying.”
Sam nodded and smiled. “Well, like I said. The ribbon cutting is in a couple of weeks. Should really be something. You should come.”
Tia nodded once. “Count me in, Sam.”
Tia’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out and saw a text message from Travis that was nothing but a row of question marks.
“I better get back to Newberg,” Tia said, punching out a quick reply to her boss.
“All right, Tia,” Sam said. “Thanks for coming by. Sorry if I stepped on your case but I’m glad you came to see me about it. Always better to talk things through, right?”
Tia nodded in agreement. “Thanks for the tour. You want a lift back to the church?”
He was already walking away, headed for the building. “No thanks. I’ll hang out here for a while and help out. I’ll find a ride back.”
Tia got back to her car and as she pulled out she saw Sam helping to unload twelve-foot two-by-fours. He stood out as the only white face among a dozen young men, mostly black but one or two who looked mixed. She even saw a couple of older Latino men. The whole crowd worked together, smiling and laughing, but no one more than Sam.
TWENTY-SIX
Tia drove the Crown Vic hard on the eastbound 94 and headed straight to the PD. Tempted to use the grill-mounted blue light, she realized her lousy time management didn’t actually constitute an emergency. It wouldn’t have made much difference anyway. Her squad already had trouble keeping up with the other cars on the freeway. She parked and double-timed it up to Travis’s office, knowing he was probably not going to be particularly happy with her arrival time.
He had every reason to be angry. Whatever his role in the press conference may or may not have been, Tia knew she was out of line for not checking in first thing in the morning. The PD was in the middle of a controversial death investigation that had the department under a great deal of media scrutiny. She had no right to pull some disappearing act. She was out of breath when she arrived in Travis’s empty office. She texted his cell and he responded immediately: Chief’s Office NOW
Great. She reminded herself again, she had it coming.
Tia walked to the admin wing and saw a BACK IN FIVE MINUTES sign on Carrie’s desk. The Chief’s door was closed so Tia gave it a soft knock and walked in.
Ben looked up from behind his desk. Travis was seated alone on the couch. Two chairs had been pulled up to complete a
circle, occupied by Mayor Dietrich Andreasen and Reverend Ezekiel Mills. Taken aback by the makeup of the group, Tia gave the situation a quick assessment. She recognized it would be important to maintain an appropriate level of decorum, but she didn’t intend to kiss anyone’s ass. She’d pay her respects to the Chief, complete any business with her immediate boss, and make her exit as quickly as possible. As for the other two in the room, they were of no consequence.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir.” Tia nodded to the Chief then turned to Travis. “Hey, Sarge. Did you want to—”
“Good afternoon, Detective. Have a seat.” The terse direction came from behind the desk, where the Chief sat dressed in his full dark blue uniform that included his gold-plated collar stars, metal badge, and nameplate. “I asked Sergeant Jackson to hunt you down. I’d been hoping to meet with you this morning. Go over a few … recent developments?”
“Sorry, sir,” Tia said. She braced herself for the order to shut down the investigation. “I’ve been out running down some leads.”
“Is that right?” Ben’s voice held no anger. In fact, Tia felt that strange connection between them taking place and the most significant emotion she picked up on was his disappointment. She was certain he knew the disappearing act had been deliberate. “I’m assuming you saw the mayor’s press conference last night.”
Tia finally acknowledged Mayor Andreasen’s presence by briefly looking in his direction, but when she spoke she turned back to the Chief. “I caught most of it.”
“Well, we were just—”
“If I may, Ben,” Mayor Andreasen said, cutting the Chief off. The mayor was dressed in his typical dark business suit, red tie, and American flag lapel pin. His black oxfords were buffed to a high shine. The mayor wore his wispy brown hair plastered into a bad oily comb-over that did nothing to hide a significant case of pattern baldness. “The purpose of this meeting was not to initiate a discussion or seek input. I merely stopped by out of respect to your office, and to explain my reasoning.”