Read A Father First: How My Life Became Bigger Than Basketball for Free Online

I’d continue on at Betsy Ross Elementary, which Tragil attended. For the graduation ceremony, I came dressed in my best clothes—a little suit I’d been given by a member of the family—and I wasn’t sure if Mom was going to make it. But lo and behold, when I stood onstage I looked out and spotted her there in the crowd, waving and smiling proudly, pointing me out to the people around her.
    Grandma loved any occasion that brought others together. That stoop was like her office—with everybody stopping by for a visit. My sisters and their friends would come by, as would neighbors and aunts and uncles and cousins, sometimes even sitting down on the steps with her before heading off to wherever they had to go. Except for me. I’d hang with Grandma, in the best seat in the house, right behind her, to watch and listen, enjoying the show. As scared as I was of the police, I eventually started to have a running inner monologue—me pretending I was a stand-up comedian or something—about the different officers. Like there was one of them who moved in a robotic motion, his head rotating from side to side, and his eyes always hidden behind his shades. He was the one I nicknamed “Robocop.”
    Whenever he headed our way, I’d just think to myself, Okay now, here comes Robocop, and chuckle under my breath. Somehow that made him not as mean. I’d share my inside jokes with Tragil and with my only friend of these years, a kid who started as a bag boy carrying drugs when he was all of five.
    That was a damn shame. And most people at the time would have agreed. But, again, that was the culture, the way of the world that we lived in: that eventually everyone was going to be connected or related to the gangs in some capacity, part of the industry that was all there was.
    No one spoke too much to me of the history of the Chicago gangs. The older folk, however, could remember that they originally formed to be of service to the needs of the community, like a social fraternity for belonging, when your own family couldn’t be there for you or when other institutions let you down. When politicians and even church leaders had no answers for the problems in the community, the gangs stepped in and actually fulfilled important functions. That changed over time. Still, for a struggling, mostly poor, all African American community like ours, where pretty much the only white people we encountered were the police (and they were all white then), gangs like the GDs and the BDs offered protection and options. The drug trade wasn’t just one option; it more or less became the only option, what ruled every aspect of life— the answer.
    All this reality played itself out over the years as I watched the main players and the supporting cast of characters go about their daily business in plain sight. This wasn’t out of the norm for kids my age, either. But maybe, as a serious spectator, I paid extra attention. I knew who sold what and where. By the time I left, I’d seen over the course of my time every corner, every signal, every handshake for the exchange of money and drugs. Since the police watched, too, the dealers had to keep changing it up, trying different stuff for the handoffs so as not to look shady. There was an art and a science to these moves. The buyer would have the money in a hand and the seller had the drugs in a hand. The two would approach, act cool like they knew each other, do a kind of “what’s up” hesitation, and then in a blink —slap! —the handshake exchange was done and did. So smooth. Into the pocket.
    Now the twist in this story is that whatever any of them might be doing on the corners or down the street, whenever they passed by my grandma’s porch a noticeable change occurred. All of a sudden, they’d stand up straighter than before and greet my grandma with the most polite, courteous attitude. They always began with “How you doin’ Momma Morris, you need anything?”
    No doubt they’d go right back to