CHAPTER 15

LINCOLN

WE KNEW DAD had a tough job. Shit could get extremely dangerous at any moment. He was down in a deep tunnel one day—a three-hundred-foot circular shaft bored vertically through the bedrock. It rains all day when you’re that deep; endless water cascading down the stone, and the sky is just a small blue circle above. They were raising forms for the foundation of a small structure, and one of his laborers, Jose, realized he’d forgotten his lunch pail behind the eight-foot plywood wall that they’d just stood and fastened. They both climbed up, and Jose pointed it out in-between the wooden structure and the rough, wet stone. A series of coil rods rigged into the rock-face sat horizontally, plugged into the wall on two-foot centers. It was all kicked to hell with 2X4s, too.

Dad decided to climb down for it. It’d only take a minute, and as foreman, he’d rather it’d been him that got hurt doing something stupid than his best laborer. He climbed the form and shimmied himself in, head first, on an angle so his hands would reach the lunch pail first. It was narrow enough to breathe, but not enough to move quickly. He’d just reached down and grabbed the handle of the red and white plastic pail. He was six-feet deep at the head. His tan boots were still way up by the opening. The ever-present water slid down the stone and slipped under his rain gear, coolly slicking his back. Suddenly, there was a short burst from a foghorn, and he remembered they were setting off blasting caps on site #2, which was a hundred yards north, down a tunnel. He knew there’d be twelve dynamite bursts, and he knew he was fucked.

The thunderous booms from the erupting dynamite layered up on themselves. The echoing reverberation swelled into the shaft and ballooned up to the blue sky. At first, his heart patter accelerated. He struggled to breathe. He twisted and fought what he knew was inevitable. At the seventh blast, he’d given up on trying to twist upright. He braced. The shale, clay, and stone broke above him along the circular shelf face. He knew it was coming, and just when he was sure his pulmonary valve would explode, he gripped a coil rod and breathed deeply. His heart slowed to a hard thump. His vision brightened. All around him grew vibrant and magnified: the oily, brownish-gray thread of the rod next to his pulsing, hairy hand; the grainy, tannish-brown of the many-layered wood slivers of the sheet of plywood. The stone and clay descended and plummeted until it clapped on his legs and side. He was perfectly calm. Then, nothing—a soundless, pitch-black void.

Before the cave-in was even finished, the seven-man crew all stood atop the form. They dug ferociously, clawing the dirt and stone and mud with their fingers and hammers. They gripped the coil rods and bent them by hand. One of them leapt down, snagged a stake-mall, and slung it up to another, who caught it and swung down viciously in one motion. He banged the coil rods and opened a path to him. Dad was a feared boss, but his savage intensity toward the work made him revered. The way those men urgently dug him out and had him hoisted on the deck within a minute—I guess you could call that respect, or loyalty, or even something more.

When he told me the story, he said he had a nice little pocket of air to breath—that is wasn’t that bad. But then, I asked Jose a decade or so later while we took lunch break under a bridge way out in Willow Springs. He shut his tattered lunch pail and got real quiet. He cleared his throat of something. His brow creased, and his deep, wrinkled eyes dampened. He shook his head and said, “When we get your Poppa out, he is unconscious. It was very bad.”

Within minutes, Dad came to. They’d lowered the big metal box down with the long iron cable of the boom crane and readied to lift him out to an inbound ambulance, but he refused to go. When his men urged him, he shouted, “I’M NOT GOING ANY-FUCKING-WHERE! WE GOT CONCRETE AT 1:30 GODDAMNIT!” They all sighed—relieved he was his old miserable self again. He grinned and started to crackup, which broke ’em all into joyful hysterics. Finally, he got his shit together and slung his tool belt on. Then, he climbed back in the very same crevasse he’d been buried in, bent the coil rods back straight and true, and replaced the ones he couldn’t. Then, he re-kicked the wall, and they poured at 1:30 sharp. And they made it home in time to eat dinner with their families—their sons, and daughters, and wives who didn’t know a thing about it and couldn’t ever have understood.

But when each of my father’s sons grew into manhood, we did understand, and we loved him with that very same visceral savagery.

•

CLARK IS A SNAKE of a street. There’s no sense of order to it. It leaps out of a grassy field next to the railroad tracks at Cermak, then slips through downtown, past the Federal Building, and shoots by that crazy Picasso sculpture and City Hall and the location of the St. Valentine’s massacre, past Wrigley Field and the heart of Chicago music: the Metro. Then, it roams north-northwest at its own slithering trajectory creating calamitous intersections and mocking the grid of the city. They named it after the Lewis and Clark expedition because it’s an ancient Black Hawk tribal path where many a bloody battle took place; their ghosts haunt it with a mad fury. Our McDonald’s is on Clark, just past Bryn Mawr. A block north, Clark overtakes Ashland and drops it a few blocks up, leaving it as nothing more than a side street. Just after that, and exactly seven miles from the center of the city, Clark glides past a statue of Abraham Lincoln, sitting in the park with his back to Thorndale. Then, Clark rides north, strong, and dies at Howard Street right at Chicago’s north pole. The parking lot of the McDonald’s feeds out onto Ashland to the west and Clark to the east, connecting two of the great arterial streets of the city.

Angel had a beef with this shorty Moe named DeAndre ’cause he called Angel a bitch during summer session at Pierce. So when school let out, it was “On like Donkey Kong.” We waited on the side of the McDonald’s, silently, passing a Marlboro Light back and forth. Ryan pinched his bright blue and purple collared Guess shirt at the chest and fanned himself, jostling his thin gold rope chain—the only two remnants of his cut of the weed money. Angel leaned against the McDonald’s wall and gazed steadily across the lot at the huge, windowless, red-bricked edifice. It had an old, paint-on 7 Up ad that looked like somebody had started to it sand-blast off and given up halfway through. A hot pool of emotion churned inside me. The fear that Angel’d get whooped, then the rest of these bastards’d jump in, and that we’d be on our backs bleeding again. BB’s laughter trickled through my memory. The panic swelled until bright flashes pulsed in my cranium. Run, Motherfucker! RUN THE FUCK AWAY FROM HERE! But there was this cool, magnetic force holding me right there. Then it clicked: I was trapped. No way out. Accept it, motherfucker. They’re coming out here, and it’s going down. You better be in and all the fucking way. A growl popped and grumbled up in my throat. I squared with Angel. “You ready!?” I snarled. He yawned in response and kept his long gaze across the way.

The side door of the McDonald’s opened, and they filed out. DeAndre in front with the rest trailing in a loose line like a platoon headed into the jungle. There were seven dudes, all our age and younger, and three girls. DeAndre dropped his McDonald’s cup on the blacktop as he led them away from us and across the lot. When BB got beside it, he hopped up and stomped it, so the plastic lid and straw popped off. The soda-browned ice gushed out and instantly morphed and melted on the sun-baked pavement.

The afternoon traffic flicked past on Ashland and Clark. The wind gusts doubled up on each other. DeAndre stopped across the lot where there were a few empty parking spaces. He handed his backpack to a fat girl in a baby-blue t-shirt, then he looked down and chuckled. He was a few shades darker than the rest, and there was a line etched into his hair that started at his widow’s peak and traced across and over his scalp like the trajectory of a meteor that impacted somewhere behind his ear.

Angel gazed steadily at DeAndre. It was like he stared straight into him and if he peered long enough, whatever was there would disintegrate. DeAndre looked up at Angel and smirked. Angel grinned back slyly like he knew a secret nobody else knew.

“Come on, motherfucker!” I said, shoving Angel. He sighed. Then, he pushed his back off the wall and started toward DeAndre. The group whooped and hollered as we fanned out at his sides. Angel walked cool—like he was stepping into a party where everybody knew his name. As he got close, the group parted and opened a path. Angel smoothly glided toward DeAndre, loose and limber. DeAndre stood with his hands open and spread out at his sides. He raised his chin high. His eyes bugged out. Angel stepped into range, never breaking his stroll, then he just swung right from the hip—deliberate, straight, and true. Angel’s fist splashed into DeAndre’s upturned jaw and snapped his whole head sideways. A shocked wail rose up around them. DeAndre’s knees instantly buckled. He lunged forward and grasped Angel’s t-shirt. Angel stepped back. Then, he slammed both hands down on DeAndre’s grip and broke it. DeAndre stumbled forward and launched wide haymakers. Angel backed up straight and deflected the punches easily with his shoulders and forearms. DeAndre bulled forward. Angel reeled backward across the lot snapping quick punches that bounced off DeAndre’s head until he got to a parked yellow Nova. The back of Angel’s legs butted against it, and he toppled onto the car’s hood. DeAndre leapt on top of Angel and straddled him. He sat up and throttled vicious punches that penetrated Angel’s guard. Angel’s head bounced off the sheet metal.

“Whoop his ass, ’Dre!” the fat girl squealed joyfully. The group cheered and swelled in around them. Their eyes lit like a frenzied mob. BB squeezed to the front. He squeaked and began to slap his hands on the car hood beside Angel’s head.

The wires looped around my throat and pulled tight. They’re jumpin’ in.

Fear does all kinds of things to people. A dark, cool wave swept through me. Quickly, I rushed up behind DeAndre close, as if I was going to whisper something in his ear. I bent down and gathered my leverage, then I swung up with all my might. My fist crashed into the side of his head near the ear. It felt like hitting a 16-inch softball off a tee. He halted and went limp. Then, he tipped over and flopped flat on the car’s hood beside Angel. There was an awestruck silence. Then, one of the girls screamed. Swiftly, I spun as a kid stepped up to my side. I stuck him straight in the teeth. He twisted away clutching his mouth. I heard a hard crack and spun back to see a kid fall at my feet holding the side of his head. Ryan heaved over him, glowering down. Ryan’s skin pulsed in a cloudy red.

This monster erupted inside me. “COME ON, NIGGERS! RUSH DIS CREW! RUSH DIS FUCKING CREW!!!”

BB sprung at me. I smirked, twisted, and popped him in the eye. He sprawled backward. Then, he looked pleadingly at everyone, in complete shock. They’d all frozen and just gawked at us. Thank god Tank isn’t here.

Angel slid off the car’s hood. He snagged DeAndre’s collar and pulled him to his feet. He reached down and pulled DeAndre’s shirt up over his back and head and entangled his arms. Angel began to whomp DeAndre mercilessly with his free fist. The punches were dug and driven in with the absolute worst intention. The sound was sickening, like heavy boot stomps in mud.

The mob of kids unraveled and spread. Their mouths hung open. They ewwe’d and flinched at each punch. All three girls sobbed. As I watched, something rattled up from my sternum and eased out in a vile snicker. Angel was the only thing that held DeAndre up. He repeatedly bent at the waist and ripped uppercuts into DeAndre’s head. DeAndre’s face dribbled blood all over the blacktop. Angel’s fist, shirt, and pants were smeared in the dark-red mess. He didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were poised in a focused trance.

A McDonald’s worker emerged at the entrance and yelled, “Get on outta here! We called the cops!”

Just then, a squad car with its strobes swirling but no siren swerved in off Clark. The whole group scattered like candy when a piñata bursts. Angel let go, and DeAndre flopped flat on the pavement. We ran toward Ashland when another silent squad car careened in our path, screeching to a halt. A cop with spiked hair sprang out of the passenger door with his gun drawn. He screamed ’Freeze’ so ferociously that all three of us stopped mid-step.

Next thing I know, I was belly down on the steaming pavement with cuffs crunched down on my wrists. Angel flopped down next to me. Then, above, I hear the cop shout, “You think you’re tough, you little Mick?” Ryan hit the deck on my other side. The cop loomed over him, then he clinked the cuffs down so hard Ryan screamed. The cop cracked Ryan’s head off the pavement. Then, he snatched him by his Guess shirt and yanked him so the fabric tore. Ryan’s chain broke and thumped on my shoulder. Angel, still un-cuffed, snatched it and dug it in his pocket.

“Fuck you, motherfucker!” Ryan screamed. He writhed, so the cop slammed him on the hood of the squad car.

Angel and I ended up in the back seat together. I leaned forward to keep the pressure off my manacled hands. Someone must have dropped a bunch of fries during the fight because a squad of pigeons were squabbling over them. Then, a small fleet of seagulls swooped in and angrily ran them off.

“Think he’s alright?” I asked as an ambulance rolled into the parking lot.

“No.”

“Come on, man. You think he’s going to the hospital?”

“Yeah. Fuck that motherfucker.”

“Fuck.” I let my head hang back into the cushion.

Ryan writhed in the squad car across the lot and tried to kick out the windows, screaming so loud we could hear him.

“Ryan’s gotta chill the fuck out,” I said.

“Man, you know that’s the best shirt he’s got.”

I was scared about what the cops were gonna do, what Dad was gonna do. I didn’t feel bad about DeAndre just then. I knew exactly what those guys woulda done to Angel if I hadn’t jumped in—what they would have done to all three of us if we hadn’t fought so hard right-off like that. All the violent things I’ve done to people over the years—all those terrible things—it was the fear that made me do it. The fear of them, of the unknown, of what they would have done to me or my friends, my loved ones. But it doesn’t change the fact that they’ve got loved ones, too, and hurting them, whether I like it or not, hurt a lot of people. And that’s something that just gets harder with the years—facing down all those terrible things. Looking in the mirror trying to figure out who you are—if you was a good guy or a bad guy. Maybe there just wasn’t enough good to go around back then.

We rolled south on Ashland, and the summer afternoon was bright and golden; the neighborhood was obliviously happy. An old lady poured water into flower pots on her front porch—the tulips white and mauve and perky as they unfurled into blossom. Even the dandelions sprung up through the sidewalk cracks with a buoyant, yellow resilience. A little Mexican boy rode his bicycle in the St. Greg’s Gym parking lot, and his Grandpa watched, grinning, as the boy tottered on the training wheels. I wished it hadn’t happened. I wish I was a little kid again.