D L O E TH R O B H G I E N D O HO M HILL L L BI
V A NO
EL
ANN
"This cool, incendiary rites of passage novel is the real deal." —IRVINE WELSH, author of Trainspotting
L L I B N N A LM
V A NO
HIL
CURB
EL
SIDE
SPL
IC R CH ENDO
AGO
D L O E TH R O B H G I E N D O O H
PROLOGU
E
sat elevated on ramp jacks above the white slab of the two-car garage. Pungent oil spilt in a steady bead to the tin pan below. You watched it empty as you crouched beside the car with your head craned downward. Your long arms stretched down—hands planted flat on the concrete. The veins bulged and crisscrossed the bulbous knots of your forearms like strings of lightning. The garage door burst open, and a teen with a buzzed scalp panted in the doorway. He wore a brown jean jacket and construction boots. The gray winter sky illuminated his smooth cheek. “It’s going down! It’s going down over at Senn right now! Dey’re runnin’ dem niggers out de neighborhood!” he yelled. Moments later, you briskly walked east down Bryn Mawr Ave. toward the Red Line “L” stop. Large clots of salt-blackened snow lined the edges of the sidewalk; the freezing weather preserved them, shin-high and sloped, like tiny mountain ranges. The teen knew not to talk to you. He knew he’d get no response. He was afraid to even look at your hawkish scowl and the broken and re-
T he muscled - up, nav y- blue ’ 6 5 I mpala
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broken nose. They sent him to deliver the message and show you where. That was all. This silent, negative charge radiated from you. You ground your teeth and stomped on in Chicago’s burning January freeze—a freeze that can paint a man’s face and hands red in seconds. A rumble of shouts and honking car horns built to the north. When you got to Wayne Ave., you peered down the narrow corridor of the one-way street, which intersected with Ridge Ave. at a forty-five degree angle. An immense, calamitous procession ambled slowly down Ridge. You quickened your pace to a jog and cut down Wayne. As you approached Ridge, you saw a long line of leather coat-clad city police officers with their powderblue chests peeking out near their collars. The cops’d taken one of the southwest-bound lanes and surrounded a parade of over a hundred black teenagers. Traffic skirted slowly around them. An awestruck young mother eked past in a brown four-door Buick. Her young boys’ faces were glued to the window in back. At first, you could only see the black boys’ faces, which were stoic and resolved. Their feet slipped on the thin films of ice. They were twisted at the waist with their arms locked elbowin-elbow to create an intertwined shield of bodies. A black kid with a fuzzy gray skull cap and a black quarter-length pea coat bugged his eyes out at the faction of white hoodlums across the street who stalked them from across the way. They were just a few feet up the sidewalk from you. The black boy muttered, “Mothafuckas,” quietly. Then, you saw the girls inside the arm chain. One thick-boned, dark-skinned girl pressed her school books tightly to her chest. Her full lips pursed. Her eyes darted from her snow boots across Ridge to the gang of white thugs that bellowed cat calls at her. All the white hoods were clad in tight jeans and tan construction boots. Their hair was either buzz-short or slicked back tightly to their scalps. One of them was a head taller than the rest. His
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hair was swirled back in a ducktail, and his dark-brown jean coat read “T.J.O.” in black, block-shaped letters high across the back. He had a jagged, angular face and wild eyes. His large Adam’s apple yo-yoed along his narrow throat as he cackled. You knew him as little Kellas. You’d kicked his ass a hundred times while he was growing up, and you got him hired on as a laborer at a high-rise job a few months back when he dropped out of school. He showed up until the first payday, cashed the check, and vanished. He was like another little brother to you. Kellas craned his head back like a rooster. His scratchy voice careened over the others: “Come on, baby! Don’t be shy! Bring that big, nasty fanny on over an’ sit it down right here.” He yanked at the crotch of his black jeans, and the gang erupted into laughter. A smirk slithered across the lips of a young, pudgy copper in an ankle-length trench coat. The cop looked down. His polished black boots stomped atop the salt-faded, yellow dotted line while his maple billy club swung in circles from the strap around his wrist. You followed behind this group of rambling roughnecks, keeping your distance. Your wide hands flexed and gesticulated with the burning sensation there in your palms that always appeared when you itched to give somebody a smack—the kind of slap that leaves the recipient snoring on the sidewalk. The teen ran up to Kellas and yanked at his coat sleeve, then pointed back at you. Kellas turned and grinned maniacally. He raised his palm towards the marching students. His eyebrows hiked upward. You grimaced and your face flushed red. “Who’s dat?” someone asked. “Dat’s the leader of Bryn Mawr,” Kellas replied. You walked on—your jutting chin tucked into your throat. The procession reached the three-street intersection at Bryn Mawr, Broadway, and Ridge. The white gang halted at the sharp peninsula where Ridge and Bryn Mawr touch. There were fifty or
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more now. They spilt out into the streets. A short, stout guy with acne bubbled across his cheeks stumbled out into the street and puffed his chest out. “WHAT’D MARTIN LUTHER KING EVER DO FOR ME?” he yelled, his vicious tone piercing the bedlam. You walked up beside Kellas, but he didn’t turn. He kept his gaze on the mob of black and blue that encompassed the highschoolers. “You told me there was gonna be a fight,” you said, baring your teeth. “They look like they just want to go home.” “And we’re seeing ’em off,” Kellas replied, smiling. Then, he cupped his hands around his mouth, leaned back, and rocked up on his tip-toes to yell, “GOOD RIDDENS, NIGGERS!” The wind whirled and frayed his greasy, dark-brown hair, and it wimpled up in thin strands like tentacles. The procession stopped traffic in all directions. The honks of car horns rose in a steady, long, mournful chorus that encircled the procession in the melodic agony of the city. The police and students crossed Broadway—a slow, sad parade. They sifted up toward the Bryn Mawr “L” stop. You watched them for a while. Thin trails of steam rose from their mouths and nostrils and accumulated and congealed into one misty haze above the procession. The hoods roared at your sides. Their laughter felt like pinpricks in your earlobes. “Fuck this,” you spat. You turned away down Bryn Mawr and walked home.
NE PA R T O
CHILDHOO
D
CHAPTER
1
LAKESH IT ON X E T S THE LA
ORE
I t began at the carnival .
Those magic nights—the whole of St. Greg’s Parish strolling over from the bungalows and two flats and apartments mixmatched throughout the neighborhood. There were the games, the shouts of the carnies, the swirling thunder of the Tilt-A-Whirl, lights flashing, pulsing; the colors of yellow, red, green, and blue exploding like fireworks against the walls of the church; the old nunnery; the high school; and the grammar school that encircled it all like a towering red-brick fortress. The structures trapped the cacophonous noises so they echoed with booms that bounced from wall to wall. And there was the crying joy of the children and the wild in their eyes and the running and no knowledge of anything else. The carnival sat on top of the school parking lot. The exits were the alley to the east behind the priest’s house, the tunnel that cut through the school and led out onto Bryn Mawr, and the narrow opening between the church and the nunnery. I was nine years old and hanging out amongst the big metal
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rides near the beer tent with some kids from the block. Lil Pat was drinking with the other hoods in the beer garden behind the rectory—something he’d been doing for years even though almost none of them were of age. Father McHale loomed near them in his black priest suit. Beads of sweat rolled down his huge bald head. He kept an uneasy eye on the youngsters guzzling back beers from clear plastic cups. Lil Pat was the tallest of ’em. His shoulders were set close, and only his profile revealed his large, low-hung pot-belly. They were somewhere between greasers, cholos, and jocks. Some wore shirts with sports logos, or sweatpants and Dago T’s, and some wore oil-stained Dickies. Some had buzzed heads, and others had slicked back hair with the sides almost shaved. Their voices rose and fell in that squeaky Chicago slang. They were a dying breed. The great white flight was siphoning their numbers. The neighborhood was changing. “Aye, Joey,” Lil Pat yelled. “C’mere,” he said, waving his hairy knuckled hand. He’d walked up to an older woman and a redheaded kid my age. I jogged over. “Hey, did you ever meet Ryan?” Lil Pat asked. I shook my head no. “Well, he’s Mickey’s nephew,” he said, nodding towards where Mickey stood. Mickey’s stout build poured out of his Dago T. His face flexed as he spoke to the hood next to him. I looked at the kid in front of me—Ryan. He was like a miniMickey. His hair was in a short buzz cut, and he had the same pit bull face, but softer, rounder, and covered with a spattering of dark-brown freckles. He wore old, grayed Adidas with thick blue laces that made me wonder if he was very poor. “Well, shake hands or somethin’. Jesus,” Lil Pat said, furrowing his brow and shaking his head. “What’s wrong wit you?” He slid his palm the wrong way through my slicked back hair, so I had to fix it.
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“What’s up?” Ryan and I said at the same time. Both of us looked down. I noticed a thick gold bracelet on his wrist. “Nice gold,” I said. “Thanks,” Ryan replied, looking at the tips of my scuffed up Air Jordans. “Nice rope. I got one like dat at home.” “Well, you two go on an’ play,” Lil Pat urged, dragging his fingers through his trimmed goatee and mustache. “An’ stay outta trouble you little shit.” We both smiled. Ryan and I made quick friends, and soon we were laughing and playing with the other kids—white, black and Mexican kids— dipping and dodging through the maze of grown-ups. � It sent a torrent of reactions through the mass of people. Some of the hoods dove under the folding tables. Father McCale smirked and jammed both of his index fingers in his ears like it was a firecracker. No one seemed to know which direction it had come from. I saw it though—the fire from the barrel. I watched Lil Pat run and jump the beer garden fence in the direction of the tall, skinny Assyrian kid who held the pistol to his leg. A line of gray smoke leaked from the barrel and slithered up his wrist. The confusion continued as the Assyrian sprinted down the alley with Lil Pat and Mickey giving chase close behind. Ryan and I darted after them as they ran down the alley and turned right. A wild, menacing laughter erupted from Lil Pat and Mickey. I glanced at Ryan sprinting beside me. He looked as scared as I felt. We ran as fast as we could, but they pulled away from us as we turned at the T in the alley. Their shoes clapped the pavement as my Jordans slipped on the dusty, pebble-ridden concrete. They sprinted across Ashland Ave. and through the Jewel parking lot. Ryan and I crossed Ashland. A rusty pickup truck
T he gunshot was abrupt.
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honked its horn as we cut in front of it. My heart banged in my ears. Across the half-empty parking lot, the Assyrian disappeared through the front door of the pharmacy, with Lil Pat and Mickey close behind. The laughter rose to high hilarity. As we approached the pharmacy, I heard the screams from inside, but no gun shot. We stood there at the open door as the neon-green light from the sign in the window poured out and stained the sidewalk at our feet. We peered in at the long rows of shelving units that ran back to the counter; there wasn’t a soul in sight, just the screams and a deep, leaden crunching. Then, the sound dampened. The laughter plummeted to a bubbling, demonic gurgle. There was a blur of motion. Ryan grabbed my arm and pulled me toward another doorway. We crammed in and pressed our backs to the glass door. Lil Pat emerged from the drug store with Mickey right behind him. Their laughter fizzled into a popping giggle. Their hands were as red as butchers’ to the forearms, and there was a bulge in Lil Pat’s blood-speckled waistband. As they jogged out, Lil Pat’s shirt rose up above his belt, and I saw the wet wooden pistol grip. They glanced up and down Clark Street, wild-eyed, and then hung a left and disappeared into the darkness of the side street. The screaming continued inside. It was a woman’s voice, and it was the only voice that could be heard. There was a quick panting between each scream. I listened as I hid there with Ryan beside me. Our chests heaved. The patter of Lil Pat and Mickey’s steps dissipated. We entered the drug store wordless. The woman screamed like she was falling into an endless, black abyss, it rang in my ears. Trembling, we walked towards it. I saw the dark-red puddle on the floor slowly expanding like a shadow across the green and grey tiles. I walked closer to the puddle’s edge where I saw the young man motionless—eyes still open. A deep crack above his eye ran up his forehead and into his hair. Thick blood oozed slowly from the wound, wetting his frizzy black hair. His
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bottom jaw hung open and was cocked to the side of his narrow, dark face like it had been dislodged from its hinge. The woman screamed deeper into the abyss, crumpled on the ground with the phone trembling in her hand. Her torso shook terribly. The puddle enveloped her legs and soaked the underside of her brown nylons. I looked at them in silent mourning—for the young man and something that I hadn’t words for. We slipped out of the store as others poured in through the doorway. We walked towards home in the quiet—our heads hung. The weight of it all around us. The air was thick, and the carnival roared on in the distance. The sound of the children’s joyous screams rose and fell, but I had no urge to return. We walked down Clark to Hollywood Ave., where the yellow sign of the corner store glowed stale and flickered. We stood there under it a while. “You think dey’re gonna get caught up?” I asked. “Naw, there ain’t nobody gonna rat dem out.” “Shit… He was dead wadn’t he.” Ryan didn’t answer. We walked down and crossed Ashland with the sirens floating in the air. Ryan went his way to the north, and I went home. I went up to my room and sat on the bed a while in the dark as the orange-yellow of the streetlight seeped in through the window. I thought about God. I thought about heaven and if Lil Pat could ever go there now. I wondered if I could go there now that I knew what I knew and was never gonna tell. I held my crucifix and prayed to Jesus that he wasn’t dead. After the others had gone to sleep, I went downstairs to the TV room and watched the reports of the murder. And that was the birth of Pistol Pat. � all I ever wanted to be was the baddest kid on the block. At least that’s what I thought I longed for; W hen I was a little kid ,
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deep down, all I wanted was for my family to stay together, but I didn’t find that out ’til later. My Ma got pregnant with Lil Pat when she was thirteen and the old man was fourteen, and they had to go down to Tennessee to get married ’cause at their age it was illegal in the State of Illinois. The far North Side was a strange place back then. Uptown and Edgewater were full of hillbillies from West Virginia who came looking for work, found it, and stayed. Their hillbilly family vendettas came with them. Rifle volleys resounded over Sheridan Ave. from one low-rent high-rise to the next. Folk music flourished. John Prine, Steve Goodman, Fred Holstein—all of them spewed out of the North Side of Chicago. At first, my family lived on the second floor of my grandmother’s two-flat. It was right there on Olive Ave. in-between Ashland and Hermitage Ave. in the St. Greg’s Parish. The old man had evolved from street thug, to car thief, to cat burglar, to repo man. In other words, he’d gone pro. And Ma was babysitting. They had three raccoons and a fox as pets. Then, they had Blake. He was a sick baby—had a heart defect—but don’t worry, he grew up to be probably the biggest and strongest of the brothers. Richard was born a couple years later, and everybody said, “Look at the size of the feet on that kid! He’s gonna be a giant!” but he never broke six feet. Ma started to worry that my Dad was only gonna give her boys, and she really wanted a little girl. So she thought of adoption, but DCFS was already breathing down her neck because she was running an illegal babysitting outfit out of the apartment, though the only thing illegal was that she had too many kids. What DCFS didn’t understand was that Ma was really good at taking care of ten to twelve kids at a time, in addition to her own. She’d read an article in the Trib about adoption and found out that you could adopt kids from third world countries really easy. She and my old man looked into it and started saving. Next thing
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you know, they’re on a flight to Puerto Rico to change planes and head to the Dominican Republic to adopt a little girl. My Dad had earned himself quite a reputation as a tough guy in quite a tough neighborhood at quite a tough time in Chicago. Well, he ends up in the pisser at the airport in Puerto Rico, and he says when he walked in there was a uniformed cop standing at the door. So there he is pissing at a urinal when three “Spanish guys” (they weren’t from Spain, though) walk in and step up behind him in this empty bathroom. Pin-prickles dance up his back and neck. The three of them stood in complete silence behind him, though all the other urinals were open. Dad figured they weren’t gonna wait for him to finish, so he didn’t wait either. With his thang hanging out in mid-stream, he spun around on them. He said he’d never kicked anyone in the face harder in his whole life, which means something because he had a long, storied history of kicking people very hard in the face. At the end, he grabbed the last of them by the head and broke the porcelain urinal with the guy’s cheekbone. When Dad walked out, the cop at the door had evaporated. Interpol grabbed him, and my Ma didn’t know where the hell he was ’cause he didn’t inform her that he was going to the john. Anyway, somehow they made it to the Dominican Republic. An adoption agent took them miles inland along winding dirt roads to a tiny village full of huts. They literally lived in a shack made of scrap metal and salvaged wood with chickens and lizards running around on the dirt floor. The girl’s family was comprised of thirteen children from two fathers—the first had passed. My parents went for the infant, but the birth mother urged them to also take the second-youngest in the belief that her children would get a chance at a better life in America. The negotiation took place as giant, black hornets swooped in to kill the tarantulas. The second-youngest was a little girl about to turn three, and somehow Ma convinced Dad, so they came home with not one but two
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little, dark-brown, frizzy-haired angels. They named the youngest Rose and the older one Jan, but they’d forever be known as Jan’n’Rose and have their names be confused by all of our family, even though Rose was much lighter skinned and taller than Jan, who was dark and small-framed with a fiery temper. I came into the picture about a year later. A “late-in-life baby” my Ma always said, but she was just twenty-seven. It was a different time. � didn’t spark off out of the blue. We could feel it coming—in the family and in the neighborhood. The TJOs sprouted up in Edgewater in the ’60s. The original name was the “Thorndale Jarvis Organization.” They were a fairly organized stone greaser gang that hung out right under the Thorndale stop on the Red Line directly across from the huge dark brick armory where I took gymnastics as a little boy. Their real estate ran between there and the Jarvis stop on the Red Line. Under the leadership of Joe Ganci and Bob Kellas, the gang flourished, and membership skyrocketed to over 200 members in the early ’70s. At one point, there was a whole juvenile courtroom full of TJOs on a variety of charges. The judge’s name was Reynolds, and he was known for his hot temper and quick wit. After he’d sentenced the twelfth TJO to appear that day, he looked up and said, “What is this TJO crap anyway? These guys are nothing but a bunch of Thorndale Avenue Jag Offs.” The name stirred uproarious approval through the entire courtroom, and the gang forever changed the official name to the Thorndale Avenue Jag Offs. The older TJOs had slightly biker-ish leanings and at times called themselves “Thieves Junkies and Outlaws.” Eventually, they garnered the attention of Sonny Barger and his crew, and the Hell’s Angels would sporadically stop by and pay the neighborhood a
L il P at becoming a murderer
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visit while on their countrywide tours of wreaking havoc. It was around then that the TJOs began dealing heroin. Some say it was the Angels that biked it in, concealing it in their fuel tanks, but others say it was the Mob, who Ganci and Kellas started doing lowlevel hits for. Those hits eventually got the both of them pinched on a murder rap, but during the months-long trial, they both miraculously escaped from Cook County Jail in a week that saw seven inmates escape, including one who was in the county hospital for a stab wound and just walked out of the front door in broad daylight. Needless to say, it was a bad week for those friendly confines that the regulars lovingly called “California” due to its location on California Ave. Both men were caught within weeks. Ganci took the plunge and got natural life, and Kellas got ten on conspiracy to commit murder. Mickey’s big brother and Ryan’s dad, Rick Reid, took charge and brought the TJOs into the ’80s until he got in a traffic dispute on Clark, ripped a guy out of his car window, and beat him to death in front of his wife and child. In the process, he nearly exposed the long-running extortion ring the TJOs had going with the businesses on Broadway and Clark, between Thorndale Ave. and Foster Ave. Word was that Rick went into a bar across the street while the ambulance hauled the guy away, and the police began to question people on the sidewalk right in front of him. The entire neighborhood claimed they didn’t see anything. Mind you, the assault occurred in the middle of a busy Saturday afternoon on Clark. All the press brought on a big two-year investigation in an attempt to link heroin, extortion, murder-for-hire, and all-around Chi-town All-Star thuggery. The smart-ass TJOs decided to sue the City of Chicago and the Chicago Police on charges of harassment, and it actually got before a judge before being thrown out for its utter ridiculousness. In the mid-’80s, Kellas was released from prison and regained the reins from an up-and-comer nicknamed Wacker. Word was
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that Wacker headed the murder-for-hire division of the gang. The TJOs enjoyed a short reign in the North Side heroin distribution ranks through newly acquired friends Kellas made during his stay in Joliet Correctional Institution. Then, a nobody buyer approaches him wanting to purchase two kilos of heroin for $40,000 dollars. Now, the TJOs were top dogs at this point for a long stretch of real estate—from Uptown to Howard Street—so it wasn’t out of their reach and reputation, but sensing that there were no Mob ties or muscle involved, Kellas and Wacker get greedy. They set up a deal in the Carson’s Ribs parking lot at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday—the same time school lets out at Senn High School, which is across Clark and down a block. They decided to bring a newly acquired MAC 10 UZI with an extended clip in place of the two keys of H and figured they’d negotiate from there. Afterwards, they’d head over to pick up their girlfriends at Senn and see how the young bucks were holding down the courtyard, 40 stacks the richer. They show up rolling in a souped-up, dark-green Mustang convertible with racing slicks. The guy is there just like they talked about. They all exit on the side of the Carson’s. They ask to see the green, and he asks to see the brown. They show the MAC 10, and the guy starts stuttering. Then, Wacker sprays the side of the guy’s Cutlass with a short burst from the MAC 10. A briefcase is handed over. They jump in the Mustang, and off Kellas and Wacker roll, already counting the money. Suddenly, a U-Haul truck flies out of nowhere and T-bones their Mustang. Thirteen DEA agents pour out with their guns drawn and firing. Wacker crawls out of the mangled muscle car and empties out what’s left in the extended clip. One of the DEA agents shoots him in the head. The bullet strikes his skull at an angle above his left eye, scorches through the flesh between his scalp and skull, ricochets off his hard Irish bone, and exits the back of his head. He passes out but survives, scarred for life. A giant wave of kids
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vacating the school walk past, astonished at the sight. The coleader of the TJOs lies there presumably dead with a bullet hole in his head. A mob forms. The Chicago Police also arrive. There are more arrests, but finally it simmers down. Both of them go away for assault on federal agents and conspiracy to distribute heroin, which, when it’s all settled, leaves Kellas with a thirty-year sentence. Since it’s Wacker’s first felony offense, he gets ten years. Now, we’re getting into the mid-’80s and the rise of Mickey Reid, Fat Buck, and my big bro, Pistol Pat.
VISIT E INFO R O R.COM M FOR LENDO P S E D I URBS W W W. C IT ER VIS TO ORD M N.CO AMAZO
“A raucous but soulful account of growing up on the mean streets of Chicago, and the choices kids are forced to make on a daily basis. This cool, incendiary rites of passage novel is the real deal.”
—IRVINE WELSH, author of Trainspotting “Bill Hillman’s The Old Neighborhood is like a right hook to the chin with brass knuckles, crackling with both bravery and urgency. Brilliantly evoking Nelson Algren’s Neon Wilderness and Richard Price’s The Wanderers, the novel is unflinchingly honest in its depictions of class and race, a deft portrait of our sometimes-less-than-fair city.”
—JOE MENO, author of Hairstyles of the Damned
A bright and sensitive teen, Joe Walsh is the youngest in a big, mixed-race Chicago family. After Joe witnesses his heroin-addicted oldest brother commit a brutal gangland murder, his friends and loved ones systematically drag him deeper into a black pit of violence that reaches a bloody impasse when his eldest sister begins dating a rival gang member. BILL HILLMANN is an award-winning writer and storyteller from Chicago, Illinois. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Newcity, Salon.com, and has been broadcast on NPR. He’s told stories around the world with his internationally acclaimed storytelling series the “Windy City Story Slam.” Hillmann is a union construction laborer and bull runner in Spain, who in the not-so-distant past was a feared street brawler, gang affiliate, drug dealer, convict, and Chicago Golden Glove Champion.
$ 1 5 .9 5 CURBSIDE SPLENDOR