Black Chicago Read online

  They don’t hear “Billie” or care about Billie, their only concern is with the width of the line and whether or not it will carry them to the transfer point of wires; the wire of powdered coke to the crystal from called crack.

  The chemists on the 8th floor, protected by a belligerent army of drug sapped look outs, mix and sample the latest dream stuff, euphemistically entitled, “happy shit.”

  Boys and girls, some of them acting as look outs for the makers of “happy shit,” others into more legitimate forms of acting, form an effervescent base in the projects.

  They are everywhere; posturing preening, rehearsing, reciting their lines, trying out new versions of old stories on each other.

  “Yo’ momma so fat she cain’t even walk.”

  “Yeah, well yo’ momma so ugly she can’t even catch a cold.”

  Some days, in the muggy heat of a Chicago summer, they seem like candy stoked dervishes, whirling from one small theatre in the round to the next small theatre in the round.

  The whole project is a stage and they are the actors on it. Fifteen years olds pretend to be thirty, in order to join the gang and receive the protection that being in a gang grants the bad actors.

  Robin Hoods do not take from the rich (in the Projects) and give to the poor. They take from the poor and keep it.

  Writers are a dime a dozen on these grounds, they write with their lips, they are lipwriters, storyfinders, as in “finders keepers, losers weepers.”

  They blend into the mix of poets, rappers, space agents, hypnotists, painters and lawyers, all elements of this volatile situation called the Projects.

  The projects were designed to oppress Black people in Chicago. Some dishonest believers lie and say, “The projects were created to give the low income people an opportunity to have a decent place to live.”

  The outrageous lie that acted as the catalyst for the development of the projects still earns a few innocents, but it doesn’t wash well with the hip and the really intelligent.

  The projects are civilian peniteniaries, the inmates are primarily women with children (a clever ordinance mandated the absence of men, fathers), the warden (the City) and a set of elaborately designed social circumstances to keep a tight rein on the beast that rages within.

  The projects are ugly and incur the animosity of any sensitive person who is forced to live there. The sensitive person, enraged by the architectural nightmare that stacks him/her layer upon layer, surrounded by meshed wire and designs that mock his/her sense of African aesthetics will, at the first opportunity, attempt to beautify, crucify, mutilate, draw or graffitize on the brutal walls around them.

  All of the laboratory experiments that “ethics” prevent the morally conscious from carrying out in the sterile labs of the country, are routinely conducted in the projects.

  Project: What is the simple effect of caging ten-thousand human beings layer upon layer within structures that create hate for one’s surroundings?

  Project: How long does it take to create anti-social behavior within artifically divided groups (gangs)?

  Project: If men, fathers, are denied the traditional role of men, fathers, how will that effect the children?

  Project: Are African-Americans capable of overcoming generations of life in the projects?

  If African-Americans are walled off, given the worse food possible, inferior educations, exceptionally negative images of themselves and excessive amounts of sugar, what will happen?

  Drug experimentation is relentless, sustained and premeditated. We can be certain that most of the latest chemically based drugs are given their first tryout in the projects.

  The most elaborately developed dances are reserved for the beaurocracy. Who can say when that particular time step was first performed to dazzle the social workers? Or why that ice cold shimmy was used to skirt the issue of manloneliness on the application that boldly asks, “Are you now, or have you ever been …?”

  Most of the dances are tightly structured, with an emphasis on economy of motion. No one can afford to use more energy than necessary. And the names are definitely indications of what they are meant to express.

  The latest dance is called, “The project freedom step.” Some people say it resembles the Electric Slide.…

  Hyde Park Lives! Now ’n Then

  Some say Hyde Park is dead, the Bohemian element washed up, the groove set adrift. A surface look might encourage that brand of thinking; people dash from the bank to the mall, from the mall, to the Co-Op, from there to the latest sale.

  “It ain’t nothing like it used to be.”

  Prideless Black men in kente cloth caps beg on corners where brothers and sisters once proclaimed their divinity to any white person available.

  Pale grey types shuffle past in their Earth Day sandals, briefcases filled with briefs, or directions for the latest bomb.

  A facade lingers, however. The exhibitionists chess players and espresso cafe’ aficionados do their best to call on an earlier time, but it doesn’t really work.

  It worked when we went to the Hyde Park Theatre for an afternoon of communion with “A Picasso Documentary,” or the latest Bergman movie (which let everybody out of the dark brooding and filled as with Swedish angst, even the Black people) or the latest French farce.

  French farces were the thing at the Hyde Park.

  Smallish, arty theatre, no frills, usually overflowing with University of Chicago students, student-atmosphere parasites and “mixed” couples who made the pilgrimage in order to escape the oppression of their own narrow minded neighborhoods.

  The Hyde Park was as escapist as could be. I remember a young white kid (probably the ten year old son of a bearded graduate student) who seemed to be the personification of the Hyde Park romantic, in attendance for the next to last showing of Jose’ Ferrer’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.”

  The place wasn’t overflowing on this particular evening (Sartre, Camus, and Jean Genet were batting 1-2-3 at the time) and the focus of attention gradually settled on this young guy.

  In today’s terms he would obviously be considered a nerd, or one of those other frightening terms ordinary people coin for people who believe in their brains.

  Opaque horn rimmed glasses, freckles that glowed in the heat of the black and white reflections, a Dennis the Menace hair cut and slightly bucked teeth.

  He ooohhed and aaahhed at the speeches Cyrano put into the handsome dummy’s mouth for transmission to Roxanne’s silky ears.

  He grunted with the effort to sword fight fifteen of the villainous beasts who threatened the de Bergerac probicis. He sighed, he called out to friends and foes, he suffered with Cyrano de Bergerac, he moaned at the dis-functioning of a fate that would stick such a beak on a man.

  And at the end of the film he stood and applauded. We couldn’t join him because the film hadn’t touched us the way it had touched him, and we would’ve been guilty of patronizing him if our applause wasn’t as sincere and honest as his.

  The memory of faces shattered by the little guy’s lack of cynicism played on my head, for days.

  A romantic time, that’s what a lot of it was about, romance. We romanced everywhere possible. It was possible (the Sixties, Pre-AIDS) to spend the day on the Point (57th Street jut of rocks on the lake front) and have a romance.

  As a matter of fact it was a prime place for romance. We went in search of women. And vice versa. And it helped matters considerably if the man was Black and the woman was other than Black.

  Interracialism meant something concrete (and romantic). The Black man who prowled the Point in pursuit of white romance wasn’t talked about as bitterly as he would be in later years.

  The urge to integrate had gripped some sisters in a grip so feverish that they granted soft core approval to Black man/White woman hook-ups.

  “I mean, c’mon, why should I get upset? Some of my best girlfriends are white.”

  Things changed, of course, when the statistics began to show that more and more Black wom
en were having fewer chances to mate with Black men. Hmmmmmmm …

  But, before the evil influences of reality and date-less Saturdays began to create ill will, “romance” flourished.

  Jimmy’s tavern on 55th Street was the place for liaisons, romances and gin ’n tonics (or pitchers of beer if you were a “poor student”).

  The music (Mozart, the MJQ or possibly Pete Seeger) was played on a great system, the weekend crowd was filled with strange ideas (Being and Nothingness was big) and if you had missed her on the Point, you could quite likely find her in Jimmy’s.

  The University of Chicago co-ed and that electric collection of significant other women who guzzled and ginned their off study times were rare studies in behavior.

  The African-American sisters (the “radicals” wanted to be called Black) flounced through, dressed as ethnically as they knew how, usually a cross get up between a Peruvian poncho and some sort of gauzy Indian pajama pants, no one seems to have heard of kente at the time.

  They mastered a way of talking that kept their teeth clenched and smiling, and their full lips semi-stationary. They were usually in the company of, or searching for a bearded white guy with visible signs of eye strain.

  The brothers came for the white girls and there were several distinct types from which to choose. The “romantics” dominated, of course, and whenever possible they would try to dig down into the woodpile as far as possible. They went lock, stock and panties to the first African (from Africa) to show his mug.

  The “defiant” ones were usually Jewish, Italian, Irish, German, Polish or possibly a mixture of all of the above. They were there to defy their parents, their prejudiced heritages, their ethnicities.

  Orgies were in. Some people felt that group love was the best love.

  “I mean, lets face it, man, this one-on-one stuff isn’t going to do anything but lead to attachment.”

  “The Europeans” were those twenty-twenty one year olds who had biked around Europe drinking wine and fucking an occasional Spaniard, or Greek. Someone whose swarthiness was just the right preparation for a darker taste of the homegrown product.

  And finally, the “high wire walkers,” the “trapeze artists.” They were usually third/fourth generation Americans from small towns where nothing had ever happened, and now they were in Chicago, the big city, and they wanted to let it rip.

  “The high wire walkers,” “the trapeze artists” usually drank more wine and smoked more of the mild marijuana than the others, often proclaiming their love for mankind, “I don’t pay any attention to a person’s color.” And frequently announced, “I don’t know where my head is, I really don’t.”

  The release of new sexual information might find her head between the brother’s thighs. Or the brother’s head between her thighs, further complicating the mental location of her head.

  Jimmy’s was the full blown tree, the roots rested firmly in the sweating soil of the Hyde Park party.

  The Hyde Park party, when orchestrated by the best of the Hyde Park party givers, was a definitive study in mixtures.

  Four-five darks, a brown or two, a yellow, if one could be found without a heavy accent, several frizzy haired “trapeze artists,” four Pete Seeger types (preferably one with a guitar) and an assortment of beards and sandals.

  The mixture was stirred vigorously with liberal application of cheap wine (maybe an upper or two, if it were really “live”) and coarse admonishments to “go! go! go! go! man! go!”

  It was always Spring in Chicago for the Hyde Park Party, the air flecked with new buds and the hint of fragrant lake smells everywhere.

  The typical party featured long winded conversations that skirted race; racial discussions were considered beneath the notice of authentic Hyde Park party people. We were all integrated, living in harmony and there was no need to shatter any bubbles by suggesting that any other illusion was viable.

  This was the attitude carefully maintained by the white folks, in any case. Of course, there were a number of Black people who agreed with this warped notion, which was their philosophical justification for being a part of the scene.

  The parties usually ended at twelve midnight or at dawn. It was just about like that, a kind of Cinderella syndrome or devil may care attitude.

  No matter whether it was midnight or the following dawn, we could be certain that a few drunken arguments had happened a few surreptitious kisses exchanged, perhaps a quickie in a back bedroom (no herpes heard of, AIDS non existent, only the possibility of claps), lots of sentimental behavior between Bob Dylan and Miles Davis “Kind of Blue.”

  And finally it would be over ’til next time. If the party animal in the Hyde Parker hadn’t been soothed by the cheap wine and the low grade pot, there was always the Near Northside.

  The Near Northside was a more glamorous form of Bohemia than Hyde Park, and more expensive to prowl in.

  The Near Northside was gorgeous bodies on Oak Street beach (prejudiced whites seeking tanned salvation), the College of Complexes, Hail Professor Corey; Figaros, Mr. Kellys, the Gate of Horn, the Brownshoe, the Rush street—Division scene.

  It was always midnight and beyond when we tripped past Buckingham fountain, on the way to that hip little waffle joint where the middle echelon Near Northsiders and assorted folks from the fast tracks made their last stand of the night.

  We went with women, usually, sisters of the night, people who could relate to the pace and wouldn’t bloat up on Belgian waffles at 3 a.m.

  Heads caked with the memory of the party, half-dazed from alcoholic residuals, we munched our waffles and spied on the scene.

  The people who wandered in were a cross section of white night life in Chicago; Mafiosa, Dresden China call girls on R and R, fantastic Afro-pimps in Black transvestite of all kinds, gay foreigners whispering forbidden languages, con men on a spree, wandering shepherds, Negroes seeking the proximity of thrillin’ white flesh, night dwellers.

  And finally, dawn streaking the Lake Front, we’d return to the Southside.

  “What about this thing on Saturday, man?”

  “The one where they’re supposed to be doin’ poetry ’n shit?”

  “Yeahh, that one.”

  “Might be interesting.”

  “Yeah, might be. I’ll check with you later in the week.”

  Back to the Roots

  Riga Lieutskas strolled north on State Street, her violin case tucked under her arm, pausing to peer into the well stocked windows of the downtown stores.

  America was so rich, had so many beautiful things, so much. Riga stared at her reflection in one of the windows. She felt as differently as she looked, after six months in Chicago, America.

  I was heavier in Lithuania, she thought, and smiled at the new Riga, the “American” Riga. A lush breeze gently swept the street, lulling her into a kind of spring time revery.

  June 1991, she noted on a calendar inside a shop window.

  June 1991, no political activities in the streets, no upheaval, no secret meetings, none of the thousands of problems that made Lithuania a place under the fist of the Russians’ History.

  People smiled at her, a beautiful young woman with intense grey eyes, simply dressed in a black skirt and an embroidered Lithuanian blouse.

  Her parents had joked with her about what would happen when she got to America.

  Her father made the grim forecast: “You will become an ‘American in’ six months, if you’re not careful. I’ve seen it happen. Right after the war when a number of people were allowed out, many of them returned barely able to speak proper Lithuanian.”

  He was always joking like that, until it was actual time for her to leave.

  “Riga, we know that you will never forget who you are, where your home is, who we are.”

  They sent her to America as though she were on a mission.

  Her paternal grandparents had immigrated to the United States after Stalin’s death and were offering their granddaughter sponsorship.

  He
r mother had often given her long winded monologues about Anton and Vilma Lieutskas.

  “They were always doing things ahead of time. If there was money to be made, we could be certain that Anton and Vilma would put themselves in a position to make it. If there was the possibility of squeezing through an opening no smaller than this—they would do it.

  Even if my family hadn’t been killed in the War, they would never have gone to America. A trip to Vilnius was a big thing for them. But not your grandma and grandpa, they saw the opening and they ran thru it into a better life in America. Thank God they made it.

  You must do your best for them, because they are offering you a rare opportunity to study, to become a great violinist. You must work very hard, Riga, you must prove that the money they are spending on you is well spent.”

  Riga Lieutskas clenched her fists and put more purpose into her step. After two hours of practice with Professor Bronte downtown, she was on her way home for three more hours in the basement of the Lieutskas home in northwestern Chicago.

  Professor Bronte was not one to offer extravagant praise or raise false expectations but he had assured her, “Riga, my dear, I think you are ready now for concert work, I will speak with someone in my agent’s office about you.”

  She felt exhilarated, alive for the first time in a way she hadn’t been before. Playing the violin was a pleasure, learning music was something of a chore but it was all part of the process.

  “The musical scores, my dear, are the bullets for your weapon.” Chicago was a vibrant place, the people colorful and direct.

  No one made fun of her accent, or the hesitant way she spoke English. English was not a big problem, she had studied it from the first grade in grammar school. The problems she had, had to do with the variety of ways people spoke the language.

  None of her textbooks or teachers had prepared her to understand the accent/dialects of Spanish speaking—Chinese—Polish—African—American speech, and others too obscure for her to figure.