CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Summary

Pharaoh runs home through a hailstorm one week after Craig's funeral and discovers his brother doing what his mother always does when she's stressed - cleaning. Lafeyette still has an edge about him that makes him either find some activity to keep himself from thinking or he falls directly asleep. He's angry that Larry, Brian's brother, who also lives with them, does nothing to earn a right to be there, and so he turns on the younger children like a factory foreman, barking out orders and making threats. Even after the others stop cleaning, Lafeyette will continue to rearrange furniture, move knick-knacks, and sweep rugs. The younger children quickly learn in the weeks that follow Craig's death just to leave Lafeyette alone. He waffles between outbursts of fury and revenge to times of at least tolerance and sometimes even generosity and maturity. For example, he saves Bubbles, a young neighbor boy, from falling out a window, and he goes upstairs frequently to sit with Craig's girlfriend. LaJoe doesn't know what to do with him.

Pharoah is not as affected by Craig's death as Lafeyette. He doesn't want to know when tragedy strikes and continues to tell his mother that he's too young to understand. He seems to be prolonging his childhood any way he can, to keep it from passing him by as it has Lafeyette. Lafeyette, in one of his moments when he puts thoughts to words, tells LaJoe that he's real tired, and all he has to do is go outside and he'll probably never come back. He is in the process of recognizing his own mortality and coming to terms with the concept of death. A month later, gunshots ring out again, and LaJoe quickly shepherds the younger children into the hallway for safety. However, she cannot convince Lafeyette to come with them. He just sits calmly and watches TV in his sister's room, an easy target for a stray bullet.

Notes

Lafeyette is in a world of emotional pain. He has lost two friends within a couple of weeks, and he is having a hard time finding reason to go on. He becomes profoundly depressed and has a kind of death wish. He cannot find the strength to kill himself, but he knows if he goes outside, he'll probably die, and when the bullets start flying in the neighborhood, he takes no cover.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Summary

The four boys, including Rickey and Lafeyette, who make up their own small gang called the Four Corner Hustlers, pose for a picture together in jeans and Starter jackets with the sign of their gang - four fingers - displayed. They all have smirks on their faces or narrow their eyes menacingly, except one - Lafeyette. He looks as if he really doesn't want to be there behind a stare that exposes his hurt and his loneliness. He and Rickey hang out together a lot now and that doesn't bode well for Lafeyette. They don't actually sell drugs like the other gangs, but they control their small turf, commandeering an empty apartment to use as a clubhouse. Rickey has even given Lafeyette a silver earring in the shape of a cross.

LaJoe feels the distance growing between her and Lafeyette. He has become interested in girls, which creates a natural gap between mother and son, but LaJoe is more worried about his friendship with Rickey. She had seen Rickey brazenly smash the window of a stopped car and grab the gold necklace from around the driver's neck, and she couldn't believe how he committed such a crime in broad daylight. Further, his gift of the earring had gotten Lafeyette labeled by the school as a gang member, and Ricley and some of his other friends are playing with guns. Rickey uses them mostly to shoot at Disciples who get to close to his turf. What's even sadder is that Rickey himself is confused about what he is becoming, and one night he tells Lafeyette that he wishes he were eight years old again so he can skip over things he did. Lafeyette enjoys hanging out with Rickey, but he doesn't like Rickey's friends. He has grown increasingly cynical. He has little to believe in.

Pharoah has a new interest - politics. It fascinates him. LaJoe believes he comes by this interest honestly, because her mother had been the precinct captain for the Democratic Party in Horner. Her activities are a vivid part of LaJoe's childhood. However, LaJoe had long ago given up on politicians. She had seen the white opposition on city council gum up any efforts to improve Horner and watched the federal government under Reagan cut grant monies and subsidized housing. Pharoah's first taste of politics had occurred the previous November when he and the drum and bugle corps from the Boy's Club were bussed into downtown Chicago to a Dukakis rally. He loved the adrenaline rush it brought him. He had also been at a rally for Tim Evans, a black candidate. While he was there, some group of dissenters began throwing rocks at Evans and anyone around him. Pharoah had to duck and run, but that inglorious moment didn't curb his enthusiasm. Privately, in his daydreams, he fantasized about becoming a politician.

However, the violence never lets up at Horner. One day, LaJoe sees a group of people running past her apartment window. She watches as ten teenage boys chase a man who looks to be about thirty. He turns out to be a pedophile who had fondled an eight-year-old boy in a vacant fourth floor apartment. No one thinks to call the police. They choose to render justice themselves. Lafeyette is one of the boys chasing the man, and when he comes home, he says they had chased the man to a liquor store where he took refuge. He smiles and says that they all like raper mans there. Maybe it's a raper mans' club. LaJoe doesn't laugh.

Notes

This is a chapter of ironies: Lafeyette belongs to a small gang, but doesn't really want to belong to it, Pharoah is fascinated by politics even though poilticans have helped create the decaying neighborhood where he lives, and Lafeyette finally smiles about making a joke over chasing a pedophile into a liquor store.