A Kind of Grace Read Online Free Page B

never feared the men who hung out on the corner and in front of the liquor store. Whatever bad things they did, they didn't do them around us. When our parents weren't around, these men were our protectors.
    During the day, things were quiet, except for occasional joking and friendly arguing. As the sun descended, the action heated up. Cars abruptly pulled up to the liquor store and poolhall, or came screaming around the corner. Men and women climbed out and entered the clubs and taverns. Sometimes they ran back out, shouting over their shoulders at someone inside. When arguments turned ugly, with curse words or murder threats, Squirrel and Doug usually warned us to get off the street and go inside. At other times, events exploded without warning.
    That's how it happened the night my sister Debra narrowly missed being shot. Al was stooped over, shining someone's shoes near the doorway of the barbershop. My great-grandmother was on the porch talking to our neighbor, Mrs. Newman. Two men burst out of the tavern screaming and cursing at each other. One of the men turned to walk away and the other pulled a gun out of the front of his trousers. At the same time, Debra, oblivious to the altercation, was darting across the street toward our front yard.
    The unloading gun chamber sounded like Fourth of July fireworks. Debra didn't realize what was happening or how close she was to the line of fire until the victim dropped dead on the sidewalk practically at her feet. If any of those seven bullets had missed their target, she would surely have been hit. She stood there, looking at the dead and bleeding body, stunned.
    Al ran across the street, the shoeshine rag still in his hand, and rushed my great-grandmother and Debra inside. When they told Angie and me what had happened, we jumped up. We were eager to run out and see the corpse. But my brother wouldn't let us. He said the sight was too gruesome.
    Another night, we were all outside when a guy nicknamed Bird was shot as he came out of the tavern. He survived and filed charges against his assailant. A month later, he was shot and killed late one night inside Ruby D's, along with Ruby the tavern owner, her security guard and another man. The men in the barbershop told Al that the police caught the man who did it, thanks to a clue left by Ruby. She wrote his name in her blood before she died.
    The violence and intrigue fascinated us. We were too young to perceive the danger. But my mother deplored it and tried to shield us from as much of it as possible. She didn't want us playing in the street or peeping out of the windows to see what was happening. “One of these days you're going to look out that window at the wrong time and whatever's out there is gonna get you,” she warned me.
    Eventually, the violence did hit home. It changed forever the way I regarded murder and drug abuse. My parents got a call from the police in Chicago telling them that my grandmother Evelyn, who wasn't yet fifty, had been murdered in her sleep by her boyfriend. A chilly silence engulfed our house for days. My parents never explained the circumstances of her death, but from the whispering I overheard, I surmised that it had been drug-related. First the men and women in the neighborhood, now Evelyn. I was still in elementary school, but I was old enough to make the connection. It seemed that every time someone I knew died violently, drugs or alcohol were somehow involved. No one had to tell me to stay away from them after that.

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    Momma and Daddy
    B ecause my parents were so very young and weren't well educated when they married, the odds were against us from the start. Our lives were an almost constant struggle. It's remarkable that Momma and Daddy were able to provide for all of us and hold our family together.
    When I was very young, our lives were happy and mostly tranquil. The whole family ate dinner together, with my father at the head of the table, my mother at the other end and two kids on each