Dear Father: Breaking the Cycle of Pain

HOME SWEET HOME, CHICAGO

As a child, I was lost in my fantasies, having fun finding my way. I was innocent and naïve to life’s pressures and vice grips. I was a kid with no worries, a lil black boy who some said looked like little Michael Jackson. Once, when comedian Damon Williams saw an old picture of me in one of my poetry books, he joked that I looked like a member of the Jackson 6. Maybe it was the Afro? (Thank God I never had a Jheri Curl.)

Our middle-class family didn’t have all the riches in the world, but we had each other, and we had Chicago. The Chi is a very proud city of hardworking, hustling, good-hearted people, a town founded by a Haitian black man named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. It is the home of our beloved first elected black mayor, Harold Washington, whose sudden passing in 1987 shook the city to its core. It is home to the infamous Al Capone, Jeff Fort, and Larry Hoover. It was the launching point for Mahalia Jackson and Nat King Cole. It’s the home of Muddy Waters; Curtis Mayfield; Gwendolyn Brooks; Harrison Ford; Carl Sandburg; Earth, Wind & Fire; Chaka Khan; Bernie Mac; and Lou Rawls. It is the birthplace of Donny Hathaway, Gil Scott-Heron, Quincy Jones, Don Cornelius, and Soul Train. It’s home to the blues and the lounges that housed it. House music (RIP, Frankie Knuckles, the godfather of house music) and steppin’ were both born within the boundaries of this great town. The rhythm of those Chicago winds has forever dictated our moves, art, music, and conversation. It’s as if our words dance when we talk. Our walk is accompanied by a confident glide. The city’s movement, its essence, pulsates within us and around us, waiting to be beautifully translated by its creative citizens. This energy that guides us is as tribal as what guided the tribes we were snatched from. No, it hasn’t been easy, but because of our hope for better days, we have managed to make our way.

I grew up on the South Side, Eighty-Seventh and Winchester, the corner of the hood, the edge of darkness, the black belt that was fastened together by love and separated from the rest of society by expressways and major intersections. It was our piece of the hyper-segregated pie. You just didn’t see white folks in our hood. From the mailman and the Jehovah’s Witnesses who knocked on the door to the grocery store clerks and the teachers, we revolved thru life in our black bubble. Cops stalked our neighborhoods, and trouble lurked in the alleys we played in, but we didn’t live in fear. We lived by making it day to day. My grandfather would always say, If you can make it in Chicago, you can make it anywhere—just keep on keepin’ on. Take it one day at a time.

And that’s what we did: we kept moving forward. Innocent blue-collar workers and ruthless gangstas walked together on the tight streets that boxed us in, still searching for the pride that slavery stole. Tribes formed after we swarmed from the South, descendants of slaves and sharecroppers, folks who wanted nothing more than a fair shake at life. We traded dirt roads for asphalt, wooden houses for concrete buildings, crops for factories and steel mills. Most black parents, who were born during the baby boom, worked hard providing for their families, believing their children’s way out of the hood required us going to school and getting a good job. Often they would preach, In this white world, you have to be twice as good just to get a chance. Without putting this thought into context, we could have easily deemed ourselves as not being smart or good enough for society, but as I got older, I realized they were simply trying to say that advances were limited for blacks. There were only so many good business and trade jobs, only so many recording contracts, the NFL and NBA only had so many spots, and college was far from free.

What were your options? Go to school or the school of hard knocks? Do you head for college or down the quick road to jail? Many didn’t see a way out so they hustled and encouraged you to do the same. Gangster Disciples (GDs), Black Disciples (BDs), Vice Lords, Four Corner Hustlers, and Black Stones patrolled and ruled the streets more than the cops did. The cats pushing the fancy cars with big rims and loud music were our role models. The smart kids, the nerds, were considered lame. Emotions and egos were tugged on. Pulled on. Pushed. Kids walked to school but wouldn’t walk back. Some were snatched up by strangers in vans. Friends got caught in the crossfire of the war zone we dwelled in; others were picked up by the cops and introduced to the system. Some were jumped into gangs. Forced to slang. Forced to do things their hearts didn’t intend.

What do you want to be when you grow up? I never heard a killer. I never heard hustler, pimp, or drug dealer. I never heard basement dweller. But I heard my moms when she would say, If you go to jail, don’t expect me to come visit you. I heard her loud and clear when she lectured me and my older brother as she drove us down Roosevelt Avenue, where the buildings were run-down and tatted with gang signs, the sidewalks were decorated with broken glass, the trash blew thru like tumbleweed, and the air smelled like urine and crack. She showed us blocks of drunks, addicts, and homeless folks and said, If you don’t go to school and get an education, this is where you go’ end up. You can’t help but hear that.

Sirens SCREAMED like alarm clocks.

The struggle unlocked the inner beast.

Some worked,

Some worked the streets,

Our blocks that were occupied by common folk . . .

Bus drivers, mailmen, gangstas,

And corner dwellers,

Who I would walk past in a worn-out sweater,

Rocking a nappy shag,

While they sipped brown liquor out of brown paper bags . . .

The pusher man pushed that white for the fiends,

Red and Blue gangs terrorized the black scene,

The older kids smoked that green.

Stress is a hell of a drug.

Daily, the stress of the city tried killing our love,

Tried suffocating our flow . . .

If there’s a HELL BELOW,

It made its way up to our bungalows and two-flats,

The gangways and alleys,

Yea, though I walk thru the shadow of the valley

of crime sprees,

You see,

We feared the evils that stalked us.

Boy, did you lock the doors?

Security became yet another chore,

Because we dwelled where purses got snatched,

Where older women and young girls were attacked,

Where folks were carjacked,

Where cats were pistol-whipped and hit with bats . . .

MAN, YOU KNOW WHERE YOU AT?! YOU BETTER STRAIGHTEN THAT HAT!

I never understood that,

I never understood the fights,

Because the blocks looked peaceful on sight.

Our folks taught us how to work hard and do what’s right.

We celebrated life at the cookouts,

Soul music whistled thru the nights.

At the same time,

Black men were ushered off in cuffs, screaming,

I KNOW MY RIGHTS!

I guess that’s why I had to be in before the streetlights came on.

Ma just wanted to make sure her boys came home and had a chance to grow,

Praying that we weren’t swallowed up by this place the Natives called Checagou,

Land of smelly air . . .

There,

Here,

The air smelled of exhaust and evergreen trees,

Cookie factories and steel mills,

Cigarette smoke and barbecued ribs.

Life seemed so simple as a kid,

Bag lunches, cartoons, and curfews.

But I slowly found out how much these streets will hurt you,

Murk you,

Choke you,

Shoot you,

Loot you,

Put its boot to yo’ neck and beat you,

Cheat you,

Clown you,

Drown you in the cracks of the asphalt.

We fought,

Over the invisible borders of our town.

Rarely did we go downtown.

I guess the racial tension was just TOO THICK.

Maybe we were all just too sick,

Too tired,

Too mixed up in the head to move ahead as a people.

So in our piece,

Of the piece,

Of the piece of the pie,

We sat by in our sections of the city feeling inadequate and unequal,

Boxed in by political maps,

Mentally trapped.

Bank accounts were damn near tapped but we counted our blessings,

Pressed our luck.

Like the grilled cheese on the roof of my mouth, we were stuck,

But like any kid did . . .

I peddled my red and yellow Big Wheel,

Simply waiting on the melody of the ice cream truck . . .

My two brothers (Virgil and Sergio) and I were raised by my moms to not give up, but many of our good friends did give. Many gave in to influence. Birds of a feather usually nest together. You become a product of your environment, guilty by association, mimicking the wrong movements. I was associated with good folks who made bad decisions. Choices paint our paths, and most of these childhood roads had dead ends with dead bodies rotting in the shadows of abandoned buildings. My moms watched some of her brothers take the corner hustle route, and she didn’t want that for us.

Not her boys, her gifts. She wanted us to find that proper chance, so she tried her best to shelter us from the streets. She paid us for good grades and punished us for bad ones. She challenged us. Made us work for everything, cleaning up the house, busting suds til the hot water mysteriously crinkled the skin on our fingers, walking the dog when we didn’t feel like it, plucking weeds til calluses bloomed on our hands, barreling pounds of dirt, and cutting down small trees. After we waxed the floors, we would run and slide on them in our colorful striped tube socks that we kept pulled up to our knees. We had fun, but we put in work—and our wage was minimum. Moms called it an allowance, but this kind of money wouldn’t allow us to grow.

I did anything to have some cash for the trips to the mall, ’cause I was tired of wearing hand-me-down sweaters. I hated when my moms bought me those hard Buster Brown shoes to correct my crooked feet. When times were tight, she got us Pro Wings from Payless Shoe-Source and our blue jeans from Sears. Mine were always slims. My older brother, Virgil, wore huskies. We couldn’t stand our clothes, and we made sure to complain about it, but on cue Moms would always say, Boy, you better be rich, ’cause you got rich taste buds.

On the outside my clothes were busted until I got older, but in my mind I always had flavor and style. First impressions were everything. It determined how people respected you. It showed how cool you were. It shaped folks’ opinions when they talked about you. You had to coordinate. What you wore became your voice, a reflection of your personality. Whether your reflection was bold, modest, flashy, bummy, or smooth, we wore our emotions on our sleeves . . . literally. Just another part of the Chicago way.

SEARCHING FOR FREEDOM

I was two years old the first time I rode a bike with no training wheels. Yes, two! All right, closer to two and a half, but that’s still amazing, if you ask me. I was always very tall for my age. I was five-foot-five in the third grade. Up until fourth grade, I was the tallest kid in the class. I was six-foot-one my freshman year of high school, and I just knew I was going to end up hitting six-foot-four or six-foot-five. Point being, when I was two, I had the height of a four or five year old when my parents decided to buy me what I referred to as kid’s gold, my little orange bike.

Now, once a kid gets up, running, and moving, there’s nothing better than learning to get rolling. And that’s exactly what I did! I loved my bike. The Big Wheel was cool, but the bike was better. Like most kids my age, I was challenged by the art of balance, so my parents eliminated my fear and secured my fun by attaching training wheels to my imaginary motorcycle. Zoom! If the weather was nice enough to be outside, I was either already out there on my bike or inside begging my parents to let me go out.

One day my father snatched the training wheels off of my bike.

No! I yelled, thinking my fun had been sidelined.

My dad didn’t see it that way. Boy, you’re too big for training wheels, he said, looking at his little, tall son.

Being too young to rationalize what was happening, I ran into the house mad and crying to my Moms, telling her what Dad had done. She looked at me with that sweet motherly pity and said, There ain’t nothing that I can do about it.

Frustrated with both of my parents, I went back out.

When I hit the yard, my dad waved for me to come to where he stood in the shade of the big evergreen tree at the top of the gangway, holding the bike upright by its seat. In Chicago, what we call a gangway drapes every house. A gangway is a small sidewalk that stretches from the alley, thru the backyard, alongside the house, to the sidewalk out front. Ours was slightly slanted.

When I finally reached my giant of a father, he kindly told me to get on. Not daring to disobey him, I reluctantly straddled the bike, putting my feet on the pedals, with my focus fixed on finding my new balance. Once I somewhat steadied myself, he asked if I was ready. I hesitantly nodded yes, and then he pushed me away!

Terrified, I quickly glided down the gangway thru the backyard, alongside our house. When I reached the end of the gangway out front, I turned right onto the sidewalk and instinctively started peddling. No longer filled with anger and anxiety, instead overwhelmed with pure joy and unconscious of this moment’s significance, I freely flew down the block, passing house after house after house . . .

I was two years old

riding my little orange bike

without any training wheels!

Wow!

He pushed me out into the world,

And so began my search for freedom,

My escape from the chains that I’ve chosen,

That chose me,

The prisons that posture in my mind.

My people gallop in the quicksand of struggle,

We huddle in misery,

Our smiles are rudely interrupted,

Habits become linked to our history.

I’m choking on secondhand answers,

But as a little boy my grandmother taught me to have pride in the visions I see,

My mother advises me to be free.

I talk back thru the glass,

Petition thru the partition,

Our hands touch different sides of the window,

As I beg GOD for the key . . .

The keys to life are too heavy for this janitor’s belt,

I have to lighten the load to properly clean.

Can’t do that when the load is too heavy for the washing machine,

When dreams are deferred,

Becoming mean is preferred.

I’m angered by the dangers of self.

I’m trying to shake it off,

’Cause I don’t know how many days are left.

I write timelines with every step.

Every breath is a chance,

To strap on my wings,

Surf the breeze,

Freeze my pain,

Thaw out my joy that’s been froze like a cold pose,

Stand out like a bold rose . . .

Bright,

Smooth,

Rigid,

Regarded by the angels in the stands,

I can hear their cheers.

I use these precious years,

To escape the clutches of my fears,

Run naked,

Shielded by vulnerability,

Gripping on to the energy of my ability,

Striking with rhythm I stand on mine,

I post up religiously,

Open the doors of my chivalry,

War with my handicaps,

Spawn my delivery,

I see it so vividly,

As I use my future to write my history,

Use my history to rebuild my kingdom,

As I look for,

Fight for,

Search for . . .

My Freedom.

DJ JIM RICHARDS

June 5, 1984

WVON: News While It’s News

In the news at this hour, an FBI mole who posed as a crooked attorney has testified that he won four favorable rulings after passing some $1,200 thru middle men to a judge . . .

Police say they still don’t know who’s responsible for the pipe bombs that have started appearing in Chicago. Yesterday for the third time in five days, a pipe bomb similar to those discovered in Wisconsin and Minnesota was found in Chicago . . .

Authorities also say a Chicago police officer was wounded and a twenty-two-year-old South Side man killed late last night in a shootout . . .

And in sports, the Cubs have the day off. The Sox 6, the Angels 4. The Sox will play California again tonight at Comiskey Park, and the Cubs are at Montreal in an evening game . . .

For WVON, I’m Jim Richards.

My father, James Ivy Richardson Sr., was a former Air Force veteran who returned to Chicago in 1962 after four years of service and an honorable discharge. He worked as a bus driver for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), but his true desire was to become a radio personality and DJ. And that’s what he eventually did. From the mid 1970s thru the late 1980s, my dad, aka Jim Richards, worked in several markets around the country. In the early 80s he landed a job on the most popular black station in Chicago, at the time, WVON 1450 AM. In the mornings, if you were at home watching television, this young lady named Oprah Winfrey was hosting a show called AM Chicago, and if you were in your car commuting to work, you may have been listening to my dad on WVON.

Standing in the living room by the wood-grained floor-model radio, I listened to him before I walked to school. As a young child, though Dad broadcasting to millions of people was the norm, I still found it amazing to hear my dad’s voice stream out of the speakers. His voice was distinctive, warm, smooth, and strong. It was immaculate. You couldn’t help but listen and be mesmerized. Quite like a great preacher’s tone, the depth of Barry White’s bravado, or the magnetism of James Earl Jones’ Darth Vader performance, Dad’s voice was demanding of your time. It was so powerful, you could feel it in your core when he spoke—and as someone who knew him off the radio, I also knew it had the power to shake the house when he got mad.

I stood there like a stone,

SOLID,

S t i l l,

Feet planted on the hardwood,

Rooted by a voice that stemmed thru the air.

My family tree was branching out from the radio in front of me,

Streaming a transmission that was quickly caught by rabbit ears,

Antennas that translated the familiar frequency, hopping thru my heart,

This was a voice I knew . . .

It was the same voice that told me happy birthday,

The same voice that told me to do my homework,

The same voice that told me to go outside and play.

This station had me at attention,

Staring at the amplifier,

Counting the numbers on the dial,

Rationalizing the science inside,

Hypnotized by the magic that captured my familiarity.

How did Dad get in there?

How did he get inside of the radio?

The mystique and personality of the DJ was such a big part of our lives, impacting our days, our moods, and our outlooks, especially during a time when the black community was underrepresented in the world of media. Yes,