Dreams from My Father

my arrival had given him several inches, added bulk, and the shadow above his upper lip, first efforts at a mustache. He was still polite to me, still willing to talk about the Bulls—this’d be the year Jordan took ’em to the finals, he said. But he was usually gone whenever I stopped by, or on his way out with his friends. Some nights, Ruby would call me at home just to talk about him, how she never knew where he was anymore, how his grades had continued to drop in school, how he hid things from her, the door to his room always closed.
    Don’t worry, I would tell her; I was a lot worse at Kyle’s age. I don’t think she believed that particular truth, but hearing the words seemed to make her feel better. One day I volunteered to sound Kyle out, inviting him to join me for a pick-up basketball game at the University of Chicago gym. He was quiet most of the ride up to Hyde Park, fending off questions with a grunt or a shrug. I asked him if he was still thinking about the air force, and he shook his head; he’d stay in Chicago, he said, find a job and get his own place. I asked him what had changed his mind. He said that the air force would never let a black man fly a plane.
    I looked at him crossly. “Who told you that mess?”
    Kyle shrugged. “Don’t need somebody to tell me that. Just is, that’s all.”
    “Man, that’s the wrong attitude. You can do whatever you want if you’re willing to work for it.”
    Kyle smirked and turned his head toward the window, his breath misting the glass. “Yeah, well…how many black pilots do you know?”
    The gym wasn’t crowded when we arrived, and we had to wait only one game before we got onto the court. It had been at least six months since I’d even seen a basketball, and the cigarettes had taken their toll. On the first play of the game, the man guarding me stripped the ball clean out of my hands and I called a foul, causing the players on the sidelines to hoot with derision. By the second game I was walking across the half-court line, feeling slightly dizzy.
    To spare myself further embarrassment, I decided to sit out the third game and watch Kyle play. His game wasn’t bad, but he was guarding a brother a few years older than me, an orderly at the hospital—short but aggressive, and very quick. After a few plays, it became clear that the man had Kyle’s number. He scored three baskets in a row, then started talking the usual talk.
    “You can’t do no better than that, boy? How you gonna let an old man like me make you look so bad?”
    Kyle didn’t answer, but the play between them became rough. The next time down the floor, as the man made his move for the basket, Kyle bumped him hard. The man threw the ball at Kyle’s chest, then turned to one of his partners. “You see that? This punk can’t guard me—”
    Suddenly, without any warning, Kyle swung. His fist landed square on the man’s jaw, dropping him to the floor. I ran onto the court as the other players pulled Kyle away. His eyes were wide, his voice trembling as he watched the orderly struggle to his feet and spit out a wad of blood.
    “I ain’t no punk,” Kyle muttered. And then again, “I ain’t no punk.”
    We were lucky; somebody had called the security guard downstairs, but the orderly was too embarrassed to admit to the incident. On the drive back, I gave Kyle a long lecture about keeping his cool, about violence, about responsibility. My words sounded trite, and Kyle sat without answering, his eyes fixed on the road. When I was finished he turned to me and said, “Just don’t tell my momma, all right?”
    I thought that was a good sign. I said I wouldn’t tell Ruby what had happened so long as he did, and he grudgingly agreed.
    Kyle was a good kid; he still cared about something. Would that be enough to save him?
             
    The week after Johnnie’s and my adventure in Hyde Park, I decided it was time to take on the public schools.
    It seemed like a natural issue for us. Segregation wasn’t much of an issue anymore; whites had all but abandoned the system. Neither was overcrowding, at least in black neighborhood high schools; only half the incoming students bothered to stick around for graduation. Otherwise, Chicago’s schools remained in a state of perpetual crisis—annual budget shortfalls in the hundreds of millions; shortages of textbooks and toilet paper; a teachers’ union that went out on strike at least once every two years; a bloated bureaucracy