Up in Here: Jailing Kids on Chicago's Other Side

Chapter 9

87 ​9 From my apartment parking lot I turn north onto Brainard Avenue and cruise past well-­ kept Georgian and Ranch-­ style homes, bright flowerbeds nestled in their tidy yards. Also close is a forest preserve and picnic-­ tabled clearing where families barbecue on weekends. Even with new luxury condos overlooking the village center, La Grange is unmistakably suburban and simulates where I grew up—quiet, each household owning more than one motorized vehicle, few dark faces, and a lot of children playing soccer and riding bikes to school. In a way I did grow up here. It’s ironic now that my dad’s family migrated to La Grange from Chicago’s Kelvyn Park precinct fifty years ago. I limited my apartment search to certain suburbs because of the high safety-­ to-­ affordability ratio. Residing as well in this protected enclave, I too never fret about gangbangers shooting out my streetlights or not being able to shop for groceries because I can’t afford a car and taxi drivers have boycotted my blighted block. A mile up Brainard, the eastbound Burlington Northern Santa Fe Metra commuter train will stop one street over at Stone Avenue halfway along the train’s hour and a half journey from far-­ flung Aurora to Union Station in Chicago’s downtown Loop. From day shift training and the 8–4 disaster on 4K, I remember the weekday morning passengers in their slacks and ties, skirts and jackets, clutching steaming paper cups of joe, many clad in Reeboks for a hike to an office somewhere in the skyscraper labyrinth, stepping onto the train like automatons. But my train today, the 1:00 p.m. pickup, elicits skateboarding teens lured by Lake Michigan’s rustic seawall and families bound for Grant Park, the Museum of Science and Industry, and seasonal slews of neighborhood festivals. My jeans and solid T-­ shirt render me 88 c h a p t e r n i n e one of these leisurely travelers. Yet once in Chicago, our agendas will diverge. I doubt a single other commuter here is aware that half of Audy Home inmates were born to teen mothers.1 My fellow suburbanites have never heard of the Four Corner Hustlers either. They know nothing about hypes and TEC-­ 9s. Most passengers linger outside the station rather than swelter on the pew-­like wooden benches inside. Except for the tiny ticket office window, the old arched rock edifice lacks air conditioning . I enter despite the clammy depot air, preferring to sit when antsy, still disturbed by 4K and my 2–10 coworker there, hardly neutralized by my relative successes on 3K. “Twenty-­ three-­ forty,” the lone Metra worker, a dumpy man with white hair trimmed almost to his wrinkled scalp, announces in a lilt behind a deep glass window. Someone has requested a ten-­ ride ticket. Monthly passes are $74.25. If Metra charged according to the diversity of terrain their cars streak through, my budget would force me to drive. The ticket line finishes and the worker emerges from the office. He stands in front of the benches and chats with travelers about how on weekends he and his wife venture up to Wisconsin to visit their daughter and her family. Idling on one of these benches, I picture my college friend Joe and his wife Beth in their charmed Wisconsin surroundings and crave meandering down those country lanes. It is Friday and I’d love to spend tomorrow or Sunday grilling burgers again and giving ear to Bob Uecker’s quirky Brewers baseball radio play-­ by-­ play at my friends’ wood frame abode nestled in Kenosha County’s slight hills of corn and soybean. Instead I’m about to deal with young men birthed by teen moms now adopted by the Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Latin Kings, and 2–6 Nation who may, particularly if I land somewhere like 4K again, blurt, “Nah, fuck that!” when I tell them not to talk in the TV area. And how I respond to that one juvenile will determine for the shift’s remainder what other inmates do— whether they win and “act a fool,” or I win and they speak in even tones and ask permission to stand up. “Weeell, I think I see a headlight,” the ticket worker drawls, 89 c h a p t e r n i n e lifting his chin to...