Jesus Christ. This stupid bike is broken. Quarantine has been taking a serious toll on me this summer as I am relegated to spending most of my day in my house. I hate the feeling of being trapped. I can’t stand it, and working virtually as a marketing intern makes me feel even more trapped as I am stuck behind a screen stretching out 10 hours of work to 40 hours a week. So, when I got that Friday off and had gotten my newly acquired film camera -- a Canon AE-1 -- off of Ebay, I wanted an adventure, and so I pulled out my fixie bike only to see that it was broken, two flats and an off center back tire. Nevertheless, skipping an hour later that morning and returning from the local Dollar Store, I had patched up the tires and centered the tire. I was on my way.
I recently got into biking. I wanted to ride something that was aesthetically pleasing, but would also be pretty durable out riding the streets. While this bike consistently breaks down, I just chopped it up to it being because it was pretty old, but it provides me with some routine and allows me to perfect my biking mechanic skills. And so, I ride down these streets on a bike that might break down any second, and I am just taking in the scene of everything. The neighborhood is lovely in the morning. I live on the southwest side of Chicago by Midway airport, and so the main street (59th street) is usually pretty busy with cars flowing by going to wherever they are going, coming back from wherever they are coming back from.
I bike down 59th in the street keeping up with the car in front of me, and then I make a right onto a residential street. The street is just like every other residential one on the southwest side: it is just a row of bungalows the same reddish brown color. After about three blocks of this uniformity, it breaks off with Senka park on the left with the same bungalow houses on the right side. I don’t want to go into the park because the southside of Chicago is still the southside and there are the gang members who are just loitering by the playground until something remotely interesting comes past them. I will not be that thing. I ride on in the street until I come across my old middle school. The school is called Irene C. Hernandez middle school. I pull out my camera and take a picture of the building and admire how modern it looks with its steel beams and metallic letters of the name on the very right layer.
Click.
I am sitting in the back of the school around one of the giant pot like structures with a tree in the middle. There are about a dozen of these elevated pots around the backyard of the school. Right now, it's recess and I am sitting with my friends talking about whatever middle schoolers in 2013 were talking about -- probably about call of duty and who was going to fight who after school. This idea of violence was very present within my school days. From just video games to the actual neighborhood, violence was very present so that it seemed like we were all pretty desensitized to it all. It was like everyday we were all looking forward to a fight of the day. I was also a part of that group that wanted to see some violence. The excitement of it all is shameful to think about in retrospect.
We are sitting and goofing around and all of a sudden there is a huge commotion and we look around and there is a fight going on. The name of one of the kid’s was Miguel and the other one was unknown to me, but the situation is that these two kids were quite brutally fighting each other. Eventually, a teacher comes by and breaks up the fight and they drag the kids inside and the rest of us outside are pushed back inside by the teachers and we are to remain stuck in the cafeteria, getting punished for something that we did not even do. Though, some -- mostly all -- of us were responsible for cheering them on, so it was not entirely unjustified.
In the cafeteria, emotions were running high and everyone was so hyped up at the fight that they just saw, and watching two twelve year olds just beat each other up. I was hyped up. I wanted to see more violence.
Click.
As I am biking down Kedzie, I can’t help but think of the violence that was so entrenched in that middle school culture, in the neighborhood, and I can’t stop thinking about Miguel. I knew what happened to him when he was a kid and what would eventually happen to him as an adult. At about the start of middle school, he would get involved with the other gang banging kids in the school and eventually get jumped into the SDs which was the predominant gang in my neighborhood. In recent years, he would end up going to jail for illegal possession of a firearm and firing of the firearm. Some people just share too much on Facebook.
I can’t stop thinking about kids like Miguel and others in my neighborhood who got caught up in that lifestyle. Kids are inherently clueless, and even the most brightest and aware of children are just that. They are children. They have no understanding of the true extent of consequences for what they do. When you grow up in a neighborhood where the gang lifestyle is ingrained into you, especially if you have a sibling in that sort of commitment, it becomes quite difficult to show a child that that sort of lifestyle is wrong. By no means am I sympathetic to any gang members, I believe that the older ones are incredibly vile and contribute nothing but destruction and the degradation of a community, but I understand that a lot of them were caught up with it at an unfortunate time. Just then, I arrived at the house in which I spent half my child in.
There’s nothing here. It is just an empty lot right now full of rubble, broken beer bottles, and used needles. The number 26 -- said as two six -- spray painted on the wall of the closest building indicating whose neighborhood I am in. It’s weird to think how different my life probably would’ve been if I did not move out of this neighborhood. Would I have still been the nerdy and goofy kid that I am right now? Probably not. This is Back of The Yards neighborhood, and yes the one from Shameless. Though, while the story takes place in this neighborhood, it is completely different from what is portrayed on screen. For one, there aren’t that many white people here. I remember exactly three white families and one of them my brothers and I did not get along well with to say the least. But, I grew up on this street, 48th and Winchester. In fact I grew up in three different apartments on this exact block. While the whole street and neighborhood are places that I hold near my heart, this specific house is something that stands out for me. It holds a special place in my heart because this is the house that I survived a house fire and saw a level of compassion I have yet to witness. With these thoughts in my bed as I lift up my camera to take the picture of the lot, I am transported to my five year old self dressed in a gown and with the smell of fire forever singed in my nostrils.
Click.
I’m in the hospital, and it’s the middle of the night. The last thing I remember is the sight of blood running down my chest, hand, and leg, as I run through the gangway into what it seems like an army of firefights. My mind goes blank. Then, I’m on a stretcher with a neck brace on as my mom comes in screaming. My mind goes blank. Next, I am being wheeled in into the emergency, and as I try to look around me I look down at my sheets and see nothing but red. My mind goes blank. This is the point where I wake up alone that night in the hospital confused out of mind. The last thing I remember is the doctor coming in shining a bright light in my eyes, and then I’m asleep.
I’ll save you details of what happened at the hospital, but the damage was simple. The day of the house fire my mother went out to the laundromat early in the morning and she took my older brother while my oldest brother and I were left home with my dad who just came home from work after his night shift. My brother and I slept in my parents’ room that night for some odd reason, but the room that my three brothers and I shared was the room where the fire started That said, if I had slept in that room, I would not be writing this which is a scary thought that have, but as the fire started in that room, it began to grow very quickly. In fact, an entire house can become entirely engulfed in flames in as little as five minutes. By the time, we woke up most of the house was engulfed in flames. My dad woke up first and he straight up broke a window with his hand giving him lasting scars. Once he did that, he looked all over the bed for my brother and I and found us at which time he pushed out the window. When I went out, I actually landed awkwardly on the window pain and crawled a bit out to a five foot drop into the gangway. That said, I was left with a piece of glass on the lower port of my chest, cut on my thumb, and a deep cut on my leg. So, I got some really cool scars.
Leaving the hospital in those god awful grey sweats they gave us, I had no idea what was going on, but it became clear that we were moving into our new apartment just a block down from where we were originally. It was a bit of a drive, and so I fell asleep. The next time I woke up I was surrounded by a group of what seemed to be hundreds of people outside of the car waving hello at me. They were giving my mom clothes and money as she stood outside of the driver side door, and I was so happy as someone told me to open my door and passed me my dog who had miraculously survived the house fire. He was found by the firefighters and my neighbors had kept him for a couple of days. I was incredibly grateful to have seen so many people welcoming me and my family into the neighborhood and giving us so much even though we were all struggling financially. It was such a beautiful site to see. Later on, I learned that the landlord had reduced our prices a bit for the next couple of months to help us get back on our feet. Even the school had organized a drive for us in which people donated clothes, a fridge, TV, stove, and so much more to us. The community that had so little was giving us so much more.
It breaks my heart to see the neighborhood as an adult. One in which gang violence was so prevalent and poverty so entrenched. While these same problems were there when I was a kid, I only remember this neighborhood fondly. Despite the issues, it will always be the neighborhood I call my original home.
Click.
I am zooming down 47th now heading east towards the lake. It is quite beautiful to think of the community I had here and the types of people present. There are plenty of bad things about the neighborhood I am from, but the community was a definitely a positive one. It was a shame that I did not really develop for the latter part of my childhood here. Though, maybe it was for the better because objectively speaking, where I went to middle school was a bit better than Back of The Yards.
I make a left on Ashland where I drive adjacent to the factory my father worked out, but I quickly pass it and I make a right on 35th street heading east. This is the street that will take me to Chinatown on the Southside. It is amazing to think about all of the amazingly unique things about this city and what it has to offer. I am there in a matter of minutes where I take a quick stop at tom ping park which is right off the Chicago river. From here I can see the city skyline and I can't help but take a picture of how beautiful it is. The Skyline is such an iconic part of the city and without a doubt the best view of it has to come from the Southside of the city.
Aside from the skyline, the people around me are having such a great time. I can’t help but think of all the tourists -- anyone that is not born and raised within the city limits is considered a tourist to me especially those from the suburbs -- there at have no idea that two miles away from Chinatown there is a completely different that would benefit from all the money that they throw around here. It just doesn’t seem fair.
I get back on my bike and go towards the skyline. With all the honking and huge streets, I can finally ride comfortably on the street especially with the help of the bike lanes. Biking down these streets surrounded by all of these beautifully tall buildings is something that I love so much about this city. I end up biking to the center of downtown Chicago which is the Loop. I remember this fondly as the place in which I spent my high school years. I would come down here every single day after school because this is where the train would take me. In the Loop, there is the Harold Washington library where I used to go everyday to do my homework after school. At around 9 o’clock every night, I would be done, and I would get home at around 10:30 where I would eat dinner and call it a night.
I have been through a lot today just remembering and living through the experiences that I have been through. I was quite drained, and so I hopped on the train back home for the day thinking about all those small memories that would have a huge impact on my life one day.
