Way back in the day, when no one ever would’ve thought that Marshall Field’s or the Sears Tower would change their names, all 28 of the Robert Taylor Homes buildings marched up and down State Street from 39th to 54th. The housing project’s high-rises shot up into the air, 16 stories, looming over apartment buildings, schools, and police stations.
When you entered that way, you had to go through “the breezeway.” We called it that because, for some reason, there was always a strong blast of wind in the tunnel, whipping around trash tornadoes and blowing weed smoke in your face. That’s where the mailboxes were, where people got their “aid” checks on the first of the month or grabbed their ComEd bills. You could count on walking through a Soul Train line of dudes, watching for both sport and security. Some of them had a real job to do, looking out for strange people who didn’t belong, like undercover police, so that if they yelled, those within earshot who were up to no good could scatter. If you were a kid, you knew to get out of the way or you’d be knocked over, maybe even shot. There was a system to everything, and even if you didn’t have all the details about what was happening, you understood enough, and it kept you alive.
I couldn’t believe that our buildings were coming down. I thought Robert Taylor would always exist. My grandma moved in a year after they opened, in 1963. My grandfather had been abusive. So one day grandma left. Once grandpa had gone off to work, the moving men arrived, loaded up the apartment, and drove all of her things over to the Taylor Homes. I grew up in the same apartment that she fled to, and there was so much of her that remained: an end table made of wood and marble, an enormous TV that sat on the floor, her sewing machine, the hot comb that straightened or curled mama’s and Auntie Nora’s hair every week. Mostly, it was our family’s southern traditions that kept her memory alive.
“Didn’t I tell you?” one asked. “I told you they was gon’ knock ’em all down. Goddamn Mayor Daley!”
While in the crowd, I overheard a kid ask, “Why come they tearin’ up that building?” He was too little to be outside by himself, but kids did what they wanted in my neighborhood. Day-Day, a gang leader on my block, looked over at him and said, like he was passing on age-old wisdom, “‘Cause white people want to be closer to they jobs, lil’ man.” That set off the crowd.
Six months after their move north, grandma was engaged to my grandfather, Percival Stevens. After the wedding, she and Mama Pearl lost touch. Grandma left Curtiss Candy to be a homemaker, and Pearl kept working. Eventually, she’d rent a room from a woman who owned a dry cleaner at 43rd and State, just blocks away from where grandma was living in the newly built Robert Taylor Homes.
Fiction Issue 2015
“Salvage” by Kevin Leahy
“Myrna’s Dad” by Cyn Vargas
