A Twig in a Tornado

Timothy Clark

In 2011 and 2012, while more than 900 people were being murdered on the streets of Chicago, creative-writing students from DePaul University fanned out all over the city to interview people whose lives have been changed by the bloodshed. The result is How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth Violence, an extraordinary and eye-opening work of oral history.

Told by real people in their own words, the book contains the extraordinary stories of 34 Chicagoans. This is one of them.

Timothy Clark—not his real name—is a 19-year-old who lives in Washington Heights, an overwhelmingly African-American neighborhood on the Far South Side, near Beverly and Roseland. He lives with his mother and two maternal siblings. He has eight siblings on his paternal side, although he doesn’t have a relationship with his father or his paternal siblings.

Timothy is tall with a husky build. He is casually dressed for the interview, wearing jeans and a hoodie. He mentions that the hoodie once belonged to his best friend, who was shot to death on Timothy’s birthday in 2009. Timothy’s mother has repeatedly asked him to discard the hoodie because it is so old and dirty. But Timothy cannot bear the thought of throwing out this reminder of his friend, whose name is tattooed on Timothy’s arm.

Timothy attends Community Youth Development Institute (CYDI), a small alternative school on the South Side that has approximately 200 students. He transferred to CYDI in September of 2010 after being expelled from two public high schools, Hyde Park Academy and Julian, because of poor academic performance and repeated fights. He credits the mentor in an after-school program for being instrumental in his determination to “turn a new leaf.” Timothy is proud of his recent academic performance. He rarely misses school and hasn’t had a fight in four months.

I’ve been fighting since I was 8 years old. When I was in preschool and kindergarten, I would come home crying, beating my head on the wall. People used to talk about me; they called me slow and stuff and I didn’t have any friends. But one day, when I was in third grade, I fought somebody who was 14. He was messing with my little brother. I told him to leave my brother alone, but then he started talking about me, so I just hit him. He got to hitting me back, so I got scared and balled up. But then I thought about my big cousin Dee who used to tell me, “Ain’t no losing a fight; you have to win or you have to fight me.” I knew he was serious. The fight led from the alley to my backyard to my gangway to my front. I whupped him in the end, because I didn’t want to fight my cousin Dee. Ever since then, I would tell people, “You ain’t going to do too much talking.”

I joined a gang in fifth grade. I thought it was cool. Everybody I knew was in a gang, even one of my friends. He was like a celebrity. Every girl in the school wanted to go with him. He used to have money. I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be in the spotlight.

The process was kinda sweet for me, because my uncles were big-time gang members when I was a shorty. I stayed in their old neighborhood, near 69th and Elizabeth in Englewood, so the gang members already knew me. There was really nothing to becoming a Gangster Disciple, or GDs as they call them now. I just had to learn some rules and I was basically in. When I first joined, they just told me to look out for the police and let them know when they were coming. Later on, I started selling weed.

It wasn’t long before my friends started coming to me when they were getting into it with folks. One time, my friend was into it with a dude, and he came and got me. I told the dude he had to leave my friend alone. He was still woofing at my friend, so I jumped him. Another time, my friend smacked my brother. He was our family friend; his mama and my mama had been friends a long time. He hit my brother and tried to run, but my cousin caught him and punched him. I came over and kicked him and we stomped him out. We used to play football and basketball with him every day, but that day we had to beat him up.

When I think about it, I’ve been in quite a few fights. A couple of them were bad, but there was one time when I hurt someone really badly. Dude was short and I was kicking him in his face and stomping him with my boots. They told me he went to the hospital and I was scared that he might be in intensive care. Afterwards, I felt bad for doing him like that. I was like, “Man, I hope he is alive.” Luckily, he was all right. I don’t know why I didn’t stop before it got that far. Sometimes, there is something that just comes over me when I fight; sometimes, I just black out.

Because of my actions, there are a few areas where I gotta look over my shoulder. Like, I work for the Chicago Park District at Fernwood Park. There’s a dude that I got into it with who is always over there. When he sees me, or me and my friends, it’s either going straight to shots or straight to fighting.

I ain’t gon’ say I’ve never been shot at; I’ve been shot at before, but I’ve never been hit. I’ve never shot anybody, either, but I have owned a gun. I bought it for crunch times, like when my community is in war. That’s when there is so much fighting and gunshots that you can hardly go outside. I bought the gun from somebody I knew. I told him I wanted a gun, he told me what type he had, and I bought it. The gun was $280. Me and my mans bought it together; I put in $100 and he put in $180. I got my portion from my mom when she got her tax return. I told her that I was going to buy some clothes, but I used some of the money to get the gun. Me and my mans realized that we didn’t really need the gun, so we sold it.

My childhood was crazy. I went to six different grammar schools and stayed in a lot of different places. I don’t know why we moved so much. I guess my mother didn’t get along with the landlord. I had a lot of time when I was young when I was without adult supervision. My mama had to work. My grandma was always kinda sick and kinda old. My sister was either working her candy store job or gone with her friends. So I just had the opportunity to do what I wanted to do. Who was there to tell me I couldn’t do it? I just had too much freedom.

My father is a clown. I don’t even call him Daddy. I call him by his name, Donnie. I got hate for the dude because he wasn’t there. I have only seen him three times out of my whole life. When I was 6, I saw him at a family party. I didn’t hop on his lap, though. He was like, “Yeah, you know who I is?”

I’m like, “Naw, I don’t know you.”

He was like, “I’m your daddy.”

I looked at him and told him, “I don’t got no daddy.”

He was like, “You don’t?”

I told him, “I don’t got no daddy. I only got my mama and my grandma.”

I seen him again when I was 10. We were staying with his cousin and he stopped by. He said to me, “What do you want? I am going to buy you anything you want.”

My little brother was like, “Ask for a game.”

I was like, “Naw, I gon’ ask for some clothes.”

I needed some clothes because my mama was trying to save to get us a crib. He never got me the clothes. The last time I saw him, I was outside when my mama was bringing in groceries. My mama asked him to help her carry in the groceries and he said, “For what? That ain’t for me. I ain’t fitta eat.”

I was like, “But they are for your shorties though—me and my little brother.” Ever since then, I ain’t never seen the dude. I told him don’t even call me. When I see him, I gon’ knock him out. If he was in the hospital, I would walk in, spit on him and leave.

Dude don’t care. Dude don’t care. He probably is a drunk now because, from what I hear, all he does is hang out in front of liquor stores like Rothschild or Four Brothers. Or, maybe he’s a crackhead. All drunks turn into something.

If I could, I would move out of the neighborhood. I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of worrying about people coming after me. I’m tired of having to worry about my loyalty to my friends. I tell people all the time, my loyalty is a curse and a blessing at the same time. It’s like a job. It’s a 9-5. You can’t tell your friend you’re not going to help him fight. But sometimes I feel caught up, like a twig in a tornado.

I am still in a gang, but I don’t gangbang anymore. If a fight broke out and my mans called me, I would help him fight, but I don’t pick on people anymore. For now, I just keep myself busy and stay away from my neighborhood. Instead, I hang out at school, go to basketball practice, or I’m with my mentor. I really try not to be in the neighborhood like that anymore. By the time I go home, I’ve missed all the trouble.

It’s been four months since I’ve had a fight. I’m trying to learn from my previous mistakes of not going to school and being in fights. So now I go to school, I don’t fight, and I do something productive when I get out of school. Like, recently, my mentor took me on a college tour. Before that experience, I wasn’t thinking about going to college, but now I am. During the college tour, one of the presenters compared the kids who don’t go to college to kids who go to college. It made me think.

I am determined to turn my life around. I am now in it to win it. I can tell that I am changing. I was asked recently, if someone walked up and stole my cell phone, what would I do? In the past, I would have whupped that person. Now, I would talk to the person. I would let him know that I knew he had my cell phone and that I wanted it back. If he didn’t give it back, I would try to talk and resolve the situation. If he still didn’t give it back, I would be mad, really mad, but I would walk away to avoid further confrontation. I’m proud of what I’m becoming.

In five years, I see myself going to college and graduating. I also see myself getting my own crib, probably married with two shorties and working or owning my own business. I also see myself being a different father than my father; I am going to be there for my kids. For now, I am going to keep going to school and keep doing my work. I am going to keep myself busy so I can continue on this path.

I told myself that I can’t be 25, out here still trying to hustle, and still talking about how I need to go back to school. I know somebody who is 40 and still on the block. Nigga, you 40 years old! When you gon’ quit?