Preface:

In 1990 I was a Kids Line, Hot Line volunteer crisis worker in inner-city Chicago. I was a yuppie from the suburbs and barely understood some of the calls. They were ripe with street-jargon and funk and of course a liberal amount of filth too. Their words flowed through the anonymous phone wires without artifice. They were brave and scared, gritty and tender. They were kids, just kids, with stories; about trying to survive in a very tough world. Street-smart and Street-weary by ten years old, they broke my heart with their calls. I'd like to share the most poignant one with you now.
Prelude to Jamal's Story:

"Ain't No green in the Green Man!" Jamal's first line that sticks in my mind. He was thirteen years-old, calling from the projects, a frightening place in inner-city Chicago not aptly named, 'Cabrini Green'. He was right. There was no green there, no trees or grass, no playgrounds or parks. Rather a depressing, graffiti littered, concrete jungle of cubicles for people to live in, full of rats and roaches. Buildings with not enough heat in the winter or any escape from oppressive heat, in the summers, quite literally a hell-hole.
A traffic officer once pulled me over as I was leaving the project and read me a riot act. "Are you crazy lady, don't ever drive through there, we won't even answer a call on those streets!" He was trying to warn me for my own safety. But how sad, he didn't understand, there were children in there, kids, lots of them; and our countries future. Anyway without further commentary meet Jamal. He called on my shifts twice a week for usually about an hour each time, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but an hour being a reasonable average. He called for six or seven weeks equaling approximately eighty hours of logged phone time. This story is accumulated from those calls. Open your hearts to him and let his voice seep into your social consciousness.

Jamal, Thirteen
Chicago 1990
******* "My ma's a crack hoe man. I gots to take care of her and my little sister. Jilly is only eight. I sell stuff man and run stuff too, I keep food cummin in. I wish I could make enuf bread to get Jilly otta here. Man it's a tough place to beez. Drive-bys are gitten worse." He takes a slight breather and goes on.
"You know lady I been shot twice on the street now, onced when I was nine and again about a half-year ago. It's a bummer, just snipers-snippin, not really out to shoot me even. Just the way it went down. I done kept Jilly safe so far though, she ain't been shot or hacked up or nuthin. I see she gets to school and back safe everyday, I makes sure no one even heists her lunch, everyone knows they best not mess with her, or they be dealin with me." His bravado ran down a little and he rested while I commented on what a good big brother he was, it seemed to be the affirmation he needed.
He went on, "The gangs is tough man, I bin tryin not to join, ya know? But they be makin it real damn hard. I don't need im, and I don’t wantta do no stupid initiation neither, but I don't know how long I can last. You gotta belong ya know? My brother died in the gang two-years ago, I just don't know..."
The phone went dead. That very first call we didn't make much headway, but I had felt the tips of his fingers as he reached out, just before he bailed out and hung up. I had heard the desperation under the bravado and wished I could hug this poor, brave, tough kid. I had managed to tell him my shift hours, so now all I could hope for was that he'd call back. Other calls came in and I listened and manned the calls, but Jamal never quite left me. I worked twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays from eleven p.m. until seven am. It was my way to give back to society, some of my good fortune. My next shift I never heard from him, but a week later I did.
He called with, "Does you know who this is?" they like to know they are memorable, they need that. Sometimes you don't remember at first and it breaks your heart to admit, but this time I was glad to answer that I did. He was pleased and went on.
"Jilly won a spellin bee at school, ain't that cool?" I agreed it was and propped the door open for him to talk some more.
"My ma ain't come home in most a week, sorry bitch! Lady I bet you always go home to your kids, huh?" I agreed that I did but that my circumstances and his mothers might be very different. A crisis line worker walks a delicate balance. Neither wishing to promote a pity party or make a judgment. I encouraged him to tell me where he thought she might be and asked him how that affected him and his sister.
Once again bravado won out, but some reality lived in his words too. "We's better off witout the hoe, ya know? I be takin good care of Jilly! Sometimes it's hard tho, ya know?"
I agreed that I did, and asked him how I could help; gently I suggested that maybe social services could help.
It was as if a bomb went off in him. He ranted and raved and railed at the stupid system, citing excuse after example of failures by that particular department in Cabrini Green. My heart hurt for his fear and hopelessness, that there was no where to turn if you where a kid in the projects. I was it, and I was ineffectual and useless to him, stuck within the perimeters of my volunteer rule-book. But I heard pain and suffering in his voice and as a mother I just wanted to take Jamal and Jilly home and make them safe. I unfortunately couldn't do that, so I directed and listened some more. "Jamal tell me what you want me to do for you? How can I help?" Part of me knew if this kid asked right now, I would drive right out and pick him and his sister up and the system be damned.
But Jamal knew the rules better than I did, "Nothin lady, you can't do nothin. But you sound nice and your kids are lucky. Tell me about them."
It was an age old request from a kid to be told a story, so I did. Carefully I tried not to make it sound like the huge difference it was, my children's stories and his own. But the contrast was obscene and I knew it and felt guilty about it. My two sons lived in a home with rooms of their own decorated especially for them. They played sports, and musical instruments. They were never hungry and wore nice clothes. They played ball with the neighborhood kids in our cul-de-sac, no bullets were flying there. They had a tree-house, and joined teams not gangs. But he seemed to like to hear about them. I was so careful not to injure with that contrast, but I told him their names and what they liked to do and a favorite story I often read them. He liked the story. I talked for longer then I ever had previously because it’s what he needed. When I stopped to rest and see if he was ready to talk yet he’d say, "Ain't nobody ever told me stories lady, could you tell me another one?" So I would.
The next time he called he had Jilly with him, even though it was one a.m. on a school night. He started out at talking at a run, and jumped right in without preliminary niceties.
"Lady please tell Jilly a story, OK, she woke up scared, there's lots of shootin goin on tonight. The streets are crazy, bullets flyin and a couple of fires. I gotta go check it out, but I want you should talk to Jilly. Would you stay wit her?" Before I could even respond a small little girl-voice spoke a shy, "Hi.", into the receiver and Jamal was gone without my even responding to his request. He was a shrewd little character and I did what he wanted. I told his little sister a story, and then another when she showed no inclination to talk to me. I had tried to coax her along and asked about the spelling-bee and her big brother, whatever I could think of to get her to talk. But I only received monosyllable responses so I gave up and told another story. Eventually I heard a sleepy little sigh and felt my audience go to sleep. Not sure what else to do I kept telling my story. After all I was the baby-sitter wasn't I? I couldn't just leave.
Finally Jamal came back on the line and caught me up on the evening's war-zone activities. Only thirty miles away, the world was such a different place. I felt somewhat shell-shocked myself as he walked me through his streets and the unfolding melodramas taking place there. I hated myself as I thanked God that I didn't live like that. He was very hyped up and hard to follow as he recounted with pride his own part in the making of a malatob-cocktail or street bomb, made out of a bottle, kerosene and a rag. He ended the call abruptly then and said some dudes were yellin outside and he had to go. I sat with the dead-line feeling both relieved and lost, wanting to hang on to him longer. But he was gone. It was almost four a.m. now. I'd been on the phone with them three hours and I was helpless to do anything now but wait for his next call. I swear if *69 had been invented in 1990 I would have used it, alas it wasn't and there was nothing more to be done.
I was sick on my next shift and had one child down ill at home too, so I couldn't go in, but I agonized all evening and called in several times to check to see if I'd gotten calls. No one felt he'd called, but there were of course many hang-ups, which was usual. I agonized, I had many callers I cared deeply about, but this one was under my skin. Mentally adopted by me I felt like a traitor that I was unreachable to him at my home. The next shift I was nearly an hour early and willing the phone to ring with a vengeance. It did, in fact it was an extremely busy night. But it was never Jamal. At five a.m. I had given up. He'd never called this late before.
But he did call. And as was his style he launched right in. He never rebuked me for missing the last shift but he let me know he'd tried. It seemed important to him that I knew he'd called, yet there was absolutely no recrimination coming from him. I was touched. This kid had such a good heart and he was basically so good, I told him so. It seemed to please him. I commented on the fact that it was so late, wasn't he sleepy.
"No not really," he replied slowly. "Sleeping isn't my thing. Ya know?" I didn't and I asked him to explain that cryptic statement.
"Well lady, it's like this, I'll be asleep a long time soon and now I got too much ta do, ya know?" I didn't, I didn't know exactly what he was saying, or didn't want to anyway. The truth is he was down tonight and alluding to hopelessness, that like his brother he never expected to grow up! He confirmed that with his next frightening question?
"Do you think I should take Jilly with me when I go lady? Cause I'm afraid no one will take care of her when I'm gone?" The sadness in his voice broke my heart, and the ominous-ness of that question terrified me. Was he actually speaking of dying and killing his baby sister as an escape? Or was he only referring to running away, surely I was misreading this. But I wasn't.
He went on. "A dude says he can put us to sleep man, and it will all be over. What do ya think?" I tread very carefully as I explained, that wasn't an answer. I was losing him and I could tell it. I'd become a pat answer. I fought for a different approach and found one. I told him a story; I was making it up as I went along as I often did writing stories that fit my own children’s needs. I had his attention!
I can't recount that story exactly, but it was about a brave prince who lived in a dark and evil kingdom but had a bright and shining spirit that began to conquer the darkness. It was a slow and horrible battle, many in fact. Yet each time he gained more ground and won more sunlight and dispelled more darkness. I rambled for almost an hour and Jamal listened.
At the end he thanked me, and I thought just maybe it had helped, but his response was sad. "Life ain't no fairy tale lady! Sorry, I gotta go. I did like the story though, your kids, they be lucky, ya tell im that for me, OK?" Click he was gone.
Not all calls were dramatic, I can't remember much of what we spoke about, but Jamal touched me. I fear I never did anything that really helped, all I could really do was listen. His destiny was fairly fixed, and I could make little effect on it and follow the rules of the hot-line. Many times I've wished I had ignored the rules and driven across town and brought Jamal and Jilly home with me. Unfortunately I didn't.
Jamal was shot down in those streets somewhere before his fourteenth birthday. My name and the hot-line number were in his pocket so the authorities called to both inform me and see what I knew. I helped them all I could, then I threw-up and cried for two days. They assured me Jilly would be put into foster care outside the project but wouldn't tell me more, I always like to think she might have had a happy ending. I'll never really know. Here is what I do know, the facts that the police gave me.
Jamal died the way he lived, alone. He took two gut-shots; I'm told it is the most painful place to be shot. In his pocket were only four dollars, my number, and a small school picture of his little sister. He'd lost his brother, his mother, and never had known a father. He'd quit school at twelve, yet taken his sister everyday, so she'd have a chance. He'd avoided gangs and drugs, but stolen to supply Campbell's soup and cereal. A kid in an impossible situation he'd done his best.
I still hear Jamal in my head sometimes, I'll always mourn him! "Ya know?"





P.S. This story won several awards for my writing, but my prayer was always that it would make a difference. That is still my prayer.

It is the essence of our humanity that we must care and try to help.