Stone Cribs: A Smokey Dalton Novel

by Kris Nelscott

  The filled blanket was light. I carried it into the bedroom, saw the woman on her hands and knees packing a few more belongings into another, smaller blanket. The little girl clutched a Raggedy Ann doll that looked filthy.

  Doug set a tattered Bible in the middle of it all, and then started to tie up the second blanket.

  I wondered if they would have left all of their belongings because I had found them, or if they would have snuck back during the night. It looked like they had been here for a long time, long enough to spread out and make this home.

  “Got everything?” I asked as I helped the woman up.

  She nodded, then bent down and picked up her daughter. Doug hefted the second tied blanket over his shoulder.

  “Let’s go then,” I said.

  I led them into the hallway and locked up both apartments. Then I marched them down to my car. While I had been inside, someone had left a flyer on my windshield, attached by the wipers.

  All of the cars on the block had flyers on them. That caught my attention. I had never seen anything like it. The flyers weren’t mimeographed or hand-done. They had been produced at a print shop at considerable cost.

  Attention Drug Addicts, the flyer said. Are you tired? Would you like to stop using DOPE?

  There was more, but I didn’t feel like looking at it. I crumpled it up and tossed it onto the floor behind the driver’s seat.

  “Problem?” the woman asked.

  I shook my head. “Someone just mistook me for a drug addict, that’s all.”

  She let out a small laugh, and Doug looked at her in surprise. It was as if he’d never seen her do that before.

  “They didn’t get a good look at you, then, did they?” she asked.

  “I don’t think they got a look at me at all.” I swept my hand toward the back seat. “You all can ride in back if you want, or one of you can ride in front. I don’t care which.”

  “Watch your sister,” the woman said to Doug. “I’m sitting up front.”

  She helped the children into the back, then tucked the makeshift duffels around them. She also locked the doors. Then she went around to the front and got in.

  I got into the driver’s side, and turned the radio off before starting the car.

  “You know my name,” I said as I stuck the keys in the ignition. “Mind if I ask yours?”

  “Helen,” she said softly. “And that’s Doug and Carrie in the back.”

  I turned to them, nodded as formally as I could over the seats, and said, “Pleased to meet you.”

  Carrie put her small hands over her face, giggling behind them, but Doug just glared at me.

  I swiveled back in the seat and started the car. “They’re going to ask you a lot of questions down at the Helping Hands. You don’t have to answer them if you don’t want to. It’s just for their information. One of the men who set this up sometimes works with local politicians. He figures the more he knows about the ways that people get in trouble, the more he can do to prevent it.”

  I checked my mirrors, then pulled out. No one had driven down the street, and no one was walking by. Even though someone had put flyers on the cars, no one else seemed to be anywhere around.

  “What kind of questions?” Helen asked.

  “Things like how did you get here, not to this apartment but to this living situation, stuff like that.”

  Her face closed down. “They’re not gonna use this to take my kids, are they?”

  I had dealt with this question before. It was an important one to all of the parents I had encountered because the State of Illinois required mothers to maintain a “suitable” home to get welfare benefits. In Cook County, that could mean anything from a two-parent household with the wife as homemaker to limiting the number of children inside the household. I had only been doing this a short time, and only with people I happened to find in Sturdy’s buildings, and I had already heard countless horror stories.

  “This place I’m taking you has nothing to do with the government,” I said. “It’s privately run. They’re not interested in taking your kids. They’re interested in helping you get back on your feet.”

  Her expression hadn’t changed. “What does that mean?”

  “They’ll help you figure out what you’re good at, probably help you find a job, definitely help you get benefits, and make certain you have enough money to make it through each month.”

  “I can’t get no job.” Her fingers clutched the edge of the car seat.

  Through the corner of my eye, I could see Doug. He had one hand on his sister’s back, and he was frowning at me, as if I were the reason for his problems.

  Carrie’s small face had become serious again. She looked from Doug to me and then back to Doug. Clearly his attitude worried her.

  “Why can’t you get a job?” I asked Helen.

  She stared straight ahead, but her hands gripped the seat even tighter. “I gotta take care of my kids. Carrie’s too little to leave alone.”

  “You don’t gotta leave her alone,” Doug said.

  Helen’s mouth tightened, but she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I didn’t graduate high school, and I don’t got no experience.”

  “You’ve never had a job?” I asked.

  We were in the Loop now. The streets were filled with shoppers and businessmen who walked with their coats off. A lot of people headed toward Grant Park, probably to enjoy the warm weather as they got off work.

  “I waitressed for a while, but that was in Milwaukee,” Helen was saying.

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  “Yes, but it don’t matter. My folks told me when I left for Chicago that they wasn’t going to have nothing to do with me. They didn’t like Carrie’s dad.”

  “Where’s he?” I asked.

  She stared out the window, and didn’t answer me. I wasn’t going to push. Even though she had believed me enough to get into the car, she wasn’t going to tell me everything. I doubted she would tell the volunteers at Helping Hands everything, either. It would be a long time before she trusted us.

  Besides, a lot of the questions I was asking were similar to the ones a social worker would ask.

  I turned south and traffic got worse. It was bumper-to-bumper on both sides. Honking horns echoed in the building canyons, and the sun seemed thinner hear. Exhaust made the air thicker, and hotter, not that I minded. After the deep cold of mid-winter, this breath of spring felt good.

  No one spoke while we were in the Loop. Helen’s silence made it pretty clear that she wasn’t going to answer any more questions. She was tense now, as if she regretted coming with me.

  What she didn’t realize—what I probably hadn’t made clear—was that she had a real chance now to turn her life around. But it would depend upon her. Helping Hands Incorporated would get her started, and then she would be on her own.

  “What’s going to happen over the next few days is this,” I said. “The volunteers will find you a place to stay tonight. By the end of the week, you’ll have your own apartment. The first month will be paid for by Helping Hands Incorporated. After that, they’ll pay for whatever your job and assistance can’t cover.”

  “Said I can’t get no job,” she muttered.

  I ignored that. “Eventually, the idea is that you’ll be able to afford the apartment or a place like it on your own. They help you, but they won’t pay your way indefinitely.”

  “If I gotta get a job to make this work,” she said, “you gotta let us out here. I ain’t gonna leave my babies alone.”

  “The job is just one option. There may be benefits you qualify for or other things that will help you make your bills, things you may not be aware of.”

  Things I wasn’t aware of, either. I didn’t have the patience for this sort of thing, which was why I was glad that Laura and Franklin found a way to take it out of my hands. I was already getting exasperated with Helen, and I knew that she needed help desperately.

  “We was doing okay on our own,” she
said.

  “I know that.” It was easier for me to agree with her than disagree. “And you can say no to the help at any point.”

  That seemed to reassure her. We drove into Bronzeville in silence. As we reached Hyde Park, she spoke up again.

  “We was doing okay.” She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking out the window. “It was the fire.”

  I glanced in the rearview. Doug had his head back, his eyes closed, but I couldn’t tell if he was asleep or not. Carrie clearly was. She was lying sideways on the plastic seat, her thumb in her mouth.

  “What fire?” I asked, hoping Helen didn’t mean the riot-started fire after Martin died. That would have meant this family had been on the streets for a year.

  “Our building. It burnt down. Nothing left.” Helen shook her head. “I got the kids out, though. That’s the main thing. But the manager, he didn’t refund our rent, even though it was the first of the month, and the welfare people said they’d hold my check till I got another address, and I couldn’t get another address till I had some money. I didn’t have nothing to sell—except, you know, what a woman’s got to sell, and I ain’t never been that low—and everybody I know, they was all burned out or broke or wanting something I wasn’t willing to give. So I went to the Mission on Pacific Grove, and they helped for a few nights, and one of the ladies there, she even tried talking to the welfare people, but it didn’t do no good.”

  Helen wrapped her arms around herself.

  “And they got some rule there about not staying real long. So before they kicked us out, I started looking for places. Found a few. But never got a real address, so we never did get our ADC again.”

  “How have you been eating?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “What we can find. That new program the Panthers got, the kids been doing real good on that.”

  “The Breakfast For Children program?” I asked. I had seen it in the papers, but I hadn’t realized that it was actually working.

  “They gotta listen to some weird speeches, but I think it’s worth it for them to get a full stomach. They started it last week, and Doug’s been taking Carrie every day. It was just a few blocks away. So if we can’t do nothing at your Helping Hands place, I wanna go back to that neighborhood, see what I can find. Free food for the kids ain’t something you find a lot of.”

  I nodded. “I’ll make sure you can get back if that’s what you want.”

  “Yeah.”

  No wonder she was so thin. She probably hadn’t had a good meal since she got burned out of her apartment. Her food obviously went to the children, unless there was enough to spare.

  I didn’t want to ask any more questions, and she didn’t volunteer any more information. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

  Helping Hands Incorporated had its offices in Woodlawn. The office was small, nestled between a drug store and a five-and-dime. The El divided the street, providing shade where none was needed.

  People crowded the sidewalks, looking harried and busy, as if they didn’t have time to enjoy the sunny day. In between the heavyset matrons with their shopping bags and the tall men in tattered coats were teenage boys, smoking and standing in clumps. The boys wore the red tams of the Blackstone Rangers. The rest of the crowd either ignored them or gave them a wide berth.

  I didn’t want to set up Helping Hands in Stones country, but the rent was reasonable and Franklin argued that the people we wanted to help were more likely to show up in Woodlawn than they were in Kenwood—a place where, the joke went, blacks and whites united against the poor.

  I parked in front of the office, and helped Helen get out. She picked up the sleeping Carrie as if the little girl weighed nothing. Doug grabbed both makeshift duffels, shrugging me off when I tried to help.

  It seemed warmer down here and the air smelled of sweat mixed with overheated metal from the El tracks. I led the three of them through the crowd, and pulled open the office door.

  The office was little more than a boxy room with a desk, a few comfortable chairs, and some plants. Another door led to the back room, which had a hot plate, a refrigerator, and a water cooler, as well as a bed for anyone who needed it.

  The office was cooler than outside, and smelled faintly of rosewater. Only two people worked during the afternoon—a volunteer and one of three paid staff members.

  I didn’t recognize the volunteer, a slender middle-aged woman who wore her hair in a beehive. Cat-eye glasses hung around her neck instead of jewelry, and her simple white dress looked perfect for the weather.

  She had just gotten herself a glass of water. She crossed the room, and sat behind the desk, looking official. Then she smiled, and I saw why she had been hired.

  Her smile was the brightest thing I’d seen all day.

  “I’m Bill Grimshaw,” I said, extending my hand. “I found these nice folks living in an apartment on West Madison.”

  I gave the volunteer the address, and I made introductions. Then I excused myself, planning to leave.

  Helen caught my arm. “Ain’t you staying?”

  I shook my head. “This nice lady will help you now.”

  “But what if I wanna go back? Who’ll drive me?”

  I had told her that she could go if she had to.

  “Give it a night,” I said, “and if you’re not happy here, have someone call me. I’ll drive you back to the West Side.”

  “Before breakfast?” she asked. “They serve at six.”

  I suddenly understood her concern. This was an office building. She was used to shelters that had kitchens and beds. Office buildings meant welfare workers and prying questions, no food, and loss of dignity.

  “You’ll get breakfast tomorrow,” I said. “All three of you. If you want to go back, we’ll do it after lunch. That way I know you got two of your three squares.”

  “Are you hungry now?” the volunteer asked. “I have some food in the back. I can get you something to eat.”

  Helen licked her lower lip. I wasn’t sure if she was aware she had done so. But she didn’t turn around.

  Doug, to my surprise, said nothing. But he looked at his mom with longing.

  “They’re hungry,” I said, “but go easy. They haven’t had a lot to eat lately.”

  The volunteer nodded.

  I carefully pried Helen’s hand off my arm. “You’ll be all right,” I said. “These people will take good care of you. And you know how to get hold of me if you absolutely have to.”

  “I do?” she asked.

  I nodded. “You just make the same call you made earlier. Detective Sinkovich’ll track me down.”

  I had learned in February not to give my home number out. A woman I had found in an apartment on South Cottage Grove had called fifteen times one night. She had seemed stable when I first found her, but it turned out that she was withdrawing from some drug, and thinking that everyone was against her. Everyone but me.

  Helen stepped back slightly and put her free hand on Doug’s shoulder. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll give it one night.”

  “And food?” Doug whispered, apparently thinking he was quiet enough that only she could hear.

  “Yes,” she said to him.

  I said my good-byes and slipped back out into the sunshine. As the door closed behind me, I did not turn around or wave. I already had the image of the three of them—Carrie asleep against her mother’s thin shoulder, Doug a small but serious guardian beside them—firmly in my mind.

  I wished I hadn’t.

  It seemed, no matter how much I did, it wasn’t even a fraction of a drop in the proverbial bucket. And, as a result, I had to get folks out of my mind, as best I could.

  Still, I could feel the three of them watching me through the office’s grimy window as I got into my car. I drove off, wishing I had spent the day sitting on a beach, enjoying the weather with Jimmy instead of delivering a family to Helping Hands Incorporated, a family who might be right back where I found them less than twenty-four hours from now.

/>   TEN

  I HAD about two hours before I had to pick up Jimmy. That wasn’t enough time to drive back to West Monroe and finish the house. So I pulled Marvella’s lists out of my pocket, and checked to see if there was an address nearby.

  There were several, and not all of them on her “bad” list. I drove to the closest, which was in a bad neighborhood of Woodlawn.

  I was venturing into gang territory. I didn’t like it, but I knew I would be better off alone. My rusted Impala fit right in, and if I looked like a worried boyfriend, people might think I was looking for the abortionist.

  The street number belonged to a five-story brick apartment building. Most of the windows had been knocked out, a few of them replaced with cardboard. The door was open and unlocked, and several teenagers loitered on the front steps.

  As I got out of the car, I caught the sickly sweet smell of marijuana.

  The teenagers made no moves when they saw me. They didn’t scatter, nor did they try to hide their joints. I walked past them without acknowledgement. In this neighborhood, where the Blackstone Rangers ruled, I could get in trouble just for saying the wrong thing.

  The smell of pot was stronger inside, mixed with the stench of urine. My skin crawled. I couldn’t imagine coming here, feeling helpless and worried, to end a pregnancy. If I had brought a girlfriend here, I would have turned around before reaching the stairs.

  The apartment number was on the fourth floor. I climbed the steps quickly. A bundle of rags on the landing between the second and third floor turned out to be a woman as skinny as Helen, lost in her clothing. She stank of cheap whiskey, and mumbled something as I stepped past her.

  By the time I reached the fourth floor, I had a feeling I was on a wild goosechase. I walked across the trash-filled hallway to the door of number 407.

  The door was partially open. I pushed it open the rest of the way. The apartment was empty. The stench of urine seemed stronger here, along with an older smell of dried blood. The beige carpet was covered with brown stains, and I hoped that wasn’t where the blood smell came from.