Sudhir Venkatesh - Gang Leader for a Day

I wasn’t very worried about meeting with Johnny until Price spoke up. “We’ve also got a problem with this nigger,” he said, “because he’s been charging us more than he charges other niggers.”

“You mean he rips off only people in the Black Kings?” I asked.

“That’s right,” said J.T. “And this one is hard, because Johnny is T-Bone’s uncle. He’s also a dangerous motherfucker. He’ll use a gun just like that. So you got to be careful.”

“No, you have to be careful,” I said. “I told you I won’t use a gun.”

“No one said you have to,” Price offered, laughing from the backseat. “But he might!”

“What exactly is it that I’m supposed to do?” I asked. “You want me to make him charge you fair prices?”

“Well, this is a tough one,” J.T. said, “because we can’t have people taking advantage of us, you dig? But the thing is, we provide this nigger protection.”

“Protection?”

“Yeah, say somebody steals something. Then we find out who did it and we deal with it.”

“So he can’t tell us that we can’t come in his store,” Price said. “Not if we’re providing him a service.”

“Right,” said J.T. “We have to try and remind him that he’s paying us to help him, and it doesn’t look good if he doesn’t let us come in his store. See, what he’s doing is trying to make back the money that he’s paying us for protection.”

Johnny was out front when we pulled up, smoking a cigarette. “What’s up, Sudhir?” he said. “I see you wasting your time again, hanging around these niggers.”

Johnny looked like a caricature of a disco-era hustler: bright orange pants, a polyester shirt that appeared to be highly flammable, cowboy boots with fake diamond trim, and lots of ghetto glitter- fake rubies and other stones-on his fingers. A tattoo on his arm read BLACK BITCH, and another on his chest said PENTHOUSE KINGS, which was the name of his long-ago street gang.

J.T., Price, and I followed Johnny into the back of the store while T-Bone peeled off to attend to some other business. The back room was musty and unswept. The walls were plastered with pictures of naked black women and a big poster of Walter Payton, the beloved Chicago Bears running back. The sturdy shelves and even the floor were crammed with used TV sets, stereo components, and microwaves that Johnny fixed and sold. A big wooden table held the remnants of last night’s poker game: cards and chips, cigar butts, some brandy, and a ledger tallying debts. Through the open back door, a small homeless encampment was visible. J.T. had told me that Johnny paid a homeless couple fifty dollars a week to sleep outside and watch over the store.

We all sat down around the table. Johnny seemed impatient. “All right,” he said, “what are we going to do?”

“Well, we were thinking more like what you were going to do, nigger,” Price said.

“Listen, big black,” Johnny said, cigarette dancing in his lips, “you can take that mouth outside if you can’t say something useful.”

J.T. told Price to go back to the car, leaving just me, J.T., and Johnny.

“You’re paying us, Johnny,” J.T. said, “and now you’re charging us. You trying to make your money back? Is that it?”

Johnny replied in a calm monotone. “You niggers charge me two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and that shit has to stop,” he said. “A man can’t run a business if he has to pay that kind of money.

And your boys keep coming in here demanding free shit. I told Moochie and the rest of them that if they come in here anymore, this.22 is going to find their back.” He gestured to a rifle hanging behind him on the wall.

“See now, that’s the kind of talk we don’t need,” J.T. said. “I mean, we need to cooperate.”

“Cooperate, my ass!” said Johnny. “You can cooperate with my fist.”

“Whoa, whoa!” I yelled, trying to be useful. “Let’s calm down now, boys. What I think we need is a little-”

“Is this Arab going to sit here all day with us?” Johnny said.

“Leave that boy alone,” J.T. said. “I’ll explain later.” He shot me a glance, a Shut the fuck up glance. “Listen, you pay me two hundred dollars a month and you’ll get the same shit from us.” He was talking about the protection the gang afforded. “And I’ll talk to Moochie and everyone else, tell them they can’t steal shit. Okay?”

“Bitch, you better tell him not to bring his girlfriends up in here.”

“What?”

“You heard me. He brings them bitches in here when I’m not around, showing off and taking shit off the shelves, eating candy and drinking soda like he owns the place. When my man tried to do something about it, he pulled a gun on him. Let him bring that shit on me. Try it once, I’ll kill the little bitch.”

“All right,” J.T. said, putting his hand in front of Johnny’s face to shut him up. “I told you I’ll deal with the nigger.”

“I pay you two hundred dollars and your boys get to come in here, but they have to promise to spend at least two hundred dollars a month on shit,” Johnny said.

“And you’re not going to jack up prices, right?” I said.

“Goddamn, Arab, you still here?” Johnny said. “Yeah, that’s right, they pay what everyone else pays.”

“Okay, then,” I said, “we got ourselves a deal, boys!” I stood up to go.

“Boy, sit your ass down,” J.T. said. “Johnny, we’ll get back with you.”

“Yeah, we’ll get back with you,” I said. “We need to deliberate.”

Johnny and J.T. started laughing.

“Goddamn!” Johnny shouted. “You bring this Arab with you wherever you go?”

“One day,” J.T. muttered, clearly frustrated that I was taking my role a little too seriously. “One day, that’s it.”

We got back in the Malibu. Price drove, J.T. rode shotgun, and I sat in the back. My next duty, J.T. explained, was to settle a dispute between two gang members, Billy and Otis. Billy was the director of a six-man drug-selling crew. Otis, one of his six dealers, was claiming that Billy had underpaid him for a day’s work. Billy, meanwhile, said that Otis lied about how much crack he sold and kept the extra money. My dilemma would be compounded by the fact that I already knew both Billy and Otis.

As we drove, Price explained my goal: to adjudicate the case and determine a fair punishment. “If Billy didn’t pay Otis, then you have to punish Billy,” he said. “The punishment for not paying one of your members would be two mouthshots, and Billy can’t work for a week. And if you want, you get to make Otis the director for that week. But if Otis stole something, then we have a bigger problem. You have to beat the shit out of that nigger, not just hit him twice. And he has to work free for a month.”

The thought of hitting someone in the face-delivering a “mouthshot”-made me nauseous. Growing up, I used to get picked on all the time. I was tall and athletic, but I was also a nerd, completewith pocket protector, bad haircut, and an armful of math and science books. I was a perfect target for the average football player or any other jock, especially since I played the less “manly” sports of tennis and soccer. I never even learned to throw a punch. In school most of the fights culminated with someone-most often a girl I was with-pleading for the bully to reconsider, or with me rolling up in a fetal ball, which I actually found to be quite a good strategy, since most bullies didn’t want to fight someone who wouldn’t fight back.

“Now, I don’t mean to be picky,” I said, “but isn’t this why we have you here, Price? I mean, you’re the security guy, no? You beat their ass-I mean, isn’t that what you get paid for? And if I’m the leader, I can delegate, no?”