JAMES COX

Rolling Stone, 05/28/98, Issue 787
By: Kotlowitz, Alex,

James cox and I met thirteen years ago in the urine-stained halls of a high-rise in the Henry Horner Homes, a public-housing complex in Chicago wracked by drugs and violence. He was a friend of Lafeyette and Pharoah, the two boys I wrote about in There Are No Children Here, and while we saw each other regularly in those early years, as James got older, our time together got more infrequent. Recently, though, we've reconnected.

When James was in his teens, every August he, Lafeyette, Pharoah and I would pile into my cramped Dodge Horizon, and arguing over whether to listen to MC Hammer or Bob Dylan head to northern Michigan for a week of fishing. One year I hired a guide to take us out on Lake Superior. Captain Al, as he called himself, spoke in a series of unintelligible grunts, giving notice that he did not particularly welcome conversation, but by the end of the morning James had him laughing at stories of black-fly attacks and of hunting for garter snakes near the projects. Somehow, this fifteen-year-old boy turned Captain Al into the model of congeniality.

That spirit served James well growing up in Henry Horner, a community where even the strongest adults wither under the pressures. I remember attending his eighth-grade graduation and marveling at his award for perfect attendance no small feat given that many of his classmates often stayed home to avoid the gang warfare that had already killed three of James' neighbors. James was raised by his mother he is her only child in a third-floor apartment, and she hovered over him like a hawk, making sure she knew where he was at all times. She worked off and on at a convenience store and, when without income, received public aid. James' father, with whom he was close, visited regularly. I knew from my time at Horner that even with such attentive parents, it would take exceptional will for a teenager to emerge intact.

James went on to graduate from a public high school where nearly half of all entering freshmen don't finish and then landed a series of low-paying jobs. He had hoped to attend college, but his girlfriend became pregnant with their daughter, Jameia, when James was eighteen. James and I stayed close. Every Monday night we played in a pickup basketball game together, and James even helped carry the chuppa at my wedding. In recent years, though, our time together has been sporadic at best in large part because of James' pride. If things aren't going well for him, he won't call. He won't come by. "I don't want to disappoint you," he tells me. And so I've learned to just wait.

A year and a half ago, James was to come by for Christmas, as he did every year, but he didn't show up. And he didn't call. I knew that his relationship with his girlfriend wasn't going well. Moreover, they were expecting twins. And James was struggling. A job laying carpets had not worked out. But I thought we'd certainly hear from him soon, since his girlfriend was expecting in a few months. Weeks, then months, went by, and I heard from him only once a year later to wish me a good Christmas.

Then, this past March, he called, sounding on top of the world. For the past five months he'd been working for ten dollars an hour as a conflict resolutionist at a public-housing complex. The work called for James, who'd always had a good sense about him, to try to defuse tensions between rival gangs. He so impressed the property-management firm responsible for running the program that just a few weeks earlier, they had selected him to manage four of their buildings 120 units on the city's hardscrabble west side. He was in training now, learning the responsibilities of the job: collecting rent, making appearances at housing court, hiring janitors and overseeing maintenance. It's a salaried position; he'll start at $21,000, which will allow him to add to the couple of thousand dollars he has already managed to squirrel away. "I want to take you out for lunch," he told me. "It's my turn. I'm working."

I met him at his new job, where, in a white silk shirt and snakeskin shoes, he looked handsome and prosperous. He took me back to his cubicle, in which he'd piled various rent receipts and eviction notices neatly into a corner. "How are things going here?" I asked. "Good, good," he said, smiling wide.

James insisted on driving to lunch in his newly purchased 1993 Bonneville ($10,500 $2,500 down). Leather seats. A sunroof. Automatic windows. It doesn't show its 104,000 miles. As he drove, we caught up. Aside from work and spending time with his kids, he told me, his only other joy was basketball. Recently he'd been named coach of the year for a team of eight- to- thirteen-year-olds he manages on the west side. "I'm their role model," he said. "It's up to me to stay steady and firm."

We got a corner booth at Gladys', a soul-food restaurant which provides a lunch-time home to the city's black politicians and businessmen. Before we ate, I handed him a watch that I'd been holding onto for him over two Christmases. He asked me to put it on his wrist. I did, and I thought that even though it had been almost two years since I'd seen him, it didn't seem like much time had passed at all. Though twenty-four, James looked as he did in his teens, with the exception of the bare beginnings of a goatee. "I got down. I didn't want to call," he told me. "You took a chance. I try not to let you down."

I was surprised to learn that he now attends church two or three times a month. "When I was out there doing wrong, I'd ask God for his forgiveness," he explained. I didn't press him. James keeps to himself now. Many of his contemporaries from Henry Horner are in prison; a few are dead. He no longer lives with his girlfriend and now rents an apartment for $400 a month in a small brownstone owned by his father. (James had helped his dad renovate the building.) His children daughter Jameia and his twin sons, Jamel and James Jr. anchor him. He sees them every day, lavishing them with gifts, particularly new clothes. He and the kids' mother split the ninety dollars a month it costs to send their daughter to preschool.

Over short ribs and collard greens, we talked about what lies ahead. James hopes to own real estate one day; with rental income, he could put aside college money for his kids. "Right now I'm not even looking back," he told me. "I have on blinders like the racehorses, just straight ahead. . . . I'm in a stage where I have to show my kids the right things to do. Trend setter. I'm a trend setter. . . . If you're a strong head of the family, your kids won't be devoured by the things in the street."

James told me he hoped to double his savings so that if he got in a hole again, he'd have a cushion. No more purchases for himself, he told me. Just for his kids. At least for the next few months. He already has plenty of clothes and jewelry, including a $350 Pelle Pelle coat. And he has a pager and a cell phone, which he feels are necessary for both his job and his safety. "Sometimes a shooting will break out around my mom's house and she'll call to tell me not to come over," he said. Moreover, if his kids need him, their mother can call at any time. How about another fishing trip? I asked. "I want to go on a trip to the islands," he told me. "I hear there's a place you can see a quarter all the way at the bottom."

Away from the office, James talked about his job with some anxiety. He finds the piles of paperwork dizzying. And most of his colleagues are college graduates who, he feels, wonder how he got the job. Adding to that insecurity is the fact that he failed a spelling test; he asked if I knew of a good electronic pocket dictionary he could buy. "It's a lot, man, a lot to learn," he said. "But I want to prove to them they made the right decision." He also worries that with the new welfare legislation, many families won't be able to make their rent. "I see a lot of families broke down," he said. It's the hardest part of his new job: handing out eviction notices to people whose circumstances are all too familiar.

We lingered over our meals. He promised to bring the twins by, since my wife and I hadn't met them yet. As we got up to leave, two women at the table next to ours called James over. They told him they couldn't help but overhear parts of our conversation. "You must have God in your life," one of them told him. "I hope you talk to some guys your age. They need to listen to what you got to say, to what you're doing with your life."

They do.