The Art of Making Money Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    Place was preconditioning, and the particular patch of Bridgeport the Salvation Army set the Williamses down on was known as the Bridgeport Homes, one of the few “white projects” in the city. They comprised a square block of two-story brick row houses, eighteen units in all, with a total of about 250 residents. They were small compared with infamous Chicago projects like Cabrini Green or the Dearborn Homes, but what they lacked in size they compensated for in gloom. When they were built in 1943, they were hailed as stylish, low-income housing of the future, but the one future its residents looked forward to more than any other was the day they moved out. Unfortunately for many of the Homes’ inhabitants, that day often got so obscured by the omnipresent traumas of poverty that it receded beyond the horizon altogether.
    It took two days for the power company to turn the heat on. It was the dead clear of Chicago’s winter when even clouds seem to hide for warmth. Malinda and the kids slept bundled up in their Salvation Army clothes, with blankets and some food from the local Pentecostal church. Later on, the church also brought some beds and a sofa and a table, but that just reminded Art that they were entirely dependent and in for the long haul.
    Art hated the homes from the beginning and attempted to run away within days. For this twelve-year-old, that meant stealing off to find his father. He recruited Jason in the adventure, and one morning before his mom and Wensdae woke up they snuck out of the apartment and up to Canal Street. Having no idea where to go, they latched on to the one landmark they recognized, the iconic rise of the Sears Tower. They followed it all the way to its base and walked into the lobby. All morning long they rode the escalators and roamed the shops, then finally camped out in front of Alexander Calder’s famous motorized mobile, Universe . They were still there when evening fell. Finally a security guard showed up and told them that it was time to leave.
    “We can’t leave,” Art said, and in explanation he blurted out that they were waiting to meet their father. When the guard asked for their dad’s name, Art gave it to him, and for the first time that day he realized they had a good plan after all. The guard told him to sit tight. He was going to make some calls and try to find their dad.
    A few minutes later, two Chicago police officers approached Art and his brother. They informed him that their mom was terrified and had been looking for them all day. They led Art and Jason out front, put them in the back of a cruiser, and drove them back to the projects. It was the first and only time Art would ever be in the back of a police car without being a suspect.
     
     
     
    A FEW MONTHS AFTER THEY MOVED into the Homes, Art ventured into the kitchen one afternoon and found the house totally bereft of food. Malinda explained to him and his siblings that they would have to wait. She left the house—Art suspects she went begging—and returned hours later empty-handed. By the following morning all three children were crying to be fed, and Malinda was crying hysterically herself. “My mother still didn’t know how to adjust to the level of poverty we’d found ourselves in,” Art remembers, “she couldn’t feed her children so she was feeling helpless. She had a breakdown and didn’t know what to do. This was all new to her.”
    Art once again grabbed Jason and left the house to see what he could do. He didn’t consider going to the church or social-service agencies an option; he believed that if he did he ran the risk of being taken away from his mother again. With no money and no plan, the first monetary objects Art saw were the parking meters on Halsted Street: old-style, single-headed “Park-O-Meters” that probably dated back to the 1940s. He started hitting them with his palm in the vague hope that one of them would pour out change like a piñata. With each whack he heard