Kinship

Mother Teresa diagnosed the world’s ills in this way: we’ve just “forgotten that we belong to each other.” Kinship is what happens to us when we refuse to let that happen. With kinship as the goal, other essential things fall into place; without it, no justice, no peace. I suspect that were kinship our goal, we would no longer be promoting justice—we would be celebrating it.

Kinship has a way of sneaking up on you even as you seek to create it. I celebrate Catholic services, on a rotating basis, in twenty-five detention institutions in Los Angeles County—juvenile halls, probation camps, jails, and state youth authority facilities. After Mass, in the gym or chapel or classroom, I hand out my card. The infomercial is always the same:

“Call me when you get out. I’ll hook you up with a job—take off your tattoos

—line ya up with a counselor. I won’t know where you are, but with this card, you’ll know where I am. Don’t slow drag. Cuz if you do, you’ll get popped again and end up right back here. So call me.”

I hand out thousands of cards a year.

So a homie named Louie, seventeen years old, appears in my office one day, bright, happy, and smiling. Never in my life had I seen more hickeys on a human being than on this guy. His entire neck is spotted with these chupetonazos. Even his cheeks are covered. I’m thinking Mr. Guinness of the world records might be interested in talking to Louie.

“So, here I am,” he says, arms outstretched, “I just got out yesterday,” and he points at me with glee, “and YOU . . . are the VERY FIRST person I came to see.”

I look at this giddy gang member and say, “Louie . . . I have a feeling I was your second stop.”

The two of us collapse in laughter and, suddenly, there’s kinship so quickly.

Not service provider and service recipient. No daylight to separate—just “us.”

Exactly what God had in mind.

Often we strike the high moral distance that separates “us” from “them,” and yet it is God’s dream come true when we recognize that there exists no daylight between us. Serving others is good. It’s a start. But it’s just the hallway that leads to the Grand Ballroom.

Kinship—not serving the other, but being one with the other. Jesus was not “a man for others”; he was one with them. There is a world of difference in that.

* * *

I suppose I never felt this kinship more keenly in my own life than when I was first diagnosed with leukemia. At this writing, I am several years cancer free.

Not long ago, a homie breathlessly said to me, “I hear your cancer’s in intermission.” My leukemia has been in the lobby ever since, waiting in line for popcorn.

The news of my illness first managed to reach most folks by way of the front page of the Sunday Los Angeles Times. Word spread—homies came out of the woodwork. My voicemail began to fill.

“Now it’s our turn to take care of you,” says Lala, a homegirl I’ve known forever.

A huge homie named Fernie stands in front of my desk, tattooed and something of a fullback to whom God had forgotten to give a neck. Tears glistening in his eyes.

“What do I have that you need?” he says. Meaning organs.

I was more than a little happy to tell him that I wasn’t in need of any.

At some point in midchemotherapy, I arrive at my office after a treatment. A tiny, fifteen-year-old gang member plunks himself down in the chair facing my desk. He looks positively stricken.

“I hear you have leukemia,” his voice cracks.

I nod solemnly.

There is an awkward silence, which he finally fills.

“My cat had leukemia.”

This just sits in the air.

“Yeah,” he says. “She died.”

“Oh,” I say, “really sorry to hear that . . . Awfully glad ya stopped by, though . . . you really, uh . . . picked me up, right there.” My favorite moment of all, though, came when P-Nut called me from jail. Collect. He had just read the news in the paper.

“Hey,” he says, screaming over the jailhouse din. “What’s with this leukemia anyway?”

“Well, it’s cancer . . . in the blood. The doctor says my white count is too high.”

P-Nut is immediately dismissive.

“Damn . . . these doctors,” I can hear him shaking his head. “They don’t be knowin’ nuthin’.”

“Whadda ya mean?”

“I mean, HEEEELLLLOOOO!!! ’Course your white count’s high . . . YOU

WHITE!!!”

I’m accepting more collect calls from jail now and calling them “second opinions.”

* * *

No daylight to separate us.

Only kinship. Inching ourselves closer to creating a community of kinship such that God might recognize it. Soon we imagine, with God, this circle of compassion. Then we imagine no one standing outside of that circle, moving ourselves closer to the margins so that the margins themselves will be erased.

We stand there with those whose dignity has been denied. We locate ourselves with the poor and the powerless and the voiceless. At the edges, we join the easily despised and the readily left out. We stand with the demonized so that the demonizing will stop. We situate ourselves right next to the disposable so that the day will come when we stop throwing people away. The prophet Habakkuk writes, “The vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment and it will not disappoint . . . and if it delays, wait for it.”

Kinship is what God presses us on to, always hopeful that its time has come.

* * *

I don’t recognize Lencho when he steps into my office. Though that is the first question he asked. “ ’Member me?” Truth is, I don’t. He is two days fresh out of Corcoran State Prison. He has been locked up for ten years—a juvenile tried as an adult. He was fourteen years old when I met him at Central Juvenile Hall.

Now at twenty-four, his arms are all “sleaved out”—every inch covered in tattoos. His neck is blackened by the name of his gang—stretching from jawbone to collarbone. His head is shaved and covered with alarming tattoos.

Most startling of all (though impressive) are two exquisitely etched devil’s horns planted on his forehead.

He says, “You know . . . I’m having a hard time finding a job.”

I think, Well, maybe we can put our heads together on this one.

I’m about to nudge him in the direction of our tattoo-removal clinic, when he says, “I’ve never had a job in my life—been locked up since I was a kid.”

I suggest that we change this. I tell him to begin work tomorrow, Tuesday, at Homeboy Silkscreen. In operation for more than ten years, nearly five hundred rival gang members have worked there, screen printing and embroidering apparel for more than 2,500 customers. On Wednesday, I call the Homeboy Silkscreen factory to check on Chamuco (the affectionate way of addressing Satan), our newest worker. Lencho is brought to the phone.

“So,” I ask, “How’s it feel to be a workin’ man?”

“It feels proper,” he says, “In fact, I’m like that vato in the commercial—you know the guy—the one who keeps walkin’ up to total strangers and says, ‘I just lowered my cholesterol.’ Yeah. That’s me right there.”

I admit to him that this whole cholesterol thing has flown right over my head.

“I mean, yesterday, after work, I’m sittin’ at the back a’ the bus, dirty and tired, and, I mean, I just couldn’t help myself. I kept turning to total strangers

—‘Just comin’ back, first day on the job.’ (He turns to another.) ‘Just gettin’ off

—my first day at work.’ ”

He tells me this, and I can’t help but imagine the people on the bus—half wondering if mothers are clutching their kids more closely. Surely someone is overhearing Lencho and thinking: “Bien hechonice goin’.” I suspect it’s equally certain that someone catching Lencho’s outburst reflects inwardly, What a waste of a perfectly good job.

The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives. The prophet Jeremiah writes: “In this place of which you say it is a waste . . . there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness . . . the voices of those who sing.”

Lencho’s voice matters. To that end, we choose to become what child psychiatrist Alice Miller calls “enlightened witnesses”—people who through their kindness, tenderness, and focused, attentive love return folks to themselves.

It is a returning—not a measuring up. Lencho is returned to himself and announces this with clarion voice at the back of a bus. We don’t hold the bar up

and ask people to measure up to it. One simply shows up and commits to telling the truth.

At Homeboy Industries, we seek to tell each person this truth: they are exactly what God had in mind when God made them—and then we watch, from this privileged place, as people inhabit this truth. Nothing is the same again. No bullet can pierce this, no prison walls can keep this out. And death can’t touch it

—it is just that huge.

But much stands in the way of this liberating truth. You need to dismantle shame and disgrace, coaxing out the truth in people who’ve grown comfortable believing its opposite.

One day, I have three homies in my car as I am headed to give a talk. While there, they will set up a table and sell Homeboy/Homegirl merchandise. Our banter in the car spans the range of bagging on each other. We laugh a lot, and I am distracted enough not to notice that the gas tank is on empty. I lean into JoJo, the homie occupying shotgun.

Oye, dog, be on the lookout for a gas station.”

He doesn’t seem to wholly trust my judgment. He leans toward the gas gauge and dismisses my call.

“You’re fine,” he says.

Cómo que I’m fine—I’m on ÉCHALE, cabrón.” Waving at him, I say,

“HELLO, E means empty.”

JoJo looks at me with bonafide shock.

“E means empty?”

“Well, yeah, what did ya think it meant?”

“Enough.”

“Well, what did ya think F stood for?”

“Finished.”

After I thank him for visiting our planet—I realize that this is exactly how the dismantling process has to play itself out. Homies stare into the mirror and pronounce “EMPTY.” Our collective task is to suggest instead “ENOUGH”—

enough gifts, enough talent, enough goodness. When you have enough, there’s plenty.

Or if their verdict is “FINISHED,” we are asked to lead them instead to

“fullness”—the place within—where they find in themselves exactly what God had in mind. It would be hard to overstate how daunting it is to conjure new images and reconstruct messages.

* * *

When Richard arrived at Homeboy Industries, he was a nineteen-year-old for whom sadness was a constant refrain. Smiles were occasional and fleeting. He would tend toward beating himself up—often for being the only gang member in his family. He said to me once, “I’m the black sheet in my family” (farm animals not his strong suit). After meeting my older brother and his wife, he asked plaintively, “What’s your brother do for a living?”

“Well, he’s a principal—at an elementary school in San Diego.”

“And your cuñada?”

“She’s a nurse at an intensive care unit in a hospital.”

“Damn, G,” he says, shaking his head with gravity and sadness, “everyone in your family IS somebody.” Which I suppose meant that no one in Richard’s family was anyone and neither was he.

One day “out of the wild, blue yonder” (as the homies would say), Richard brings up the “flicka.”

“Hey, G, I found this flicka [a photograph] of me yesterday,” he said, speaking with more animo (enthusiasm) than I’ve ever seen.

“Yeah, it’s a little tiny black-and-white flicka. Maybe I’m ten years old or something.”

There seems to be no story to the photograph beyond just finding it. Days later, he returns to the subject, adding little.

“Yeah, I’m trippin’ out on that flicka I found—it’s a trip to see myself,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say, “you mentioned that the other day” (thinking, and your point would be . . .? ).

A week later, Richard appears in my office, smiling and seated in front of my desk. He wordlessly produces the photograph and hands it to me. It is no more than an inch square and reveals an unsmiling Richard at ten. He has a great shock of hair, and since, presently, Richard’s head is shaved, it seems to be a conversation starter.

“You got hair, Richard,” I say.

He just sits there. So I stare at the kid in the flicka and wonder if he is giving it to me. The only way to find out is to offer it back to him. I do, and he doesn’t reach for it.

“D’ya think there is any way to make it big?”

“Sure, ’course we can,” I say.

That week, I head to the Camera Store at the Montebello Town Center.

“May I help you, sir?” the guy asks.

“Yeah,” I say, showing him the flicka, “Make it big.”

The guy was having his doubts about being able to enlarge it much.

“Sir,” I say, “you have to make this photograph larger than it is.”

He worked his magic as best he could, and the picture grew to a nearly 4 × 4

inch photo, gaining a certain grainy, greenish hue in the process.

Richard beamed as he held the enlarged, framed, finished product.

This is not a story about a photograph. It is a story of the self made to feel too small from being bombarded with messages of shame and disgrace. People call you “the black sheet” long enough, you tend to believe them. So, we reach in, dismantle the message, and rearrange the language so you can imagine yourself as somebody.

I grew up in an old, large house. My five sisters and two brothers and I were told never to go to the attic. This is all we needed to hear. Before long, we were selling tickets to the attic. On one of our forays there, navigating the uncertain planks that kept you from falling through the ceiling below (I guess this explains my mom’s prohibition), we found a box of old record albums. One thick, red-clay recording was labeled “O Holy Night”—Kathleen Conway (Conway was my mom’s maiden name). We hurried downstairs, placed the record on our toy phonograph, and encircled the speakers, lying on our stomachs, fists propping up our attentive heads. A glorious, though timeworn and scratchy, voice came through the speakers. Our mom, it turns out, before she decided to have eight kids, was an opera singer. We could barely fathom that the voice that hollered at us to come to dinner belonged to this magic emerging from our toy phonograph.

We played the grooves off of this record. Consequently, a line from the song found itself permanently etched in my brain—a mantra of sorts: “Long lay the world in sin and error pining—’til He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” Sure

—it’s a song about Jesus and Christmas, but how is it not the job description of human beings seeking kinship. It’s about “appearing,” remembering that we belong to one another, and letting souls feel their worth.

* * *

Fifteen years ago, Bandit came to see me. He had been well named by his homies, being at home in all things illegal. He was “down for his varrio” and put in time running up to cars and selling crack in Aliso Village. He spent a lot of time locked up and had always seemed impervious to help. But then that day, fifteen years ago, his resistance broke. He sat in my office and said he was “tired of being tired.” I escorted him to one of our four job developers and, as luck would have it, they located an entry-level job in a warehouse. Unskilled, low-paying, a first job.

Cut to fifteen years later, Bandit calls me near closing time on Friday. He now runs the warehouse, owns his own home, is married with three kids. I hadn’t heard from him in some time. No news is usually good news with homies.

He speaks in something like a breathless panic.

“G, ya gotta bless my daughter.”

“Is she okay?” I ask. “I mean, is she sick—or in the hospital?”

“No, no,” he says, “on Sunday, she’s goin’ to Humboldt College. Imagine, my oldest, my Carolina, goin’ to college. But she’s a little chaparrita, and I’m scared for her. So do ya think you could give her a little send-off bendición?

I schedule them to come the next day to Dolores Mission, where I have baptisms at one o’clock. Bandit, his wife, and three kids, including the college-bound Carolina, arrive at 12:30. I situate them all in front of the altar, Carolina planted in the middle. We encircle her, and I guide them to place their hands on her head or shoulder, to touch her as we close our eyes and bow our heads. Then, as the homies would say, I do a “long-ass prayer,” and before we know it, we all become chillones, sniffling our way through this thing.

I’m not entirely sure why we’re all crying, except, I suppose, for the fact that Bandit and his wife don’t know anybody who’s gone to college—except, I guess, me. Certainly no one in either one of their families. So we end the prayer, and we laugh at how mushy we all just got. Wiping our tears, I turn to Carolina and ask, “So, what are ya gonna study at Humboldt?”

She says without missing a beat,

“Forensic psychology.”

“Daaamn, forensic psychology?”

Bandit chimes in, “Yeah, she wants to study the criminal mind.”

Silence.

Carolina turns slowly to Bandit, holds up one hand, and points to her dad, her pointing finger blocked by her other hand, so he won’t notice. We all notice and howl and Bandit says, “Yeah, I’m gonna be her first subject!”

We laugh and walk to the car. Everyone piles in, but Bandit hangs back. “Can I tell you something, dog?” I ask, standing in the parking lot. “I give you credit for the man you’ve chosen to become. I’m proud of you.”

“Sabes qué?” he says, eyes watering, “I’m proud of myself. All my life, people called me a lowlife, a bueno para nada. I guess I showed ’em.”

I guess he did.

And the soul feels its worth.

* * *

In the spring of 2005, First Lady Laura Bush chose Homeboy Industries as the only gang intervention program in the country to visit during her Helping America’s Youth campaign. Since she couldn’t visit all our sites, we decided that the locus of her visit would be the Homeboy Silkscreen factory. We and her people planned a mere one-hour stopover, which included a tour of homies screening shirts and a roundtable discussion with various participants and trainees from every corner of our organization. The visit went well, and the thirty-plus homies and homegirls invited to participate were all genuinely thrilled to be in the proximity of the wife of the president of the United States.

Al Gore had visited the Homeboy Bakery as vice president back in 1997. His arrival and that of Mrs. Bush brought teams of Secret Service agents to our place. Sharpshooters were placed on the roofs. Bomb-sniffing dogs were let loose, and severe, humorless agents asked me for the names, birthdates, and social security numbers of anyone within spittin’ range of the vice president or Mrs. Bush. In both cases, after I had supplied a complete list, an agent returns to me, hems and haws with discomfort, and says, “Uh well, Father . . . I mean . . .

these people HAVE RECORDS.”

During the summer, after the First Lady’s visit, I receive a call from a staffer for the First Lady, inviting me to speak at the Helping America’s Youth conference at Howard University in DC in October. I accept, and she quickly adds that Mrs. Bush hopes I will bring “three homies” with me.

Now, whether the First Lady actually used the H word, I can’t be certain. This woman informs me that after the all-day conference some of the participants will be invited to dinner at the White House. Certainly, crooks have resided at this house before, but it might well be the first time gang members have ever stepped foot inside the place.

I pick Alex, Charlie, and Felipe. I suppose if you had asked central casting to select three homies—they might have chosen these guys. All three are large, tattooed, had done time. They had the appearance of menace. Felipe had worked for me on the graffiti crew, right out of prison, before we got him a better job.

He was a solid character, articulate and smart. I asked him to speak at the conference. Charlie, I had known for more than twenty years. He and his identical twin were fixtures in the projects—more enamored of smoking “kools”

than gangbanging. Charlie has a prosthetic leg—his real leg was shot off by rivals in front of a house at a baptism celebration. Alex is thickly built, in his mid twenties, a handsome guy with tattoos stretching across his neck. His

“tacks” on his chin and forehead are fainter than before. He’s already undergone thirty-seven laser treatments (he needs, oh, say, ninety-six more). He is a simple guy and never did well in school. At a Dodgers game once, after singing the

“Star Spangled Banner,” with his hand over his heart, Alex confides, “You know, I couldn’t tell my right hand from my left—if it weren’t for the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Since we’re heading to the White House, I figure these guys can’t exactly show up at the West Wing wearing size 85 waist Dickies. We head off to the Men’s Wearhouse—“You’re gonna like the way ya look—I guarantee it.” (Well, that guy was nowhere in sight.) No sooner do we step into the Men’s Wearhouse in Burbank than every salesperson in the place rushes us at the door as if to say,

“How may we help you leave our store as quickly as possible.”

“We’ll be needing some suits,” I tell them, pointing to the homies, “They’re going to the White House for dinner.”

If “eyes rolling” registered on the Richter scale—this is “The Big One.”

They are quickly dispatched to dressing rooms. I’m idly checking out ties, when Alex silently appears and stands in front of a six-sided mirror. Alex, of the face covered in tattoos and the heart covered in, well, nothing—you can get right to it. He’s in a suit. Alone, mouth open, he’s staring at himself. He’s hypnotized by the guy in the suit in the mirror.

Alex’s job at Homeboy is to help supervise our part-time workers in their maintenance tasks around the headquarters. Mainly, though, he gives tours.

Reluctant at first to do so, Alex has come to inhabit this role with a certain degree of delight and his own particular brand of panache. He’ll greet you at the front door, introduce you to the job developers, explain our release program, and hand you goggles so you can watch tattoos being removed on the premises. He gives a good tour. Blessed are the singlehearted. Jesus meant Alex. Few hearts come as true and pure as Alex’s.

I approach him with the same caution I would use with a deer in the forest.

“You okay?”

His eyes don’t meet mine; he’s transfixed.

“Damn, G,” he says, doing what can only be described as a jig, “I’m already pinching myself.”

Like he can’t believe he’s in a suit—and that the guy in the suit is headed to the White House.

A week before we’re scheduled to fly to DC, I call Alex into my office.

“By the way,” I ask him, “did you get permission from your parole officer to go to Washington?”

Alex makes a face and pushes my question aside.

“ ’Course.”

I indicate a general sense of “whew.” There’s a brief pause, and Alex says with a renewed timidity, “Um, well . . . yeah . . . she said no.”

“WHAT?” I’m incredulous. “When were you going to get around to telling me this?”

“Well, actually,” he says, completely defeated, “I wasn’t gonna tell ya. ’Fraid ya wouldn’t let me go.”

I tell him to sit down.

“Look, mijo—we gotta do this the right way.”

With him seated there, I get his parole agent on the phone.

After I lay out, gently, the details, ramifications, and importance of this trip to her, she listens and then says only, “No, high control.” High control is what it sounds like. Alex is deemed to be a parolee requiring more vigilance and a shorter leash. This gets determined by a mixture of previous crimes, length of prison terms, and general past behavior. I ask to speak to her supervisor, who tells me, “Nope—high control.”

“Is there someone,” I ask, “who is, you know, a notch above you in the chain of command?”

I am put on hold for some time until the third official declares,

“No way—high control.”

They all seem to be having a very bad case of “And Alex, who exactly do you think you are—that you get to go to the White House . . . for dinner.”

Many flying faxes from the Department of Justice and numerous pleas from the First Lady’s office later—finally—the day before we are slotted to leave, we secure approval for Alex.

The morning of our departure is “Mishaps R Us.” All the homies are late, and so we find ourselves stuck in the morning rush traffic. To no one in particular, I ask the homies in the car, “Y’all have your ID’s?”

Silence. A lone voice (Charlie) from the back seat speaks, “Shit.” We go back.

Two days later, on Thursday, the day they sport their suits for the conference and the White House dinner, we discover that poor old Alex has lost his pants.

As near as we could piece together after the fact (and after Alex ran through my brother’s house in DC, yelling, “I GOT NO PANTS”), it no doubt happened while he was running to my car in the early morning darkness. He had his gym bag slung over one shoulder and his Men’s Wearhouse suit, covered in plastic, open at the bottom, placed over his other shoulder. Most likely in the excitement and haste to get to my car, the movement had jostled the pants on the hanger and dropped them on the sidewalk or in the gutter, where surely a homeless man is now liking the way he looks—I guarantee it.

My sister-in-law MacGyvers a pair of my brother’s pants, and we’re good to go to the conference and then the White House.

At the White House, butlers walk the halls carrying long-stemmed glasses of white wine on silver trays. The homies snatch those puppies de volada. Every room—the Blue Room—the Green Room—all those different colored rooms, seems to have either an elegant combo of musicians or a brass band. The Gold Room holds the buffet. Never in my life have I seen or tasted more exquisite food. I go back three times. Rack of lamb—perfection. A salmon the size of a duffle bag. Pastas, salads. They have these small, white potatoes, cut lengthwise, with a hole carefully bored and filled with caviar garnished with a sprig of chive.

I’m standing with Alex as he pops one of those suckers into his mouth. And almost as quickly, with his discretion valve turned off, he spits the potato mess into a napkin and says, “THIS SHIT TASTES NASTY.” His volume turns heads, and perhaps it was my imagination, but it sure seems that the Secret Service lunges, ever so slightly, in our direction.

The next day we head home, and somewhere in midflight Alex says he needs to go to the restroom. I point to the back of the plane.

Forty-five minutes later, Alex returns to his seat.

Oye, qué pasó, cabrón—I thought you fell in?”

“Oh,” Alex says, with his signature innocence, “I was just talkin’ to that lady over there.”

I turn around and see a lone flight attendant standing in the back.

Alex winces a bit.

“I made her cry. I hope that’s okay.”

“Well, Alex,” I brace myself, “that might depend on what you actually said to her.”

“Weellll,” Alex begins, “She saw my Homeboy Industries shirt and tattoos and, weellll, she started to ask me a gaaaanng a’ questions, so . . .”

He pauses with a whiff of embarrassment.

“So, I gave her a tour of the office.”

At 34,000 feet, Alex walks this woman through our office. He introduces her to our job developers, explains our release program, and hands her goggles to watch tattoos being removed.

“And I told her that last night we made history,” he says, with brimming excitement.

“For the first time in the history of this country, three gang members walked into the White House. We had dinner there . . . I told her the food tasted nasty.”

He pauses and gets still.

“And she cried.”

I get still myself.

“Well, mijo, whaddya ’spect? She just caught a glimpse of ya. She saw that you are somebody. She recognized you . . . as the shape of God’s heart.

Sometimes people cry when they see that.”

Suddenly, kinship—two souls feeling their worth, flight attendant, gang member, 34,000 feet—no daylight separating them. Exactly what God had in mind.

* * *

If you locate one job for one homie from one gang, be assured that eight other homies from that same barrio will call asking for a job. It was in late May 1996

that Chico called. I didn’t know him, but I had just found a job for one of his camaradas.

“Kick me down with a jale, ” he blurts out with what I think is a fair amount of nerve. This roughly translates as: “Do you think you’d be able to locate gainful employment for me?”

“Well,” I tell him, “I don’t even know you, dog. How ’bout we meet first?”

I schedule a time to go to his house, which is not far from my office, situated on a steep, hilly street behind Roosevelt High School. Chico is sixteen and from a neighborhood whose roots reach back to the forties and the Pachuco (Zoot Suit) era.

I meet Chico’s mom, Rosa, a sweet, diminutive woman who clearly delights in her children and maintains, at the same time, an evident dread at the path her bald-headed, cholo son has chosen. Her appreciation at my arrival this day is palpable.

Chico and I sit on the front porch. He is a lanky, funny-looking kid. As with most homies, his pelón haircut has pointed large arrows at his overly large ears, though his ears are more pronounced than most. His smile is ready and willing, always hanging out at the surface and quick to appear at the slightest urging.

Chico is shy and jittery and yet will leap into areas of conversation that would take more time with other homies. We talk about his lady, his family, and his barrio’s status with neighboring enemies. A most likable kid, made all the more winning by his nervy request for a job, sight unseen.

“So, if I got you a job, mijo, is there some skill you’ve always wanted to learn or pick up?”

Chico is quick. He needs no time to consider my question.

“Oh yeah, computers. I really wanna learn and know computers.”

I assure him that I will work on this, promising only that I’ll do my best.

Some days later, I call Chico. My investigation led me to the Chrysalis Center, a nonprofit homeless resource center in downtown Los Angeles. I knew that they had recently received a bank of computers, so I made them an offer. I told them I knew this kid, Chico, who wanted to learn everything there was to know about computers. He’s a gang member, but he wants to redirect his life. He goes to school in the morning, I explained, and could work at the Center from 1

to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. I tell them that I will pay his salary each week, and all they need to do is supervise him, teaching him everything they know about computers. We will call this a job.

They agree.

“Now, mijo, you start at one o’clock,” I tell Chico over the phone, laying down the ground rules.

“If you don’t go to school that morning, please don’t bother to go to work either. And I’ll know if you ditch school. A job is a privilege. Going to school every day makes you worthy. You will have two bosses. One of them you’ll meet on Monday, and the other you’re talkin’ to right now. So if I find out, and I will, that you’re hanging, banging, or slanging, with all due respect and love—I will fire your ass. Got it, dog?”

“I understand, G,” he says, “Oye, gracias. I promise I won’t let you down.”

When one o’clock on Monday arrives, I stare at the clock on my wall. I think Chico is now walking into the Chrysalis Center. When it’s five o’clock, I think, Chico is now leaving the Chrysalis center. I think maybe he’ll call or stop by, so I stay in the office for some time. No word from Chico. On Tuesday, I repeat the same conscious staring at the clock and await a word or a visit from Chico after hours. Tuesday turns into Wednesday, Wednesday into Thursday. Still nothing. I start to think that maybe he flaked out on me. Maybe my directions were bad and he never found the place, too ashamed to call me. Maybe his probation officer popped him for something and his embarrassment keeps him from contacting me.

I have imagined all the possible scenarios and ponder Chico’s failure to communicate, when on Thursday at 3 p.m., a message emerges from the fax machine next to my desk. I can spot at the top of the paper, the tiny, typed Chrysalis Center masthead. The fax is a missive from our man Chico, written in large, clumsy, script:

DEAR G:

I AM LEARNING HOW TO USE A FAX MACHINE.

I AM LEARNING A GANG A’ SHIT HERE.

LOVE,

CHICO

P.S.: I REALLY LOVE THIS JOB

THANKS FOR GETTING IT FOR ME.

About two months later, as I fumble with the keys to my office door at 7:30

a.m., I hear the insistent ringing of the phone inside. I catch it midring. It’s Chico’s mom, Rosa. She tells me that the night before, Chico was standing with some friends, not far from his front porch. A car slowly crept up. Maddogging glances were exchanged. Windows were rolled down, words were volleyed back and forth, and, finally, bullets began to fly from within the backseat of the car.

One of the bullets lodged very high up on the back of Chico’s neck, and he is now in the intensive care unit at General Hospital.

I leave immediately.

I walk into the unit and see Chico lying there, skinny and tattooed, naked but for a diaper. He is heavily tubed, with all the requisite IVs—nose, mouth, arms.

He is staring, most notably, wide-eyed and unblinking, at the ceiling, riveted to the acoustical tiles. There is a doctor at the foot of his bed, scribbling notes onto a clipboard. I go to him first to assess Chico’s condition.

“You know, Father,” the doctor begins, “In all my years, I’ve never seen a paralysis this high.”

The doctor points to the back of his own neck.

“It is so high on the stem, that we suspect there may well be brain damage, though we’re not certain.”

The doctor leaves, and I walk closer to Chico. His eyes don’t even register that I’m approaching. They remain transfixed on the ceiling, unblinking, stretched, it would seem, beyond their capacity. I lean in.

“Chico.”

No movement, no acknowledgment at all. I anoint him in the Church’s unción de los enfermos. I rub a generous swath of oil on his forehead, hoping against hope that the balm will penetrate his frozen state, hoping it will lead us both to some divine compensation for this mad, mindless waste of life. No such penetration happens. I am left thinking only, menos mal—just as well, that he not know what’s going on.

Truth be told, this was a hard kid to visit the next day. Excruciating, really.

After the first visit, a rush of memory swept through me and placed in bold relief the hugeness of this loss. I can still see Chico in my mind’s eye, waiting for me on his front porch on a Friday afternoon. Unlike other homies waiting for their paychecks, I never had to honk my horn or leave my car in search of Chico. He was always there, seated on his porch, and I was almost always late. He would

catch sight of my red car coming up the narrow, steep hill, and he would leap from the porch and head for my car in a hurry. He’d run this goofy, gangly trot (decidedly uncool—gang members don’t run, unless law enforcement is chasing them). He had an absence of care about such things. He just wanted to get to ya (and get to ya he did). He would hop in the passenger side of my car, and there was no extricating him. He was there to stay and sit and talk. Gone long ago was the reticent shyness. He would just launch into it. He was, as we say, bien preguntón. He’d ask a grip a’ questions. In fact, he’d invariably ask me stuff about God (like I would know).

“Is God pissed off if I have sex with my lady? What do you think heaven is like? Do you think God listens to us?”

Clearly, far more valuable than the measly paycheck I’d hand him every Friday afternoon was the time I was privileged to spend with him, in that car, wondering together what might be on God’s mind. To this day, my only regret is that I didn’t spend more time.

I did go back the next day, of course, to the hospital. I walked in and found Chico, much the same as I had the day before. But I made the attempt anyway.

“Chico,” I say, not far from his ear. His frozen eyes thaw in an instant and they dart to my own, and they lock onto me and they will not let go. I’m startled by this and speechless. Chico’s eyes become intense puddles. Mine do as well.

“Do you know who this is, mijito?”

And to the extent that he can nod affirmatively, he does so. If such a thing is possible, he nods his eyes.

I search for something, anything, to say.

“Do you know, mijo, that we all love you very much?”

This last statement sets him off, and he cries a great deal. He’s wailing, really.

And his face says to me, in a most unmistakable way, “Please . . . get me out . . .

of this body.”

I anoint him as I had the day before, and I think, the good news is, he’s alive.

The bad news now is that he knows enough to wish that he weren’t. Our eyes cling to each other’s as I finally leave him, slowly backing out of the intensive care unit. His eyes want to leap out of their sockets. They long to be transplanted anywhere else. I still see Chico’s desperately haunted eyes after the door closes behind me.

One week later, Chico’s heart stops, unable to sustain his ordeal any longer.

At the cemetery, as I bless the gold cross resting on his coffin and hand it to Rosa, a thought comes to me. I realize that I really must let this grief in. For too long, I had suspended my own profound sense of loss, dutifully placing it on my own emotional back burner. I needed to be there for Chico’s family, his

girlfriend, his homies. So I give myself permission now, to allow this pain into some cherished, readied place in my heart. Every homie’s death recalls all the previous ones, and they all arrive at once, in a rush. I’m caught off guard, as well, by the sudden realization that Chico’s burial is my eighth in the past three weeks.

I decide to walk away from the coffin and spot a lonely tree not too far from the crowd. I stand there by myself and welcome all the feelings of this great loss.

I cry. Before too long, the mortician appears at my side. He is more acquaintance than friend.

Now he has broken the spell of my grief and unknowingly invaded the space I had carved out for myself. I am overwhelmingly annoyed that he has done so.

Then, I’m annoyed that I’m annoyed. There is an obligation, clear and immediate, to break the silence, to welcome the mortician into my space, uninvited though he is. I remove my glasses and wipe away my tears. I point feebly at Chico’s coffin and know that I need to find some words to fill our blank air.

“Now that,” I whisper to the intruder, “was a terrific kid.”

And the mortician, in a voice so loud and obnoxious that it turns the heads of all the gathered mourners, says, “HE WAS?”

My heart sinks. I know exactly what he’s thinking. No cabe—something isn’t fitting here; there is some large disconnect for him, and he’s incredulous. How could it be possible that a sixteen-year-old cholo, gunned down, not far from his home, be a terrific kid?

But who wouldn’t be proud to claim Chico as their own?

His soul feeling its worth before its leaving.

The mortician’s incredulity reminds me that kinship remains elusive. Its absence asserts that any effort to help someone like Chico just might be a waste of our collective time.

“But in this place of which you say it is a waste, there will be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness . . . the voices of those who sing.”

And so the voices at the margins get heard and the circle of compassion widens. Souls feeling their worth, refusing to forget that we belong to each other.

No bullet can pierce this. The vision still has its time, and, yes, it presses on to fulfillment. It will not disappoint. And yet, if it delays, we can surely wait for it.

Acknowledgments

St. Paul challenges us to “dedicate ourselves to thankfulness” and so I will.

I am deeply grateful to Hilary Redmon at Free Press for taking a chance on this book. Her clarity, compassion, and brilliant editing astonished me at every turn. Many thanks to Sydney Tanigawa for a faithful assist throughout. Gracias to production editor Kathryn Higuchi and the legal eye of Jennifer Weidman and publicist Christine Donnelly. David McCormick, my agent, always understood what this book wanted to be and made it happen. (Shout-out to Sally Willcox for introducing me.)

To my parents, Bernie and Kay, for showing me what “no matter whatness”

really ought to look like. To my sisters and brothers, their spouses, nieces and nephews for the respite of laughter and joy.

I am thankful to the Society of Jesus for the home it has been since 1972, and especially to my brother Jesuits at Casa Luis Espinal, too numerous to mention.

To my Provincial Superior, John McGarry, S.J., and the Superior of my community, Scott Santarosa, S.J., for their support and unshakeable trust.

I deeply appreciate the steadfastness of my board in guiding Homeboy Industries. Special mention must be given to Mike Hennigan and David Adams for ably chairing.

To my much beloved Council—Veronica, Mary Ellen, Quintin, Mario, Louis, Hectorious, Tin-Tin, Fabian, and Shirley. What an honor it is to delight with you in the blessing of Homeboy Industries.

To Ruben and Cristina, Paty, Kevin, Junior, and Anna for your friendship, leadership, and kindness in guiding our businesses.

Special thanks to Norma Gillette for her faithful service to Homeboy and for typing the earliest drafts of this book.

I am indebted to all the men and women who have served as staff at Homeboy over these twenty years.

Leslie Schwartz was the midwife of this book, nurturing and refining at a time when I sure had my doubts.

The fullness of gratitude in my heart goes to those friends who have never failed to walk with me over these years. The list includes some who read bits and pieces of this book and were positive enough, that I kept going: Tom Weston, S.J.; Tyler Hansbrough; Jane and Phil; Magonia; Peter Horton; Laura Chick; Tom Molettaire; Gary Yamauchi; Paul Lipscomb and Lynn; mi primo Tom; Charlie and Tina; Proyecto Pastoral; Cheryl and Mac; George Horan; Wendy Gruel; Rob and Joanne; Antonio, Emma, and Richard Mejico; the great Cara Gould (a veritable institution at Homeboy Industries); Javier and Jan; Howard Gray, S.J.; Joe and Rulis; Mike and Shelley; Joe and Angelica; Bebee; Diego and Polly; Don Smith; Bob Lawton, S.J.; Nick Pacheco; Claire Peeps; Hilda Solis; Gil Cedillo; Bob Hertzberg; Tom Carroll, S.J.; Kevin Ballard, S.J.; Tim Rutten and Leslie; the sisters at Whitethorn; Mark Ciccone, S.J.; Chick and Anita; Sr. Claudia; Ed Reyes; Andy Alexander, S.J.; Culture Clash; Jim Hahn; Jeff and Catherine and the Catholic Worker community; Martin Sheen; Mary Nalick; Frank Buckley, S.J.; Jose Huizar; Sen. Barbara Boxer; Dick Riordan; Rich Grimes; Anjelica Huston; Robert Graham; Blinky Rodriguez; Antonio Villaraigosa; Robert Egan; Emily, Michelle, Santi, Pasky, Alison; Carlos and Luz; Carlos of IRS; Doug; Tom Smolich, S.J.; Theresa Karanik (OTI, PRGFF) and Alan; Ted Gabrielli, S.J.; Joan Harper; Jorja Leap (for saving me from parentheses and introducing me to Mark and Shannon); Mark Toohey, S.J.; Terry Gross; Gil Garcetti; the great and ever-faithful Carol Biondi; Sandra Ruth Diana; Bob Pecoraro, S.J.; Mike Kennedy, S.J.; John Lipson; Tom Brokaw; Fabian Montes; my “cuz” Kathleen; Marqueesi, for ironing board wisdom and debriefs at Paseo; Robert, for the unexpected phone messages; Becca; the Cusenzas; White Memorial; Eileen McDermott; Sr. Patricia; Alice and Jim Buckley; Eric Robles; the Maguires; Paul Miera; Buzz; Dennis Gibbs; Chris Ponet; “Sr.” Patty Bartlette; Jamie, Ethel, and Kerry Kennedy; the legendary Mary Ridgway; Bo Taylor; Connie Rice; Ernie Martinez, S.J.; Ed Guthman; the Tortomasis; Steve Privett, S.J.; Greg and Lorenza; the Waldrons; Jim Grummer, S.J.; Mary Kay and Michael; Luis Rodriguez; Steve and Huey; Dennis Baker, S.J.; Paul Locatelli, S.J.; Brian and Lynn; Mike Engh, S.J.; Grant Dwyer; Tenny Wright, S.J.; Steve Soboroff; Tom and Lily; my Eastside hero Enrique; Pam Rector; Rick Cummings; Leonardo and Teresa; St. Louis Pharmacy; Bob Ross; Ray Stark; Fred Ali; Mark Ridley-Thomas; Zev Yaroslavsky; Don Knabe; Jose Ramirez; Gary Yates; Tom and Brigid LaBonge; Peter Byrne, S.J.; Wendy Stark; Vickie Rogers, Tom Hayden; Janis Minton; Nancy Daly; Nane; Alex Sanchez; Dr. Brian Johnston; Grover; Jim and Rob; Dave Mastrangelo, S.J.;

Bruce Karatz; Freida Mock; “Haftrak”; Jeannette Van Vleck, C.S.J.; Mark Potter; Elias Puentes, S.J.; “Fulano de Tal”; Wallis Annenberg; David Price; Sonny Manuel, S.J.; Richard Atlas; Dorothy and Aliso Check Cashing; Mario Prietto, S.J.; Buddy and Sara; Barney Melekian; Laura Bush; Antonia Hernandez; Charlie Beck; Jeff Carr; Ellen Ziffren; Jane and Harry; Bill Bratton; Teddy; Eric Johnson; John and Carol; Walter McKinney; Myrna; Lupe Mosqueda; Brian O’Neil; Francis Porter; Mike Adams; Scott and Jeanie Wood; Sen. Paul Wellstone; Kathy Sanchez; the Lilligs; Paul Seave; Lee Baca; Ed Roski; Jackie Goldberg; Juan and Cuscatlan Optical; Romie; Ed Bacon; Arianna Huffington; Drs. Barnes, Kennedy, Khan, Mohrbacher, Pacino, and all the docs who remove tattoos; Jim Rude, S.J.; Bishops Gabino Zavala and Joe Sartoris; Fr.

General Adolfo Nicolas, S.J.; My students at Folsom; John Woolway; Jack Clark, S.J.; Suzanne Jabro, C.S.J.; Jimmy McDonnell; Joe and Dora; Jimmy Blackman; Sr. Peg Dolan; John Bohm; mi querida Consuelo (HT); Joe and Deb; the nurses at Norris; Los Colonos de Islas Marias; Xochitl and the girls; the mothers of Dolores Mission and founding force of Homeboy: Teresa Navarro; Paula Hernandez; Rosa Campos; Rita Chaidez; Esperanza Vasquez; Lupe Loera; Sofia Guerrero; Maria Torres; Lupe Ruelas; Esperanza Sauma; Pam McDuffie; La Uva; and Yolanda Gallo; and all my compadres, comadres, and aijados.

Most especially to Al Naucke, S.J. (“And then . . . SF”) for travels, pre–board meeting dinners, and embodying the care of the Society; to Bill Cain, S.J., for the gift of sharing “The Two Seasons” and revealing, always, the spaciousness of God’s heart; to Jim Hayes, S.J., the best of friends, who calls me always to greater integrity and splendor; and to Celeste Fremon, for the gracious soul-friendship of our rhyming lives.

Finally, to the thousands and thousands of homies and homegirls, mentioned in this book and not. To know you has changed me forever and shown me el rostro de Dios.

It is to you that I dedicate my heart and this book.

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