Bad Break: A Novel

Chapter Twenty-Three

"A" corner booth at Momma's Kitchen can be had by anyone willing to wait their turn. The corner booth is always available for a "volunteer contribution" of twenty dollars or more to Lena, the head waitress and Momma's youngest daughter.

The best seat in the house offers clear views of the front door, the bar seats, and the restrooms — the women's room being of utmost importance since the emergency exit runs through it.

While I await my guest, I listen to a dodgy voicemail from Allah, in which he avoids answering my question about whether he's heard of a new drug boss that the streets are calling "Robbin' Hood." The detective's message is, "...it's hard to believe anyone could take over the 'trade' in a whole neighborhood, much less a city block, without us at least being hip to 'em." That is not the same as "no."

No sooner have I disconnected than he arrives.

Baller Johnson is loathsome. A toad of a man. And like most people with a personal stake in the well-being of Chicago's middle and lower-income communities —especially those of color— I try to avoid him like the plague.

Johnson has managed to ingratiate himself to more power brokers than some elected officials. He has managed to insinuate himself into more powerful circles than some elected officials. And all because he lacks the shame gene.

Nothing embarrasses him. If it will earn him money, Johnson will do it. As early as middle school, he was friendless. But it wasn't a sad luck story.

He seemed to relish his solitude and even used it as a weapon. And those who were tempted to feel sorry for him always learned the hard way that Johnson was willing to use that sorrow against them.

He'd allow the soft-hearted pretty girl or humble jock to sit with him in the cafeteria or walk home from school with him. And when they inevitably opened up, to demonstrate to him that they were sincerely friendly and just like him, human and vulnerable, he recorded their secrets and confessions and shared them with the entire school.

It wasn't that he wanted to win the friendship of the cool kids by exposing their peers and rivals. He simply wanted to inspire fear in everyone and lay the groundwork for a reputation as a broker of knowledge and that in his quest to acquire knowledge there would be no sacred cows.

So, sometimes even toads serve a purpose. And I slump in my seat, resigned to meeting Johnson in just a few minutes.

Because he's so gregarious, people interested in doing business —any kind of business— on Chicago's West or South sides, often hear about Johnson before they ever meet him. Out-of-town real estate developers. Florists looking for an available storefront. Would-be tavern owners chasing elusive liquor licenses.

And they tend to assume that the guy on the other end of the phone with the booming voice who name drops professional basketball players as though they're old friends, is or was, himself, a hoops star...like his nickname, a baller.

But no, it's nothing so interesting. Johnson, who is dumb as a paving stone but also clever as a fox, was once a below-average playground and rec center basketball player. A pastime he took up in the year or so after high school that it took him to organize his unique set of "skills" into an actual business.

On the court, he didn't have the ability to make a junior high school team, much less college or professional. But he was full of jokes and good for a laugh, so everyone tolerated him.

One day in the locker room, post-game, Johnson observed the other guys in a cluster, jockeying about sexual conquests and bragging about their size and prowess, as some young, single men are wont to do. And he decided he needed to be in the mix.