KEEPIN' IT REAL

A row of stone faced, hard looking children were standing outside the funeral home on Western and diversey a few weeks back, watching a departed stone faced, hard looking child getting loaded in the back of a hearse.

It was one of the saddest things I've seen in recent memory- each one of those kids looked more ready to cut you and run than the last, hands on whatever's in their waistbands in case they gotta react, while surrounded by crying old women and parents.

That's not a childhood. There's no easy solution, and so much ink has been spilled over the spilled blood that it's not even worth getting into the "how's" and "why's" of the thing. It's just sad to see such a weird, very real facet of it.

They have no emotion. No emotion, that is, except fear: fear those kids have been living with since they first crawled out of the womb. Fear that motivates them to put that fear into everybody else. And anger at whatever circumstance put them in theirs.

Easily one of my favorite things I've seen since moving to Chicago was while walking down the street near Fullerton and Western, maybe two years ago. A gang banger kid, maybe 15 or 16 years old, is walking towards me, scowling and posturing big time, "keepin' it real," looking around and staring down anyone who would dare look at him. He passes a woman with a puppy, which couldn't have been more than a couple months old who, in its excitable puppy way, starts jumping up and down on the kid, yipping. He looks down with ultra tough-guy face as a ridiculous, enormous ear to ear grin breaks out across his face when he sees the puppy. In less than two blinks, he's back to being an emotionless bad ass, looking around to make sure nobody saw him enjoy himself for that less-than-second.

So... if you're a tough guy, you can't even enjoy a fucking puppy?

Apparently not. And you can't be sad at funerals.

Tough way to live, frankly.