Love is sacrificial and often comes at great cost. My parents taught me that through their

own sacrifice. It took me a while to learn it, but once I did, it was a lesson I never forgot. One

doesn’t simply “live” in my hood; you “survive.”

Yet, not everyone can survive growing up the Chicago way. It takes a certain kind of

toughness, tenacity, grit. Some people fold, others break; few survive. Survival looks different to

many people. For a young black male living on the Southside of Chicago, survival isn’t

guaranteed. That’s why my story’s atypical, and maybe by sharing my story I can help other kids

my age too. I never knew what it meant to be a man until I met my father for the second time.

And, that experience just happened to save my life.

My life in Chicago was—I loved Chicago. I still do. The neighborhoods, the parties, the

music, my family, friends, enemies, even the gangs, all had a part in raising me. Everything

about Chicago shaped me into the person I became, especially my old high school, Mendel High.

Founded back in the fall of 1951, Mendel was run by the Augustinians. It was named

after Gregor Mendel, who was called the Father of Genetics. My old high school sat on a

luxurious plot of land nearing 40 acres. During the spring and summertime, Mendel looked like

it had been plopped down in the middle of a plush forest. Green was everywhere. Huge shrubs

and sky-scraping evergreens stretched for blocks, encircling the monstrous campus.

Bordering the prickly pines was a continuous chain-linked fence topped with barbwire

that surrounded the entire school. The never-ending fence was about 8 feet tall and was so close

to the trees that the brush needles protruded out the mesh gate. This made Mendel look more like

an impenetrable fortress than an inner-city high school.

People constantly joked that I attended high school on a “college campus.” Mendel even

had a pond smack dab in front of the school’s main building. It was rumored the pond was

originally made to look like the capital letter “P” for “Pullman.” That was the name of the school

before it was Mendel, Pullman Tech. I believed the rumors were true because there was an old

corroded patch of land at the North end of the pond. It was clear to me that this “island” probably

served as the hollowed-out portion of the capital letter “P.” Over the years, the apparently once

beautiful pond morphed into the shimmering gray puddle that we were stuck with.

During my tenure at Mendel, many freshmen got dumped into the school’s pond. It was

almost like a rite of passage for seniors to dunk the freshman. Thankfully, I never had the

privilege of being dunked. Neither did I attempt to drown any freshman. Although, there were a

couple that I wanted to humiliate in the waters of “Lake Mendel,” like when Prince embarrassed

Apollonia in Purple Rain. But, I didn’t want to get suspended.

On either side of the main building, where most of the classes were held, there were two

other buildings. The tan brick building to the left was Mendel’s gymnasium and cafeteria. That’s

where all the good grub, exciting hoop squad games and after parties went down.

The one on the right was the school’s Monastery. That’s where the chemistry lab, the art

classes and the band practices were held. Not to mention where we would congregate for Mass

every week like clockwork.

Mendel was a Catholic college preparatory school situated in the Roseland Community

on the cities’ Southside. Unfortunately, my neighborhood gained the notoriety of being called the

“Wild-Wild” or as others called it “The Wild Hundreds.” Not the kind of monikers you want

your community to be known for, being wild.

Yet, on Mendel’s campus, my crew and I always felt safe. We were a city unto ourselves,

the students, faculty and staff. Within Mendel’s “city gates,” both the teachers and students

strived for excellence. That was their reputation way before I got there. In fact, many of the

teachers at Mendel were once students. That showed how special of a place Mendel really was to

have former students come back there to teach. The Mendel community had always been a close-

knit family. And, in every family, there’s a history that laid the foundation for the future.

One of the things I loved about Mendel was they didn’t have the same old classes that

every other school had: English 101, Intermediate Algebra, Geography. Boring! We had classes

like Life Skills, the public school’s version of Home Economics. Life Skills was taught by

Brother Tyler. In that class we learned how to balance a check book, create a budget, shop for

groceries; even change a tire.

In Mrs. Epps class, My Own Biz, for juniors and seniors, we learned how to set up a

business plan, learned whether to become a sole proprietor or an LLC, learned how to invest in

Real Estate and how to gauge if a business would turn a profit or fold in the first two years.

But my all-time favorite class was Morality & Ethics, taught, oddly enough by Mrs.

Morales. Mrs. Morales was a gorgeous, fiery Latina. My boys and I loved Morality & Ethics

class because we could argue at the top of our lungs when debating our point.

The way Mrs. Morales’ class worked was she would introduce a topic at the beginning of

class. Then we had ten minutes to come up with our arguments as to why the topic was or was

not morally ethical and we’d discuss the topic for the majority of the class. During the last five to

ten minutes, Mrs. Morales would give her supposition of the topic. It was great. Sometimes she

would break us up into teams, other times, she’d have us fend for ourselves, individually.

But it was Mid-Terms that meant we had to write out our answers in essay form. I had

already zipped through my exam and was daydreaming about how horrible Christmas Break was

going to be when the school bell rudely interrupted.

I whipped my head around. A parade of fellow classmates passed my desk donning their

mandatory private school dress code attire. The girls in their white, pink or pastel blue blouses

with black or gray skirts. Guys with our gray, black or navy-blue slacks and cardigans along with

white or pastel button-down shirts. We were already looked at a bit differently by our public-

school friends for going to private school. So, most of us felt that we were branded by having to

wear uniforms on top of it.

Since Mendel’s inception, we’ve been an all boy’s school. Yet, due to increasing

financial woes, we turned co-ed my senior year to expand admissions which has been a pleasant

experience thus far.

The hallways suddenly smelled fresh and “perfumy.”

Guys didn’t beef as much anymore because they wanted to show how popular and, cool

they were. The girls at Mendel were attracted to a smidgen of “bad boy.” No one really wanted

an outright hoodlum.

And, for some reason, even most of the teachers seemed nicer once the girls arrived.

We descended upon Mrs. Morales desk like a gaggle of geese being fed Ritz crackers. I

was last in line to hand in my exam. I placed my test on the desk and turned to leave. Mrs.

Morales’ accented shriek stopped me dead in my tracks. I looked back over my shoulder.

Mrs. Morales waved me over.

I huffed out a sigh and obeyed her command. Her eyes peered at me over the top of her

wire rimmed glasses as I approached. She waited patiently for the last student to exit.

“Thought about what we discussed?”

“Some,” I answered respectfully unenthused.

“Well?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Mrs. Morales sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair, “See the 9:00 News last

night?”

“No.”

“There was a student, graduated from Julian last year,” she sat up again. “He wasn’t

working. Didn’t go to college. Just hanging around taking the year to decide what he wanted to

do with his life, family says. He was shot in the head yesterday, died instantly. You know why?”

“Any number of reasons. Owed somebody money, disrespected someone, um…”

“No. He didn’t have a plan. You only have one Semester left BJ, what’s your plan?”

“I don’t know Mrs. Morales."

“Armed Forces?”

“No.”

“College?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Who has the money for that?”

“Get a scholarship?”

“A scholarship? Doing what?”

“I don’t care! Anything Brandon!”

Mrs. Morales took a deep breath turning her head slightly. She removed her glasses.

Looking up at me genuinely, calmly, she said, “You need to come up with a plan for your life

BJ, or you’ll be the next person shot ‘for any number of reasons.’ Comprende?”

I nodded.

“Now, go on, you don’t want to be late picking up Monica.”

Even though she dismissed me, I knew she wasn’t finished with this discussion by a long

shot.

“Have a good Christmas,” I said softly.

“Mm-Hmm, you too,” Mrs. Morales replied scooping up the test papers. I could tell by

the way she banged the exams on the desk straightening them into a pile she was slightly

annoyed with me. I wish I cared more than I did. Truth was, I didn’t know what the future held

for me. I didn’t care whether I lived or died.