Vendettas

The South Side Code included rules for vengance. It was generally "an eye for an eye" kind of thing, but a few actions went beyond those paramaters. The example I'm thinking of is when a very nice boy from a "mafia" family was found pistol-whipped nearly to death in a park. The whole neighborhood was abuzz with talk about how the L family would get their revenge on the R family. The dispute began before my time. Somebody did something to someone else, and forever afterwards the L's and R's were at war. All I knew was that fighting would occasionally flare up between the families, and we would have something to gossip about for a while. The pistol-whipping of a 15 year old boy was definately an escalation, though. He was a good kid. He didn't get involved in his family's vendetta, and he was handsome. At least he was until someone saw fit to bludgeon his face with the butt-end of a handgun.

Our downstairs neighbors were indirectly related to the R family, and they were a little worried because the boy was from the L family. For the next two weeks, the apartment below us was full of people. The whole clan was rotating shifts, protecting their home. At least once a day someone from the L family would drive down the street shouting threats. My neighbors would shout back, "There's little kids in here!" (that being the reason for the protection. Once you've crossed the invisible age barrier it's no-holds-barred) Then our neighbors would pile into their car and give chase. If it wasn't so scary, it would have been funny. Finally one night around 10 o'clock someone from the L's threw a brick at our window. They thought the cousins to the R's lived upstairs. Mom was pretty mad.

We had been watching the news when the car came roaring down the street. We heard the shouting, knew it would be over in a minute: then heard the brick break our window. Mom ran downstairs just in time to see a carload of stick-waving hoosiers dash off in pursuit of the L's. She went inside the downstairs apartment to comfort the mother and children that had been left behind. I think she did it so she wouldn't have to deal with the window yet. When the menfolk returned after their fruitless chase, she got out the duct tape and patched the window. Then mom sat down and studied the brick. She was still looking at it when I went to bed. I don't know what secrets she gleaned from the brick, but a few days later she and the brick went for a walk together. When she came back, she told us the problem was solved, and we didn't need to worry about any more problems with the L family.

Mom had a special gift for things like that. She could make people park their cars instead of sitting in the street and honking, and she could clear a bar fight with nothing but presence.