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quarter out of the other child’s pocket, laughing and yelling, “I’m seizing
     that!” In the following months, I saw children give up running and simply stick their
     hands behind their back, as if in handcuffs; push their body up against a car without
     being asked; or lie flat on the ground and put their hands over their head. The children
     yelled, “I’m going to lock you up! I’m going to lock you up, and you ain’t never coming
     home!” I once saw a six-year-old pull another child’s pants down to do a “cavity search.”
    By the time Chuck and Mike were in their early teens, they had learned to fear the
     police and to flee when they approached.

TWO
    The Art of Running
    A young man concerned that the police will take him into custody comes to see danger
     and risk in the mundane doings of everyday life. To survive outside prison, he learns
     to hesitate when others walk casually forward, to see what others fail to notice,
     to fear what others trust or take for granted.
    One of the first things that such a man develops is a heightened awareness of police
     officers—what they look like, how they move, where and when they are likely to appear.
     He learns the models of their undercover cars, the ways they hold their bodies and
     the cut of their hair, the timing and location of their typical routes. His awareness
     of the police never seems to leave him; he sees them sitting in plain clothes at the
     mall food court with their children; he spots them in his rearview mirror coming up
     behind him on the highway, from ten cars and three lanes away. Sometimes he finds
     that his body anticipates their arrival with sweat and a quickened heartbeat before
     his mind consciously registers any sign of their appearance.
    When I first met Mike, I thought his awareness of the police was a special gift, unique
     to him. Then I realized Chuck also seemed to know when the police were coming. So
     did Alex. When they sensed the police were near, they did what other young men in
     the neighborhood did: they ran and hid.
    Chuck put the strategy concisely to his twelve-year-old brother, Tim:
    If you hear the law coming, you merk on [run away from] them niggas. You don’t be
     having time to think okay, what do I got on me, what they going towant from me. No, you hear them coming, that’s it, you gone. Period. ’Cause whoever
     they looking for, even if it’s not you, nine times out of ten they’ll probably book
     you.
    Tim was still learning how to run from the police, and his beginner missteps furnished
     a good deal of amusement for his older brothers and their friends.
    Late one night, a white friend of mine from school dropped off Reggie and a friend
     of his at my apartment. Chuck and Mike phoned me to announce that Tim, who was eleven
     at the time, had spotted my friend’s car and taken off down the street, yelling, “It’s
     a undercover! It’s a undercover!”
    “Nigga, that’s Alice’s girlfriend.” Mike laughed. “She was drinking with us last night.”
    If a successful escape means learning how to identify the police, it also requires
     learning how to run. Chuck, Mike, and their friends spent many evenings honing this
     skill by running after each other and chasing each other in cars. The stated reason
     would be that one had taken something from the other: a CD, a five-dollar bill from
     a pocket, a small bag of weed. Reggie and his friends also ran away from their girlfriends
     on foot or by car.
    One night, I was standing outside Ronny’s house with Reggie and Reggie’s friend, an
     eighteen-year-old young man who lived across the street. In the middle of the conversation,
     Reggie’s friend jumped in his car and took off. Reggie explained that he was on the
     run from his girlfriend, who we then saw getting into another car after him. Reggie
     explained that she wanted him to be in the house with her, but that he was refusing,
     wanting instead to go out to the bar. This pursuit lasted