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file for
child support, but Rick was from New York and the process was tedious. The
first thing that happened was the paternity part of the case. Rick denied he
was the father, so I had to take my son to a public clinic for a blood test,
which infuriated me. Watching my small toddler have a huge needle stuck in his
arm by a shabby clinic worker made me wonder if all this was really worth trying
to obtain any child support money. The paternity test was a ploy by Rick to
delay the case.  He knew my son was his child, but anything he could do to
delay the process was in his favor. The test was a positive match, of course.
    This
process took over a year, and from there it was court delay after court delay,
as Rick learned how to manipulate the child support system.
    I
never received much money at all in this effort, and it took up so much of my
precious time away from working and caring for my child that I wanted to give
up and quit.
    Ultimately,
it would go on and on for years and years and never accomplish the goal of a
monthly child support payment. It came in spurts. The system would pop some-thing
into my mailbox in the form of a child support check, but then there would be
long vacant periods of nothing but letters from the court saying the check had
been delayed again.
    I
loved this Riverview apartment that sat on the edge of a massive public park
where people were busy daily with picnics and other activities.  However, in
the evenings and well into the late night, the park turned into a haven for
underage beer-drinking thugs. 
    How
could I have known this before moving here? I was seriously starting to get
depressed and frightened at the white North Side gangs that were hanging out on
the side of our building late at night.
    For
some reason, they chose the right side of the building, directly under my front
bedroom window—probably because it was closest to the park side—and the late
night drinking sessions were escalating into fights and bottle breaking outside
my window.  I didn’t like calling the cops, but I had to.
    Once
I did that, the harassment got personal….
    I
was sound asleep in my bed with my little boy next to me—he liked sleeping in
mommy’s bed sometimes and this was one of those nights.  There was a huge
crash. I sat up in my bed like someone had yanked me up on a puppet string, and
saw a blurred vision of something big that flew over my head and hit the floor
with a loud bang.
    At
the same time, I looked at the window that was completely smashed and saw a
young white boy standing outside of it, like he had just thrown something; he
quickly turned and ran from the scene.
    Glass
was everywhere.  I grabbed my son, who was asleep, and took him into the living
room where it was safer. I was shaking and scared; I felt my whole body go numb
with fear as I sat in the living room with my child in my arms and called the
police.
    When
the police arrived they went into the bedroom and discovered the empty beer keg
that had been thrown through my window. They told me we were very lucky to have
not been injured, but I knew from that moment that I was moving out of
Riverview Park as soon as I could find another place.
    The
cops filled out a report, and they knew who these boys were because they were
the same boys who I had called the cops on before. They were local boys from
the North Side area who everyone knew.
    I
called my dad the next morning.  He, too, had been raised on the North Side—on
Leland Street near Perry and Charles streets. He had friends there that he grew
up with, including the local Sheriff, Gene Coon; they had gone to school
together. I knew my dad would know what to do.
     

     
    Dad
stopped by my apartment a few days later and sat me down in the dining room to
talk. He said he had called some friends, and was told that the boys that ruled
the park were part of a local softball team that was endorsed and valued by the
local magistrate, Baldy Regan—and that these boys could do no