The Art of Making Money - Jason Kersten [32]
Art wasn’t so sure. “I asked her about it later and she was cagey,” he says. “I agree with the fire department in that she started the fire, but I don’t think it was an accident. I think she did it because it would be the only thing that would force us to find a way out of the projects. It was right after I got shot. I don’t think she wanted to live there anymore. I think something snapped in her mind, and I think she fucking lit the house up. I mean, my mom was a smoker. She may have been crazy, but she knew how to smoke.”
And that was how they finally got out of the Bridgeport Homes. Accident or not, Malinda had initiated one the most desperate jail-break gambits in the book: She’d lit her own cell on fire.
TWO DAYS AFTER THE FIRE, one off the local churches found the Williamses a new apartment ten blocks away at Thirty-first and Wells. Although just a short hop from the projects, it was another planet. There were brick town houses with little iron gates in front, well-lit streets, trees—and none of the gunshots and gangbangers that had made the simple act of coming and going from home akin to navigating a siege zone. Rent was a few hundred dollars more than it had been at the Homes, but Art had saved enough to tide them over for the first few months. Once the family moved in, the collective mood soared as they realized that they had spent the last seven years stuck inside a trap from which they were now free. Art wished his mother had set the fire the day they moved in.
The Williamses spent a year in the Wells Street apartment, which became a base that each of them would use to embark on their next stages of life. Wendz was the first to move on; she took a job at Ed’s Snack Shop, and there she met and fell in love with Dr. Samos—a dentist from Greek Town who was fifteen years her senior. He not only treated her well and fixed her teeth for free, but he also paid for her to attend both junior college and modeling school. Wendz eventually moved in with him, and a year later Art would attend her first fashion show at a club on State Street. He had always thought of his little sister as a rag doll, but the young woman he saw striding down the catwalk was stunningly beautiful. “She was wearing a white outfit. Slacks with a white shirt, and a white coat. And I didn’t even realize it was her at first. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s my sister. ’ A whole crowd of cameras went off, click click click. I remember her looking at me when she came to the end of the runway. She turned and the jacket dropped to her arm; it was beautiful. I remember how proud I was of her, because she just had it.”
Once Wensdae moved out, Malinda quickly followed suit. Sick of the city altogether, she headed back to Texas, leaving Art enough room to bring in Karen and the baby. For the first time since becoming a father, he finally had his own family under one roof, but he soon learned that escaping the Bridgeport Homes would require more than geographical separation.
The Thirty-second Street Satan’s Disciples were not enthusiastic about Art’s move. Now twenty years old, he had risen to become one of the top lieutenants and moneymakers. At first he continued to visit his old friends at the Homes and show up for the Friday meetings, but after Karen and the baby moved in he decided it was time to end his involvement in the gang. Knowing that the gang’s leader, Marty Arbide, wouldn’t be too happy about one of his top lieutenants jumping ship, Art chose a passive exit strategy: He simply stopped attending