That fall, I started finding excuses to go see Mama Pearl, asking her to tell me more of her memories. I even got up the nerve to ask her if it’s true that she kept a gun in her purse. Stacia once told me that everybody in the neighborhood knew that she was packing in that beat-up leather bag, even described the gun to me. According to the story, as gangs began to form, and Mama Pearl began to feel unsafe as a single working woman, she thought it necessary to buy a gun. It would take only one attempted attack for word to spread that Lucille Perkins carried a pistol with a pearl handle, and she’d shot a man in the leg. People left her alone and nicknamed her Mama Pearl.

That’s how that gun ended up in my nightmare with all that detail. But when I asked about it, Mama Pearl just smirked and told me to go get her a cup of water.

Sometimes she would come down to our apartment on Fridays for dinner; other times she chose not to make the trip, so I’d take her a plate. Earlier that summer, when I still had my girls, I wouldn’t stay long after these drop-offs; I’d just hand her the food, kiss her cheek real quick, then run back to the square. Later, when school started again and the holidays were on the way, I’d tell Mama that after walking the food down, I planned to sit with her awhile.

Mama Pearl would tell me about how she’d been living on State Street since she was eighteen. Our season of the crack epidemic and gang warring was a small part of her lifetime. Her retellings always began in 1944, the year that she arrived. Of course, I’ve heard some of these stories over and over again, but I never stop her; these tales are not actually for my entertainment. They’re really for her.

“Wasn’t that many places coloreds could live back then. They had a little bit of city carved out for us, and it seem like you’d get off the train and a strong wind would keep you out of the North Side, push you right down through Bronzeville. Then it stop.” She laughed at this, amusing herself.

We’d sit around, and she’d let me talk about my friends too, and how I’d lost them. I knew I could still find Precious at New Hope, where Mama Pearl and I went to church too, but she was different. She had a whole new group of friends, and I could tell that she was being nice to me, but she didn’t want to talk about the projects she used to live in or the wild and crazy friend we used to have. She really didn’t want to think about Tonya, but I was always thinking and praying about Tonya.