When I showed up at the club that afternoon, Autry was sitting at a table bearing coffee and doughnuts, a handmade sign behind him on the wall: MIDNIGHT BASKETBALL MEETING IN CONFERENCE ROOM.

“Welcome, Sudhir,” Autry said, beaming. “Everyone is inside.” He mentioned the names of several tenant leaders, pastors, a Nation of Islam official, an ex-police officer. The basketball league was turning into a big deal for Autry. It represented his entrée into the elite group of community leaders, whom Autry very much wanted to join.

“You sure they won’t mind if I sit in?” I asked.

“Not at all,” Autry said, shuffling some papers. “And the niggers won’t mind either.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Man, we got them all!” He rubbed his hands together excitedly.

“We got all the leaders-Disciples, Black Kings, MCs, Stones. Everyone is coming!”

“You didn’t tell me they’d be there,” I said meekly.

Autry could tell I was concerned. “Don’t worry. Just sit in the back and keep your mouth shut. I’ll say you’re with me. But help me with these first.” He handed me three sets of flyers that needed to be passed out to everyone. One of them was titled “Rules for Buy-In,” which specified the mandatory donation of each sponsoring “organization.” Each gang was expected to contribute five thousand dollars and field four teams of ten players. The money would be used to pay for the referees, uniforms, and the cost of keeping the gym open at night.

“You’re getting the gangs to pay for this?” I asked. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“What would you rather that they do with their money?”

“Good point,” I said. “But something doesn’t feel right about it.”

“I see.” Autry put down the flyers and pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket. “Two thousand niggers in this project making money by selling that poison, killing each other, killing everyone who buys it. We can’t do nothing about it. And now we tell them that if they want to be selling that shit, they have to give back. They have to step up. And you look at us funny? It’s them you should be asking these questions to.”

“I would if I knew them,” I said.

“Don’t lie to me, nigger.”

Autry knew I was on good terms with J.T., although I’d been cagey about the extent of our relationship. Many times he’d told me I needed to have the courage to ask J.T. more difficult questions about the gang, even if it would upset him. “At least you can ask one of these niggers the question,” he said. “And he’ll be here tonight.” Autry let out a loud laugh and went outside to smoke his cigarette.

Shit. It would be the first time I’d seen J.T. in several weeks. I was usually careful to ask his permission before attending any event involving gangs, both to show respect and because I needed a patron. Otherwise, as he always told me, my personal safety couldn’t be guaranteed.

I decided to wait outside the club to talk to J.T. when he arrived. Autry offered to wait with me. We stood on the sidewalk and watched the busy, noisy traffic along Federal Street. The club sat in the shadow of a project high-rise. You could hear people yelling from the sidewalk up to the open windows-there was no intercom system-and you could smell the smoke of marijuana and menthol cigarettes.

Before long, J.T. and the leaders of the other gangs began pulling up with their respective security entourages. The scene was straight out of a gangsta-rap video. Each vehicle-there were sports cars, fancy trucks, and one long, purple Lincoln Continental-was immaculate, rims sparkling from a fresh wash. They drove up in a line, as if in a funeral procession, parking across the street from the club. The first man out of each car was a bodyguard, even if the gang leader was the one who drove.

Autry crossed the street, as nonchalantly as his excitement allowed, to ensure them that the club was safe, neutral territory. They were all dressed similarly: new tracksuits, white sneakers, and plenty of gold on their wrists and around their necks. As they approached, each leader was trailed by one or two bodyguards, with another one or two staying behind with the cars. All the bodyguards wore sunglasses and baseball caps.

J.T. noticed me standing there and pushed his bodyguards aside. “You-all go in!” he shouted to the other gang leaders, “I’ll see you in a bit.” Then he turned to me. He shrugged his shoulders and glared, the universal signal for “What the fuck?”

Autry intervened before I could answer. “Hey, man,” he said, “no worries, he’s with me.”

“He’s with you?!” J.T. wasn’t smiling. “You know him?”

“Yeah, big boss man, today he’s with me.” Autry smiled, his front teeth glistening as he leaned over and hugged J.T.

“Oh, so he’s with you now,” J.T. repeated, shaking his head. He pulled out a cigarette, and Autry lit it for him.

“Sorry,” I said, “I haven’t seen you in a while. Autry and I just met, and he said I could come to this meeting. I should’ve told you.”

“Yeah, the brother didn’t mean nothing,” Autry said. “Not a big deal. No taping today, right, my brother?” Autry loved to walk into a room with me at the club and yell, “Sudhir is from the university, and he’ll be taping everything you say today!”

“Not a big deal?” J.T. said, turning to Autry. “You’re more ignorant than I thought you were. You pulled all these people together, and you’re going to fuck it up like this.”

“Whoa, my brother. Like I said, he’s with me.”

“And what if he comes by my building? Is he with you then? Huh? Is he with you then, nigger?”

“Fuck, no!” Autry laughed. “Then he’s with you! ’Cause I ain’t stepping foot in that motherfucker. Hell no!”

Autry ducked inside, grinning broadly. He seemed to be having great fun.

“That’s what I thought,” J.T. said, turning to me. “If you walk in there, the first time all these other niggers see you, then you’re with Autry, not me. You didn’t think about that, did you? You’re a motherfucking impatient nigger. And an ignorant one, from where I stand. You walk in there and I can’t do nothing for you. No more. So it’s up to you.”

“I didn’t think about any of this,” I apologized. “I didn’t know how-”

“Yeah, nigger, you didn’t think.” J.T. started walking inside. “Like I said, you’re with me or you’re with someone else. You decide.”

Inside, I could see Autry, giggling at me. “Come in, boy!” he yelled. “Come in, little baby! You scared?”

I decided I wasn’t willing to jeopardize my relationship with J.T., even if it meant missing an opportunity to learn more about the community and the gangs. So I turned and walked away. I started toward the university, and then I stopped. The last time I’d had an uncomfortable episode with J.T.-his beat-down of C-Note-I’d made a mistake. I’d waited too long before speaking to him about it. That made it harder to get a satisfying explanation. So this time I headed straight for J.T.’s building, figuring he’d go there when the meeting was over.

He did. He still seemed upset and started yelling at his mother. “No one understands what I deal with!” he said. “No one listens and does what I say.” He sent his bodyguards out to buy some beer. He sat on the recliner and grabbed the remote control. He barely glanced at me.

“You pissed at me?” I asked.

“What the fuck have you been doing around here?” he asked.

I explained that Ms. Bailey had introduced me to Autry and that I was interested in what went on at the club. He seemed surprised that he no longer knew all the specifics about the people I was meeting. “I guess you were going to make some friends while I was gone,” he said, and then he asked a question I’d been hoping he’d never ask: “What exactly are you doing around here? I mean, what are you writing about?”

He started changing channels on the TV. It was the first time I’d ever been with him when he didn’t look me in the eye.

“Well, honestly, I’m… I’m fascinated by how you do what you do,” I stammered. “Like I said before, I’m trying to understand how your mind works, why you decided to come back to the neighborhood and run this organization, what you have to do to make it. But if I don’t get out and see how others look at you, how you have this incredible effect on other people, then I’ll never really understand what you do. So while you were gone, I thought I’d branch out.”