Free Out of the Madness by Jerrold Ladd

after nightfall, she would gather us children in
     her living room on the hard tile near the two couches. While we sat in a semicircle at her feet, she would bring the spirits
     alive.
    Because her storytelling was so strong, it seemed as though the ghost would gather with us, would come from the dark pantry
     or from upstairs to listen to her tales. She seemed to be such a truthful woman, so she left everyone in fear. After each
     story, Mrs. Burnese, with her prunly wrinkled skin, so dark it looked burnt, and with her red, knowledgeable eyes and towering
     height, would warn us to respect the dead.
    Her favorite story was about a man with fiery red eyes. “He was big, black, and cold,” she said. She had seen him on a late
     trip to the bathroom one night. On her way back to bed, she looked downstairs, and there he stood. “Hey, whatcha doin’ down
     there?” she had screamed. But he just stood there, blank and cold and without expression. She said she knew he wasn’t anything
     living. Yelling, she ran and jumped into bed with her husband. He grabbed his pistol and ran downstairs, ignoring her objections.
    “What could he do with a ghost?” she said. But his disbelief had forced him to investigate. Downstairs, he found the doors
     and windows secure, no sign of forced entry anywhere. “He must have come through the walls,” said Mrs. Burnese. After hearing
     several of her stories, I stopped walking past the graveyard on my way to the shopping center.
    Henry stayed around our house a few months after the rapist had come. On a night when dope money was hard to come by, he shot
     up a lot of the dope and fled with the proceeds from the rest. This upset my mother severely. She stayed restless and upset
     after his departure—but it was routine to us kids. She paced around the house, listened to old love songs on the radio, and
     stared yearningly out the window. She and Henry had become two dope fiends in love.
    We all were terrified of the house after the rapists. Sherrie began spending most of her time with Teresa or Mrs. Burnese;
     Junior hung around more at Big Mark’s house. I still visited the library, reading volumes of books. We all were just stagnating.
     We knew killers were going to come.
    So when the candy man came instead, his arrival was a boon in disguise. This white man lived in a suburb to the west of Dallas.
     He would arrive each evening to recruit black boys for his illegal candy business. Drunk Tom, who was a wino with a year or
     two of college, told me to go with him. “You can feed your family,” he had said. That was all I needed to hear.
    Sitting in a van with seven other kids, I was taught a speech that claimed the job was a design to keep young boys off the
     streets and out of trouble by giving them a part-time job. Scott*, a cunning white man, also made sure I could count his money.
    Scott was small: some of the older boys were twice his size. He tried to make up for this by talking sternly and barking orders,
     something we tolerated for the money. But toward the black adults in the projects he acted benevolent and concerned. Everybody
     saw through his act.
    He would take about eight of us to a suburb, fill our carry boxes with candy, then make us work up and down a street, selling
     his candy. As soon as we sold out, he would pick us up, reload the boxes, and take us to another street.
    I recited his speech at every door: “Hello, sir. My name is Jerrold Ladd. I’m with the Junior Careers of Texas. This job is
     designed to keep us black boys off the streets and out of trouble.”
It also makes us do illegal work because my boss is not licensed, doesn’t pay taxes on the money, and works us for under one
     dollar an hour. We’ll soon have criminal records. He’s making a bundle, too
.
    Some of the white people were sympathetic, but a lot of them were cruel. They slammed doors in our faces, and others called
     the police on us. The police busted us in one city, took mug shots