Off The Books (PDF)

Home at Work 31 few hours drinking and carousing before soliciting sex, and in this case they can earn $25 or more. But the work is irregular, and there may be many evenings when clients are hard to find. So these self-employed sex workers must expend time and energy finding a place to greet their...

Home at Work 31 few hours drinking and carousing before soliciting sex, and in this case they can earn $25 or more. But the work is irregular, and there may be many evenings when clients are hard to find. So these self-employed sex workers must expend time and energy finding a place to greet their johns and a space to provide their services. These logistical difficulties are exacerbated by the fact that many self-employed women sporadically turn to prostitution. These might be young mothers in need of income, women who have lost family support, or drug users turning to the vice economy to support their addiction. Compared to their counterparts who work for pimps, prostitutes working on their own have a higher rate of physical assault by johns and a higher rate of arrest. In the five years I observed vice in Maquis Park, there was only one fatality for a prostitute who was managed by a pimp. In contrast, thirteen self-employed prostitutes died during the night hours at work. Of these, ten died at the hands of either an abusive john, a spouse or partner jealous of their work, or a pimp trying to clear them away from a spot; the other three died of drug overdoses, although they too may have been dealing with some type of harassment. Sex workers with pimps can earn more money, and their work is more steady. Bird and Sandra, for example, have a pimp who tells them where to wait and sets up appointments for them. Cotton knows that her pimp will find enough work for her to earn $500 to $600 per month, but depending on the number of days and hours per day she works, this may not be much better than the $50-per-evening statistic mentioned earlier. It is the reliability of an income stream—relative to those who do not have a manager—that is critical. Cotton relies on her mother, who babysits her five children (none of whom come from a john, she proudly says), and draws on disability insurance to round out her 32 Off the Books monthly rent payments. “On a good month,” says Bird, “I make about $750, but that means I’m working all the time, which I just can’t do no more.” These women do not escape all of the dangers of their profession. Numerous job hazards effectively reduce their work time. Cotton estimates that she is beaten up, by either a john or her pimp, at least once a year, for which she loses two to three weeks of work. She finds this tolerable because, she says, “If you don’t have a pimp, you’re getting hurt all the time, I mean each week.” She and Bird also face capricious pimps who steal from them, force them to pay fines for mistreating johns or for getting arrested, and occasionally make them work for free. At least twice each year, police activity disrupts their work schedule by forcing them to find new locations or alter their work hours, which reduces their earnings. There is a much wider set of goods and services, beyond sexual favors, that women sell off the books in Maquis Park. Some entrepreneurial women sell foodstuffs, homemade clothing, counseling and psychic services, social security cards, hairstyling and hair-care products, pirated movies, and kitchen supplies (what Eunice calls “ghettoware”). Some have computers and prepare résumés, others offer tax preparation or basic accounting services, and a few, like Marlene, make money by hosting gambling venues and parties. Several women either have owned businesses in the past or have worked in them for extended periods. Most, however, are self-employed and occasionally may do temporary, off-the-books work for a local business, such as a hairstyling salon or bar. In general these women are in their late thirties and forties. They prefer to live with their children, take care of their grandchildren, and work as necessary to bring income to the home. The hairstylists estimate earning $200 to $250 per month; the gypsy cab drivers earn $200 to $300 in a busy week; the six lo- Home at Work 33 cal psychics and “spiritualists” make, on average, $4,000 per year; homemade clothiers can take in $350 to $400 per month but the work is never steady enough to ensure this income stream for an entire year. It is a popular custom for women to sell handicrafts and artistic products that they have made or designed in collaboration with other producers. At subway and bus stops, public parks, street corners, and special events like parades and block club parties, there will usually be a slew of women offering African-inspired jewelry and clothing, books and “how to” manuals, paintings, and remedies to heal disease and mental-health problems. Most women say that the work is irregular and driven by their own inspiration and need for supplemental income. Few rely on such exchange to support themselves. Eunice’s homemade soul food enterprise is unique in its longevity. She has sold home-cooked meals for over a decade. Until 1996 she catered small events like family gatherings and church functions. She then asked her daughter to help her expand the business to daily sales. Her customer base includes neighbors, local police officers and security personnel, several hundred employees at a local bread factory, staff at the local schools, delivery crews (UPS drivers, mail carriers, and so on), local construction workers, and employees at the local hospital and university. Her success may be partly attributed to two monthly payments she makes. One is to the local gang, which prevents others from competing with her by selling foodstuffs in the immediate area. Another is to a local police commander, who, says Eunice, “sends a car to my house in front at lunchtime, so I don’t have to worry about getting robbed until I can get that money to the bank.” She revealed that she paid $50 cash each week to both the policeman and the gang, but she would not tell me her personal income. My 34 Off the Books own estimate, based only on observation, is that a typical month brings $1,000 (net) into her home. In the last six years, her business has closed down for one month each year due to a variety of circumstances, including family trips to Arkansas, hospitalization, arrest and conviction of a relative or family member, a daughter “flying off and disappearing with some man,” and exhaustion. Women who sell handicrafts and homemade goods and those who offer some type of skilled service like tax preparation should be categorized separately from their counterparts who work in unpredictable, dangerous, and poorly paying underground spheres. They fall under the catch-all category of general labor, which includes a range of off-the-books menial work in both licit and illicit sectors. Women who sell drugs, perform services for the local gangs and drug dealers, or participate in larceny rackets are rarely employed longer than a few months. They may earn upward of $50 to $75 per day for serving as a police lookout, or $100 per week for allowing drugs, guns, or stolen goods to be made, sold, or stored in their home. But the work is fleeting. Their employers are distrustful and continually find reasons not to employ them or, worse, not to pay them. Typically the workers are fired for accusations of embezzlement, and they suffer tremendous physical abuse. Their male employers inevitably demand sexual favors and colonize their apartments to hide their own guns, drugs, and stolen goods inside and to gamble and host parties. Then there are any number of not legal, but less harmful, jobs. On Eunice’s block, for example, two women work in a school cafeteria, performing odd jobs that can range from food preparation to cleaning, and earn $50 under the table each week for ten to fif- Home at Work 35 teen hours of work. They have worked in their respective schools for three years; over that time, they have increased their work from five days per month to fifteen days, on average. They also wash cars for school employees, run errands for teachers who cannot leave school during the day, and work at special events such as basketball games and dances. They rarely make more than $300 per month, but their meager income, which is both steady and more than what many of their counterparts earn, places them at the top end of this lumpen stratum. They have each established a monopoly on such opportunities at their respective schools, so that teachers will not hire others without consulting the two women. Others are not so lucky. Numerous women walk the streets, entering businesses and organizations daily to seek whatever work may be available. Oceana, a thirty-three-year-old mother of six, rises each morning to walk through Maquis Park and drum up employment. She lists her own work over the previous six-month period: I picked up garbage for a guy who worked in the city and who was fucking some lady in the van and needed some time off one day. I bought some kids some beer. I always have someone who can’t leave work but who needs a bag [of pot or crack cocaine]. The lady at the library lets me put the books back on the shelves. That minister likes me to walk on his back, or sometimes do a little more, but I’m not talking about that. Unless you paying [she laughs]! I also wash cars down at the police station. I bake cakes at the church on Sundays in the morning. I painted that house over there for a week. Eunice was sick a couple of times, so I cooked with her daughter [and helped her sell the meals]. That Arab al- 36 Off the Books ways getting a blowjob from that girl, so I watch the store for a little while, while he does his thing. Yeah, I do just about anything and everything, baby. In no month did she earn more than $200. Usually she is satisfied if she can find $25 per week. It is easy, and all too common, to draw a binary distinction between illicit underground economic activities—often seen as “criminal” as opposed to economic per se—and licit exchanges. Following this line of thought, Marlene and Eunice, who merely hide their income, should be categorized separately from Bird, who earns by providing an outlawed good—sexual favors. There are some important differences between women who sell illicit goods and services and those whose work is illegal because the income is not reported to the government. For example, levels of personal danger vary. Prostitutes, drug sellers, participants in stolen car rackets, and shoplifters experience more jail time and physical abuse than people who are just ducking the IRS. Women whose work is illegal only because it is unreported to the government may still have recourse to the law in a way that prostitutes and car thieves do not. For example, a woman who sold clothing in a park without a permit nevertheless reported an incident of theft to the police, who then helped her retrieve the stolen items. Similarly, when Eunice’s house was burglarized, she reported the theft of the kitchen equipment she used to make her soul food lunches; she did not find the merchandise, but she claimed to have received adequate compensation from her renter’s insurance policy. Bird cannot call the police to help her when abused or robbed by a john—unless an officer will act informally by finding the john; however, on occasion she does pay the gang for protection and will call on them to exact revenge. The personal dangers Home at Work 37 women experience in the illicit sectors can affect their own outlooks, perceptions of security, and relationship to their families. These distinctions are important, but from the perspective of the women’s efforts to keep house and home, the lines between different kinds of underground economic activity begin to blur. Household income for a poor family can come from many different sources; it is not always possible to keep the revenue streams separate, using money derived from off-the-books tax preparation for one purpose, money from drug selling for another, and so on. In fact, it is often easier emotionally to combine these so that one does not have to be reminded of the origin of the income. For example, a head of household desperate to make rent might not ask many questions regarding the money given to her by boarders. Just as important, there is no societal consensus regarding the illegality of certain behaviors, such as narcotics use, gun possession, and prostitution, so we should not expect that the residents of Maquis Park are uniform in their opinion or that their ethical distinctions necessarily conform to those of Americans living in other kinds of communities. How their decision making emerges in the context of illegal activity is best understood in the context of the overall strategies by which they manage their households and struggle to keep their communities habitable. Homework It is easy to believe that today’s inner cities are inhabited by two distinct groups, a view readily accepted by the mainstream social science community. Elijah Anderson summarizes this belief in terms of “value orientation,” defining these two groups by how they cope with crime and delinquent behavior. One, schooled in 38 Off the Books older African American traditions, attends church, participates in social institutions like schools and labor markets, and in general accepts the laws and ethical codes of conduct of mainstream society. They are oriented toward “decent” values, as Anderson writes. The other group, he says, adheres to the “law of the jungle” as opposed to the mainstream social standards; they possess a “holier than thou” attitude toward conventional social mobility, seeing education and hard work as futile; and they are willing to use violence to settle disputes. Anderson labels this group, to no one’s surprise, as “street.”2 With respect to underground activity in Maquis Park and the women whose lives are affected by it, it is only partially instructive to categorize people in the abstract as “decent” or “street.” In fact, pointing to their expressed moral or political views does little to advance our understanding of their lives, because such opinions are always in flux, adapting to the needs of the moment, and they may never be articulated precisely enough to create a comprehensive worldview. For no other reason than to exercise caution in disclosing one’s own receipt of illegal resources, people will be motivated to lie or, at the least, be circumspect in disclosing their behavior. The staple tool of sociologists, the interview, thus gives only part of the picture. A more illuminating way to proceed is to explore the relations that bring the women together, both conflictually and cooperatively, across social settings, including the ways in which they must respond to a local underground economy that shapes the quality of life in their neighborhood. Their decisions may be based on their own direct involvement in the shady world, their need to work with others so involved, or their indirect receipt of illicit goods and services via another member of their household. But whatever the type and degree of their complicity, individuals base their actions on their Home at Work 39 own sense of right and wrong. By documenting the everyday way in which their lives unfold, in their households and with their friends and associates, navigating between worlds legal and illegal, we get a rich understanding of this ethical sensibility. Marlene, Bird, and Eunice dream of the “good life.” They point to a time in the distant and unspecified future when they will have accumulated wealth and security, when today’s hardships will be alleviated. Marlene and Bird want someday to hold wellpaying jobs with benefits, and Eunice would like to see her daughter turn their homemade food sales into a successful Southside Chicago restaurant. All three imagine a Maquis Park free of street crime and shoddy schools. Each sees leisure-filled retirement in the offing, whether made possible by grandchildren, who Marlene says “are going to take care of me like I do for them,” or by a higher power, who, in Eunice’s words, “has me a home waiting that no man can build.” But there is a more immediate future for these women, one more concrete and unavoidable, involving a specific set of tasks that are rooted in the home. Any day brings the urgent need to make rent payments and put food on the table, ensure that winter clothes are purchased and that children reach school. There are other adults who live with them and who depend on them to make good decisions in the home, which reaffirms their need to provide refuge. And for a few women like Marlene who take a greater role in public affairs, such as pressuring police to patrol parks or close down abandoned buildings where drugs are sold, stabilizing the home environment reaches beyond the domicile. This shorter temporal horizon is organized around pure pragmatism and relies on the underground economy. Opportunities to stabilize the household must be sought via off-the-books income. The women exchange labor for services, obtain loans from 40 Off the Books local credit sources, and purchase goods and services on the street, from cleaning supplies and underwear, to even household furniture and electronic equipment. There is almost always someone on one of the major Southside thoroughfares hawking such items. From the outside it is tempting to label their daily life as focused on a set of “survival strategies,” an endless number of decisions and adaptations chosen in the hope of “making ends meet.” But survival is not their goal. Neither Marlene, Bird, nor Eunice believes that her life is driven by poverty and constraint, void of an imagined future. They make sense of their present conditions in terms of their potential for social mobility. They use the phrases “hustling,” “getting by,” “just taking it day by day,” to describe their contemporary actions, but these clichéd renditions of la vie quotidienne in the ghetto do not fully describe who they are or how they live. Marlene and her peers plan, weigh options and envision alternate paths, entertain investment and accumulation strategies, opine on thrift and sacrifice. Mobility, for them, is organized around needs and visions, urgencies and dreams. Their decisions to attend to their present predicaments are wrapped up in their thirst for a future in which some of their present predicaments will disappear. By understanding their orientation to time and the home, to immediate needs and hopedfor futures, we can appreciate their calculus for making the decisions that shape their days. Is this space between “ought” and “is,” between what exists and what is possible, the one in which most Americans live? Perhaps. But for the women in Maquis Park this navigation occurs underground. It is the shady world that shapes how they singularly aspire amid hope and reality, deferring one or the other as needs dictate. It is the underground marketplace that lies at their front door, in the form of a vendor, a customer, a nuisance, or a job op- Home at Work 41 portunity. Of course, this vehicle for improvement is limited by the amount of money they are able to earn off the books and by the laws and codes of conduct they may transgress while doing so. Predictably, menial wages and the possibility of arrest and perhaps incarceration have a dampening effect on people’s faith in the hustle as a panacea. And yet, even small amounts of money go a long way for a poor family. Individuals will undertake considerable risks to accumulate the most meager of sums. Some of the exchanges and income may appear so miniscule that they hardly constitute an economic enterprise. Yet, for a poor family $20 can open up a range of possibilities: ten pairs of socks can be purchased for $5 from the man at the corner gas station; another $5 buys enough low-priced meat at the local food store for five people; with the remaining $10 the household might take a gypsy cab to the welfare office and then buy a small cake for the kids and beer for the parents. In this way, the ability to supplement one’s income by even small amounts through underground labors can alter the parameters of what’s possible, especially for the head of household who needs to support herself and those living in her care. Underground economic activity is important in their present and future lives not simply by affording them cost savings. The shady world plays a critical role in their work to create a stable household. Most of these women do not have career prospects. They do not, and arguably cannot, rely on the security blankets of social insurance available to others—for the most part, social security, unemployment insurance, and pensions are not commonplace for these households. So these women make that abstract notion of obtaining the “the good life” concrete as they build, manage, and support their households by other means. They weave their lives beginning with their extended family, that loose 42 Off the Books congregation of people who reside in their home, and moving outward, creating ties in the home, on the block, and through the neighborhood.3 They also follow personal networks by creating alliances with trusted persons in the home and with more distant friends, kin, associates, gang members, social and political allies, and so on. In the household the women see potential sources of support. The people coming in and out of their home are other poor individuals—whether friends or kin—who are likely also to be oriented toward the underground as a venue for work, goods, and services. All such persons could help the household make ends meet. Indeed, friends, grandchildren, ex-lovers, and such are not necessarily burdens, but people to whom these women may turn someday as times get tough and as aging knocks at their own door. Imagining the future translates into envisioning stability in and around their homes. And so understanding the underground economy from the perspective of these women must involve looking at the ways they stabilize their households. It would be incorrect to suggest that men do not play an active role in domestic affairs.4 Several structural factors shape how men participate in the households on Eunice’s block. It is well known that poor families’ reliance on public subsidies has placed many restrictions on the types of household arrangements that the poor may form.5 To remain eligible for many government subsidies, parents and guardians adhere to restrictions that limit the residence of other income earners in the household. Historically, in poor households, black and white, women have disproportionately assumed the publicly recognized role of primary guardian.6 They tend to be the recipients of public welfare, including nutritional subsidies, medical care, and housing assistance, on behalf of their children. As they manage the receipt of these subsidies, Home at Work 43 they must also be careful to hide other sources of income from government authorities, social workers, and other bureaucrats who could report their unlawful activity and jeopardize their eligibility in the program. Thus, one finds that women hide the men who live with them. This does not mean that men must live in a totally surreptitious manner; however, it does mean that men tend to possess diminished profiles—whether at the home or in civic spaces such as schools and social service providers—and limited roles inside the home. Whether in practice they are active or not, they are less often associated with the care of the children and the management of the home environment. Not all families receive public subsidies and have to hide male income earners. Even in welfare households, part of the diminished male involvement is a product of men simply refusing to contribute to child rearing and child care, cleaning, and other domestic labors.7 Eliot Liebow’s study of “streetcorner men,” for example, described the views of men in poor communities toward marriage, work, and child rearing. His analysis suggested that the absence of full-time work made it difficult for men to fulfill the role of “provider.”8 Leaving aside the merits of Liebow’s argument, this view of women on Eunice’s block is undertaken to complement his analysis. If men do not choose to participate in domestic affairs, how do women sustain their leadership role over time, what are the effects on their own short- and long-term outlooks, and what role does the underground economy play in this process? The composition of households is fluid for most of the women on Eunice’s block. At any particular time, a head of household may be faced with differing boarders who provide income (or not), who share her bed, and who use her home for shelter and 44 Off the Books sustenance. Two of the twenty-one households on the block have a nuclear family arrangement. Both are thirty-something professional couples, with one and three children, respectively, who moved to Maquis Park because homes were cheap and because they wanted to return to the neighborhood of their youth. One couple plans on eventually incorporating a grandmother and uncle into the home; the other has no plans for expansion beyond additional children. Both participate in the underground economy primarily as consumers—one hires a local youth to mow their lawn, the other pays a neighbor under the table for home repair. There are five other houses with married heads of households, where the husband lives full-time. In the remaining fourteen households, there may be husbands, male partners, or lovers present, but they move out and return often.9 With the exception of the two professional couples, households on Eunice’s block display shifting arrangements of friends, partners, and extended family, what the anthropologist Carol Stack called “domestic kin networks.” For the summers of 2000 and 2001, several changes occurred to households on Eunice’s block. In some households the overall number of residents remained the same but the boarders had changed. In other households the number of boarders increased or decreased. In each year that I observed patterns on the block, there were similar changes. The 2000–2001 period was not so different from other years, and there is no reason to suspect that the households on the block differ significantly from others in the community. The households on Eunice’s block change for many reasons; nevertheless, household composition is driven fundamentally by economic necessity. Most obviously, in all households, members consume, thereby adding a cost that must be met. Moreover, women expend considerable energy managing the household, a Home at Work 45 form of work that usually is not recognized—and less often remunerated; nor is it taken into account in conventional economic estimations. In the ghetto, managing one’s home means attending to generic chores like cleaning, cooking, and child rearing, but in ways that are woven into the local underground economy. For example, barter and in-kind payments are an integral means through which women acquire services for the household. Eunice cannot always pay the local handyman with cash; instead, she offers him a week or more of free lunches, depending on the work he performs. In the afternoon, Marlene babysits children of mothers who return the payment by shuttling her kids to school or cleaning her house. Fifty dollars in food stamps enables Laetitia to purchase $75 worth of car repairs or $30 worth of beer at a local store. Friends and relatives come into the women’s homes because they cannot pay rent themselves. They are likely to be working in some underground trade, and they also routinely form arrangements with heads of households based on barter, exchanges of labor for rent, and promises of future payment. For Eunice and her neighbors, the source of money is sometimes secondary to the need to obtain services and money from their boarders, even if it is “drug money” or “gambling money.” It is worth mentioning the three different types of boarders who move in and out of households—any household may contain a combination of the three. The first are members of the extended family (and, less often, friends) who are relatively permanent boarders. They have negotiated with the head of household to live in the home, and this negotiation differentiates them from others, like a husband or children, who live there permanently without negotiating an arrangement. Eunice’s mother has lived with her for nearly twenty years; Bird’s grandfather lives with her 46 Off the Books permanently; Marlene’s cousin has lived with her for a decade. Although these relationships are more than simply economic in nature, in all three cases material factors were at play in the head of household’s decision to allow the individual into the home. Discussions among the household head and prospective boarders are usually quite explicit in terms of the monetary and in-kind support the boarder must provide: the two most common obligations are to pay monthly rent and/or utilities and to provide day care; however, monetary payments are rare, so providing day care to the kids in the household is the norm. After his wife’s death, for example, Bird’s grandfather approached Bird with promises to provide after-school day care for the children in exchange for taking up residence in a spare bedroom. Eunice’s mother agreed to contribute toward the rent each month and occasionally help with the soul food preparation. Marlene’s cousin’s car was made the common property of all household members in lieu of rent. A second and more common boarder is one who resides for extended periods of time, from a few months to a year. A seasonal employment opportunity may bring this individual into the home for a short duration; or the person may move in and out for various reasons, the most common being loss of income, inability to pay rent on another unit, domestic disputes, exit from jail, or renewed intimate relationships. In almost all such cases the head of household explicitly requests a monetary contribution; if the payment cannot be made, then there are attendant requests for payment via food stamps, periodic purchases of groceries, and in-kind services like cleaning, babysitting, and use of car. Mary, for example, allows a male friend to live with her. However, he agrees to leave his own job and take care of the kids whenever Mary finds work—alternatively, he must pay for a babysitter. Sandra’s mother babysits the children during sum- Home at Work 47 mers, living rent-free, because Sandra cannot afford day care. Both Mary and Sandra have kicked the boarders out of their respective homes when promises to help were not kept. A third kind of resident comes into the household unpredictably, often for only a few days or weeks. This person may arrive because a domestic dispute forced them to leave their own home. Before Bird’s grandfather moved in permanently, he was living with Bird on and off because his wife repeatedly threw him out of the house for running midday gambling parties. Sandra’s sister is repeatedly abused by her own boyfriend and, with no battered women’s clinics in the neighborhood, she takes her children and moves in with Sandra for several weeks so that she can be close to her work; she has always returned with her children to the home of the man who abuses her. The other common scenarios include persons leaving jail or prison who need immediate shelter, and heavy drug users who move between many different households, testing the patience of each. Looking again at the units on Eunice’s block, in a one-year period there were almost two dozen changes in household composition due to the exit or entrée of at least one of the three types of boarders (permanent, part-time, temporary). In 60 percent of the cases, an underground economic issue motivated the change: most commonly, the household head demanded that the incoming member contribute a portion of his unreported wages; or the boarder was found to be making money off the books in the house (for instance, hosting gambling and prostitution, or selling homemade items, guns, or drugs) and did not turn over part of the revenue. All such dealings with boarders have their consequences. In terms of energy expended on household stabilization, the head of household must display ongoing vigilance and diplomacy. Partic- 48 Off the Books ularly when their homes are a safe haven for numerous friends and relatives, these women must provide assistance to others in ways that do not jeopardize themselves and their children. If the prospective boarder offers to contribute money and the source of that money is illegal, it presents a difficult decision for the household head. Marlene spoke with me about a situation in her own household that illuminates the challenges of balancing the need for material and social support from others with safety and welfare for those in her home: “When my husband died, I was getting a little money [from his street gang], but then they lost [a street war to another gang], so I wasn’t getting nothing. That’s when my brother [-in-law], Teetie, moved in. Teetie [a drug dealer] was paying half my rent, so you know, I wasn’t working and that helped. But he started sleeping with my sister, buying her drugs, and I wasn’t having that. But if he left, shit, I’d have to find that money and ain’t nobody else living with me was working. So I was just trying, for months, to get him to stop beating her, feeding her that bad dope, making her sick. But that’s when she ended up in the hospital, so I told him to get out . . . I borrowed money from Otis for rent until I found my job, but I’m still paying that back and he charged 30 percent interest.” “Did Teetie ever sell drugs in your house?” “Well, I won’t lie to you. I was so desperate for rent, I let him do it. Big mistake. He was selling out the back and it just made things worse. But I needed the money. So I decided paying a loan shark and getting beaten up [if she didn’t make her payments] was better than letting Teetie kill my sister.” As Marlene’s observation suggests, conflicts must be prevented, but also resolved if they arise. Marlene’s kind of situation is a re- Home at Work 49 current challenge for women who must maintain a secure household while providing a refuge for others who request to stay in their home. The overriding dilemma concerns whether, and how, to obtain the monetary or in-kind support from the boarder. Even an ailing grandparent is not immune from explicit negotiations concerning contribution to the home. The need to extract payment or services from household members is not an issue that can easily be addressed through good-faith contractual discussions before the individual enters the home. It is an ongoing struggle for the head of household. Bird, for example, told her grandfather to leave her home because he was bringing in prostitutes during the day and hosting daytime gambling while Bird’s children were present. He also refused to devote part of his gambling revenue, and disability and social security payments, to household rent. Asking her grandfather to leave was a difficult decision for Bird. He ended up homeless for nearly a month, staying on the streets, in shelters, and in the local hospital. Bird explained her decision to me one day while her grandfather watched TV in the next room: “You and Pops [your grandfather] been together for a long time?” I asked Bird, as she fixed me a plate of food. “Too long, but he just came back. He was gone for a while,” Bird answered, with little emotion in her voice. “Yeah, ’cause she kicked my ass out, the bitch,” Pops chimed from the other room, referring to Bird. “And I got diabetes. She didn’t care, I was living on the streets. Bitch does what she wants, to her own kin even. It’s all about Bird.” His voice trailed off. “Don’t listen to him,” Bird instructed me. “He was fucking crack-whores up in here, making money on these poker parties. I don’t care if he had died. And around my kids! No one does that to my kids.” 50 Off the Books “Your kids?” Pops yelled. “They was learning about life. Shit, you can’t keep hiding them from this shit.” “Yeah, and you can’t keep sitting around,” quipped Bird, who then began to whisper. “It was hard, you know, it’s your grandfather and he’s sick. I just gave up, though. Nigger wouldn’t pay me no money. Now, if he ain’t making any, then I would’ve said do something else, clean up or something. But he was making all this cash, and he tore up my mattress upstairs and hid it there. Now, I should get some of that, you know, I’m the one putting a roof over his head.” “Mattress was tore up before I got here,” Pops cried out. “Don’t go lying to the nigger, now.” In a five-year period, Bird kicked her grandfather out of the house eight times. He never spent more than a month away. Usually he stays with another daughter (unrelated to Bird) until they reach a compromise. When he returns, Bird demands a deposit of several hundred dollars and a promise to help with rent and household duties. Although not every household may be dealing directly with prostitution and gambling, Bird’s situation is representative of the difficult choices that heads of households must make, recurring issues that force households to remain fluid and adjust their composition, and the way in which the underground affects their decision making. It is tempting to employ concepts from conventional economics when analyzing the decision making of Maquis Park’s heads of households. In this view, the women are rational calculators, weighing the costs and benefits of any action that might expel an individual and remove that source of income from their home. Bird, for example, must simultaneously eliminate the cost of a household member who is endangering her children, retain the Home at Work 51 benefits her grandfather provides (he babysits), while searching for ways to secure a portion of his income. To some degree, her own reflections suggest that she is thinking about the decision by lining up costs, tallying benefits, and assigning probabilities to future outcomes. Like Bird, most women on her block seem to be mindful of each month’s bills and work to meet these costs by calculating actual income, potential sources, and the costs that accompany each. But there are other factors at play, often nebulous but deeply significant. Bird’s decisions are inflected by perceptions of her own life as a shady laborer and the exposure of her kids to the instabilities of living underground. Needless to say, her own emotions and desires affect her decision making: If I die, what happens? What happens to [my kids]? I leave this house every day, and you know, he’s a son of a bitch, but he loves my kids. Until I, you know, win on the numbers or get something real big, that’s just what I have to deal with. He’s all I got. See, you keep asking me “Why I don’t kick him out of my house?” Yeah, the nigger ain’t paid, he ain’t done his part. But if something happened to me out there, and the kids ended up alone? . . . Bird believes that expelling her grandfather once and for all from the home would be the best decision for her family. But she both feels an attachment to him and worries about the risks accompanying her employment as a sex worker. Both shape how she lines up costs and benefits. Candice is a thirty-five-year-old, high-school-educated “runner” who distributes drugs for the local gang. She lives in a second-story apartment with her three children and mother. Her comments mirror those of Bird; namely, she thinks about her household composition in light of the hazards of her vocation: 52 Off the Books “I understand that I’m doing something that, well, could get me killed. I know someday, when I stop this, when I just get old, I may have nobody.” “What do you mean nobody?” I asked. “You know, my kids are around this shit, what if they go to jail. They already been taken away from me, and I had to work with DCFS to get them back. Shit, you know, they see their momma as somebody who makes their life harder. They may not see what I got to do to keep food on this table. If they don’t they could just get all this hate inside them, and when I need them, shit, they may not be around. I know that, but what can I do, it’s the life I live, it’s the choice I’m making right now.” “It must be tough to feel they’re okay,” I said, “when your work is so dangerous.” “Autry helps. He ain’t my man or nothing, I mean he was and he is trying to be again, but he stays with my kids. One of them is his. I mean, I don’t want him living here, you know? But I got to think about what happens if I’m not around. At least my kids, they got him and they got my momma. I just have to live with that until things change and I can be on my own.” It is commonplace to hear women like Candice and Bird say that their work in illicit sectors places their families in jeopardy. They remark, both when exhausted and when coldly analytic, that they may not live long enough to receive love and support of other persons. Alternatively, they see their actions as endangering their family, thereby alienating and angering these potential sources of long-term assistance. They are not only eliminating their opportunities to meet their prince or savior—Cotton says, “You meet the most fucked-up men when you whoring, ain’t no Denzel [Washington] out there”—but they experience dimin- Home at Work 53 ished hopes that they are creating the conditions for children, relatives, and partners to aid, comfort, and provide for them as they age. It is not surprising that living underground can affect one’s general outlook. In general, those who define their primary work as being in the illicit underground trades, like theft, robbery, vice, narcotics, and weapons trading, express less confidence that they will have someone to provide for their welfare as they grow older. This heightened sense of personal danger and insecurity, in both the short and the long run, is one way to differentiate women who work in the illicit trades from those who, like Eunice, sell licit goods under the table or who, like Marlene, live illegally simply because of failure to report income. Nevertheless, the illicit traders’ perceptions of insecurity are only a more cathected version of a concern that can exist for all women. Most of the women whose lives are unfolding in the shady world are pessimistic about the long-term stability of their households. And it is in terms of the household, and the fragility therein, that women express their vulnerability. They are concerned not only for the well-being of their children and spouse, but also for their capacity to maintain a private space where sharing and support can exist—a space in which, one day, the women hope to be on the receiving end. Even the youngest mothers acquire this sensibility. They focus their attention on crafting their own roles as heads of households, which means more than simply being mother to their children. They are betting that a good future will come through the terrain of the household, and so they work toward security by learning their home-based role in a domestic network of close friends and relatives.10 Not all young mothers have their own households to manage—in fact, most poor women who cannot support them- 54 Off the Books selves through employment or government subsidies will live as permanent and part-time boarders of other friends or relatives. Eunice’s sixteen-year-old pregnant niece, Sheila, who lives in her house, speaks for these young aspirants: “I want to be like momma, with a big family, being there for people, always kids around, my own place, but where a whole lot of people feel like it’s their home. My momma’s in jail, she ain’t had that, but I want that for her when she gets out.” As these young adults become heads of households, they promptly orient themselves to bridging long- and short-term horizons through their capacity to stabilize their household for others in their social network. Below are two statements, one by Laetitia, a mother of two and recipient of rent subsidies who lives on Marlene’s block, the other by Renee, a twenty-two-year-old mother of three, who lives a few blocks away: I just moved here, I was living with my momma. I know I can always live with her, but she needs to see that she can live with me too. And she’s going to move in soon, which is good ’cause she is a [gypsy cab] driver and I can get a little money, and somebody to help me . . . It’s like, I’m already thinking about getting old, can you believe it? But I got to find a school for my kid next year, and you just wonder sometimes who’s going to be there for you when you grow old. I think my kids probably will take care of me. My momma taught me that. That you always got each other, you always keep your place where you can live and you know someone else going to give you that place when you need it, someday when you old and can’t work. It’s not like I always sold dope. You know, I used to wash cars, and I was begging when things got bad. But now, once I sell just a little Home at Work 55 more, I’m going to quit, cause Mr. Ahmad [who owns the local liquor store], he say he’ll pay me and teach me how to work the front . . . But I got to let my brother and his friend stay here, ’cause they got the dope. But my brother’s cool, you know, before he was in jail, I was living him, my momma, my auntie, all my sisters, we all stayed with him. So I’m helping him out now I guess, that’s just the way it is. You only got your family. Laetitia and Renee point to the role of “family” in shaping a vision of the future. This is perhaps the most common way women in Maquis Park resolve the conflict between the short-term decisions that must be made reluctantly in order to stabilize the household, including acceptance of underground income from the boarder or participating in an illegal scheme themselves, and the long-term perception that a stable home environment is necessary. With no career or social security, it is the family that will provide at the end of the day. Even though some of their immediate decisions may jeopardize their ability to secure a protective and nurturing domicile, as long as they make their home available to others, then they can count on other kindred spirits when times are tough. The perception is strongly held that just as other family members are turning to them and moving into their household, so too will they need such help at an unknown date. Sending away otherwise close friends and relatives because their income is not always legitimately derived—or sufficient—may be folly. As long as that income does not drastically undermine the security of their own household, which is a decision that the women make repeatedly and in the context of their overall needs and resources, then the benefits of receiving additional monetary support will outweigh the risks. But while “family” is preeminent in these women’s concepts of 56 Off the Books their future, the clarity of their visions varies greatly. Most noticeable is a marked generational difference among these women in terms of their perceptions of the relationship between short-term instability and future development. Most of the adolescent and twenty-something parents and heads of household speak in a vague and secular language. For them, security is an equation based on adequate income, home ownership, employed children, and responsible spouses, and they seldom explicitly say how long in the future they will need to wait or the precise steps they must take to reach their goals—jobs, retirement planning, investments, education, and so forth. This is partly understandable, given their age, limited experience with savings, and the lack of decent opportunities for work and training. By contrast, the older residents make the links between today and tomorrow differently. Some will invoke religious rhetoric. For Eunice, “refinding the church” is the best explanation for her ability to remain optimistic despite the weight of her hardships. Seeing the future out of an unstable present involves embracing transcendent notions of personal development and salvation. It is a classic and common tale of Christian redemption, flavored with the spice of ghetto life, and it enables her to cope with “liv[ing] an illegal life in the eyes of God.” “Now, I wouldn’t say this usually, but God knows all anyway, so I must live honest. I used to do anything to put food on that table, I mean anything. I was on welfare for the longest and it was like one long party that you just wanted to end, you know? [laughs] Selling a little dope, maybe stealing. You had to do this if you had a family. I mean everyone just—” “Now, I’m lost. You always talk about these women who pimp Home at Work 57 themselves, and that they have no respect for themselves and should see Christ. Now, you say it’s okay?” “Not okay. I’m just saying before I got back together with the Lord, I was desperate, doing anything to take care of myself.” “And now?” I questioned. “How do you explain the fact you don’t report your income from the food you sell?” “Oh, the Lord sees that. Yes, I do live an illegal life in the eyes of God. But he also sees I ain’t selling no drugs, I take care of my grandchildren. All that money? It goes to my babies, keeps them in school. I mean, you always going to take care of your children. That’s the bottom line, sugar. But you can’t hide that it ain’t the same if you pimping or cooking.” “But what happens if the Lord takes it all away?” “If that happens, it’s for the best. He knows why he does what he does. All I know is that I’ve been blessed with the ability to keep myself alive and my family alive. My family will not suffer as long as I’m on the earth. All this money I’m making? I got bank accounts, my babies have money for their college. I don’t roll over. That’s what the Lord taught me.” Where Eunice turns to her innate entrepreneurial drive and divine dispensation, Marlene rests her hopes for salvation on activism. She strives to be part of a social group that collectively assumes the mantle of responsibility for community improvement. Her vision is equally utopian, a future of security and care—but the resting place that motivates her daily behavior and that meaningfully ties together her short- and long-term horizons is collective social action. Heaven is a political El Dorado, not the Lord’s pasture, and her place there may be secured by building relations with others who will support her in her time of 58 Off the Books need. For her, the household is also at the center of this activity because she is placing her loved ones in a broader network of allies who may teach, support, comfort, and otherwise act as a safety net. And, as with Eunice, the underground economy colors her vision. “I’ll always have the gang. See, they been here for thirty years. They take care of their own. Now, people ’round here see the gang as these niggers on the street. No, sir. What you seen, Sudhir, when we get together at the church, when we hold those rallies for kids, see, all that’s the gang. All them brothers was in it back in the day. They were all [in the same gang].” “But I don’t get how that makes you so secure about life,” I asked. “You’re resting your fate on drug dealers. You think that you’re going to be safe and provided for by these people? That really doesn’t make sense. I mean you’re putting your kids in jeopardy, no?” “I didn’t say nothing about drug dealers. Lionel [the police officer], Pastor Prentiss, they were in the gang, too. They know my kids, and that’s why I work with all of them. You have to be part of the community, something bigger, see. I know my brother will always be there for me, just like I’m there for him right now, helping him out. But there are lot of folk out there [in Maquis Park] that help me too, and I help them . . . Don’t matter in some ways if it’s the gang or the church. You just got to depend on people who been with you through thick and thin, and that’s what I’m looking for.” “And you feel like you’ll be taken care of?” “I don’t have a choice, I have to believe that. You see what we deal with, you see what we have to do to survive. It’s not always pretty, I’m no angel, and for that matter neither are you. We all got Home at Work 59 a shady side. Around here, it’s that you do what you have to do to survive. But the other thing is that you do what you can to make sure you don’t need to live always desperate, you know, looking to make a buck and doing whatever it takes. That gets tiring, that’s a life of danger, so I think you start building something with other people around you.” That Marlene and Eunice link personal and family welfare with the resources in the wider community is not surprising; neither is their turn to activism and religion. For that matter, Maquis Park is really not much different from other American communities in this regard. However, whereas taking refuge in the church or in activism to deal ethically with social problems may not be the province of the urban poor, the necessity of coping continuously—morally and practically—with shady economic activities may be. Whether the overriding sense of comfort is rooted in extended family, one’s own innate capacities, or a faith in the Lord, all such foundations are tested by the shady activities that help households make ends meet. The Battle over Homans Park The women of Maquis Park work in a huge variety of industries, often self-made, often at least partly illegal, in order to support themselves and their loved ones. Some off-the-books work is legal and women simply choose not to report the income, but some spheres, like prostitution, can pose dangers and great risks not only for the women but for others in their household who depend on them. Working underground is not always the preferred option, but a socially legitimate job can be a luxury. A shady job affords them flexibility and, since much of it is locally based, it is 60 Off the Books easier for them to take on work while managing their household affairs. Given the risks that living and working underground entail, the women face moral quandaries: nearly all of the women on Eunice’s block expressed concern at one point in time about their unlawful behavior. Even if they were only preparing taxes for a friend off the books, they worried about the illegal nature of their activity and whether their children and other household members might suffer for it. According to the current popular and scholarly fashion of looking at American inner cities as consisting of “decent” and “street” families with differing value orientations, the former obeying the law and the other flouting it, the neighborhood is made up of two competing networks, with the lawabiding (“decent”) families staying close to one another and either actively resisting or hiding from the other (“street”) group. This is an inadequate basis for understanding the experiences and worldviews of families who live in urban poverty.11 It is true that Eunice and her neighbors will talk about other people on their block and in their neighborhood as criminal and contributing to the lack of public safety. Like parents in any neighborhood, they will decry the behavior of marauding gangs and street hustlers who make it difficult to walk about the community securely. They will at times express their opinions as values: involvement in crime is wrong, young people should not join street gangs, people must be attentive to the needs of their neighbors. But the households on Marlene’s block do not exist in isolation from one another, such that their opinions are generally being offered about people with whom they have no practical connection. Nor is the underground economy only a matter that falls between head of household and boarder. Household management in the shady world also has a neighborhood character, one that is not