6. Just Gotta Make It
Arthur Giles
“My mother was born in Pittsburgh, my father in Lockhart, South Carolina. My grandfather was a poor white sharecropper. That was my father’s father. And my mother’s grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee. [My father] and my Uncle Frank got ran out of South Carolina. They did something to them white people. My uncle moved up here, he had to change his name and everything. Yeah, my father came up here in 1930 something. 1931…He was 20-something. My uncle, he was about 40. He got killed in the mills in 1959, he was getting ready to retire from the steel mill. Matter of fact I used to work in the same spot my uncle got killed.
My father, he used to work in the steel mill. He got hurt and he ended up working in a bar on Fifth Avenue. The S&K Bar. And my mother, he wouldn’t let her work. That’s what made my mother mad, because my mother had a college education. My father had no education. That’s why we stayed poor. She coulda made more money than he did. My father was alright. My mother was real nice. Both my parents were tough if you did something. They would punish you. But I would say my father, he would hurt you worse because he had a temper. I got that same temper.
I grew up, from [ages] 1-9 I lived on Fullerton St in the Lower Hill. Then after Fullerton St, in 1958 we left Fullerton St and moved to Chauncey Drive projects. The Lower Hill was nice because everything was right there. You didn’t have to go downtown. Plus, they didn’t want you downtown in them days anyway. The Lower Hill was for hustlers. And the Lower Hill wasn’t all black, it was mixed.
My mother died from some sort of complications from gallstones. My mother would be alive today if they—they didn’t have the technology they do today. My father died from cancer of the stomach. I was 11 when my mother died, 12 when my father died, 13 when my aunt died. So it was either live with my sister, or live with my cousin. I stayed with my cousin for 4 years, then I went in the Army. Then when I got out I stayed with her for about almost a year. Then I moved out. That was in 1970.
Most of my life I was a street person. You learn a lot in the streets. Everything I know I learned in the streets. I always had to hustle. I was a drinker and I needed the money so I could buy some whiskey. I started to get into the game, but—I had got put into juvenile court for messing around. Me and my step-father had got in a fight. Then they had me for a whole bunch of other shit. So they said if you join the army we won’t send you nowhere. So I joined the Army and…I started seeing all my buddies that was in the drug business start killing each other. I said whooo, good thing I ain’t get into that.
When I came out the service, the Hill was still goin’ on. What kilt the Hill was gun violence. Murder. That gun stuff. That’s what kilt the Hill. ‘Cuz all the bars that were on the Hill were still there. And then they started shooting, and one think led to another and everything left. [The] 70s is when Centre Avenue started closing, getting bars closed down in the 70s. People changed. People today—people don’t realize one thing. Everybody used to have patience with people. Let’s say you got in a argument, next day you would say well look, I’m sorry we got into this, pass the bottle. You argue with people now, regardless of age, you subject to get kilt by anybody. Technology has a lot to do with this. I read all kinds of science and stuff. Technology was meant to slow things down. It sped things up. And people are not geared for that type of life. We went further than we were supposed to be. That got everybody in a hurry, that got everybody’s temperament changed.
[The Hill] was the last place that had patience. It was the last place that had unity. It was the last place that had respect. All that’s gone now. ‘Cuz everybody respected everybody. Tell you the truth, when your environment is gone, you be in limbo. That’s what I do right now. Death don’t even bother me. ‘Cuz the world I’m used to is gone. And I haven’t been able to find nothin’ to fulfill it.”