would use these youngsters on the street and keep the adults out of sight. The youngest kid Goff spotted this morning looked to be about 11.  He was not a full fledged dealer, he would just take over when one of the older boys went to take a piss or something.  His main job was lookout.  They paid him $50 a day to ride his bike up and down the street watching for the “Five-Oh!” (as in Hawaii 5-0 ).

As for the buyers in this open-air drug market, some of them were quite young as well.  The youngest was probably in the fifth grade, but they weren’t all schoolchildren. The oldest was in his 70s.  There was a mailman, a CTA bus driver—they were white, black, Spanish, you name it.  At one point Goff spotted a pregnant white lady carrying a baby in a papoose sling with a gallon of milk in one hand walking down the street.  Goff said, “What the hell is she doing here?”  She bought a $10 hit.

The impact of this kind of activity on an otherwise peaceful neighborhood is beyond belief. When the dealers move in, the most significant change, of course, is the guns.  To protect their interests, the dealers bring with them a considerable amount of firepower and they like to flash it so that everybody understands they're not kidding.  Dealing in contraband is an inherently dangerous business.  There are mountains of loose cash all over the place and if somebody sticks you up, you have to deal with it yourself because you sure as hell can't call the cops.  Along with the constant threat of bandits, there is the constant battle over the marketing franchise.  The only contract you have to do business on this street corner—a business that may be worth $20,000 a day—is the enforcer you've got stuck in your belt. And when the competition shows up, a century of civilization is stripped away and the neighborhood is transformed into Dodge City, ca.1850.  The toughest sonofabitch on main street runs the show and the good citizens keep their mouths shut.  Imagine half-a-dozen teenagers in Chicago Bulls starter jackets with their caps on backwards and automatics stuffed in their pants transacting business in your driveway.  You don't see a