‘Hello ... Your Son Has Been Shot’

It is the call every parent dreads. “Your son has been shot.” Well, maybe not every parent. But many black parents of teenage boys think about it every day. My call came last week.

Five boys were in the car at a stop sign at Western Avenue and 39th Place near Chesterfield Square in southwest Los Angeles. The driver noticed a car behind them with two other young men in it. Without so much as an exchange of words, not even a honk of the horn, 16 shots riddled the car. Three of the boys were hit, one through the shoulder, one grazed across the back and my son shot through the arm.

None of the injuries were life-threatening. But the incident certainly was. The driver’s hat has a hole in it, but it was a size too big and his head was not hit. My son sat up after the shooting stopped and saw a bullet hole in the windshield where his head would have been if he hadn’t had the “ghetto good sense” to duck when the shots rang out.

“To live and die in L.A., it’s the place to be,” said Tupac Shakur. “You’ve got to be there to know it, what everybody wanna see.”

Isn’t it just another day in the ‘hood when we hear about another black boy shot? To be shot at, to be shot, to be killed are the only chambers in this urban version of Russian roulette. Fortunately, my son suffered no permanent physical damage. Any untold psychological damage may not be apparent for years. Actually, psychological damage may have begun before his own shooting; he had already witnessed two shootings down the street from his school -- one a fatality. So when it was his turn, his calm demeanor and general aplomb would not betray what was going on inside. Was it aplomb or is he just numb?

As is often the case, there were no witnesses identified in my son’s shooting, and no progress is expected in the investigation. I can’t even get a return call from the detective.

What can be done? What must be done? I try to do my part as a parent by keeping a short leash on an ever-adventurous young man. It has become a real tug of war as he has grown deeper into his teens and stronger in his desire for autonomy. I often tell people that “in my house, I am the CIA.” He has no civil rights in my house. I tell him in advance: “All contraband I find belongs to me.” Beyond the downright illegal items, this includes clothes I didn’t buy, video games he didn’t get for Christmas, jewelry of unknown origin or cash he didn’t earn. I am no longer his friend and playmate as I was when he was in Little League or Pop Warner. Now I am his parole officer.

And the shooting has only reinforced my role and my dictum: “This is why I must know where you are every minute of the day!” Indeed, he was not where he was supposed to be. He had left campus with some friends for lunch. Although not an unusual occurrence for high school students, it carries an enhanced burden of danger in the inner city. It seems ironic but true. White kids get shot on campus, while black kids get shot off campus.

Gun violence seems to be ingrained in our culture and cannot be willed away. The United States attacks Iraq (preemptively). One gang retaliates against another (or believes it is). A student kills teachers and other students at school. These are things you just can’t do as effectively with a knife. We must do all we can to eliminate gun violence -- its psychology, its technology, its acceptability and its regularity.

So what do we do now? Move to Laguna Beach? My son says, “I don’t want to let one incident make me run away from my whole life here.” We have enjoyed our lives here. I grew up three blocks from where we live now.

Was it like this when I was in high school? Well, yes. The final football game of my senior year was canceled because there had been a shooting at the homecoming parade at the school where we were to play.

I had hoped things would be different when I had kids. I was never shot at -- just the old-fashioned broomstick-across-the-neck-and-back attack. I survived, and so will my son.

My prayer for him and all the other “boys in the ‘hood” is that they will find their way out of this wilderness of violence and grow to be whole and thriving adults.

Unless lightning strikes twice, I’ve got this boy put to bed. He dodged his bullet.

But I can’t relax. I can’t rest.

His brother just turned 13.