One morning when I was counseling pregnant teens at King Drew Place of Family, I brought my five-year-old with me because he had a mid-morning doctor’s appointment. I didn’t know about the gang summit that was scheduled for the inner-city gangs that morning. As soon as we entered passing the stacks of weapons collected at the door, my son spotted the pool table. I explained to him that he was too young to play.

Kneeling down next to the table was one of the largest guys I’d ever seen, easily the size of two offensive linemen. He had a black handkerchief tied across his forehead and a large diamond in his ear, and he wore the requisite black shades that seemed to be part of a dress code. He was bent down tying the laces on his Timberlands.

“Hey, just a minute there. If the little homie wants to play. He can play! I’ll teach him. We got time before the meeting.”

Looks were exchanged between the guys around the table. They all turned to my son, a red-haired, blue-eyed, multi-racial Mexican child, about forty-three inches tall. Most of them smiled. My son looked around at all of them and smiled back.

“You hungry, Little Homie?”

“Oh, he had breakfast, and I brought him food.” I assured the guy with the shades.

“I think it’s time for a morning donut? You think so, Little Homie? We’ll take care of him, and feed him too,” he reassured me.

I watched for a few minutes while the members of Grape Street and the Rolling Eighties took turns lifting my son up to the table and helping him line up his cue to make a shot. They all applauded when he managed to touch the ball.

“You can go to work, Mommy, I have a lot of babysitters,” he told me.

And so, I did. When I finished my group and came out, their meeting had started, and a gang worker was moderating. At the corner of the table, my son was sitting in one of the nicer chairs between the leader of the Rolling Eighties and the leader of Grape Street, like a smaller version of the reigning monarchs. Apparently whatever they were talking about had lulled him to sleep. Before their meeting someone had snapped a polaroid and pinned it to the bulletin board. In the photo, a little boy stands on top of a pool table surrounded by two gang factions. He has his arms outstretched hugging the guys on either side of him. Everyone in the photo is smiling.