Subtext

by Jessica Griffin

Lionel Thomas, 14, wheels around the Seger playground basketball court at 10th and Lombard streets, while players from a local basketball league practice in the background. "I don't know whose chair this is, you gotta ask Robert," says Thomas. "We play with it every day. Mostly we do wheelies." Fifteen-year-old Robert McKee explains, "My friend Kahlid gave me the wheelchair. He's home. He got a cast on. He got shot by a drive-by on the corner of 13th and Fitzwater. It was a stray bullet. But he gonna be okay. Four or five of my friends been shot that I know. One died. He was 17, 18. We were really cool. He was a close friend." --July 28, 2003