Feb. 13--Alex, 16, knows what to do when she hears gunfire outside her West Humboldt Park home: Turn out the lights, lock the door and wait.
That's what she did in November when shots rang out. A 27-year-old upstairs neighbor had been shot. Her mother pounded on the door and Alex came outside to help. They helped the man up the concrete steps. Blood from the man's bullet wound splattered on Alex's clothes and hands.
Three houses down, 51-year-old Felix McGhee Jr., who sold cigarettes from a green plastic chair on his front porch, was hit in the same shooting. He was pronounced dead that evening.
On Thursday, Alex, who spoke on condition her last name not be used, was hit by a stray bullet in the leg as she rushed to catch a bus to school. She tried to run but quickly found herself too weak to move. She leaned against a fence while someone called the ambulance.
"It felt like a paintball at first, but knowing this neighborhood, I already knew nobody would have paintballs and I know they have guns," she said.
Police say she was hit by a stray bullet when someone in a car fired at a U-Haul truck about 8:30 a.m. near Kildare Avenue and Hirsch Street.
Alex said she was walking with a friend on her way to Pedro Albizu Campos High School. Other kids quickly scattered as the shots were fired.
She sat in a wheelchair in front of her apartment Friday, a checkered blue blanket pulled to her chin, and winced from the pain of the bullet lodged in her thigh. Doctors told the family it may be weeks or months before they can remove it.
"I'm happy I'm alive, but I just always feel like something's always going to be bound to happen," she said.
The family moved into the apartment in the 1400 block of North Kildare in May and has been trying to leave ever since, said Alex's mother, who spoke on condition her name not be used. Foreclosure forced them from their home in Jefferson Park, and the single mother said she had difficulty finding another apartment in that Northwest Side neighborhood. Their basement apartment in West Humboldt Park belongs to a friend.
"If I had to pack up in one day, I'd do it," she said.
Family members won't visit, not even for birthdays, she said. Alex's friends never come over, but her mother encourages her to sleep over at their houses as much as possible. A summer barbecue ended in a drive-by shooting. Similar shootings happened at least three times a week, Alex and her mother said.
"We have to run and duck and hide down there," Alex said, pointing to the underground entrance to their apartment.
A black car passed by with a low rumble. Alex and her mother froze.
"Yeah, we tend to do that every time we hear a car," her mother said. "You can't sit out here or go and get the mail without seeing which car is coming. You see 'em more than once, go around the block, you don't stay out."
Before McGhee was killed, the neighborhood had been a bit more lively. He watched the kids, quizzed them, made jokes. The neighborhood had a vigil after he died, putting up signs and placing a teddy bear in the green plastic chair. It's been quiet since, which Alex said may not be a bad thing.
"Because when it wasn't quiet, you got a lot of guys standing there on the corner," she said. "Now it's just quiet. No people around. That's kind of a good thing."
Her mother interrupted.
"Not really, because now it being quiet, anything can happen," she said.
mmccall@tribpub.com
