The following can also be found in the book Chicago Stories 1997. Click here to learn more, and to download a free electronic copy.

That was my grandfather's number.

I would see it below his rolled up cuff when we would play on the swings when I was a child. And when I was four years old I learned my numbers, and I would practice by pointing at my grandfather's arm one stubby finger at a time. "175113. What does that mean?"

"Ah. It is from the war. A story for later, yes? Let's get some ice cream."

175113.

That was not my grandfather's number.

My grandfather was a Baptist from southern Missouri. He had a bad foot, didn't even go to war. He stayed behind and tended to the lead mines, trained the women and teenagers and even the Hungarians who suddenly were employees.

My grandfather, when he was a child, used to sneak off into the woods with his brother and watch the Klan meetings. He told me about this, before he died. My grandfather snuck into the woods and watched his father, his uncles, the town businessmen, sit around in their white robes and play rummy and drink hooch. You see, there was nothing for the Klan to do. There were no black people in St. Francois County, Missouri.

"I'll tell you why your great-grandfather was in the Klan," my grandfather told me once. "It was so he could get away from his wife one night a week."

175113.

That's what I say when someone at a party cracks open his eighth Miller Genuine Draft and says, "Man, I heard the greatest joke the other day. This Jew walks into a bar and...oh. Um. I'm sorry. Are you...Jewish?"

I want to say, "Does it fucking matter? If you're asking me, don't you think there's some more important questions you should be asking yourself?" But I know it would fall on deaf ears, so instead I say, "175113." Then they get really quiet and walk away.

175113.

That's what I repeated to myself for six hours straight once, the night that I called a man a nigger for the first time in my life, three months after moving to Chicago, terrified of the city, confused, lonely, angry at the world, angry at the things I saw around me.

When I lived in a bigoted town with no black people, I would have never fathomed the day when I would call someone a nigger, or a faggot, or a kike, or a wetback. And now, in Chicago, I've used all those words.

Oh, not out loud.

175113.

That's what I repeated to myself for six hours, because they told me never to forget, and I was. And I am. And I can't take on the weight of the world, but by God, you can bet your ass that I can take on myself.

175113.

That was my grandfather's number.