If We Were Truly Men . . .

We met only briefly, maybe 20 or 30 minutes tops, Mr. Herman Ball and I. He first greeted me at the door of his home with a faded gray, striped knit shirt pulled down over a slightly protruding belly that stuck out just above a belt holding up weary pants. A too-small, green Miami Dolphins cap sat precariously on his head.

“Excuse me,” he said, retreating like a mother hen back to the kitchen. “I just finished fixing lunch for my daughters. C’mon in.”

He didn’t look like a tough guy to me, even though the two cops who had ferried me to his house during a ride-along had intimated he was.

By the time I walked back out his front door, however, I had concluded that seldom had I met anyone who most exemplified manhood to me. And if anyone’s masculinity could be called into question, it was my own.

*

Most men, I have concluded over the years, are that largely in name only. Oh, we talk a good game, most of us cloaked in the various constructs we use to signify masculinity--degrees, job titles, professional affiliations, physical strength, feminine conquests, fat bank accounts, cars, houses and other material possessions.

For others, the yardstick is a 40-ounce malt liquor in the hand, a 9-millimeter on the hip, a scam here and two babies somewhere else.

But actually we’re mostly wimps. If we weren’t, why have we allowed a handful of thugs to turn our communities and schools into places where our children and women live in fear and innocents are gunned down in the streets?

If we weren’t wimps, why have so many of us abandoned our children, physically and/or emotionally, until they mature into confused aberrations, who we then claim not to understand--or to actually fear.

If we were truly men, would we pack up our families and run to the suburbs like scared little boys scurrying from a bully? If we were truly men, would some of us hide behind bushes or drive by in cars while sniping at 14-year-olds?

In my own arrogance, I placed myself in the “truly men” category a few years ago. I’ve lived in rough neighborhoods, provided a home and guidance for two sons as a single parent and had my encounters with bangers and bullies. Through it all, I felt I had comported myself fairly well.

I felt that way until I met Mr. Ball.

He and his wife, Mary, and their seven children, ages 20 to 9, live in one of those big Victorian houses on Adams Boulevard near USC. He’s been there 30 years, the same length of time he has been married. These days, Mr. Ball, a retired musician, is mostly a househusband. Aside from managing his rental property, he cooks, cleans, washes clothes and raises the children alongside his wife.

“He’ll throw a load of clothes in the washer even faster than me,” Mary says.

On Mother’s Day, his children shower him with cards.

But if one would ever question Mr. Ball’s toughness, his courage, his conviction, they need only talk with the 50 or more gang members that he almost single-handedly rousted from his neighborhood.

*

It was about three years ago that they began to set up shop at a coin laundry across the street from Mr. Ball’s home. They drank, loitered, cursed, bullied residents, fought and fired guns.

Residents and the owner of the laundry pulled back in fear as their community was overrun. But not Mr. Ball. When gang members spray-painted his house and street, he immediately removed the graffiti, often dragging his entire family out into the street at 3 a.m.

They painted again. He removed it again. They cursed him, threatened him and at one point promised to kill him. He told them to take their best shot.

Bolstered by Mr. Ball’s example, the rest of the family stood firm.

“He said, ‘We’re a family, and we will fight as a family,’ ” his wife recalled. Their 9-year-old daughter manned a video camera to collect evidence. His sons threw gang members out of their yard. His wife made a citizen’s arrest of one gang member, pressured the laundry owner to clean up his store and forced the city to tear down a nearby crack/gang house.

Gang members shot into their house four times. Mr. Ball fought and whipped two of them in the middle of the street. Police suggested to Mr. Ball that he move. The thought, he said, was ludicrous. It went on like that for months, until finally, the gang members, now being harassed by police and confronted daily by the Ball family, moved on. Because Mr. Ball had stood up, his community was still standing.

I left Mr. Ball’s house wondering if I would have had the courage to stand toe to toe with gun-toting gangbangers for nearly two years. And while being that tough, could I still find the strength to provide the tenderness and compassion that my children required?

But of one thing I was certain. I definitely would do it, if I were truly a man.