Ch 1: The First Door Is Always Open
Frank Glass stepped off the Greyhound with a degree folded so neatly in his backpack it still smelled like library air.
Chicago didn’t care.
The city greeted him with a wet cough of diesel smoke, a cracked sidewalk that dipped like a bad tooth, and a man yelling at a bus that wasn’t listening. Frank stood still for a moment, long enough to be identified as new, and adjusted his jacket like posture alone could announce his intentions.
He was twenty-four, tall, clean-faced, Southern-polished. Born in the Deep South where manners mattered even when nothing else did. Raised on Sunday dinners, folded napkins, and the unspoken rule that a Black man must always appear calm, even while drowning.
Bradley University taught him how markets worked.
Home taught him who markets worked for.
He believed, foolishly, beautifully, that Chicago was the in-between place. Big enough to matter. Black enough to belong. Brutal enough to reward seriousness.
He didn’t come chasing fame. He came chasing ownership.
The building he rented his first room in had a front door that never fully closed. You had to kick it or shoulder it or threaten it like a man who didn’t respect you. The landlord said it was “on the list.”
Everything was always on a list.
Frank dragged his suitcase up two flights of stairs that smelled like bleach, piss, and yesterday’s catfish grease. Someone upstairs was frying something aggressive. Downstairs, a woman argued on speakerphone about child support like the walls owed her money.
He unlocked his door. One room. A window that faced an alley where a liquor store shared a wall with a church. Between them sat a pothole so deep it collected hubcaps and prayers.
Frank smiled anyway.
This was the work.
That night, he lay on the floor because the bed frame hadn’t arrived yet. He stared at the ceiling fan that didn’t spin and whispered plans to himself like confessions.
“I’m gonna buy buildings. Give people a chance. Rent-to-own. No banks screwing folks. No slumlords.”
The ceiling didn’t respond.
Outside, a gunshot cracked the silence like punctuation.
Frank didn’t flinch. He told himself that fear was a tax paid by people who didn’t understand systems. He told himself he was different.
He was wrong, but not yet.
The next morning, he walked into a real estate office downtown. Glass doors. Actual glass. They slid open for him without resistance.
That should’ve been the warning.
