Meet Troy Banks, King of the Octagon Ballroom

By Staff in News on May 31, 2014 4:00PM

Photo by Ester Alegria

Troy Banks is a hard man to keep up with.

I ran into him on the way to my mother’s house, across the street from my own in the West Pullman area, and asked if he’d like to have a chat. “Uh…I’m on a mission. But I’ll meet up with you tomorrow morning after I take this lady to the County [Stroger Hospital],” Banks said. “She don’t trust anyone else to push her one the ramp in the wheelchair but me.”

One could only speculate as to what that mission was, but he shuffled away in his usual uniform: a paint stained shirt and pants, tool belt in tow.

And so it goes. Troy is the neighborhood carpenter, always ready to greet passersby with a smile, often calling them by name, and fluttering through the Chicago streets with the hustle and drive that has been passed on to him by his grandfather, the town mechanic in the Deep South. “My parents were sharecroppers. They picked cotton. It is my job to carry on the legacy that my granddad started.”

I don’t believe I’ve seen him five times without his tool belt. “I know people out there are having a hard time financially, but don’t try to screw me over,” Banks said. “I wanna help, but some people think they can just pay the ‘crack head’ a couple dollars for work, and that’s not right.”

It’s no secret that Troy abuses recreational drugs.

Here’s how early his drug usage started. Troy wanted to be an architect. After his mother fell ill from cirrhosis of the liver, he had to stay home to care for his siblings. He ultimately got kicked out of Harlan High School. His recounting of his mother’s grand mal seizure that ended in a coma was a haunting memory that caused his voice to soften and shoulders to drop.

He tried to save her life. Then, I could tell by his body language and hardening of his tone that the death of his mother changed him. “I started cooking for the ready rock boys to sell. We’d take cocaine, cook it, and make into crack. They called me The Doctor.”

Photo by Ester Alegria

It was hard to imagine this mild-mannered man as a young boy in a seedy room, doing the work of a street chemist, manufacturing death to cope with death.

He built a room with an octagon door that slid open through the middle. “I was watching Star Trek at the time…I needed a room strictly for smoking and cooking crack,” Banks said.

The walls were painted sky blue. Bamboo chairs hung from beams on the stucco ceiling. The carpet, sandy brown. He’d built himself a slice of the Caribbean on the south side of Chicago.

He called it the Octagon Ballroom.

“It was fun. Every time [the supplier] came over, they’d bring some coke for me to cook, and I’d take some and I smoked it. I did it all. I did it Troy’s way. And I’m still doing it Troy’s way. And I’m loving every day of my life,” Banks said.

We spoke about the legalization of drugs and different ways to deal with those charged with drug offenses.

“They need to be monitored. They don’t need to be locked up, because when they come
out, they’ll just come out and hunt for it even more. I’ve been to rehab, it didn’t work," Banks said.

"Some people just wanna just stay high. And some people are searching for help but they don’t know where to find it. We need more organizations to help to figure out this mess, because it’s needed.

"Everyone has their addiction. You can be addicted to money, you can be addicted to sex—to power, love. People shouldn’t judge," Banks said.

When I first met Troy, he had Cookie. Cookie had Troy. An inseparable pair, the two were so tightly bound, if one was seen without the other, one would assume an epic breakup occurred. This waif-like figure, walking quickly next to Troy as he jolted from job to job, enhanced Troy’s energy. The two danced down Wentworth Avenue daily, courting, smiling, not speaking, and stepping in tandem.

As an outsider, I figured they’d live and die together old because love was just like that. But looking into Troy’s greyish eyes as he callously explained the details, or bounced around the specifics, of their demise, I can tell that he still longed for her company on his strolls down my block.

Troy does manual labor for his drug money. That’s the way he funds his usage. Cookie found other ways—things shunned in this society when blatant, but glorified under different guises.

Troy didn’t judge her for it. He just didn’t want to be near it. His heart wanted to see Cookie’s eye smiling at him, and his eye’s at her. Knowing what we know about extreme urges, and addiction, it’s understandable that Cookie’s work got too close to home a few times.

Addiction is a taker. It takes lives. It takes away the future. It erases the past. And it murders relationships. It’s grim. It wraps them in shared living room carpets, and digs graves in the yard to cover its crime.

Behind Troy’s bravery and kindness lies the victims of addiction. His own. His mother’s. Not having Cookie. For someone who is extremely open about her past experiences, I was totally taken aback by Troy’s cavalier honesty.

I mentioned that I saw him walking past my building a few times maybe a year ago, and he looked great, sober, and generally even. I felt proud. He said he did go clean; three times, for six-month periods each.

“I’m still doing [drugs], though but I’m not letting it do me. If it gets to the point where I’m stealing and hurting people, then it’s time to get help," Banks said.

"But instead, I’m helping the people here in this neighborhood. Everybody in my family has died from alcohol or liver poisoning…and I’m no different. But—I’m better!”

You had to laugh out loud at that.

But I questioned what lies behind those bold statements, and proclamations of acceptance. Can one really embrace a life of walking through the darkness, searching for this substance that will never satisfy the body the way it used to—back in the days of the Octagon Ballroom. The days when drugs were fun. Not life.

“I’m doing pretty damn good dealing with my demons. I don’t want nothing. I don’t need nothing. I spend my time doing what I love," Banks said. "And if it ain’t fixed, I can fix it. And if it’s already fixed, I can break it, and fix it again!”

You can always find Troy if you need a handyman or someone to talk to. Just be sure to wear comfortable shoes. He’s not slowing down anytime soon.

By: Ester Alegria.