When I was 23, I was spiraling out. I'd
worked, while getting a degree, while doing volunteer work while drinking and
smoking cigarettes, and having fun with a big tight group of friends.
I'd had a big car accident, and had to be moved
by friends to a new place til I got better, and started working at a sometimes
pretty tough youth center.
I mean, by then I was a bit tough too, and not afraid of much, the way you are when you've been raised by foolishness and you are young and foolish. A lot of things had come together in my life so beautifully , and then slowly exploded apart.
Like a lot of young people, I kept things together just enough to do a good job at my job, wigging out wild in off time.
This 18 year old started following me around, happening to arrive at work when fights were brewing, and intimidating them out. Showing up with a pack of cigarettes when I was just about out. Wiggling his self slowly into my life.
He was from poor, and his mom didn't like me, though she was nice and kind to me. I kind of shrugged my shoulders, like, how do you expect me to fend him off?
My exes looked on, crabby at my fun and games. But I was a big mess. Wondered why the kid stuck to me like glue . Me. A bad news bear.
But he did, and came along with everything I did. Too fast driving in rows of cars, passing each other, testing each other, throwing stuff between windows, screeching down dark country roads far into dark nights.
One night a cop chased us, while we were screeching along in two cars, chasing and challenging each other. The kid got caught and I got away.
So I circled back and stopped, got out, and told the cop it was all my fault. Back in the day when being a young female got you almost everything worthless like evading tickets, he just let us go wobbling down the road.
I would try to talk him into leaving off seeing me, not knowing yet the way that draws people to you. He'd scrabble together all kinds of things I needed ,through connections, as he worked the way every single person worked in that neighborhood, through the catch-as-catch-can small jobs.
There I was, from a waspy middle class life of misery, connected up with his family, living in poverty, with good hearts and honesty.
Eventually I began to get better. And as I did, our class differences spread and exploded between us.
No one ever knew how to help him in school. To make sure he did homework or understood material. No one had been taught that from the beginning, succeeding at school needed as much home parent help as in school teacher help. So it was normal for kid after kid in that neighborhood to eventually get so behind, it became humiliating, and they'd just drop out.
Parents with crap pay or two jobs or poor health because of lousy no-money diets have a tough time learning these skills for the next generation.
No one in his neighborhood was wired for college either. They couldn't finish high school, there was no money, how would there be college?
I watched and learned this. I was wired for college. Even when I supported myself, I had the drive to keep going to college. I had been taught I could do it, would do it. I'd had tutors and some good teachers who stayed with me til I learned what I needed to.
In those days there was enough financial aid to pay for your college.
So I got better and took classes part time, enough to be accepted full time, and moved and got a new job, and got busy and that was that.
He was still around sometimes, his sweet tough self, but I was way busy. Slowly he built another life for himself.
I mean, by then I was a bit tough too, and not afraid of much, the way you are when you've been raised by foolishness and you are young and foolish. A lot of things had come together in my life so beautifully , and then slowly exploded apart.
Like a lot of young people, I kept things together just enough to do a good job at my job, wigging out wild in off time.
This 18 year old started following me around, happening to arrive at work when fights were brewing, and intimidating them out. Showing up with a pack of cigarettes when I was just about out. Wiggling his self slowly into my life.
He was from poor, and his mom didn't like me, though she was nice and kind to me. I kind of shrugged my shoulders, like, how do you expect me to fend him off?
My exes looked on, crabby at my fun and games. But I was a big mess. Wondered why the kid stuck to me like glue . Me. A bad news bear.
But he did, and came along with everything I did. Too fast driving in rows of cars, passing each other, testing each other, throwing stuff between windows, screeching down dark country roads far into dark nights.
One night a cop chased us, while we were screeching along in two cars, chasing and challenging each other. The kid got caught and I got away.
So I circled back and stopped, got out, and told the cop it was all my fault. Back in the day when being a young female got you almost everything worthless like evading tickets, he just let us go wobbling down the road.
I would try to talk him into leaving off seeing me, not knowing yet the way that draws people to you. He'd scrabble together all kinds of things I needed ,through connections, as he worked the way every single person worked in that neighborhood, through the catch-as-catch-can small jobs.
There I was, from a waspy middle class life of misery, connected up with his family, living in poverty, with good hearts and honesty.
Eventually I began to get better. And as I did, our class differences spread and exploded between us.
No one ever knew how to help him in school. To make sure he did homework or understood material. No one had been taught that from the beginning, succeeding at school needed as much home parent help as in school teacher help. So it was normal for kid after kid in that neighborhood to eventually get so behind, it became humiliating, and they'd just drop out.
Parents with crap pay or two jobs or poor health because of lousy no-money diets have a tough time learning these skills for the next generation.
No one in his neighborhood was wired for college either. They couldn't finish high school, there was no money, how would there be college?
I watched and learned this. I was wired for college. Even when I supported myself, I had the drive to keep going to college. I had been taught I could do it, would do it. I'd had tutors and some good teachers who stayed with me til I learned what I needed to.
In those days there was enough financial aid to pay for your college.
So I got better and took classes part time, enough to be accepted full time, and moved and got a new job, and got busy and that was that.
He was still around sometimes, his sweet tough self, but I was way busy. Slowly he built another life for himself.
Last I heard from him, I was 9 months pregnant
with my first kid, four years later. He called for a ride. He was in trouble.
So my husband and I crawled the car through the darkness, lights off, round Lake Pleasant, where the cops were trolling for him. He crawled out of the bushes, into the back seat, and we drove up 91 through the night, and dropped him over the border into Vermont , to cool his jets for awhile. Gave him what I had in my wallet. Some apples , some cheese and bread.
I remember hugging him goodbye, my big big belly in the way, as he grinned at me and shook my husband's hand.
He never expected to manage or live long or be able to have things.
I shook him hard by the shoulders a bit, glaring at him, no words, and I know we both understood.
So my husband and I crawled the car through the darkness, lights off, round Lake Pleasant, where the cops were trolling for him. He crawled out of the bushes, into the back seat, and we drove up 91 through the night, and dropped him over the border into Vermont , to cool his jets for awhile. Gave him what I had in my wallet. Some apples , some cheese and bread.
I remember hugging him goodbye, my big big belly in the way, as he grinned at me and shook my husband's hand.
He never expected to manage or live long or be able to have things.
I shook him hard by the shoulders a bit, glaring at him, no words, and I know we both understood.
No comments:
Post a Comment