Christmas Memories

" She left on Christmas and just didn't come back." He tries desperately to make this comment sound as nonchalant as possible, but I still hear the pain that lives deep inside his voice.

I know I'm not suppose to have one, but my favorite student, Monntell a.k.a. P-Nut, is one of our best students. But good intentions can only go so far. I worry that Monntell will get caught up in the life that most of his family has already full-heartedly chosen.

The Veal Family is an interesting group. And between me and you, they make up between all or half of our program attendance on most days. There is LaRelle, the youngest who we've already met. Then their second youngest sister who's 16 & pregnant. Lacee, our favorite kid crack pusher, is the younger brother. Montell is months away from Lacee but older. Somewhere in all the confusion that is their household, they found time to informally "adopt" DeWayne, who apparently just stayed a few nights and never went away.

I rarely inquire about the personal lives of our students, maybe because I rarely want to know what they do behind closed doors. But Monntell is different. He's graduating early because Doris M. Johnson is closing its doors (FINALLY), and in bootleg efforts to make things right, all juniors who were even close to graduating could take their remaining classes online and graduate in the summer. I think he'll make it. I hope he makes it. Only the circumstances say he won't.

I don't really remember what made me ask about his mother. I believe he was telling me that Lacee was moving out again, and some anonymous older sister was taking LaRelle to move in with her (or maybe he said the pregnant one was moving out-and LaRelle was moving with her. I got confused somewhere). Anyway, all of this made me wonder Where Is Ya'll Mama???!!! He got a little quiet, but he eventually told me.

I was expecting her to be in jail. Dead maybe? In a mental hospital, sick? But, no. He simply said she lives not even five miles away off Belair Road. I'm glad he wasn't looking at my face, because an expression would have surely given it away. But what kind of mother leaves her children- leaves her girls- to be raised by a man? As he continued, he told me he was three. She left on Christmas and just didn't come back. Now she calls every once and a while and tries to make conversation- but its too late.

Now how's that for a Christmas memory?

UBRAN MATHEMATICS : SEX= LOVE

"She can't fit into any of the costumes because she getting fat. Thats what the shot does to a lot of people," Sharon says very bluntly. LaRelle is only 14. She's a baby trapped inside a grown woman's body.It hurts me to think that at 14 she's no longer a virgin. Who would have sex with a 14-year-old that is clearly so lost? "Anyone 14 and older" my mother replies.

I think I'm drawn to LaRelle because I see a younger me in her. She floundering in a whirlpool of pressures to find love, acceptance, and identity. I watch as she comes in every single day in her leaning high heels. Her see through shirts with hot pink zebra printed bras. Her tight pants that show hints of thongs before she bends over. I come to the conclusion that she has no one to show her what's right and wrong. Her older sister is 16 and pregnant. And while I never hear them mention a mother, they tell me that their grandmother is pregnant too. Which is scary in itself, but shows the type of world they live in.

She's a sweet girl at heart. But she's just that: a baby girl. Her maturity level is that of a 14-year-old, but sexually, she is very forward. I've literally seen her make grown men blush. One day, LaRelle comes up to me and boldly proclaims " I asked Mr. Bill if he like you. Ya'll always around each other and talking." I take a minute to think where she could get that from. True, me and the guest illustration artist,Bill, did talk a lot; but only because I introduced him to the program and I was the only person he knew there. Plus, he was just a weird person in general, and the other staff really didn't know how to handle his awkwardness. Nevertheless, what I realized is a little bit of how LaRelle thinks. In her mind, if a man and a woman are friendly with each other (AND THATS ALL IT WAS BECAUSE TRUST ME, WHEN I SAY BILL WAS WEIRD, HE COULD REALLY BE OUT THERE SOMETIMES- PLUS HE WAS LIKE A 42-YEAR OLD WAITER AND EX-DIE HARD JEHOVAH WITNESS- I DIGRESS), then they must like each other and want to be together. Maybe this is why she's on Depro-Vera. In her head if a boy- or man for that matter- show her the slightest bit of attention, then he must be interested. And it was all so simple then: she equates someone showing her attention to someone having feelings for her. And someone having feelings for her maybe means they want to be with her. And if someone wants to be with her, they want to have sex. And sex equals love.

Any Given Playground

"It just hurts so damn bad." I sit on the other end of the phone this morning not knowing what to say. What can I say? I'm a southern girl trapped in a whirlpool that I'm realizing is considered the "inner city." The room is quiet in her background, and so is Tisha's* tiny voice as she cries and relays to me the events of this past Thursday.

Being in a relationship with an older man who has more than enough kids, attached to even more baby mamas, Tisha has gone above and beyond the call of duty in the girlfriend handbook. Thinking she was crazy at first, I didn't say much, but then I came to the conclusion that she is one of those people who don't love easy - but when they love, they love hard. She has taken his kids- every one of them- in as her own. From babysitting and spending time with them, to dress shopping with his daughter and getting her ready for prom. And while they are not officially married, I'm sure common law went into effect some years ago, as she genuinely considers his kids her "step-children " because she does so much for them; in some cases more than their own mothers. That's why when Mrs.Flemanns casually mentioned yesterday as I was leaving work that Tisha's "stepson was shot" I knew there was more to it.

"I'm upset and hurt, but i can't say I'm surprised," Tisha starts. Apparently Chris was hanging out with some fellow gang members who had just been involved in an altercation. These associates did not tell Chris that they had just jumped a 15-year-old in the neighborhood. Upon finishing the fight, the boys went to the playground, and invited Chris for a game of basketball. "As soon as he got out on the court, the little boy they beat up came back and just started spraying the playground. My stepson was hit first in the arm. Then the side. Then the leg. And then the chest." As she starts to sob she tells me of faint pulse he had in the ambulance, and finally at the hospital while surgeons were giving him a fighting chance, he just "gave up."

I can picture her thin body shaking in the darkness of their row house in West Baltimore. I try to console her over the line, but I know there's nothing I can say to make this better. Sadly, this is just another 16-year-old black male that has lost his life to these Baltimore Streets. I begin to think of my students.

Fear: One day, one of these students that I have grown to care for and genuinely love, will walk out of here and not come back.

Fact: It could easily happen on any given basketball court in this city.

When did playgrounds become killing fields?

Superman's Helpers

I came to the conclusion that Sharon was operating at a lower level of effectiveness because she was wishy washy. Some days she was stern, other days she just gave up and let them run her program. I gathered that she was upset, maybe because the kids fell in line with what I wanted. Or maybe because they didn't give me any problems and usually did what I asked within a reasonable amount of time.

That first day, when the kids realized Sharon was not coming, they naturally began to test me. Cell phone use in the middle of me talking. "F-bombs" flying around. No one participating. And one student Alycia, had brought her child to class who was running over everyone and everything. I began to panic and think to what would be my next move. I refused to be their Sharon. I stopped the class. Everyone sat lazily on the couch and gave me blank stares.

"Why do you come here? Every single day you come for three hours. Why do you waste your time and my time? No one every wants to get anything done, all ya'll want to do is sit around and play spades. So why come here? You can do that on the corner."

The look on their faces was priceless. They were shocked that I told them straight up and down that they were wasting my time. After their initial shock, one by one I made them answer.

"I come because its fun," one said, " I come because it give me something to do" another replied. And that's when I realized why I come. It was clear as day to me that winter afternoon: I go because they need me, whether they realize it or not, I go because my being there, helping run this program gives at least 16 black kids an alternative to being victims of these streets. I go because it seems like death comes easier than anything else to these kids. It can and does happen anywhere. Street corners, bus stops, alleyways and bedrooms easily penetrated by bullets.

Looking back, I still grapple with the fact that I questioned why I go- even after my car was junked and I had to take two buses there and back. At times it seemed hopeless, like I running up an endless hill with 50-pound weights tied around every limb. But now, I can honestly say that I go because in the end, however inconsequential these black children are to our government and system- this program literally saves lives. We may not be superman, but our little non-profit surely could give him a run for his money.

Case Closed

"I'm one of those niggas you just can't help. I don't want nothing and you can stop wasting your time on me," says Lacee*, my 17-year-old student. I quietly wonder if he can hear my heartbreaking, or the see the tears welling up in my eyes; and they so desperately are seeking release. I look to the lead teacher to my left, Sharon, and the look on her face tells me everything I need to know: Yes, he's serious - and I've already given up on him.

I guess I should start at the beginning. My internship as a theatre teacher at Lake Clifton High School officially began four months ago. Upon entering the school on my first day, I felt like someone had trapped me in an eerie scene from Lean On Me. Students sat on the front steps on the auditorium smoking cigarettes in the middle of the school day, and in the atrium, I was greeted with the pungent smell of grape dutches and ganga. I quickly switched into my "inner city" mode as I realized before hitting the office, that these kids would rip me and my Southern Belle charm apart if I didn't get it together.

When the after-school arts program began thirty minutes later and the participants began to stroll in, I began to promptly look for the crew of MTV's Punked. Was this a joke? My "students" were 17 to 21-year-old young adults who for whatever reasons, hadn't or couldn't graduate from the three schools located on the campus.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Lake Clifton is no longer one high school. Instead the city thought it a profound idea to divide the campus and put three different schools within the confined deteriorating walls. Reach Partnership, which by far is the "elite" of the campus, educates children from 6-12th grades. Heritage High School isn't far behind, and the demon seeds of Doris M. Johnson bring up the rear.

In those first months, Sharon was so unreliable that I never knew what to expect. I still remember my first day teaching the children alone, due to Sharon going through her first trimester of pregnancy. In a word I was...PETRIFIED. These kids were straight inner city Baltimore born and raised. A good bit of them had been raising themselves for years, so they had no respect for authority because in their world- they were the authority. I quickly realized that I couldn't be timid or become transparent.

First, I refused to answer questions about my age. What would these "students" do if they realized I was only a mere 21? - only 9-12 months older than them? Right- run over me. And plus, with me being female, all the boys were hanging off me trying to figure out if I was young enough for them to have a chance...or old enough to teach them something new. I purposely kept them in the dark and the boundaries have been all the more clearer for it.

Secondly, I began to enforce every rule and put a few in place of my own. There was no foul language. No cell phone use during activities. No interrupting scenes by walking in and "dapping up" all your homeboys individually while actors were on stage. I quickly realized that my strongest opposition wasn't even from the "kids." But rather, from Sharon. "You can't tell the kids they can't use their cell phones- this isn't school so we don't have that authority," she would say. If it wasn't that it was "Sometimes the way you talk to the kids is very stern. And they don't like it." She even went as far as to bring it up my manner of discipline and the way I dealt with the kids, their issues, and their attitudes in a staff meeting. "Alexis can be very strict at times, and sometimes the way she talks to the kids can be really...harsh and she does it with a smile- that's what scares them," she says in her whiny pregnant voice. The program director quickly says "Do the kids respond to it? Does she get things done?" and with a quiet "Yes, its effective," the case was closed.