Creation

I've been volunteering at this Community Development Corporation called Gig(not real name), one of a large, loose band of CDCs of various stripes and levels of accomplishment that work in the poor neighborhoods throughout the city. Gig works in a neighborhood not at all far from where we live. It's a neighborhood, like many in Memphis, that's black and poor, with small, uninteresting looking houses on small uncared for lots. This neighborhood traditionally housed servants of the rich white people who lived in big houses less than a mile or two away. Perhaps the rich were even proud that the poor blacks lived in such 'nice' communities, renting small, shotgun homes with front yard and back. I don't know. But the people there now mostly seem to have a chip on their shoulder. And the pleasantly proportioned, rhythmic, and mildly urbane, wide porch shotgun homes have been replaced with little rectangular brick amoeba houses with shallow hip roofs and slab-on-grade floors; arranged carelessly, haphazardly.
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Three of us walked down the street to open up the teen center. Halfway down the block, a basketball hoop was set up at the roadside, facing the street. A black teenager was at it alone, shooting from the middle of the asphalt, looking like a closed door, a kid who should be in school, learning. "He's suspended", said the education director, a youngish, affable white woman, transplant from Kansas City (and a Reverend, as this is a faith based CDC). She waved and said Hi to the kid as the three of us walked along. The third person with us, a volunteer, a divinity student from the seminary college just up the road, was an attractive young black woman, energetic, and charming.
We opened the door, walked in the teen center (a small, renovated house), but no kids were showing up for tutoring. 300 kids in the neighborhood, didn't they have homework? How about preparing for college? So the three of us stood around the dark little house talking; I asked questions about seminary, church, and Memphis. We gathered casually between the pool table and the Golds gym workout station that took up most of the floor plan, with a makeshift kitchen beyond it- full of donated clothing in piles. The tutoring room, off to the side, with long dining table stood empty of students. One kid walked in, a no-nonsense young man, a bit angry and closed-off. I have seen him there each day I volunteer. Why did he alone walk in, and of all his peers, not a sign?
We kept talking as he walked past us and sat down at one of the computer stations and started listening to music over the web. At first I thought: 'Shouldn't we be tutoring him, the three of us using our talent to inspire him and fill him with knowledge? Lazy us, ignoring him! Content to waste time indulging in idle chit-chat.'  Then I remembered last time I was there, he had been in the tutoring room working half-heartedly on beginner algebra, I had sat next to him, trying to help. He paid little mind to me or the problems, would copy them from textbook to notebook in a scribbly hand, jot down a few calculations, followed by a wrong answer, then turn to the back of the textbook to look at the correct one. Was this the faintest of interest, barely a spark, searching for nourishment? Why was he here, while the vast majority of his friends were somewhere out there on the street, or at home? Was this a haven?
But today he was on the computer while the adults chatted each other up. On the other hand maybe this place is a safe, quiet, haven. What if it's what he needs now? He's got a long road ahead. I hope someone, the right person takes his hand soon, and offers to be a guide.