"Putting in Work..."

Sunday morning, at about 8:30am, I had a hour long, one-on-one conversation with a smart kid that I have known for just quite some time. I first met him when he was around 9 or 10. A happy kid, always smiling, cracked a lot of jokes, was definitely hard-headed, but he was smart...still is. I hadn’t seen him since then, and when I saw him on Sunday, I dapped him up, gave him a half hug, and we sat to catch up.

He’s now a teenager at 15. A high school drop out. Has a criminal record. He wears a bracelet around his right ankle that not only monitors his whereabouts, but dictates his need to be home by a certain time each day...or else he goes back to jail. He’s from and lives in a rough DC neighborhood.

Although I hadn’t seen him in quite some years, he felt comfortable enough to open up to me about his situation. In conversing with him, I gained some insight on the mentality of youths growing up in his situation...for better or for worse.

I asked him what was going on and how did he get to this point. He tells me that one day a few years ago, before he took a turn for the worse, he was walking down the street, and got jumped by a group of people. When I asked him why, he responded “...because I’m from my neighborhood and they are from theirs. I didn’t do anything personally to anybody, but they knew where I was from, and they don’t like any body that comes from my neighborhood...anybody. Ever since then I said, if I’m gonna get jumped just for being from that neighborhood, then I going to start hanging with the guys that will have my back. So, I started putting in work...”

”Putting in work...” That phrase really stuck out at me, so I asked him to define it. I learned that it means, if one person in the neighborhood wants to fight, then they all want to fight. One person’s beef, is owned by the entire group. If one person wants to go steal cars or rob a house or beat down somebody, then he’s got folks that will back him up in that pursuit. It means that at times, you have to get some dirt on your hands for the benefit of the group...whatever that may entail.

He tells me that the bad blood between the two neighborhoods began way before him. He says the “OT”’s, or “Old Timers”, of the neighborhood had the same beef, and the crop of OT’s before them had it. He doesn’t even know why he has hatred for that neighborhood, other than the fact that it’s always been that way.

As we continue rapping, he tells me that he dropped of high school because not only did he get into a fight with a rival, but in this state of bad blood between the two groups, his group struck last. He was attending a high school where more students from the rival neighborhood went than from his neighborhood...so he dropped out in fear of retaliation...in fear of death.

Getting away from it all is something that he says he wants to do. But, before he can leave he has “unfinished business.” “Come on man” I say to him. “What kind of ‘unfinished business’ can you possibly have?” Apparently, at 15 he needs to make more money, he needs to see whether or not his girl is pregnant, and he wants to fight this one guy. He feels that he lost the first fight and needs to redeem himself.

I say to him, “there has to be folks who came up in your neighborhood, that graduated from high school, that didn’t get involved in all of this nonsense.” He agreed, but says they are few and far in between. I say this because I know he could have been one of the lucky ones.

I am troubled because this is a dude that used to look up to me when he was younger, when he was innocent, and to some level...oblivious. He made A’s and B’s in school, and had the potential to rise above all of this. He has now become a victim of his environment. I wish I knew how to stop this cycle. Why does a 15 year old kid...a sophomore in high school...need to worry about whether or not he’s going to be attacked everywhere he goes? Why does a 15 year old kid need to worry about being a dad?

On some strange level, I admire the courage of this kid to go through life with all of these worries. Personally, I cannot fathom dealing with those kinds of problems at 15. Personally, I cannot fathom dealing with those kinds of problems at 30.

Of course, I am thoroughly disappointment in him for his decisions and his mindset, but what upsets me even more is that anyone reading this story can guess the color of this boy’s skin, they can guess the level of involvement of his parents in his life, they can guess whether or not he’s around drugs, they can guess whether or not he’s around guns, and they can guess his chances of making something of himself...and be correct on all fronts. There are so many social ills and stereotypes reinforced in his story.

But, there is a glimmer of hope. You see...my conversation with him took place at our church. He attended regularly for some time and stopped about 5 years ago. That is when he and I built up our report. Yesterday morning, was the second week in a row, that he woke up on his own accord on a Sunday morning...caught the bus...and came to church. I don’t know about you all reading this, but I don’t know many 15 year olds that will get up on a Sunday morning on their own, wait for a bus, and ensure that they get to church way before it starts. Let alone the fact that he has no home support, and no one really giving a care what he does. He wants to get away from all of this, finish school, and go to college. Ever since he was 9 or 10, he’s had aspirations of going to college.

I encourage him to keep coming back to church. I’m trying to get him to work with me on some activities at the church to keep him busy and focused on something other than the stresses that he faces. Fortunately, there are other men at the church in whom he confides. After we talked, our pastor lead us in a prayer dedicated to this young man.

In a nutshell, we are praying that Jesus “puts in work” to save this teenager from the mentality and situations that consume him on a day to day basis.