Haunted: Literary Tragedy

I took two steps out of the room and stopped, turning on my heels to retrieve a stack of papers I'd left on the desk.  There was an unnatural silence within the steel and concrete confines, soon followed by a hushed sob.  Within the time it took to cross the five feet to where the stack of papers lay as still as the pairs of eyes following me, the cry took on an unearthly tone.  The boy, just at the cusp of manhood, had opened his throat and all of the pain inside released in a torrential flow of fear and regret.  I quickly grabbed the paper, did my best at a reassuring smile and walked away.  Not because I wanted to; there was nothing I wanted more than to take the boy in my arms and coddle him like one of my own children - to tell him that everything was going to be alright, whether I believed it or not.  Anything to bring the subtle hint of comfort to a tortured soul.  But there are strict rules against that kind of behavior.

To quote my favorite poem, T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men", This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.  This is where we have failed.  Not on a personal level, not even on a social level, but as a species.  I can say this in all honesty because the above isn't non-fiction, it was the last thing I saw before I left work yesterday.  Nor is this an isolated event.  I work in a juvenile detention center.  I watch kids between the ages of 10 and 17 be marched in with lost, hopeless looks shaded by red, puffy eyelids down long, blank corridors.  They're sent into a pod, pointed towards a steel door with a tiny window.  They walk in to find a stainless steel sink, a toilet, and a thin green mattress with all the comfort of a sleeping bag.  They put down the thin linen blanket, step out of their room, and take their place in a green chair.  What's next?  Nothing.  Nothing but time.

There isn't a child in my care who doesn't belong there, regardless of what they tell me.  We get the occasional rich kid with a good home life who got mixed up with drugs.  They're the biggest criers most of the time.  The rest, however, fall into that horrid Nature vs. Nurture argument.  Kids turned out by their parents for being too much trouble, kids put on the street to earn money to support their mother's meth habit, kids who have been in and out of the foster program their whole lives, hoping the sexual appetites of the next home aren't as prominent as the last.  These aren't fiction... these are my kids that I see every day.  These are the ones who panic when they're released and return to prison with a smile.  A smile to see a friendly face who cares about them.  A smile to let you know that, for the first time in weeks, they feel safe.

This is where we have failed.

I watched a kid grab his linens, making his way out of prison with a more hopeless look than the way he came in.  CPS became involved in his case, and he wouldn't be returning home.  They found him a new 'home' within the foster care system.  And while we see it as beneficial, maybe it'll be better than the life he left behind, that abusive, coked-out mother that he's leaving behind is the closest thing to love he's ever known.  Despite their faults, my students cry themselves to sleep at night, calling desperately for their parents.

This is where we have failed.

I don't work in the ghetto... I work in the suburbs.  I work with kids that play on the same playgrounds and attend the same schools as your own.  I work with kids that sit in the back of the class.  I work with the kids who refuse to do work because they see no point in it, they have nothing to look forward to.  I work with the kids that most teachers would breathe a sigh of relief to know that they've been sent away and they're not their problem anymore.  No child gets left behind, they get left with us.  I work with the kids our society condemns, and I love every one of them.

I wrote a piece not long ago about building antagonists.  I won't call myself an expert, but I watch them grow every day.  The majority of my students will rotate in and out of the system their whole lives.  I hate to say it, but it's a losing game.  I get letters from prison from former students, not accusing or apologetic, just voices reaching out to say, "Hey, how you doing?"  Very rarely do I get a letter from a former student in college, a wedding invitation or a sonogram picture saying, "I want to be a dad like you."  These are the moments we pray for.  This is the 1 percent.  As for the 99 percent....

This is where we have failed.