Tessaract

Simultaneous. Tessaract.

Beer. Bars. Halloween and fourteen year olds.

Some where in the world being 14 means you are married and maybe even have a kid. But on this street in this town, being fourteen and sexuality active is a travesty as far as I am concerned. A poorly planned evening ended with me speeding down the 110 praying to get home as fast as could with a young black 14 year old male from the inner city. My street. He had been quiet most the night. So I asked him what he thought of the play we had just see with a bunch of other youth from the neighborhood. This and other things got him talking. Talking about how in 2 weeks he would have a new girl. Talking phrases like, I’ll be dead before I see I see my baby, because if I did get a girl pregnant my father would kill me. These and other things made me step on the gas a little bit more than usual. But then he talked about how he accidently slammed the door on his gf’s fingers when they got into an argument. I connected this with a previous story of how he cussed out a teacher and got suspended, to a James quote: My brothers, be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for a man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life God desires. I asked what eh thought. He said he wanted to memorize it too. I repeated it out loud again, slowly. And the subject had been successfully changed. I aksed him what he thought the righteous life meant and said it made him confused.

I am living simultaneoughsly and only a few houses down from this kid. This sexually active, high school drop out with a speech impediment and lot to say when asked. But my life experience drastically differs from his. This is an obvious statement that needs to be stated none the less. Is it because I am not black? Because I was not raised in south central los angeles? Because I am not a boy? Because his father is not my father? It is all these things and more. Because on our tv stations there are the same shows: jeopardy, America’s top model, and CSI. But the who we relate to on these shows, The who we do not relate to on these shows, are different. He is an endargered species. While I am the one who lives in fear as I the sun is setting and I am still walking home from the bus stop. You should have seen the things I saw the the other day on my urban walk.

I am 23 and I just learned where “the jungle” , but this is a word that rolls of his tongue like it aint no thing, and it anit not thing, because that is just what Baldwin Park is called.

But, yet, and, with, I believe in God. A God who desires a righteous life from both of us. Desiring no less from me because I am girl, desiring no more from him because he is a 14 year old black male in south central. And as I hope for myself, and my future, I worry for his.