TEENAGERS
Antidisestablishmentarians: we were in the library discussing people
going against the establishment. Anarchists and protestors people who create
rebellion, strife and all that good stuff. I am supposed to be their mentor,
but I can't stand my mentees – they are all in need of a good lesson about
respect – but they don't know it. I
signed up to volunteer as a study aid. To help people find resources in the library.
However, I was duped.
On my first day the librarian
called me into her office and explained the details of the job.
“We have a big problem in the
afternoon during the school week. The police won't help us, and they suggested
recruiting a volunteer to help manage the teenagers that come in after school.
The teens are supposed to study, but they form groups and talk to much. We
figured if we could get someone in here to guide them it might solve our
problem.”
“So the problem is they just talk to much?”
“Well, no they walk the library,
hide in the corners and make-out with each other, mimic other patrons etc. ...”
“No thanks, I'm leaving,” I stood to walk out.
“Did you finish all your community
service requirements?”
“How do you know about that? You talked to Sergeant Backus huh,” I sat
back down.
So I got assigned to a meeting
room in the back of the third floor of the library. I stand at the entrance on
2:30pm Monday through Friday and march the teens up to the third floor study
room. They hate it. The walls in the room are sound barriers with padding on
the walls: seems to have been designed for this lowly sort of creature, the
teen. I could throw a few against the walls just for fun, and no-one would hear
their cries for help.
Each day I look at their subjects
they are supposed to study, most lie and say the teacher didn't give them any
work. Some try to put their heads down and sleep, while others attempt escape
so they can find a private corner: sex in public places seems to be the latest
teen fad. Every day the sex capaders say the same thing and ask the same
questions.
“Weren't you young once T- Rex?
Come on let us have a moment together”
“That's Sergeant-Rex to you, and sit your ass down. Get your work out.”
“Damm -- why you such a
butt-hole?”
I look at him quickly and do not
answer, starring him down until he buries his head in a book and pretends to
read. - Illiterate little shit in black, stinks like he hasn’t had a shower for
a day or two, hormones raging. His pricey little bitch tries to give me a dirty
look, but bows her head in a book. I speak up and ask them all about respect.
“What is respect? You corner boy, you go first”
“It is something my parents want
and never get”
“Why?”
“Just like you they think they
have earned it. Well none of you have, we are going to take over the world,
change it, make it better.”
“How”
“By inspiration”
“Put your inspiration out there in the world, without respect. What do
you have?”
Silence
“What did your parents do that was so awful? Did they go to work and buy
a house, take you to the doctor, buy you food? You’re all just rocks tumbling
down a hill out of control. No regard for anything outside your own
self-centered view.”
I stopped talking but my mind kept
on thinking, dolts, dweebs – self-absorbed – smashing their families apart,
arguing with mom’s, dad’s, for their own personal whims and pleasures.
“We inspire each other, and we
accept views from each other.” Said a dark eyed wimp at the end of the table.
“Really, that’s all you have to
say. You don't inspire each other and I have seen that first hand many times.
What you see as inspiration and respect is really join my club, be like
us and we let you in. There is no respect in join my club- it’s all false.”
“Hold on T-Rex, we have
individualism, we aren't like all you conformist adults, and we respect each
other for our differences.”
They all nod in agreement.
“Hey pregnant girl, you get
respect from the boy who knocked you up? Where is he? Nowhere- to- be –found!
So now you are sliding up to corner boy over here, you going to give him
something that he wants. How about giving yourself something you need. Stop
making it easy for the boys, take care of yourself, show some respect for your
body and your baby.”
“I hate you … you're an asshole”
She gets up and leaves the room, crying. Corner boy follows her out. The rest
of the table stares back and dreadlocks -Mr Individualism starts to speak.
“Why did you say that to her, it
was mean and disrespectful?”
“Being a mother is hard, you can’t
just follow any boy to the corner and take care of a child, that’s not the path
to raising a kid. However you’re right about what you just said. I need to
excuse myself and go apologize. Mr Individualism, you are in charge. Take
everyone down to the second floor video room next to the reference section.”
I leave to find pregnant girl with
corner boy – in the corner – but right now he is not trying to cop a feel in
public. He has suddenly turned compassionate.
My eyes spot a chair near them. They give me an unwelcome stare.
“Pregnant girl, what is your name?
“Kerry”
“Would you like to report my behavior, I was disrespectful, and you are
owed an apology.”
“No not right now”
“I am sorry Kerry. Corner boy, what is your name?”
“Doug. Who’s watching the group?”
“Dreadlocks or Mr. Individualism- whatever his name is.”
“Let's go down to the second
floor.”
“What are we going to call you, T-Rex?”
“Mr Joyce”
Neither Kerry or Doug were as I previously imagined. We were
separate entities, but out of that, a conversation emerged and nothing was left
out. Families, problems, and friends all became part of the dialog. Kerry told
me the father’s name and told me how abusive he was so she broke up with him. I
told her she had courage and did the right thing. She smiled. I asked Doug a
question.
“Why did you follow her out of the room?”
“ Because you upset her”
“Is that the only reason? How did you feel when she left crying?”
“It hurt me inside. I didn’t like seeing
her upset and hurting”
“You had compassion and empathy, she was more than a pair of breasts”
“Damm you cut right to the bone Mr
Joyce. But you are right. Kerry is a nice girl, she needs love and respect. You
know I have a job, yea I uh bag groceries at Super K foods.”
“So what is next?”
“Mr Joyce my baby is due in July.
Doug has been with me before I was showing. I told him I was pregnant on our
first date. He could have ran, but he stayed with me.”
“Wow
Kerry, it must have been a hard moment, but you told the truth. You showed
courage again. Kerry … I was wrong about you.”
We went down the elevator and
walked into the video room. I walked over to dreadlocks – Mr Individualism- and
asked him his name.
“Dreadlocks- what is your name?”
“Leon Duprice”
“You know I could tell the rest of this bunch looks up to you.”
“How’d you figure that out?”
“I watched, black eyes, sourpuss, and dream weaver all look at you when
you responded to my questions. They all wanted to hear what you had to say and
couldn’t speak for themselves. And the gay twins were in a trance. You were
bigger than life.”
“Their not twins, but they do
dress alike, very strange. What is your name T-Rex?”
“Mr Joyce.”
“We have been meeting here for
more than two months and things were about to get a lot worse. We all voted to
push you off the balcony or something. We didn’t want to kill you, just hurt
you in some way.”
“You know I would’ve taken a few of you over the edge with me, used you
all as a landing pad. But I felt the tension, and something had to be done. At
first my approach to the group was to be a tough guy, show everyone who is
boss. My roots in the Marine’s I guess. But this week I just wanted to talk to
all of you. Instead I had to play babysitter and track you all down again and again.
So I devised a plan to get us talking. I know it was risky, but failure would
do nothing for any of us, because we would not change. I don’t like failure.
Can you get everyone back to the room?”
“Yes Mr. Joyce”
Leon rounded up everyone in a few
minutes. It was clear he was well liked and respected by the others. As they
took their seats they all began to stare at me like some collective thought was
ready to burst out of their uncontrollable mouths.
“Mr Joyce, why are you here?”
“I got into a fight last year”
“No … we don’t believe you, nice
thoughtful Mr. Joyce,” said Doug.
“What happened, did you whip some
butts, blacken some eyes?” commented Leon.
“I was in a bar, minding my own
dam business, commiserating about my lost buddies. The news was on the TV, some
story about three marines killed by a roadside bomb. A regular patron of the
bar was sitting about three stools away from me, he started saying stuff –
‘jarheads, didn’t know what hit them, bet they couldn’t find any pieces of em.’
He was drunk, and I ignored him for a little while, kept on drinking my
beer. Then he gets up and asks me, ‘hey
you were a jarhead, what’s it like over there.’ I just ignored him. He poked
me. I told him to back-off! He jabbed me in the side again and said, ‘you got a
softspot there don’t you?’ I hit him
hard he went over a table and some chairs got knocked down.”
“He deserved it”
“No, I could’ve gotten up and
walked away, but the word softspot hurts
deep with any Marine. When I was in the
war we would go on patrols of certain areas on a regular basis. Our troop
carrier can carry about ten Marines. I was in a patrol that got hit when our
troop carrier went over a roadside bomb. Three of us survived, and one of my
buddies started to look for injured. He walked a few yards and then I heard
those words, ‘I got a softspot.’
A softspot is a dead marine who is
buried under rubble. The few of us that survived completed the search - walking
slowly and carefully using our feet to look for the dead.”
They all sat there speechless,
imagine that a teen with nothing to say, the girls had tears in their eyes and
the boys hung their heads. My innate
sarcasm waned. I regained my composure and thought about refocusing the group
on something besides me, I was uncomfortable with the sympathy and attention
that their eyes bestowed upon me. I thought about where I would start, there
are fifteen students in front of me, none of them depending on me to save their
lives, carry them through battle, the stuff I feel like I understand. But I did
have a gut feeling about a topic.
“Should we as citizens go against
the establishment? Should we rebel and why should we do it? My name is Mr.
Joyce and today we will discuss this question.”
One of the gay twins spoke first.
“My name is John. I believe we
should fight any injustice.”
His twin friend added
“My name is Duke. We should fight
all injustice around the world. There is a lot of bullies who are full of greed
and they want to control everyone.”
Leon cut in and stopped the
conversation. Mr Joyce showed us
something today, none of us really knows the other, in fact we do not know each
other’s name’s. We don’t talk to each other in school. We all started by
description. Leon went around the table and pointed to each group member and
wrote down their names.
Black-eyes. “Bobby”
Dream Weaver.”Cheryl”
Sourpuss. “Kaitlin”
I am Nelson. “Chuck”
Leon injected, “I knew your name
was not Nelson.”
Hedgehog. “Ben”
Mole. “Eric”
War Gamer. “Joe”
Surfer. “Jake”
Baby face. “Jennifer”
Cornfed. “Bailey”
I stopped them for a moment. “Bailey I was wrong for allowing your
nickname to be said in this room. It was hurtful.” The rest chimed in apologies
too.
Descriptions are a wonderful thing
when you are discussing objects. But humans defy this process, we all have
something inside that is not defined by our exterior. We are good, bad, ugly,
beautiful, and many times cruel. Leon had control of the room as I continued to
think about these once vile creatures as humans.
“Lets’ finish our discussion-
going against the establishment.”
“Chaos is good when organized
subjugation has power,” said Leon.
“Fancy words, Leon, but you may
have a point. How else can you break something that is bad without injecting
chaos into the situation?” I said.
“Voting, we can all vote for our
party and our causes,” replied Bailey.
“Good one Bailey, We are going to
vote as soon as we turn eighteen,” responded Kaitlin, Cheryl, and Jennifer,
then they added in unison – as Independents, not dem’s or pink elephants.
“Wow, going against the
established parties of power, without anarchy, you all can organize and recruit
more independent voters.”
“I’m not going to vote. I’m going
to fight.” Then Joe stood up and added, “I do not want this war to continue,
and I will be a part of it’s end.”
“Joe why do you want to do that,
become some warmongers puppet.” Asked Leon.
The rest of them bowed their heads
a little, not sure about how they felt after hearing Joe’s words.
“Joe that is a huge decision. Have
you told your parents?” I asked.
“No. Anyway it is just me and my
mom.”
“You have to tell her and talk to
her about it. You cannot just walk out of your house one day and tell her
goodbye I am joining the Army. You’re her boy, the only thing she knows, and you are everything she has worked for
over the last eighteen years. You will not be ready to be a soldier if you
cannot tell your mother about this – it’s very important. To be in battle you
need a clear head to survive- it is not a video game.”
“Thanks Mr. Joyce. Said Joe.
“I need to tell you all something.
It’s no surprise that I’m not a fan of your age group. I like to keep my
distance. Most adults feel that way about teenagers, but there is a limit to
our displeasure- it is finite. We are not filled with hatred towards all of
you, and we do remember our own youth. But we need to let our dislike of youth
fade, because we also know that you are the future. We look at you and we see
our recent past whether we like it or not.
When you look at adults, it’s easy
to see imperfections, so don’t expect perfection. Teenagers get caught up in this-
this high expectation of perfection from adults- and it leads to trouble.
People become misguided when they want to much from other people. Example, a
guy likes this girl, they talk get to know each other a little, but the guy
gets serious quick, because he needs something- at that moment the girl backs
off. The guy fills with tension and stress because he cannot understand the
situation. This is a huge moment in the young mans life. It is the moment that
he needs to teach himself to walk away, and that is very difficult for a young
man to do. The young man can be filled with thoughts of failure, of contempt
for his girl, of contempt for society. He becomes immersed in failure. But he
has not failed. He has not failed because he tried, and that is more important.
So he sits in a wallow of self-loathing.
This is where he must accept himself- as is – and get up and try again.
And young ladies, you are not off
the hook. You have many problems of your own as you travel on the road to
self-acceptance. Your judgment of each
other based on looks, your need to have the attention of men. Many young girls
believe they are entitled to a fairy tale life, you’re not!
Attraction takes on many forms, and looks are a part of that, but basing
your life- on how hot you think you are- is a trap and you will be your own
prey.
When an adult sees this, they are
repulsed, but they know you are young, so many just let it go- without the
mentoring that is needed. It is moments
of not mentoring when needed that adults fail youth. What both sides need is to
talk and listen to each other, especially the last part, our society if very
loath to listen to one another.”
“ Mr. Joyce, most of us feel that
adults just don’t want to hear it.” Leon commented.
The rest nodded their heads in
agreement.
“That is your moment -- that is
the time when you stand face to face with an adult and demand to be heard.”
End
© Copyright 2014 Artemis J Jones
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