Twice as Hard - 6th Excerpt
TWICE AS HARD - (6th)
First Excerpt
Second Excerpt
Third Excerpt
Fourth Excerpt
Fifth Excerpt
“AJ, you can’t just quit school!” Kendra Kimbrew was beside herself. Her friend Amos was acting weird and she had no idea why. “Think about your future! What kind of life will you have if you don’t even have a high school diploma? What kind of job will you be able to get? You’ll be pumping gas until you’re 65!”
“Actually, I found out about this program through Action for a Better Community that will let me get my GED while I’m working,” AJ said. “Maybe I can get tuition assistance or something for college somewhere down the line.”
“But you’re in the 11th grade!” Kendra wanted to pull her own hair out. It wasn't like AJ to be so obtuse. “What’s the big rush? It’s only two more years.”
“Look, Kendra, I can’t go into it right now, but I need to be making money.”
“But what about your paintings? I thought you were doing good selling them from that shop on Main?”
AJ made an angry gesture and grumbled, “Well, they’re moving a little. But that punk ass Mike is ripping me off, I think. Either way, it’s not enough. I need a lot more than what’s coming through with him.”
“But what about your friends?” Kendra stepped to AJ and threw her arms around him, buried her face into his chest. “There are people that care about you and if you leave you won’t even think about us anymore.”
Feeling very uncomfortable, AJ just stood holding Kendra for a moment. Kendra was a year younger than AJ, and she was one of the prettiest girls at Ben Franklin High School, but she seemed totally oblivious to her own charm. To AJ, she was an earthbound angel.
The two students had met in art class the year before, when then-sophomore AJ had transferred in from McQuaid Jesuit High School, an uppity private school in Brighton, a small suburb south of Rochester. An all-male academy, McQuaid was dominated by Irish and Italian Catholics, with a smattering of Jewish people. AJ forced his parents to authorize a transfer when he threatened to quit school completely if they didn’t let him transfer to a neighborhood school. The young man had been frustrated with the social limitations associated with attending a high school with no girls and he was disgusted with the lack of African American culture. AJ had been one of only 11 black students in a student body of more than 800 kids and the adjustment was not to his liking.
Kendra was a product of the Rochester City School District, but she was of a different cloth than most city school girls. Kendra disdained boy chasing and shallow cliques in favor of sports like softball and almost any activity involved with performance arts. She was also active in a Christian youth organization: “Campus Life.”
What Kendra didn’t know was that AJ had a huge crush on her. Their friendship evolved after AJ broke a leg playing football and required surgery. Kendra would help him carry his books from class to class and she would call AJ at home to check up on him. Even before AJ was injured, he would escort Kendra to her house during lunch, as she lived a mere two blocks away from Franklin and seldom ate in the school cafeteria.
A twisted form of insecurity prevented AJ from ever trying to date his friend Kendra. He thought she was “too good” for him, or that his ghetto style would corrupt her. So he usually backed out of invitations to hang out with her, (accept for the occasional Campus Life gathering in her home) and limited his interaction with Kendra primarily to telephone conversations and school encounters.
“Just promise me one thing,” Kendra said to AJ when they finally broke the embrace.
“Sure - just name it.”
“Just talk to Diane before you go. She’s been asking about you every day and I haven’t know what to tell her.”
AJ groaned. 'Diane' was actually Miss Diane Miller, a young creative writing teacher at the high school. Her youth and “coolness” contribute to students’ liberal use of her first name, but Miller didn’t seem to mind and none of the students ever took it too far.
“Ah, man – she’s gonna be chewing me out forever, Kendra!” AJ complained. “I have a lotta stuff to do today.”
“You promised, AJ!”
“Alright, alright. I might as well do it now and get it over with. Do you know if she has a class?”
Five minutes later AJ stood in outside a classroom door in the first floor west wing of the campus, stoically receiving verbal chastetisement for not taking his education seriously, for wasting his talent and for cooperating with a system that would suppress him by not preparing him for the real challenges of life, as opposed to those AJ saw on the street. Diane Miller knew all about the challenges most of the disadvantaged students at this high school faced and she also knew about the excuses many students used to rationalize apathy. She was tough enough not to despair over the former or settle for the latter. For his part, AJ could say nothing; but hang his head silently and accept what he considered to be a verbal beat down.
Miller was an inspiration to many students at the school, but she had been particularly beneficial for AJ, helping him uncover a raw talent for writing that the young man never suspected was there. Miller first encouraged AJ to write poems, then short stories, essays - anything that struck his fancy. She encouraged him to write whatever he felt – no matter how outlandish or apparently irrevalent. She even convinced AJ to start writing a personal a journal, despite his initial protestations. )"Aw, Diane! Diaries are for girls and sissies, why I wanna keep a journal."
Once again her ability to connect and persuade was beginning to have an effect, albeit not to the degree she wished. She wanted this young man to not turn his back on education, which he seemed hell-bent to do.
“Amos, you must promise me something.”
“What, is there a competition at this school to collect promises from me today?”
“Beg pardon?”
AJ sighed. “Never mind, Diane. Promise you what?”
“Promise me that whatever happens, wherever you find yourself, you will continue to write always.” She peered at him intensely, as if to gauge how closely he attended her words.
The teenager scratched his head, not sure exactly what his favorite teacher meant. “Uh, write what? Poems? Short stories? Daily journal notes?” AJ laughed.
“Yes, Amos.”
“Yes to which?”
“To all of them,” the teacher replied. “I want you to write whatever you feel, whenever you feel like it, Amos. And if you don’t know what you’re feeling, then just write until you figure it out.”
“Okaaay, but why is this so important to you?”
Miller paused for a moment. This was the hardest part. She hated seeing students drop out, especially those who showed a great deal of promise. What can you say to save these kids? They always say they’ll come back and finish school, but so seldom do return.
At 33 years old, Diane Miller had seen more than her share of promising young minority teenagers who left school for the fast buck, the shady promise, the wistful dream, or any combination of the three. Promises to return more often than not ended with Miller at home, crying; when the newspaper or television brought news of another former students carted off to jail or, worse - in the obituary section.
“Amos, you’re a very gifted young man,” the teacher said, slowly and with emphasis on each word. “And with talent always comes responsibility.”
“Talent? Oh, thank you, ma’am,” AJ grinned. “But you beter believe I’ll never quit doing artwork.” But the English teacher was already shaking her head.
“I’m not talking about your painting talent, Amos,” she said, “Although that’s a gift you should pursue as well, so I’m glad you said that. But I’m referring to your talent as a writer.”
AJ burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you said talent and writer and Amos all together. Somehow, they don’t seem to fit all together.”
“I’ve told you about the ‘ma’am’ crap. And you are a talented writer.”
“(Sorry, Diane.) Then how come my papers from you always come back so heavily decorated in red ink?”
“Oh, Amos – that’s just grammar,” Miller said. “There is a big difference between good grammar and good writing. Not to mention the fact that you know the rules of English, but you sometimes choose not to follow them."
“And, anyway, I know professors who never break a rule of language, but every paper they write is pure crap. Believe it or not, there’s something special in the way you put words together, the words you choose, even when you don’t follow all the rules of grammar. I believe you are as much a writer as you are an artist, maybe even more.”
AJ scratched his head and wondered if teachers smoked as much weed as students. But he gave Diane Miller the promise she wanted: that AJ always would keep write - whatever, whenever and wherever he could. Then, with a final hug, he left the halls of Benjamin Franklin High School, as a student, for the last time.
posted by JahStorm @ 10:25 PM
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