School of hard knocks

If you know who I am, you probably know that I'm interested in working with people—especially teenagers—in inner-city neighborhoods. You also know that I'm a most unlikely candidate for the task, being as I am a naïve white boy from a small town. However, as a Christian who has been particularly inspired by the words of Isaiah 58, I am deeply saddened by poverty and violence and driven to do something to combat them. Until two months ago, my involvement amounted to volunteering in various programs, but after graduating from school and getting a job near Indianapolis, I wanted to move to an inner-city neighborhood, live there, and get heavily involved. The short story is that I'm doing it (sort of); the long story is this blog.

So much occurred in the last few weeks that I decided to document it in this first entry. This blog is intended primarily as my personal journal, though I invite family, friends, stalkers and others with an acute interest in my life to peruse it. I apologize in advance for its lack of concision and eloquence.

June 16-July 17. Before I moved to Indianapolis from you-know-where, I tried to get connected with a program that focused on urban outreach. I sent in an application and letters of reference, but they didn't call back. When I checked on the status of the application, they said they'd had a change of staff. Their Internet was down, so they couldn't do a background check. The next week, they promised that my application was in process and had been sent to the right man. The week after that, they said he'd been gone all week. The next week, I just left a message, which was never returned. I didn't have any promising leads from other organizations in Indianapolis, either.

July 18. After a dreadfully lonely month feeling like I was going nowhere fast, I discussed my predicament with my good friend W. As you know, W is a tough, street-smart man who grew up in a rough neighborhood in a big city, so he has an insider's perspective. He recommended that I not get involved in a big organization. "Just go there," he suggested. "Find the cheap houses, play basketball with kids on the streets, go to dinner with the guys in a local restaurant." Be one of them. "You'll discover small neighborhood organizations that are perpetually under-funded and understaffed," he continued. "Those are the truly effective groups. But you'll never hear about them unless you go there."

Both W and I predicted that it would take weeks of consistent visits to gain enough trust to have a significant conversation.

July 19. I drove to a place called Brookside. There was a van on the street from a local outreach program, and I called the number on it. This was my first interaction with a guy named Bob (more about him later). Just as W had predicted, there were kids playing basketball on the street, and I watched their game. As they were dispersing afterwards, I introduced myself. "I'm new around here. Do you know a good place to eat?" They mentioned Burger King, and I motioned for them to hop in my car. We got some burgers and chatted a bit.

They were nervous the whole time, but they finally asked if I was a cop, which I thought was amusing. They asked where I was from and what I was doing. I told them about my job. They were profoundly impressed by my phone, which looks far more expensive than it really is. There were the obligatory questions about my sexual orientation and habits. "Do you go to church?" B probed.

"Yes," I replied. "I'm a Christian, and I take it pretty seriously."

"Everybody does." Really? That's news to me.

It was a cordial meeting that night, and I was pleasantly surprised by how welcoming everyone seemed. To be sure, no one trusted me (or vice versa), but I was not openly or explicitly rejected. One guy, B, seemed particularly friendly and open, as did his friend K.

July 20. Hung out some more. They asked me when I'd be back next. Saturday.

July 22. Had an encounter with a drug dealer guy. He asked me what I was doing there, asked to see my car, checked my ID, told me to get rid of my watch because he thought it was a bug, patted me down, searched the trunk. He was skeptical. "You just don't belong here," he insisted. "We're not racist," he continued. "Look at me—I'm Hispanic, they're black. But any white guy like you is either a child molester or a cop."

"Watch me," I said. "I'm neither." I told him why I was there, and I was honest, but he didn't believe it.

Later, I took K and B to the mall. They both were cool and seemed to enjoy it. We had lunch and hung out. They nicknamed me "L"; hence the title of this blog. After a while, B told me, "There is one thing I think about all the time—getting out of the hood. I want to do well in school next year [he's an incoming senior], stop doing weed, and go to college away from Indy and its bad influences." I promised him that I'd do what I could to make this happen, and I assured him that he could succeed. I had thought it would take months to achieve this level of communication, but this was only the fourth day.

July 23. I went to Bob's church. Bob, as you recall, is the director of the local neighborhood program, and he's a retired schoolteacher and coach who has been working in this neighborhood for 16 years. The church was reminiscent of my church in Atlanta—very casual, genuine, and extremely outwardly focused. I loved it. Loved it.

July 24-28. Went back to the hood several times. The guys loved to drive my car. "What?!" you scream. "You let them drive your car?! Are you an idiot?" Well, if the security of my car were my paramount concern, letting them drive it would have been stupid, but security wasn't my paramount concern. I wanted to extend myself somewhat—give a little trust to earn a little trust in return. They pushed the limits a bit, but on the whole, it was ok.

During this time, I was looking for a house in the neighborhood. I wanted to move in and just be a neighbor.

July 29-July 30. Visited old friends in Ohio and met some new ones. Had an absolute blast. Amazing conversations, great memories, fun times.

July 31. By this time, I had learned that bringing cash was silly; if they asked for it, I could simply say I didn't have any. But my credit card got stolen that evening (long story).

August 1. Next day, I returned to show them that I wouldn't back down (besides, canceling my card wasn't such a big deal). We went to DQ and had some ice cream, and when we returned, some of the kids drove my car, as usual. Until now, I hadn't checked for drivers' licenses because the kids obviously knew how to drive, and they never went very far. I thought the police were after drugs and other contraband and didn't care if kids rolled around the neighborhood with a licensed driver/owner present in the car, but their behavior today showed differently. One young driver saw the policeman on the street and drove slowly to the next street; then all the kids suddenly piled out of the car and fled. I got out and confronted them about that behavior, since they were obviously doing something wrong. Then I drove off myself, but some other guys asked to let them ride, and I obliged.

The police, of course, had been watching me for the last couple of weeks, and they had finally had enough. One officer pulled me over and asked all the normal questions: license, registration, etc. He got names of all the kids in the car, then interviewed each outside of the car. Finally, he simply asked what I was doing over there ("you're a 23-year-old with three 14-year-olds in your car," he observed testily), and I explained my situation as honestly and candidly as I could. "I've been involved in urban outreach for a few years now, and I thought I'd be most effective if I simply came down here, hung out with the kids, and then moved into one of these houses."

"Is that why you've been stopping to look at houses for sale?" the officer asked.

"Sure is."

After a bit more conversation, the policeman asked: "How long have you been here?" After informing him that I'd been in Indiana for about two months, he replied, "I've been here forty years, and I don't believe you." All I could do was ask him to watch me, and all he could do was send me on my way. I do, after all, have a spotless record. I never got questioned by the police again, but I resolved to require the kids to produce a license or permit before driving my car.

August 3. I made an offer on a house. It was a fairly nice 3 bedroom/2 bath apartment with a 2-car garage. It had been partially remodeled, and although it still needed some interior work, it appeared to be in great shape. Better still, it was within one block of where all the kids hung out, and I thought it would be an ideal place to live and work. They wanted $40,000 for it, and I offered $35,000.

August 5. Hung out some more, went to the mall, was offered weed (again) to prove I was cool, declined.

August 6. Went to church; loved it. Drove a couple of older women home. Both had lived nearby, but they had both moved south to a suburb because they'd been injured in the neighborhood. One had been raped, and the other had been blinded by a gunshot wound.

I returned to the hood that afternoon. As usual, the kids were sitting in my car listening to the radio and talking on my cell phone. The radio in my car doesn't work without the key in the ignition, and today, I made an enormous, and enormously stupid, mistake. I got out of the car, assuming that we had adequately established that they could drive only with me inside. An older guy who is very immature drove away before I could do anything about it. He returned a couple of minutes later, obviously very pleased with his little joyride. He parked the car a fair distance from where I was standing, and then a little kid from the passenger seat got into the driver's position and drove away. Thus began my worst day in Brookside.

After twenty minutes of not seeing him, the drug dealer guy said, "I'm just telling you—you're never going to see your car again. We told you not to come around here. This is all your fault." Without much to do about it, I finally walked down the street. At the end, I turned around; I'm not sure why. In the distance, I saw my car pull up and the guy get out (but he couldn't see me), and I kept walking toward it. When he finally caught sight of me, we sprinted toward the car, and I arrived first. After a bit more confrontation, I drove off with another guy in the car. He asked me to drop him off at his place, but I told him to get out right there. By the tone of his voice, I knew he wasn't going to comply, so I went back.

At the designated drop-off point, a couple other kids came up to the window, and the three of them tried to take my car. There was a struggle in which they attempted (unsuccessfully) to handcuff me, but they did end up hitting my face with the cuffs, giving me a black eye. When they threatened to do worse, I asked them what they wanted (of course, if they had been older and/or if I hadn't already known them, I probably would have just turned over the keys). They wanted some money, and they indicated that I would get injured if I didn't give it to them, so I complied. I only had one credit card, which they had already taken, and I offered to try to get cash, but I made a deal with them: "You let me drive this car. We get the money. I drop you off. Everything works if there's no funny business on your end." They agreed.

For the next couple of hours, they just wandered around, getting in and out of the car, listening to the radio, discussing among themselves how they would spend their loot, and telling their friends what was happening. At one point, the youngest of the three came up and tried to negotiate with me for $50 more. "My mama needs to pay her rent," he said. Throughout this whole thing, I had never surrendered, and I challenged them several times to think about what they were doing and how it was hurting their future. I asked him again, "What do you want to do with your life?"

"I want to go to college," he answered.

"Is this any way to do it?" I asked.

"No." He conceded that he was doing the wrong thing and that ultimately I would be vindicated, but he claimed that he just "fell into" the situation and therefore had to continue. It was actually quite pathetic. My goal was to lay the groundwork for the future, when he and the two bigger kids might realize the error of their ways.

This saga went on for a while, but we finally drove around to various ATMs. My card had evidently been placed on hold by this point, and in any case, I didn't know my PIN because I had never drawn cash advances. So I offered to go to a store and buy them stuff, which would require me to lose money but would deprive them of cash to buy illicit materials. They initially agreed, but after the cash withdrawal process continued to be unsuccessful, they drove away, by themselves, leaving me about a mile from the neighborhood. This was the second time that day that they drove my car away, and this time they had no incentive to return, seeing that they had just violated the terms of our deal.

I walked slowly back to the neighborhood, questioning whether I had made a major mistake in going there in the first place. Deep down inside, I still knew I was supposed to be there, and I had no intention of backing down even if I never got my car back. When I reached the street where it had all started, I felt like I should go to the next block (personally, I'm convinced this was the Holy Spirit, but that may strike you as a tad unscientific and/or mystical). About a quarter mile down that block, I heard my car turn onto the street and speed toward me. I stepped out onto the street and motioned for them to stop, which they did. They seemed somewhat more forlorn this time, and I rode with them around the block.

When they reached the corner, several of the other kids in the neighborhood were looking on. I chided the thieves for failing to uphold their end of the deal. "What have I done against you? I've treated you with nothing but respect, and this is how you behave?" The other kids essentially told them to let me go and give the car back, which they did.

My car was taken twice that day, and both times I should have never seen it again. I got a black eye, but that's not terribly important. My cell phone was gone. I had none of the shell shock that people sometimes suffer after being mugged; after all, I had kind of expected this. I knew that when I returned, however, I'd need a cheap car that I could abandon easily.

August 7-8. I returned for my cell phone, but this time I didn't get out of my car or unlock the doors. I just asked them if they had it and offered to pay, but no one seemed to know its whereabouts.

In other news, Bob invited me to his house, saying he wanted to get to know folks who worked in the neighborhood.

August 9. The phone had been sold to someone else in the neighborhood, and she picked up when I called my number. After explaining the situation, she agreed to sell it back to me, especially since Verizon had placed an outgoing call block on it, thereby rendering it useless to her. Unfortunately, the kids had erased my data, which was my primary motivation for getting the phone back. (I had a backup from 2 months ago, though, so I have most of my phone numbers.)

That evening, I found that my revised offer on the house had been accepted, and I could own the house for a mere $36,700, with the seller paying closing costs. Even though the house wasn't the best investment, it seemed like the ideal setup for my purposes.

After retrieving my phone, I went to Bob's house and enjoyed his wife's amazing dinner. Both were extremely welcoming and insightful. Bob grew up in Brookside, and after retiring from teaching 16 years ago, he founded and directed an outreach program for youth in the neighborhood. He's now 76, and he's just as energetic as much younger guys. The program provides after-school activities, safe transportation, and nutritious meals to the kids. Many of them have progressed all the way through the program, gone to college, and returned to work as staff. I hope to get involved with Bob's program in some capacity.

At dinner, I told Bob about my plans, and he was supportive. One great thing about Bob is that he's not territorial or egocentric, and he works warmly with other people and programs in the city. He never lets the program get in the way of the people. He also knows virtually everyone in the neighborhood, and he's been there long enough to be an outstanding advisor. I really hope to get to know him and his wife better over the next few years.

August 10. My friend W is in college now, and he came to town to spend the week between his summer and fall semesters. He has been an invaluable resource because he has first-hand knowledge of what works and what doesn't. W told me that there was another guy in his old neighborhood who tried to do the same thing I'm doing, and he has often compared and contrasted our approaches.

August 11. Bought an old Pontiac Firebird for $500. Unfortunately, it cost some moola to fix it up. The V-8 sounds like the choirs of heaven. W strongly suggested that I get a "hot" car to retain respect; he said that while the ultimate goal is to model honor and responsibility, it is essential to demonstrate financial success so they know there's a different, more ethical way to achieve it. I'm still not sure I buy that line of reasoning, but I'm going to trust W on this one because he insists he knows what he's talking about. By the way, I'll just leave my old car at a friend's house in an undisclosed location so it won't be a sitting duck for would-be carjackers.

August 13. W and I went to church. He enjoyed it as much as I did. Afterwards, we went to Brookside. The first person we saw was the ringleader from the crew that tried to steal my car the week before. He demanded his money, and I told him that he hadn't kept his end of the deal and that I didn't have any money to give him. He made it clear that he didn't care about the deal, but that he wanted his money immediately. He then got very loud and boisterous and tried to pick a fight, although he didn't take the first swing until a sizable crowd had gathered. I chose not to restrain him because I thought that was dishonorable and would simply invite interference from bystanders. As soon as he took the first swing, however, W grabbed him and pinned him against a fence ("you should have seen the look in his eyes!" W said later). Although W was not going to hurt him and didn't even punch him, all the other guys immediately jumped him. W threw a few punches, got back on his feet, and asked, "Why are you jumping me?" He explained later that this was an insult: none of them was willing to confront him one-on-one. W definitely gained their respect in the process.

For my part, the little guy slapped me a few times, but I didn't slap back or even restrain him. W said I should have just held him down since I could have done so easily, but I didn't know that was the proper response (yeah, I'm one dumb dude). In any case, neither W nor I got hurt.

The drug dealer guy said, "We told you not to come around here. Now leave and don't come back." We walked away and returned home.

After a long conversation, W said he hadn't thought the situation was as bad as it turned out to be. "I didn't realize you'd already managed to make enemies," he said. W advised that I stay away for the time being, but he recommended an alternate plan. "Get a house in a decent location in the center of the city," he said. "That way, the guys who want to work with you can take the bus to your house. This separates the good guys from the punks, and since they're on your turf, the balance of power is shifted in your favor." I hadn't closed on my house, so I called my realtor and told her about my change in plans. She said it wouldn't be a problem. I'm back to square one now.

I'm curious what you readers think about this whole situation. Over the past few weeks, I've gotten quite a variety of reactions. Some people think I'm crazy to work with kids in violence-prone neighborhoods. A few say that kids like these will never change, so there's no reason to waste my time on them. Others say I'm doing the right thing. Obviously, I've made up my own mind and I tend to be rather incorrigible, but I promise that I will try to take well-reasoned criticism into account (anyone can leave comments on this blog, or you can simply email me if the comment is private).

It is no small comfort to me that my actions have been in the offing for a long, long time. I've wanted to be involved in inner-city outreach since at least my freshman year of college, which was five years ago. Two years ago, W told me: "If there were a community center in my neighborhood where kids could play sports and study, they'd have a safe place to go and wouldn't be in so much trouble." A house can never be a community center, of course, but I'd love to provide a safe place for a few kids who need it most—and I've been gunning toward that goal for two years. Months ago, I made my job selections on the basis of inner-city outreach opportunities (i.e., I would have never joined my current company if it hadn't been accessible from a major city). I may be reckless, but I'm not impulsively so.

What's the next step? W says I should take up boxing to "toughen up." I'd never considered that, but I guess it would be a worthwhile skill, and it could replace the exercise I do now. Is moving to a modest house in a safe neighborhood and opening it up to kids from Brookside a smart idea? It has been difficult for me to confront the reality that if I move into Brookside, I'll simply play a dangerous cat-and-mouse chase with various thugs. My primary objective, which is to help willing students to succeed, would thus be thwarted. Pray for me; I need wisdom. Common sense, too. I am still as thrilled as ever to be involved in this work.