Proactive Reflections

It’s interesting how guys like my friend Tommy opt to participate in programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters, proactive programs, who are in such upsettingly unfortunate situations with such unsettlingly unsure futures. Tommy is taking his future into his own hands. He knows that he can and deserves a better hand than the cards he was dealt. I am surrounded by the most fortunate of people. People who opt to do just the opposite of Tommy. Surronded by guys with every door cracked open for them. All they have to do it nudge the door ajar whereas Tommy’s door is bolted shut. Someone give this kid a chainsaw. Thank you. I have become more and more hostile to former friends who I am forced to witness flush their lives away. If you’re not going to use your future, can I give it to Tommy? He really wants it.

I wrote this poem reflecting on the aloofness and laziness that has unhealthily surrounded me for too long. What can I do other than reflect and plan to react proactively, like Tommy.

the Pretender



Amidst thwarted kings crowns

and burglarized barnacle bars,

a' throne lies our great Pretender

pockets packed with hours of ours



His escapades delightful,

His smile unbesmirched,

His coruscating crowns cosmeticize

His character of dirt



And as us minions leave the court

distressed, disillusioned and disturbed

we bid you adiedu! Oh, great Pretender

to wallow and to weep, while unheard

Week 5: Catch Outside

College. I know this word. To me the word college is tangible, manageable. For Tommy, college is a daunting goal. We discussed college a lot today while throwing around the pigskin. We moved our conversation outside, a nice recess from the musky gymnasium that we usually talk and toss in. Being outside Tommy was much sillier, and more open. I could tell immediately how uncomfortable school was for him. The moment we walked through the doors and the unusual January heat hit his face, a rare smile stretched from ear to ear. I complimented his arm. He can throw it pretty hard for a seventh grader. “Good,” he said, “I’ll need it to get to college.” To Tommy, college is so distant and unrealistic that in his mind a higher education is only possible through sports. Soliloquy ensues. All about scholarship possibilities for hard work and financial need grants. I felt like someone who he trusted had never explained this to him. Hopefully, he will take this to heart. A first lesson, possibly. It was my birthday and I told Tommy that I was twenty years old. He immediately began comparing me to his brother, who he called a bum repeatedly. He explained that his brother was twenty too but wasn’t smart and didn’t go to college like me. He explained all the things he had been arrested for. I made a point to let him know that now he knew what not to do watching his brother’s mistakes. He seemed to take that to heart as well. A second lesson, possibly. Big Brothers Big Sisters is hosting a bowling party a week from this Saturday. Tommy has not stopped talking about it. He seems elated at the idea of hanging out on the weekend. I invited a group of my friends to come to the bowl to meet Tommy. Hopefully they’ll support our program. If Tommy could have any job in the world he would be a professional gamer. He asked me what I’d be. I said that I would probably like to be the host of Real Sports on HBO with Bryant Gumbel. He laughed. I hope soon he develops other passions other than video games and contact sports. I think that’s where I come in. I am going to take a more active role in his schoolwork, while still maintaining our friend-to-friend relationship. I hope he likes my visits. I know that I do I also hope that he is learning from me as I am learning from him.

Week 4

I know Tommy will like this poem. Poetry can be fun. Yah. Sure. I won’t quite phrase it like that though. I want him to think I’m cool. Come on!

“How Did A Hair Get There?”

Pee pours towards porcelain but I can’t really relax. There’s a pube on the tube, how it got there, un-knew. Oh how bile a blunder to me. Us manly men in the room wonder just who put this pube in our porcelain potty; why are you there little hair? Who left you to wet and wither? Of interest to me, is he three-foot-three or does he enjoy to leave bits of himself for me? To see this there, this curly black hair, has ruined my splendid splashing. Goodbye poor potty, for your owner was naughty and left you to rot on our seat. How this did fall, a mystery t’us all and okay at the same time.

Week 3

All things considered and a good afternoon to you. What have we examined today; Mainly Jewish American literature, unlikely poetic rhythms, strategic marketing planners, la historia chicana, cultural norms, and emigration assimilation. So unimportantly interesting class is. I thought of my little today. How important he is to me already. The brother I never had. He is outstandingly interesting, worthwhile. What is he doing today? How did his football game go? Did he go? Win? Did he do his math homework like he promised me, so we could play catch for longer next time? I want to provide for him like a father. I want to share with him my worldly insights like a brother. He’s so angry. I want to share the love my parents instilled in me with him. It’s too hard. Weeks go by and his grades continue to slip. The hours we spend together aren’t enough. He’s not so angry when he’s with me though. His teachers don’t respect him. I hate that. I hate them sometimes for giving up on him. For sitting in their chairs comfortably numb while he struggles through spelling assignments alone. They don’t challenge him. They cripple him with their empty criticisms and punishments. I want to meet his mother. Thank here for her long hours cleaning the place she works. She’s always busy though. Tommy tells me she hates work. I ask him what he wants to do with his life. He says video games. I say okay. I love his dreams. I miss mine. When was the last time I dreamt? Probably the last time I played with LEGOs. Tommy doesn’t like LEGOs. At least we like football. We have goals. We are going to find a favorite subject. We are going to get better at catching the football. We are going to finish all of our coursework. We are going to be thankful for what we have. We are going to be positive. We are embracing what’s important to us. We are setting goals to be successful in the future. Tommy doesn’t really want to go to college. Well only on a football scholarship. His mother didn’t go to college. His real brother didn’t go to college. He used to look up to his brother, he told me. Tommy said that his brother used to be big and strong. He was smart and happy, his brother. He stole things, Tommy said. Now he’s not so strong anymore after all the jail time. Tommy missed him during his long stints in and out of “that place.” Tommy doesn’t like to be around him. I think he sees himself in his brother and it scares him. We talk about sin. Stealing is the worst sin he says. Not just belongings of others, but of lives, of feelings of happiness. Stealing is the worst sin. He tells me that I am a good big brother. I don’t steal. My heart soars and sinks at the same time. Is there anything I wouldn’t do for this kid? I am so vulnerable and yet two feet taller than he is. Buy him a new football. Pick him up. Drop him off. It’s not enough. He likes to walk around school when I come to visit. Especially when the halls are crowded. He likes to show me off. He doesn’t care that the other kids know I’m not really his brother. He doesn’t care that he only has a few shirts on rotation for school days. At the end of the day when we say goodbye, it’s quick and insincere. Its like he’s embarrassed of our time now ending. Tommy is a part of my community. In the valley of houses below my Fraternity house, is where Tommy lives. I am so selfish for the time I spent atop this hill staring blankly, innocently at the beauty of this view. I am devoted to him as a puppy to a newfound friend. I will not fail at this service to my community and to my friend. There are so many ways to fail and so few ways to succeed. No. That is thinking negatively. We have our goals, Tommy and I. Friends stick to their words, they do, and we are friends.

First Impressions

The first few weeks went by much smoother than I thought they would. The selection process was a breeze. He likes football. I like football. He likes wrestling. I like wrestling. He has been having some trouble at school. Not so much me. He lives with a single parent. Not so much me either. I was nervous when he greeted me at his school. We exchanged glances and after that I think it was a mutual decision to continue on together. A nod would have been uncomfortably appropriate. He was jumpy. Couldn’t sit still through the chaperoned “first encounter”. He was angry too. He told me so. Its okay I said. That’s why we play football. That’s why we hang out. A tour now. I got to meet his favorite teachers. Two of them. Both calm and effortlessly patient. Both easy to talk to and eloquent and soft spoken and lovely. I understood why he loved them. They were motherly. He toured me around his school. I felt like a dad being welcomed into his son’s life for the first time. A dad who thinks the lamest things are cool like the home-ec room or the paintings on the wall or the English room with Twain quotes everywhere, all over the walls. I would have to suppress these feelings, I felt, if we were to become friends, the friend that we both needed. He loves to play video games. That’s going to change I said to myself. Not very productive if you ask me but I wouldn’t tell a friend that would I? For the first day I would oblige him. I showed him a team game I knew online. I didn’t let him win. I thought of it as a first lesson. He laughed though; He’s already different than my eternally competitive friends. We played until the clock hit three and he would have to walk me to the front office. I had to sign in and out with an unpleasant lady, the definition of a practiced smile. Like taking your senior pictures when you’re grumpy. That smile was lame. I told him to think of activities for the next week. I couldn’t think of anything cool to say. My armpits were sweaty. I think he saw them. He’s a good foot and a half shorter than me, of course he saw. With an exhausted conscience and a wet lower back we said bye. At least I didn’t call him Jobin or something. First impression in the funniest sense: A blind man-date that went very well. First impression realistically: Astoundingly heart wrenching and powerful. I’ll be back next week.

My Jar

My friend gave me a jar to put on my shelf where I could place my most valued ideas. I should just screw off the top and there in I would plop all my thoughts. They would cascade into this jar of mine, whirling and spinning around.
But before I could twist off this top to plop my very own opinions and ideas, I had to listen to my friend’s thoughtless thoughts. For his are grossly graver than any wishes of miniscule me. Twist went the lid and out he let slid all what could have been my precious impressions and aims. Then all that I knew was what he put into my jar of a friend’s ideas.
On my shelf it now sits with the crumbling cork covering what I could never put in. My abandoned eyes gaze with an unworried head haze fixed on this sated jar. Shallow and silly it seems nay knowing ones own dreams. I’m watching others’ dreams spinning and twirling on my shelf in a jar.