NAKED DETERMINATION - Story #25 "RESPECT"
“…It should be one of the seven
virtues…”
During my difficult years,
I worked part-time for the Recreation and Intervention Program at the City of
Wilmington, NC, for about twelve months. Right then, I could not find a better
job, but I also really liked creating educational, fun activities for the children,
many of whom lived with a single parent under challenging circumstances. My
personal highlight of this career was when I planned a snowball-snowman
activity.
In Wilmington, NC, a town which rarely ever sees snow, that is not an easy thing. Still, I wanted the kids to experience what winter’s fun is all about – minus the cold. So, I asked the local newspaper, the Wilmington Star, to donate old newspapers. The children would crumple them up into ‘snowballs’ and then shoot the newspaper-snowballs over a certain distance into white garbage bags. The younger children would fill a smaller bag, the older kids the bigger bag.
Obviously, the team that filled their bag the fastest would win. But – to gain the upper hand each of the teams had to learn to work with the physical properties of newspaper.
If they crumpled up the paper too tight, the ‘snowballs’ were small, and they needed more balls to fill their bag. If they crumpled them up too loosely, the ‘snowballs’ didn’t fly well. The teams also had to come up with a strategy. Did they want to send in their best throwers first? Or last?
The grand finale of the event came when both teams built a ‘snowman’ out of the stuffed garbage bags. There was so much happiness and the kids had so much fun, it was just phenomenal.
The location was the Hemenway
Community Center on McRae Street. People called this area a ‘not so good’ part
of town. Some of my acquaintances were shocked to find that I drove there every
day – for work.
Was I not worried? “Not really.”
I knew that the children told their families what we did during the afternoon, and I thought that people probably liked that. After all, we had a ton of fun.
There was only one unusual thing, rather one unusual person, who made me wonder. A few weeks into my employment, I noticed him for the first time.
At least four times per week, I would see a man standing at the corner of the little plaza where I parked my light blue Volvo 240 (a 1991 model, now 14 years old). It was obvious that he was watching me. The man was African American, around thirty years old, a good 6’3” tall, lean build, and quite muscular. Dressed in tank tops, he displayed an impressive set of lean muscles in a very demonstrative fashion. He would just stand there and stare. I did not know what he was doing there and somehow, I did not want to ask.
At first, I thought he was just curious. After all, I must have been quite a sight on this particular street. Most often, I would drive up with rolled down windows because the Volvo’s air conditioner had never worked well. The speakers, however, were working extremely well and emitted a wave of sound that filled the street – typically opera arias.
There wasn’t anybody else who played Placido Domingo – loud, really loud – in that part of town. Was this guy wondering what a crazy bird I was? After three months, this no longer seemed like a plausible explanation. Since I did not own too many cassettes (they were getting phased out by then), by now he would have known the repertoire.
The man seemed like a fixture, always watching me or watching me and the kids. I never observed him talking to anybody or even making cell phone calls. He just stood there and stared. Eventually, I asked a few friends what they thought he might be doing there.
“Surely he is a drug dealer…” some said.
“Well,” I said. “I thought about that, but I have never seen him talking to anybody… How would he conduct his ‘business,’ if, indeed, that’s what he is doing, without meeting customers?”
“Well,” they said. “He is dealing when you are inside and can’t see him.”
“Again, that does not explain what he is doing there. If that was the case, he would try to avoid my seeing him. He knows I arrive there five minutes before 2:00 p.m. and the kids don’t go outside before 3:30. So, why would he position himself in plain view when he could avoid that so easily?”
“Well… Whatever… Stay as far away from him as possible. He might be dangerous.”
I carry no prejudice so I was not going to believe anything bad without reason. Then again, his everyday presence made me wonder why he was there.
*
The months came and went. In the fall, the lock of the driver’s side door broke. It was the central lock that locked all doors. I didn’t do anything about it because I thought the car was too old to justify the cost of a repair.
On principle, I never left anything in plain sight in a car anyway. I also did not think that the car was in danger of being stolen. I figured that anybody who knows how to steal a car would find a better choice. Any car thief would probably also know that my car needed gasoline with 91 octane, hence, given the high gas prices, my old Volvo was no catch at all.
When I mentioned the broken lock in the presence of some of my friends, they told me that I was crazy because, “In the neighborhood where you work somebody is going to steal your car. It is better than what some of ‘them over there’ drive.”
*
Then, on a Monday afternoon, as I drove up to the center, I realized that I had forgotten to take my tools out of my car. Over the weekend, I had helped a friend repair a closet door at her house. Now, my toolbox and some loose tools were still in the car.
That was not good! In contrast to my car, these tools were a possible attraction for a person walking by. Always a bit late, I hastily started gathering the tools and putting them into the trunk, which I could still lock. Then I grabbed the toolbox and put that in the trunk, too.
Finally, I went back and checked the back seat to see if I had forgotten anything. As I turned around to slam the door shut, ‘The Guy’ was standing right in front of me.
I had been in such a hurry that I had not even looked to see if he was where he always stood. Now, he stood only three feet from me. I was stunned. How could he have managed to cross the whole plaza without me noticing? At a close distance, he looked even taller than I had previously judged him to be.
I did not say anything, and I
wasn’t sure if I should start getting nervous.
He opened his mouth.
“No worries,” he said with a relatively high-pitched voice, which did not seem to fit his body. “Nobody gon’ break into your car!” Then he turned around and walked to his usual spot.
The next day, as I drove up, he waved at me, with just a tiny gesture. I waved back, with only a tiny gesture too. As I walked over to the center, I wondered if I was under the protection of this man, which was a possibility I had never thought about. Or was it that he wanted to teach me a lesson, telling me that I was well-respected in the neighborhood?
In the weeks to come, I never asked any of the kids if they knew who the man was. I felt ashamed that I had been wondering about him at all. The following January I got a better job and had to leave the Hemenway Center. A few weeks into that new employment, on a day off, I went downtown. I could not help but swing by the Hemenway Center, which was kind of on the way. It was the right time – early afternoon.
The man wasn't there anymore. Nobody stood there. Nobody watched anybody or anything.
AFTER THOUGHT
It is relatively easy to build respect between people who interact with each other. While I know that I did not disrespect the man, I cannot really state that I respected him, since I did not know anything about him. Most certainly I can say that I refused to assume anything weird about him.
He, on other hand, probably knew everything about me there was to know. He probably also made it his business to know, which was something I did not. In other words, I had given him a little respect, while he and who knows how many others had given me a lot of respect.
Most interestingly, respect is not one of the Seven Virtues, though it is one of the qualities which can truly change our society. What if everybody and every organization respected their neighborhood and the bigger neighborhood called ‘the rest of the world’? And, if everybody respected the environment as if it was his or her own backyard… My guess is that a lot of the things that have happened would not have…
No comments:
Post a Comment