I remember it being a long training process. At least 3 or 4 half day sessions where I filled out forms, was interviewed, and then given guidance in how to deal with a "little brother", which is apt when you consider how important a role you are filling in this child's life. I was told they would assign me someone who would mesh with my likes and dislikes. It was all about them, for instance, but I didn't want to be miserable sitting through a football game with a kid who lived for the game when I could absolutely care less. At that time, in this area, the organization was run and funded by Catholic Charities. I remember not being one hundred percent forthright during the interview process and never mentioning the fact that I was gay because I worried that this religious group would not approve me based on that fact alone. I didn't actively hide anything, but I didn't offer any undue information either. Eventually, after all of the questions and preparations, I was deemed ready. It was a good feeling to be told, not actually but by design, "You are worthy of being a role model in this child's life", which I imagine is something that most parents worry about or take pride in at some point during the process. And so a first meeting between me and my "little" was set up. His name was Jonathan and he lived about 20 minutes away from me, not exactly in the ghetto per se but definitely in an area where underprivileged people were known to live. He was 12. My case worker assured me that we had a lot in common.
They lived in a nice little 2 family house and his mother was a friendly enough lady who seemed happy that somebody was going to be spending some quality time with her son. I remember the apartment being pretty dirty though, and it was my first experience with scabies, since his sister had caught it from a small wound on her ankle. For those who do not know and not to freak anyone out unnecessarily but just because it is so fucked up, scabies creates little bugs that form inside of your wound. I remember looking at it and being thoroughly creeped out. Jonathan was tall for a 12 year old, with shaggy dirty blonde hair, a slight overbite, and a lean physique. He was a bit shy the first time we met, but personable enough that he gave me the ok that he would like to hang out again soon. But when I started questioning him what he wanted to do and started with all of the usual things that I liked to do (go to the movies, to museums, to eat) it turned out that he was not interested in any of those things. Or reading. Or pretty much anything that even remotely sounded interesting to me. After the meeting I called my case worker to ask her what I should do. She stressed that I should accommodate Jonathan as much as I could since it was his time I was there to enrich, after all, which didn't sit right with me since he didn't seem to want to do any enriching things, but I agreed. I figured just spending time with him would be enriching in some respects, so I decided to follow through.
Cut to several weeks later, and here I am a 22 year old riding dirt bikes through a muddy forest with a bunch of 12 year olds since Jonathan would always try and involve his friends in our time. Whenever I would suggest something that didn't involve wandering aimlessly around the streets, he would balk. Looking back I suppose it was good that in some ways he at least wanted to be active. But his enriching time served to make me feel regressed and like I wasn't really doing him any good. I could see that he was a good kid, though. Despite the fact that many of his friends were constantly in trouble and dragging him down with them. I wouldn't associate with any of the troublemakers but a few times Jonathan and I would run into friends from school on the corner somewhere and I could see his demeanor change around them. The tough talk, the posturing, the attempts to try and get him to do illegal activities. More than once they would suggest that they go and bust some windows at the school (this was summer) and I had to step in and become the adult figure that I was supposed to be and lecture Jonathan on not letting his "friends" drag him down from the person who he really was. He was a very sweet boy deep down, who loved his family even though he was angry at them sometimes too. Summer became Winter, and my time with Jonathan became limited as he started school again. The last time I saw him I was determined to do something different, so my brother and a friend and I decided to go to New Hope on a beautiful Spring day to walk around and take Jonathan with us. I figured at the very lest it would be a new place to see and some toy stores to look around in and some ice cream before heading home. He hated it, as I recall. He was bored the entire time and the only time he lit up was when he embarrassed the hell out of the rest of us by stomping through a knee high pond and chasing some swans until they all disappeared. He was smiling wide, but he had also caused a public disturbance and had gotten wet and covered with mud from head to toe, not to mention the fact that he had pissed off everyone else surrounding the pond who had been enjoying the swans. It was a humbling crash course for me in just how hard parenting can be. Now at this point in my life, obviously, with my niece and my nephew, I know how to put my foot down and steer them right, but they also have a beautiful, stable and loving environment to grow up in, something Jonathan never did. I didn't know that would be the last time I would see him. But a few days after dropping him off a muddy mess and making tentative plans to hang out again soon, I got a call from my case worker. Catholic Charities was closing up this branch of the organization since there was no funding. I asked her if she thought I should still try to spend time with Jonathan. Despite all of the hurdles, I had grown fond of him and I didn't want to abandon him like so many other people had in his life. She said it was up to me, and that it would be nice if I could. I called his mother shortly afterward and explained the situation to her. This was pre-cell phone days, obviously. Now it would no doubt be quite easy to keep in touch with them and with Jonathan. Every kid, even a less fortunte one, has ways to get a phone. But this was the landline era. His mother agreed that we could continue to spend time together, and when I talked to Jonathan afterward he sounded pleased, if a little weary. But after a few more back and forth phone calls during which time the family moved and went through lots and lots of drama, we inevitably lost touch. I decided not to continue with the organization since by that time I was going to college and working two jobs and didn't have much time to sleep let alone be someone else's source of guidance.
Several years later, I got a phone call. Luckily, our own landline hadn't changed and we hadn't moved. It was Jonathan, sounding a little older and a little more haggard but still with that mischievous compassion in his voice, asking how I was doing. I filled him in and then asked him how he was doing. My heart sank when he told me he was phoning me from a juvenile detention center. It turns out, the year after we had lost touch, he'd molested his little sister. He was honest and forthright about this with me, which I appreciated, and I tried not to judge him and only offer him warmth even though, in my head, I was screaming "What the fuck is wrong with you?!? You were a good person? Why did you let this happen?" But I knew Jonathan didn't have the answer. And I also knew that his circumstances helped steer him into a place where he was capable of doing that. It didn't excuse him, but it certainly helped me to feel sorry about the person he might have been. That probably sounds somewhat harsh since he was only 15 at this point, but I was old enough to have a cynical side and I knew that the chances of him coming back from that were small. But I still had hope for him. He sounded like he regretted his actions, and assured me that he was getting psychiatric help in the center and keeping busy doing chores and learning and that he had even grown to like reading. And he had enough emotional stability to call me and let me know how much I had meant to him. He said he was sending me a letter in the mail and to look out for it and that he would keep in touch as often as he could. The letter arrived a few days later. It just mapped out what he had already said to me on the phone pretty much, but actual physical correspondence has always meant a lot to me (still does), so it was lovely to read what he had written in his own handwriting and hear that he was relatively happy and had a plan to be a better person once he got out of the center. He enclosed a picture. In it, he was vacuuming shirtless in the center. It might have been read as homoerotic oddly enough but Jonathan didn't know that I was gay and he was much too naive to be aware of even the concept. Instead I got the impression that like most teenage boys he was simply posturing for the camera trying to look buff. It did look like he'd tried to flex just as they took the picture. The whole thing, the letter, the picture, and the kind words he had scrawled inside, was actually very sweet, much like Jonathan himself, and the kind person I knew that he was capable of being. I had a massive corkboard in my room at that point filled with pictures of my friends and family, and even though it might have seemed peculiar to some I tacked the picture up in a place of pride, hopeful that Jonathan would overcome his current obstacles. Except that slowly time passed, and I never ended up hearing from him again and have no idea how I would go about contacting him.
Like most of us, when I first heard what Jonathan had done I worried that I could have done more to keep in touch with him and that maybe if I had he wouldn't have ended up in jail. I knew those thoughts were silly. There were at least 10 people ahead of me in a position of guidance in his life, and you can only take so much responsibility for what happens to others. But I think about him sometimes. I hope he is happy and I hope that he has overcome the many stumbling blocks that he faced growing up. It would be nice if he remembered me fondly on occasion, but that doesn't really matter. More than anything, I just hope he is embracing life and giving it his best shot. It's certainly more than life did for him, but it's also all that we have.
