I'll post a paper I'm proud of.

How We Played in Peoria

Nestled between two apartment complexes in Peoria, Illinois sits Carver Pool. Peoria is a mid-sized city in a mid-sized state, large enough for big-city problems but small enough to lack big-city glam and prestige. I spent fifteen summers in Peoria, four of them working at Carver: slide monitor then lifeguard, guard then head guard, and finally, assistant manager. The pool is new, bright – a rainbow of umbrellas, toys, boards, a slide – all ringed in the spray of waterpark sprinklers. You can look at its big, pink slide climbing high above neighboring buildings and imagine prosperity. Imagine.

But the city is old, tired. Cityscape Apartments and The Village Green are government subsidized housing – projects. Romeo B. Garrett Avenue, John H. Gwynn Drive, Richard Pryor Place – the names you might not know, local black men who attained some degree of national fame. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Richard Allen Drive, and the George Washington Carver Center round out the list of famous black names. We are not in a nice part of town.

Carver Pool's proper name is John H. Gwynn Jr. Family Aquatic Center. The local kids still call it what their elders always called it, though, Carver Pool – a dilapidated old lap pool Gwynn replaced. Family Aquatic Center is a bit of a stretch, considering the general clientele. Poor, black, young. The same kids came day after day, though I'm sure the generation of swimmers I knew is long gone. Most came because the two dollar admission was bargain babysitting. Many didn't even have these two dollars and begged daily for free admission. Some were locked out of the house all day, nowhere else to go. One ten year-old looked me dead in the eye and tell me he was locked out “cuz Momma's f----n her boyfriend.”

* * *

Life's a bitch and then you die; that's why we get high
Cause you never know when you're gonna go

- Nas, “Life's a Bitch”

“Where's DeAndre?” we asked. Kenny showed up without his older cousin, which had never happened before. While kids under seven weren’t allowed in alone, we usually let the eight year old DeAndre “parent” his five year old cousin. It was an abuse of the rules, but they were good kids, and staggeringly cute. Rules are far-sighted anyway.

“He on punishment!” yelled the irrepressible Kenny, eyes ablaze with anticipation of cool water on a warm day. Most kids would have run off immediately, jumped in the water, but not Kenny. Kenny always lingered around the office, saying hi to the staff, reveling in attention. And so we were able to draw the story out of the excited five year old, still a difficult task. When we pieced it together, we were shocked. The eight year old DeAndre had done drugs.

I've always been taught that some great ugly monster of peer pressure, some tall, dark, sinister (yet so cool) character standing on the corner, some first-hit's-free manipulator is the one pushing drugs. I've always been taught that “no” is the kryptonite of the drug culture – sure death to the beast of pressure. Not for DeAndre, though; he was his own monster.

In the morning he'd left his cousin's cramped apartment, easing out into a fresh summer day, the sheepish sun still reeling from the abuse of winter, proud to be shining and still too grateful to be oppressive. DeAndre grabbed a scrap of newspaper and went out into this new day. Sitting in the parking lot, on the very edge, where some grass has managed to grow in the cracks and damage of ill-maintained housing, he pulled the blades and stuffed them into the paper. This he rolled up into a homemade joint, and lit it with a lighter he had stolen. His eyes glowed watching the flame, nervous, eager, proud. His throat stumbled over noxious, ill-formed puffs of smoke.

* * *

Instead of war on poverty,
they got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.
And I aint never did a crime I aint have to do.

- Tupac Shakur, “Changes”

I had seen him around the pool for a few days. He had shown up around the time the criminals did – occasionally a bus would show up from State in Joliet, and drop off released convicts not far from the pool. He had all the traits of a burnout: the stilted, painful walk, the mumbling speech, the deep lines on his face and the cataract-like dullness of his eyes. Some days he would stand for hours at the fence of the pool, staring vacant, longing.

I opened the pool in this heavy, late-summer morning. I unlocked the fence gates, disarmed the alarms, checked the water levels, and filled out paperwork. I found myself standing then, staring out of the cashier's booth, waiting for the day.

He approached, not quite looking at me. Bored, I lingered, waiting to see what he would say. One hand in his jacket pocket, he finally looked at me directly, tired determination in his eyes. “Give me all the money,” he mumbled, gesturing with his hidden hand, “I have a gun.”

I must have supposed a man who couldn't afford a change of clothes also couldn't afford a gun. “I'm sorry, man,” I lied. “We're not open yet. There's no money.”

Confusion blitzed through his eyes, chased away by disappointed relief. I turned my back, walked away, and never saw him again.

* * *

They demonize welfare,
Middle class eliminated,
Rich get richer til the poor get educated.

- Sage Francis, “Slow Down Gandhi”

Scooby was unique. He grew up in the projects and loved skateboarding. He often got in trouble for fighting in the pool, but it was never fighting for himself. Scooby would see other kids getting picked on and throw himself in the fray, splashing like a maniac, dunking heads underwater, darting in and out of the action. I watched him, on multiple occasions, disperse a pack of five or more kids, bullying the bullies.

Scooby was smart, too. He was articulate, and easily held a conversation with guards six to ten years older than he was. It was so apparent talking to him that his brain was working, really working to figure out the things about him. He liked school, he liked to read, and he seemed to be good at about everything he tried.

“So what are you going to be when you grow up, Scooby?” asked Jordan, a manager.

“I wanna be a rapper,” he said, looking you straight in the eye, with a matter-of-fact, this-should-be-obvious look. “That or a basketball player.”

* * *

Never let them see you down

Smile while you bleedin

- K'naan, “Smile”

Donzell was fat, though his tongue was fatter. His speech was barely decipherable, his movements awkward. He looked like a black manatee. And he loved the pool: underwater there is no weight, there is no speech, there is no awkward. Underwater, it didn't matter that he didn't have a swimsuit – his stretched-out shorts worked just as well.

For a long time, Donzell safety-pinned his shorts together, bunching the dead elastic tight enough to stay at his waist. Eventually, though, chlorinated water and rapid movement eat away at metal. One day Donzell lost his pin and ran home, clutching the monstrous shorts as tight as possible.

The next day, Donzell shocked our world. He walked through the locker room and out onto the pool deck, a steely determination in his eyes, tinged with shame, but blazing with insistence.

His stretched shorts hung loosely around his waist, drooping down between three glinting metal anchors. Donzell's black mesh shorts hung from blazing red suspenders.

* * *

Now all the teachers couldn't reach me

And my momma couldn't beat me

Hard enough to match the pain of my pop not seein me

- Jay-Z, “December 4th”

Everyone called him May-May. It came from Tremayne, his given name, but his nickname was better suited for him anyway: short and simple. May-May couldn't have been any older than five, though he found himself alone most days. Oversized sandy-brown leather boots, long jean shorts, plaid boxers peering out overtop, and a stained wifebeater. He never had a towel, and rarely had money for admission. Yet he would show up, begging, sneaking, and crying to get into the pool. And daily, someone would take pity on his dirty, baby-fat face and pleading eyes.

“Lemme help,” he'd ask, tugging on my uniform. I was head guard; it was my job to walk laps and make sure the guards on duty didn't need anything: water, shade, sunblock, or disciplinary back-up. May-May liked to help, so I put my “LIFEGUARD” visor on his head and we took off on rounds.

In between rounds, we stood by the office, surveying our pool. He looked at me, a thousand cities of sadness in his graceful, glowing eyes. I bent to pick him up, fat little Tremayne, and held him in one arm. His eyes scrunched in the close warmth, his black face pressed into my white skin, a moment of puerile bliss. “You're my daddy now,” he claims me. “I love you.”