El Gringoqueño

I said goodbye to my students at the Juvenile Detention Center last week (Tuesday). They had a day out from the prison at a local Catholic University, a day of swimming, exercise, and enjoyment, capped off with a prayer vigil in the university chapel.

The project is called "Tutores en Acción" (Tutors in Action) de San Ignacio (our parish). I saw an announcement in a Sunday bulletin last year that was calling for volunteers to tutor in a prison. It spoke to me. Who among us is more lost than those that have fallen so far to the wayside. If there is anybody that needs companionship, tutoring, mentoring, or somebody to care, it is they. Anyway, I wanted to do it, but hadn’t the time or the motivation to get off my ass and actually execute. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, or so the saying goes.

One Sunday, the sermon was about being ordinary during Ordinary Time (season of the liturgical year). "Do you want to be ordinary?" was the call. Hell no, and I signed up. As it turned out the semester was just beginning on Tuesday, so it was fortuitous.

I ended up with two students, Manuel Nuñez and Juan Luis Rivera, because there weren’t enough of us to go around. I helped them with their english (just to do something), but mostly we talked, learning from each other. I helped give them a perspective outside of the streets, gangs, and limited opportunities that face them every day in their ambient. Sometimes when all you see around you is a particular behavior or life path, it doesn’t seem so bad, rather, it seems right. It isn’t until you see how other people live, get a bit of perspective, possibly step outside of your cultural limitations, see new vistas, that you see how small your life has been… or rather how much bigger it could be. I think once you take that first step outside of what you have known, it creates a hunger that never ends. I want to know more. I want to become more. Basically, we hit that point over and over and over all semester.

At one point, Manuel got into some trouble with a urine test. Perhaps he had reverted to drugs, or something, but bascially got caught switching urine samples. Anyway, he received another 4 months of encarceration for this. He nearly despaired completely. I noticed a change in his demeaner, he became more withdrawn, melancholy, angry.

We had a long heart to heart in which he expressed his axiety of being in this place. "No puedo," (I can’t) he would say, as if to say four months more would break him. He expressed his anger, his weakness to become enraged (as one week his black eye confirmed). It was costing him more time in this purgatorial realm.

"Manuel, you need to stop thinking about the day you leave this place. You will drive yourself nuts thinking about that year and four months down the road. Your life is here now, isn’t it."

"Yes," he agreed.

"You can’t think about your life outside of here. Look around, what can you do with your life right here? You have a year and four months to do SOMETHING. What is it going to be? Sit on your ass and whine, or make something of this time?"

"I dunno," he said as if it was the first time he had heard that before.

"Why do you think, Manuel, that this guy dissed you? Do you think he was frightened or threatened by you? Do you think he had something to prove to someone else? In either case, he needs something he doesn’t have. He’s more lost than you are. He’s smaller than you are.

"Maybe…"

"Next time look at him as a tiny little lost child throwing a tantrum. Try to help him, not maybe in the heat of the moment, but walk away and then come back later and offer a hand of friendship. Make a project for yourself. Manuel, there is much to do here. Take some of it upon yourself."

"I’ll try," he answered skeptically. I didn’t hope for much, but maybe just a tiny bit sunk in.

In subsequent weeks we practiced tranquility, quiet words, peace, calm in the face of the torment. I related to him my failings with my temper, and how I should try to reflect more empathy before I lash out with my words… try to put myself in the shoes of the other. "I fail frequently," I told him.

"Claro, we can’t be perfect. Everybody fails from time to time," he answered.

"Yes, that’s for sure."

I want to write about an interesting revelation I had about a friend of mine from the Army. I thought about writing a little character sketch from a first person point of view, as if I was him. I tossed that idea, because this interesting revelation I had could NEVER be one that you make about yourself. Hmmm, maybe I could do it third person. I wrote out a couple of sentences from a third person perspective and it didn’t sound right either. From the third person it sounded too cold, calculating, and smug. This revelation I had was warmer more personal. Even though I realized that I had stumbled upon one of the BIG ONES, a flaw so deeply embedded in our psyche that it escapes us and our viewpoints, wherever they may exist, I could not find a way to write it. I looked for a perspective, but none could be found. I wanted so bad to SHOW this flaw, expose it by proxy, let the feeling of the thing be known, not told. But I couldn’t find the words. I suspect it must be told.

He works so hard to keep things from seeping in, he forgets from time to time, things seep out.

Something about his behavior always rubbed me the wrong way. I noticed that this person, a ridged believer in temperance and piety, would make comments, inappropriate for one who holds the Truth. Sometimes they were bigoted or sexist. The key though was that he didn’t see them, didn’t recognize them as enemies. His enemy was alcohol, tobacco, or dance. Keep those marauders at bay and his homestead would be safe. Meanwhile there is this leak that oozes out leaving a stench to which, I imagine, he has become accustomed.

I note sometimes how he looks down his nose at me. The last time it was for drinking and smoking a cigar (tobacco is a big no-no). He likes me, but I sense the distain from time to time, the superiority that comes from a hurler of stones rather than a builder of homes. A hurler of stones marches out with his "creed for life" in the guise of conversion, but really ends up being a quest for validation. My way is the right way… isn’t it? And some fear seeps out, little bits of that nasty bile, choking him, sending him into convulsions.  In his writhing, he casts you out.  Get thee from my home cursed Satan! 

A builder of homes, though, invites you in to sit a spell. Come as you are he says, and doesn’t mind that you throw your feet up on his coffee table. Afterall he built it to stand the test of time, and he’s not worried. He built it once, he could build it again.

It’s an ugly sight, let me tell you. I’m just glad that I don’t have any of that shit leaking out of me. You’d let me know wouldn’t you?

Thanks.