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moments with youth

Mark Krueger: I am currently involved in a study with five youth workers and a youth. We are constructing and analyzing stories about our work with youth. Our focus is on moments of engagement. We want to know what is occurring when we engage youth in activities and relationships. In this column I will share some of the thoughts and stories that have evolved from our study. The interpretation of the stories will be left up to the reader.

The first story is by John Korsmo a youth mentor and youth work teacher.

* * *

Tony

I see a boy looking through the screen door as I approach the house. The main door is open despite the frigid February day. He sees me coming up the walk.

"He’s here! He’s coming."

I climb the four steep steps to the porch and feel heat coming from the house. I knock and a woman comes and opens the screen door, without looking at me.

"Come on in. Sorry for the mess."

She is wearing cut-off sweat pants and a tank top. The boy who was watching for me through the screen is wearing boxer shorts and no shirt. He’s sitting on a couch, chewing on the edge of a pillow he has in his lap. I kick all the snow off my shoes and step into the house. She lets the door swing shut, and sits on the couch next to her youngest son.

She motions to a chair across from her, “Have a seat. I’m not sure where he’s at. Upstairs I think. I know he knows your comin' though. I made him get up this mornin' and didn’t let him leave cuz he woulda just took off n' not showed up when you came."

I introduce myself to her, take off my coat and sit down on the chair. It is so warm in the house I feel like I am going to break a sweat. I can hear someone on the stairs and the mother yells, “Tony, come here and sit your ass down."

We make eye contact as he turns the corner, and heads for a chair against the wall. Like his brother, he is wearing only boxers and no shirt. He is fourteen years old, but he could easily pass for nine or ten.

I introduce myself to him and start a bit of small talk conversation, and fill him in about what he can expect of me as his new mentor. I’m starting to ask some questions about his interests and hobbies when his mother interrupts.

"You ain’t queer are ya?"

Both boys snicker.

"No, in fact I just got married last summer. Maybe you'll meet my wife one of these days."

"I ain’t tryin' to be funny, but you never know these days and I ain’t gonna send him off with just nobody. You can see he ain’t so big yet. He’s smart enough n' all, but I don’t think his body’s matured yet. Look at him. Raise up your arm and show the man. He ain’t even got hair yet. I don’t know about down there“ – as she motions to his lap – “I ain’t gonna look, but I know he ain’t got no hair in his armpits."

"Shut the fuck up." His high voice contradicts his language but emphasizes his small frame.

"Don’t fuckin' talk to me like that. Show him. Raise your arm up n' show the man."

"You know, it doesn’t matter to me if he has hair under his arms or not." I glance over at him and I’m surprised that he has both arms up in the air like he’s getting ready for a stick-up, to show me his hairless underarms.

She points to him, “See what I mean?"

"So what?" he screams back at her as he puts his arms down.

We talk for a few minutes about how everyone grows at different rates. I assure her that he’s not the only fourteen-year old boy without hair under his arms.

After a few minutes I suggest that Tony and I go outside. “Want to go to the park?"

He jumps up, “I'll go to put some clothes on."

While he is upstairs putting on his clothes I tell his mom that I respect her questions about my background and about my sexuality. We discuss some of the fears she has that something could happen to one of her boys.

Tony comes back down with some clothes on. We head across the street to a park and I breath in some crisp air to cool myself down.

"It feels kind of nice out here, doesn’t it?"

"Yeah, its hot as hell in there. She always does that when she knows somebody’s coming over. Cranks the fuckin' heat up so you can’t even sleep."

"Yeah, it’s pretty warm in there alright."

He laughs and kicks a dead frozen bird that’s in his walking path. The bird skates across the crunchy snow and stops by a cracked plastic baseball that is buried halfway under the snow. We toss the ball back and forth for a few minutes. Tony spots a stick that will work for a bat and we take turns pitching and batting. He bats ten times, and then I bat ten times. We talk about what’s going on in school and at home while we play. It’s his turn at bat and he’s predicting a homer.

I bend over to tie my shoe and before standing back up I make a quick snowball. He is ready to crush the ball out of our make believe stadium so I wind up for a fast underhand pitch. He swings the bat before realizing I pitched a snowball and not the plastic baseball. He makes good contact and snow sprays all over both of us.

"Oh, shit," he yells, and we laugh and wipe snow off our faces before he retaliates and we launch into a playful snowball fight, chasing each other around the park until we’re both wet and winded and red from the cold.

"You got me, man. That was a good one," he says. “I didn’t even see you make that snowball. I was going to kill that pitch, too."

We laughed some more and started walking towards his house, both of us rubbing our hands and blowing on our fingers.