The clock was moving towards 9:00 pm when we reached the intersection of two much-travelled roads in Kingston. A small boy approached the car; to beg, as usual. This time it was not money, but a pin to hold together a strap from the beat-up rubber flip-flops which he was dragging along. No, we didn’t have a safety pin, but knowing the lament for “lunch money fi school” we began to rummage in the handbags for the donation.

The light changed and we yelled for the boy to meet us at the gas station across the intersection. Dragging the “piece-a” shoes behind him, he raced to meet us. While I was still digging through the handbag, strategically placing his mouth to my window, he announced: “Today a mi birthday.” How old was he? Nine. My softer side rose up with a vengeance. I began to prepare a sermon. Imagine yourself as a nine-year-old, out on the street at night scrounging for lunch money and a pin to hold your slippers together. No birthday cake, no candles, no ice cream.

I rushed into the station store and launched an attack on the ice cream cake and soft drinks and rushed back out, aglow with self-righteousness. As I handed over my goodwill offerings, I could almost hear the heavenly choir singing, “Alleluia”. By contrast, the recipient of my bounty took the bag with little enthusiasm. He had other things on his mind.

My friend, the flower vendor, arrived in time to hear my heartbreaking story of this poor little child who had no birthday party. Friend broke into laughter. “Him have birthday every day. Ah so him ketch people.” My young con artist was not the least bit daunted. He kept up his sales pitch. He held his ground, holding fast to the “birthday” package, and continued the campaign for lunch money.

Since Miss Lou say “tek kin teet kibber heart-bun,” the only thing I could do was to act as if everything was cool. I asked my young scammer where he lived. He named a community a good distance away from where we were and the school he attended. How would he get home? I asked. “On the bus,” his response. I stopped myself from asking if he had the bus fare. He hadn’t asked for it. He seemed to be taking it for granted that that gift was a foregone conclusion. Seeing his toes gripping the mash-up rubber slippers, I asked: “You have shoes? What you wear to school?” He answered, “Slippers.” If the broken pink strips of rubber which the pin failed to keep together was his footwear for the classroom, then, con artist or not, somebody had to care.

I found myself making an offer, “I could get you some shoes.” Communication got muddled when I tried to tell him how to contact me. He insisted on offering me his mother’s phone number. By then, exhaustion and embarrassment had begun to kick in. I had to go. Before we drove out, the alleged nine-year-old, no-birthday man slipped in one more request: “You have any clothes? Bring some fi mi?” He was showing no signs of anxiety about catching the next bus. I wonder even more how his mother reacted when he finally got home, tired like any night shift worker. Had she, at any time, worried about the whereabouts of her young son (of whatever age) out there on the streets with midnight not too far away? Did she know what can happen to young boys on the road “when hours beat”?

Other small boys like him are fixtures at the intersection where we met him. Every one has a story which invariably includes the buzz words “lunch money”. How many of these stories are lies, how many are true? We will never know. The young mendicants are equipped with their own kind of radar to lead them to the “bleeding hearts” (myself among them) who fall for the sales pitch every time.

What if the stories are nothing but lies? But, then again, what if they are true? More disturbing is the fact that a well-known police station is almost next door to the intersection. Efforts to get the boys to go home are sporadic at most. I couldn’t tell when last I saw an officer of the law playing father-figure to one of the young hustlers. Who cares?

Goings-on at

the transport centre

The images in the last Sunday Observer of the hordes of high school students who have hijacked the JUTC transport centre at Half-Way-Tree and turned it into a place of shame should be of deep concern. We had heard other reports of this phenomenon before, but the latest turn of the spotlight on the ugliness generated by some of our young people in this and other public spaces poses a challenge which nobody seems to know how to deal with effectively.

Sex in the bathroom, shoplifting, fights in which the contenders cross all gender boundaries: how came we here? Where are the cries of outrage from parents and the rest of the community, or are we waiting to blame “di govament”? Parents’ eyes can’t be everywhere, but I wonder what it is like when the discovery is made that our little darlings are not the angels we think they are. It is not just “downtown pickney” who make up the crowd of delinquents, there is a sizeable representation of “better class”.

What if closed-circuit cameras were to record the scenes, and parents and teachers invited to view? Legal arguments about the youths’ right to privacy might well be raised. Lawsuits might even ensue, but sometimes we have to do some “out of the box” thinking, if only for a change for the better. The most boring thing no-longer-youths (ie parents and teachers) can do is to talk about their “when I was young” days.

Call me what you will, but I now record that in years past I attended high school not far from what is now the HWT Transport Centre. I cannot resist imagining what would have happened to me and my fellow students if, wearing the respected school uniform, we were to have been found in the ugly situations which are now the norm. Talk all you want about “it’s a new time, things are different now,” I am not ready to accept “ah nuh nutten” to facilitate some boy’s hand where it should not have been, or me engage in unleashing a T-square in a girl’s face as protest against the theft of my man (if I had one). If these are the joys of youth today, I’ll pass, if you don’t mind.

Up to now, I haven’t heard any cries of outrage from parent-teachers’ groups. At times, like during Champs when the heat is turned up, schools have helped to patrol the area, to avoid violent encounters. I’m not aware how much effort is being put into assisting the transport centre’s management in day-to-day oversight now. Can schools and parents do more to assist? It is not enough to ask, “Wha di govament a do?” I happen to believe that we should expect more of our children, and must still do more to protect them from themselves, be they underage, con men or teens with overactive hormones.

gloudonb@yahoo.com