streetstories

STORIES FROM THE STREET.

"Excuse meh bigman, please fuh twenty dolla nah?"
"Ah wa'an buy something fuh eat, ah hungry bad."

You can hardly walk any street in downtown Georgetown without being 'brackled'. Regent Street, Water Street, Camp, they are everywhere. And they seem to get there from everywhere too. From Albouystown and Sophia and most places in-between. Most are 12, 13 and 14 but they look half their ages.

Their hair look like grass on an abandoned lawn. Their eyes seem lost in their haggard faces. Their words strain their way out from between chapped peeling lips.Their ragged clothes hang onto their frail bodies the way their skin hang onto their bones - as if neither one wants to be there.

Depending on your mood they present a picture anywhere from pity to disdain. You either empathize and contribute to their survival or you ignore them altogether. Either way you cast them out of your memory as quickly as they seemed to have appeared.

Most of them hardly want to force the streets to make it their homes. Their reasons range from the regrettable to the disgustingly ridiculous. One may be an orphan, the other may have run away from home, or more precisely, from a prison of abuse in all forms.

Their names seem to read straight off the boys attendance register of an elite secondary school. But these are no first rate, well cared for, brand name wearing, computer literate students. Life for them has little future beyond the next twenty dollars. Not only is there no light at the end of the tunnel but the tunnel is slowly consuming them into oblivion. We will not miss them, we hardly ever notice them now.

They may appear to and actually do live almost normal lives during daylight hours - thanks to the Drop-In Center. During school hours they seem to be fine. One bright spot - if indeed anything about their lives can be described as 'bright' - is that they can almost effortlessly make more money in an hour than most public servants make in a day. Of course this comes with much humilation and verbal - sometimes physical - abuse. And as much as they make good money they never get to keep their earnings - the street has its own unique predators.

In the mornings before they drop in at the Drop-In Center they can make between $300 and $500 an hour. On a good day they may make as much as $700. When they drop out of the Drop-In they make even more. Very rarely do they go to bed with any money. Some is spent on food, the rest is taken away by junkies.

After a day of relative financial prosperity, a little caring and education, being beaten and robbed, they retire. Their bed is rough, hard, cold concrete. Cardboard serves as everything else - walls, roof and sheets. You may not have imagined it before, but it is very difficult to sleep for too long on the streets. The deafening noise of traffic a few feet away from their ears, junkies using them as punching bags to practice their kick-boxing skills - they are robbed of the chance to even dream of a better life.

Boys their age almost always want to become doctors, lawyers, pilots and scientists. Not them though. No, all they want to become are working men - any decent paying job will do. A few want to get into business. They just want a chance and some understanding. The problem is that no one is listening.

They all want to come off the streets. And go where? Well, quite surprisingly, they just want a nice family and a nice home. A rich family, right? A house with a pool? A family with plenty cars, right? No. No, they just want to be a part of a family where "everyting gun be 'arite". And when they say it one can only hear them silently screaming, loudly, crying longingly for a little love. That's all they want, a little love. Maybe that $20 will clear your conscience for now, but you will remember that rough, hard, cold concrete.