Growing Up

It’s ridiculous; I’ve seen this before, why should it make me nervous? Yet as I walk towards the front doors I get this horrible shuddery feeling, like I’m going to be devoured alive by a horde of sixteen-year olds. I’ve seen them before; I know them. Not personally, of course, but I know their kind. High school wasn’t so long ago, I’m only eighteen. I’ve got my blue blazer on, the one that says, “Don’t mess with me, I’m in college.” There’s the kid with the blue Mohawk and the girls who stand around outside, laughing too loud and shouting at the guys. There’s the crowd of burnouts, slouching around in black coats, complete with enormous pockets for stashing grass. Sure, I know you guys.

Inside, it’s not too bad; public high schools are pretty much alike: the rows of lockers painted in glossy neutral, the sign splashed on the wall exhorting positive values, urging kids to reach for the stars, to read, to graduate high school. The library is on the left, one door for in, one for out. I glance around, seeking some sort of adult authority figure. I’m an adult now, eighteen, and I need someone mature to converse with, someone who will explain to me in what the hell I’m supposed to be doing. The librarian, a woman with the unkempt gray hair and precariously perched glasses that immediately proclaim her to be a public school “media center specialist,” yelps in delight, “Thank God you’re here,” when I announce that I’m here to tutor.

“We’re just flooded with students,” she pants, grinning from ear to ear at the presence of a real live college student. “Have a seat over there, they’ll start trickling in.”

I’m still edgy, and not entirely sure what I’m supposed to be doing, so I wander around aimlessly. The computer lab is well stocked with 2000 Compaq PCs, the grubby, square kind with way too much monitor. Last year our high school got brand new PCs; we’re one of the richest counties, but I think this school could have used them more.

Two girls and a guy come traipsing in, so I immediately withdraw behind a pillar so I might more privately observe them. They laugh together and throw their backpacks down at the small tables that litter the library. Strange beings, they scare me. What if the work they have is beyond me? I made it to Precalculus, but beyond that. I’m an English major, give me poems, your content questions, your essays yearning for As, just please not math. I wander over. Excellent, numbers. I glance over her shoulder. Multiplication? In high school? The girl sits there with an stump of an eraser-less pencil, a vapid expression in her dark eyes as she stares at the paper, perhaps hoping it’ll stand up and announce the answers. She has pimples that she’s unsuccessfully tried to conceal and dandruff in her long oily hair. Her friend giggles for no apparent reason, growing in volume until she slumps over the desk overcome with mirth, than dashes away with her guy friend to “go to the bathroom.”

“Watch them,” the “media center specialist” had said, peering at me through her glasses, “they like to say they’re going to the bathroom, but they just like to wander the halls.”

“Here,” I say, “let me help you.” An absurdly wrong answer leaps out at me. “Uhhh, how did you get that?”

“That’s what they told me,” she shrugs, “I gave it to someone to do and that’s what they said.”

“Ah.”

She favors the secretive paper with one more perplexed glance before bounding up with a quick, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and scurrying out the door. When she comes back and addresses the paper once more, I’ve wandered off. The headphones around her neck reverberating “my goodies, my goodies, my goodies,” repeatedly is a little more than I can take. She immediately enlists one of her friends to do her homework while she stares off. I’m overcome with this sudden desire to shake some sense in her.

“What are you doing?” my brain shouts, “You sit there, taking nothing seriously, waiting for the world to drop something in your lap!” She seems so naïve, so young, yet not much younger than I. Could I have ever been like that? Playing hide and seek with the world? With responsibility? With growing up?
Another boy is struggling with Spanish. I took French.

The next table has two seniors debating whether they should go to college or not. One favors me with a crooked-toothed leer as he unpacks a bag stuffed with papers and pulls out a wrinkled college application..

“I know I’m disorganized,” he says.

“I wasn’t thinking that,” I say. Actually, I was contemplating his oral cavity.

“What was you thinking then?” he asks, shyly glancing at the floor.

I shake my head and smile. Two boys are busy in front of a computer, designing a power point presentation on Israel. One looks like he shoots squirrels for fun and has a daddy named Earl. I’ll call him Bo. The other looks like a squirrel. I comment that perhaps they should avoid redundancies, capitalize “U.S.” and employ a background that contrasts the font. I ask them why America should give Israel aid beyond the obvious, “The u.s. should give Israel aid so they stay allies together.”

“Because we don’t want them Jews to be communists,” says Bo. “Jewish communists, how awesome is that?” and he laughs like nothing on earth could possibly be funnier than a nation of “those dark-skinned Jews running around—communists.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’m Jewish, that’s not really funny.” Well, I’m only half Jewish, but my little squirrel hunter doesn’t need to know about that.

“Are you, like, a real Jew?” he asks in amazement.

I nod solemnly. I can’t wait for this kid to leave the cloistered world he knows and venture out where “real Jews,” roam the streets. I bet some of them are communists. As I once more circumnavigate the room, I pass another two girls who chortle over a magazine. I have high hopes for them. They look older, more mature, or maybe it’s just because they’re erupting from their tops in a manner worthy of Mt. Vesuvius. They have long acrylic nails, furry boots, and cell phones at the ready in case some impromptu social affair occurs of which they must be notified immediately.

“Know anything about, like, uhh ... Greek stuff, like English?” one asks.

“Sure.”

“We’re reading ... what’s it called ... Antigone. I need help with these worksheets.”

“Sure.”

She hands me a list of words and concepts from Sophocles’ play. Almost every answer is wrong, except for the ones she hasn’t done, which are nearly all. I go through one by one, explaining Hades and the River Styx, Persephone, burial rites, and anarchy. She explains how she didn’t read the play because the teacher let them watch the movie. She thinks that the teacher talked about mythology, but she didn’t listen because it didn’t interest her.

“My mama says I can’t do that,” she laughs. Her phone rings so I wait while she answers it. I’ve made it through one work sheet, and my hour is up. I offer to stay longer but she’s had enough of Antigone’s strife for the day, and frankly, so have I. When I tell the librarian that I can only come one day a week, her smile fades and her face begins to visibly quake.

“Oh, ok. Well, I want you to be successful at your other endeavors ... but ... we only have you here to help. I understand, though.” She looks so limp as if I’ve shattered all her dreams at once.

Driving away I begin to marvel at those kids. They’re only a year or two younger than I am, but I’m eighteen, and grown up. What will happen when they get booted out of the nest? Will they land on their feet and begin to make a way for themselves? Some of them can barely read? What will happen? Does my explaining archaic Greek concepts help make them any more successful?

“Why are you volunteering here?” a girl asked me with a bored expression. “I wouldn’t.”

“You’re coming back aren’t you?” another had asked.

Maybe I won’t make the slightest difference. Maybe I’ll make just a little. But yeah, I’ll be back.