c and me

So there's this kid in our neighborhood. Let's call him C.

Here's what I've pieced together about C, both from talking to him and to our next-door neighbors, who know him pretty well:

--C is 12, and lives with his grandmother, because his mom is dead and his dad is "absent".

--His grandmother's ability to get around is extremely limited; as far as I can tell she doesn't have a car, either because she can't afford one or is not physically capable of driving or possibly both. (I've not actually seen her myself yet). Their church pretty much takes care of them.

--C doesn't relate very well to kids his own age. (Of course, at 12, who does?) He doesn't really seem to have any friends, though he is in Boy Scouts.

--In spite of all this, C is very friendly and polite. He's above average in his ability to initiate and carry out conversations with adults. He often will join us when we are walking Ollie (his house fronts on the park).

A couple of days ago, C was hanging out on our block as I was taking Ollie out. I said hello, and asked him what was up.

"I'm looking for someone to take me to get dinner."

"Oh," I said. Couldn't think of anything else.

He produced a handful of bills and a sheet of coupons for Church's. While the neighborhood right around our house and to the west is quite nice, the neighborhood along the main road to the east and north is not so good. Church's is about a mile up this road.

"I just don't want to get jacked for my chicken."

Well, I couldn't blame him for that. I'm not exactly small, but I wouldn't want to walk along that stretch by myself if I didn't have to. C is 12, and still on the happy side of puberty.

Needless to say, I ended up driving C up the road for some chicken.

This story isn't complete without mentioning that C is black and I am not. In a perfect world, this would be irrelevant to the story, but the fact is, when I drove up to the chicken joint with this kid, it was pretty obvious that he wasn't my son, brother, nephew, etc.

I drew some pretty hard stares, is what I'm saying. And I couldn't blame those guys, either. For minute, I thought one guy was going to come say something to me--I smiled directly at him and waved, and I guess that managed to convince him I wasn't up to anything creepy. Maybe.

It's terrifying how trusting children can be. I mean, I know that I'm a good person, but he doesn't. How could he?