Hopeless

Pop, Pop! I awake from another dreamless night, of restless sleep from the sounds of guns and sirens going off. Going to the cupboard I find one box of Fruit Loops, the truth was it was easier to find an unpaid bill laying around in the kitchen then it was some food to eat. After I finish eating, I go to my room and get dressed for school. I was dressing to impress today, I finally got the cool St. Louis Cardinal hoody I was waiting for my older brother to grow out of. I told mama I was leaving for school and left to meet up with Tommy. Tommy was my best friend from birth; he was someone I know would be there for me and understood me.

I greeted him by saying, “What up, Tommy?”

“Nothin much same old thang, just tryin to make it through another day,” Tommy replied.

We continued to talk about Monique, a girl who Tommy seemed to like. Monique lived down the street from me and was one of the best looking girls in our grade. Tommy has been fixed on her since the first time he met her two years ago, but now he was ready to finally ask her out. As we got closer to school we saw her coming from the other side of the street. After reassuring Tommy, we started to approach her. The closer we got we both realized something was different about Monique. Monique, normally who was happy and outgoing, now was reserved and seemed to be lost, just running through the motions. I remember this look before; mama described it as, “a child that lost her innocence.” I never really understood what it meant, but I began to recognize the look. I knew from experience that Tommy and I should just continue into school and Monique would want to be left alone.

The school I went to in East St. Louis was a public school in a big dilapidated building. My first class was English with Mrs. Bailey. The class was filled with thirty students, who shared the fifteen classroom book collection. All of my classes were like this, lacking the resources to utilize our willingness to learn. Mrs. Bailey was the one teacher who wanted us to succeed and move out of the ghetto. The administration didn’t understand Mrs. Bailey’s goals, they saw us as hopeless. We were like a town that was cancerous, a cancer that was just a slow death with no cure. The administration thought that putting effort in was just a waste of time, since no matter what the outcome was the same, just another death in ghetto.

I like Mrs. Bailey’s class because she read us stories that would momentarily take us to an imaginary place outside of our daily lives. Literacy I knew could give me an outlet to take away my misery of the everyday. I tried to read everything I could get my hands on. Other than mama and Mrs. Bailey everyone in the town saw reading as pointless and worse saw us as hopeless. After school, I went home and ate some Fruit Loops again for dinner. I then tried to finish my homework before the sun went down, knowing since we couldn’t afford the last electricity bill if I didn’t finish my homework now I wouldn’t be able to finish it later. Later that night, I felt a little sick mama said it was the poor living conditions of the city, but I knew better. It wasn’t the poor living conditions of the city; it was the poor living conditions of my life. By mama’s command I went up to my room, which I shared with four other of my brothers, and went to sleep hoping tomorrow I will wake up as one of the Bluffs.