THE TEENAGERS

When I spoke to the Rector of Trinity Parish about doing "good work," he suggested I accompany Larry to the Cathedral swimming pool with the teenagers. I agreed.

Shortly before six the next Friday I walked to the church and found eight black teenagers standing in deep shadows at the side entrance. They were tall young men with long arms and legs. Their speech patterns were unfamiliar. I said hello and waited for one of them to speak. When the time interval became awkward, I raised my voice and asked the group if they were going swimming. No one answered or turned. With their backs to me, they continued talking without a break.

I stood there for a little while, not knowing who or what, and finally to ease the tension walked back to the curb, sat down and waited. In a few minutes Larry drove up. He introduced himself, and told everyone to get into his car.

They all squeezed in, six in the back and three in the front, including me. I sat on the outside edge of the seat in front and kept slamming the car door into my hip until the teenager next to me lifted himself off the seat and allowed me to slip a hip under him and finally get the door closed.

I tried to make a joke out of the lack of space and said I was sitting on my imagination. The teenagers hissed, "Shiiiii," without sounding the "t."

We entered the Cathedral through the side door that was so familiar to me as a young boy. In the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson the Rector of the Episcopal Church took all the boys in the choir to the Cathedral to swim on Saturdays. I followed the teenagers down the stairs and into the locker room to change into swimsuits. Larry left at the entrance of the locker room and went immediately to the pool area without changing.

I chose a locker near the front, removed from the action. They still treated me as though I did not exist. I also was aware my pale, winter white skin compared very poorly with the rich shades of brown and black of the teenagers. In the poorly lit and chlorine smelling room I wished it was summer and I was tanned.

How did Larry control this group of young black men? He was slight of build; his neck and wrists extended out of the material of his long-sleeved shirt as though they weren’t connected to anything else; the loose bulk of his shirt seemed to flap without support and his chest and arms seemed never to touch the inside of his shirt. He was about the same height, five foot nine or so, but he was twenty pounds lighter and stooped as though in constant deference to someone in front of him.

I was a strong swimmer, pass receiver, tennis and squash player, and baseball pitcher, agile at everything I played, but the teenagers radiated violence that was a new feeling for me. I wondered what would happen if I were put in charge.

They were tall and muscular. Their joints seemed to be encased in fluid with long lengths of muscle in between. They banged into each other and engaged in a lot of towel snapping and suit snatching when undressing. Jokes about penis size prevailed.

Perhaps we would all be equal in the water. I entered the pool area with them and did a racing dive into the deep end and circled the bottom for a minute before coming up at the rope separating the shallow and deep ends.

The teenagers clung to the handrails in the shallow end and splashed water and hurled challenges at each other that were neither accepted nor refused. When one of the boys left the rail and came up on another boy from the open water, they all yelled and Larry came over and leaned over the side and screamed threats at the transgressor until he returned to his place at the rail.

I swam leisurely into the middle of the shallow end and invited several of the boys to swim with me.

“Nobody ventured out from the rail. Nobody looked at me or answered me. I gave up and swam back to the deep end and swam laps and did some deep dives. Finally I gave up and just sat on the edge of the pool and watched Larry and the teenagers. I was anticipated a revolt against Larry’s screaming, but the revolt never came. The boys just clung to the handrail and yelled when another boy tried to pull them off, and Larry rushed to lean over the victim and threatened the attacker.

Larry seemed perfectly at ease. There was no strain on his face when he returned to his bench at the side of the pool where he sat watching. They boys didn’t curse back. In fact they did not talk to Larry at all. There was no friction between them, but there was no contact except in the yelling.

When it came time to leave Larry shouted and cursed even louder. His voice was beginning to strain and it squeaked occasionally. The boys got out one at a time as Larry threatened them by name, but when he shifted his attention, the boy slipped back into the water. It took twenty minutes for Larry to get all eight boys out of the pool and into the locker room.

We drove back to Trinity and the boys thanked Larry for taking them and asked about the chances of going the following Friday. Larry said he had exams the next week and couldn’t go. The boys seemed very disappointed. Larry looked at me several times when he was talking to the boys, but I looked away and he didn’t vocalize his question why don’t you take the boys next Friday.

The evening was mercifully over by nine o'clock. The teenagers walked off, still silent and ignoring me. Larry asked directly if I would take the teenagers swimming the next Friday.

“I don’t think that I can handle them,” I said.

He looked surprised, but all he said was, "I don't handle them."