Handbook for Boys by Walter Dean Myers & Matthew Bandsuch

Author:Walter Dean Myers & Matthew Bandsuch [Myers, Walter Dean & Bandsuch, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0064409309
Amazon: B0020Q3FKY
Publisher: Amistad
Published: 2009-03-30T04:00:00+00:00

tion,” Dr. Colfax said, “and they don’t know how to get out of the situation. They get desperate and do things that don’t even make

sense to them as they do it.”

“I think they’re just stupid,” Cap said. “All the bad stuff they got in the papers about crack and heroin, and these young people running

down the street trying to get it. To me it’s like jumping off a tall building without a parachute because you feel so good coming down.”

“And suppose their friends give them some

drugs for free,” Kevin interrupted. “Then

maybe they want to be strong, but the urge gets to be too much and they get messed up again.”

“Then they need to find themselves some

new friends,” Duke said.

When Dr. Colfax’s haircut was finished, he

asked me and Kevin if we played ball, and

we both said we did. I didn’t even say any-

thing about Kevin not having a game. The old guys got into some other ball players they

knew and who had a good game and who

108

didn’t. I dug the conversation because the

brother was a doctor and a ball player and that was together. I asked him was it hard becom-ing a doctor.

“Sure it was,” he said. “But hard doesn’t

mean bad, does it?”

“Depends on how hard,” I said.

The end of the day came, and I hung until

everybody had left and then I thanked Duke for giving me another chance.

“You’re the next generation,” Duke said.

“Young people like you and Kevin have to get ready to run the world. Whatever future I got you’re going to be a part of it, one way or another. If what I believe in makes a difference, then your generation is going to have to prove it. Did you learn anything today?”

“Not to use drugs,” I said.

“No, Jimmy, that wasn’t it.” Duke pulled

the gate across the window of the barbershop.

“You knew that before you came in today.

So did Irene before she started using that

stuff. What you should have learned is that just because we know something is liable to ruin our lives, it doesn’t mean we’re not going to do it. We have to pay close attention to 109

what we’re doing every day.”

“It makes you mad to see somebody like

Irene, doesn’t it?”

“It breaks my heart,” Duke said. “It really does.”

When I got home, I told Moms what had

happened in the shop and what Dr. Colfax had said about drugs. I said I wasn’t ever going to use drugs.

“Everybody says that,” Moms said.

“Yeah, but I mean it,” I said.

“I hope so, Jimmy,” she said. She kissed

me. “I hope so.”

When I went to bed, I thought about Irene.

The neighborhood wasn’t just about crack

heads, but I had seen enough of them to know what being a junkie was all about. On television they just showed guys selling rock on the corner and maybe running from the cops. They never showed guys all bent over and sick and looking up at you with sick eyes. They never showed you a girl like Irene begging for money or going with some guy into a dark hall to do whatever she had to do to get the money for crack.

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