A School Bus from Nowhere: Connecting with “at risk” kids requires crazy and crucial hope

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“What if the water come up?”

These houses float. The sidewalks, too. When the river rises, everything floats up. A few years ago, rivers got really high and a string of houseboats broke away. A whole neighborhood went floating down the Willamette River. I saw it on Channel 2. It was pretty exciting.

“What happened?”

They floated away. The river goes out to the ocean, you know? Houseboat people could still be floating around out there, eating their dogs, their cell phones out of range.

They were all quiet. I saw their wide eyes in my overhead mirror. Uh-oh. Broken kids can’t tell when I’m putting them on. I once told Morris he’d better knock it off because he was sitting in the ejection seat. Poor kid, he believed me.

Now I pulled up to the school, but I didn’t open the bus door. No, wait. I remember. What happened was tugboats came to the rescue. They lashed those houseboats to the bank. When the water went down, they put the houses back up the river where they belonged.

“Aw, maaaan.”

Aw, man, was right. By telling them what really happened, I had ruined a believable-to-them story. These kids know in their bones that they have come unmoored, and no help is on the way.

But you never know. Help is there, if they’ll put in the work. Teachers and staff at this school are as brave as soldiers in Baqouba or Kabul, and more forbearing. Students get close attention and door-to-door transportation and breakfast.

This is a year-round school. It’s expensive, but the school will rescue some kids. A tall, beaten-down girl who avoided eye contact on my bus found a teacher who encouraged her ability to draw. She got the idea she should work at it. She did. And then, boy, could she draw. After months of smart work and good behavior, she earned her way back to Madison High. On her last day with us she passed out Snickers bars to everyone on the bus.

You win some and you lose some. I lost Dejarvis. Basketball season had begun by the time he came back from the hospital. Dejarvis joined the team, but he was out of shape. He played for a couple of games, lost interest, and quit coming to school.

Dejarvis is gone, but I referee basket­ball anyway.

At a dimly lit, poorly ventilated cracker-box gym, athletically gifted and underloved street kids are hooping it up. Some have stars in their eyes imagining NBA careers, and all of them run as if their shorts were on fire. There are no cheerleaders, but the girls stomp rhythmically and they chant musically and they groan in unison and they scream in delight.

It’s hot in here. It’s break-your-ankles fast in here. I whistle a foul and have to pause three or four beats for breath to say the call.

We play 20-minute halves with running time except for the last 2 minutes of each half. There are no bleachers. A single row of chairs fills up early, and then it’s standing room only with deafening—but seldom rude—fans. Rival gangs evidently have settled on a détente. Ballplayers, too, are surprisingly compliant.

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