181/365 Drug Dealer Season

The summer when I moved into the old 3rd grade classroom, I busied myself with the library as well. I'd toyed around with it a bit during my free time the first year, usually with JD in tow that second semester. We sorted through books and cleaned stuff up and I got way too involved with that kid. He was usually skipping English, or was getting kicked out of PE. He cemented my preference for bad boys and good girls when it comes to what students I connect to best. I don't handle fast-moving girls very well, girls who know too much by the time they are 13 and often become Mean Girls in the process. And good boys, ugh, were usually such suck ups that I had flashbacks to my honor classes in high school. No. Thank. You.

But anyway, that summer, JD was gone for good and my friend Jenna and I sorted through the library and even found a book on the Dewey Decimal system, which of course was right up my alley. Sorting is one of my favorite hobbies, after all. We sat in the room, evenings when it was still light, box fan going, and became friends, really, finally. That's the summer she broke up with Graham and the summer when I learned how to be friends with other girls who aren't good at being friends with other girls.

We'd stay in the evenings until it started feeling too dicey to stay. This time of year was drug dealer season and we could set our stopwatches by the routine: honking at the end of the block, slow driving down the block, more honking outside the house, a car door, footsteps, a car door, speed away. Right outside our window. We weren't likely targets of violence (that would interfere with business, after all) but we could become collateral damage and preferred not to.

That was ten summers ago. The school is closed, the pastor is different, the street is evolving but not completely healed. The Drug House, 3535, is closed down, boarded up and empty. But I know it's not the only location. Water finds its level and drug dealers find their customers. But we're still standing there, we still process on Corpus Christi and Palm Sunday and Easter Vigil, right past the rough patch. We'll outlast them.