Well, it certainly has been an interesting 24 hours. Yesterday morning as I was tutoring at Vaux Junior High School, I saw Nathaniel must have been the first time he’s been to school in weeks. He’s getting deeper and deeper into the gang turned against his two best friends and tried to shoot them because they were from a different corner.

He came in swaggering, trying to act so hard and before the end of the session, he was cuddling up to me like a little lost puppy, and was helping his friend as if nothing had ever come between them. His friend was a little nervous at the beginning of the hour, about being in the same room with him. Must have given him quite a scare.

Nathaniel has been locked up six times in the past two weeks for various unlawful activities. He’s such a bright, responsive little guy though. I really hope the Lord gets hold of him.

It was funny. I was trying to get James to associate vowel sounds with key words, and Nathaniel was giving him all kinds of clues. Like for "z", he said, "What you always making to shoot people?"

"Zipgun!”

For "j", he said, "What do girls call you when you won’t talk to them?"

"Jive!"

For long "u" he said, "When you just have the girl, but you don’t really love her, what you doing?"

“Use!"

(I couldn’t believe that clue remember, these kids are only 12 years old!)

Then this morning I visited juvenile court for the first time. Teen Haven was having their annual seminar for college students, and staff were required to participate in some of the things that they hadn’t been to or seen. This morning we heard a rape case half of it actually, when they questioned the girl. She said that her old boyfriend, Jay R, who was the runner for the Morroccos before he was shot and killed, had dragged her to his house as she was on her way to school and called over nine friends, five of whom raped her. Jay R was killed long before the case came to court, but his friends were on trial. I recognized Jay R’s name, because it was written all over the walls and buildings in our neighborhood. He left a remembrance or memorial behind him that will last for years.

It was really something the way the girl was questioned. Her own lawyer questioned her first.

"What did Jay R do to you?"

"He had sex with me."

"What do you mean by that?”

The girl looked at the lawyer like she (it was a woman) was crazy, or very dumb, and then said, after groping for unfamiliar terms, "sexual intercourse."

"What do you mean by sexual intercourse?" her lawyer persisted.

"He had sex with me," she repeated helplessly.

So then the lawyer said, "What was the first thing he did after he came in the room?"

"Pulled down his zipper."

"Then what?"

"Pulled up my dress.”

"Then what?"

"Got on top of me."

"Then what?"

"He had sex with me.”

"Cornelia, tell the judge exactly what he did. What part of his body touched what part of yours?"

"I I know, but I can’t explain it,” Cornelia stammered.

"Could you point to the judge what part of your body?”

"The the down below part.”

"What do you mean by that? Could you point to it?"

The girl hesitantly indicated her vaginal area.

The lawyer just kept questioning her until she said (after she learned terms), "He put his penis in my vagina."

“What did the next guy do?"

"He put his penis in my vagina."

"Could you repeat that louder please?"

Then the defense lawyer came on with questions like, "Did you try to get away? Did you know any of these boys? Have you had intercourse with them before? How many times have you had intercourse?"

And so on and so forth. It was wild. I couldn’t believe I was sitting there hearing this stuff. And the poor girl didn’t have any vocabulary to explain what had happened to her except street words, which she was too embarrassed to use or which she would have had to explain anyway.