Ronnie is 15 years old, and has a quick mind, but reads only on a third grade level - probably because he didn’t go to grade school much. (I can remember the kids didn’t start school on time because they were waiting on Frances’ DPA check for clothes and shoes. This was later.) Yesterday was Ronnie’s birthday. Barb drove him home last night so he could get a birthday present from his mother. (The first time I met Frances.) He lives on the 7th floor of a dilapidated high rise apartment building at 25th and Diamond. There were a cluster of them - high rise projects. We climbed up seven flights of garbage strewn stairs with gang graffitti scrawled all over the dim, dingy halls. The little apartment had about 3 rooms, no furniture except for a table and some chairs, and fold-out rugs for beds. There was no refrigerator. Four or five little children rushed eagerly out of the door to meet us. Dirty dishes were in the sink, and Brother, Ronnie’s cousin, was doing them. Ronnie’s mother has eight children - ranging from less than a year old to Ronnie’s age - plus drug and alcohol habits to support on her DPA check. She shares the apartment with her friend and family - all in all fifteen to seventeen people.

When Ronnie got up there, his mother had nothing for him. Ronnie walked over to the window, which had no curtains, and just stood there looking out. His slender body was tense with anger and disappointment. Then he walked out without a word.

Frances confided to Barb, “He’s mad. He just don’t believe me when I tell him I don’t have any money.”

Then she winked and added, “Even when I’m telling him the truth.”

Ronnie was silent on the way home to the center. He just went into his room, turned off the light, and laid down. I didn’t dare go in there. What could I say? If a kid’s mother seems not to care, what does it matter how anyone else feels? Except God. Barb had baked him a birthday cake, and Frostie went upstairs, lit the candles, and rushed down to Ronnie’s room. We all went upstairs then and had cake, and gave him the presents we had gotten him. It took the sting out of things, I think.

When Ronnie was thirteen, he was stabbed by a former friend who had joined a gang. Ronnie and a friend were walking home from Fitzsimon Jr. High when two guys came up behind them. The boys turned the corner, and suddenly twelve other guys appeared. Ronnie started to run, and then, in his own words, “I felt the blood running down my back.”

He pulled the knife out as he was running. When he got home, his chest was as big as a weight lifter’s, he said. He was on the hospital critical list for four days with a punctured lung, and went from 120 lbs to 90 lbs.

On night he said to me, “Jeanne, do I look like the type that would hang out on the corner and gang war?”

He’s about five feet, eight inches tall and weighs only 140 lbs. I had to smile.

“No. Are you?”

It was his turn to laugh at me. “You don’t know me! Psych - I used to be.”

“You used to be in a gang?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Which one? Valley?”

“25th and Diamond.”

“Why, Ronnie?” I asked seriously.

“I don’t know. When I got out of the hospital, I was desperate. I joined a gang tryin’ to get revenge.”

“Did you get it?”

“Naw, man. Then I came here to live and forgot about it...I don’t believe in gang war no more.”

I guess while Ronnie was living here the first time, his twelve year old brother James robbed a place. The police came for Ronnie. Ronnie told them he was the one they were looking for. He went to court willing to take the rap for his little brother.

His two uncles, Jim and Jo, Frances’ brothers are in jail for dealing dope.

When he was living at his Mom’s, Ronnie had to share a bed with his aunt Clara - who is the same age as him, and his older cousin Greg.

Frostie is another boy who lives at our center. He is really dark-skinned, and he absolutely won’t tell why his nickname is Frostie. He’s seventeen. His mother is dead. His father - who is living with a girl friend - kicked him out of her house. He slept on the 10th floor in the hallway of one of the high-rise apartment buildings at 23rd and Diamond. Same project Ronnie’s from. Anyway, Frostie slept there three weeks before someone called the police. He then spent 4 months in the Youth Study Center, a juvenile holding facilty. Frostie just said the other day, to my surprise, “I love my father, Jack. He can do anything he wants to me ‘cuz he’s my father.”

Looking back from 2008, it occurs to me that somewhere I do -or did - have a letter of reply from Dr. Bob the III. He was very kind and sympathetic - and I believe he mentioned that at one time (or perhaps still) they thought about starting a Christian University for Blacks - and he said that he doubted they could really even help children raised in the circumstances I had described. Rather odd, when you think about the strong emphasis on missions inherent in Christianity.