He talked about the death penalty the way any high school student would: deserved, a life for a life type of lingo. "I mean, he didn't have to kill all those people or nothin'..."
I didn't say anything much, listening to this graduating senior football star formulate his thoughts.
Then he reminded me where he comes from. "And the prisons is so full anyhow that they don't have room for the ones don't deserve to live. I mean, kids here grow up without a daddy because they daddy in prison. So they look for father figures other places and get they selves messed up in gangs and drugs and everything. Then they go to jail and they kids grow up without a father. Don't got the room in prison for people like this serial killer in the paper." He holds up a small, rumpled newspaper clipping with an inch-by-inch picture of a man with a vacant face. "It's a cycle, Miss."
I nod. "Sounds like a rough cycle." Also sounds like my social justice classes and clubs in college. But all that talk in those classes hasn't helped this young man... "Do you believe that people can break the cycle, Marlon? Do you think that boys who grow up without fathers can be great men who raise their children right?"
"Yeah. I do. I grew up without a daddy. I don't got no plans to go to jail and no record either. But people who grow up in the hood, they don't come back when they got they selves together. They get away; they stay way."
"Sometimes that's true. My dad grew up not five minutes from here. He grew up with some of the problems we've talked about. He's done well for himself and raised his family up right in the suburbs, far away from the place he left."
Marlon nods, curt, determined, maybe even spiteful.
"He didn't come back, Marlon, but he let me come back. Does that count for anything?"
Looking from my polo to my Sperrys, Marlon seemed unsure. "But it was your choice, Miss, to come here and teach us. Not your dad's."
"Mostly mine. But partly his, too. He raised me the way I am. I heard the stories of growing up in South Central. And I see him today as a successful, caring man. Something in me was raised to believe, and to believe with action, that everyone deserves a chance. Everyone can make something of themselves. They just need the tools, the motivation, the determination. You believe that, Marlon?"
"Yeah, Miss. I do. I'mma go to college. But I'mma come back, too."
"Good, Marlon. You've already chosen to break the cycle."
The bell rung as if on cue and Marlon looked once more at the mug shot in the paper before shoving it in his folder. The rest of the team, rowdy in their exit toward practice, passed Marlon, who was still standing by my desk.
"And Miss, it does count."
"I'm sorry?"
"You comin back insteada your dad. It counts--for a lot."
