The Stardust Lounge_ Stories From a Boy's Adolescence - Deborah Digges [60]
Now he is smiling as he makes his way back to me. “We can go,” he whispers. “It's okay. Just a fine. I've brought my checkbook …”
We linger at the door as the boys on the front row are brought before the judge. Their legal counsel reviews the charges brought against them. Breaking and entering a private residence. Theft of guns and attempts to resell them. Assault with deadly weapons. Attempting to flee the scene of the crime in a stolen vehicle …
Zeek's mother makes her way to the bench to stand next to her son. She tries to remain composed. “Take him,” she says when the judge allows her to speak. “Take him and take care of him or he'll be dead before his sixteenth birthday. I can't control him, Judge. I can't look after him …”
“Let's go.” Stephen takes my arm. “Poor Zeek.” He shakes his head. “He's gone. He's out of here …”
“Years, I'm afraid. What a shame.”
“It was stupid what they did,” Stephen says as we climb in the car. “They got caught up. Things lead to things. It's hard to stop it once it gets going. And it's really hard to pull out.”
“I hear.”
“I feel guilty, sort of.”
“I can understand that.”
“Zeek's just a kid.”
“A lot younger than the others?”
“Ya. I've done some of the same things …”
“Hmm.”
“He's just clueless.”
“Well, maybe he's safer this way.”
“Safer?”
“It's a hard call, isn't it?”
“I guess,” he says, the flash of anger subsiding. “Look,
Mom.” Stephen stops my hand as I begin to turn the key in the ignition. “Let's make a deal. Let's say we try never to come back here.”
“Sounds good …
“Well, not try … there is no try.”
“Good old Yoda.”
“How many years was I Yoda for Halloween?”
“Three?”
“So let's just say we won't ever come back here.”
“Okay.”
“We should shake on it.”
“Okay let's shake.”
“Deal?”
“Deal.”
PERSONAL STATEMENT / STEPHEN DIGGES
Throughout my high school career, much of my extracurricular experience in the arts and the social sciences has been of my own invention. This is because my interests in music, photography, poetry, and psychology have tended to be nontraditional. While my school has offered me opportunities in talent shows, the darkroom, and the classroom (I made the honor roll this year), I have independently set up my own means of practicing my art by creating my own music studio and darkroom.
I have also contracted, this year, to complete an internship with Amherst psychologist Eduardo Bustamante, whose work focuses on spirited children who cannot learn in traditional settings. Under Dr. Bustamante's guidance I have worked with and helped to counsel ADD and ADHD children. Using Dr. Bustamante's Play and Pride approach, I am completing my own studies on my observations of new ways for children with frontal-lobe deficiencies to be challenged and successful. Not only have I been proud to assist Dr. Bustamante, but this project has been extremely helpful to me as a person with ADD. I, too, have had trouble learning in the highly traditional setting of public school. Working and reading and writing on the subject have given me confidence in my own nontraditional ways of learning. I believe that I have also given confidence and insight to those who are struggling with some of the same problems I have faced at school.
From The Broken Composition / Photos by Stephen Digges
My family and I have also traveled extensively, so once again, my “classroom “ has been the world. My family and I lived in London for two years prior to my attending Amherst Regional High School. Attending the American School in London, I interacted with classmates from all over the world. I have also traveled to Italy and Holland. My visit to Amsterdam I planned myself; this December, for the first time, I set out without parents to explore the Netherlands.
Last summer I traveled to New York to be a student at Parsons School of Design Summer Intensive Program in Photography. This experience above all others