Playground Buddy

The first thing I noticed was that he was alone and likely about 5 years old. He was carrying a huge bag of Doritos and a light green drink in a plastic bottle. We exchanged names. His was Donovan. I was excited that my son would have a playground buddy for the hour that we planned to be there. An older boy came by not five minutes later and quietly scolded him for being at the playground without a grown-up. The younger boy was upset, "But I never get to be here!" They walked back to the apartment complex a stone's throw from the playground.

Not five minutes later the younger boy was back alone. "Plan C worked!" he said. This entailed getting his grandmother to say he could go out on his own and sneaking past his uncle. He showed us a really cool wind-up the swings trick, which dizzied the boys until they could no longer stand. Damian offered me a sip of his drink, but kept very close watch on his snack overall.

We moved on to another part of the playground and the two of them did funny tricks down the big slide, with Donovan pleading with us to dare him to do this or that move. At one point, he slid saying, "This is my Get Me Out of Jail one!" And he screamed with his arms flailing, "Get me out of jail!" Not much later our attention was diverted to a group of teenage boys who were roughhousing on the equipment intended for grammar school kids and the boy turned to me and said, "Can you tell me if they are gangsters?" I said I could not, but that I did not think so. He said they were. I asked him how he knew. He said, "Their eyes, what they are saying to each other, how they are pushing." I said I thought they were OK, but wondered if there were gangsters in his life. He said there were. I asked him how he felt. He said, "My mom's a gangster." I asked what made her a gangster. He looked at me as an adult might and said, "Can Gus hear this?" I said I thought so. He said, "My mom's in jail."

Soon after Gus and I had to leave and I offered to walk Donovan to his apartment. He said, "I know where I live." I tried to indicate that I knew he knew that, but that we had had a nice time and I would like to meet his grandmother and tell her what a nice boy he was, that I wanted to know he was safe. He pretty much split right then, though he did thank me.