The Kids Are Not Alright
Dispatch from the fringes of Philly's crisis of youth violence
If you ever find yourself in the Ardmore Farmer’s Market on a Saturday afternoon, and you think you hear a rabid mastiff barking, don’t worry: that’s just Markee goofing off behind the meat counter. Even when he’s running on three hours of sleep (at fifteen, a freshly released NBA 2K23 is top priority), he still has enough energy to keep his coworkers entertained throughout a long shift. Half the time he does so sleep deprived and hungry, having skipped breakfast to catch the train — Market Frankford Line from Kensington to 69th Street Station, then the 105 to Suburban Square — but you wouldn’t guess he’s missing meals, seeing as he’s already almost six feet tall and growing damn near an inch a week.
When you approach the counter, if you see an employee dancing, odds are it’s Markee. And if you hear someone shout “custy,” that’s a manager telling him to put on a straight face for a second and help you (the customer) with your order. He’ll do so happily, wrap up your strip steaks, and send you on your way with his trademark “have a lovely day.” But if you ask him to cube a chuck roast for stew meat, you’ll be waiting an extra few minutes until another employee is free — the law forbids him from using our butcher knives until he turns sixteen in December.
That is, if he turns sixteen in December, which, until recently, was a prospect I saw no good reason to doubt.
Earlier this summer, our general manager caught a few teenagers trying to steal some pints of juice. He stopped them, made them put the juice back, argued with them for a minute or two, and sent them on their way. Markee was busy helping a customer, but when he overheard me telling our cook what happened, he sighed and shook his head. It bothered him to see kids his age acting that way. His dad, he said, raised him right, taught him to work hard and make honest money. His parents aren’t together, and neither of them have much, but everything each of them has, they’ve earned. And that makes him proud.
His parents also taught him empathy, and the lesson seems to have stuck, even amid the godforsaken world of juvenile male humor. Sure, he still laughs along with insensitive jokes when there’s no one around to be hurt by them — e.g., behind the meat counter, “do you like chorizo” is code for “are you gay,” and when a new hire is asked the question, the veteran teenagers giggle with anticipation. But he’s not blind to the insensitivity; once, out of the blue, he asked if I thought it was wrong to be homophobic. He said he thought it was. And when things go too far, he gets uncomfortable. Once, a coworker did an impression of someone with Downs Syndrome, and Markee replied “nah, man, that’s messed up.”
On a Saturday a few weeks after the shoplifting incident, Markee came into work on edge. A bunch of kids he knew from school were planning to go “down south” that night, and he had a bad feeling about it. He was adamant: “do NOT go to South Street tonight, man,” he kept saying, “shit’s gonna pop off.” The older guys, myself included, sort of blew him off — we’d gone out on South Street plenty of times and didn’t know what he was so worried about. As it happened, I went to The Dive Bar on East Passyunk that night, and when I drove home, I remember thinking it was weird how many cops were patrolling the area. That was June Fourth. When I woke up, I saw the headlines. I went to work and told Markee he was right about the night before. He shook his head and said, simply, “I know, man, that’s messed up.”
A few weeks after that, he came into work riding high. “I went outside last night, Nick,” he said – meaning he got out of the house and did something social – “it was so awesome.” He’d gone to the movies the night before with a girl he’d been crushing on. Halfway through, she took his hand and led him to the bathroom. “The rest was history,” as he put it. The story was light on details, but I gathered it was the farthest he’d ever gone with a girl. His conclusion: “I gotta go outside more often, man.”
Markee “went outside” again this past Friday with a few of his friends from school. Some of the guys in their group have gotten on the bad side of some of the tougher kids from the neighborhood. Friday night, he and his friends were minding their own business until two SUVs pulled up. Over a dozen guys got out, some of whom had guns, and they chased him and his friends down the block. No one was hurt, but Markee was shaken up. “I’m not even that type of kid,” he said, “but now they know my face” — something he’d tried hard to prevent. For example, he has an Instagram, but he never shows his face in the pictures he posts. A lot of gun violence in this city stems from social media beef, and even if Markee tries his best to avoid conflict, Friday night proved it’s not always up to him. Distraught, he put his palm to his face and shook his head: “I’m done, man.”
Markee is a social conservative’s wet dream of a black urban teenager. Raised by separated-but-solid working-class parents in Kensington — positive father figure, attentive mother, grandma who makes the best bourbon chicken he’s ever tasted. Taking public transit at age fifteen to a steady job on the Main Line, disdainful of peers who resort to illicit methods of money making, determined to finish high school and make an honest living. Markee is primed to rise above his station without any special talent or superhuman intelligence — just a strong work ethic and a stronger moral compass.
And yet, here he is, a few months shy of sixteen and fearing for his life. The only reason he wasn’t amid the South Street chaos on June Fourth is because he made the conscious decision to stay out of trouble. He thought he was staying out of trouble this past Friday, too, but in some sections of this city, being a fifteen-year-old boy with friends is synonymous with being in harm’s way.
If Markee can’t make it, I don’t know who can. But I do know this city’s youth deserves better. And with a flurry of consequential local elections just over the horizon, I know I’ll be voting with Markee in mind.
A moving piece with sharp writing. It made me care about Markee without knowing him.
Amazing writing.