“The problem is that I work too much,” I vented to FishEater2013 while playing PS3 online.
“Yeah that’s some bullshit,” the 12 year-old responded. “I know what you mean.
My mom always wants me to take out the trash.” I didn’t really think taking out
the trash was comparable to having 5 jobs but the kid was making an effort to
connect. It was progress. “If you had to quit one of my jobs, which one would
you let go…..” it dawned on me I still didn’t know this kid’s name. I asked,
“What’s your real name?” “Ben,” He replied. “Well, Ben…I’m Trey. Now, which job
would you get rid of?” I asked again. “The disaster relief job sounds the
worse…but teaching does too. Can you quit two?” I could hear him chewing gum in
a way that normally would annoy me. But we bonded so I could tolerate him doing
it. Some time passed and it was getting close to my bedtime but not Ben’s
because I don’t think his parents paid him much attention. “I’m getting tired,
buddy,” I yawned. “Hey Trey?” there was a certain tone of vulnerability in Ben’s
voice I had never heard before. “Yeah?” I was curious. “We’re supposed to
invite a parent to school for parent appreciation. I figured since we were
friends you could go. I don’t want to ask my Dad. He won’t go anyway.” I was
completely taken back by the fact this boy wanted me to go to his school for
parents’ day. “Uh, Ben, we’ve only know each other for a month or so playing online video games and I’ve
never met you and it’d probably be against the law if I did.” There was a long
silence. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I just figured I’d asked.” I could tell Ben was a
lonely boy. I could tell his feelings were hurt. “Alright, bud, be ready for
another round of games tomorrow, okay?” It was the best I could do to calm the
awkwardness. “Okay,” Ben replied and then we were disconnected from game play.
I thought about this for a long time restless in bed as I finished some yogurt I
brought home from YoguLand.
There’s nothing that hurts more than when we lose someone from our Louisiana Words family. But, the beauty of our writing movement is that the words of our loved ones live on with us. On June 20th, 2023, Louisiana Words Allstar, Jorge Arturo, moved on from this world leaving our hearts broken. He was a charismatic and talented human being. Jorge resided in New Orleans, LA and had been active on Louisiana Words for over a year. To honor Jorge’s life and work, we will be sharing his writing and live performances all Summer 2023. Please help keep his spirit alive by sharing his work. We know that Jorge’s words will connect with our readers and we hope to keep his spirit alive. Jorge’s first submission: “The Dog Show” debuted on February 6th, 2022 and is his most successful piece to date. In 2022, Jorge spent 10 weeks in the top with “The Dog Show,” “Weavers,” “They Say Love Kills, This Time It Really Did,” and “If Hell is Real, It Looks Like an Airport.” His la...
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