about some boys by jonny
	Almost everyday Troy puts on his “About a Boy” DVD and watches one or two scenes, gets teary eyed and exclaims his love for it. If I’m nearby I, too, will watch and we will together talk about how touching it is. There are moments in particular that we can barely take, like when awkward little Marcus tells cool Will that he’s tried to make himself happy and it’s not enough; his mother needs him, too. Oh, how we love this scene! At some point Troy will say, “Let’s do this as a play!” Then I ruin the feel-good moment by telling him that plays made from movies rarely work and he should just be satisfied with the movie. Poor Troy. I usually get more attached to movies about girls. I would love “About a Boy” even more if it was “About a Girl.” Being one of three daughters and an aunt to three nieces, little girls have always made sense to me. Plus I was one once. When I first came to New York I taught Shakespeare to rowdy junior high kids in the Bronx, most of whom were surprisingly excited to learn about Richard III and Lady Macbeth. The girls especially loved these stories. Upon learning of what King Richard did to destroy everyone in his way only to die at the end, a big sixth grade girl literally cried out: “He had a wasted life! A wasted life!” sparking a passionate discussion. I was constantly coming home full of stories from my exhausting day, determined to make a difference in these kids’ lives. I had so much to offer them! Especially the girls. I’ve heard people say girls aren’t being raised right. We tell them to “be nice” while we teach boys to be confident and aggressive. I think the problem is how we’re raising boys and I wish more of them were being taught to be nice. I certainly prefer nice, compassionate, loving people to the overly confident ones. Oh, I’m not saying girls should be submissive and shy, but let’s not fault them for being sweet. I’ve found most boys to be loud, violent, selfish and abrasive. Why isn’t anyone worried about that? A little over three years ago something strange happened to me. My beloved little sister and her wonderful husband went and had one of these boy creatures. A boy? In our family? There must have been a mistake, for we were practically an all girl group. She called at three in the morning and shouted, “Noah Lee was born a couple of hours ago!” I had no idea who she was talking about, even though we all knew Noah was the boy-name they’d chosen. I wanted to say, “You mean Chloe, right?” with a nervous laugh. No, she meant a real little boy had just entered the world and thus, our family. Then there was our church. Troy and I began teaching third and fourth graders Sunday school, and again I found myself always drawn to the one or two girls that would show up. Mostly it was all boys, and they were very loud and a little mean. Often I would lock eyes with a little girl who was much more mature than these boys her age and we would smile at each other as if to say, “We have to stick together around these monsters.” Troy and I discovered that one of the little boys lived in our building, and so before long we were in charge of walking him to and from the church, and sometimes he helped us walk Max. He’s quite the talker, and most of our conversations were very one sided, with him talking about his favorite violent movie. If he wasn’t giving us way too many details about “Bride of Chucky,” he was acting out a video game that we didn’t let him bring to church. Oh, why couldn’t one of those little girls live in our building? I complained a lot. So I decided to be a mentor and finally make a difference in a young girl’s life! I figured not a lot of people out there were jumping at the opportunity, so I contacted a wonderful organization here in the city and began the long process that would eventually lead to being matched with a girl whose life I could affect in some wonderful way. I finally got the phone call that I had been assigned a child … a boy child. Would I be okay with that? There just aren’t enough men out there volunteering to mentor and that means a bunch of boys are on a waiting list while all the girls are off having fun. Of course that was fine with me. I’ll get to know an eight year old … boy. Sigh. What happened to my dreams of changing a girl’s life and teaching her to love and respect herself and others and be compassionate and safe and wonderful and creative? Girls are so easy, so fun, so full of laughter and smiles and sweetness. I wanted to hang out with them and be let in on their secrets! I wanted to offer wisdom and guidance and be friends forever! I had so much love to give! (Okay, this was more about me than the girls.) Well, if I had so much love to give, of which I had been telling people for years, why couldn’t I give it to all the boys who were suddenly in my life? So I did. Of course I fell madly in love with my nephew. Yes, he’s a boy. Of that there is no doubt. He can throw a ball better than I can (thanks to his grandpa, who I don’t remember teaching me to do that) and he is very strong, very manly. But he also has this compassionate side to him. For instance, when his wimpy mom has to get her blood drawn, he holds her hand and talks her through it. His wimpy aunt wishes he’d do the same for her. I sometimes get to tuck him in at night and read him books, and his gentleness and sweetness sort of make me cry. And I wouldn’t trade the boy I mentor for any girl in the world. He loves ballet, ice skating, holding hands, Lizzie Maguire, Wizard of Oz, theatre and all movies starring teenage girls. So while it means a lot of Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan movies, our time together brings out the girl in me. He and his brother (who sometimes comes with us on our outings) are very affectionate and always hug each other goodbye. He’s extremely worried about homeless people and loves giving them my change, and the last time I saw him he said he felt sad that so many women think they have to have plastic surgery. “If your breasts are small, that’s okay!” he exclaimed loudly as we walked through Spanish Harlem together. The church boys are still a challenge every single week, but I haven’t given up on them. We try to teach them the importance of not killing each other, of treating others the way they want to be treated, and there are moments where we see it happening in little bits. Our neighbor boy recently gave us a love note written in pencil on notebook paper with little drawings all over it, and that was awfully sweet. Recently he interrupted one of his gory reenactments and asked for my opinion concerning a moral dilemma between him and his mom about a Gameboy, and we had a pretty good talk about what he should do. And most of the time when we pick him up at his apartment he hugs and kisses his mom goodbye and tells her in Spanish very sweet things, I’m sure. He’s not so tough. So I’ve had to alter my plans and dreams and settle on affecting some boys’ lives, or letting them affect mine, which is of course what happens to Troy’s reluctant hero in “About a Boy.” My life in New York has been about a lot of little boys, and as if this wasn’t completely clear I recently got pregnant and am currently carrying a boy baby inside of me everywhere I go. When the ultrasound lady declared this news to us I almost shouted, “Of course it’s a boy!” in a kind of sarcastic voice. I sensed Troy feeling suddenly nervous, squeezing my hand reassuringly as if to say, “We boys aren’t all that bad.” And there on the million dollar TV screen was this crazy little fetus floating around and flexing his muscles and kind of smiling at me. He looked so cute. All right, I give up. Someone is trying to tell me something and I hear it. Turns out I like little boys after all, and as long as this son of mine is as tender hearted as his dad I think I’ll be okay. summer 2004