Street Kids – The Chase

This summer I’ve been seeing lots more street kids in my hometown than I remember there being in other years.  Maybe it’s the economy, or that the weather here has been warmer than usual, with hardly any rain, for about the past 6 weeks.   Anyway, for whatever reason, they’re here.  When I say “street kids,” I guess I’m referring mostly to boys in their early teens who look like they’re homeless.  They look way too young to be living out on their own.  But they are – scrounging food and spare change during the day and sleeping under bridges or in abandoned buildings.

Some of them seem to hang out regularly in a couple spots I pass going to or from work or home or school.   A few times I’ve stopped to talk  with a group of the kids in one or another of those spots and I’ve gotten to know a few of them well enough to invite them over to our place for a meal or to get a hot shower.  In doing so, I’ve found that most of them, rather than feeling sad and hopeless about how they’re living, seem to see themselves as being on a sort of heroic adventure.   And I’m starting to think that maybe they are.

They’ve broken free from being controlled, and often abused, by their families or other adults.  They live in packs where they provide each other with companionship and support.  They’re not hung-up about having to own the newest whatever, or about what they wear, or about sex.  Most of them don’t seem ashamed or uptight about getting the money they need by trading sex for it.  And they try to always work in pairs, which seems to keep them pretty safe from harm.

I feel lucky that I’ve gotten to see the beauty behind the usually rough exteriors of these boys.  So in the next few weeks I’m going to be manipulating some pixels to try to portray some of that beauty.   Even though I’ll be giving the boys in my pics names, none of the pics are of actual, live boys – they’re just representations, usually over idealized, of the nature of some of the street kids I’ve been fortunate to meet.

The star of the first series is  “Chase,”  or, as he likes to call himself, “The Chase.”  While he’s sort of scruffy and unwashed, he’s also usually irrepressibly happy and is a joy to be around.  To see him, click on the image below or on this link: The Chase