Kevin Buie
I don’t
remember the exact encounter when I met Kevin Buie, but where I met him was
obvious. A large part of my childhood was spent on the basketball courts of Johnson
City , NY Floral
Park . He had just sort of appeared there one day during the summer
before my senior year in high school. This was not unusual, new kids would show
up all the time.
Kevin
exemplified the meaning of the phrase; “kid from the streets”. He had recently
moved to JC from Brownsville Brooklyn
to live with his sister and go to school. His presence was felt at the courts
immediately because he was extremely outspoken. It didn’t take long for us to
become acquainted; he quickly became a regular at the park. I remember arriving
at the court one day and he immediately stopped playing in the middle of a game
and addressed me.
“Ay D, you
just missed it. Dis nigga Demetrius right here just came in poppin all this
extra shit and I scraped him! Very first play too, you just missed it D! Yo, I
went just like this”, he began going through the motions of the previous play.
“He turnt around and I spun the ball on his head like dis right, an da nigga
just fell, Haaaaaaaaaa!” He bellowed in excitement like only he could. Kevin
was always ridiculously animated in his demeanors and always full of
life. The kid was hilarious; it is safe to say that I liked him from the start.
A few weeks
into the school year I had went to a party at my friend Kenny’s house. While I
was there I found out that Kevin had been living at Kenny’s house. Apparently
he had gotten into an argument with his sisters boyfriend and got kicked out.
Kenny’s parents didn’t want him there anymore either, so he was going to be
homeless.
Kids like
Kevin are a dime a dozen out on the streets, they are everywhere. They have no
chance to live a normal life from the start because they never had any
stability. God only knows where his mother was, I assumed someplace in Brooklyn
maybe? I never once heard him ever talk about her or try to call her either.
For all I know she could have passed away a long time ago.
Kevin was
only 15 years old, and I felt bad for him. I was living alone at the time and I
just so happened to have a spare bedroom in my apartment. So, around October of
1999 I asked Kevin if he would like to come live with me. He was extremely
grateful and he moved in that same day. All he had was a bag of clothes, so it
wasn’t like we have to get a moving truck or anything.
I certainly
didn’t take care of him in any way; he was more than capable of doing that on
his own. It was easy to tell that he had been taking care of himself for some
time already. All I did was provide him with a bedroom and a mattress.
Obviously
Kevin didn’t have any money, so a lot of the time he would steal the things he
needed from stores. This wasn’t something that I condoned, but it was none of
my business. I understood that he needed to do what he needed to do. When he
would go into a store he would take whatever he wanted. This one time I watched
him go up to the counter at a gas station and ask the attendant for the price
of their scotch tape. At this gas station they had a number of items hanging on
the wall directly behind the attendant. The second he turned his back, Kevin
smoothly snagged 4 packs of Marlboro cigarettes off the display rack and put
them in his pocket. “$1.29”, the guy told Kevin.
“God damn, man”, Kevin responded and then walked out. I
wouldn’t say he was a magician at stealing, but he was good at what he did, he
had to be. He never hesitated and he never got caught. A lot of people would
wonder how I would feel comfortable having a thief living with me. Well, first
of all he would never steal from me. I was like a big brother to him and he
appreciated the fact that I gave him a place to live. Secondly, I didn’t own a
single thing worth stealing anyways.
I remember
one time when we went into Video King and I specifically talked to him before
we went in. I said; “Listen man, don’t try to steal anything from here, they
have sensors on everything.” He said he that he wouldn’t, but he did anyways.
The moment we went to leave sensors went off and he had to walk back through.
They asked him if he had anything that belonged to them and he said; “hell no”.
Then he walked through it again and took a bunch of junk out of his pockets
like he was trying to figure out what was causing it go off. Next, he bent over
like he was trying to find metal on his shoes or something. He took a dvd out
of his pant leg and set it up flush against the counter so they couldn’t see
it. Then he took his belt off and set it on the counter and walked through, no
alarm this time. I was so pissed off at him for not listening to me, but he had
never had to listen to anybody. It was just the way that things were in his
life. A few days later he went back and put a bunch of DVD’s in the hood of his
jacket. Then, when he walked out of the store and it didn’t set off the alarm
because it was above the detection sensors. I think the only reason he went
back was out of spite, he was mad that he didn’t get away with it before.
He only had about 4 different outfits
and he almost never washed them. In fact, he only showered about once a week. What
do you expect from a 15 year-old kid who lives by himself? Sometimes he
wouldn’t come home for a day or two at a time and I would worry about him. I
never told him I worried about him of course, but there was a ton of trouble
out there waiting for him to get into. I tried to make sure that he went to
school everyday, but it only worked during basketball season.
He was in
10th grade and played on the JV team, basketball meant everything to
him. Everybody knows that if you miss school or if you are failing a class or
two you wouldn’t be allowed to play in games. His basketball skills seemed like
he was born with a ball in his hands, but no hoop. He was a great ball handler
and defender, but he couldn’t shoot at all. His hands were extremely fast,
which is why he was so skilled at stealing…in basketball and at convenient
stores.
Our
relationship was built on a love for the game of basketball. This was the only
time he had been on a school team, and he loved it. During basketball season he
was focused on school for the first time ever because he wanted to be able to
play. So when he was failing a few classes and had to sit out, he almost went
off the deep end a few times. I told him that I would help him with his school
work, but he was his own man and wouldn’t have any of that. Besides, he could
do it on his own; he just didn’t like to apply himself to class work.
Eventually we got into a routine much like people who live together do. It was
school, basketball practice, and then home. On the weekends we would have
parties and have our girlfriends over, but during the week we were focused.
It wouldn’t
surprise me if this was the only time in his life that he had any small sense of stability, although I cannot confirm
this. He began to focus on his school work and was becoming a solid part of the
team, some games he would even start. This was one of the best times in my
life; we had a lot of fun during that basketball season. But as they say, all
good things come to an end.
After
basketball season ended, Kevin pretty much quit going to school altogether. He
was out running the streets and getting into trouble everyday. When the school
year ended and the summer began, he was increasing his criminal activity. One
day he had come home with some stolen property and I told him he had to move
out. He got pissed off and told me that he was never going to come visit, and that
I would never see him again. I wonder if that is what he said to his family
members when he left, because he never spoke to them. True to his word, I never
seen Kevin ever again after he left that day and sometimes I missed him. But it
was something that had to be done, he was getting involved in things that I
simply couldn’t have around my house. I felt like I was giving up on him like
everybody else had done, but I was only 17 years old and I had my own problems
going on. I had recently gotten kicked out of school for horsing around and my
family life had caved in too.
As the
years went by I often wondered what had happened to Kevin. I knew that he was
destined to end up in prison; he just had too many factors working against him.
While doing some investigating online I found out that he had done a little bit
of time in prison a while back. I also found out that his father (Kevin Sr.)
has been in prison since 1993 for a multiple homicide. But aside from that, I
hadn’t seen him since he moved out of my apartment in the summer of 2000. I had
no idea where he was living or what he was doing.
Then, in
September 2012 he appeared in the blotter section of the Press & Sun
Bulletin. Allegedly, he had assaulted his girlfriend and ended up in jail.
Then, when he got out of jail, he had been involved in a fatal hit-and-run in
downtown Binghamton
The fact is
that there are thousands of Kevin’s out running the streets at this very
moment. There are thousands of kids who will never have a chance to live a
normal life. This country spends so much money on foreign affairs when we have
so much work to do right here. Any country that is trying to improve should be
concentrating on developing its most valuable resource, its children.
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