CHAPTER 2

"It's a lie that foster kids are worthless. Actually we're some of the most resilient and determined people alive. The real story behind any failures," Sage says, "is that year after year, thousands of kids are screwed over simply because those foster teens lack the resources and guidance to make a successful transition to adulthood."

I feel the rear derailleur drop down a gear and get ready to climb another hill.

She continues, "Even adults who grew up in stable homes with good parents and lots of resources would probably agree that the most difficult time of their lives was during and after high school, as they struggled to begin life on their own. They'd also likely agree that their most valuable resource was someone who guided them in making good decisions. So why don't more adults continue the tradition by helping someone who just needs some guidance? How come so few people understand that just by giving a little time, they'd do something that's really worth a damn?"

Sage's Journal
Age 21
Atlanta, GA

Minimal -- that describes my resources in and after foster care. Like other foster kids, I had none of the stuff most people take for granted, including a family. …the only thing I had in abundance was instability and chaos. It's little wonder we former foster kids find it so hard to succeed as adults, it's because we didn't succeed as children.

Sage's Journal
Age 14
Roselle Park, NJ

Many of us deal with our miserable lives by escaping into our fantasy lives, where we pretend we have toys, cool clothes, music, some money, a car, a family, someone who cares. The list is endless. …the harm comes to those of us who grab for our desires by lying, stealing, and selling ourselves. For most foster kids, the months and years crawl by without us ever getting any closer to any of the finer things our classmates enjoy.

Sage's Journal
Age 14
Roselle Park, NJ

…one day you trick yourself into thinking you've won the fight because you've finally killed off your hope. That's when you start to believe that your desires will never be fulfilled, and you're OK with that. But you haven't won; you've only lied to yourself again. A foster kid, like any kid, needs the guidance of someone willing to pay attention long enough to be trusted. Guidance isn't just a desire, it's a need like food and safety. …when guidance is denied, your future feels so bleak and desperate that you rebel.

Sage's Journal
Age 15
Roselle Park, NJ

…I'm rebelling out of anger, fear, self-preservation, or all three. It doesn't matter what pushed me over the edge. I'm going to fight back as long as it takes me to figure out how to overcome this crap life. Because I stir up trouble, I'll be, in the eyes of the clueless adults unwilling to take an interest, a threat to their comfort. Well, fuck 'em. Who cares what they think? They sure don't understand or care about me. …maybe I'll clean up my act if, and when, I figure out how.

Sage's Journal
Age 16
Roselle Park, NJ

Yes, I'm angry and I'm bitter. …I have every right to my every outburst, although I'm beginning to understand my unfocused anger does not help my situation. Instead of coming to my rescue, people back away from me. I'm willing to shut up if someone will just respond and help, but no guardian angel shows her smile. … Screw 'em if no one cares enough to guide me-I'll become my own savior. I think this is going to be a difficult journey but it can't be any worse than these last two years and I refuse to let this crap last forever. My success will be my sweet revenge.

Sage's Journal
Age 19
Scotch Plains, NJ

…when I aged out, I thought my life was going to improve, as if some cosmic switch would flip from bad to good. So much for that bullshit; nothing has changed for this girl. In fact, most days I'm worse off than when I was in the system. Now I'm struggling, because I don't know the answers to so many difficult questions, and I have no one I can turn to for help.

…so I blindly muddle along, led by advice I rip from books and beg from fools. At age nineteen, while my new friends resemble sonic trains gliding down the tracks of success laid by their parents, I drift in response to the shifting winds of my own ignorance. If I can't have a parent, I wish I at least had a mentor.

Thinking about my partnership with Sage, I decide being a mentor must be like being the helmsman of a tandem. She knows the routes, can see far enough ahead to avoid danger, and can communicate with me. She takes seriously her responsibility to steer the tandem. And the best mentor for a foster teen has special qualifications. First, she has a similar background and has made a successful transition to adulthood. Second, she remembers how difficult life is for a foster teen, but cares enough to be tough when necessary. It's best if the teen knows his mentor personally, but if that's impossible, good mentors are able to provide guidance even from a distance.

Being a foster teen is like being the stroker of a tandem. I follow Sage's instructions, can communicate back to her, will hammer when necessary, won't cruise until it's time to cruise, won't make sudden moves that throw the tandem off balance, and will take every opportunity to learn what Sage tries to teach. I think my willingness to follow Sage's instructions is probably the most crucial part of our partnership.

Sage's Journal
April 19, 1988
Decatur, GA

…the more I consider the question, the more confident I am that guidance, a spirit of cooperation, and a plan are the minimum intangible resources the average foster teen needs to make a successful transition into adulthood. However, as we all learned or will learn, a theory isn't valid and true until proven. If I want to prove my theory, it'll have to be with an experiment, and I might just have what I need to do that.

Sage's Journal
April 29, 1988
Decatur, GA

I was in foster care, and figured out how to graduate high school before I hit the streets. I graduated from college, worked awhile, and then graduated from law school. By anyone's standards, including my own, I'm a success. … My transition to adulthood wasn't long ago, so I still remember what I did correctly as well as what I did wrong and would advise against. … I'm also capable of teaching all this to a cooperative teenager, so I think I'd make a good mentor.

Sage's Journal
May 13, 1988
Decatur, GA

…because Peter trusts me to successfully steer him through the difficult Atlanta roads, I think he'd trust me to steer him through the similarly difficult road that leads to a successful adulthood.

He starts ninth grade in about ten weeks. That means he'll age out of foster care when he turns eighteen on February 26th, the middle of his senior year. He doesn't realize it yet, but he's got to start planning now, so that he doesn't find himself on the streets in the middle of his senior year. Finding yourself on the street without a high-school diploma is the near-hopeless situation every teen must work hard to avoid and even harder to correct.

Sage's Journal
May 20, 1988
Decatur, GA

…planning to age out is like planning a tandem ride. If the helmsman and stroker don't have a plan, they can be the best cyclists in the world and still go down all the wrong roads. … A foster teen without a plan for aging out is in for a miserable ride. I can help Peter plan by showing him my method for choosing a direction in life. From there we can determine achievable goals that support his chosen direction.

I think every successful person would acknowledge that goal-setting is an important aspect of his or her success. Many people don't achieve their goals or aren't satisfied with their accomplishments, because they don't know how to pick the right goals for themselves. I'm confident I can help Peter pick the right goals.

Sage's Journal
May 24, 1988
Decatur, GA

The only problem I see right now could be the mentor's desire to micromanage the teen. I want Peter's transition to adulthood to be as painless as possible. I would even live it for him if I thought that would work, but I know it wouldn't. … It's best for a mentor to provide mostly guidance, whether softly or sternly, because teens won't develop into strong and confident adults unless they work through the transformation under their own willpower.

…like all foster kids, Peter has the ability to work through the transformation whether he realizes it or not. As an adult, what gives me the advantage over most of my peers is the emotional strength I've developed hauling myself back from the brink. For that reason, he too has the very real potential to be a very successful teen and adult.

"Want to go to L-5-P?" she says.

"OK with me."

"Let's try a new route. We'll take Moreland Avenue ."

"Uh-huh," I reply.

New routes are difficult because they are more work for Sage. We travel slower because she has to keep a careful watch as we cross unfamiliar territory. She approaches intersections with extra caution and scours the road for anything we must avoid. Riding over a pothole that you expect allows you to prepare for the impact by standing on your pedals or by hopping, but it's a real surprise to hit one seated and unaware.

Moreland Avenue is a typical Atlanta road: each of its lanes is narrow and winding, it's busy with cars, and it lacks a bike lane. When we ride streets like Moreland, we take up an entire lane. Although it pisses off some car drivers, taking up a whole lane is better than the alternatives: it's against the law to ride on the sidewalk, and it's dangerous to hug the curb, because cars will pass cyclists without slowing or changing lanes. The usual result is that the cyclist eats asphalt after being bumped by a passing car. Unfortunately, we have had the experience of eating asphalt.

Little Five Points, called L-5-P by locals, is a neighborhood just ahead named after its misaligned intersection. Sage feathers the brakes as we near the second parking lot to our right. At the same time someone in a passing car yells, "Hammerhead!" and we both flinch.

As they pull ahead I hear, "Hey Hammerhead, it's Keith. Catch me if you can."

I wave my left arm in the direction of the voice, and then signal for a turn after Sage calls, "Right!"

We turn into the parking lot of Junkman's Daughter, a popular store with an unusual front entrance: a fourteen-foot-high silver UFO surrounded by metallic angel wings. I replace my grip on the handlebar as we lean through the turn. As with the movement of bird wings, the smooth lean appears deceptively easy, but requires a lot of coordination. We coast toward Junkman's as Sage unclips her shoes from her pedals.

We come to stop and she steadies the tandem before she asks, "Who was that?"

"Keith."

"No way, Einstein, you don't say."

There's enough sarcasm in her voice that I know she's kidding.

"Keith who?"

"Keith Earley. He's in my school."

"How'd he know it was you?"

"Uh, how many red tandems in Atlanta do you see with a helmsman…excuse me, helmswoman, and blind teenager? Huh, Einstein?" I dole out the last comment, mocking her with a big grin.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she replies, "you going to dismount, or you want I should throw you off?"

She continues to hold the tandem steady as I unclip my shoes from my pedals and dismount. From here we walk to where we will eat lunch. Long ago we figured out that when we walk with the tandem, it's best that she holds onto and steers from the stem of the front handlebar, the location of the NO FEAR sticker, while I hold the rear handlebar or saddle. It's the safest way, and I don't need my white cane, which I despise, because it advertises my weakness.

L-5-P is one of the cool parts of our city. Lots of music and clothing stores, tattoo and piercing shops, restaurants with colorfully painted exteriors (so I'm told), and motorcycles lined up in front of bars named The Vortex and Euclid Avenue Yacht Club (no, there isn't a yacht for hundreds of miles). The entrance to The Vortex, across the parking lot from Junkman's Daughter, is the open mouth of a twenty-three-foot tall laughing skull. I'm also told that at night the eyes of the skull are red neon swirls. Extra cool.

This is also where every runaway teenager passing through Atlanta stops to hang. We pass an alley where beer, urine, reefer and vomit simmer to produce that smell found in busy alleys across the country.

Our routine here is to walk to the middle building on the right, the one with a restaurant named La Fonda Latina that has sidewalk seating. There we eat paella and talk to people who stop to ask about the tandem parked at our table.

Sage's Journal
Age 28
Decatur, GA

…as we eat Peter usually does the talking. I enjoy looking for that shocked change of expression in the faces of our visitors. It comes to those who realize he's blind. They're amazed he's out riding a cycle. It's too bad he doesn't see the people he impresses by just doing what he enjoys: riding.

Sage's Journal
May 29, 1988
Decatur, GA

I haven't explained my theory of minimum intangible resources to Peter, so I can't yet call him a willing participant in an experiment. … On the one hand, we're friends, and he says he trusts me, so he should be willing to trust me a little further. After all, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain if I can guide him into a successful adulthood. … On the other hand, trust can have its limits. I'll pitch the idea to him. What's the worst that could happen?

Socratic Method questions for Chapter 2

Understanding the Guide