Free The Corner by David Simon/Ed Burns

school?”
    “We got a half-day,” Tae says easily.
    The standard answer, delivered four times a week on the average. Ella gives them each a quick look, letting them feel her suspicion, but the boys stay passive. She mounts the steps, unbolts two heavy locks, and bends to pull up the metal grate. It squeaks protest and fights her all the way. She unlocks one of the two double doors and enters; the boys follow. Above the doorway, a bent square of tin proclaims, “The Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center.”
    Stepping into the darkness, Ella fiddles with her key ring as she rushes to open the small back office and turn off the alarm system. She returns to flip up the bank of light switches.
    “Sign the book,” she says as Tae bumps past Manny Man and claims the privilege of being the first to sign the composition notebook that serves as a roster for the flock of children who find their way here five days a week.
    “I’m first,” says Tae, admiring his signature, “Dontae,” written in a neat, tight script on the first line.
    “So what?” says Manny. “I been first before.”
    Tae thumbs through the notebook. “Look who’s always first. R.C. Damn, that boy don’t never go to school,” he says.
    Tae is deep into the notebook. He is a bantam-sized fifteen-year-old, with a wiry body of broad shoulders, long arms, and bowed legs. His hair is cut close and the skin of his face is pulled taut, giving him a pinched, sharp look. He flashes a wide grin.
    “DeAndre, too. Them two boys be crazy,” he says with relish.
    Tae still plays the game, going to school, doing his homework, obeying his mother’s curfew. He runs track and gets low-B grades and still has college or the military within his grasp. But today, he cut early to hook up with Manny Man and check the rumor that Miss Ella is thinking about a basketball team.
    “When we gonna play?” asks Manny, trying to provoke her into a commitment.
    “I don’t know yet. I wish you worried me about school the way you do about basketball,” she says.
    “Miss Ella, we’d be good,” Manny pleads.
    “We’ll see. Now don’t be pushing me.”
    Ella retreats to her small back office, hoping for a moment or two to herself. She’s torn about the basketball idea and would like to think it through. A fifteen-and-under team would be a big commitment for her and the rec, but she knows she needs something to occupy the older boys, who are getting too rough for the smaller children. Some days, it’s all she can do to keep a semblance of order.
    Outside, as if on cue, the larger room erupts in noise. There’s wild pounding against the double metal doors and laughter from Tae and Manny Man.
    “I SAID OPEN THE DAMN DOOR.”
    So much for a chance to think. Ella pushes her chair back, sighs, and goes out to open the door for Richard Carter.
    “OPEN THE MOTHERFUCKING DOOR,” shouts R.C., as Tae and Manny sit smirking, content to watch him through the wire-mesh windows as he pounds away in frustration. They, in turn, are safe behind the rule that only Ella or her part-time assistant at the rec, Marzell Myers, is permitted to open the door.
    “R.C., please,” says Ella, ending the standoff. “You don’t have to curse.”
    “MISS ELLA,” he wails, his voice raised, as usual, to the level of a shout. “THEY WON’T OPEN THE DOOR.”
    “R.C., you know the rules.”
    “YEAH, BUT MISS ELLA, THEY WAS LAUGHING,” R.C. counters, his heavy face forming into its perpetual pout. The world has conspired against him; this is a belief so central to his being that it qualifies as religion.
    “I know, R.C. Just calm down and sign the book.”
    “Yes’m,” he says, still glaring hard at his tormentors. Walking past Ella, he lunges at Tae, grabbing the ledger from the smaller boy’s hands. Manny Man jumps to Tae’s defense, tossing a shot of his own in an effort to stir Ella’s ire: “R.C. don’t never be going to school.”
    But R.C. recovers instantly. “Ringing a bell