Friendz N the Hood

Part 4

by Yvonne Abraham

If streetworker Maggie Solis weren't at the Marshall Community Center party this afternoon, she'd be back at Maverick Square, in East Boston, as she is most afternoons between 2 and 5 p.m., the prime time for getting shot or pregnant. She'd be trying to connect with the kids, get them into the community center, or hook them up with other agencies, or check up with them to make sure everything's okay and that they know where to find her.

There's not much to distinguish Solis from the kids she devotes most of her days to: she is a tiny, intense woman in baggy overalls, avocado nail polish, and a dark blue baseball cap. Maggie knows the pull of the street: she's been there herself, though she won't get specific. "I used to be a kid like 'em," she says. "I was into negative activity."

She was paged at 2 a.m. this morning by an 18-year-old girl whose boyfriend had been beating her. Maggie counseled her over the phone and told her to sit tight. She'd spent the morning lining up a shelter for the girl, and she'd probably spend the rest of the evening settling her in there.

But right now she is dancing, licking away at an unnatural-looking orange-speckled ice cream, laughing with the kids and the other streetworkers, surveying a situation she helped to create: a couple of hundred youths in one place on a hot afternoon, parents letting little kids run around by themselves, and none of them afraid.

Book 'em

Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham@phx.com.