I remember her as a 45 pound child, just 4 years ago. Since 2010 I have caught the bus at 10:30 pm on this busy Baltimore City primary street in front of her mother’s house.

I see her mother come and go in her mini-van.

I see her mother’s man come home from work in his utility van.

I saw her older sister get dropped off in a fancy dress by a man that appeared to be her grandfather.

Her middle brother often plays with their family dog in the back yard and dutifully sets out the trash.

Her older brother walks past me with his friends and nods good evening, a quiet mild-mannered teenager, not some trifling fool.

Just like the rest of her family, ‘Tiny’ has responsibilities. She walks her older sister’s baby in the carriage. A young woman, who might be an aunt or a cousin, visits on occasion. When it is time for her to go, ‘Tiny’ waits for the bus with her, loads the young lady’s luggage on the bus, and then runs across the street to the family home.

So, what is troubling me?

I believe she is between 14 and 16. She is four feet ten inches tall and perhaps 85 pounds, with an extremely athletic build. She seems to have what my grandmother called ‘that jumping bean energy’ that some high metabolism people are blessed with.

What troubles me about ‘Tiny’ is that she dances in the street. She gets out there about two feet off the curb and dances in the headlights like a junior high school hip hop honey. This past Tuesday night, for ten full minutes, she put on a show for the oncoming motorists, some of whom honked their horns appreciatively. This happens 50 yards from a house full of her family members who seem to be living a nice lower middle-class life on the Harm City line. I suppose they are inside hypnotized by their various electronic devices while she goes about her more primitive life out of doors.

I averted my eyes during most of the performance, her obviously being a child. She seemed to be working very hard to correctly execute various maneuvers. There was nothing slutty about it really—but rather weirdly athletic. In some other context perhaps it would be an appropriate art form. I really do not know what to think, not having crucial information such as whether or not her mother knows what she is doing out there in the gutter at 10:30 pm on a school night. Whenever I see her do this I kind of grin inside at her outgoing nature, even as the context of her anonymous American Idol street audition saddens me.