The 19-year-old known as "Nawlins" at his St. Petersburg high school forgoes a return home to face life on his own.
By LEONORA LaPETER, Times Staff Writer
Published December 4, 2005
[Times photo: Lara Cerri]
Devin Mabens is on his own after his great-grandmother left for New Orleans. Through charity, they lived rent-free in a duplex south of downtown St. Petersburg. Rent of $400 is due next month.
ST. PETERSBURG - On the football field at Lakewood High School, they called the new kid "Nawlins."
Devin Mabens liked that they gave him a nickname. It made him feel like he belonged.
Displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the Lakewood senior and his great-grandmother wound up in St. Petersburg in mid September. Devin's great-grandmother missed her home of 35 years and returned two weeks ago.
But Devin, who turned 19 a few days after he got here, wouldn't go.
"It will never be the same like it used to be," said the 5-foot-7, stocky teenager. "I never want to go back there."
He is one of 104 hurricane evacuees enrolled in Pinellas County public schools, and like many others has spent the last few months coping with Katrina's aftermath.
But now, Devin is striking out on his own for the first time in his life. Ready or not.
* * *
When Hurricane Katrina threatened New Orleans, Devin and his great-grandmother went to his aunt's apartment in nearby Metairie. Devin's mother was 17 when she had Devin, and his great-grandmother has raised him.
Devin said he doesn't have a relationship with his father, who lives in Puerto Rico.
The family weathered the storm in the aunt's second-floor apartment, but after four days they began to run out of water.
So Devin swam through the grimy, smelly water for five blocks. He saw a snake swim by and passed the bodies of two young men he knew. But he returned with water, cupcakes and potato chips from a gas station.
Eventually, Devin's aunt and her family ended up in a hotel in Mississippi. But there was no room for Devin and his 74-year-old great-grandmother. They were dropped off at a shelter.
Devin said he didn't sleep for five days. There were no cots - just hard floor. They learned that their home, where Devin had left all of his football and academic trophies and plaques, was submerged to the roofline.
A day or so later, they were flown to a military base in Arkansas. Devin's mother had gone to Chicago with his four sisters, but they didn't have a number for her. Devin's great-grandmother had a niece who lived in St. Petersburg, but she couldn't remember her last name.
"She kept on sitting there, thinking and thinking," Devin recalled. "She refused to sleep. She was trying to figure out the name."
Late that night, she remembered the name: McLehan. Devin dialed 411 and got her number. The phone rang in Jessie Louise McLehan's Lakewood Estate home at 1:30 a.m.
* * *
Devin enrolled at Lakewood High School and joined the football team.
A few weeks later, he and his grandmother moved into a white clapboard duplex with pale yellow trim just south of downtown St. Petersburg, provided by a member of a Christian charity organization.
In late October, Hurricane Wilma threatened Tampa Bay. As it neared the coast, Devin grew more and more uneasy.
At the homecoming football game, Devin's fear seemed to boil over. He grew tearful. He spoke to Rufat Agayev, a leader of a school Christian organization. "I'm tired of running, I'm tired of running," Devin told Rufat.
Rufat tried to comfort him.
"I had to leave my country for war," said Rufat, who was 5 years old when his family fled Azerbaijan. "What you need to do at this point is run to God."
Devin pulled a worn, tiny orange Bible out of his pocket, its pages wrinkled from being wet during Katrina, were now dry. He told Rufat he felt like the storms were following him.
* * *
In November, Devin's great-grandmother begged her daughter, Devin's grandmother, to come get her. She just wasn't happy here. "It's all she talked about, going home," said McLehan, 66, who works at the Coast Guard Exchange in St. Petersburg.
At the same time, no one could talk Devin into going. Both his grandmother and his great-grandmother pleaded with him to return with them. He said they worried that he wasn't responsible enough to start on his own.
"I did not want my baby staying there," said Devin's grandmother, Carolyn Mabens Bradley, 52, who picked up his great-grandmother two weeks ago. "But we have to cut the apron strings. He's growing up, and we have to put trust in him."
Devin is working at Winn-Dixie as a stock boy for $7 an hour. He is confident he can do it all, work, go to school, take care of himself.
But like many young adults faced with making life decisions for the first time, Devin appears to be living for the moment rather than saving for his future.
This past week, he got a Federal Emergency Management Agency check for $10,391.51. Devin says he sent half of it to his great-grandmother since it was for both of their property losses. With the rest he bought a 51-inch TV for $697 from Wal-Mart. He got a computer, a new bed, couches and a coffee table. From the dollar store, he got a clock with the Last Supper on the face and a print of a pair of giraffe heads for his living room. He bought curtains and pot holders and dish rags and wallpaper - all with apples on them - for his kitchen.
Things will change at the end of this month. That's when his free rent at the duplex runs out and he must start paying $400 a month.
Devin wants to graduate from high school in the spring, but he already has missed some days because of transportation problems, and his grades have been slipping. He and his family say he was a straight A student in New Orleans. He says he got 3 As, a D and an F on his most recent report card.
A teacher has been talking to him about getting his grades back up so he can get a scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta.
"He's trying," said his St. Petersburg cousin, McLehan. "He wants to go to school really, really bad. He wants to do things. He's trying to work, and I don't know. It's very difficult for him."
Devin tends to talk confidently about his future, but occasionally he'll tell you he's nervous about it all.
"For the first time, I'm in my own place, and I don't know what to expect," he said.
