Ross is in the kitchen. He’s been in the kitchen all day. Ross has been in the kitchen for the last three days. Ross is a near chain-smoker, or at least he was until he made the decision to quit three days ago. One of the better ways to avoid the kids if you’re having a bad day as staff is to volunteer to cook and take care of the kitchen. You have the kitchen counter acting as a barrier between you and the kids and it wraps three-quarters the way around the kitchen.
For the past three days, there has been a bounty of wonderful foods available to us for meals and snacks: pies, casseroles, omelets, salads, lasagna, cakes, smoothies, enchiladas, pizza, teryaki…Ross has been preparing one dish after another, even when it’s not meal time in an effort to stay off the floor. And as for cleanliness, the kitchen appeared to be downright sterilized.
I’m really trying hard to to support Ross here, but his being perpetually off the floor is starting to strain the other three staff on duty. For instance, Apollo, Ross’ special kid, has been having a hard time lately with his phone contacts with his mom. Apollo is a pretty infantilized black kid, and at 13, he’s tall and very skinny. He comes from the depths of the inner-city and has suffered mostly from neglect, the victim of an absent father and a mother addicted to alcohol and drugs. Apollo has recently brought up in his therapy sessions with Sam, that perhaps mom was drunk sometimes when they had phone contact.
Apollo’s conversations with his mom are already monitored, that is, it’s been legally established that a staff member must listen in to the conversation on the office phone in case the conversation somehow goes awry. Sam tells us that Apollo is too afraid to confront mom about being drunk during phone calls so they devised a system to let the monitoring staff know that Apollo wanted to end the conversation: Apollo would say, “Code Brown,” and hang up. Why it wasn’t “Code Red,” Code Blue,” Code 40,” or “Code Shlitz,” I’ll never know. So, “Code Brown,” it is.
As we were waiting for Mel’s arrival, Brady and I decided to take care of some house business by leading a community group. We called “group!” and all the boys sat on the couches in the living room.
Brady began, “I’ve been walking around the house and noticed that a lot of you aren’t really taking care of your hygiene needs very well. Specifically, when it comes to going to the bathroom. Lotta those bathrooms are really nasty. And as hard as it is to talk about, I think some of you need a little re-training when it comes to going to the bathroom.”
The boys were quiet.
Brady continued, “Ok, what Stokie and I are noticing is that there are some dookie stains in the bathroom in places they shouldn’t be. Some be on the toilets, some be on the wall, some be on the floor.”
There were instantly 10 different accusations shouted out at the same time:
“It’s my roommate!”
“I didn’t do it!”
“Whoa!”
“I know who does it!”
Brady went on. “I’m not looking for someone to blame, I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. I’m just saying there shouldn’t be any dookie anywhere in those bathrooms except for in the toilet. If you’re taking a dump, and the dookie comes out and you feel like you’re finished, what should you do?”
JD’s eyes lit up. “Flush!”
“Nope,” said Brady. “You wipe. With toilet paper. And now I have an even trickier question. You ready? How many times should you wipe?”
There were 10 different answers shouted out at the same time:
“3!”
“1!”
“4!”
“2!”
Brady’s demeanor was very calm. “See? I told you it was a tricky question. The correct answer is: as many times as it takes to get all the brown off your butt. If you wipe and you keep seeing brown on the toilet paper, you keep wiping til it’s gone. And I’ll tell you something else. If, for some reason you get some dookie on your fingers or hand, you sho as hell don’t wipe it on the walls or the floor. You need to clean it up with soap and water.” Brady chuckled and added, “And Ross is gonna be going around to check too.”
“Like Hell I am,” grumbled Ross from the kitchen.
I started my part of the group. “Ok, I just want to let you know real quick that some of you need to work on your social skills. When someone enters the house, like a staff or a therapist or whatever, I know you guys get excited and happy, and that’s ok. What’s not ok is when half the house bum-rushes someone when they come in. Ok? Let that person enter the house, see what’s going on, and then come up to them in a calm manner and say something like, ‘Hello, it’s nice to see you. How are you?’ That’s the way to start an appropriate conversation with appropriate boundaries. And I’ll tell you this, those of you who are having dookie problems better have washed up with soap and water if you want that person to give you a handshake.”
I continued, “Ok, that said this is what’s going on today. I wanna say congratulations to those of you on the basketball team. Apollo, Marcus, everyone’s real proud of you guys. The team has done great this year and I think it’s awesome that you guys have made it to the championship game tomorrow. We have basketball practice in just a few, Ross will be taking you down there.”
“Not with a souffle in the oven I’m not,” grumbled Ross.
Indeed, we have made it to the championship game. Every year, we field a team of 7th graders from every unit to participate in the community basketball league and our guys have actually gone undefeated for the entire season. This is a great source of pride for everybody in the organization and our guys will be going for the glory tomorrow evening.
I went on, “I know that Mel said he was going to organize a Nintendo tournament when he gets in, so we’ll wait for him for that. Anything else you want to say Brady?”
Brady shook his head, “Let’s just have a good day.”
I turned to Ross in the kitchen, “How about you, Julia Child?”
“Just leave me alone,” he said.
“Ok then, looks like Mel is pulling up now, let’s end group and have a good day.”
I went over to the kitchen counter to see if Ross really was making a souffle.
Apollo walked up with me and whined, “I want call my mom.”
Apollo has a very annoying habit of baby-talking and whining. We sometimes call him the Praying Mantis because he walks on his tiptoes and puts his hands up like a begging puppy when he’s feeling needy. He was doing this now.
I said, “Well Apollo, I think this is a perfect time for you and your special counselor Ross to talk. Maybe you guys can go on a nice, long walk. Whaddya say, Ross?”
Ross did a slow burn and said under his breath, “Fuckin Stokie…”
Apollo said to Ross in his nasally voice, “Can we have special time? I want call my mom. Will you come down to basketball?
Ross was irritated, “Damn Apollo, stop whining! You been whining all day.”
“No I haven’t,” said Apollo. “I want special time. Me and you need special time, can we have it? Can I help you cook? I want call my mom, we haven’t had special time in long time…” Apollo was entering the kitchen.
“Get outta my damn kitchen, Apollo!” Ross pushed Apollo.
Apollo was undeterred, “We need call my mom, take me down to basketball, I want special time…” He was fully invested in his praying mantis character.
Ross was losing it. “Damn, get outta here, Mantis! You think that shit is funny? You look like an idiot! Put your hands down. I’m not in the mood for special time. Maybe tomorrow.” Ross pushed him again.
I said, “This isn’t really working for me,” and ran to the staff office, and pulled out the pack of Marlboro Reds I had been saving for three days. I came back out to the kitchen where Ross was now shoving Apollo out of his way. “Hey Ross, I’m proud of you man. Three days, that’s great! Next time, maybe four days. Here!”
I tossed the cigarettes to him. “Oh thank God, Stokie. I was about to choke him.” He immediately stepped outside and lit one up.
Just then, Mel walked in. JD very quickly, yet appropriately, walked up to Mel, extended his freshly washed hand and said, “Hello Mel! How are you!”
Mel completely ignored JD and scrunched up his nose. “Smells like shit in here.”
I turned to Apollo. “I’ll monitor your phone call if you want. Plus, I’m taking you guys down to basketball practice. Ross just needs a minute to chill. You want to get on the phone and I’ll go into the office?”
Apollo tippy-toed to the phone and whined, “K.”
I picked up the phone in the staff office. Apollo had already dialed and his mom picked up.
“Hulla?”
“Hi.”
There was a long pause. I could hear some tv talk show blaring in the background. His mom said, “Who this?”
Apollo said, “It’s me.”
“Huh?”
“Me.”
“Oh.”
Another long pause. Apollo said, “Whatchu lookin at?”
“Huh?”
“Whatchu lookin at?”
“Oh. Some kinda show.” I thought I heard the clink of bottles, but wasn’t sure.
Apollo went on, “We in the big game.”
“Huh?”
“We in the big game.”
“Oh. What game?”
“Basketball, mama. I tol’ you. We in the big game.”
“You in the big game? When?”
“Tomorrow, mama. I tol’ you. You comin?” Another long pause. Apollo repeated, “You comin?”
“Huh?”
“You comin?”
“Oh, you know I can’t get no ride. I ain’t comin.” Long pause. Then she asked, “Whatchu lookin at?”
Apollo said, “Huh?”
“Huh?”
“We ain’t watchin tv, mama.”
“Oh.”
“I’m point guard.”
“Huh?”
“Point guard.”
“Who is?”
“I’m point guard, mama. In the big game. I’m point guard. Tomorrow we gon play the championship. You comin?” During the pause that came after that, I definitely did hear some bottles clinking.
Mama mumbled, “Shit…”
“What happened, mama?”
“Huh?”
“Mama, is you Code Brown?”
“Shit…”
Apollo hung up the phone.
I came back out to talk to Apollo. “Hey man, I’m sorry she was Code Brown. But you did real good, you hung up when you were supposed to. I’m sorry, dude”
“Okay,” he said with his nasally whine. “She jes doin what she always doin.”
I asked, “Apollo, why did you tell her you’re the point guard? You’re not the point guard, Darnell is.” Darnell is a big, mean strong kid from two units down.
Apollo said, “I SHOULD be point guard. They say the best player always get to be point guard and I’m the best player.”
I can say with some confidence that Apollo is not the best player. Darnell is the best player.
I said, “Well, you just play the position the coach tells you to play. We gotta go anyway. Get your gear and let’s go.”
We hopped in the van and I drove across campus to the gymnasium. Practice had just begun and Marcus and Apollo joined the rest of the team who were doing their usual warm up drills. The team’s head coach is Ricky Kinglsey, the Recreation Director of the organization and the two assistant coaches were staff from two other houses. Sitting on the bleachers behind the team bench were a group of staff who had brought their kids down. Practice is usually about 2 hours long and most staff will drop off the kids and come back to get them when practice is over. But we liked to linger a little while to watch the kids and engage in some campus gossip. I took a seat near Guru, who was wearing dark sunglasses and a hoodie sweatshirt under his buttoned up denim jacket, and Toby, who was doing a sub shift for another unit.
I said to Toby, “Hey man, you can’t be down here, who’s gonna clean up the house while the kids are acting out?”
He said, “Lemme tell you something.” He was using his authoritative, lecturing voice. “You might think it’s funny but they don’t know what they’re doing down there. I’ve done 9 loads of laundry already. If it wasn’t for me subbing down there, these kids would all be running around with stinky-ass clothes. I bet YOUR lazy ass hasn’t even done one load.
“Yeah, Tob,” I said, “you got me there. But let me know if you need any extra latex gloves. You’re probably single-handedly depleting the house’s reserve.”
Toby winced, “You think I’m gonna touch those foul-ass clothes with my bare hands? Hell no!”
The boys had started a scrimmage and were running different plays. Each time the ball was passed to the center, Randall, the tallest kid, he would immediately spin and heave the ball to the basket or backboard, miss, get the rebound and heave it again. He would shoot and get his own rebound 5 or 6 times before he either made the shot or someone else got the rebound. It was a wild display.
I turned to Guru, “Man, how can you stand the heat in those clothes? It’s stifling in here.”
He slowly turned his head to me, pulled down his glasses and glared. Then he slowly turned back to the scrimmage where Randall, once again was heaving and rebounding.
Guru said to no one in particular, “Right now I’ve got a problem with the coaching staff…”
He suddenly slammed down his hand on the bleachers, turned to me and yelled, “Never play a psychotic at center!”
Ricky Kingsley heard this, blew his whistle and called all the boys over to re-group. They convened by the bleachers and drank some water while Ricky talked about tomorrows game. I was more interested in the conversation that started up between Apollo and Darnell.
Apollo said to Darnell in his annoying drone, “Don’t you think I should be point guard?”
Darnell attempted to brush him off, “Oh please. Get outta my face.”
The whine continued, “I want be point guard. You gon’ see, I’m better.”
“Get the hell away from me ‘fo’ I beat yo ass.”
“What if I aks coach?”
“I’ll beat yo ass.”
“I mo aks him.”
“I’ll beat yo ass."
“What if I’m better than you and I give you a shimmy and shake and then I get the ball? Then I’ll be point guard.”
“You do that, I’ll beat yo ass. Apollo. You ain’t better. There’s only one point guard and that’s me. From now until forever. Get outta my face ‘fo’ I beat you ass.”
That was the end of the conversation. The boys resumed practice, with Darnell at point guard, and the rest of us staff slowly went back to the vans and up to our houses.
I walked in and JD immediately ran up to me, “Stokie!” He was attempting to give me a hug and I could feel is dank, clammy hands rubbing on my arms.
I pushed him away, “Damn JD! You think I want your nasty, unwashed hands all over me? Come on, man, boundaries! That’s nasty!”
Ross looked up from the game of paper football he was playing with a couple kids and laughed, “Hey Stokie, you need one?” He held up his pack of smokes.
I said, “I see you took your medicine. Now that’s the Ross I know!”
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