I really dreaded what I was about to read. Thoughts came rushing in of the other newsworthy events that our "graduates" have committed during my career here:
- A black kid from the worst part of the ghetto was placed here, swore for 4 years that when he was discharged he was going right back home to sell crack. He said he wanted to get rich just like his big brother. The newspaper reported that he was shot to death right outside of his house a week after he was discharged.
- Another kid, placed with us after being sexually abused for years by his mother and sister wound up strangling his sister to death after leaving us.
- Another kid was found drowned in a creek with toxic levels of meth in his blood.
- Another kid tied up an 84-year-old woman and beat her with her own cane until she told him where her credit cards were. He was arrested an hour later at the mall trying to buy cd's with her card.
So, yes, it was with some trepidation that I picked up the paper to read "Two Group Home Boys Hold Off Police for Hours, Suffer Hypothermia in Lake."
I sighed in relief.
"Well that's not too bad," I said. I looked around the house. "Am I to assume that Michael and Francis will be needing to be picked up from the Hall?"
"Francis will, but Michael's still at the hospital. You have to pick him up there."
"Well, fine. But how the hell did they get out to the lake?" I wondered.
"They slipped out last night right after dinner. We had half the campus looking for them. We searched
everywhere: the freeway, the school kitchen, Toys R Us, everywhere. Maybe when you see them, you can ask them."
"Yeah, maybe I'll just work some of that Stokie Jaye magic." And that's just what I set off to do.
Wouldn't be a good idea to pick them both up at the same time. Unless you have several staff with you, the kids will get right back into their bravado routine and probably try to escape or do something equally as stupid. I decided to first pick up Francis at the juvenile hall we call "The Country Club," bring him back to the house, then go get Michael at the hospital.
I checked in at the front desk of the hall, and waited until they led Francis out. As he opened the door and limped toward me, I could see that he was caked in mud, clothes ripped beyond use. He was wearing county issued paper slippers.
"Where are your shoes?" I asked.
"Fuck if I know. If I had them I'd still be running. 'Stead these fuckin' neeger cops made me lose 'em."
The guard, a large man of the "neeger" persuasion stepped up. "Apparently, your boy here lost them in the mud on the shores of the lake. That mud there is about 4 feet deep."
"The bastard cops made me lose 'em and now I got this!" He took off his paper wrap and showed me cut and bloodied toes and soles.
"Oh yeah, and them reeds can be awful sharp can't they, boy?"
"Shut the hell up neeger wardie bitch, before you get sued!"
I could see that Francis might not be in the best mood to talk about the previous night's exploits. In the van, I decided to give it a try, "Gosh Francis, I'm glad you're okay. The whole campus was looking for you last night. You guys are really good AWOLers. How'd you do it?"
Francis liked it when you told him he was good at something. "Hee! I knew it. Everyone was looking all over the place, so we didn't go nowhere. You know that metal circle down by the school basketball courts?"
"You mean the sewer?"
"Yeah, that. We got in it and just stayed there til morning. Then we walked to the lake."
"So you two spent the night in the sewer."
"Whoa guy, why do you have to say it like that? I'm not like that. And I'm not gay, either. Plus, we really fucked up those cops. That'll teach them not to mess with us."
"Oh God, what did you do?"
"Well they seen us on the road near the lake and they tried to get us, but we had too many rocks and then we ran through all them bushes -- that's where we lost our shoes--and they couldn't see us and we got in the lake."
"Wait a minute. You guys can't swim, what do you mean you got in the lake?"
"We walked out up to our noses so we could still breathe and they couldn't do nothing cuz they couldn't get in the water. They're all bitches, anyway. That's why they got that fuckin' boat, cuz they're bitches."
"Oh Jesus Francis! You mean they had to get a boat?"
"And a fuckin' helicopter cuz the boat couldn't see us neither. That'll teach them not to mess with us hoo-riders. It was only cuz the helicopter seen us that they grabbed us with the boat. But I'm calling Johnnie Cochran and suing cuz that's police brutality and they can't put hand cuffs on you and throw you on the floor of a boat."
I thought about that for a while, taking it all in.
"Francis?" I said, staring very seriously.
"Now what?"
"You know I already talked to Michael," I lied.
"Goddammit! We didn't have sex in the sewer! Plus it wasn't my idea. He's the one who said it already smelled like shit. Besides, I ain't no fag. Just because you have sex with boys doesn't mean you're a fag, goddammit!"
"Never said you were, Francis. Never said you were."
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