Entry 26: A Little Older, Not Much Wiser

I'm driving to Juvenile Hall today. Not the nice one up the road from us, the one they call "the Country Club." Not the suburban Juvenile Hall where, if you're lucky enough to be there during Halloween, they let you trick or treat from cell to cell. Not the nice Juvenile Hall.

I'm driving to the nasty, thug-ridden decrepit Juvenile Hall, the one called "Metro." The undesirable Juvenile Hall. I'm driving to pick up J'Michael.

I'm driving three jurisdictions away because one of our star residents was upset over a perceived slight during his birthday party, snuck out in the middle of a rainy night and hasn't been heard from for the last three days. That is until now.

For most of these guys, birthdays and holidays are the worst times of the year. They remind the boys just how unreliable and unstable their families really are, constantly letting the kids down with empty promises of lavish gifts, parties and better days. Every year the kid struggles to resolve the tension between these promises and the reality of their family situation.

J'Michael's 13th birthday was a great chance for his special counselor, Toby to work on their relationship. If Toby could come through with a good party and gifts, he could take a step closer to earning J'Michael's trust, getting J'Michael to open up more to Toby, clearing the way for good communication.

See, in addition to being sexualized at a very early age, J'Michael is also a notorious kleptomaniac. For months now he has been getting caught with other kids' toys, books, toothbrushes, Gameboys, socks, food, the TV remote control, silverware - just about anything that can't be bolted down has been discovered either in J'Michael's room or stuffed in his clothes. He says he takes this stuff just because he can. I guess when you've never had anything, you steal stuff to what it feels like to own it, to control it. He says that even when he gets caught, which is often, it's still worth it.

So for this last week, Toby has been making preparations for the party. J'Michael has been making his desires very clear: Gameboy Advanced. Mind you, Gameboys and their game cartridges are like currency here, much like cigarettes are used for bartering in prison. We make the rules very clear to the boys: No Lending or Borrowing. If someone lends you something, that means they expect something in return, and you won't always think that "something" is nice. The things you can get when you barter in the Group Home depends on who you are. The fat kid barters for food. The sexualized kid barters for favors. Other items up for trade at any given time include hair gel, shoelaces, batteries, and candy.

When the big party finally came, we were all there. Counselors, therapists, program supervisors, and administrators. We all showed up for this kid's birthday party to help prop up the illusion that he has some semblance of a family. We were trying to create a sense of normalcy.

With balloons all a-flutter and the table decorated with our best, used Spiderman swag, J'Michael opened up what we all assumed would be a new Gameboy Advanced. When he opened it up, however, he discovered merely a brand new Gameboy Color. (Toby told me later that he didn't know there was a difference and frankly didn't care.) There was an audible gasp from everyone in the room. With this act of discovery, all of our illusions faded. Gone was the illusion of family. Gone was the illusion that Toby and J'Michael would become good buddies. Gone was J'Michael's illusion that he was going to get to barter for sex.

"What the fuck is this?" he demanded. I told this dumb-ass niggerachi that I wanted a fuckin' Gameboy Advanced, goddamit!"

It was clear that Toby really had his work cut out for him now. Later that night, J'Michael put on his black sweatsuit and slipped out into the pouring rain, in pursuit, no doubt, of his very own Gameboy Advanced.

The next two days were filled with the usual Sheriff's Runaway Report, a call to his family to see if he wound up there and even a search of the local community. This last bit culminated in a 2-hour search of Starbuck's over a couple of mochas and a newspaper.

Finally we got a call from "Metro." They had our boy and they told us that he was caught red-handed shoplifting from the downtown Toys R Us. There was no doubt in my mind what it was he was trying to steal. When I finally arrived at "Metro," I asked him about the Gameboy. He was filthy and looked like a wet, stray dog.

"Taking the Gameboy wasn't no problem," he said. It was when I got outside that I seen it didn't have no batteries was the problem. So I went back inside and they caught me stealing the batteries."

J'Michael was tired, dirty and sullen. The ride back was quiet except for my occasional chuckle at J'Michael's explanation.

When we got back to the group home, I told J'Michael to take a shower. He argued, "I don't need to. I just took one on Monday."

"That was three days ago and you stink," I said. Get in."

It was then that I discovered his real prize. He had stuffed a bright yellow Juvenile Hall jumpsuit into his pants and gotten away with it.

Imagine the infinite bartering possibilities with a trophy like that!

Entry 18: J'Michael Gets to Leon

Whenever one of the residents does something serious (such as assault, going AWOL, sexual activity) we have to write an Incident Report, which goes to everybody involved at the group home as well as the kids' social workers. This way, we can document the kids' strange behavior while also showing that we dealt with them legally and appropriately.

Our unit is set up as a big house with several rooms on the sides and a large living room area in the middle. On the back wall are huge sliding windows made of plexiglass (so they won't break when chairs are thrown at them) that overlook the back porch and down the hill to the recreation field. We're situated on a huge piece of property with rolling hills and there's actually a wonderful view off the back porch.

Unlike Brian, J'Michael (13) is not afraid to talk about his sexuality to anyone at anytime. Nor is he uncomfortable to tell a staff member named Leon all about his attraction toward him. Leon is a well-built African American, wears necklaces and cologne and is an unashamed womanizer. Conversely, he has no tolerance (or skill) when it comes to dealing with our boys' sexual problems.

Leon walked in one day and was instantly hit with a barrage of compliments from a sassy and flirtatious J'Michael.

"Ooh I just love that new shirt you're wearing, you can really see your muscles under it."

"Okay, that's enough of that. Don't even start with me, J'Michael, unless you want some room time."

"And something smells so fresh and clean, is that you?"

"Okay, that's it, boy, you hear me?"

"I just like the way you walk, nothing wrong with telling you something nice."

"Goddamn it, that's it, boy! You goin'straight to the Quiet Room. You never comin' out either!"

"Abuse! Leon's about to abuse me!"

At that point, they ran around a couch in the living room and J'Michael managed to escape Leon's grasp and run out of the back door and down the hill. Leon, thinking quickly decided to run and jump through the back window to save some time. Only the window wasn't open. He slammed into it face first at full speed and bounced back onto the floor. All the kids and staff were laughing hard at a humiliated Leon.

I told him, "While you're calming yourself down in the staff office, why don't you get started on the Incident Report. Just write that I went down, talked to him and brought him right back."

Entry 13: Jim Beam's "Special" Diet

Yolanda, our House Supervisor, was in a dither.

"Damn it, I wanna know what's goin' on. Something's goin' on with some of these boys, you can just tell. I can feel it, somethin' sexual is goin on and I wanna know what. That means you staff need to be lookin out better. I don't want it to be easy for these boys to be havin' sex, I want it to be hard. So we gotta make it hard for them. Be standing in the doorways, following them around the corners, listening in to what they be sayin' to each other. Now what the hell is goin' on on Sundays?"

Oh, here we go. I work on Sundays, Yolanda does not. I'm in charge of the shift on Sundays, so now, just like so many other staff meetings like this one, Yolanda is going to end up asking me to explain something that happened on the shift. She and I agree on just about everything in terms of supervising the boys, and she sometimes prods me to spell out this agreement during staff meetings. It's not a bad strategy to show the rest of the staff that even though we don't always work together, we are still on the same page.

She continued, "If it's not one thing goin' on, it's another. If it ain't creepy-ass Freddie sneaking around preying on the little boys, its Michael and Francis playin' Santa Claus sittin' in each others' laps. Now what I wanna know is how Jim Beam managed to eat some more thumb tacks and ain't no one was around to stop him. He told me he ate them on Sunday, and I wanna know: Is it true? And if it's true, how come didn't no one stop him?"

Jimmy Beam has a history of eating sharp and dangerous objects. He will usually threaten to do so when he can't get his way or he gets a consequence, like a time-out that he doesn't agree with.

Staff will say, "Jimmy take a time out, you can't cuss in here."

"Nope, I'll eat glass. You can't stop me either cuz that's abuse. I'll eat this battery, I did before. I don't care, you can't take care of me, I'll eat this tack. Fuck you, bitch, I'll eat it then I'll die and you'll get fired and it'll serve you right because you're a cracker-ass white-Elvis looking ho."

I have indeed seen him eat glass and rocks and pins. I have taken him to the doctor myself and the doctor always tells me that Jimmy will probably pass it without any problems, and he always has.

Yolanda's question obviously fell on me. "You know what? It could be true. I was playing chess with him that afternoon in the living room, you know how he likes that one-on-one attention. Well, you probably read the incident report about Freddie humping the back of the couch? Well, Freddie somehow got behind the couch and laid down behind it. By the time I noticed he wasn't sitting on station, he must've been well into it. I heard Mel start yellin, 'I know you ain't fuckin' no furniture!" and I jumped up to get him out of there. It turns out he had his pants down to his ankles and was humping the space in between the couch and the floor. You know how the kids go fuckin' ballistic when they see something like that going on, well they did, and we had to try and shut the house down and get Freddie into the Quiet Room at the same time. You know that's a nightmare with 4 staff for 10 boys. Jimmy started threatening to eat something, but I wasn't really listening to him because I was dealing with Freddie's naked ass at the time. I think Jimmy must've eaten some tacks off the bulletin board as he was going back to his room. I know he was pissed off about it because stupid-ass Freddie took all my attention away from Jimmy."

This is my job.

"Well, I don't want no kids havin no sex with each other no more," Yolanda said. "I'm just sick and tired trying to explain how our kids somehow manage to get it on with each other because we ain't payin' attention. I would rather have someone fuck the damn couch instead of one of his peers. We know who the sexual kids are and they should be our first priority."

With that, the staff meeting was over, it was time to go pick up the boys from school and time for my teammates and me to work the evening shift. Yolanda's speech was effective; we all seemed to have a good head of steam going into the shift, agreeing on our sight lines, which parts of the house each of us would be supervising, and which kids seemed most likely to offend. And that shift was tight, too. There wasn't any wiggle room for any kids to get out of our sights and the shift ran like clockwork. By 10pm, we were tired, but at least we had a great day. No incident reports, clean house, all boys asleep. All we had to do now was give Night-Awake staff the summary of the day, and we were out of there. The four of us all greeted the Night-Awake at the kitchen counter and proceeded to give him a brief explanation of the day's events.

About 5 minutes into this discussion, we heard a blood-curdling scream come from one of the bathrooms. Mellow Bill and I ran to the bathroom and opened the door.

I was completely aghast at what I saw. There was J'Michael, sitting naked on the toilet. On the floor was a huge, bright red puddle of blood. In J'Michael's hand was his dick, spurting an impossible amount of blood all over him and the toilet. J'Michael was screaming in agony, "I'm gon' die! I'm gon' die!"

"Holy shit! What happened?" I thought he might have been stabbed.

"I, I...I was jacking off too hard!" was his reply.

I had to think about this for a minute. Now, when I was a teenager, say 13 or 14, I jacked off a lot. And, I jacked off pretty hard sometimes. But I'll be damned if I ever jacked off so hard that my dick exploded in my hand. No, this was a first for me.

At any rate, this really was a medical emergency, so we wrapped him up in a sheet and Bill rushed him off to the hospital.

This left one hell of a mop up job for me. As I mopped and cleaned, I could only ponder what had really happened to poor J'Michael's dick. The answer was to come by way of Jim Beam's teasing voice. I looked toward his doorway and saw just his arm sticking out, waving a pair of blood soaked tighty-whities.

"Oh Stokie! I think you better take me to the hospital, too! I told you I was gonna eat those tacks!"