Masters, Part 3

I didn't really think about my intervention with Brian and Miyako after that. There was a staff meeting to get prepared for, kids to be taken to school and a house to get cleaned up. I told Mel that I would drive the kids down to school, he would get the last bits of the house cleaned up, and Miyako? I told Miyako that she could work on her incident report regarding Brian.

As for me, I liked to take my time getting back to the house after I dropped the kids off at school, and for a couple of reasons. Many of the school staff are my old friends. Most of them used to be counselors just like me but got sick of the low pay and administrative bullshit that goes with this job. (Little did they know that the School Counselor's job came with its own brand of low pay and bullshit.) The fact of the matter is, there is an "us against them" mentality that affects both staffs.

It goes like this:

The House staff knows best because we are on the front lines and are experts on the kids' behavior. We know all their interpersonal dynamics, from peer interaction to family abuse. What these kids really need is tough behavior modification because nobody ever took the time to teach these kids discipline.

vs.

The School staff knows best because they are on the front lines of the kids' educational development. Kids' misbehavior can be traced to obvious learning disabilities. What these kids really need are chances, because nobody ever gave them one when they really needed it.

I have seen many House staff switch jobs and seemingly overnight, treat me like I was the enemy, like my ideas were crazy. I have also seen School staff come and work up at the houses and behave similarly to their ex-mates. The truth is, the Administrative staffs of both organizations hold each other in contempt. This attitude naturally trickles down to the front line staff who take it out on each other. I like to hang around the School staff for a while to get a sense of what is going on down at the school, what the staff are thinking and doing with the kids.

As I walked the kids to their classrooms, I spent a couple of minutes checking in with the teachers and the teachers' aides before I walked on down to the counselor's office. By the time I got there, fat-ass Rusty was already in trouble, huffing and puffing about some injustice his teacher had perpetrated against him. He was talking to Jamaal, an ex-counselor who had about as much experience as me, someone I respect, and a guy who also sees that so much of our jobs rest on the exercise of ridiculousness.

Jamaal says to Rusty, "Now Rusty, just because your teacher is a fucking bitch doesn't mean you can't stay in school."

"Well that's what she is, and she knows it," puffs Rusty.

"Well, yeah, she definitely knows it now that you screamed it to her in class..."

"Oh no! You're definitely coming back up to the house and you're gonna get tons of consequences," I say, "Let's go."

Jamaal winks at me. "Oh my gosh, did you hear that? That's Stokie Jaye talking, he don't mess around. You know why? Cuz he's old and crusty..."

"That's right, Jamaal knows, too. I was already this way when me and him built this school 30 years ago, back in our hippie days. Jamaal had an afro out to here and I had long hair, a beard and long robe, lotta people mistook me for Jesus, right Jamaal?"

"Mmm, hmm."

Rusty perked up. "You guys built this school?"

Jamaal said, "In fact, back then Stokie's rap name was 'Stokie JJ Hippie Jeeze' becuase he looked so much like Jesus."

I said, "But everybody knows Jesus was a black man."

Jamaal's cheeks were puffy, suppressing laughter. "I wouldn't want to be up in the house with him. If I were you, I'd rather apologize to your teacher and stay down here..."

"Here it comes," I said.

"...Now I'm gonna give you just one more chance..."

I started out the door. "Pleasure doing business with you Mr. Jaye," said Jamaal.

"As always. Let me know when his thirty last chances run out, I'll be back down to pick him up."

By the time I had returned to the house, I was about a half an hour late for the staff meeting. As I entered, I noticed that the chemicals were still really strong, even with the fan on. Around the table sat 5 counselors, the House Supervisor Yolanda, the therapist Sam, and Mel, who was giggling and pointing at Miyako. Miyako held a paper towel over her mouth and nose and was sitting next to the laundry room door, which was slightly open. (I assumed correctly that Mel's magic potion sat bubbling behind the door.) Also in attendance was Janette Stankin, the Clinical Supervisor. I couldn't tell which was worse; Mel's cleaning potion or Janette's perfume. Whenever she walked into a room, it seemed like you were being smashed over the head with a bottle of Chanel #5. I felt like asking Miyako if I could borrow her paper towel.

Yolanda said to me as I found a seat next to Mel, "Lots of kids in crisis at school, I guess."

"Oh, always. Lucky thing I was there."

She said, "Just to catch you up, we were just talking about Michael and some of the frustrations we feel."

"Oh, okay. Did we already talk about 'warehousing?'"

My comment hit its target squarely as Janette visibly tensed up.

"Well, no, nobody actually used that term. Maybe there's something you'd like to say about it?"

I said, "Okay. Well it just seems to me that we've done about all we can with Michael. We are not equipped to deal with developmental disabilities; we deal with emotional problems. He needs to go to a facility like the Regional Center that deals with DD. In the mean time, he gets bigger and stronger, has more sex with his peers and assaults more staff. And since he can't understand our program, we just wind up appeasing him all the time so he doesn't get mad." I turned to Janette, "And I guess since his county just keeps paying, we just take the money and store him here, like a warehouse."

Mel elbowed me, trying to make me laugh at Miyako. Janette was mad at me.

"Stokie, you know very well that we've been trying to get Michael to the Regional Center for months. They just won't take him because he's not developmentally disabled enough. They just turned down our most recent application. His social worker is happy with the job we're doing with him and is satisfied that Michael is placed well here."

I said, "So as long as the county is paying, we're happy to let him get bigger, have sex and hit people. Okay, I just wanted to be able to tow the company line."

"You sound so bitter," said Janette.

"Yup, that's me, Mr. Bitter. I should probably be more happy about warehousing kids. You know what? I can be happier! Is this a bad time to ask for a raise? I figure with all that money we're getting from the county, we could all be getting paid more. May my teammates and I please all have raises?"

Janette got up to leave. "Yolanda, thank you for your time and good luck with your staff."

I turned to my teammates, "Sorry guys, I gave it my all."

Miyako also got up and quickly shuffled outside for some air. As the meeting broke up, I went in to the laundry room with Mel.

"Mel, what the fuck is in this shit?" Mel was still giggling as he opened the chemical closet.

"Man, I just threw in everything," he said as he took out bottles of cleaner and put them on the washing machine. "Little of this, little of that."

I looked at the cleaners. Ajax, Simple Green, bleach, Windex, Pine-Sol, Mr. Clean with ammonia...

My jaw dropped. "Dude! What the fuck is wrong with you? This shit can kill you! Didn't you read the label?" I realized what a stupid question that was, of course he didn't read the fucking label. "Mel, dude, if you mix bleach and ammonia it makes a poisonous gas that kills people. For real, it kills people."

"How the fuck I'm supposed to know that? All the labels are in Spanish."

"That's so people's cleaning ladies don't die when they clean their house." I dumped the potion out through the back door. "Course, if you killed Miyako, that woulda made Yolanda's day. God damn, Mel!"

I came back into the kitchen and there, standing with Miyako, was Pete Post. He had three circle shaped Band-Aids stuck on his face where he shaved over his adult acne.

"Greetings, Stokie. It seems as though there was an intervention this morning which involved you and Brian. Apparently, some questionable techniques were used. I would like you to accompany me so that I may glean some more information."

As I walked with Pete to the Supervisor's office, I thought to myself, "If I still have a job when this shit is over, I'm gonna kill that Miyako. This is what I get for trying to help."

Masters, Part I

I pulled into the parking lot at 6am ready to start my shift as usual. It was Tuesday morning, so that means we'll have staff meeting after we've gotten the boys up and off to school. So my mind set was on getting the boys up in a positive frame of mind so that we don't have any up at the house to distract us during the meeting, and also on doing a quick cleaning job so that whatever admin staff comes up to join us, as well as any random social workers or lawyers won't think we're running an institutional pig sty.

I also like Tuesday mornings because I work with my buddy Mel, the next most senior staff member on the team. Mel has been around for about 3 years and is fun and easy to work with. Although I'd been here now for 11 years, it's still refreshing to start a shift with someone who has more than a few months' experience. He sets clear limits but also is able to enjoy himself around the kids and has a great sense of humor. So I was thinking that this would be a nice, easy morning.

Then I saw our house supervisor, Yolanda's car in front of the house. Damn! She's not supposed to be in until 8. The only reason she'd be here is because something is wrong. Maybe a kid needs to be hospitalized. Maybe Mel called in sick.

I walked in the house and was greeted by both Yolanda and Mel.

"What happened this time?" I asked.

"I just wanted to talk to you and Mel before the shift got started," said Yolanda. "It's important."

Aww, man. What did I do this time? I wondered. As we walked into her office, I quickly ran down any events of the last week that she might want to confront us about. Was it about sticking a push pin into the Quiet Room lock so that it sticks in the locked position? I really needed to walk out into the kitchen and eat my dinner while Brian was blowing out because he didn't like his mom's new girlfriend. Was it about giving fat-ass Rusty a plate of grapes for dinner while everyone else ate lasagna? Is it because I told Freddy, the sexual predator that his therapist, Sam was a "fucking moron" for letting Freddy bring up Macy's underwear ads to the house so that Freddy might "relieve all the pressure?" Whatever it was, I was in no mood to come up with creative explanations before I've had my coffee.

We all took a seat in Yolanda's office.

"I just wanted to talk to you guys before the day got going because you two are my most experienced staff and I need your help. You worked with that new Japanese chick yesterday, right? The one who did her observation, Myako? What did you think about her?"

I said, "Yeah, she was pretty meek. She's obviously one of those career students who thinks this experience will look good on her resume while she goes after her Master's. Completely misplaced. Maybe she'd do well with really young kids, but not here. Just the language barrier alone is enough to keep her from understanding what's going on here."

Mel piped in, "Oh, fo' sho'. On top of that, didn't nobody could understand what the fuck she be sayin'."

"That's what I thought too," said Yolanda. "But now we got Pete Post's stupid ass advocating for her to work here. He says we get some kind of state credit for having someone with a Master's degree working here and he won't listen to me when I tell him she's gonna wind up getting hurt, or getting someone else hurt. Plus, I'm not gonna go outta my way to change everything for her cuz she got some kind of 'chemical sensitivity.' Bitch has some kind of allergic reaction to chemicals and I ain't gonna change the way we clean the house just because of her. We gonna just have to change back soon as she quits anyways. I'm sick and tired of Pete Post trying to override everything cuz he got some kinda crush on some Asian bitch."

I was perplexed. "But...I thought he was doing Janette Stankin."

"He still is. But you know how you white boys are about Asian chicks."

"Right you are, Yolanda. I almost went against my own race."

Yolanda said, "Anyway, Pete Post fuckin went and hired her on the spot yesterday after her observation. She comes in this morning at 6:30"

Mel was incredulous. "The fuck? What? Hired her for our house? Aww, hell no!"

I just shook my head. "Dude..."

"That's why I want to talk to you two," said Yolanda. "I'm not saying to do nothing abusive, but you know it's not easy for new people to fit right in. I want her to know that she's new, this is a hard job, and she's not gonna fit right in, if ever. Know what I'm saying?"

Mel and I looked at each other. We looked at Yolanda. We understood.

Yolanda got up to leave. "Now I'm not saying for you to be abusive..." She left the room.

"Damn!" said Mel. I didn't never think I'd see Yolanda that upset. Guess I better start cleaning the house."

I nodded. "You know Pete Post doesn't know shit about support. I think once you get promoted to Admin, they stick a 'Fuck Your Staff' chip in your neck and let you run wild. I better get up Brian so he can work off some of those work detail consequences he earned last night."

But Will You Stay For Breakfast?

Manny Duckworth was the most dynamic and amazing group home counselor I've ever met. I have learned from the best counselors, therapists, psychiatrists and teachers over the years, but Manny taught me something that no one else could: that the job could be fun and filled with laughter. I will always be grateful to him for this and I've missed him dearly as a teammate and as a friend since he left several years ago.

Manny had that attractive, powerful personality that kids and counselors alike were drawn to. And the funny thing is that he only stood about five feet tall. He was a boisterous black dude who commanded the room the moment he entered. I remember one halloween, fat Rusty approached me and Manny wearing his worn out, ragged, faded orange bathrobe. As he waddled up, he asked, "Hey you guys, don't you think I look like Obi-Wan Kenobi?"

I stared at him for a moment and said, "No, you look more like Jabba the Hut."

Manny screamed that high pitched laughter of his and clapped his hands, "Dass my Nigga! Dass my nigga!" and danced around the room.

Or Bill, the ultra-mellow counselor, Manny always said, "For someone with as many advanced degrees as him, he sure is one stupid muthafucka."

Manny and I were golf partners, drinking buddies and shared a lot of the same intense experiences as co-workers. Whenever you shared a shift with him, it just seemed to go a lot faster and easier.

Manny's birthday came up and a bunch of us approached him to see where he'd like to be taken out to for drinks. True to character, Manny said, "There's only one place I ever go on my birthday, and you niggas is comin with me. We goin to a strip club in the city."

I said, "I don't get that shit, Manny. How are you going to go pay to look at naked girls when you can't even touch them? Couldn't you just sit at home a jack off for free?"

"Well, when it's your birthday, we know what you gonna do. But for mine, I'm goin out and you comin with me."

I instantly realized, of course, that this outing had disaster written all over it. It was going to be me, Manny, Toby, Mel, Grant (an ex NBA basketball player. I swear to God.), Ricky Kingsley and Rob, a 55 year old school counselor from Atlanta who was going to bring a jug of his homemade moonshine.

The night of the outing, Manny and I were working together until 10pm, and we both had the 6am shift the next morning. The plan was that the rest of the guys would come by at ten to pick us up and we'd head out together to the club in Ricky's family mini-van.

Most of the kids had already gone to bed by 9pm when Manny said to me, "Muthafucka, you gonna just leave this garbage out here all day? Go put that shit out to the dumpster."

"You can kiss my black ass, Manny." I took the trash out to the dumpster. On my way, I had to pass the bike shed, where we keep all the kids' bikes locked up.

I noticed that the gate was open and walked over to it. Sure enough, there was Rob holding a jug of 'shine and all the other guys, inside the shed taking swigs.

"Where you been Stokie? Manny's been out here a bunch of times already. Here, man, have some." I could hear Manny's high-pitched scream from through the kitchen window. I took a few swigs and instantly felt warm and lightheaded. Nice way to spend the last hour of your shift.

We drank most of the jug on the way down to the city. We decided to stop at a bar near the strip club for some festivities before the show. We all ordered a beer when Grant said to me, "Dude, you notice there's only one chick workin behind the bar? Watch this."

He leaned up with his back against the bar. When the bartendress turned to help someone else, he reached his arm back and grabbed a fistful of shotglasses (there are certain advantages of being seven feet tall and having the related wingspan). A couple minutes later, he reached back and grabbed a gallon bottle of vodka. We all sat at the bar and did shots from under the bar, where the bartender couldn't see. I remember laughing and laughing at our coup, hugging my friends, telling them how much I love them and all of us pissing together in an alley. And that's all I remember.

I slowly but surely woke up with the realization that I had been out again, I was going to have one hell of a hangover and the floor felt really good, nice and cool. I thought I was on the bathroom floor of my house. When I slowly opened my eyes, all I saw was orange.

Orange rubber. The orange rubber of the quiet room! I slowly sat up with the realization that I was locked in the quiet room. My shirt was soaking wet. The door was shut. What the fuck was I doing back at the group home?

Suddenly, I heard the familiar shrieking, "Get up muthafucka! Right now! We havin breakfast and you makin it. Get up, muthafucka!"

I rose to my feet and looked out of the door window. On the floor outside was Toby, also getting to his feet. He looked at me, shook his head and opened the door. He said, "Stokie, I swear to God, if you ever try to kick my ass again, I'll crack your fucking skull."

I stumbled out onto the floor and realized two things: it was dawn, an hour before my shift started and that Manny wasn't talking to me at all. He was waking up his Special Kid, Ian (who had such a shortlived high school career).

Ian rubbed his eyes as he walked out of his room in boxers and a t-shirt. "Yes, Manny," was all he said.

Manny turned to me and in all seriousness said, "You stupid muthafucka. You don't get to come with me to no strip club no more. When the girls start dancing, you don't take your stupid ass up on stage and dance with them, and you specially don't try to take off your clothes neither. Yo' retarded ass got us all kicked outta that place."

I stared at Manny, feeling sick, embarrassed, and pitifully hungover. I pulled my wet shirt, which was stuck to my chest, and squeezed out some mystery liquid. Manny's eyes and face began to contort in another fit of uncontrollable, high-pitched laughter, "DASS MY NIGGA! DASS MY NIGGA!!" He was clapping his hands and stomping around the kitchen, "Oooh-hoo, Oh my God, oooh! You a fuckin fool, oooh-hoo! You my nigga, fool, we gonna make your shift so fuckin easy today. Ahh-hahaha!"

Ian's omlettes were fantastic, Manny had taught him well. Just the thing for an early morning hangover.

Entry 36: Yugoddagap!

Hank is another cube-headed kid. Originally from Guatemala, he looks as if he has had his head put in a vice to flatten out each of it sides. He is short, stocky and speaks with an unnaturally deep voice. He sounds just like one of those Budweiser frogs who croak, "Bud."

During the middle of the morning shift, the team was working on getting the house clean when we got a phone call from the school. One of the counselors was calling to inform us that Hank had been caught eating his teacher's lunch. During the discovery, Hank decided to throw a tantrum and now had to come up to the house for a "cool-off." The team consisted of Bill, the ultra-mellow deadhead, Toby, the milataristic neat-freak, Rachel, the big-boobed and lazy college student we all hate to work with, and me.

Toby, latex-gloved, as always, was in the laundry room washing some kids' clothes. He called out, "Stokie, you should go get him. If he gives you any trouble, tell him he'll have hell to pay when he sees me."

"Gee, thanks, Toby," I said. "You go ahead and hone in on those laundry cleaning skills. Don't worry about learning how to talk to the kids. We'll be fine."

I drove down to the school and picked up Hank who was waiting in the counselor's office. Our drive up to the house was uneventful and Hank seemed pretty calm. I did notice that he had some remnants of what looked like a tuna sandwich stuck in his notoriously disgusting, yellow and unbrushed teeth. We parked and walked into the house.

Immediately upon entering, Hank grabbed an orange from the fruit basket on the kitchen counter and threw it across the room at the opposite wall. It left a huge splat as it exploded on the wall.

Rachel was the first to speak to Hank. "Hank, what are you doing? Can you calm down? What's going on with you?"

"Yugoddagap!" Hank shouted, pointing at Rachel. He reached into the fruit basket and chucked another orange which left a similar splat on a different wall, "Yugoddagap!"

Toby stormed out of the laundry room and yelled, "Hank, you better calm your ass down before you get dipped!" Toby, in fact all of us, had begun calling getting put in a prone-restraint on the floor "getting dipped" ever since Toby dipped Rasmus in his own urine. "Now what the hell are you saying?"

Hank had stopped throwing the fruit for the moment and was laughing at Rachel. His manner of laughing was wheezing "hhheh, hhheh, hhheh" in that breathless squeak you get when you run out of air. He peeled back his lips to reveal his yellowed and tuna splattered teeth. He had two thin lines of spittle connecting his lips. "Yugoddagap! Yugoddagap! Hhheh, hhheh, hhheh." He was pointing at Rachel's crotch. He threw another orange.

Bill, Toby and I all turned to look to see what it was that Hank was pointing at. All at once, we realized the target of his ire. Rachel's jeans were hiked up high enough to give her a most obvious camel-toe. Toby began laughing hard and walked back to the laundry room. "You got that one, Rachel? Go ahead, help him calm down."

Bill attempted to calm Hank down. "So she's got a gap, Hank, no use in getting upset about it. Let's just move on."

Hank reached into the fruit basket once again, but this time he pulled out two bananas and held them together in front of his crotch. "Your shit look like this!" he croaked. "Yugoddagap! Hhhheh, hhheh, hhheh." I could hear Toby screaming with laughter in the laundry room.

In the instant that I saw Rachel's split labia through her pants and recognized how upset Hank was getting, all I could think of was, "Why? Why me? Why do these crazy things always have to happen on my shifts? What do you tell a kid about camel-toes when you can't understand them yourself? How could this woman put on a pair of pants, yank the seam way up her vagina and go to work like it is a normal thing? It can't be comfortable, can it? Is it an accident or does she like the feeling of it? Is it so hard to find a pair of pants that fit you without de-flowering yourself?" I stared in disbelief.

Rachel said, "Hank! That's not nice! I don't have a gap! Stop pointing at me!"

"Yugodda great big puthy! Look!" he was looking at Bill and me now - "Look, shegodda great big puthy. She showin' it to everyone today. She wanna fuck somebody. Hhhehh!"

Toby called out from the laundry room, "Is that right Rachel? Is that what's going on?"

I could see that Rachel was about to cry. I said, "Hank, yugodda get to your room right now. Either go there or to the bathroom and go handle your business. But there's nothing to do out here except get in trouble." I started shepherding him to his room.

"Okay, dude," he said. "But that bitch wanna fuck somebody today. I can tell. She goddagap."

"Alright, Hank. Let the staff take care of it. You just calm down."

As I walked back out to the kitchen, I overheard Bill talking to Rachel. "So we were all talking about your vagina, no sense in getting upset over it. If we just all move on, we'll all feel better about it." Toby was pounding the washer in hysterics. I walked over to him.

"Toby, who's stuff is in the dryer?" I asked.

"Oh, it's fat-ass Rusty's stuff. It's just about done."

"Lemme see that," I said, and opened the dryer. "Here we go." I pulled out Rusty's pair of faded green sweatpants and walked over to Rachel. "Here. Put these on. They're baggy, so you won't be disturbing the kids when you come to work. They should fit you just about right."

She protested. "Hell no, Stokie. I'm not wearing Rusty's shit covered sweats."

I shrugged. "Well it's either that or walk around with your gap hanging out in front of 10 disturbed boys. Your choice."

She took the sweats and put them on over her jeans, without another word. Toby was now on the floor of the laundry room, tears streaming down. Nothing else was ever said of this incident.

That was about a year ago. So now whenever a new staff comes in and notices the huge splats which are permenantly implanted into the walls, they invariably ask, "What happened there?"

There is only one response. In my deepest baritone voice, I say, "Yugoddagap!"

Entry 12: Rusty Goes Sledding

The annual snow trip is fun because the general public gets to see for themselves just how group home kids like Rusty can act. He has many peculiarities, one being that he constantly shits his pants, yet he won't ever admit it even with incontrovertible evidence, e.g. shit in his pants while they are on him.

The mountains where we go sledding are a 2 hour van drive away. The kids file out, get a snow saucer and slide down the hill with limited success. During one of Rusty's runs, I saw what appeared to be two little rocks trailing after him in the snow. Further inspection proved that it was two little frozen shit balls. I asked Rusty if he had had an accident and he yelled, "You can't prove it's mine, bitch!"

The van ride home was a nightmare. Rusty sitting in more shit, stinking up the place so much that the other kids want to kill him, and he's just sitting there innocently denying the whole thing. We pulled into a rest stop to clean him up. I told him to go into a bathroom stall and take a dump to get the rest out. He goes in there, I hear the toilet flush and then see shit-water overflowing all over the place.

Me: Jesus Rusty, what'd you do?

Rusty: Nothing. I was just standing there and my underwear fell in and I flushed the toilet before I could see it.

Entry 5: Rusty Experiences Nature

The kids in the group home call us "Staff." As in, "Staff! Rusty stinks like a piece of shit!"

One time a teammate and I took the guys for a long hot hike into the hills. Rusty decided to dump in his pants about an hour from the nearest facility. The kids got pissed and started making fun of him, so Rusty, all 250 sweaty, shitty pounds of him, plopped down in the dirt and refused to budge.

After about 45 minutes of crying Rusty finally demanded that we call in the choppers because he had given up hope. James, a tough, inner-city kid of color suggested, "Why don't y'all staff go on up ahead and we'll take care of Rusty."

It was the realization that staff might actually go through with it that motivated Rusty to get back on his feet again.

Entry 4: Rusty Comes Back

Rusty is 5 feet tall, 250 pounds, and constantly shits himself. All the other kids hate him because he's fat and constantly stinks of either shit or body odor or both. Rusty is the descendant of a long and proud line of carnies who worked the southern states. His mom was the Fat Lady before her career was sabotaged by AIDS and death, and his pedophile pimp dad is unfortunately still out there somewhere.

One time Rusty was sitting on the couch watching TV when one of the kids came up from behind and boxed his ears. Rusty literally vibrated with rage, and then stormed out of the house. His peers have discovered that they can make Rusty even more upset when they yell out, "Boom! Boom!" each time he takes a step.

I almost started running after him, but I happened to be grating cheese for some quesadillas at the moment, so I grabbed a piece, went into the front and waved it in the air, "Rusty! Look what I forgot to give you"! Strangely, Rusty's behavior always improved right around mealtimes, and he came right back.