Plus Size Girls

We have just picked the kids up from school and have begun our house recreation period.  My teammates today are my buddy Mel, Toby, and Angelina who normally works at the unit next door, but is filling in as a sub for us.  She’s a great looking Italian; thick, long, dark hair, pleasantly plump in all the right areas.  Mel thought it would be a good idea to send her with the kids who were doing well down to the basketball courts while he and I watch a group of kids play horse with our portable hoop on the back porch.  Toby is inside with the rest of the kids who are either unwilling or have consequences which prevent them from leaving the house.  For them, it will be an afternoon of doing laundry and cleaning rooms.

Mel and I were quietly conversing about our substitute staff member while idly standing by the game of horse.

Mel said, “You gotta admit, that’s a fine looking woman right there,” nodding toward Angelina.  “She got some tig ol bitties!”

“Absolutely,” I agreed.   “I’m with you on that one.  I can go for a plus size woman every now and then.”

“Whatchu mean, ‘plus size’?” Mel cocked his head and squinted.

I said, “You know.  A little extra here and there.”

“Why you gotta call her fat?” asked Mel.

“I’m not calling her fat.  Don’t get me wrong, I like it, she’s a good looking girl.  I’m agreeing with you.”  I knew that Mel had a penchant for larger women, so I was surprised that he was taking this angle.

He said, “But you’re saying she’s too fat for you?  Dude, that’s just wrong.”

“Damn, Mel, she’s not too fat at all!  If I met her at a bar or something, I’d totally do her.  I’m just saying she’s plus size.  Not skinny.  You know.”

“So you’d have to be drunk?”

“Mel, what the hell?”

Mel started smiling, “Dog, you just don’t know, do you?”

I asked, “What it’s like to be with a plus size girl?”

“Nah, man.”  He said, “Me and her, we’re together.  We be goin out and shit.”

I was embarrassed.  “Come on, Mel, give me fucking break!  You gotta let me know before I go off and call your girlfriend fat!  I would never have said she’s got a great big fat ass if you’d told me before.  Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

Mel was laughing now.  “You know, that’s just not something you go around saying here.  The boys find out, you know they start freakin or talkin out loud about it.  But damn!  You know why I been volunteering for those overnights lately though, huh?”

“I know now.”  I said, “Getting a little late night action between units.”

Mel nodded, but was quiet for a minute.  I imagined that they secretly met each other while they were each doing overnights at the respective units.  I had heard of staff doing this before, but I didn’t really want to ask him about it.  That way, I don’t have to lie if I’m ever asked about it by Admin.

Mel stepped closer and said in a quiet voice, “Dude… You ever been with a girl who didn’t take care of her business… downtown?”

“Downtown?”

“You know,” he continued.  “Doesn’t trim or nothin?.”

I laughed.  “Oh man!  Do I need to know this?  So you’ve got a little issue going on, huh?”

“It’s not a little issue.”  Mel was still whispering. “It’s a big hairy issue.  I can see if she don’t wanna shave it clean, but man, maybe just a little trim here and there.”

“Well just ask her Mel, I’m sure she’d do it if she knows that’s what you like.”

“Damn dude, I did!  I keep on saying something about it.  You know that girl’s Italian.  They’re not foolin around down there!”

I was covering my mouth, not wanting to laugh out loud.  “Oh my god, Mel.  You’ve got your work cut out for you.”

He said, “I just don’t wanna be crawlin through the Amazon Jungle just to get to the river.”

Toby burst through the back door in his typical, latex glove-wearing, authoritative fashion.  “Gentlemen, we have a problem.”

I said, “What, did we run out of laundry soap?  What are you gonna do for the rest of the day?”

He was unfazed.  “Fuck you.  Chris doesn’t have any underwear.  Not one.  No clean or dirty.”

Toby was right, this was a situation.   But to understand why, you have to understand Chris.  Chris has anger issues.  He came to us 6 months ago at age 10 after enduring physical and emotional abuse from his single, heroin addled mother.  He had been prostituted out at times to her “associates.”  It would be natural for anyone who has been through this to feel extremely angry and to feel like you have no control over what’s going on around you.

But Chris doesn’t normally act out with violence, he takes his anger and control issues out internally.  It seems that he feels like the only thing he can control is his body, specifically what goes in and out of it.  Chris can hold on to his shit for days, refusing to let it out.  Apparently, taking a dump is something he sees as out of his control, so he refuses.

This has caused a few problems, some for him, some for us.  He’s hurt himself by holding so much shit in.  And when someone does that, the shit gets huge and hard, which damages the colon when it inevitably has to come out, and this is what happened to him.  So it’s imperative that we make sure he’s taking proper dumps.  The doctor has prescribed laxatives, so now it’s not a matter of IF he’s going to take a shit, it’s a matter of when and how he does it.

He’s  still in the refusal mode, so he’d rather shit his pants than ask to go to the bathroom.  I suppose there’s some feeling of power for him in this strategy, too.  When he shits his pants, he won’t admit it, and even goes to great lengths to hide his poopy undies.  We have numbered all ten pair of his underwear so that we can keep track of them at all times.  If we can’t find numbers 6 and 7, say, then we know he’s had an accident and we can record it.  It’s useless in asking him about it because he lies.

So when Toby says we have a situation, he is absolutely right.  Mel is Chris’s special counselor, so he took the lead in trying to get to the “bottom” of this.

I followed Mel into Chris’s room, where Chris was sitting on his bed in his jammies, seemingly indifferent.

Mel said, “Hey Chris, where’s all your underwear?”

“What underwear?”

“Chris, you know your program.”  I was happy that Mel was taking a matter of fact approach to this.  Some counselors get so frustrated with Chris, but I see that as a result of Chris being passive/aggressive.  “First of all, you know that if you have an accident, you’re supposed to tell us.  Then you’re supposed to give the underwear to Toby because he loves doing laundry.  That way we can keep track of your underwear and your accidents.  Cuz you have a hard time telling the truth sometimes, don’t you?”

“I don’t know.  But I need some underwear to get dressed.”

Mel went on.  “So we need you to tell us where you hid the underwear so that we can do some laundry.  That way you can get dressed.  So where are they?”

Chris said matter of factly, “My roommate always steals my underwear.  Can he have consequences?”

I said, “Nobody would want to steal your poopy underwear.  Now Toby says that all of them, 1-10 are missing, is that right?

“No.  I mean yeah.  I didn’t do it.”

I said, “Chris, I know you’re trying to make me feel your anger by being passive/aggressive…”

“You always say that!”

“…And I refuse to become angry over this.  If you’re feeling angry, you know you can talk about it with us or your therapist.  But don’t take it out on your undies.  Are you going to tell us where they are, or do we have to find them?”

“I don’t know.  They’re nowhere.”

Mel and I started our usual search; under the bed, in his closet, in his book shelf.  In the past, we’ve found them outside in the bushes, in the bike shed, jammed up the rain gutter.

Mel said, “I’ll look in the bathroom,” and opened the door and turned on the light.  “Damn, Chris, is your fan busted?  Not working.”  He was turning the lightswitch on and off, trying to get the fan started.

Chris said, “It never works.  It’s been busted for a long time.”

Mel got a chair and was looking up into the fan.  “Chris, did you break it?”

“No!”

Mel was pulling the grill off the fan housing, looking up into the darkness, mumbling, “The hell?  You broke it?  Something jammed up in there…”    He pulled the grill off and an explosion of shit covered underwear fell onto his face.  He was momentarily shocked, stunned that he had just endured a waterfall of shit falling onto his head and now stinking up the bathroom.  He recovered his wits and shouted,

Goddammit Chris, the fuck you thinking?  What the hell is this!”

Chris said calmly, “I didn’t know they were there.  I knew my roommate stole them.”

Mel was pissed.  “The hell he did!  You damn liar, I swear to God you gonna get some consequences!”

I said calmly to Chris, “Chris?  I refuse to let Mel get angry because you want to be passive/aggressive.  I’m going to switch off with him so that he can go take a shower, get something to eat or do whatever the hell else he wants to do for the rest of the day.  But I’m going to be your special counselor for the rest of the day.”

This upset Chris.  “No, Stokie!  I don’t want you to be my special counselor!  I want Mel to stay!”

I said, “And you know what we’re going to do for Special Time?  I’ll tell you.  We’re going to get some laundry soap and some latex, and we’re going to wash out each and every one of those underwears by hand right here in the toilet.   And when I say ‘we,’ I mean YOU.”

This pissed Chris off.  “No!  No!  I hate you!  You don’t care about kids!  You just want to torture them!!!”

I said, “I think we’re making progress, Chris.  You SHOULD be pissed, and you SHOULD be saying those things.  Only not to me.”

The rest of the day went smoothly for most of the kids.  Mel took a shower and calmed down.  I stayed with Chris and had him angrily clean out his dookie.  At final count, there were 10 of his own underwear, 3 of his roommate’s underwear and one shit covered sock.

That night, after the kids had gone to bed, I was quietly writing in the house communication log, while Toby, Angelina and Mel were writing in the kids’ daily logs.  The tv was on one of those damn Hollywood gossip shows.  It was getting late and we were all looking forward to the end of the shift.

The tv cut to a commercial and wouldn’t you know it, a bikini wax ad came on.  Mel exaggeratedly sat on the edge of his seat and put his fists under his chin.  I thought I noticed Angelina silently squirming in her seat.  Mel became more animated, sighing loudly, scooting his chair up closer to the tv.

Then he turned to me, cocked his head, squinted his eyes and sarcastically said, “Hey Stokie, what do you think that stuff’s for?”

Angelina jumped out of her chair and yelled, “Dammit Mel!  Why don’t you just tell the whole world? You can do the rest of my logs!”  She plopped her logs into Mel’s lap and stomped out the door, back to her regular unit.  I buckled over in laughter while Mel just shook his head.

Toby looked up and said, “Did I miss something?”

Code Brown

It was a fine Sunday afternoon at 2 o’clock, time for the staff’s shift change.  I’ve been working all day and will be on until 10pm, as will Brady, the 7 foot tall ex-pro basketball player, and Ross, a very caring and very large white guy.  We had let Katrina leave already; Mel was due to arrive at 2 but he is always ten to fifteen minutes late.

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!”

Better and Better Every Day

"You want a piece of me!?! You want a fuckin' piece of me!?!"

JD was screaming his lungs out at his basketball teammate and Special Counselor, me. We were participating in a house game of basketball for our hourly House Rec (or as I refer to it: House Wreck). JD is the chunky "feral child" who looks like Pumba from the Lion King. He had squared up in front of me and had his fists up to fight.

"I ain't goin' nowhere, partnah! You wanna piece of me, you come and get it, niggah! I'll beat yo ass!" JD comes from the white-trash foothills but he took on a ghetto accent whenever he got violent, something he picked up since he got here. His eyes were wide and he was breathing hard, each exhale blowing his lips out so you could see his underbitten teeth.

"You know, JD, we've talked about this. In fact, we talk about it every day. When you threaten your peers, your program is to go directly to the house, no..."

"I know, 'no ips, ans or buts!' But he didn't pass me the ball - ever - and I told him I'd kick his ass if he didn't pass me the ball AND HE FUCKIN DIDN'T! So I ain't goin nowhere, I'm playing basketball and plus, I'll beat yo ass if you make me. SO GIMME THE FUCKIN BALL!"

I said, "JD, you will be going to the house, your house rec is over. You're not mad at me, you know the rules, you're disappointed in yourself for losing it again. That's ok, we'll try again tomorrow. If you don't walk up on your own, we'll escort you, just like we always do. Your decision."

Chris, the non-passer, was sitting on the sidelines doing his timeout and said, "Yeah, JD, a day without you getting proned is like a day without sunshine, so just serve it."

This was JD's opportunity to lose it. "What the fuck? That's it, you're going down mutha-fucka! I get crazy!"

As JD stomped over toward the sideline, Chris just sat there with an intentionally bored look on his face, his chin resting on his fist. JD was screeching and lathering obscenities and was walking just slow enough so that Toby and I could tackle him just before he got to Chris. Toby and I placed JD in a prone containment on the hot asphalt, and I turned to my other teammates, Mel and Gus.

"Me and Toby'll take him up to the house. You guys have a good game." Chris looked at the hysterical JD, grinned and waved a dainty goodbye.

JD's getting better. In a calmer moment weeks ago, he and I worked out a strict behavior contract which send him straight to the house as soon as he gets out of line, 'no ifs, ands or buts.' He loves to say that with me. There was a time when he would have hurt someone, gotten into a fight or run away in these instances, and occasionally he still does, but not as often. He was slimming down a bit due to the extra exercise and learning to trust adults, little by little.

"Mutha-fuckas, let's fight! I'll beat the shit out of you. You ain't my Special Counselor no more, niggah! You're just a fat bitch. You like to get drunk and fag off with kids." His arms were slippery with sweat.

"JD, me and Toby are going to pick you up and take you to the Quiet Room. While we do that, you can think about who you're really talking about."

The trip back up the hill, through the weeds and to the house was really difficult. Since JD was fighting, trying to spit and bite, it was easier to drag him up the hill backwards.

Toby said, "You know how the cops do it? They straighten out the arm behind the perpetrator, push it into the shoulder and bend the wrist, like this." He demonstrated the maneuver on JD.

JD screamed, "Okay! I'll walk! I'll walk!" Toby then moved JD's arm back to the original position, and immediately, JD started to fight again.

"Of course, we can't do that," said Toby. "It would make things too easy."

We eventually dragged JD to the house and into the Quiet Room. We pushed him in there and slammed the door. He was livid.

"Bitches better not open the door either cuz I'll beat both your asses!"

"Okay," I said, yelling through the plexiglass window. "Good idea. We'll just leave you there. Bye."

"Open the fuckin door! Godammit! You think I'm messing around? I'll show you!" He grabbed his Shaq O'Neil jersey with two hands and ripped it down the middle. "See? I hate you, bitch!"

I said, "Aw, JD, that was your special Shaq jersey that we got from Ross. Remember how we had such a good time that day?"

"Think I care? WELL I DON'T!" He took the shreds of his jersey and tied it tightly around his head. "Now I'm gonna cut off that thing... That thing that goes in your head that you can die from...You know, what's that thing called?"

I said helpfully, "You mean you're going to cut off your circulation. Say it, 'cir-cu-la-tion,' so that you can die. That's called 'com-mit-ing-su-i-cide.' And that way I'll get fired because it'll be my fault because I hate kids and like to get drunk and abuse them. But you won't be around to see it because you'll be dead, but it'll be worth it because I'll be homeless. That's what you meant to say, right? Fine with me, I need the vacation."

JD pulled off one of his shoes. He slammed it against the window over and over. Every time he slammed it, I'd tap against the window to make a little rhythm.

BOOM taptap, BOOM tap, BOOM taptap, BOOM tap.

He stopped slamming and said, "Oh, you think it's time for fun and games? TAKE THIS!" He walked up to the window and started ramming his head against it. Each time he he hit it, I'd say in a falsetto, "Boopboop."

BLAM boopboop, BLAM boop, BLAM boopboop, BLAM boop.

"Hey JD, I like this rhythm better."

"I'm gonna pee in here!"

"It's gonna stink in there!"

He took his shoe again. "See this? This is you!" He started pulling open the top of his shoe, attempting to rip it apart.

"JD, those are your Jordans. Remember how long you worked to earn those? Remember how proud of yourself you were when we went to Ross and got them? I'm proud of you too, you know."

"Don't care," he said between gasps. "Gonna tear 'em apart. You're not proud of me, you think I suck. I can tell. I'm the worst piece of shit you've ever seen." He continued stretching out the shoe and I could tell it wouldn't be long until it was in shreds.

"JD, I'm not going to let you tear up your special Jordans."

"I don't want them!"

"I'm coming in there and I'm going to take your shoes so you can't tear them up."

"That's what I want. So I can beat your ass! You want to hurt me anyway, why don't you come and do it? I'm a retard! And I SUCK!" He tore at his Jordans with renewed vigor.

"Why do you keep saying that? Do you realize how much better you've gotten since you've been here? You're way better. You're getting slimmer, you don't fight as much, you're learning about getting along with people. You think you're the worst I've ever seen but you're not. Not even close. So stop talking to me like I'm your dad. I'm not your dad, I'm your friend. I'll never treat you like your dad treated you."

"Talking about my dad? My dad'll kick your ass! I'M GONNA KILL YOU MUTHA-FUCKA!

I opened the door which surprised JD and he took a step back in fright. He quickly composed himself, raised his Jordan and gritted his teeth. "You're going down, bitch! I'm gonna kill your ass!"

I put my hands down by my sides, and walked slowly toward him.

"I'm not gonna fight you. I'm just not."

He swung the shoe. I didn't flinch. He didn't hit me. He stood there for a moment, looking at me. Then he burst into tears.

"Oooh, I'm sorry. I wish you were my dad. Why can't you be my dad?" He hugged me and sobbed. "Why can't you just adopt me? I'd act good at your house, I promise. Ohh, hooo. Nobody likes me, but you do."

"It's gonna be ok, JD. Better and better every day. It's gonna be ok."

"I don't really hate you, Stokie."

"I know. It's ok."

"I was just mad."

"I know, JD. Better and better every day. I'm proud of you."

"I'm proud of you, too, Stokie. Can I try again tomorrow?"

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 37: The Beginning of the End, part 1

As you are by now well aware, all of us group home counselors are completely professional, always focused on the well-being of the kids. Ok, so maybe that is a slight exaggeration.

The truth is, like in any profession, the mind begins to wander sometimes. During the times we are with the kids, there is usually too much going on to lose focus. However, our weekly staff meetings can be some of the more mundane activities we face, so it is no wonder we need to find distractions to keep ourselves occupied.

At the moment, our staff is equally balanced between males and females - six of each. One of the inside jokes we males like to mention to each other is that it's very important to balance out the staff between guys and girls because not only can we exhibit proper family role models for the children, but it also gives us something interesting to look at as the shift wears on. And believe me, in an atmosphere where at any time you run the risk of getting assaulted, peed on, cussed at and spit on, just about anything that meets the minimum requirement of being the opposite sex qualifies as being interesting to look at.

Every Tuesday is staff meeting day. While the kids are at school, every staff who works on every shift comes in for 4 hours to discuss important issues, work on treatment plans, listen to social workers present new clients and examine our own effectiveness on the floor. ("On the floor" means working out in the open with the kids. The House Supervisor might use it like this: "Staff, please try not to cuss when you're out on the floor," or, if you're like Toby, you might say it while unlocking the door to the staff office, "Staff, I'm going to be off the floor for a few minutes," which means you're about to go take a dump.) Staff meetings are held at the large kitchen table around which we are all seated.

Just before one of the staff meetings, I was talking to Mel, one of my favorite teammates, in the staff office. Mel was closing his eyes and shaking his head, "Dawg, I'm not saying I'm gonna try to set the kids off so they blow out, but damn, dude, have you ever proned some kid with Trixie? (Trixie is a hot red-head) Blood, when that hottie bends over, just take a look back. Her pants sag down and her thong and all her shit is hangin' out for the whole world to see. Me and her proned Freddie's stupid ass this morning and I'm telling you...damn!" Mel didn't need to remind me, it's not like I never noticed this job's little rewards. Mel went on, "Dude, everybody's sitting down. Call me in two minutes."

"Mel, you're a fucking pervert, plus you're making me late." Actually I didn't mind.

Mel cringed and laughed as he walked out of the staff office and off to the staff meeting. After two minutes, I used the staff office phone to call the phone line in the kitchen. When it rang, I heard Mel jump up, "I'll get it!" I hung up just as Mel answered, "Hulla? Oh, let me check." He walked in to meet me in the staff office.

"Oh, man, blood, you gotta go out there to staff meeting!"

"Yeah, well that's the general idea, Mel," I laughed.

"Dawg, it's not just Trixie's thong, that crazy-ass bitch Leslie got one too, only leopard stripe, plus Katrina's wearing her lace red one."

"Mel, you're fucking crazy but I love you. We better go out."

As we walked out to take our places, I walked behind the women he was talking about and noticed that everything he described was true. Sad, but true. Life's little pleasures are amplified in this kind of environment.

Mel mentioned "Crazy-ass Leslie." She came aboard at Trixie's recommendation, but Trixie soon renounced her allegiance to Leslie. Trixie said she thought Leslie was cool at first, but she soon found out, as we all did that Leslie is a little unbalanced. Trixie told me that she started getting worried when they went out one night, went bar hopping and Leslie wound up dropping her pants and taking a piss out in the middle of a busy intersection. Later, Trixie would find Leslie in her house, uninvited, when she would come home from work. Now that Trixie has told Leslie that she's not allowed in her house uninvited, Leslie has taken up driving by the group home, slowing down and giving Trixie the evil eye, and driving off. And this is on Leslie's days off!

I had noticed that something was amiss with her when I pulled into work one afternoon and she burst out of the house yelling, "Stokie! My favorite person! I love you!" She ran up to me sat on my foot and hugged my leg. This woman was actually humping my leg. I thought for a second that it was nice that she had a crush on me and I felt a bit of an ego stroke. After all, she is kinda cute. But that thought was overcome by my next thought that this person thinks it's ok to greet someone by humping his leg, and not just that, but in public. "Oh Stokie, thank you so much for being you!"

"Leslie, you need to get the fuck off my leg. This isn't how normal people act. Get the fuck off."

"But you're my favorite person..." I shook her off my leg and she lay there in the street. "God, Stokie, you don't have to be like that..."

I walked into the house. Scott, a big, good looking baseball player was at the stove cooking what he liked to call "Sloppy Scotts," his version of Sloppy Joes.

I said, "Scott, I think that Leslie's fuckin crazy, man. Or she has a crush on me or something."

Scott put down his spatula and looked at me. "Aw, man! Don't tell me she humped your leg, too! I never had someone do that to me til now!"

It is in this context that after the staff meeting, I found myself with Mel and Toby discussing the Ultimate Group Home Counselor.

Mel was holding court. "Ok, if you put Trixie's ass together with Katrina's tits, that would be so dope."

"No!" said Toby. "Katrina's too damn lazy. Put Stephanie's ass with Trixie's tits."

"Yeah," said Mel. "She's got a nice little backyard. But she got to have a head, dawg."

Mel said, "Leslie's head, dude. Listen. Trixie's tits, you can't beat those. Stephanie's ass and Leslie's head. Stokie, how 'bout that? Leslie's head, what do you think?"

I said, "As long as it keeps it's fucking mouth shut, I'm ok with it."

"Cool," said Mel. "Then we got it. The Ultimate Group Home Counselor."

Later that afternoon, I was sharing the shift with Mel, Trixie and Leslie. It was our recreation hour and Mel and I were watching the activities from the back porch while Trixie was playing frisbee on the rec field and Leslie was watching a group of boys play basketball at the adjoining courts. We both happened to be watching as Leslie got up and walked over to a heavy, wooden baseball bat that had been left on the field. I thought that it was a good idea of her to remove it and keep it safely from the boys. She picked it up and walked over to a basketball that had also been left on the field. She picked up the ball, tossed it up in the air and swung at it. She missed. Undeterred, she tossed it up and swung again.

This time she hit it. The ball didn't move. The bat ricocheted back and slammed her in the side of the head. Mel and I ran down as we watched her lose her balance and fall to her knees. When we arrived she was bleeding from her ear.

She was taken by ambulance to the hospital and I heard that she had suffered a concussion. As time went on, I also heard that she had some kind of lack of balance condition and chronic headaches. I also heard that the worker's compensation payout for her was enormous.

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 35: Rasmus Gets Dipped

I pulled into work one afternoon and parked right behind Toby, a tall, muscular guy with a flattop, who was still sitting in his car. I really don't mind working with Toby that much. Although he can be a little abrasive and his childcare skills sometimes leave a lot to be desired, he also gives the kids a solid sense of safety. Beneath his loud, obnoxious and seemingly one-dimensional personality is a strong-minded character that is magnetic to kids.

He and I usually set up a good-guy, bad-guy guy dynamic. Him as the tough disciplinarian and me as the empathetic ally who can help the kids communicate their needs.

As we were walking to the staff office, Toby said, "We're supposed to get that new kid today. I hope you're ready to rock and roll. Apparently, he held off the cops while he was locked in his bathroom with his pit bull. I guess the cops didn't have a choice but to shoot the dog. I'd be fucking mad about it too, but you gotta respect authority."

I said, "It's hard to respect authority when your parents, the ones who are supposed to be taking care of you, are out all the time dealing crack."

We walked in and immediately heard some kind of commotion coming from one of the rooms. I said to Toby, "I think our new guest is already here." We walked toward the noise and into one of the bedrooms where we encountered Nancy, a disheveled house therapist with enormous glasses. She was speaking to a kid I'd never seen before, apparently the new kid, who was standing on his head on his bed mattress.

Nancy turned to me and Toby and in her whiney drone said, "Oh, hi guys, I'm glad you're here. This is Rasmus. Rasmus is new here and you know what? I think he's feeling a little nervous about being in a brand new place."

Nancy has a habit of baby-talking to everyone, even the adults, when she talks about a kid. This, combined with her unbrushed hair, glasses and leftover hippie clothes make her a muppet-caricature of herself.

"I ain't nervous, bitch, I'm gonna kill myself." Rasmus was a wiry black kid of about 12. "Alls I gotta do is let go and I could break my neck."

Nancy nodded her head vigorously. "Okay, okay, good, good. You're letting your feelings out. That's a step in the right direction. It must be an icky feeling to be so scared. But do you really think you need to kill yourself to express your feelings?"

"Yes I do. But you could give me some more of them Skittles?"

Nancy reached into her purse. "You know what? Can you sit on your bed in the regular way? You know, on your bottom? So you won't break your neck. Then I could give you some more Skittles."

Toby and I looked at each other and sighed. Most therapists here are notorious for undermining the staff's authority by buying off the kids. They see it as an easy way to calm a kid. However, it teaches the kids that if they just wait long enough and for the right person, they can get away with misbehavior and ultimately get rewarded for it. This makes our job of setting limits and following through with consequences, if necessary, much harder. Not to mention that we run the risk of assault when we try to enforce rules the kids are conditioned to think are irrelevant.

Toby reached into his pockets and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. With a sigh of frustration he snapped them on and said, "Me and Stokie will take it from here, Nancy. One thing we definitely won't do is make deals with him so that he gets his way."

Nancy, again nodding, said, "Hmm, yeah, I hear you, Toby. What I hear you saying is you don't feel like Rasmus should be making deals. Right? Well, I'll tell you what. This isn't Rasmus' deal, this will be my deal. Just for today because Rasmus is feeling a little nervous about being here."

She offered Rasmus some Skittles and he turned over and sat down on the edge of the bed and gobbled them down.

Nancy said, "Rasmus is having a hard day, aren't you Rasmus? Can you explain in your own words to these nice counselors how you got here today?"

"Hell no, I ain't saying shit."

Toby piped up, "You know something Rasmus? All you need is some good, old-fashioned discipline. I'll tell you one thing, just because a therapist is here doesn't mean I'm gonna take that attitude from you. I don't care who is here, you can be respectful or you can go sit by yourself in the Quiet Room."

Rasmus immediately stood back up on his head. "I'm gonna kill myself! If you come close to me, I'll let go and break my neck!"

Nancy said, "Okay, okay, I hear what you're saying Rasmus." She turned to us. "Rasmus and I were just having a really productive conversation about his trip over here. He had been in Juvenile Hall for a couple of weeks before his social worker was able to place him here. Well Rasmus didn't want to come here, did you Rasmus? And although it doesn't seem fair to me, his social worker told Rasmus that they were going on a trip to 7-11. But instead of 7-11, they came here."

I could hear Toby whisper between clenched teeth, "Fucking social workers..."

Nancy continued, "And Rasmus feels like he may have missed out on something he really wanted to do. Rasmus, is there anything else you would like to say about that? I can understand if you have some hurt feelings surrounding this issue. Sometimes things happen in life that we can't control and we don't feel like it's fair. Isn't that right?"

"I gotta take a piss!" said Rasmus. "You have to let me take a piss!"

"You don't run the show here, Rasmus," said Toby. "The adults do. Not you. You can sit there on your bed and wait patiently for five minutes. That way we can see that you're calm and not just messing around."

Nancy turned to Toby. "You know something? I'm really feeling like Rasmus wants to be trusted. You know, that feeling where you can say something and everyone knows you're telling the truth? I really feel like Rasmus can be trusted to go pee-pee if he needs to do that."

Toby and I shook our heads. "I don't," I said.

"Well, today," said Nancy in her most hopeful nasal whine, "we're going to show Rasmus that we think we can trust him. Rasmus? Can we trust you to go pee-pee without having any more problems?"

"Hell yeah you can trust me. Now let me go take a piss. Damn."

Nancy nodded in agreement. "Okay, okay, good. Now, let's just walk down the hall to the bathroom." We all walked down the hallway, Rasmus marching in front and the adults following as if in a parade. Rasmus entered the bathroom and shut the door.

Nancy approached Toby and me. "You know something? I really feel like we made some progress today. It's so important for a child to know he's trusted and liked. I'm sensing you guys feel the same way. Well, isn't this why we enjoy working with children so much? We're really making a difference in their lives. In fact, I'm getting the chills just thinking about it. Anyway, I'm glad we could work out that little problem. Now I have another client to see but I'll check in with Rasmus tomorrow. Thanks for your help, guys." With that, she slipped out of the house.

I turned to Toby. "I think the really bright psychologists wind up with private practices, the ones who graduate toward the bottom of the class wind up working at places like this."

Just then, Toby looked down at his feet. A steady stream of urine passed under the bathroom door and settled under his shoes.

Toby burst into the bathroom where Rasmus was standing on top of the toilet, still pissing.

"You little punk! If you're gonna act like a dog, I'm gonna treat you like a dog!" Toby lunged at Rasmus, picked him up, turned him upside down and pushed his face into the puddle of piss. "This is how you train a dog not to pee in the house. Even you can learn something here!" He then carried Rasmus into the Quiet Room and plopped him down unceremoniously.

"Let me ask you something, Rasmus. Anyone ever dip you into your own piss before?"

Rasmus spoke with a blank expression and wide eyes. "No sir, they didn't. Not even the cops. I ain't ever doin' that again."

"Damn straight you're not. Now get your shit together and get in the shower."

"Yes sir, I will. I ain't ever doin' that again."

I'm happy to report that Toby never had to resort to dipping Rasmus into his own piss again.

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!