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 34: Ian Goes To High School

The agency is fortunate to have its own special education school right here on campus. It is a county funded school and there are a few "day students," kids who live in the community who have special needs, but practically speaking, it is reserved primarily for our group home boys. There has always been a debate regarding the school's effectiveness regarding the kids' education. Do the kids stay dumb because the school is no good, or is it because of the kids' severe limitations and emotional intrusions?

I don't have the definitive answer, but I do know that the school sends the kids home with dot-to-dots and word searches and tells them it's "homework." The two-story building holds the younger kids on the first floor and the teenagers on the second floor. Whenever one of the older kids tells me he is in high school, I ask him, "You mean the 'higher school', don't you?"

One thing all staff across campus desire is the opportunity to help the kids re-immerse themselves into the outside community. This can be done successfully if it is done gradually and with a lot of supervision. It can start off by enhancing one aspect of the kid's life, such as joining a sports team, taking an arts and crafts class, stuff like that. You have to do it slowly so that the kid isn't too overwhelmed with all the new stimuli and temptations he will invariably find off-campus.

Some of our higher functioning kids have been able to immerse themselves into the public high school, which is about a mile away from our campus. They will start out by attending one class a day until he works his way up to spending the whole day there. Needless to say, in my unit, the sub-acute level of residential treatment, the boys who have been able to make it to an outside school have been very few and far between. In fact, I can only think of one.

Ian was a tall 13-year-old who was intellectually sharp, but had a history of angry tantrums, fire-starting, self-mutilation and violent sexual fantasies. During the few years that I knew him, I had seen him mellow out through puberty and assume the "cool" demeanor. He came out to me one day after spending about a half an hour in front of the mirror and asked, "Don't you think I look like Tom Cruise?"

I nodded. "Oh definitely. If you don't count all the pimples and dark circles under your eyes." So, he was beginning to act like a lot of "normal" teenagers.

At any rate, Ian was our candidate for outside school. Intellectually, he was performing at grade level and his behavior had been great as far back as anyone could remember. The question in everyone's mind in this kind of situation is always: How will he perform under increased scrutiny and peer pressure? Will he be able to stay focused or will he regress to violence and be seduced by gang-bangers or drug dealers? Will the presence of girls be a hindrance? These topics are always discussed amongst the staff and residents when it comes to trying to blend in with the society at large.

After about a month of a seemingly uneventful and productive immersion, Ian looked like he was holding up well. He was completing his homework and there were no signs that he was cracking under the pressure. Aside from the occasional lewd comment about girls, he seemed to be handling himself with poise.

Late one afternoon, as I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, Darius, a skinny, black, grown up crack baby with a huge head and teeth sticking out in all directions came running out from Ian's side of the house. "I knew it, I knew it!" He was panting and pointing to Ian's room. "Porn! He gots porn! I seen it! Titties this big!"

Frankly, I wasn't all that surprised. After all, he is 13 and he now attends public high school where there is access to almost anything. I wasn't upset, but since nudie magazines are contraban, I knew that I would have to confiscate it from Ian and give him a serious talking to.

I called out from the kitchen, "Ian, come out here, I need to talk to you."

No response.

"Ian, you need to get out here and talk about this."

No response.

"Ian, if you don't get out here right now, I'm going to send you to the time-out room and we can have a talk there."

No response.

"That's it. Go to the time-out room. We'll talk there."

Ian emerged from his room and strutted in a cocky, defiant way toward the time-out room. "That's okay," he said. He reached into one pocket and pulled out a fat joint. He lit it up with a lighter he pulled out from his other pocket. As he puffed away he said, "By the time I get over there, I'm not gonna give a shit about anything you say anyway."