I stepped into Yolanda’s office in front of Miyako and Pete Post, who shut the door behind him. Yolanda was already sitting down.

Pete began, “Stokie, you know that as a veteran staff, the organization values your investment and experience here…”

I said, “That line is always followed by ‘however…’”

“However, from time to time even the veteran staff show signs of stress and make mistakes in their handlings of the kids here. And I’m here to talk to you about this morning and determine if there were any mistakes made and talk to you about whether or not you’re feeling any stress on the job.”

“Well, Pete, I appreciate your concern for my welfare. I don’t remember anything about this morning and I’d have to read Miyako’s incident report to remind myself. May I see it please?”

“Actually, she hasn’t completed it yet. She came to me with it and asked for help with the English. When I helped her write it, she described the incident to me and I became concerned about your handling of the client.”

“So there’s no incident report? I better get to work on it right away. Miyako, why didn’t you just come to me for help on the IR? Why did you go to Pete? After all, I was the one who was there, not Pete.”

Pete squirmed in his chair. “I don’t think that’s the point here…”

Yolanda piped up, “Yeah Miyako. I know I told you when I met you yesterday that you should be checking in with your teammates all the time, especially if you’re confused or have questions. Why didn’t you do that?”

Miyako’s eyes started welling up. “Pete told me that he wanted to know what was going on in the house. He say ‘Tell me if anybody, especially veteran staff like Stokie Jaye do anything might be wrong. So I tell him and he say Stokie might get fired.”

I could have murdered Pete Post right then and there. “So Pete, what I’m hearing is that you’re hiring new staff to be your spies so that you can try to fire veteran staff like me. Do you have any idea how fucked-up that is? You Admin keep talking about supporting us and then you go and do something like this? You all are just talking out of your assholes.”

Pete responded, “I assure you, cursing at me is not going to help you explain any possible illegal behavior.”

“Oh yeah. Miyako, can you remind me what illegal behavior I engaged in?”

Miyako was silent for a moment. Then she burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know! Not sure, not sure.”

Pete said, “Miyako, you told me that Stokie picked up Brian by himself and threw him into the Quiet Room. Isn’t that what you saw?”

Miyako said through sobs, “Not sure, not sure.”

Yolanda said, “Sounds like she’s not sure, Pete. And Stokie? Do you remember what happened now?”

“Yes, Yolanda. As I walked toward Brian, he did a backward sommersault into the Quiet Room. I just shut the door because he was being assaultive to Miyako by spitting on her. She just sat there and took it, too.” I turned to Pete, “I wonder where she learned that?”
.
Miyako got up and ran out. This was the last time any of us saw her as she faxed in her letter of resignation the next day.

Yolanda said, “Pete, I think it’s time for you to get out of my office, you aren’t making any friends right now.”

Pete got up to leave and said to me, “There’s too much hands on going on in this house. And another thing, you better think twice before you lie to me again.” With that he left the house.

I got up to leave too. I said to Yolanda, “You need to do your own dirty work. I got Admin stink all over me and almost lost my job for it.”

Every week we hold a staff meeting while the kids are in school to go over each kids’ progress, or lack thereof, and discuss therapeutic strategies so that we can stay on top of each kids’ individual “special needs.”

Mind you, the information we get about the kids’ histories is sometimes heartbreaking and usually tragic. Common themes are sexual, physical and emotional abuse, homelessness, prostitution and drug addiction, i.e., the usual gamut of the white trash and ghetto experience. The boys will often repeat the cycle of abuse or at least act out the antisocial behaviors that they have learned from their upbringing. It is through these meetings that we try to understand these cycles and then decide how best to break them.

It wasn’t a big surprise then, that under a lot of stress Jaques, a 12 year-old of Haitian descent jumped up on a table, pulled out his dick and started waving it around yelling, “Who wants some chocolate milk? Aw yeah, I know you want some of that chocolate milk, now come and get it. How ’bout you, Tyrell, I know you like to fuck boys!”

On some level, Jaques was harkening back to the days when he was prostituted out to crack dealers by his junkie mom and dad. A seasoned veteran may observe this behavior and make a comment such as, “You seem really stressed out, Jaques. I’d really like to help you out but I can’t do that when you’re naked. Let’s put your clothes on and think about better ways to talk about your anger.” Best to address the underlying feelings that cause the behavior, rather than react to the disgusting behavior.

Tyrell was a stocky, dim-witted staff who was as badly “ghetto-ized” as any of the kids. I never figured out how exactly he was allowed to work with children, I just figured he knew somebody and was able to pull some strings. He was illiterate, could barely annunciate well enough to be understood, and sometimes seemed to be enjoying chemical pleasures.

Tyrell’s response to Jaques behavior was to tackle him and drag him by the feet to the Quiet Room where he launched him into the far wall, head-first.

Tyrell tried to use his verbal skills that he learned from staff meeting. “You only do dat cuz yo’ mama fucked you up. You don’ know if you some kinda faggot cuz you fucked up in the head by yo’ mama. You jes’ git yo’ ass beat once or twice and you stop, you’ll see.”
This strategy didn’t seem to be working on Jaques, who had now stripped down naked and was peeing on the walls. Tyrell called to Jaques through the door, “Oh, I see. I know what you doin’. You peein’ cuz yo’ daddy messed wiff you an’ now you some kinda faggot. You fucked up boy, an’ someone need to beat yo’ ass!”

Hearing this, I decided to relieve Tyrell and switch off with him. I rounded the corner to the Quiet Room to hear Tyrell yelling, “Oh I know you not about to do dat! Oh you did, you muthafucka!”

Jaques shoved his own shit through the top crack of the door. It oozed out like that Playdough barbershop toy and plopped on to the floor. I laughed at Tyrell and called out, “The eagle has landed, the eagle has landed!”

Tyrell said, “Dat jes’ one fucked up muthafucka. Ain’t no hope for him.” He walked out of the house right then and there and I never saw him again.

One of the more difficult kids to deal with is Jose (10). He is so young, and yet so sophisticated when it comes to flaunting his abilitiy to confound and tease both staff and kids. He is unashamedly sexualized and will enumerate his many sexual conquests during our issue groups.
He will point around the room, “I sucked his dick, his dick, he sucked mine but I didn’t suck his, he booty-bumped me. Oh, I didn’t do him yet, but I’m going to…” It just goes on and on and it is very effective in getting the boys riled up, even sabotaging whatever plans we may have had for the day.
We have had to be creative in our crisis interventions with him as well. For a long time, when Jose would tantrum, he would strip off his clothes in the Quiet Room and pee all over the place. If you were one of the unlucky staff dealing with him, you also risked getting peed on. He revels in the negative attention and downright shock that some staff give him when he does this.
Look up Borderline Personality Disorder and you’ll see a picture of Jose. He idealizes his relationship with my huge black teammate, Gus, and will be sweet as can be until Gus sets any kind of limit with him. This sends Jose into fits. He will scream and yell, often assaulting someone to force Gus to pay attention to him.
Once, I went to check on Jose, who was locked in the Quiet Room by Gus. Gus is sitting there calmly and says, “Jose’s having a few problems.” I look through the plexiglass window to see Jose, butt naked, skating barefoot through streaks of shit.
On the wall he had written “I (heart) Gus.” With his own shit.
What we’ve been able to do is instead of taking him to the Quiet Room when he tantrums is to take him to the Supervisor’s office, which has a bathroom, put him in the bathtub and let him tantrum there. That way, he can piss and shit all he wants and he doesn’t cause as much mess, and it doesn’t require as much staff attention when he does it.
One such occasion occurred one Saturday as Gus was packing some lunches to leave on an outing with some other boys. Jose thought he was going on the outing.
“Hey Gus, where are we going on the outing? Six Flags?”
“Oh, no, Jose, you ain’t going nowhere. Not with the kind of behavior you’ve been having all week.”
Jose was stunned. “Oh hell no! Trick that, bitch. In that case, I’m just going to have to do what I always do, that way NO ONE gets to go.”
He began stripping and walking to the Quiet Room. Anticipating this, Gus and I grabbed him and walked him to the Supervisor’s bathroom and put him in the bathtub. Gus left for the outing and I sat in a chair in the doorway, out of piss-reach. Jose was livid to lose Gus.
“Think you can keep me in here? Well you can’t! It’s abuse plus I’m just gonna come out of here and piss on you!”
He grabbed his tiny, 10 year old dick, started pissing, and made stretching, thrusting movements as if that would help him gain the necessary distance to soak me.
I said in a non-chalant tone, “Jose, any move you make towards me will be considered an attempted assault and you will find yourself proned face down in that puddle of piss. Not only that, but I will use whatever amount of force to get you down there first, and only then will I call another staff for support. I hope you understand my words.”
“I understand that you’re a faggot-shit-liking bitch is what I understand.”
“I find it highly ironic that YOU would call ME a faggot-shit-liking bitch, Jose.”
“What? Oh hell no, you just called me a faggot! I’m telling my therapist!”
“I didn’t call you anything. I’m just making an observation about your past behavior.”
“What! I’m gonna hoo-ride this house, fucka!”
I said, “You know, Jose, if you really want to do something effective here, you should start talking about your issues. It might help you deal with your anger. You’re standing there butt-ass naked in front of a grown man, and I’m just wondering what kinds of feelings come up for you when you do that.”
“What! You just called me a faggot again! You’re trying to make me say I want to kill my grandpa, but I’m not! You can’t make me say it. You think he abused me because you don’t like him and you want him to go to jail. You think you can outsmart me to make me tell lies, but you’re just a fucked up child abuser. You probably like looking at naked boys!”
“Actually, I would rather be on the outing with Gus. My behavior has been really good all week and I think I deserve to go. How about you, do you deserve to go?”
Nigga! I’m telling my therapist you’re provoking me! You’re gonna get fired!”
“Well, you’re gonna need to tell Flip Joseph or someone like that, therapist don’t fire people. Plus, you might want to put on some clothes before you tell, they might take you a little more seriously.”
And on it goes. Unbelievably, Jose did manage to make it on an outing once. Somehow he was able to put together about 3 weeks of really good behavior and earned the privilege of going on an outing.
I love nature and I love to take the guys out to experience it. Of course I take precautions such as bringing sunscreen, carrying water and helping them to identify poison oak. Mellow Bill and I took a group of 4 boys, including Jose, to one of those big regional parks with paddle boats and things. As we walked down a trail, I heard Bill having a conversation with Jose.
“See Jose? Staff doesn’t lie. If you have good behavior and work your program, you get rewarded. Wouldn’t you rather be out here in nature than standing in the bathtub trying to piss on people?”
“Hell yeah! You know why? They got Choco-Tacos here. I seen ‘em at that snack bar place. I’m gonna get me one of those bad boys.”
Bill replied, “I like that idea. I might even buy one for you.”
I had to intervene. “You know what Bill, Jose hasn’t earned any allowance since he’s been here. In fact he still owes the house money for all those potted plants he broke. I think it would be a bad message to buy him something when he still owes us money.”
Bill demured, “Oh well Jose, you can still have the Red Vines and Cheez-Its we packed. No sense in getting upset over a Choco-Taco. Maybe you can get one on the next outing you go on.”
Jose turned red with anger. “Hell no, mutha-fucka, I ain’t never going on no other outing! You need to get me a Choco-Taco now, or I’m gonna hoo-ride this stupic-ass nature hike. Oh no way! You bitches are gonna get fired and I’m gonna make sure of that. You guys can’t take care of no one, you’re just child abusers!”
Jose ran to the edge of the trail and jumped into large patch of poison oak. He picked a handful of leaves and started rubbing them over his arms and legs.
“See? I told you you can’t take care of no one. Now you’re going to get fired because I’m going to get poison oak. You think you’re so goddamn smart, but I guess I just outsmarted you, you punk-ass bitch!”
After we got home later that evening, staff decided that Jose should never go on any other outings, ever. He’s just too goddamn smart for them.

Every once in a while, we are presented with unique opportunity to help a child develop some advanced skills outside of the agency, in the community. These events have to be highly structured and supervised, of course, but if a kid has really made a significant amount of progress, it is possible that we can sign him up for some community classes sponsored by the city, such as ceramics or drama classes.

One such opportunity presented itself in the person of Brian, my Special Kid who struggles with sexual identity. He had been with us almost 3 years and we were beginning to plan for his transfer to a lower level of care. He and I had made a lot of progress coming to terms with the fact that his hypochondriac, gay, fat mom who allowed her lovers to beat Brian just might not ever be available to him to just be a mom.

One hint was that she had converted Brian’s old room into a shrine for All Things Rainbow. Any painting, flag, window art, kite or piece of shit doo-dad that had a rainbow on it was crammed into the small room leaving no room for other things like, say, Brian’s bed. Brian’s dad was unavailable for the foreseeable future due to a previous commitment in a facility for the criminally insane. So, foster care seemed to be a good option for Brian, and he was accepting and moving in that direction.

For the entire time that he has been staying with us, Brian has had a penchant to add a little extra drama to whatever he did. His blowouts were peppered with rants such as

“What I need from you is a goddamn positive male role-model, not a fat, drunk idiot!”

or

“Who the hell do you think you are, my dad? I had a dad and look where he left me. With you!”

He returned from an outing to an amusement park one evening, and declared in a tortured yet resolved whisper, “I guess it’s just my fate in life to be hurt. I asked a girl for her number and after she gave it to me, she pinched my ass. Once again, staff left me alone to be sexually abused.”

When rewarded with public acknowledgement or praise, he would bite his knuckle and force a tiny tear out of his eye. So, as his Special Counselor, it was not rocket science to assume that he could benefit from and enjoy some community acting classes.

It was summer, I had gotten him all signed up and we were driving the van to the community theatre where the classes were being held. Brian was nervous and chatty, doing his best impersonation of a straight, normal 13 year old. He was wearing a brand new outfit we had purchased from Ross Dress for Less, a 2 sizes too big button down baseball jersey and some huge black jeans, and the ubiquitous-in-the-group-home, daily polished, sometimes black-marketed high topped basketball shoes with the one name: Jordans. In other words, he was wearing the outfit that screamed out “Hey everybody! I’m from the group home!”

I like to get to the community center early so that Brian and I can have “special time.” That is, we get to have some one on one time together in a much more relaxed atmosphere than at the House.  This Special relationship has many benefits, one of which is the kids sometimes tell you things they’ve never told anyone else.  This seemed to be one of those moments.

We were sitting in the van waiting for the class to begin.  Brian took a sip from his Big Gulp and asked , “Do you ever wonder what it’ll be like after I graduate?”

 

I asked, “You mean like, will you ever come to terms with your true self?”

 

He said, “ You’re always kidding around, Stokie!”

 

I shook my head, “Not always, Brian.”

 

He continued, “ I mean, like, would you ever want to visit me just to see how I’m doing or just to hang out for a while?”

 

“ Oh yeah, of course I would. I’m planning on doing that anyway, and I’m glad you’re thinking about it too.”

 

Then he said, “ Well, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m just wondering what you would tell everyone after you got back. I mean, I know you can’t keep a secret with the staff, but would you have to tell all the kids too?”

 

That was a strange question, I thought.  “ I’m starting to feel uncomfortable with this conversation. I don’t like talking about keeping secrets. Why can’t you just ever say what’s on your mind? And no, I’m not keeping any secrets.”

 

“ Okay,” he said.  “Here goes. Picture yourself coming to visit me and you’re kind of dressed up but not really dressy, just kind of better than you usually dress at work. Just looking really nice. And you knocked on the door and you knew you had the right address so you knew I had to live there. Then somebody opened the door but it wasn’t me. It was a really pretty lady with long flowing hair and a really pretty dress with flowers, the kind you can almost see through but not quite. And you said, ‘Oh excuse me, Miss, I thought Brian lived here.’ And the lady said, ‘I am Brian. But they call me Brianna now.’”

 

I winced.  “ This disturbs me on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin.”

 

He unmoved.  “ Sometimes I just think I’m more like a girl than a boy. And just

tell me the truth. Somebody told me that there was a way to turn boys into girls and girls into boys. Is that true? Have you ever done that for any of your old Special kids?”

 

“ I don’t think the county would appreciate my helping you in that way.”

 

“ Well I heard there was a way.”

 

I was curious.  “Have you told your therapist any of this stuff?”

 

He frowned.  “Why would I tell him? That’s my private business. We just play

board games.”

 

I wanted to change the subject.  “Anyway, what else do you think you’d like to do when I visit, hang out at the mall?”

 

He perked up.  “Well I don’t know. Do they have that kind of dress at Macy’s?”

 

He actually did quite well in the class. Sure he was nervous and overly-hyper, but he was enjoying himself, oblivious to the stares and smirks he was getting from his peers. The instructor had the kids go through all kinds of activities, miming, theatre games, improvisation. At one point, the group was acting out a scene where Brian ultimately got shot and he flung himself to the stage floor with a flourish. When it was all over, he and I were walking back to the van.

 

“Uh, Stokie, can I talk to you about something important?”
“Of course, that’s what I’m here for.”
“Well, remember that scene when I got shot? Well look.”
He lifted up his loose fitting jersey and just below his navel, where his pants should have been but weren’t because they were sagging far below his Pokemon boxers was a huge piece of wood about six inches long and an inch wide, sticking out from his belly. He said, “I think I got a splinter.”
“Jesus Christ, Brian, that’s not a splinter, that’s a goddamn spike. What the hell happened?”
“When I dove on the stage, a big piece of wood cracked off and stuck in me. You know,” he said with a quiver, “It’s really starting to hurt.”
“Why didn’t you say something, Brian? That happened about a half an hour ago.”
“I was embarrassed someone would laugh at me. I didn’t want to make everyone stop just because I got a piece of wood got stuck in my stomach.”

The whole time we were talking, all I was thinking was that I should distract him momentarily and yank the wood out when he wasn’t expecting it.

I said, “So, tell me about that scene again,” and at the same time grabbed the wood and gave it a stiff tug. I pulled the stick and Brian’s pudgy tummy bent out but did not release the stick. Brian screamed in pain.

“You motherfucker! What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see I need professional medical attention?”

I felt terrible and sick to my stomach. However, I thought that it would be a favor to both of us if we didn’t have to sit around in the emergency room all day so I motioned toward him with a determined look in my eye. He yelled, “Oh hell no!” and ran.

I grabbed him from behind, spun him around. I blocked his hands with one arm and with the other, grabbed the stick again and yanked, much harder than before. Brian screamed and fell to the ground. The stick didn’t budge.

I said, “You know, I think you have a point about the medical attention,” and drove to the hospital.

In the emergency room, the nurses numbed up the area (lots of shrieking and knuckle-biting on Brian’s part) and pulled out the stick. Brian calmed down and I was standing at the nurses’ station gathering up some paperwork. One of the nurses pulled me aside and said, “You know, if anything like that happens again, you might just consider distracting him and then yanking it out yourself. Might save you a trip to the hospital.”

I nodded in mock interest. “Oh, yeah. I wish I would have thought of that.”