In a couple of hours, I would be attending Short-Attention Span Rudy’s 12^th birthday party.  In fact, I would be hosting it.  His own special counselor, Mellow Bill, decided to schedule his vacation this week without thinking to check on his special kid’s needs.   So, I volunteered to be Rudy’s Temporary Special Counselor and put on the party, which basically means take care of everything:  the cake, the presents, the decorations, the meal, the party games.  I was more than happy to do it, I had known Rudy since he arrived at the Agency 3 ½ years ago and we have gotten along really well in his time here.

Each kid gets a fifty dollar birthday allowance from the house as well as a gift certificate to the store of his choice.  Rudy had requested that I take the gift certificate and get him an MP3 player.

So there I was, on the 14^th tee, lining up my shot.  I selected a pitching wedge. 

 As I drew the club back, I thought:  Let’s see, it’s almost noon now, the party starts at 2.  I’ll be done with golf in about an hour, so that gives me about a half hour to get to Best Buy with Rudy’s gift certificate and pick up the MP3 player he wants.  Then about fifteen minutes to pick up the sodas , prizes for games,  and the cake I ordered from the grocery store, I’ll call the pizza place and order the pizzas during the fifteen minutes it takes to get to the house, put the kids in transition, get the staff to quickly get the decorations up and we’ll do the party.  No problem.

Manny was casually leaning on a club and said, “You know Jenny’s going to be there.  You going all out for her client.”

I said, “My concentration is impenetrable.  Your sorry attempts have no effect on me.”  I addressed the ball.

Fuck.  I forgot about Jenny, Rudy’s therapist.  She and I have had some spats over the years, the most recently over Rudy, in fact.  During a tantrum, Rudy ripped his special blankie to shreds.  This was the special blankie which his dead grandmother had made for him when he was born.  It already had plenty of holes in it, so when he shredded it to pieces in anger and tied some of the shreds around his neck, I just threw it away.  Jenny was livid! 

Jenny has been a therapist there for about 15 years, about 5 years longer than I’ve been there.  Over the years, you hear things about people and we’ve heard plenty about her.  Her husband apparently had left her very abruptly to fly off with his Italian floozy girlfriend.  In the mean time, Jenny has taken it upon herself to transfer all her feelings of abandonment on to her charges.  For all I know, her husband is living happily in Italy with his floozy girlfriend.

So there I was, on the 14^th tee, taking my backswing, thinking about Jenny and the party.  As I started my downstroke, I thought:  Let’s see, who’s working this afternoon… It’s going to be Toby the militant, plus three relatively new staff who I haven’t gotten the chance to work with. Toby tends to try to take over for inexperienced staff in an effort to help, but usually winds up making the house feel more tense with all his yelling. No matter, I’m just doing a guest appearance. When an experienced staff like me shows up when it’s not his usual shift, the kids are happily surprised, and usually respond positively, whether they love you or hate you on your regular shifts.

I struck the center of the ball with the edge of the blade.  The ball was a low line drive that skipped over the water three times and sunk somewhere near the center of the lake.

Manny said, “You really just playing the best you can right now.”

I said, “You know, I’m thinking I should just get a head start on that party right now.”

Manny said, “I think that’s best.  I don’t want anyone to get hurt out here.  You got my five bucks?”

I knew I owed him the money we bet on the round, but instead I said, “What?  I’m five strokes ahead!”

“Just think of it as a quitter’s fee,” he said.  “You pay me five bucks for quitting, I don’t tell no one how I penetrated your concentration with my superior mental skills.”

I reached into my pocket and paid him.  “Oh yeah, like you can keep your mouth shut.  See you at work tomorrow morning.”

Manny exaggeratedly waved, “Bye-bye!  Say ‘hi’ to Jenny for me!” 

I got in the car and shot down to the grocery store where I ordered the cake.  I took my cart up and down the aisles throwing in candy, soda, balloons and small, junky toys for prizes and treats.  I got to the bakery and asked to pick up the cake.

The bakery lady shook her head.  “That the one that say ‘Happy Birthday Rudy?’ That one ain’t done.”

I was pissed.  “What the fff….  Fine.  When’s it going to be done?  I ordered it on Thursday, you know.”

“Should be done in about half and hour or so.  You can wait if you want.” She had the far-away gaze of someone who couldn’t give a shit.

I said, “I’ll tell you what.  I have to go over to Best Buy and get some other stuff.  Can you just keep my cart here and I’ll be back in a half hour?”

“Fine with me,” she said.

The Best Buy was at the other end of the parking lot.  I ran over there to pick up the MP3 player.  When I asked at the counter, the dude said, “We ain’t got no more.  Sold out.”

I got into my car and thought:  Fuck.  Now what?  Well, let’s see… I did leave the golf course earlier than I planned, so I still have some time.  There’s that other Best Buy about 20 minutes away, I’ll just go there, get the fucking MP3, come back, get the cake, toys, soda and shit and still be at the house in time.

I hopped on the freeway and got to the other Best Buy only to find out that they were sold out of the MP3 player too!  I wouldn’t say I was panicked, but I was definitely worried.  I looked around the electronics section for other things to get Rudy.  All the other MP3’s cost too much for his gift certificate, plus he told me he wanted a specific one. 

As I walked out to the car, I thought:  Fuck.

Then I thought:  Hey, there’s a Sears right across the freeway!  I’ll just shoot over there, maybe they’ll have the fucking MP3, I’ll pick it up, shoot back up to the grocery store, pick up the cake and the cart full of shit, and be on my way.  I’ll just be a little late.

It was fifteen minutes before the party was supposed to start.  I called the house and Toby answered.

“Hey Toby, I’m running a little late cuz all the fucking Best Buys are sold out of the fucking MP3 player.  Looks like I’ll be about 30 minutes late.”

Toby said, “OK, cool Stokie, we’re not doing much and the house is calm. I’ll tell everybody.  See ya.”

Sure enough, Sears came through with the MP3 player.  I had to use my own money to buy it, so I thought I’d ask the house supervisor, Yolanda, if I could just keep the gift certificate for myself.  I also bought a gift bag and some tissue paper since I wouldn’t have time to wrap it.  I shot up to the grocery store and ran to the bakery counter.

“Is the cake ready?”
The bakery lady looked at me.  “I didn’t think you was coming back.  Yup, the cake is ready, but your cart gone.”

“Goddammit! I said I’d be back in a half an hour!”

She said, “That was 45 minutes ago.”

I grabbed another cart and refilled it with the bullshit I put in it before.  It cost more than the allotted fifty dollar allowance, but I thought, what the hell, I’m making overtime by doing this party anyway.  On my way out to the car, I called the pizza place and ordered the pizza.  I arrived at the house exactly 30 minutes late.

The first thing I noticed as I entered was Jenny glaring at me.  Ignoring her, I called for a community group.  All the boys sat down and I told them that we were about to have a birthday party, there would be games and prizes and treats and if they wanted to participate in the games and prizes and treats, they would have to go to their rooms quietly for a 15 minute transition while the staff set up the house.  And that’s exactly what they did.

One of the new staff, Kristen, walked up to me and said, “I’ve never seen the kids go and do a transition so easily.  Why do they do it for you and not for me?”

I said, “You’ve been here what, 3 months?  The kids don’t know you and assume you’re going to leave any minute now.  Give it another year or so.  I’ve been here forever, they know what to expect from me.  Here, stick one of these jawbreakers in ten balloons and blow them up.  We’re gonna need them for a game.”

As she did this, I heard her muttering to herself, “Another fucking year….”

The party was really fun.  I organized a couple of relay races, one where each kid from two teams ran around the outside of the house and sat on a balloon to pop it and eat the jawbreaker.  There was a field-goal kicking contest with a paper football.  I had promised that there would be a sportsmanship prize for the kid who was the best behaved, and when all ten behaved well, they all got a package of gummi-bears.  The rest of the staff didn’t really have to do anything as the kids were so engaged.

Just then the pizza arrived.  I called another community group and all the kids sat down.

I said, “Now, we’re about to have a nice pizza for Rudy’s birthday, but I wanted to be sure we give Rudy his due.  Come on up here and sit in the Special Seat, Rudy.”  He came and sat in the empty seat next to me.

I led the boys in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” and said to Short Attention Span Rudy, “I got something special for you, buddy.”  I handed him the gift bag and he pulled out the MP3 player.

He was thrilled!  “Wow, YES!  Thank you Stokie!  It’s just what I wanted, how did you know?”

I said, “You told me last week and you wrote it down for me three times, remember?”

“Oh yeah!  I just didn’t think you would remember.  Thanks!”

All the kids sat down to eat pizza, drink soda and generally gorge themselves.  Looking up, I noticed JD, the chubby kid who looks exactly like Pumba  from the Lion King, wolfing down heaps of pizza at a time.  I was about to give a little speech about eating like a normal human being when JD suddenly looked up, eyes wide with panic.  He stood up, threw his chair into the wall and ran out the back door.  I had no idea what was going on, and I ran after him.  I caught up to him and grabbed his shirt to stop him.  When he turned around, I saw that his lips were blue!

I said, “Can you breathe?”  He shook his head violently, eyes tearing up in a panic.

I said, “Are you choking?”  He nodded.

I quickly turned him around, lifted his arms and put my arms around his fat little tummy.  I balled my fists together and drove them upward into his stomach, the classic Heimlich Maneuver.  Sure enough, he instantly blew out a huge, unchewed piece of pizza, along with some gobbed up gummy bears.  I was astounded!  The Heimlich actually works!

He coughed and struggled to catch his breath.  He said, “Jesus!  I couldn’t breed!  I thought I was gonna  die!”

“You would have if you kept running, JD.  Now let’s be sure to chew our food before we swallow, what do you say?”  I was shaking with adrenaline, the seriousness of the situation sinking in.

“Fuck yeah,” he said.  “I don’t ever want that to happen again.”

We turned around to head back to the house.  The staff and kids were on the back porch watching the whole thing, wide-eyed. 

One of the kids yelled, “Oh my god!  He just saved Pumba’s life!  Hakuna Matata!!!”  In fact, everyone started singing “Hakuna Matata” as JD and I walked back into the house.  It was a good feeling.

As the party started to wind down, I called another community group.  All the kids sat down on the couches.

I said, “I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for letting me come here and participate in the party.  You guys acted great, were respectful and displayed excellent sportsmanship.  Thank you, Rudy, for turning 12 and thank you Pumba for not dying on Toby’s watch.”

Toby was smiling and shaking his head.

I continued, “Now, the party has ended and I need you to do another 15 minute transition so the staff can clean up.  And since Toby is working, I have no doubt that the house will be spic and span when I get here tomorrow morning.  Thanks again, guys.”  All the kids took their satisfied bellies to their rooms.

As I prepared to leave, another newer staff, Bryce, came up to me and said, “Dude, that was like a 2 hour vacation, man.  We haven’t had a Saturday like that since I’ve been here.  Thanks.”

I could also hear a couple of kids talking in their rooms, “Man, I want Stokie to do my party too.”

“Me too!”

Me too!”

I said my goodbyes to the staff and started walking to my car.  Just then, Rudy came running out of the house and yelled, “I have staff permission!  I have staff permission!”

“Ok, ok, Rudy, I believe you,” I said.  “What’s up?”

Rudy took a breath and said, “Ok.  I just wanted to say…you know…thank you.  I know you’re only my Temporary Special Counselor and all, but I had a fun party today, and I think you’re cool, ok?  I thought the party was going to suck cuz it’s Saturday, but it was the best one I’ve ever had.  So, thanks, I guess.”

I said, “Rudy, that means a lot to me, thank you.  I had fun too.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

His eyes got big.  “You’re coming tomorrow?  Oh yeah, I forgot!”  He ran back to the house.

I was feeling pretty good after that, of course.  Not only had I saved a kid’s life, but I caused another one to say thank you in a very appropriate way.  Not bad for a guest shift.

The next morning I got to the house and Manny was already there, getting a head start on breakfast.  I know what the new staff meant yesterday when he said it was like having a two hour vacation.  Manny and I work every Sunday together from 6am to 10pm and with the way we use our humor, enthusiasm and camaraderie while we work, it usually seems like a vacation to us as well.  I walked in ready to joke around with Manny about how it was I who really won in golf yesterday, when he said, “Just remember, it was part of our weak-ass union agreement that you don’t never have to sign nothing.”

“What the fuck?”  I was confused.

He said, “Yolanda and stupid-ass Jenny are waiting for you in the Supervisor’s office.  I made you some rocket fuel.”  He handed me a cup of coffee.

“What the fuck!”  What was going on here, I wondered.  Yolanda appeared from her office and asked me to come talk to her.  Jenny was sitting there, eyes averted.  I sat down and Yolanda pulled out a piece of paper.

“So what happened yesterday?” she asked.

“Why don’t you tell me.  You’re the one with the piece of paper.  I came in, we had a party and I left.  Am I missing anything?”

Yolanda said, “I’ve come to understand that you got here late, the present wasn’t wrapped and you undermined all the staff.  So yeah, you missed a few things and that’s why you’re getting a verbal warning.”

My jaw dropped.  “I’m getting written up?  Who did you ‘come to understand’ this from?  Did you talk to the staff on shift?”

“No.”

“You should have.  Did you talk to any of the residents?”

“No.”

“You should have.  That means there is only one other person who could have possibly tattle-taled on me.  And that person can’t even look me in the eyes.”

Jenny cleared her throat and said, “How would you like it if a person you were counting on didn’t show up when he said he would?”  Her voice was shaking.  “And when he finally did show up, he didn’t come through with his promises and went on a power trip, making everyone around him feel useless?”

I turned again to Yolanda.  “Are you listening to this?”

“I heard it, yeah.”

“And you’re buying this garbage?”

“You don’t have to agree with the write-up.  It’s just a verbal warning.  If the same thing happens again, it turns into a written warning.  You’re supposed to read it and sign it.”  She held out the piece of paper.

I shook my head.  “I’ll do neither.  I refuse to be dragged into Jenny’s personal issues.  Plus, our weak-ass union agreement says we don’t never have to sign nothing.”  I said that because I knew Manny was listening on the other side of the door.  “And no, it won’t ever happen again.  You know why?  Because I’m never, ever, ever going to do anything extra for you, Jenny or these kids ever again.  Don’t even ask because I’m just going to put my palm in your face.  This place has a way of chewing up good, experienced staff members and shitting them out the other end.  And Jenny?  Right now the stink is on you.”

I got up and walked out of the office.  Manny was standing there in the hall holding his cup of coffee.

He said, “Pretty much all you can say, you said.  But you still ain’t getting your five dollars back.”

I said, “Hukuna Matata, mother-fucker.”

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?”

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 7^th 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!”

Mondays are my day off but there was no way I was going to miss this.  The gymnasium was absolutely packed.  On one side were the parents and supporters of the team from the community, sitting in neat, polite lines.  The other side was the group home side.  Bellowing, colorful, in constant movement, flowing with excitement.  I squeezed in to a space with the boys and staff from my house.  We did our usual high-fives and special handshakes.

The group home side of the gymnasium couldn’t be more proud.  We were already cheering and chanting, “We will, we will ROCK YOU!”  Thump, thump clap!  I looked around and saw that several of us had come on our day off.  Administrators, therapists, supervisors, all of the boys from every unit; we were all packed in the bleachers.  Some had brought food and snacks and were passing it around.  It was a community atmosphere, carnival-like in its excitement. Very rarely do we have these kinds of events when we can all be proud of the organization.  And yet, here we were, each of us feeling some sort of contribution to our team’s success.

It was time for the tip-off.  The two teams lined up in front of each other to shake hands and the contrasts were more than stark.  One of our boys had a mohawk.  Some had large and unusually shaped heads.  One was fat.  Most were about a head taller than the other team.  Any one of them could have poopy pants at any moment.  They looked like a battle-tested gang of rag-tags with sloppy, untucked uniforms.  What was really great to see is that they actually looked focused and ready to play. 

The other team?  Skinny little blond white kids, visibly frightened.  They knew they were about to get thumped, and hard.

The ref tossed the ball up, and Randall, being the tallest boy on the court, tipped it and the ball landed in Apollo’s hands.  Our team ran into position to set up the offense.  This is where Apollo should have passed the ball to Darnell, the point guard.

But he didn’t.  He dribbled the ball upcourt while Darnell was running behind him.

Darnell was yelling, “Here! Pass! I’m open!”

Apollo was ignoring Darnell, shimmying and shaking not only his defender, but Darnell too.  Apollo dribbled the ball around the perimeter of the 3 point line, not passing to anyone, and dribbled all the way around it again.

Darnell was screaming now, hands held out, “Gimme the damn ball!  The hell you doin?” 

Apollo’s defender had backed off now and it was just Apollo and Darnell at mid-court, at the 3-point line.  Darnell was now trying to steal the ball from Apollo.  Apollo just kept running in circles, eluding Darnell, keeping the ball away from him.  Darnell kept reaching, grabbing, flailing, leaping and missing Apollo and the ball.

Apollo was smiling all the while, “I tol’ you!  I tol’you!”

Darnell was in a panic of embarrassment and rage.  He knew he looked like a fool trying to steal the ball from his own teammate.

He screamed, “I mo beat yo muthafuckin ass!”  Darnell tackled Apollo and threw him to the floor.  There was a split second of jaw-dropping silence as Darnell proceeded to pummel Apollo in the face and chest while he was down.

The entire crowd emptied the bleachers, including myself.  There was complete mayhem as staff and administrators tried to break up the melee.  Some of the other boys who were in the bleachers began to fight too.  There was food, boys, members of the community, referees, staff – all seemingly flying through the air at once.  I saw some parents of the other team’s boys usher them out of the gym. 

All the staff including the ones who weren’t working that night went into their crisis management mode.  Some were proning boys, some pushing boys through the exits, everyone screaming.  The entire court was covered in riotous bodies.

I was trying to find Apollo.  I waded through the fights and the parents and the coaches to the middle of the court.  I saw four staff proning Darnell, who was bleeding from the lip and livid, screaming and raving mad.  Several staff had pulled Apollo, who was still holding the ball, toward the exit.

I said, “Apollo!  You almost got yourself killed!  You alright? What were you thinking?”

Apollo was hyper-ventillating and crying and smiling all at the same time.  His face was covered in tears and his nose was bleeding.

He said between sharp breaths, “I tol’ you, Stokie!  I tol’ you! I’m better.  I want go to the house.  I want call my mama.  I’m better and I proved it.  I jes want call my mama and tell her…jes want call my mama…”

Final score by forfeit: 0-1.

JD was screaming his lungs out at his basketball teammate and Special Counselor, me.  We were paricipating in 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.”

      “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?”

            Yolanda was in a dither.

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

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

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

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

            Staff will say, “Jimmy take a time out, you can’t cuss in here.”

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

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

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

            This is my job.

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

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

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

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

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

            “I, I…I was jacking off too hard!” was his reply.

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

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

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

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

 Plus, she had terrible hygiene.  When she did a sleepover, she didn’t
change the sheets.  The next sleepover, Mel, would complain that
someone had eaten cheese in the staff bed.  The first time I worked
with her, I walked into the house and asked her (after she had
gotten up) if she had cleaned the staff bathroom, as is the
sleepover’s job.

 ”Oh, yeah, I cleaned it.”

 ”Cool,” I said, and walked in to take a piss.  I noticed that, in fact, nobody had cleaned
the bathroom and there were pubic hairs in the bathtub.  Why would she lie about something like
that?  When I came out, she said, “I’m gonna kick back in the staff office for a while since we
don’t get the kids up for an hour.”

 This pissed me off forever.  I walked over to Kyle’s room and announced, “If there is
anyone who needs to work off their work details so that they can go out on the outing this
morning, they had better get up and clean the staff bathroom, especially if their name is Kyle.”

 Kyle walked out rubbing his eyes.  “Yeah, Stokie?  I’ll do it.  I wanna go on the outing.”

 ”Great Kyle.  Go knock on the staff office door and tell Candace that you need to clean
the office for work details.  She’ll help you with the rest.”

 Kyle banged on the office door until Candace opened it.  “Hi Candace, I need to clean the
staff bathroom for work details.  Can you supervise me?”
 
 ”But the staff bathroom is clean already,” said Candace.
 
 Kyle took a look and said, “No it’s not!”  He was laughing.  He grabbed the 409 from
under the sink and sprayed it all over the sink, toilet and bathtub.  He took a rag and wiped
everything spic and span.  “See Candace?  Now it’s clean.  Easy as that.”

 I yelled from the kitchen, “Thank you Kyle!  Just another training session, that’s
all!”

 ”I hear that, Stokie.  Place was humming!”

 ”Dude, sometimes you shine so bright.  No more work details, thank you.”

 She walked out and looked at me.  “Do you have a beef with me?”

 I said, “No, Candace, nothing me and Kyle can’t handle.”

 I had heard that a kid had asked her the other day if she was gay.

 ”I’m not gay, I’m queer,” was her answer.

 It was time to get the boys up, which on Sunday morning is not a big deal and can be done
in a very casual and slow manner.  The staff were split up in different sections of the house
and were helping various boys hop to.  Mel and I were having fun with Brian, who you remember
is not only conflicted about his own sexual orientation, but also comes from a household with
two moms.  Brian wanted to get one of us staff to go out and buy him a bandana which he wanted
to wear on his head. 

 I told him, “Why don’t you go ask Mel if it’s more cool to wear it around your neck. 
That’s the way Mel always wears it when he goes out.”

 In a moment Brian returned and said to me, “Mel wants to know if you think I’d look better
in a bandana that is ‘cool blue’ or ‘flaming red.” 

 And so it went until Brian came back to me and asked, “Can a person be so fat
that their ass eats their underwear?”
 
 ”Brian, I don’t know how your brain is malfunctioning, but I need you to calm down.”

 ”Okay, Stokie, but I think Candace is wearing a Mercedes Benz sign on her ass.”

 ”What are you talking about, Brian?”

 ”Just look,” he said pointing to Candace, who was squatting
down to help Freddy, who didn’t need any help, tie his shoe. 
Her jeans had sagged down to reveal her fat, pimply ass-crack
decorated with a string thong that resembled the Mercedes Benz sign. 
I rolled my eyes and groaned.

 Brian went on.  “Not only that, but she’s flirting with me,
and I think that’s inappropriate.  Every time I walk by, she shakes her tits
at me and I think she’s trying to make me get excited.  Can you tell her that I’d
never want to have sex with her because she’s fat and ugly?”

 ”Brian, I can promise you that she’s not flirting with you. You’re completely fabricating
the whole thing.  I tell you what, I will talk to her about…”

 Just then I realized what Brian was talking about.  Candace got up and turned around and
walked into the kitchen.  As she did, her big, bra-less, pendulous tits shook all around the
house and into the hearts and minds of just about every resident in it.  I wanted to strangle
her for being so naiive.  Freddy got up and waved his hand by his nose, “Whoa! Her shit smells
like hamsters!”

 ”Brian, you may not have said it in the most appropriate way, but I know exactly what
you’re talking about and I am going to help you.  I will talk to her right away and get her to
make a change, but what I need from you, right now, is to stay in your room until I can get her
to make the change.  Can you do that?”

 ”Sure Stokie, no problem.  Thanks for helping me.  I hate it when big fat bitches shake
their tits at me and make me want to have sex with them.  The last thing I’m gonna do is start
screaming, ‘GUACAMOLE!!  GUACAMOLE!!”

 It was too late.  Brian had lost it.  Much like ‘Whoa guy,’ ‘guacamole!’ was something
a kid would yell out to let everyone know that sex was in the air.  Strangely, after yelling it,
Brian calmly walked back to his room and sat down on his bed.

 However, it was enough to get the rest of the house really agitated;  voices grew louder,
kids became less and less compliant, there was more irritation. 

 I needed to to talk to Candace immediately. But how?  I was thinking that I couldn’t say,
‘Hey Candace, your floppy boobies are fucking with the kids’ minds.’  I was actually thinking
that she would try to bring a harassment suit against me or the agency if I tried to talk to her
myself, so I first called the Administrative Backup so I could get some support (and a witness)
that the confrontation was appropriate.  Our Backup today was Mike, the Supervisor for
the house next door.  I went to the staff office and called him.

 ”Mike, dude, I need some help.  You know that new staff, Candace?”

 ”Biggums?” asked Mike.

 ”Yeah, well she showed up this morning without a bra…”

 ”Oh please don’t make me come over there, Stokie.”

 ”You gotta come over.  The kids are getting all fucked up about it and I don’t want to
talk to her myself because I’m afraid she’ll sue the agency.”

 ”Good point.  I’ll be right over.”

 As Mike arrived, the boys were getting more and more agitated.  When I walked out to
greet Mike, Francis was asking Candace, “Hey Canned Ass, do you drive a Mercedes? Hee!”

 Candace was oblivious.  “I use public transportation as much as possible.”

 ”Whoa, guy!”  Francis ran back to his room.

 Mike said, “Candace, we need to talk to you in private.  Would you join us in the staff
office?”  The three of us walked in and shut the door behind us.

 I began, “Candace, I called Mike here so that I could have some Administrative support
when I tell you what I have to tell you.  I didn’t want to confront you alone.”

 ”Confront me?  There’s nothing to confront me about.  What are you talking about?”  She
put her hands on her waist which pulled her shirt tighter around her tits.  I tried to maintain
eye contact and not wince.  At the same time, I could hear yelling out on the floor.

 ”Well, the thing is, you’re not exactly dressed appropriately for the job.  I mean, some
of these boys have been sexually abused and any hint of sexuality can set them off.  I’m sure
you’ve read their case histories by now, right?”

 ”I was gonna read those on my free time. But I’m not dressed inappropriately.  Since
when are jeans and a t-shirt inappropriate?”

 ”When you’re not wearing a bra, that’s when,” said Mike.  “And you’re obviously not.”

 ”No I’m not,” said Candace.  “And I can’t think of a better way to teach kids,
especially kids who’ve been abused, that the human body is beautiful.  We’re all just people you know, and
the human body is a beautiful thing.”

 ”Not here it isn’t,” said Mike.  “Here it’s a provacative set-up. You can’t be out on the
floor like that.  Did you bring a bra?”

 ”No I didn’t.  I didn’t think this was such a draconian, backward thinking organization.”

 I heard Guru’s booming voice,”TIP THE HOUSE!”

 ”Mike, I gotta go out there and help out, it’s just the two of them out there.  I’m sure
you can finish up without me.”  I winked at him and he tried not to laugh.

 when I came out of the staff office, I saw boys running everywhere.  Guru was at the
Quiet Room door holding residents in while Mel was catching the out-of-control boys and bringing
them to Guru.  My Sunday was ruined. 
 
 There were cat-calls of “Canned Ass!” “Whoa, guy!” and “Guacamole!” along with the usual
crotch grabbing and overt finger sucking.  Where to start?

 I went over to Brian and Rudy’s room and stood in their doorway so they couldn’t get out.
As far as I could see, Guru and Mel had about 6 boys over in the Quiet Room and there
were a few who had turned on the TV and were watching without any problem. 

 I saw Mel run out of the Quiet Room Area, catch one of the kids, Manuel, and walk him to
the Quiet Room.  Manuel was a funny little Mexican, pudgy and bossy.  Whenever you gave him a
direction or a time out or generally said something he didn’t like, he would respond with,

 ”I don’t HAVE TO!  I’m gonna TELL!  Then you’re going to JAIL!  Cuz I’m gonna call the
COPS!  And then they’re gonna SHOOT YOU! Because I know the number to Nine one ONE!”
He was so authoritative, fat and pompous about it that I nicknamed him “El Presidente.”

 Mel led him by the collar and handed him off to Guru who was standing by the Quiet Room
door, holding the lock so that the 5 or so other residents could not come out.  As Guru took hold
of El Presidente, and as Mel left the area, some of the boys in the Quiet Room
managed to push the door partially open.  Instinctively, Guru pushed the door,
and El Presidente into it.  This action scraped El Presidente’s face against the door. 
El Presidente was yelling at Guru,

 ”You’re gonna go to JAIL!  I’m gonna tell on your ABUSE!  My dad’s gonna come here
and SHOOT YOU!”

 On the other side of the house, I saw Candace emerge from the staff office, arms folded,
and walk out to her car.  Mike came out after her and told me, “I already called for back-up so
there will be more staff here soon.  What do you need me to do?”

 I said, “Go help out Guru.  He’s got too many kids in the quiet room and he’s by himself.
Mel and I will watch the floor.”

 It took about an hour and a half for the house to calm down.  Even then, there was a tenuous
and uncomfortable sexualized feeling in the house.  Candace never came back.

 After lunch, I took most of the boys out onto the back porch to play basketball.
Every now and then I would glance inside to see what was going on.  At one point, I saw El
Presidente on the phone.  I figured that he had gotten permission from another staff to call
his family.  As it turned out, all of us staff had thought the same thing, wrongly.

 In a few minutes, a sheriff’s car pulled up to our house.  The deputy knocked on the door
and said, “Is there a staff here named Guru?  May I talk to him please?”

 El Presidente had called 911 and said Guru had hit him and thrown him on the floor.  El
Presidente had scrapes on his face to “prove” it.  Although Guru had explained to the deputy
what had happened, technically the intervention was illegal because Guru was handling the kid
by himself.  After interviews were conducted, Administrative staff called to the house and El
Presidente immediately transferred out of our agency and into a temporary shelter, Guru was
put on Administrative leave.  I can’t tell you how difficult it is to lose a seasoned staff member
like that.  Maybe the only thing harder is to dispel the belief in the residents that all staff
are abusive. 

 Two weeks later, Guru had been transferred to the “transition house,” the house for
17 and 18 year olds whose programs do not require hands-on. If they act up, you just
evacuate the house and call the sheriff.  I ran into Guru not long after he had been
put out to pasture.

 ”Guru, I’m really sorry about what happened.  When the whole house is blowing out like
that, it’s just impossible to go by the book.”

 Guru was philosophical.  “I’ve been here 17 years, I may be here 17 more.  This is what
I was born to do, and I’ll keep on doing it as long as I’m able.”  He pushed out his eyes for
effect, took a long draw on his cigarette and stared out into the distance.  I had to wonder if
Guru was thinking the same thing as me.  How could we have all been so stupid as to let
El Presidente and a staff named Candace who had been here for all of 2 minutes mess up
the career of a dedicated staff who had been here for 17 years?

Well, I know what happens: crack-babies grow up, they become crack-kids, crack-teens and crack-adults. If you are born addicted, your teeth will grow in at all kinds of crazy angles and you will have an unusually large, oblong or small head. You will be really skinny and your limbs may grow in at different lengths and sizes. You will have a really hard time concentrating and may suffer profound irritation and mood swings. And, since your parents are idiots, you will be placed in some agency for care and grow up there.

Oscar is a crack-baby who grew up. At 14 years old, he has the build of a skinny 8 year old, a long, thin, oblong head, sleepy eyes and teeth sticking out from all over. He is black and comes from a notoriously gang-infested area of town. He peppers his speech with threats and ghetto slang. He feels that talking this way helps build his stature amongst his peers who can’t believe that he is actually a teenager. He screams in a slurry rasp, “I’m from the Westside, sucka! You don’ know me, muh-fucka! You bes’ back off, part-nuh!”

His peers, of course, love to provoke him (which is a group-home term for tease) and Oscar will attempt to hit them with his belt. He always wears a belt because he is too skinny for any pants that are long enough for his legs. This is a painful process to observe because he can’t really run; he engages his peers in a slow speed chase, right arm halfway outstretched for balance, looking like a drunken butler stumbling over an invisible flight of stairs. He marches toward his intended victim while fiddling with his belt. If he does manage to get his belt off, he waves it around his head with one hand, holds his pants up at the crotch with the other hand and screams, “I’m from the Westside muh-fucka, an’ we gon’ hoo-ride! Hoo-Ride! Westside! You know!” The entire process is excruciating in its futility and takes long enough in its build-up for staff to intervene before any serious injury can occur.

“Hoo-ride,” like “whoa-guy,” is another term I’ve only heard in a group home. Apparently its origin goes back to prison life and is the term for “riot.” It is universally recognized as the call to blow out in instances of the staff’s systematic, oppressive prejudices and unfair practices, like making the kids take a shower or eat their vegetables.

Katrina and I were lucky enough to be the ones to take Oscar and three other boys on an afternoon of miniature golf. The park is a good thirty-minute drive up the freeway, which is the perfect amount of time to provoke your peers. Jesse started in with Oscar.

Jesse “Hey Oscar, I bet you really suck at miniature golf. You can’t putt right because your head is all long and crooked .”

Oscar “Back off part-nuh, I’m from the Westside! You don’ know me, I’m gonna hoo-ride that golf-place, watch!”

Jesse “Oh that’s true, Oscar, I forgot. You gonna crack that ball. When you hit that ball, you really crack it, don’t you?”

Oscar “Watch out, muh-fucka, I’ll beat yo ass wiff my belt!”

Jesse “Okay, Oscar, I know all about your slow-speed chases. You’re flustered, you’re flustrated, don’t get shmad, so mad, so sad, too bad. Calm down.”

When we arrived, the kids opted not to play golf at all. The lure of candy and video games was too strong. After draining their money in about 10 minutes, they stood around and posed. This is important on any outing because this is the part where they pretend to talk to girls and get their phone numbers. When they get back to the group home they will brag to their peers about how they would really call a girl if only it were allowed.

On the ride home, I realized that it was Monday, and tonight we would be able to watch Monday Night Football. I asked the guys if they were interested in the game. Jesse piped up. “Ah yeah, boy, football is hecka-tight! I loves me some football. ‘Are you ready for some football?’”

He was singing the Monday Night Football song. I happily chimed in, glad that we could be relating a common interest together. These rare bits of togetherness mean so much to these kids who find it so hard to bond with adults. All they’ve known is that most adults can’t be trusted, or that they should be manipulated, so I was happy to lend my positive energy. I was singing the Monday Night Football song with the guys! All my rowdy friends are here on Monday Niiiight!

I heard Oscar’s raspy voice above the din, “You bes’ step back muh-fucka, I’m from the Westside!” Fucking Oscar was always so irritable. I just marked it down as a case of not being able to keep up with the song.

“Are you ready for some football?” we sang as we sped down the freeway.

Then suddenly a sharp pain in my shoulder. “What the fuck!” I yelled. I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, there was Oscar, swinging his belt over his head, other hand holding his crotch, standing up, albeit hunched over. The other kids ducking on the floor. “I mo light you up muh-fucka! Dis how we do it in the Westside!” He cracked me again on the arm.

Katrina yelled at him to stop and tried to grab him but she couldn’t get close enough due to the swirling belt. The slow motion crack-baby had finally caught his victim: Me! But why?

I slammed on the brakes and pulled to the shoulder. Katrina jumped out and opened the side door while I climbed back and shoved Oscar out and onto the ground. We put him in a prone-restraint right there on the side of the freeway, cars rushing by, belt lost somewhere under the van, Oscar’s pants halfway down. While he struggled in the gravel, I realized why he had become so upset:

The other kids were now chanting, “Football-head, football-head!”

And I realized that I had fallen prey to a clever attack on Oscar. The kids had me unwittingly singing the football(head) song to Oscar. They weren’t just mocking him, they were laughing at me too.

I was so fucking pissed off. I sent them all to bed and gave them each a month of outing restriction. My supervisor told me not to be so over-reactive, but I still feel conflicted wondering if they got what they really deserved.

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.

Unless you’re an emotionally disturbed boy growing up in a group home.  In that case, you’re a couple of years behind other kids your age.  You’re just barely catching on to trends,struggling to fit into normal society, or “the outside world.”

I pulled into work on a warm morning knowing that Trixie, the hot red-head and I were going to be taking a few kids to the waterslide park.  Since I hadn’t been into work during these last 3 days off, I didn’t know exactly who it would be.  I did know that we’d be packing a picnic, barbequing, watersliding and generally enjoying getting wet on a hot day.

Yolanda beckoned me to her office as I walked in the house.  With her was Sam, the Birkenstock-wearing, flamboyant therapist.

“Hey Sam.  Yolanda, what’s up?”  I was in a good mood because I knew I’d be taking the kids who’d been behaving the best for the last two weeks.  This is usually how we determine who gets to go off campus.

“Hi Stokie!  How you doin today?” said Yolanda.  She was smiling and I knew she was exaggerating.  “You sure look fresh and ready to go today.  And you know what?  We already packed up the van full of supplies and everything!”

“Oh no, Yolanda.  What are you about to tell me?”  I was laughing because we both knew very well that nothing goes as planned or smoothly in this field.

Yolanda continued, “Sam and I were just having a little talk about Freddy…”

“Oh no, no, no…”

“And we were just realizing that he’s been on the highest level of the house for exactly two weeks.  He hasn’t had any violence, no sexual acting out…”

“That we know of…”

“…And technically speaking, he is eligible for today’s outing.  So what do you think about that?”

“I think this must be the cold day in Hell that everyone talks about.”

Yolanda said in her sugary sweet way, “Ha.  I sure love that Stokie Jaye sense of humor.  We figured you might say something like that so we thought we would send Freddy on the outing with a one-on-one.”

A one-on-one is a staff member assigned to supervise and be with only one kid at all times. I liked this idea, but only slightly better.

“Okay, but who is it going to be?”

“Oh we got that covered.  We got the strongest counselor in the house:  you.”

“Oh shit!  I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” I laughed, still slightly incredulous.

I turned to Sam.  “Sam, I know you want to be Freddy’s advocate, but do you really want to be sending a known sexual predator on an outing where there will be hundreds of wet boys and girls in their swimsuits?  I mean, don’t you think there will be repercussions?”

Sam said, “What I think is that we should give Freddy the same chance that the other residents get when they make a high level.  The kid hasn’t been off-campus in 10 months, after all.”  He fiddled with his turquoise bracelet.

“Yeah, but this is the same kid who humps couch cushions and his roommate’s teddy bears. The kid will stick his dick into the dryer door if you leave him alone in the laundry room.”

Sam was irritated.  “I know you don’t agree with his masturbatory practices, but you’ve got to admit, you’re being passive-aggressive right now.”

I sighed and shook my head.  I thought back to the early days when Freddy first got here.  We were told that he was the son of a crack-whore, he was abused sexually by his crack-stepdad and his associates and had spent a great deal of time homeless.  We were told that he had been kicked out of every placement he’d ever been in due to his sexual predatory practices.

We came up with a strict supervisory plan for him.  We knew that he could not be trusted with a roommate, so we gave him a room to store his stuff, but not to sleep in.  He would have to remain on station, where we could see him at all times and keep him away from the other kids.

I remember holding a group where all the kids were gathered on the couches and Freddy sitting at his separate table. I was letting the kids know what the schedule would be like for that day, when I looked up to see Freddy sitting on his chair with his back arched, eyes closed and twisting his nipples in obvious pleasure.

This I had not seen before. I responded with a “Jesus Christ, Freddy!” which is, I suppose, the reaction he was hoping for. He came to and lifted one arm up in an artificial “What?” but had forgotten to release the other nipple.  There was, of course, the requisite chorus of “Whoa-Guy! I’m not like that!  Sexual!” Freddy reveled in the attention.

Then, of course, there was the time when I turned the corner toward the bathroom to put some towels away and discovered Freddy fucking the bathroom door.  There was Freddy, wearing just a T-shirt, hanging on the door, fingers interlocked atop the thin, top of the door, one thigh on each of the doorknobs.  He was thrusting his thighs back and forth so that the door latch would poke in and out of his ass.

So Sam just called me passive-aggressive because I doubted that his client could handle a trip to the waterslides. I paused and stared at Sam.  “I can’t believe you just said that.”

Yolanda broke the silence.  “Well, anyway, you’ll be Freddy’s one-on-one, and Trixie can handle the other 2 boys, JD and Brian.  I just know you’re going to have a lovely time!”

“Okay Yolanda,” I said as I now turned on my sugary facade, “And Sam, thanks for all the incredible support.”  Sam folded his arms and sighed.

So, resolved to my fate of hanging out with Freddy the Sexual Predator all day, we loaded up the kids and took off to the waterpark, which was about an hour away.

Since I was driving, the best place thing to do with Freddy was to have him ride shotgun. Freddy was beside himself.

“Can you believe it Stokie?  I finally get to go on an outing.  And I’m riding shotgun which is where the kids on the highest level rides.”

“Even a blind chicken can peck a few corn.”

“You’re so funny, Stokie.  Seriously, what does that mean?  You got to admit, I am a lot better.  I’ll probably be graduating in a couple months.  I’m probably the best kid in the house, don’t you think?  Are we going to be barbequing?  I probably know everything there is to know about barbequing.  Can I have some money?  I want to go to 7-11.  I go there all

the time.  I probably know where all the 7-11’s are around here…”

It’s only been 10 minutes and I already want to kill him.  “Dude, you don’t have any say in what we do today.  I tell you what to do, not the other way around.  We can’t trust you, that’s why you have a one-on-one.  The only reason you’re here is because your therapist wants to see how you do in public, to see if you’ve made any progress.  If you start acting out on the outing, I will pack everything back up and bring you back to the house where you can spend the rest of your outing in the Quiet Room.  And please don’t talk to me about graduating until you can admit your sexual acting out.”

“Geez Stokie, I don’t know why you have to throw everything in my face like that.”

“I do it because if nobody does it, you will stay in denial.”

“Well, you don’t have to do it because I don’t do that kind of stuff anymore.  I quit acting out a long time ago and you know it.”

“Freddy, it was 4 weeks ago that you were caught hanging on the broom closet door with your pants off.  And that’s only what we know of.  4 weeks doesn’t mean you don’t act out sexually anymore.  That’s what I mean; you’re still in denial.”

“I probably know how to drum to all of these songs, so I’m just going to listen to my Walkman.” He was quiet until we got to the waterpark.

We paid our entrance fee and as we walked in, we passed the public bathroom and changing room. Freddy suddenly perked up, “I gotta go to the bathroom!  Really bad!  I’ll be right back.”

I said, “No problem.  I’ll come with you.”

“Come on, Stokie!  I’m 14 years old, I can go by myself.  You’re embarrassing me.”

I said, “And let you loose in there with all those nice children and bathroom stalls? Helllllllllll no!  Are you trying to get me fired?  Now, we got to find a place for our picnic.”

“Actually, I don’t really have to go that bad,” he said.  “Hey there’s a good place right there,” he said, pointing to an empty picnic table next to two moms with their 3 toddlers.  “I’m probably the best at setting up picnics.  Let’s go.”

I looked around.  This was a really big park.  As I scanned the area, I noticed a picnic table and barbeque stand about 300 yards away from anybody. Perfect.

The five us us trudged out there and began setting up our lunch and getting the barbeque ready.

Trixie said, “Me, Brian and JD are gonna go to the waterslides.  See ya.”  She was wearing an oversized t-shirt and cargo shorts over her swimsuit.

I said, “Cool, have fun.  Nice outfit by the way.”

She said, “Wear my swimsuit in front of these guys?  And be the subject of a certain someone’s twisted fantasies?  Helllllllll no!”

They took off for the waterslides and Freddy looked at me like a forlorn puppy.

“But…When are we going to the waterslides?”

“You know what?  I’m not quite ready for this, Freddy.  Let’s all get settled down for a few minutes before we go out there.  Tell you what, you say you’re good at barbeques?  Can you help me cook the hamburgers?”

“Sure!  I’ve been barbequing for years.  I always help out the other staff when they barbeque on days you’re not working.  See, you just dump the charcoal in, make it into a big mound and light it.  Oh, I’m gonna need the matches and the lighter fluid.  I do this all the time.”

He reached out behind him without looking at me.  When I didn’t put anything into his hands, he snapped his fingers, still without looking at me.

“Freddy? Seriously, you must think I’m really dumb.  You just keep trying, don’t you?”

I doused the charcoal with lighter fluid and lit it.  We watched as the charcoal slowly turned white.

Freddy started again, “Yeah, I always cook at home.  Filet mignon, lobster, prime rib, crab legs, garlic bread, salad…”

“I think what you mean to say is that you’ve been to Sizzler.”

“I’m probably the smartest kid in the higher school.  I’ll probably be skipping a grade in a couple months.  I know all the planets.”

“Freddy, even a broken clock tells time correctly twice a day.”

We’re getting to be good buddies, aren’t we?  I probably have the best relationship with you out of any of the other kids.  That’s why we always hang out…”

I started spreading the charcoal out.

He continued, “When did you first go on a date?  What did you do?”

A white charcoal fell out of the stand as I was spreading it out.

He said, “Oh, no problem.  I’ll get it…”  And picked it up with his bare hand.  “AAAAAAAARRRRHHH! Goddammit! It fucking burns!  Owwwwww!  Shit, Stokie, why didn’t you tell me it was hot?  Your outings fucking suck!  I got a third degree burn, maybe four!  Ahhhhhhhhh!!!”

I stood there and stared at him calmly as he screamed. Inside I was roaring with laughter. I said, “There’s ice in the cooler, I’m sure you know what to do with it.  Sit down a while. The others are coming back and we’ll eat.  Then we’ll go to the waterslides.”

Lunch was uneventful as all the kids were hungry while a whimpering Freddy iced his burnt hand.

At long last it was time to go watersliding.  There is a long path up to the top of the waterslides. The five of us walked up together and about halfway up I stopped.  I turned to the kids.

“See where we are right now?  If you look up and down, you can see everything.  From the line to the slides to the pool where you land.  Freddy, I’m talking to you.  I’m going to stand right here and watch your every move.  If you dare talk to one kid who is younger than you, we’re going home.  Stick with Trixie and the other kids.”

They walked up to the top and to Freddy’s credit, he didn’t talk to anybody but Trixie. 

JD was first to go down.  He was just as happy as a clam, which was nice to see.  As he splashed down, he slowly got out of the pool and stopped right next to the female lifeguard.  He seemed unable to move as he stared wide-eyed at her chest.

Brian was next.  I watched as he entered one of the tunnels, but only his mat came out the other end.  Suddenly, he emerged from the tunnel, stood up and somehow started high-stepping down the waterslide, chubby belly and boy-boobies flopping the whole time.  He dove into the next tunnel.

Next Freddy, who slid normally and then came Trixie.  Trixie walked past JD, who was still mesmerized.  As they came walking by me, Trixie said, “How do you like JD’s pacifier?”

I asked Brian what he thought he was doing, running down the waterslide.

He said, “I fell off my mat.  What the hell was I supposed to do.”  I let it go.

I watched as they went up to the slides and slid down again.  I was relieved that Freddy was at least trying to behave, but under no illusions that this wouldn’t affect him.

And it didn’t take long.  He went head first on his third ride down, and as he emerged from the tunnel and whooshed past me, I noticed that he was humping his mat.  I went down to the pool and told him he was done for the day.

“Aw, come on Stokie, my therapist says it’s natural.”

“I bet he does, Freddy.”

“Well fine.  In that case, I’ll have to tell my lawyer about how you made me burn my hand.”

“Fine,” I said.  “Whatever story you can come up with about that, my story about you having sex with your waterslide mat will be better.”

Freddy sat out the rest of the day.  It was late by the time we got back to the house and it was time for the first batch of bedtimes.  I sent Freddy to bed early as well.  Since Freddy can’t have a roommate, we have him take his mattress and “sleep out.”  He makes his bed down the hallway and next to the door to the side yard.  Sleeping out is a regular occurance for a sexual predator.  The Night Awake will station himself at the end of the hallway so he can monitor Freddy.

After awhile, the house was quiet, kids were tired and going to bed, and Trixie and I were sitting at the kitchen counter talking.  We spoke in our usual code about drinking, going to bars and partying.  We were tired and punchy, ready to get the hell out.  We always wound up exaggerating our drinking escapades to each other.

I said, “It would be a good night to go out and get a couple of liters of Diet Cokes.  Try to relieve some of that frustration of the outing.”

“I dunno, Stokie,” she said.  “I was just at the soda fountain on Friday.  I won the soda drinking contest, like always.  I ended up sleepwalking that night.”

“I’ve heard about how much you like your Diet Cokes and we definitely need to have a contest. You heard about my escapades when we went out with Manny? My sleepwalking experience led me straight to the stage for my own performance.”

The Night-Awake arrived and while he got settled in, Trixie and I went into the staff office to gather up our stuff and leave.

She said, “Dude, you think that’s bad? I think back to all the Cokes I drank in college, it’s a wonder I’m still around.  Some of the crazy shit we did…starting the Blue-Star Nipple Club…that’s where those of us girls who have big boobies just drink topless.  We’d just use a Blue Sharpie to color stars around our nipples.” 

Trixie has a way of keeping things interesting.  I love working with her.

“Then there was the Ski Club.”

“I didn’t know you ski.”

“I don’t in the summer.  The Summer Ski Club was just a drinking and streaking club.  My roommates called me ‘Entrepierna del fuego.’  That means ‘Entrance of fire.’

“How did you get that name?” I asked.

“Everyone was doing keg-stands.  I was wearing a skirt with no panties.  You know.”

I was thinking about making up a story about how I was drinking and my cock suddenly fell out of my pants.  I couldn’t believe we were talking about this.  Was she making a pass at me or just spilling?  As I pondered this, we came out of the staff office.  I heard the door near Freddy slowly open.

“Oh shit, Trixie, is that Freddy?  Now what?”  We walked around the corner and into the hall. Trixie saw it first.  She covered her mouth with her hand and walked away.  I stood there and saw Freddy ejaculate onto the doorknob.  “Hey…get….out…” he struggled to say. 

I sent him to the Quiet Room.  I walked into the laundry room to get cleaning materials for Freddy and latex gloves for myself.  I was completely appalled and shocked.  What are you supposed to say when you see something like that?  The only thing I could think of was, “Hey Trixie, when you take off tonight, use the other door.  This one’s the new Entrance of Fire.”