Straight Up, Messed Up

The room is sterile, so so sterile. The tables and chairs are bolted to the ground. The walls are painted a pasty white and there are no windows to the outside world. There are no pictures on the walls, no comfortable couches or interesting magazines, no artwork or personal touches. One wall has a list of rules, the others are barren. The place reeks of disinfectant and B.O. The only sign of life is four boys sitting around a table in the center of the room. Despite their presence there is a feeling of emptiness.

The boys at the table are out of their cells for their state mandated hour of recreation. They are playing OG, the game of choice. (for those of you not versed in street lingo, OG stands for Original Gangster). The boys are smack talking—a lot.

“That six wasn’t there. My ten trumps your cards anyday. Pick ‘em up!”

“Cheater!”

“Put it on skin. If you’re lying you’re going to hell for this.”

Despite how it sounds it’s all fun and games; it wouldn’t be OG without all the back and forth banter. I ask them to teach me, they laugh and say I could never be OG–it just wouldn’t be right. They teach me anyway. The conversation soon turns to the “pod” they are in.

“Do you hear things at night?” one boy says turning to the other.

“Yeah. Are you talking about the little girl who cries?”

At first I think they are joking, but they’re not. The toughest of the boys tell me that there are things they hear and see at night.( One boy was so terrified of a spirit that was “haunting” his cell he had to be moved to another location.)

They ask me if I believe in spirits, I say yes. How acutely intune they are to the spiritual world both facinates and frightens me.

“You know,” one boy says to another, “The things we hear in here don’t bother me that much…I have a bunch of people that I talk to and see even when I’m not locked up.”

The other boy looks at him like he’s crazy and tells him he has never been around this kind of thing before.

“Oh yeah,  well,  its ok. I have schisophrenia, bipolar, ADD, and multiple personality disorder–at least that’s what they tell me.”

The game stops. The other boys are snickering.

The boy whom he addresed shakes his head. “Man, you are just straight up messed up.”

His response is a smile, like he has just been complemented.

My heart breaks. Since coming to juvie this “messed up” boy has continually gotten in trouble. When I have sat him down and talked to him about his behaviors, he always has the same answer:

“If I keep messing up then I get to stay, right?”

I ask him why he would want to stay. Why would anyone ever want to stay locked up.

“I have been in 23 foster homes since I was nine. This is the only place that I can always come back to.”

The stories in his file are atrocious. He has experienced abuse from everyone who has ever been an adult figure in his life. It isn’t the first time, nor do I think it will be the last, that I have heard a child tell me that they would rather consider juvie home, then where they currently live.

The amount of baggage so many of these kids carry with them is overwhelming and the fact that they see spirits is, honestly, no wonder. There are things that come with this kind of territory–good and bad things and things I don’t understand. Sometimes I desperately wish I knew better how to bring out the angels to sing over them and make the spirit of little girl who cries, dissapear.

A Man With A Toothbrush

The first time I met Tracy was while working at a local foodbank. He was cleaning; I was handing out food boxes. I assumed he worked for the foodbank—he worked with more vigor and more passion then many of the volunteers I had met. When I introduced myself to him, he awkwardly nodded and kept working.  It took about a year of awkward nodding before he started to talk to me. When he did, it was always about foodbank stuff, how we could improve our procedures or better serve people. Tracy probably never would have told me, but the warehouse manager felt I should know—Tracy was homeless. He volunteered at the foodbank during the day and slept in the forest (or a shelter) at night.

 Tracy was extremely and clinically OCD. Once I was wheeling a cart of food out of the huge refrigerator at the foodbank and it tipped over spilling food all over the floor. Tracy went ballistic. The mess made him so upset that nobody could go into the refrigerator until he had picked up every last item. I found out from another volunteer that Tracy had spent the entire morning cleaning the refrigerator with a toothbrush.

Occasionally while studying in the library I would run into Tracy–he was always reading huge books on government and politics. Books I couldn’t imagine trying to comprehend. Once I ran into him at a coffee shop, he introduced me to a friend of his on the Special Olympics team and told me they were going on an adventure. It took awhile before Tracy would talk to me about himself. Often when there was a lull in the line at the foodbank he would come and sit next to me. Usually he wouldn’t say much, we would just sit there together.

Last year Tracy disappeared for awhile. He didn’t come to the foodbank and I never saw him at the library. Every week I missed his help as I loaded food into carts and I often wondered if maybe he had moved someplace warmer for the winter. Then one day while I was studying at the library I heard someone call my name. When I looked up from my book, Tracy was standing next to me grinning. He was wearing his usual attire…shorts that were much too short, an old tattered jacket with the foodbank logo on it and shoes from the 70s with socks pulled up over his shins. I asked him where he had been. He smiled showing me his yellow, crooked teeth and proceeded to tell me about an unexpected trip he had taken to California.

Due to a series of unfortunate events, Tracy had been summoned to California to pay some much overdue jaywalking and vagrancy fines. With no income to speak of and no place to live Tracy decided to look to the church for help. It wasn’t long before Tracy stumbled upon an old historic church where the pastor and him struck up a deal: the church would pay the fines if Tracy would clean.

“Boy, was it hard work, Emily. I scrubbed every tile in the place with my toothbrush.” It turns out that the church Tracy had found was a historic site, one where many people would come  kneel at the alter and leave a prayer written on small pieces of paper, which the pastor then turned into incredible origami. Tracy said that the altar was the hardest part to clean. “There were so many people who knelt there everyday. I never stopped scrubbing it while I was there.”

The story was a bit outrageous, but Tracy was sure to back up everything by pulling out pictures the pastor had taken with him and different news clippings about the church. Tracy carried them everywhere and was so proud of the fact that he had been a part of the tiny church’s history.

After his leave of absence Tracy was back at the foodbank every week always in a cleaning frenzy. When my work at the foodbank ended and I moved to another job, I told Tracy I would miss him, but that I would come to visit when I had a chance. He said he understood.

A few months later I made it into the foodbank. My schedule had been crazy and I was sorry I hadn’t visited sooner. It was good to see all the people I used to work with, I had missed them. I didn’t see Tracy that day, I thought maybe it was his day off or maybe he had been held up by all the snow we had.

Not long after my overdue visit I found out that Tracy had been hit by a car. It had been a hit and run–the person hadn’t even stopped to see if he was ok. Tracy had bled to death on the sidewalk. It took a couple of weeks before the foodbank was notified. Tracy had no family, no house, no job. The hospital eventually called the foodbank, because of Tracy’s jacket, asking if they knew him.

Tracy was a homeless man, with a toothbrush and a story. His life not only affected mine, but many people at the foodbank and around town. I wish that the person who had hit him could have spent one day with Tracy. One day to see the dedication and passion with which he worked. One day to see how many people Tracy’s spirit touched. One day to understand that Tracy wasn’t “just” a homeless man on the side of the street, but a man who gave everything he had to give and he gave it well.

Stuck

I am stuck. My heart tells my head tells my heart that I am stuck. Stuck. In quick sand. I am sinking. Sinking. Sinking. But never quite sunk enough to be gone. Just stuck. I am stuck with the sand around my shoulders. I feel so vulnerable. So exposed. But I am alive. I tell myself, “I am alive. Be happy, be grateful. Your head is out. You are just stuck.” But stuck feels worst of all. I cannot move. I see everything around me moving at full speed and I want to jump into the action and then I am reminded of the sand that has engulfed my entire body. I want to scream. I want to curse. I am so angry. And then the vultures begin to circle. “Have you ever considered that maybe this isn’t the place for you?” they sneer at me. I try to move my arm to throw some sand at them, but I can’t. The irony of my situation is too much. I simply say, “Yes” and close my eyes hoping they will go away. But they don’t. They are ever present taunting me every time I look up from my sandy prison. They cynically remind me that I chose to come to this place with endless sink holes. They whisper to me that I could leave at any time. My mind tells me to do it—to run while I still have my head. But as they circle me, waiting for me to die, to give up, the pleading eyes of those around me beg me not to go. They have lost their mouth to the sand—all that remains is their eyes, their hopeless eyes. I tell the vultures what I think of this place, which they love. I ask them to look at what it has done to so many people. But they simply laugh at me as they move to taunt another victim. I scream. I rant. I rave. My voice is hoarse from yelling. They ignore me. Tears stream from the eyes of their new victim, but there is nothing he can do. He is more stuck then I. He has no power and no voice. And as I watch his fearful eyes asking me to do something, I sink a little lower into the sand and I feel that soon I too will have only my eyes to speak for me. My heart tells my head tells my heart that I am stuck. And I wonder how long I will have to struggle before I give up and let the vultures devour me.

For the Love of Jail

When he first said the words, I thought he was joking.

“Do you think I could stay here until I am 18?”

I look at him, certain I have mis-heard.

“What?”

He looks down at his drawing and then back up at me again. 

“Do you think I could stay here until I am 18?” 

 The other kids laugh. “I know a way you could stay here until you’re 18, all you have to do is assault someone or steal something.” The boys burst out laughing. 

“That’s enough, boys!” They are right though, it’s not very hard to stay if you really want to. 

The boys stop and go back to working on their art projects. 

“Why would you want to stay here until you’re 18?” 

He doesn’t answer for awhile, occupied with shading the picture he’s drawing. 

Finally he looks up and shrugs. “It’s just nice in here. I am never hungry. I get to eat everyday. Plus you guys are so nice.” 

I sit silently. Every day I struggle with how poorly the kids are treated. I find myself frustrated with the way my co-workers talk to the kids and I become angry when I look in the cells and see the kids shivering because they only get two blankets and a thin mat on a hard concrete floor. 

“You actually like it in here?” I ask one more time, just to be sure. 

“Yeah, it’s nice.” He says again, looking at me like I must be deaf. “It’s better than my house.” 

I get up and go talk to the boys who are laughing at him again—dumbfounded that a child would want to spend the last four years of his childhood in juvie, just so he could eat every day. The boys know I am serious and apologize for laughing. They think he’s joking, and just can’t believe he would want to stay here. 

“Come look at my picture,” he says, calling me back to his table. “I’m done.” I walk back over and I look at his drawing—it’s a joker. His eyes stare mischievously at me like there has been a cruel trick played. It bothers me. It is like the joker has played the cruel trick on the artist. 

I look at the boy and he smiles. “You have done an amazing job on this.” His face lights up, and he is proud of what he has done. 

“Maybe we can find you a foster family,” I say softly. “A place where you will get to eat everyday…” 

He shrugs, and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am—that it’s just one more wish in his life that will probably never come true.

a locked up grief

I heard it when I first walked in, it was a small, quiet sound, barely audible.

“Can-n-n I-I-I please talk-k-k  t-to you-u-u?”

Over the radio I hear, “Go check on 204, she’s pushed her help light.”

I walk up the stairs and peer in through the small opening in the door. “Hey what’s wrong?”

I couldn’t see her face, I just heard the muffled voice and I could see the tears falling onto the front of her orange jumpsuit.

“I just need to talk to somebody before I start punching the wall.”

Several kids earlier who had been visited by their families and had particularly bad conversations had gone back to their cells and punched the cement walls so hard and so many times that their knuckles became bloody and swollen.

Once in an area away from the other girls we sat down and the story poured forth faster then my ears could listen.

“My mom and aunt came earlier today and they told me that my uncle passed last night …” The story was a horrific one and I did not know how to console her. 204’s uncle had fallen out of a window the night before and his four year old daughter had witnessed the tragedy. So traumatized, by seeing her father’s body, bloody and flattened on the pavement, she had been taken to a mental hospital several hours away, because of the shock she had gone into.

“My uncle raised me. He was only 22 years old, and his daughter… I should have been there. If I had been there none of this would have happened.”

I tried as best I could to lend a listening ear—to be someone who cared about her, in the midst of all of her pain. But her story was so tragic and my eyes kept filling up as she told me bits and pieces of her life through her sobs.

“When I was very young my father would beat me with his belt buckle until I was black and blue. When my mother kicked him out my uncle came to live with us and he was the man in the family he taught me about life. I just don’t know what to do now that he’s gone.” She said wringing her hands over and over in her lap.

I wished I could take her hands and hold them and tell her I knew what it was like to lose someone you loved so dearly, but instead I told her that I was so impressed by her maturity in talking to me instead of breaking her knuckles on the concrete like so many of the others had.

“My brother, he’s here right now too, when he was walking in the hall I saw that his hands were bloody. I know he’s been punching the walls. Do you think I could please visit with him? I know he is taking this so hard. You don’t know how hard it is to be locked up in a room with concrete walls and not be able to be with any of your fam–”

“Are you almost done in there?????” the radio blared.

I turn down the volume on my radio and I am forced to tell her our time is up. “I will try and get a visit with your brother,” I tell her, knowing full well the odds are stacked so much against her. I walk her back to her cell and secure the door. My steps back to the control room are heavy.

“Hey guys,” I open the door to two other staff. One is a supervisor. “So do you guys know what happened with her family?”

“Yeah, I heard,” my red headed co-worker replied, smacking her gum. “I heard that he got in fight with his girlfriend and he got pushed out of a window. Ha! The girlfriend’s words were so slurred when she called the family they could hardly understand her. No one really knows what happened, but he was probably drunk.” The way she said it as if the man deserved to die made me want to throw-up. “And, anyways,” she said “it was just her uncle.” Everything in me wanted to reach across the room and slap her. Don’t you know anything about native culture? That aside, haven’t you ever lost someone you loved. I wanted to scream this at her, but somehow I kept my composure.

“Well, anyway, I was wondering if we could get her a visit with her brother in B pod?”

They both looked at me.

“He’s not her brother, he’s her cousin…” my supervisor said complacently. “Anyway, we can’t authorize that unless we call the assistant director at home.”

“Sooooo…..???” I was shocked that they were not considering this a brother and sister relationship since the two had lived together since they were babies.

“So, it’s not going to happen.” My supervisor said as he opened the door to leave.

By this point I was irate. “So we’re not going to take into consideration the pain that these two are feeling and the fact that they have grown up together since they were infants???”

“I just don’t think its necessary….” He said, looking a little annoyed.

“And besides,” the red headed smacked, “She doesn’t even know what really happened and she’s just being emotional.”

That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. The insensitivity.  The gall. “No. She’s just hurting,” I said as I slammed the door. Angrily I stomped down the hall, wanting to say a whole slew of other things, among them Isaiah 10:1-3a:

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help?”

For some reason that verse had a whole new meaning and I wanted to recite it to them loud and clear over the radio as I sat in the break room…but I had said enough. So I turned down my radio and pretended for a few seconds that I lived in a place where people cared about those who are different from them and believed in kids who have had the shittiest of lives.

Scars

Scars. Horrific, beautiful, disgusting, created, monstrous scars. My scars. They are perfect, but they’re my flaws. They are hideous, but they are stunningly, beautiful. This one is from a cigarette—my mother’s. She loved me so. This one is from a steak knife. I lost the fight and I was the one with the switchblade. 

Don’t my mind my hands. I know they’re shaking. Don’t mind them, its just my meds, they make me have the shakes. anti-depressants, Anti-Depressants, ANTI-DEPRESSANTS! But I’m still depressed. And my hands—they won’t stop shaking.

Look at my scars. My scars. This one is from a barbed wire fence. I shouldn’t have been crossing it. This one is from a cigarette—my step-father’s. I have a few from him. My scars. This one is from a fist—a bully at school. His fist hit my lip. Whatever. They’re mine. I don’t have a lot of things you know. This one is from my ex-girlfriend. You know how girlfriends get sometimes. No big deal. These are my scars. They are mine and they are all I’ve got.

…

“Who are you? Have I seen you at a party?”

“I bet you’re not even 21.”

“Can I have your number?”

“There is no way you’re married.”

“Oooooooooooohhhhhh….damn……you’re hott!”

At one point in time I was told that I was “too young and too pretty” for this job….now I’m just too damn hott…..of course it’s all in your perspective.  A lot of these kids also think that beating up their mom, taking guns to school, and having possession of over 70 different types of drug paraphernalia is “cool”.

I have been on the job three weeks. Only three weeks, and I am both horrified and amazed. I am amazed at how young these kids are and how incredibly good most of them are with structure and rules. I am horrified at how they got here and the homes they come from.

Last week I walked a girl back to her cell after visiting with her mom. She was angry and crying.

“What’s wrong?”

“I could punch through this wall right now. I am so f*cking pissed off.”

“Ok, ok. What’s going on?”

“Why does she come to visit me if she hates me? She says I’m a failure, that I’m worth nothing. She says I’ve screwed up too much and that I’ll never get out of here. She says I’ve ruined her life.”

She sobs her sorrows away as she sits in the corner of an empty shower stall. I want so bad to hug her and wash all of her pain and brokenness down the shower drain. But the no touch policy keeps me in the camera’s view and I just tell her that she is worth more than she knows.

The other day I sat with some boys as they had their hour of recreation.

“How old are you?”

“12”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 15. I’ve been in and out of here for years. Don’t mess up man. Don’t come back here. You’re still young, you have time to change. When you get out, don’t come back.”

You’re still young he says. At 15 he feels like he’s used up all of his chances. If only he could be 12 again, he would do it all over…..

“Are any of you daddies….?

“Yeah”

“How old is your baby?”

“Three”

“How old are you?”

“16”

Sixteen years old and already a daddy with a three year old. Oh God, I think to myself, be with that child….and be with that three year old too!

There is too much pain and too much heartache in this place. It is so hard to even know where to start when the problems these kids have, have so little to do with themselves.

Brothers

“Crackhead, shut up!”

“Why you calling me a crackhead, I didn’t say anything to you!”

“Seriously guys, no one’s a crackhead here.”

“Have you seen his face? Can you honestly say he’s not a crackhead?”

“Come on, come on, go start your chores….” Two brothers. Normal brotherly fighting. Normal brotherly love. I smile. They remind me of me and my brother.

“How’d you come to be in F-town anyway” I asked the older one (hippie kid) earlier today.

“Well…It’s a long story….” It was long story. A story about a boy who loved his little brother. Two weeks ago hippie kid had devised a plan to runaway. “I’ve never done anything like this before, and all I could think about the whole time I was planning it was, ‘Mom’s going to kill me.’”

“So…”

“Well, My brother was in a home. A home for kids with behavior problems. He’d been there for months. Everyday I asked my mom when he was coming home. I told her, ‘family should be together.’ She kept telling me that it would just be a few more weeks.” After months of hearing his mom tell him it would be just a few more weeks, hippie kid decided to take matters into his own hands. Calling his little brother, while pretending to be his mother, they figured a way to “trick” the careworkers at the facility…and it worked.

“Wait, a second….” I said, not really believing him. “Then how did you get here?”

“We walked.”

“You walked?” I did the math in my head, it was a couple hundred miles. “You walked the whole way? “

“Yep, when we got hungry we would ask people if we could do yard work for them and then they would pay us a few bucks…It took awhile, but we made it here. My mom said she used to live in a place where it snowed, so that’s why we came here.I wanted to see snow” Their story matched up with police reports. Their mom had been looking for them. One day when they were walking through town a police officer stopped them and asked why they weren’t in school. They said they were over 18…the officer didn’t buy it. They are going back home tomorrow. ” I did it because family should be together,” his eyes were intense as he spoke, more intense then his 16 years should have allowed. “I did it because me and my little brother shouldn’t have to be apart.” And he’s right. They aren’t like the kids we normally have in here. They are quieter, more respectful less criminal history and (despite blowing soapy dish water all over each other during chores and calling each other crack heads when they’re mad) they are the most sincere kids I have seen in a very long time. They just want to be together.  They just want to be normal brothers, even if it means giving up food, shelter, and a clean background check. And honestly, I respect them for it.

Not Pimpin’

“Not pimpin””, he says with flare. The other kids burst out laughing. One girl spits tomato soup and water all over him; I am laughing so hard I’m crying. He laughs looks at his shirt, now covered in dripping red liquid, and says,”Spitting tomato soup to the person on the left of you–not pimpin’!” The hysterical laughter continues. The kids are beside themselves–except for one. He sits in the corner looking at them like they’re crazy. Every once in a while he tries to insert an inappropriate joke, but the other kids are caught up in the “not pimpin’” comedy act. Finally the innappropriate joker shoves his chair back and runs outside. The other kids don’t notice. I follow him. Outisde I sit on the swing next to the inappropriate joker and ask him if he’s upset. He shrugs, picks up a grasshopper and tears its legs off then places it on an ant hill and watches them swarm aroudn their new found dinner. He doesn’t seem to care about anything I have to say. He tells me that he hates when the other kids say “not pimpin’”. He is visiblly agitated as he fidgets with whatever catches his attention.  I talk about possible resolutions to his frustrations, but he seems uninterested. I tell him I’m going back inside and he eventually follows.

Inside it is a disaster. The other kids are now even more annoyed with him because he ruins their fun. The night continues on with all the bumps and curves (and even a few extra) that you could expect with five teenagers having to live in a “family” that’s not theirs.

At the end of the night as I sat in the office watching the kids sneak in and out of their bedrooms, I thought about how “not pimpin”  life really is for them. Inapproriate joker is on more meds then a 90 year old man. He wants so much to be accepted, but he doesn’t have the skills to interact. His mom seems insane and the abuse he’s experienced is undeniably awful.

“Not Pimpin’” is barely half way through his teen years and has been charged with things that turn my stomach. On the average night he’s fighting me about chores, bedtime and why he has to eat vegetables.

Somehow, though, every once in awhile I see a glimpse of a kid. Just a kid. I see it when inappropriate joker goes to his room to play with lincoln logs. I see it when “not pimpin’” realizes how much joy there is in making people laugh, rather then cry. I see it when I pick up a Runner from school and he’s hardly able to contain his excitment about getting 14th out of 87 in his latest meet. Those are the good times. The times when I love where I am and what I get to do.

And then “Not Pimpin” pushes the book case over onto another kid, Inappropriate Joker thinks I’m sabatoging his meds, and Runner tells me I’m a MOTHER F***** and that I should go to hell.  Those are the times I want to pull my hair out. Those are the times when I wonder why I spent four years, getting two degrees, to babysit teenagers. But in the midst of the pity party for myself, every once in awhile I remember to stop and look at it all through the eyes of these kids, who have had the shittiest of lives.Their eyes remind me that joy can be found every so often in the chaos of it all and that it is good to find a way to laugh even when life is just “not pimpin”.

untitled

I feel sad, incredibly unexplainably sad. I have felt it all day. There must be something in the air.

“I need to talk to you in private,” she says. I wonder what has brought this on. Everyone in the office seems a bit off. We go into a private room and she shuts the door. The look on her face tells me it is something big.

“It’s been a rough day,” I tell her. “I feel sad and drained. I don’t even know why; expect that I’m leaving soon. I feel like I am in mourning.”

She looks at me and kind of sighs. “I have more draining news for you: Our program is being cut.” I think I heard her wrong. I look up. But the look on her face tells me it is true. Somewhere deep inside of me I had a hope that the budget cuts would not affect us, but they did. The news came down while I was out.

“How bad?” I ask.

“There is only money for three positions.” She looks away.

There are 15 caseworkers, most of whom are single moms.

She looks distraught. More so then I ever have seen her. “We have 300 families on the program.” She says quietly. “If only I had worked harder to find more grant money.” Her eyes well up. She can’t bear it. 

I offer what little condolence I have. I think of all the nights she worked late. I think of all the time she has put into the program and how much she has poured herself into everything she has done. I am lost for words.

“You did everything you could. This is not your fault.”

She gives me the weakest of smiles and composes herself. She is a strong woman, one which I could only hope to be like someday.

I feel sad, incredibly, explainably sad. I am sad when I think of the hundreds of families who will go without services and the incredible women whom I have met who will be without jobs in a month.

I mourn the end of my internship, but these women mourn the loss of the sweat and blood they have poured into this program for years. When I think of their loss, I find I have no words…