“Working here is not a job, it’s an art, and you have to practice it everyday”
Mr. “Big” John
So when I finally put my application in at the facility, I kind of had an idea of what to expect. I already knew that most of my friends had already spent some time at some point working there and that if I was there not only would I be working in an awesome environment, but I would be increasing the coolness factor there by another 33 percent. I also knew that I would be working with at risk youth of varying degrees.
So the short version would be I get to work with all the guys I have been bouncing with in another lifetime per se, in an environment where nurturing and violence take place on a semi daily basis, and there is free soda involved!!!!
Where do I sign?
I mean some people have these strange ideas about therapy and treatment for children with varying degrees of mental illness, but truth be told, SHITS REAL OUT HERE SON!!!! And what I speak on from here on out is what I witness first hand and participate in on a daily basis. Now through a series of events I was not placed with “The Wild Bunch Professionals” but placed in a same same but different scenario that while not as appealing as the above described was still a better deal that what I had.
I was placed on the girls unit, I mean how bad could it be? What is the difference between working at the facility with girls that are “Crazy” and the women in my personal life?
Prescription medication and free soda, FACT
Moving on, on day two of this new chapter I called my main man Ronnie Johnny AKA Dr. OCTAGON and shared with him a story about a girl who gets mad and starts bleeding from her nose.
Easy enough right?
Well when I say mad I mean demonic possession angry, and one of her coping mechanisms singing.
You still with me?
Now imagine a girl who gets so angry that she starts bleeding from the nose and refuses to accept anything to clean it off, as a matter of policy we treat all as if they have HIV or any blood pathogen that you want to imagine, suit yourself.
Now if you have ever seen a horror movie where some nosey ass white folks is all up in some house where some kids got killed a long time ago or some shit like that, and you here this really beautiful music being sung by children who in any other context would be beautiful, but since we in this dark ass, evil ass, decrepit ass house it is downright creepy? You know, right before the one black man gets killed?
So all of this is happening at once while she is making circles in the pool of blood that has accumulated on the floor, all is quite except for this song that she keeps singing, and at 10:30 in the evening on an otherwise quiet milieu
Mr. “Big” John opens the door to the opportunity room and shouts “HEY STOP THAT!!! That is just creepy” and she does just that. After a few moments she comes out and gets some paper towels and cleans up her blood and goes back to bed.
Dr. OCTAGON says to me, “Congratulations, from here on out everything else easy.”
And he laughed.
Last week, I was doing what I do and this girl says to me, “I don’t like your name”. At first glance, this is really a smart ass comment made by a smart ass kid that should be responded back in an equally smart ass manner. My response was simply,
“Oh well”
Your name brings up my issues is the next volley from the upstart, and so now the game is afoot! I roll my eyes and say, “just what issues does my name bring up” her response,
My rapist name is Kenneth.
GAME, SET, MATCH
I was caught off guard, not so much by the comment of it, but the casualness in which she said it. None the less, I was at this point the one thing that I am almost never at any point
Speechless.
Everything else with the exception of a few things could be thrown under the category of “Mean Ass Kids” cause seriously, teenagers are jerks anyway. So if you take a bunch of teenagers who are already jerks and sprinkle in a mental illness of some sort then most of your day is spent quelling gossip and breaking up cliques and removing power from their social hierarchy.
This is a delicate procedure because as long as you can keep the “Alpha” in pocket, the day can go very smoothly. The “Alpha” can in fact keep the otherwise nonsense of the “beta’s” from getting to you simply because they have no interest in seeing how it will play out. Which means you are free to handle the other business of the day, without being bothered with questions that everyone already knows the answers too, sounds like a secretary doesn’t it? Yeah, but no, the flipside to this is that at any moment her beta’s will squad up and feed into the attitude that the alpha has about any situation positive or negative. Which depending on how you play it can be good, bad, or downright ugly, which is fine my team works together and we are more than capable of handling anything that the kids want to throw, but the struggle is still there, and that’s why we are there too I imagine. Teaching kids the delicate lessons of tact, true leadership, why the truth is constant, see kids learn more from watching the authority around them, this is probably why a lot of them are where they are(it almost always goes back to the parents), and we as the adults, the authority, the positive role-models have to be worthy of the trust that these kids hold dear because at the end of the day, everyone else that they have given it too has failed them.
