Listen to thisIn previous months, I shared stories from youth workers who are participating with me in a phenomenological inquiry we call Moments With Youth. This is one of my own. I wrote it for our study as an example of one moment early in my career when I was trying to decide what to do with my life. In this context, it was one of many moments that helped me realize I was where I was supposed to be.
Daniel gets up from his chair in the lobby of the residential treatment center and approaches, his T- shirt tattered and his face wind-burned from several days on the streets. He’s 14.
“I’m Mark, I'll be your Child and Youth Care worker,” I hold out my hand. I’m 23.
He continues walking. I walk alongside and motion for him to enter the office.
“Hi Daniel, I’m Nicole, your therapist,” she holds out her hand.
No response.
“Before Mark takes you upstairs I wanted to tell you a little about our program,” Nicole says.
“I don’t give a fuck about the program!” He grabs a paperweight from Nicole’s desk and throws it through her window.
I reach for him. He takes a swing at me. I duck and grab him around the waist. He pounds on my back. I quick step behind him remembering my supervisor, Ernie's, instructions: “Grab both arms by the wrist and cross them in front of him, then put your knee behind his knee and dip like a basketball player taking the leap out of a re-bounder in front of him, and collapse together to the floor. If he’s small enough (Daniel just barely is) sit him in front of you with your legs hooked over his so he can’t kick, his body cradled in your arms and your head tight to his so he can’t butt you. Then prepare for a long wait. It helps to have something to support your back.”
“Nicole, would you move that couch over here.” My voice shakes. She gets on one end of the couch and pushes until it’s between my back and the wall. The struggle is on. He twists like a dog trying to avoid a bath, shouts, “Your mother sucks cock! Your ol” lady sleeps with horses, cops, pigs!” The veins in his neck cord and his body strains like a stretched bow. My arms begin to ache. The sweat thickens. His hand breaks free. He turns and spits, then butts me in the nose. “Damn!” Fireflies flash in my eyes. Blood begins to run down on my chin.
“Are you, okay?” Nicole asks.
–Yes, I think so. Would you please grab his legs?”
She straddles his legs and holds them firm to the ground while I retighten my grip, wishing I could pull his arms up around his neck and choke him. He rests, then jerks like a fish out of water, rests and jerks again until gradually, like an engine slowing to idle, the tension subsides and we sit quietly, soaked in sweat, limbs intertwined, breaths as if coming from the same set of lungs. I look at the scars on his arms, several, almost perfectly round, circles. Sue told me his father put his cigarettes out on him.
“I’m going to let go of your left arm then your right one.” We do this step by step until Daniel is standing across from me and Nicole is to our side.
I look out the window. It’s raining. As large maple leaves slide down the glass, Nicole brings me a wet paper towel to wipe my nose and face. Daniel shows no remorse.
“I'll take him upstairs,” I say to Nicole.
Together we climb the stairs. “Sticky suckers,” Suzanne the woman I live with calls the odd mixture of urine and disinfectant that marks the place.
At the top of the stairs, I part the fire doors. The other boys are in school.
“Your room is down the hall,” I say. He walks to my side, runs his shoulder along the wall. The treatment center was remodeled last year: earth tones replaced with pastels, large hospital rooms turned into smaller, dormitory rooms, each one housing two boys.
A grocery bag with his things is on the bed. He digs through it. “Bastards,” he says. Ernie searches all the new boys things for drugs and weapons. He takes out a T-shirt and pair of jeans, starts to change, then looks at me. “What are you queer or something?”
I give him a moment to change and unpack, wait outside the door with my back to the wall, once again questioning why I’m here. When I enter again he’s sitting at the desk with a photo.
“Who's that?”–
“None of your fuckin” business.”
I don’t respond.
“My sister.”
“She’s nice looking.” Nicole told me she had been abused also.
“Why do you work here?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So you can get your jollies, probably.”
I change the subject. “Want a coke?”
He nods and we walk to the day room.
I keep an eye on him as I buy cokes from the vending machine then sit across from one another at a small table. He sips his coke, looks down, then up.
“Your shoe's untied.” He stares at me.
I stare back.
