A re-awakening

Brian Gannon

On his first day with us, after meeting the staff and the youth in the program, Jerry started with those funny things he did. Coming into the staff room, he gathered up the twelve or thirteen books we had all left lying around on the table and replaced them on the shelves. He did it completely naturally, it as if he had been here for years. It was such a familiar action – we had all been intending to do it for the past fortnight, and kept losing papers and things amongst them. It was only Aubrey who showed any reaction: a brief look around at the rest of us with unspoken question: “And this?"

A couple of days later, during that “unspecified" time between activities and the evening meal, I came across him sitting on newspaper in the passageway outside the staff room. From my initial glimpse it looked like he was doing yoga, an ungraceful attempt at the lotus position, and my immediate feeling was one of embarrassment and disapproval. Very inappropriate, I thought.

Just then Phillip came round the corner. He slid off the headphones of his Walkman which filled the air with their metallic clatter and asked Jerry “What're you doing?"

"Thought this door could use a coat of paint," he replied. “Just sandpapering it."

"Got a piece for me?" asked Phillip. A minute later he was rasping away at the doorway itself, his headphones still beating out their tinny rhythm, but now worn around his neck so he could talk.

Now this was unusual, since Phillip, 16 and generally considered very inarticulate, normally used any free time to barricade himself in his room, flat on his back and cocooned in the music in his head.

The door itself seemed to reflect much of the interaction between staff and kids. There was general respect for this imaginary line between “public" space and the staffs' space, and much chit-chat, arguing and negotiating took place with kids leaning, swinging or just plain kicking on that door. It was the “Berlin Wall" of the program, behind which staff could from time to time retreat from battle, and which often served as a displaced target for the kids' frustrations.

The next morning, a Saturday, Pris, also about 16, asked Jerry if he had a spare paintbrush. “My Dad let me help when he painted windows. Used to say girls were neater 'n boys and I would paint the fine edges for him."

Ritchie came past and stood watching for a few minutes. “I made that mark there," he remembered with some pride. “My folks didn’t want me to come home that weekend and Steve who was my key worker was the one who had to tell me. I was so peed off, didn’t know who to smack, and I just dug a fork into the door."

"Are you finished with it now, should we fill it in?" asked Jerry. Ritchie pondered the unusual question. “Nah," he said after a minute. “Let’s leave it there. It reminds me." The fork wound is still there, painted but not filled in.

* * *

One job we all hated was Michael's injections. Thin and small for his nine years (he looked six), we had all called him Mikey until he stopped us. “I’m not Mikey" he parodied, “I’m Michael." We all respected his need to feel bigger, but his meds were another story, a daily field of combat. No matter how we each chose to approach it, it always turned into a shouting match, with threats and counter-threats filling the air. Jerry witnessed the clash of wills for a couple of days, but then it was his turn.

We watched. Michael was in a group watching the end of a TV program. Jerry waded through the other kids on the carpet and said quietly to Michael: “Let’s go and do this before supper." He extended his hand and Michael reached up for it. Jerry then added his other hand and lifted the boy up and carried him on his back to the first aid room.

Later we were to talk endlessly about this, how Jerry reached a hand into Michael's cage “and encountered nothing more than a pussy cat. Was it just naivety”, a case of “ignorance is bliss”? Or had Jerry not realised that the tantrum was the norm rather than the rare exception, and had simply expected a docile child – and it was the positive expectation which had succeeded?

We never found out. Jerry was only 23, had done his degree and was in his first job, and the following day he received news that his father had died back in his home town, and he’d had to give up the position with our program.

But even after so very short a stay, he had left an unexpected legacy. His natural and spontaneous way of responding to his surroundings unwittingly challenged our fixed, habitual ways of seeing things. Pris organised a gift to be sent to Jerry from the staff and the kids, quite a shift from her formerly cynical style. Phillip spent less time on his bed and fixed Mandy’s bicycle when it came to pieces, he repaired our broken doorbell, and (when the budget cuts hit our maintenance) led three of the older boys in repairing the roof over the kitchen.

It was Aubrey (a dour man with the habit of rolling his eyes heavenward whenever any new idea was mooted) who, on the following Monday evening, had the final say. Helena had an eating disorder and the only task harder than Michael's injection was getting her to the supper table. The wheedling and cajoling and vituperation at this time of the day just about put everybody off their food. Aubrey crossed from the canteen area to the TV nook. Helena was sitting resolutely facing the other way, her feet tucked under her, immovable. Aubrey cleared his throat, bowed very deeply and formally, and said: “My Lady, may I invite you to the Ball and may I have the pleasure of the first dance?" After a second of indecision Helena giggled briefly. Then she stood up, extended her arms regally towards Aubrey after the manner of the waltz, and the two swept across the intervening floor to the supper table – and to the applause of all.