Kindness for Weakness

by Shawn Goodman

  I’m trying to remember the daily schedule, which is posted on the wall outside the staff office. It never changes except for on weekends when we have leisure and rec in place of school. Here’s what our days look like:

  6:30 a.m. WAKE UP/ROOM COUNT

  6:45 a.m. HYGIENE

  7:15 a.m. BREAKFAST/COUNT

  8:00 a.m. CHORES

  8:30 a.m. SCHOOL

  11:30 a.m. LUNCH/COUNT

  12:30 p.m. SCHOOL

  3:00 p.m. GROUP

  4:00 p.m. HOMEWORK/LEISURE

  5:00 p.m. DINNER/COUNT

  6:00 p.m. CLEANUP/CHORES

  6:30 p.m. LEISURE

  8:30 p.m. WASHUP

  9:00 p.m. LIGHTS-OUT/COUNT

  Every time we change activities, we have to line up by the door and get counted. It seems like we’re always waiting to be counted, which makes no sense to me, since all the doors are locked and there are guards everywhere. We must spend two hours per day just standing in line getting counted. The guards will call in our number on their radios:

  “Two staff and eighteen residents going from Bravo to the cafeteria. Over.”

  Central Services, which is kind of like a control booth where they keep track of each unit’s movement, will check the count and give us the green light.

  “Bravo, this is Central. You have permission to move.”

  Like that. It takes forever, and several of the kids get screamed at because they can’t stand still or keep quiet.

  As far as school goes, it sucks and is insanely boring. The actual work has got to be on a fifth- or sixth-grade level, but only Tony, Freddie, and I are able to keep up. The rest tap on their desks and fidget, or else sleep. We aren’t allowed to look at each other, either, which means that the guards have to sit with us and constantly yell.

  “Eyes ahead, Antwon,” they say. And, “Stop drumming on the table, Bobby. This ain’t music class.”

  Weasel scowls and puts his head down.

  The English teacher, Ms. Bonetta, is this very pretty dark-haired woman who dresses like she’s going to work in a fancy office or something. I’m talking pearls, heels, the works. She’s nice, too. We spend the class doing a writing assignment about the last book we read. I pick Rule of the Bone, by Russell Banks, which is one of my favorites and was given to me by Mr. Pfeffer. I write about how the main character, Chappie Dorset, is a lot like me. Because even though Chappie gets in trouble, drops out of school, and sells drugs, he is still basically a good person. At least, that’s the argument I try to make in the essay.

  At shift change (three o’clock), Mr. Eboue and another guard I’ve never seen before come in and get us ready for group. The other guard’s name is Mr. Samson, and he’s an absolute giant of a man. His shoulders are so broad and thickly muscled that he looks like he could be in the WWF. He’s so big that he dwarfs Horvath and my brother. The boys of Bravo Unit, seated in a crooked row of plastic chairs, grin and put out their palms for Mr. Samson to slap.

  He walks down the line giving us high fives and bumps, saying, “Hey,” and “How’s it going, my man?”

  Bobby the Weasel shouts, “Do the thing!” as he bounces up and down in his chair again like he’s on springs. “Come on, just once!”

  Mr. Samson looks at Mr. E, who shrugs. The rest of the boys join in, “Yeah, Samson. Come on!”

  He drops his hands by his belt so that one is gripping the other. He flexes his pec muscles, making them jump up and down. It’s funny to watch, like his stretched-tight shirt is dancing; we all laugh and cheer. Then he takes a step toward me.

  “I haven’t met you yet,” he says, sticking out his hand.

  I brace myself for a bone-crushing shake, like Louis’s, but his grip is light, almost gentle.

  “I work three to eleven with my friend Mr. E,” he says. “We do group every day at three with Bravo. Anger Replacement, Beat the Streets, and others. You should participate in every group, but today you can just listen. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “We’re still working on being able to tolerate things that are unfair. Who wants to start us off?” he says, standing in front of us.

  Everybody looks at their feet.

  “Come on, now. Who used their skills this past week? Who had to deal with something that wasn’t fair?”

  Tony raises his hand and says, “I got pissed off in class and didn’t do nothing about it, even though I really wanted to.”

  “Good, Tony. What was the situation?”

  “Mr. Goldschmidt told me to do, like, a hundred math problems, and I told him I shouldn’t have to because I already passed the GED and I’m leaving soon anyway. But he said it don’t matter, that a GED’s no accomplishment. It just means I don’t have the discipline to get a real diploma.”

  Samson sighs as he considers this, his massive shoulders rising and falling with the gesture of disappointment. He doesn’t say anything bad about Mr. Goldschmidt, but it’s clear he doesn’t agree.

  “What did it feel like when he told you that?” he says.

  “Man, to be honest, it felt like I wanted to get violent, you know what I mean? Like I wanted to …”

  Samson cuts him off with a raised hand, but not before several others put in their two cents. Antwon, a lanky kid with heavy-lidded eyes, sucks his teeth and says he hates Mr. Goldschmidt. Double X, whose real name is Xavier Xavier, says he hates all the teachers except Ms. Bonetta, who he says is fine. There are even louder murmurs of agreement.

  “And what did you do about it, Tony?” Samson says.

  “Nothin’. I mean, I argued a little bit to let him know it was stupid. But I did the math problems. They was easy anyway.”

  “And what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you didn’t react, when you let it go. Did anything bad happen?”

  “No.”

  “Did you feel like less of a man?”

  “No way.”

  “That shows you’re ready to go home, Tony. Nice job.”

  He grins, laughing it off when the other kids call him a brownnoser.

  Mr. E cuts in and says, “If you guys don’t learn to deal with unfairness, your anger will short-circuit your brain and you’ll get arrested, beat up, or shot. Those are the only choices.”

  Coty, a country kid who draws pictures of four-wheelers and NASCAR racing scenes, raises his hand. “Is that why I black out when I fight, because my brain short-circuits?”

  “Could be.”

  Other boys say that they black out, too. Double X says he once had an argument with a friend, and then an hour later he “woke up” in a police cruiser. His friend went to the hospital with a broken nose and a dislocated jaw.

  “Now I’m locked up and we ain’t friends no more,” he says.

  “How come we’re short-circuited?” asks Freddie.

  “I don’t know, man,” Mr. E says sympathetically. “Could be lots of reasons.”

  “Come on, Mr. E. Tell us,” Freddie says.

  “Well, some of our mommas drank or did drugs when they were pregnant with us. Some of us got beat too much.” He points a finger at himself to let us know that that happened to him. “You might have to talk to Dr. Souza to figure it out for sure, but I’m glad you’re asking, Freddie. And I’m glad you’re thinking.”

  Strangely, no one has anything more to say. There are no jokes or put-downs. Just a long, thoughtful silence. I look around at the other boys and try to imagine what it’s like for them at home. Do they have fucked-up mothers and disappeared fathers?

  Finally Mr. E says, “Good job, all of you, for acting like strong young men instead of thugs and punks. I believe in you guys, even if you’re a pain in my ass and give me gray hairs in my otherwise perfect Afro. Now let’s change up and have an extra half hour of rec before dinner.”

  It feels good to hear these words, even if I haven’t done anything and we’re not even close to being men. Even if we are screwups, losers, and criminals, it’s still ni
ce to hear someone like Mr. E tell us different.

  23

  On my second day, which is a Wednesday, Bobby the Weasel gets a visit from his father, who owns a bakery. Freddie says the man hasn’t missed a week and always brings trays of pastries, enough for everyone. Today he’s got brownies and cinnamon rolls. They smell terrific, and I can hardly wait to get one.

  I watch Bobby and his father in the staff office, playing Uno and laughing. They eat giant sticky rolls, stuffing their faces and licking their fingers. Secretly I think that the rest of us are jealous. I know I am. Bobby’s father doesn’t look rich or tough or cool. He doesn’t have a big-shot job or good clothes. But he seems like a really nice guy who loves his son.

  It makes me wonder what that feels like, and if my father ever loved me. I think he did, because of the presents he used to bring home. And I remember once he took me fishing and it was great, even though we didn’t catch anything. But then, why did he leave? Even if he didn’t want to be with my mother anymore, couldn’t he have stuck around for Louis and me? I was only five years old, and maybe I needed a father. Did he ever think of that? And maybe my mother needed him, too, judging from how she acted after he left (staying in her bedroom with the lights out, quietly crying).

  Even if he couldn’t stick around, he could have called or written to tell us where he was living. Something. Anything. One thing’s certain: if he ever does come back, I’ll be ready. I won’t waste any time being mad or asking for explanations. I’ll just say, “I sure missed you. Let’s get to know each other.”

  At the end of Bobby’s visit, he and his father come into the activity room, where the rest of us are sitting around, doing homework and reading books.

  “Be good, okay?” says his father.

  “I will,” says Bobby. “I promise.”

  He manages to keep the promise through the next day. He even gets some schoolwork done, which surprises the teachers and the guards, who are used to nagging him constantly and asking the nurse if she can give Bobby more Ritalin. Pike gives a rare compliment, asking Bobby if he’s been possessed by a smart, focused demon who might be on the road to earning privileges. Even Bobby laughs, but by the end of tech class, he looks exhausted from the effort. He closes his textbook and puts his head down, humming “Old MacDonald.”

  Mr. Goldschmidt, a short dumpy guy who wears one of those Amish beards, stops in the middle of a lecture about shop safety. (He teaches math and wood shop.) “Quit humming, Bobby,” he says, which only makes Bobby do it louder.

  Goldschmidt tries again. “You’re disturbing my class, young man.”

  Crupier, aka Croop, a fairly new guard who tries to impress Horvath and Pike by being an asshole (says Tony), lets out a big sigh and hitches up his black leather belt. He walks over to Bobby real slow, boots clicking the concrete floor. Rapping his knuckles on Bobby’s desk, he says, “Since you missed Mr. Goldschmidt’s lesson, you can write an essay on shop safety. Go on, pick up your pencil.”

  Tony and Freddie sigh, like they both know where this is going.

  “Make me,” says Bobby without looking up.

  Everyone except Crupier and Mr. Goldschmidt laughs. Crupier’s face turns red. “Hey, big mouth!” he says. “Do what I say and start writing.”

  Bobby lifts his head up and glares at him. His eyes start to swirl with the berserk energy that might hold the secret to his ability to curse everyone out in such spectacular ways.

  “Why?” he says. “Why should I do what you say? You ain’t my father. I don’t even listen to my father, and he’s a good man. He gets up early and bakes shit for all of you fuckers so you’ll treat me better, even if I’m mad hyper and can’t learn for shit.”

  But Crupier isn’t listening. He grabs Bobby’s arm. “I told you to write that paper,” he says, trying to push Bobby’s pencil into his hand, but Bobby closes his small fingers into a tight ball.

  “I said I ain’t writing shit!”

  Crupier’s had enough. He hooks the boy’s arms and yanks him out of his desk. Then Pike jumps in, and they all go down to the floor.

  “Get off me!” Bobby yells. “Get the fuck off me!”

  His small body bucks and thrashes to get out from under the guards. The struggle lasts for what seems like several minutes, and I don’t know what to do. I look to the other kids for help, but they don’t seem to know what to do, either, except shift around in their seats clenching their own fists.

  Goldschmidt, who started it all, pretends like nothing is happening. “Class is still going on,” he says. “You should be doing your assignment.” The assignment is a stupid photocopied picture of a table saw. We’re supposed to label the names of the different parts, like the fence, and the blade guard, and the arbor.

  “Hey, mister,” says Wilfred, a tall kid with a wispy mustache and giant hands. “Is this a table saw or a band saw?”

  Bobby’s screaming is so loud. It fills the room. It pierces my ears and gets deep inside my head until it’s all I can hear, all I can think about. And still we sit at our desks, watching, consumed by what’s happening to this small and mildly annoying boy with a big mouth.

  “Shut your mouth!” says Crupier. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut your damn mouth.”

  But there’s no stopping Bobby the Weasel’s mouth. He curses and makes threats like he’s breathing air, even with a guard on top of him. “You think you’re so tough, but you ain’t tough. You’re a bunch of pussies beating up on a little kid to feel like big men. Why don’t you go to the gym and pump each other? I’ll bet that’s what you really want to do.”

  Laughter spreads from desk to desk until we’re all cracking up. Even Oskar, the spaced-out Dr. Seuss kid, laughs. We start cheering Bobby the Weasel, because he’s become a small hero, fighting for all of us with his inspired curses.

  “Shut up!” Crupier says, a vein throbbing on the side of his head, tempting to explode. I wish it would, because I know something bad is going to happen and there’s nothing any of us can do to stop it. We sit at our desks and watch.

  “Make me, bitch!” Bobby says. “I’ll do this all day long. It ain’t nothing to me.”

  And for a second I think maybe Bobby is right, and no one can shut him up. Maybe he can take everything Crupier has to dish out. And if he can do that, then maybe I can take my time at Morton.

  Crupier cranks Bobby’s arms even harder so they stick out behind him, looking all disconnected and jerky, puppetlike. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so grotesque, this small, foulmouthed marionette being jerked around by big men in gray and black uniforms.

  Then there’s a crack. It’s so distinct—the Morton equivalent of a stick breaking over someone’s knee. Bobby opens his big mouth and lets out the most piercing animal scream I’ve ever heard. I look at Tony, who is tapping his desk repeatedly with his balled-up fist. He refuses to meet my eyes. Freddie, too, avoids my gaze and instead focuses on the graffiti carved into his desktop.

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Oskar, whose desk is behind Freddie’s. He’s standing up, chewing madly on his ragged fingernails. He takes his hand out of his mouth and points at the tangle of Bobby and the two guards. In a soft monotone, almost a whisper, he says, “Stop.” And then, just as abruptly, he sits back in his chair and resumes chewing his nails.

  Pike hits Crupier’s shoulder and says, “Hey, Croop, man, let go. I think you broke his fucking arm.”

  Crupier examines the weird bend in Bobby’s arm. Then he picks up his radio like it’s some kind of strange object put there by someone else, and pushes the pin, which is what the guards call the small orange emergency button. Freddie says that if you push the pin, a bunch of guards will come running and clean house. Pike gets off Bobby’s legs and helps him sit up.

  “You broke my arm,” Bobby sobs. “And I ain’t done nothing except talk trash.”

  Then he looks down at his bent, hanging limb, and gags like he is going to throw up all over the front of his bright red polo shirt. A
troop of guards arrive and take him away.

  24

  At night Freddie knocks three times on the heater vent. “Hey, man, how come you’re so quiet?”

  “Thinking about Bobby.”

  “Yeah, that shit’s fucked up.”

  “They can break someone’s arm like that?”

  “They did, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  It’s hard to believe I’m in a place where kids get their bones broken by adults in uniforms. I want to go home. Even if home is a place where I sleep on the couch and pretend not to hear the sounds of Ron doing sick shit to my mother behind their bedroom door. Even if home is a place with an older brother I can’t trust.

  Freddie is still talking. “Bobby’s got to go to another unit now.”

  “Why?”

  “ ’Cause Crupier can’t be around him until he’s cleared for child abuse,” he says.

  “You mean Crupier won’t get fired?”

  Freddie laughs. “Hell, no, he ain’t gonna get fired. They gotta do an investigation any time a kid gets hurt. But Morton investigates itself. And nobody wants to work here, so they always short staff, which is why they gonna write up a report to say that Bobby was fightin’ and broke his own arm.”

  I don’t want to talk about Morton anymore, so I ask Freddie to change the subject.

  “What do you want to talk about?” he says.

  “Anything. What kind of stuff do you do at home?”

  “I like to dress up and go shoplifting in Manhattan. SoHo and the Upper East Side.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. That’s where the best stores are. Bloomingdale’s and Barneys. Shit like that.”

  “Why get dressed up?”

  “Because people treat you different when you look sharp,” he says. “Most of the fools in here dress like thugs. Wearing they colors and shit. And they wonder why cops hassle them. They should carry a sign that says ‘Arrest My Ass.’ What’s it like where you live?”

  “Not so good,” I say. “My father left when I was little.”