Good Kings Bad Kings

by Susan Nussbaum

  The story is that Whitney-Palm agreed to take over at Pine Hills because it already had a bad reputation and Tim thought we could do a better job and really clean the place up. We’ve only been in charge for a little over a year now, so Tim is pissed off how the newspapers keep assuming it’s his fault what happened.

  The first thing was that Pine Hills has this extra-higher than normal number of deaths and that was attracting attention but that started before Whitney-Palm took over. But the deaths kept happening. The thing that led to the fine was really sad. At Pine Hills the residents are teenagers and young adults and some of them are even below teenagers in terms of age. And what happened is this one kid who is a sexual predator, he was supposed to be in a room by himself because his mother told them, “Put my son in a room by himself because he is a sexual predator,” but they put him in a room with a little kid and he raped the little kid. And that’s how they did find out was from this one aide who was passing the room and he noticed something was off so he goes in and sees another aide watching while the boy who is a sexual predator was molesting the little boy. He—the aide who was watching—wasn’t doing anything to stop it. Then on top of everything, the little boy hung himself. I would never say this to Tim probably but we deserve to pay a big fine.

  Tim said the media is biased against business and the really sad thing about doing this kind of work is that people die. He said if it weren’t for places like Whitney-Palm taking care of all the people no one else wanted to take care of, a lot more people would die, but they never put that in their newspaper articles. He said when those reporters put their mothers or their children in nursing homes they’ll be grateful if that home is run by a caring place like us where their people will receive the highest possible quality care. He said death is a natural part of life and unfortunately in our business we have to accept that there is going to be a lot more death than usual because the people are frail and what happened to the little boy was a tragedy and his heart went out to the family. He said if we were contacted by anybody like reporters or anybody we should not say anything and let him know immediately.

  He also said how we should all feel proud of the work we do and be confident we were good people doing a good thing. Then he invited the whole staff to go on his boat next Saturday. Tim has this huge sailboat and it has a little kitchen and bathroom and kind of a bedroom and it’s so amazing. He even has this guy to sail the boat for him. I’m not going. My stomach has really been acting up lately and the last place I need to be stuck is on Tim’s boat throwing up in the one little tiny bathroom where everybody can hear every single sound.

  Tim said, “Any questions?”

  I said, “If the mother said her son was a sexual predator, why did they put him in the room with the little boy?”

  Tim said he had asked that very same question himself and the person who did that had been fired.

  After the meeting I decided to ask Tim if I could see him for a few minutes. And I told him about that thing that woman Joanne at ILLC told me, that we should find out more about the health of the kids there and what happens to the children after they leave ILLC. I said I wasn’t sure if there was data on it but maybe he could look into it and if there was a problem he could fix it before something bad happened. He said I was absolutely right to tell him. And then he said he would begin a personal investigation next week.

  I’m trying to say “woman” instead of “girl” all the time. Also, I don’t believe Tim will investigate.

  He said, “I’m very glad you mentioned it. We really have each other’s backs here, don’t we?”

  I said, “Yeah.”

  Yessenia Lopez

  When I got back in my room after school today Cheri was gone like—she was just gone. No clothes, no nail polishes, no nothing. I ask where she is and Toya says, “She’s in a better place,” and my head starts in buzzing and I feel real hot in my face and I say, “Did she die?” and Toya laughs out loud and says, “No, no, she’s not dead! She just got moved to a different place for a while.” And I put my head down on my knees so I could take a breath and Toya says, “I’m sorry I scared you,” and pats me on the back and I like Toya but at that moment I just wanted to grab her hair and pull her face down where I could reach and slap the shit out of her. But I didn’t. I say, “Where’d they send her?” and Toya says, “She went to a hospital where they can take better care of her than we can here,” and I say, “How long’ll she be gone?” and she says, “Yessenia, if you got questions you’re going to have to ask Mrs. Phoebe because I can’t go around telling everybody personal information about patients,” and then she walks out the room.

  They sent Cheri off to el manicomio. El manicomio is the nuthouse. You know how I know where she is? Because they told her they was going to send her there if she run off again. That’s where they always send the runaways, to let them know they better not run away from this place ever ’cause they mean business. Mrs. Phoebe and all them don’t play fair and I hate them and I don’t mind telling them right to their face.

  Cheri was homesick. She wanted to see her mother and father. They came to visit her a couple times but she wanted to go home. She wanted to go home for real. I mean for real for real. And she has a little brother and she missed him. Sometimes when Cheri gets sad she says all the things she’s gonna promise to her whole family like she won’t never bring a strange male into the house again and she won’t never drive somebody’s car again until she knows how to drive and she won’t never be picked up by the po-lice again and she’s gonna turn a new leaf over. But I met them the first time they came to visit and they didn’t look like they was in a hurry to take Cheri home anytime soon.

  She told me she was taking off. The first time she waited till she got her thirty dollars’ allowance. They caught her the next day or two later, acting crazy because of course she didn’t have no meds with her because they keep them locked up in the infirmary. Cheri gots to have her meds or she starts hearing people telling her stuff. But they won’t let her at her own meds! She knows she’s got to have them and she’ll take them but they treat her like she’s a two-year-old child and she can’t even keep her own medicine. They know she runs off every now and then but they don’t care if she gets sick. The neighbors saw her walking around and around in her own backyard and they called the po-lice. She never did see her parents.

  One time she was walking out the door and they caught her right then and there. When she got back in our room she cut the inside of her leg with a stray piece of wood. Jimmie was there that night, so we was able to talk her out of taking Cheri to the nurse but first Cheri had to promise she would tell the psychologist all about it.

  One thing I know for a fact is all you gots to do when Cheri is depress is talk to the woman! Talk to her, find out why she’s feeling bad, and she starts feeling better. She snaps right out of it. That’s the thing about Cheri is once you talk to her? It’s like that’s all what she needed in the first place.

  This time she ran she must have been more careful to go when no one was looking because it took them two days to find her. Next thing I know is all her stuff is gone and she’s gone with it.

  You could see the dust bunnies under her bed now ’cause there’s no blanket hanging off it. There’s all sorts of crap down under there. A used-up towel looking real stiff like it been under there since before the Flood, a lid from a peanut-butter-with-grape-jelly jar, a squished-up, empty box of tissue, a slipper which isn’t mine and it isn’t Cheri’s, so I don’t know who it comes from, lots of used-up cotton balls and dried-up nail polish all over the place.

  They didn’t even think to give us a opportunity to say good-bye. Cheri is the best friend I got here, not counting Jimmie. But I don’t even know where they sent her.

  It’s time for dinner but I can’t look at no food. I’m a lay down and close my eyes. But every time I close ’em, I think of Cheri in el manicomio and I get scared like my first night at Juvie. I hope she don’t hear the mean voices
in her head. I always know when she doesn’t get her meds for a couple days ’cause she talks to somebody when she’s in the bathroom. You can hear her answering questions and apologizing in there like somebody’s giving her a hard time and she’s just trying to get that person to shut the fuck up. I say, “Cheri, you take your medicine?” and she says, “I don’t think so,” so we go down to the infirmary to see Nurse Lorraine. We love Nurse Lorraine and after Cheri takes her pill pretty soon she’s her old self.

  I have to lay in my bed facing the wall because I can’t stand looking at Cheri’s empty part of the room. I’m gonna be sixteen next week. Laying this way I like to look at the picture on my wall that Joanne gave me. The one of the hot brother with pretty locks sitting in his wheelchair chained to that glass door. He has a look on his face like he’s thinking, “I’m not afraid of you. There isn’t nothing you can do to me and nothing you ever can do to me.” His eyes are looking right out of the picture. Right back at me.

  Jimmie Kendrick

  I’m working a graveyard shift tonight. They needed someone and I don’t mind because I could use tomorrow off. I have a gang of errands I’ve let slide.

  It’s quiet. Only noise is all four washing machines on rinse. Normally that’s the type of thing that’d put me right to sleep, especially late like this. But I had a couple cups of coffee. Couldn’t sleep if I wanted to.

  I know whose clothes belong to who now. Demetria has her striped leggings, Krystal has her pink and purple everything, Teddy’s suits, of course. Mia’s things. I know her stuff because I just know it.

  The thing is, when I washed her up, had to be a couple mornings, at least that, I could smell that something was wrong. That she had something going on. And I did say something about it, to her, to Mia, I did, but I moved on. She’d say, “No problem,” or she was going to see the nurse or she had already seen the nurse or you know, various answers. And I’d say okay, and I’d move on. It was like I was glad she acknowledged it and said she was on it so I didn’t have to do anything. Like get involved, spend the time to really talk to her. Go with her to the nurse. I was about finishing one person, moving to the next person. Like in a factory. Another part coming down the assembly line. And I’ve always thought to myself how I’m a better houseparent than the rest, that I’m—all the kids love Jimmie, but that was just until one of ’em had an issue that would require me to step up.

  Except for Yessie. She’s the one I’ll do things for and all the kids know that. “Yessie is Jimmie’s favorite.” “Jimmie already has a favorite, so don’t bother Jimmie.” Oh God. Please don’t let them feel that way.

  Joanne said it wasn’t my fault. I can’t even let myself go there right now. I’m just too angry at myself.

  If I’d been thinking about the kids, about Mia . . . it just . . . this is what kills me, okay? It’s—it did not have to happen. I mean, she threw up in her bed. There was blood on the sheet. What part of that did I not see?

  Joanne’s thing is, we’re none of us responsible. Or we’re all responsible. I couldn’t figure out which one she was saying. No, but for real, she says—you know, we were just kickin’ it at her place last weekend and fell into talking about, what else, the job, and Joanne has this whole other way she thinks about it—she says that what happened to Mia is not, like, an isolated incident. It happens in a lot of, or Joanne said all, institutions. Her idea is it’s the System.

  Joanne always thinks it’s the System. And I agree! But the thing is, to me—does that, like, erase that people are responsible for their choices? Seems like we go back and forth about that every time we see each other.

  I say if it’s not an individual person’s fault, like you say—I’m talking to Joanne here—then what about Jerry? Are you saying it’s not Jerry’s fault either? She says, “Yes, of course responsibility for the act lies with Jerry.” I say, “Then it is the fault of the individual,” and she says, “There are Jerrys everywhere but the System lets it happen.” I’m like, “It would be a whole lot easier if you would stop saying ‘System’ because you use the word like it’s something people can see and it’s not.” I say, “It’s not like you go into a building and it says SYSTEM on the door.”

  I think we were both a little buzzed at that point. And she says, “Well, it should say SYSTEM on a whole lot of buildings, like Whitney-Palm and ILLC and St. Theresa’s Hospital.” I’m like, “St. Theresa’s Hospital? Raped Mia? Really?” Joanne says, “On the front of every prison, police station—” and now I—I mean, she knows I agree with her down the line on that. I guess I’m just thinking about my own, whatever, part in this. I can say to myself, “It’s the System,” but does that mean I couldn’t do anything about anything? To change things? To me, the two things go together. You can’t change one thing without changing the other thing.

  And the truth is, Yessie is special to me. Sometimes I—wow, I just hate leaving her here at the end of the day. Because in a way it’s like she can take care of herself, she’s nobody’s fool. But part of that—that “you can’t mess with me” deal, that attitude—I recognize that from myself, okay? I was just like that at fifteen and sixteen and on up. But I wasn’t in a wheelchair. I could put a beat-down on any thug that had the lack of judgment to step to me. So I’m just like—little Yessie has a very big mouth. She could tick somebody off. And ILLC—I mean, if I’m not here and something happens to her . . . I can’t even think about it.

  I told all that to Joanne too. I tell Joanne everything. She asked me did I ever talk to Yessenia about it. And I should do that, I will do that, but I’m just going by what I would do if any adult would tell me to zig, you know? Because I would definitely zag. So I’m hesitant to even bring it up. But Joanne asks me—this was funny, I mean, if you know Yessie, it’s really funny—Joanne asks did Yessie ever tell me why she was in Juvie. And I say no. Joanne says how she doesn’t know the whole story but, like, Yessie is not your average girl in a chair. She can do some serious damage. She can fight.

  In a way, that made me feel better.

  It’s just that I know, underneath all that, that public Yessie, is someone else. Someone who’s hurting and mad about it and doesn’t know which way to turn. Just like everybody else. Just like Mia.

  Ricky Hernandez

  By mistake I leave my notebook at work, just some of my writing, like when I’m sitting in the ILLC bus waiting or in a traffic mess, you know. Thoughts, some doodles, you know, stuff no one cares about except it has forty-six dollars stuck in it. A little notebook thing, spiral notebook. It has some paper shoved in it like a gas bill, some receipts, and the cash. If it’s lying around, it’s first come, first served. So I’m in the Neon, heading back to ILLC again.

  I’m 99 percent sure I left the notebook on a chair by a table down by where the juice boxes are. In the cafeteria. I can hear the voices and smell the cigarette smoke the second the elevator door opens. When I get closer I can pick out the voices. Louie and Candy. The Dynamic Duo. Taking a little break together.

  At first I’m walking toward the caf but then I hear Candy talking, so I decide to slow down. Something, something, “spray in the face with cold water.”

  Louie says, “Disrespect me,” something, something, “no.” Then he says something else but I can’t pick it up.

  That’s a big thing people tell themselves—they can’t be disrespected. I hear that all the time. Problem is they always think they’re being disrespected. To the point where the one who always thinks he’s getting disrespected, it doesn’t matter what you say. That person has a hard-on for you and they feel like, “I’m the victim.” The kids ain’t the victim. No. The grown-up is the victim. See. And some jerk like Louie—you know, ex–prison guard, shaved head, scary motherfucker—he’s the victim. You gotta really do some deep self-deluded backflips in your brain to see yourself as the victim when you’re the pig with the truncheon beating some guy’s head in. It’s a whole psychology they got, some of these people. I don’t know. That’s how they get off. Ma
ybe once when they was little they really were the victim and they just kept thinking that. But you know what? I don’t care. Fuck you anyway.

  So I stop walking. I’m still like twenty feet away from the open cafeteria door. I stand there kinda leaning up against the wall. I’m James Bond now.

  Candy says, “Children will manipulate you if you give them a chance. They’ll play you off against each other, they’ll lie. And these ones’ll do worse than that because they know off the bat you’re gonna feel sorry for them.”

  Louie was agreeing. You could hear him saying “Uh-huh” and “I hear you” like he’s at a revival meeting. Then she says, “That’s what kills me is we see that. We see that. But they got everybody else eating out their—”

  “Fucking Hernandez.” That’s Louie talking now. “Treats Pierre Washington like that’s his pet puppy. Guy’s an asshole. When I worked at Stateville, that’s the kind of guy, you’d shit if he was on your shift, because you’re in a situation? Something jumps off? Guy like that ain’t gonna have your back. Guy’s a liability.”

  See? This is the kind of thing. Louie has beef with me? Fine. He wants to step to me? Fine. But he doesn’t do that. He’s too busy telling the kids he’s the king or whatever. I’ll king you, you prick.

  Then Candy says, “When was you at Statesville?” but I can’t stand it no more and I walk in just then, so I don’t get to hear the story. I stop at the doorway and let them look at me. Then I smile and say, “Hey, guys!” I take my time walking over by the juice counter to get my notebook. Which is right where I left it. Oh, man, you coulda heard a pin. Then I turn around and walk back to the door. Just taking it slow.

  I say, “Forgot my notebook.”

  Louie’s looking at me and I’m looking at him. I wish he’d get it up and bring it but I’m almost a foot taller than him and I guess he don’t have his Taser handy. Candy’s not looking at all, just dragging on her cigarette and staring off into space like she’s thinking up the cure for cancer.