There isn’t a code to yell when a 12-year-old tries to commit suicide in his cell. You just yell help. It isn’t a question on the GED. It wasn’t talked about in any of my criminology classes at community. It’s not discussed on TV or social media. I look around at the other intakes waiting in the common area; they don’t seem panicked. They remain focused on the TV, eating their Cheetos. I see correctional officer, Tommy, slowly walking over with his keys. I yell help again.
“He’ll be fine,” Tommy shouts back. “Little fuckers.”
My suicider, Chris, the 12-year-old, was dropped off at the Juvenile Assessment Center, JAC, an hour ago after being arrested for shoplifting from a Walmart. He’s been waiting in the holding cell for me to process him. He needs a drug screening and a mental health evaluation before I can call his parents or send him on to the juvenile detention center.
“He’s using his belt,” I shout.
“Thought I took that at intake,” says Tommy calmly. “This your first AS?”
Chris’ face is blue. He has his belt wrapped around his neck and is pulling it tight with an outstretched arm. “Can’t kill yourself like that,” says Tommy, unlocking the door. “You’ll learn that once you go through a couple more of these. He’s just trying to get attention.” Tommy bends Chris’ arm down and pulls the belt off over his head. The color rushes back to Chris’ face and he sits down on a floor mat.
“Are you okay?” I kneel next to Chris. “What’s going on?”
“I’m so stupid,” he says, pressing his fists into eyes.
“You aren’t stupid. Just relax.”
“I’m so stupid,” he says again.
“Hey, man. Everyone makes mistakes.”
The only suicide protocols I have are the mental health evaluation, the soft room, and if they’re really injured, I’m supposed to call 911. Chris seems better now; he isn’t breathing fast and shallow and he’s relaxed his clenched hands. I lift him up and walk him over to the assessment room. I sit him in a chair by the door and go through the arresting officer’s report. The report lists the items he was caught stealing: A piggy bank, gold light switch covers, three candy bars and a DVD starring Will Smith.
“You like Will Smith?” I ask.
“No,” he says. His body is rigid, and he squeezes the arms of the chair.
“Why are you trying to hurt yourself?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you on any medications?” I ask.
“Ritalin,” he says.
“Did you take it today?”
“No. I hate it.”
“Did you take it yesterday?”
“Am I going to jail?”
“No,” I say.
I go through a series of automated questions with him, and outside of him trying to strangle himself, his answers are normal, and he submits to a urine analysis. This is his first offense and his crime doesn’t warrant transfer to the detention center. I call his parents and create a pre-dispositional report for mental health counselling to go along with the arrest notice and the phone number for the juvenile justice court office. When his parents arrive, it’s all hugs and kisses until his dad slaps him good on the side of the head. I act like I don’t see it because I don’t feel like doing anymore paperwork and someone loves him enough to hit him. Like they told me after I was hired; we’re in the business of preventing unnecessary detentions.
Tommy is standing outside the door to the surveillance room. “You thought that kid was really trying to kill himself, didn’t you?” Tommy does a mocking yell for help, laughing. “Hold down the fort,” he says. “I’m gonna have a smoke.”
“Isn’t that your job,” I say.
“Vicky’s in there somewhere.”
Vicky is another intake specialist. She’s been here only for two years, but she’s the JAC’s longest current employee. I’m the newest, but I also don’t plan on making this a long-term gig; I’m just trying to get some experience before applying to become a cop. Vicky and I have mandatory less-than-lethal combat training out at the women’s prison tomorrow. JAC higher-ups are making all employees take it after the latest wave of cops killing people. Tommy doesn’t have to take it. It was part of his certification process to become a correctional officer. He used to be a CO at a real prison, but he got demoted after getting busted trying to use his badge to get an underage girl into a bar named Big Daddy’s. I guess that qualifies you for a low-level CO position for JAC. He isn’t embarrassed by it either. He told Vicky and me all about it, says him and the girl are still dating. He also says he’s only here for a short stint too until they bring him back. He thinks it’s funny to fart in the holding cells before putting the kids in them. And he blouses his boots even though he was never in the military. All the war stories he tells are of his friends’ exploits in the Middle East. My friend smoked this towelhead. Or my friend shot this hajji’s dog. He’s a real piece of shit, but I guess no decent CO wants this job, babysitting.
I walk down the hallway to our small break room where we have our lockers and one broken and one working microwave. It has a large reinforced window that faces out to the three general areas of the facility. The first is the intake area, which is a secure hallway where arrestees are dropped off at one end and our COs receive personal items like the intake’s phone and wallet from the police. The COs then search them again and remove their belts, shoelaces, and jewelry; anything they can use to harm themselves or others. The next is the common area, which is just two rows of airport seats that face a TV in the wall. And lastly, the holding cells, which are standard jail cells, but instead of bars they have the same reinforced windows as the breakroom, and the floors are lined with those little blue naptime mats I remember from grade school. The only room we can’t see from here is the soft room. You can only see that on the surveillance monitors. It’s a completely padded room, floor to ceiling, where the really worked up kids get put to chill out.
Vicky is standing at the window in the breakroom looking out at the kids; they’re still watching the TV. “You had your first attempted suicide,” she says. “Don’t let it get you upset. You’ll see way worse as a cop. That’s just how it goes sometimes.”
“Tommy forgot to take his belt,” I say. “Nothing I could’ve done.”
“He’s an idiot,” says Vicky.
“He’s useless.”
“You get thirteen dollars an hour to deal with it. And the kids keep coming, day and night, 24 hours a day. Whether we are staffed properly or not. No one cares. So we have to. Just remember that.”
“Yeah,” I say. “What time do you want to leave in the morning to go out to the women’s prison?”
“I’ll pick you up here at eight.”
I can hear Tommy walking down the hallway toward the breakroom. He’s still mockingly yelling help. “I got about an hour left,” I tell Vicky. “I’m going to get started on the next kid.”
“I’ll take them,” she says. “Go ahead and get out of here. You popped your AS cherry. I’ll take care of the rest. And don’t let Tommy get to you. He’s a fuck.”
The sun is barely up when Vicky pulls into the parking lot of the JAC smoking a cigarette. She’s blasting music and has all the windows down even though it’s probably 50 degrees out. Vicky has long black hair, but shaves both sides of her head and pulls the top up tight. She’s wearing a neon green tank top and for the first time I notice all her tattoos. She smokes a couple more cigs and we ride with the windows down and the music blaring all the way out to the women’s prison. They check our IDs at the entrance and then instruct us to go to the CO cafeteria and wait. In the corner of the cafeteria, they have set up a few gym mats, the same blue color as our holding cells. There’s a couple of people sitting at a table next to them.
“COs?” one of the guys asks as we get close.
“JAC intake specialist,” says Vicky.
“Kids,” he says.
“Yeah. I’m Vicky and this is Henry.”
“I’m Derrick, CO. That’s Camila, Hector, and Veronica, all new CO hires. Hector’s going to be out at the men’s site though.”
“You teaching the class?” asks Vicky.
“Just sitting in,” says Derrick. “Tyron and Trevor, the Ts, teach this class.”
Vicky and I join them at the table as Tommy’s doppelgangers walk in, blouse booted, and barrel chested. “What’s with dudes with T names?” I whisper to Vicky.
“What’s with dudes,” she says.
The Ts make us do calisthenics for 30 minutes before beginning: jumping jacks, pushups, sit-ups, running in place. Vicky does them easily while I try to keep up with her. The Ts go over a couple of arm holds and less-than-lethal maneuvers in case we get attacked. Then they sit us down on the mat and make us straddle our partners to go over a few chokeholds, even though they tell us only to do these as a last resort, life or death. These will kill, they say. Vicky sits between my legs and the Ts walk me through a rear naked choke. I wrap my arm around Vicky’s neck, locking my hand in my elbow. I pull my shoulder blades back until she taps on my arm to release her. We switch positions and it’s Vicky’s turn. I definitely remember tapping, but I come to with both Ts standing over me. “Don’t let that happen to you on the inside,” one of them says. I look over at Vicky who’s sitting next to me and smiling.
“Maybe we should learn how to avoid them first instead of jumping right to choking the shit out of each other,” I say, still dizzy.
For the next two hours the Ts use me as an example of what not to do. When Vicky and I get in the car to leave, I look and feel like a ragdoll. Everything on my body has been pulled, and pinned, and twisted.
“Veronica was hot,” says Vicky.
“I was too busy getting the shit kicked out of me to notice.”
Vicky lights a cig and puts the windows down. The cool breeze feels good on my face. I can’t help—even after being choked out—to think about this boat model I’m building at my apartment; it’s a complex one with thousands of pieces. The kind that builds character with tedious details because your fingers are too big, and the stupid pieces are too small. Something about it reminds me of Chris, the suicide 12-year-old. It has to do with the way things are put together—the idea of a model or anything being reincarnated—it’s phony. It’s the ship of Theseus, but it’s too late to change out the boards even if it was possible to make something again. But I hate that idea too. I don’t know. Do kids really want to kill themselves? Can you replace boards in dead ships?
“Do you have anything wrong with you?” asks Vicky.
“Like personally?”
“Well…yeah or any diseases?”
“I don’t think so. Sometimes I’m depressed, I guess. I mean, I had a physical before this job and the doctor didn’t say anything.”
“Everyone is depressed. He do a blood test?”
“Full physical. Why?”
“You’d make a good sperm donor,” says Vicky. “My wife, Jenny…she wants to carry. And we’re exploring options to have a kid. Partial intercourse is one of them.”
“Don’t they have some medical procedure or something to skip that step?”
“IVF. But one IVF cycle costs 15k. It would take us years to get that amount.”
“15 fucking k,” I say.
“Especially when the money can go to, you know, actually raising the child.”
“Didn’t know that was a thing.”
Vicky laughs. “Why would you?”
“So you just need someone to come inside her?”
“Yo…don’t say it like that,” says Vicky, heated. “This isn’t fucking porn.”
I try not to look uncomfortable, but of course I do. I’ve known Vicky for five months and we’ve spent a lot of time together in these cells—the whole building is one large cell and so that’s saying something—but it’s also not everyday someone chokes you out and then tells you about being a sperm donor. I try not to let on that I’m thinking about it. The fact that I’m becoming hard and I really don’t want to isn’t helping. I close my eyes and keep my face in the breeze. I smell cigarette smoke. I smell fresh cut grass. I smell diesel fumes. I smell pine trees. I smell Vicky’s Yankee Candle vanilla-cupcake car air freshener.
“Why do you want to be a cop?” asks Vicky.
“I want to be helpful,” I say, keeping my eyes closed.
It’s been a boring morning when the police drop off 14-year-old Jasmin at JAC after arresting her for possession of marijuana less than 20 grams. In the juvenile justice information systems database, Jasmin has a history of delinquency with the state. Because she’s a female, Tommy must get the help of Sarah, JAC reception, to search her before placing her in holding. I watch them through the processing window as they check her pockets and remove her shoelaces, bracelets, and hair ties. She has all the physical signs of neglect and looks exhausted, like she’s been out all night. Sarah brings her straight into the common area because we don’t have any other youth on intake.
“Come with me,” I say, pointing to the assessment room. Her clothes are filthy, and her body odor is strong. I pull the chair out at the front of the room. When she sits, I notice handprint bruising on her thighs.
“How did you get those bruises?” I ask.
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “How do you think?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Someone hurt you?”
“You like blowjobs?” she asks.
“Have you taken any drugs today?”
“You don’t like blowjobs,” she says, shuffling down and slouching in the chair.
“You smoke any of the weed you had on you?” I ask.
“Not my weed,” she says.
“For someone else?”
Jasmin keeps quiet. She’s too smart for an accidental disclosure, but I try. She looks around my room. There really isn’t anything to look at. They keep the rooms bare. There’s a couple of outdated anti-drug rhetoric and smoking posters, and an old relic of a desktop computer. I talk to her for a little while longer and she agrees to take a drug test. I call Sarah again to take her to the bathroom. Sarah isn’t supposed to be doing any of this work, but we are always short staffed in the overlap hours and someone has to pitch in. While Sarah and Jasmin are in the bathroom, Tommy calls me over the intercom to come to the surveillance office. He’s got something he wants to show me. When I enter, he holds up a joint. “Found another one hidden in the tongue of her sneaker. Palmed it.”
“Why are you telling me this? I have to add it to the report.”
“Fuck you do. We are going to smoke this once you finish up with that trash can.”
He waves the joint around. I admit it looks good and I’ve been out for weeks. But smoking with Tommy is like smoking with the person that shot Bob Marley. It makes me wonder about the cops that do drugs. Who do they buy from? Do they just take it from people like Tommy does? And if I become a cop, will I have to steal drugs too?
“Your girl’s here,” says Tommy, pointing at the parking lot surveillance monitor.
“She isn’t into dudes,” I say.
“Don’t matter.” He does the scissor kiss gesture with his hands.
“I’ll smoke that joint with you if you shut up for the rest of the day.”
“Aight,” he says.
Vicky comes into the assessment room while I’m entering Jasmin’s police report and her answers to the questions into the computer. “There’s a guy on the phone. Think he’s looking for her. I’m going to transfer the call in,” she says. Vicky notices the handprint marks on Jasmin’s legs.
“That’s my uncle on the phone,” says Jasmin. “He likes to sit in the sun when he has headaches. Says it cooks them out.”
“Okay, we’ll be talking to him in a second,” says Vicky, giving me a hard look. She waves for me to come with her. She leads me down the hallway a few feet then stops. “You weren’t going to release her, were you?”
“I haven’t talked to anyone to release her to,” I say. “But. No, I wasn’t.”
“Go see what the guy on the phone wants. I’m going to sit with her.”
Sarah must have been talking to the guy because she gives me a look of disgust as she hands me the phone.
“Is J there?” the guy asks.
“J?”
“Yeah. J…Jasmin. When she getting out? This her uncle. You need to release her.”
“Are you Jasmin’s guardian?” I ask.
“No motherfucker. I’m her uncle. I just fucking said that.”
“Please don’t cuss at me.”
“Listen you dumb fuck. Let her out. I’ll be by to pick her up,” he says.
“There are some forms for her guardian to fill out before we can release her.”
“I ain’t signing shit. I know what you all are trying to do. Jam me up.”
The phone line goes dead.
Jasmin and Vicky are laughing when I get back to the assessment room. They’re playing Go Fish, holding their cards up to their faces like old western poker players. “I got it from here,” Vicky tells me. “Got any sevens?”
“Do you want to know what the guy on the phone said?” I ask.
“I’m sure I already know,” says Vicky. She makes a face at Jasmin over her cards and they start laughing again.
I walk down to the surveillance room. Tommy has his feet up. “I called the detention van for trash can,” he says. “Vicky’s sending her there since we aren’t releasing her. We got no more intakes on our radar. Let’s smoke.”
“Dude, you’re a psycho,” I say.
“I know.”
Tommy and I watch the detention van pull up to the building from the surveillance room. We’ve each eaten a couple of bags of Cheetos. Tommy has his feet up again. My legs are too heavy to lift. He pages Vicky over the intercom that the van’s ready. I watch Vicky lead Jasmin over to the secure transport garage and give her a hug before Jasmin is handcuffed and loaded. She gives a little reassuring wave to the van window Jasmin is sitting next to as it pulls out. Tommy sees this too. He grunts then lifts and crinkles the Cheetos package releasing some orange dust into his mouth. “You should join the military if you really want to become a cop. They don’t hire JAC intake specialists. This is social work. You need a four year now if you want to get looked at or you need some military experience,” says Tommy. “My friends loved it. They’re badasses though. It’ll toughen you up for sure. Couple of my buds are SWAT now. Nightmares when they show up to your door. Trained assassins.” Tommy does a double tap gun gesture with his hand.
“You like CO work?” I ask.
“This place sucks.”
“Which place sucks,” says Vicky, joining us. Vicky looks at me. “You all boys now.”
“We’re just chillin,” says Tommy.
“Is that what they call a couple of dipshits hanging out, chillin?”
“Cog in the wheel,” says Tommy. “You should enjoy the downtime.”
“Let’s go, Henry,” says Vicky.
I get up and follow Vicky back to the assessment room. Tommy messes with the camera in the corner. It makes a little squeak as it adjusts. Vicky agitatedly moves around the office. She flicks off the camera when it squeaks again. “It’s very important that if you think a kid’s been sexually abused that you don’t release them. Even if you aren’t sure,” says Vicky. “Come get me if you have any questions. You can call me even if other intake specialists are working. I’ll come in. I’ll make sure the situation is handled correctly.”
“I wasn’t going to release her,” I say. “I know what to do in those situations. I’ve been trained just like you.”
“You’ll get good at spotting the warning signs,” says Vicky. “You’ll see.”
“I wasn’t going to release her.”
“But you can call me anytime if you’re unsure.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Hanging out with Tommy will rot your brain,” says Vicky.
It’s my first day off in two weeks and I’m at my apartment working on that stupid boat model that reminds me of Chris, the suicide 12-year-old. I’ve invested hundreds of hours working on the BlueJacket’s U.S.S. Constitution 1/8 ship model. It’s the first time I’ve ever built a model and it’ll be my last. My grandfather gave it to me as a gift after I completed my two year at community. He’s built many models and says they build character. Build something that also builds character, that’s what he wrote in the card. The kit contains over 2,600 fittings of brass and Britannia pewter and some 20 different sizes of scaled rigging cord. That’s what I am working on now, Old Ironsides’ riggings. Just do it, I think. You’ll figure the point out later.
I’m about to complete my first rigging of the night when my phone vibrates next to me. It’s Vicky. It should be past her shift, but if there’s an overflow or callout emergency, sometimes they’ll run late and phone for a bailout.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Yeah? That’s how you answer the phone?” says Vicky. “Yeah? Come on, man. What are you doing right now?”
I look at Old Ironsides. “I’m about to go to bed,” I say.
“This early? Jenny wants to meet some of the people I work with. We’re having a couple of drinks. Come hangout.”
“I’m not much of a drinker,” I say. “And I got to be at work at five.”
“Jenny’s got bud.”
I look at Old Ironsides again. “Alright, yeah,” I say.
Vicky’s apartment is only five minutes up the road. I’d been there once before, well only to the parking lot. Vicky had locked herself out of her apartment and was waiting for a locksmith. Her phone was dying so she called me. She would have called Jenny, but she was three hours away visiting her parents. We sat in my car charging her phone until the locksmith showed up. Vicky oddly knows everything there is to know about horse racing. I guess her dad was some type of gambler and she grew up reading the Daily Racing Form. We talked for two hours about the sport, from different racing angles, to something about making speed figures, to breeders and bloodstocks. She doesn’t follow it much anymore, but she used to watch the race replays every day. When the Derby comes around I’ll see if she’ll tout me a winner.
Vicky opens the door and gives me a long hug, which is a first for Vicky. She isn’t a hugger, more of a handshake or a fist bump type person. Jenny is sitting on a couch behind her right through the door. She gets up and comes over to us. “So you’re the guy that wants to be the cop,” says Jenny.
“Yeah, I guess,” I say.
“Seems like the worst job in the world.”
“It seems alright.”
“You want to smoke?” she asks.
Jenny shows me to their kitchen where she packs a bowl on the counter. We smoke a little then sit back on the couch with Vicky. They have a real nice apartment like Target threw up, but in a good way. Jenny is a painter and the walls of their apartment are lined with her art. It’s really good too. There is some abstract stuff and also some of that whatever the word for real life is, the opposite of abstract. There is this big painting of people in a park sitting on a blanket with their backs to us and they are looking down on a city with a terrible red sky. Even though I can’t see their faces, I feel like I know what’s on them, what they’re doing. I picture the people are howling at the red sky and the white skyscrapers, and the blue blanket beneath them almost looks like it is floating, about to take them somewhere. She signs all her paintings Jenny R.
We play Cards Against Humanity for a bit, but they know too much about each other and the extra random card isn’t working. Jenny tells me she’s a school teacher, second grade, but she wants to move to fifth. She explains you can Catcher-In-The-Rye more kids there, which I guess means stop them from wandering around New York like little assholes. Vicky has been acting tense this whole time.
“You good?” I ask.
“Jenny’s fertile,” she says quickly
“Is this about the sex thing?” I say.
Jenny’s eyes go wide and for a few split seconds and I think I’ve made a terrible mistake. “Yeah,” says Vicky.
“If that’s what you need. I’ll do it,” I say.
“Aren’t you quick to it,” says Vicky.
“It’s not just a split decision,” says Jenny. “It’s something you should think about.”
“I just wanted to meet you,” says Jenny.
“We know just enough about each other,” I say.
“What does that mean?” asks Jenny.
“Right now, I have no reason to think you are anything other than good people. But say we wait. For what? So I can become attached and start asking questions about how you’ll do this and how you’ll do that, and what name and religion and whatever else. And I start making you promise me to take care of it, blah, blah, blah. You know? When my first thought about it was right…I’ll do it.” We all kind of look around at each other. “Working at JAC and you still want a kid?” I ask Vicky.
“More than anything,” she says.
Partial intercourse is not sexual or exciting; I jack off until I’m about to come and then I stick my penis into Jenny’s vagina while she and Vickey hold hands and lay next to each other. There isn’t any kissing, or foreplay, or cuddling. I don’t make eye contact or thrust. Afterwards, when Vicky and Jenny become intimate and faraway, I close the bedroom door. I put my pants on in the living room. I hit the bowl Jenny packed on the kitchen counter and leave. When I get home, I complete two riggings on Old Ironsides. I guess I never felt I could help anyone in a really big way. I always thought you needed tons of money or a gun to do that. I finish up on my boat for the night and by the time I put the pieces away, I promise myself not to think about it again. I know I was helpful, and move on.
JAC is a madhouse by 8AM. Three males, aged 13 to 15, were dropped off after being arrested for vandalizing a school bus, aggravated assault, and possession. They don’t need to be at JAC. They need to be taken to detention, but that’s the system. While it took three police officers to drop them off, they are now handled by only me and Tommy. We’ve got one of them in a holding cell; one in the soft room because he was still resisting officers when he showed up, and I’ve just grabbed the third to take him to the assessment room. The young man holds a fist out at his buddy through the holding cell window.
“Why don’t you got no edge?” he asks me, pointing to the outline of his haircut. “Edge.”
“I do have an edge I say.”
“That ain’t no edge.”
A loud bang echoes outside our room. I go back to the door and see the kid in the holding cell, running and kicking the glass as hard as he can. It makes a deep thud, but the reinforced glass isn’t going anywhere. Tommy is standing in front of the window egging him on to break it.
“Come watch this pussy break his leg,” yells Tommy, laughing and egging him on.
“Why don’t you stop him before that happens?”
“Fuck him.”
“Get them some Cheetos,” I say. “Please.”
The kid in my room is now standing next to me watching and I point him back to his seat. “I want Cheetos,” he says.
I run through my standard drug and suicide questions, but the kid is more interested in what’s going on outside our room than answering me. Another bang echoes through the building.
He rubs his nose then lifts his shoulders at me. “Are we done?” he asks. “Can I go back out there?”
Tommy throws a bag of Cheetos in the door. “We got another intake on the way,” he says. “Abandoned kid.”
“We need to get another person here,” I say.
“Just you until one o’clock, chief,” he calls back.
I bring my kid to the common area and Tommy has released the two other kids from the holding cell and the soft room. They stand in front of the TV where he has put out more snacks. I look around for Tommy and he’s already in the intake area with the new arrival who looks to be around nine. The new kid reminds me of Jasmin. Small, delicate, innocent without the sort of emptiness that’s required. Dirt is smudged on his face and his hair is wild. He walks in these little hop steps. As he comes out of the intake area, he gives me the brightest smile.
“Boss man, he can’t come in here,” shouts one of the kids by the TV. “He stinks bad.” The same kid tries to throw his Cheeto bag at the new intake, but it catches the air and drifts to the ground back at his feet. The new intake watches the bag then points and laughs at how it falls. Not at the kid who threw it, but just how the bag gently drifted to the ground sort of like a failed paper airplane, comically ineffective.
“What you laughing at?” says the bigger of the kids as the three of them begin to make their way over to us. The kid who threw the Cheeto bag, lifts both his arms up and makes some kind of gesture. “You,” he says.
“Get back,” says Tommy. He approaches them quickly like he’s going to knock one of them out. They reluctantly fall back toward the TV, but they don’t look scared. I take this opening to get the new kid into the assessment room.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Little Man,” he says. “Are there anymore Cheetos?”
“Yeah, I’ll get you some, but why don’t you tell me your real name.”
“Sunny,” he says. “But Little Man.”
I call out to Tommy who throws two bags into my room despite complaints being shouted from the other boys. “Who calls you Little Man?” I ask.
“Everyone,” says Sunny, gently opening one of the bags with a pop. “These are my favorite,” he says.
I get Sunny’s last name from the arrest report and I look him up in the system. He doesn’t have a file and didn’t come in with any identification, which is common for most juveniles. “Is it Sunny with a U or O? It has a U on the report,” I say.
“Sunny like the sun,” he says, tossing a Cheeto into his mouth.
“Fuck that motherfucker,” yells someone outside the room. “You fucked, blood.” Something hits my door making a loud bang. I hear Tommy yelling at them to sit down or he’s going to start crushing skulls.
For the first time I notice Sunny doesn’t have any shoes on. “Did you come in with shoes?”
“No,” he says.
I skip the drug and mental health questions. “Do you have a parent we can call to come get you? I’d like to get you out of here if we can.”
“Yes,” he says and gives me the number. I call, and we wait with the soft sound of Sunny’s chewing. A woman answers the phone.
“This is the juvenile assessment center of New County,” I say. “I’m here with Sunny.”
“Keep him,” says the woman.
“Excuse me,” I say.
“Keep him. Don’t want him.”
I smile clumsily at Sunny and turn my back to him.
“If you’re the legal guardian you’ll be charged with child abandonment. Do you know what that is? It’s a felony.”
“I’m not the legal guardian,” says the woman.
“Who is?”
“She don’t want him neither.”
I hear Sunny behind me grab the second bag of Cheetos off my desk. I turn to see him give me another warm smile, this time with orange cornmeal collected at the corners of his mouth.
“Do you have her number?”
I hang up the phone when I hear the dial tone once again.
“I think that was the wrong number,” I tell Sunny.
Sunny shakes his head no. I open the door and look out at the other boys. The TV is keeping their attention for the time being and Tommy is rolling dice with one of them against the wall.
“You sure you have no one else to call, Sunny?”
“That’s the only number I know,” says Sunny.
“Alright. I’m going to put you in one of the holding cells. You aren’t in any trouble, but those other boys out there aren’t too nice, but they’ll leave you alone if you’re in there. Is that alright with you?”
“Holding cell?”
“It’s just a room that locks, but you can see out. It’s safe in there.”
“Okay,” he says. “You have a blanket?”
“Yeah, there’s one in there. And I’ll see what we got for shoes in the back too. Sometimes we have extras around.” I put Sunny in the holding cell and return to the surveillance room where the storage closet is. Tommy is dozing off in his chair, so I bump it. “You need to be keeping an eye on those kids,” I say.
“Those kids ain’t shit. One of them owes me 20 bucks.”
“Dude, you’re impossible.” I open the closet doors and find a pair of shoes. I hold them up. They’re easily two sizes too big, but they’ll work, and the only other pair are for girls. There are also a couple of clean shirts, so I grab one.
“Is the new intake going home or to detention. I need to call transport,” says Tommy. “We get anymore intakes and it’ll be fucked in here.”
“Don’t know yet.”
“You get a hold of a guardian?”
“No,” I say.
“So transport will need four pickup files.”
“I haven’t done the other two kids from earlier yet and still need to finish the new one.”
“They’ll do the other two at DC. They’re going there anyway. Just mark them noncompliant and let’s get the show moving.”
“Alright, give me another ten minutes for the new kid.”
“DC only comes twice. And Little Man can’t be here more than six hours. So hurry it up.”
“He told you Little Man too?”
“Huh? They all got to go.”
“I know the rules,” I say.
There has to be another option or place I can send Sunny so he doesn’t have to go to detention with the others. I get my cell phone from my locker and call Vicky. She has one of those songs that plays instead of a ringer. It’s a Tom Petty song, I think. I explain the situation to her, but she says there isn’t anything else we can do.
“Well that fucking blows,” I say.
“There’ll be more kids just like him to break your heart.”
I see Sunny’s feet sticking out from underneath the blanket through the holding cell window. He’s curled himself into a little ball in the corner of the room on one of the mats. I open the door and he looks at me, squinting his eyes shyly. I hand him the pair of shoes and the new shirt. The sneakers look three sizes too big now that they’re on his feet, and without the laces, the tongues curl over to the floor. He doesn’t seem to mind and does a little walk around. He strips off his old shirt and smells the new one before putting it on.
“Thanks,” he says.
“Sunny, I’m going to have to send you to detention. They’ll have more resources there to help you out. Get you back to your family.”
“What’s detention?”
“Just another building like this, but bigger and they got more kids.”
“More kids?” he says gloomily. “Can I stay in this room?”
“The holding cell?”
“Yeah. I be good. Just let me stay in here.”
“You’re already good Little Man,” I say.
“I be real good.”
“You’re already really good.” My insides start to clinch. I want to grab this kid and hug him, take care of him, and protect him. But I can’t. And showing him that I’m upset wouldn’t be helpful.
Sunny looks at his feet. “These shoes are comfy.”
When the detention van pulls into the garage, I meet the guards and tell them what’s going on with the four intakes; they’ll need to figure out a way to keep Sunny separate from them at the detention facility. I tell them that Sunny is a really sweet kid, but the guards don’t seem to care much. Tommy comes out with the boys in single file and I can see they’re already picking on Sunny. I break up the line and pull Sunny out. The Cheeto bag thrower smiles at me and Sunny.
“Listen,” I tell Sunny. “They’ll take care of you.” I point to the guards. “If you got any problems, talk to them.”
“I be good,” says Sunny. “If I stay here.”
“You’re already good,” I tell him.
I guide him back to the van and watch as he shuffles his feet forward so the shoes don’t pop off. The guards handcuff the boys and place them one by one into the van. The cuffs, the shoes, the shirt, everything hangs heavily from Sunny. Everything that’s been given to him seems to pull him down. But Little Man keeps smiling.
Joseph Rakowski’s literary work is forthcoming in the New Ohio Review and has been published by Witness Magazine, PANK Magazine and The Baltimore Review.
Photo by UnimatriceZero on Foter.com / CC BY