KITCHEN BOY (Excerpt from the Book “One Chance To Be A Man”)

I opened my eyes and for a minute, I forgot where I was.  How long had I been asleep?  My back hurts from sleeping on this hard bench.  I stood up and found myself in this room.  I went toward the door, a steel door with a small square glass where I could see an officer.  Reality just came back to me.  I’m in jail.  I was twelve years old and I had school the next day.  My charge?  Aggravated assault and battery.  I tapped on the door. The officer did not look up.  I tapped harder.  He finally looked at me and headed toward the door.  He unlocks the door and says, “What”?  “I need to use the bathroom”.  He unlocks another door in the same room I’m in and goes back out of the room, locking the door behind him.  While I’m in the bathroom I look in the mirror and everything is a blur.  I’m rewinding thoughts in my head of how I got here.  It doesn’t matter now.  I’m here.

They put me in the back of a truck handcuffed to a pole.  It was about ten of us.  Some of the guys were joking around like they’ve taken this ride many times.  I didn’t say anything.  I swear someone passed gas and I can’t breathe on the back of this truck.  The smell gets stronger and stronger.  All the guys started complaining and yelling about the smell.  As it turned out, one of the guys had a colostomy bag, and the rest is self-explanatory.  The other guys talked about him until we got to juvenile detention.  We arrived at a huge brown building and were escorted out like prisoners.  At twelve, that’s how it felt.

Processing

I was too young to go on the main floor with the rest of the guys.  They put me on the fifth floor where the juvenile girls stayed.  In my section, there were about twenty five rooms for us to sleep, a recreational area with cards, checkers, etc; a room to watch television, an eating section and a shower. There were only two other boys in my section.  I had to wear what they gave me.  At this point, I didn’t know when I was going home.  The date was October 9^th and I didn’t have a court date until October 23^rd.

Mr. Perkins was one of the supervisors in our section. He and a few others were rotating shifts, but he is the one that I remember.  One day, while watching TV, I was laughing and talking out loud. I noticed none of the others would really respond to me. I kept talking anyway.  “Who is that talking over there?” They all pointed at me.  Mr. Perkins said “You come here!”  I walked over. “Why are you talking?” I thought for second, but I gave an honest answer, “No one told me I couldn’t talk”.  Mr. Perkins got in my face, “I will beat your ass, do you understand me!?”  I stood there in shock looking him in the eye.  I believed him when he said he would beat my ass. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!?”  I said yes. He stood and looked at me for a long time. I braced myself to be hit. Then he said, “No talking. Go over there and sit down!”  I went back and sat down. I watched the others hold their laughter because they knew all along we couldn’t talk, but waited for me to get in trouble (punks!).

I was locked in my room every night. I had a steel toilet, a bed and a small window.  Every night, I would look out the window and watch the wind blow through the Chicago and American flags.  I would press my forehead against the cold glass.  It was something about staring at the bright lights over the city and being able to gauge how swift the wind was by the way the flags moved.  This moment would calm me down every night before I went to bed. 

Every morning, they woke us up early. We had to shower and eat breakfast. All of our meals came on this huge cart someone delivered to the floor of our section.  Mack was the one in charge of serving the food.  We called him Kitchen Boy. The kitchen boy had the opportunity to keep extra food and short anyone a biscuit if he wanted to.  I wanted to be Kitchen Boy.  I assumed Mack was the kitchen boy because he had been there longer.  In retrospect, the food was really good and fresh.  I remember having to choose between milk and apple juice.  I hated milk so I chose apple juice.  Until this day, I love apple juice.  After breakfast was school.  The school was in the basement of the building.  I don’t remember learning anything.  It was just a lot of boys from different sections of the building. We spent only a couple hours a day in school.  By this time, I had established my presence among the rest of the boys and our section was growing.  Everyday a new kid joined us, and everyday Mr. Perkins got an opportunity to punish someone.

Mack kept getting in trouble and I was chosen to be Kitchen Boy.  I began having conversations with Mr. Perkins.  He started to get a little nicer everyday. He chose me to do everything he needed.  I became the leader of the bunch.  I believe this is where I learned my leadership skills.  I learned at this age to speak up.  I learned that we’re all cowards.  I learned that we exploit others to feel better about ourselves. I learned we’re all biding our time waiting for something.  Every night when I looked out the window, I knew something more than the day before.  I was twelve.  But in my mind I knew there was something more.  And maybe Mr. Perkins understood that about me.  Maybe Mack respected me, because he was cool with me even though he was not the leader of the group anymore.

Tonight, as I stare out the window, I’m hoping to get good news about my court date tomorrow.  The next morning, after breakfast, everyone went to school. I was not able to go to school because I had to be at court in an hour.  As I sat and watched television, Mr. Perkins walks over and stands over me for a few seconds and then says “Stand up!” I slowly got up.  Now he has that mean look on his face that I had forgotten all about.  He stands toe to toe with me and says “Walk over to the wall and balance yourself only using your fingertips, and don’t move until I say so!” I’ve seen him do this to others in the group. I didn’t understand what I had done. I was two feet from the wall trying to balance my weight with my finger tips, and that hurt.  Mr. Perkins stood there watching me struggle. Thoughts are running through my mind and I was trying to understand what I had done. Wait a minute! That’s it!  I hadn’t done anything. I’m the only one that he didn’t get a chance to punish. Today is my last day. I’m an hour away from getting out of here. All these thoughts rushed into my head.  And as I reached the answer, I turned my head to look at him. “You had to get me didn’t you?” Mr. Perkins busted out laughing so hard.  He said “Yes I had to get you. Come on before you are late for court.”