"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, it's up to you."
It must be three in the morning. I'm a little high, probably still drunk and I got this fake ass Bruce Willis sounding motherfucker all up in my grill.
"Come on, kid. Get your clothes on."
The hangover's lethal and Bruce Willis is not with the shits.
"Are we gonna have to force you, you little cocksucker?"
I reluctantly get out of bed and throw on Nike sweatpants and an Under Armour hoodie. There are two men, both white and burly, and I'm in no condition to fight. Maybe if I had some cocaine I'd go Super Saiyan, but I can see the headline now: "Angry Black Teenager Kills Two Unassuming White Men While On Drugs." I decide against it.
They put the cuffs on me and we walk down the stairs my of my parents' new, two-story suburban home, the first real house I've ever lived in. We haven't been here a full year and I'm already getting kicked out. I guess it wasn't meant to be—a normal life with a mom, dad, younger siblings and a house with a white picket fence. I never liked the Huxtables anyways.
As we make our way to the police cruiser, I hear my mom weeping. Fuck her feelings, I think to myself. A few weeks ago, she chased me around the house with a bat, swinging at my head like she was trying to break Barry Bonds' home run record. Sorry I'm not sorry. Your son's an unapologetic bitch now.
Getting kicked out of my parents' home isn't a huge shocker. They have been threatening to send me to a reform school for months now and I'm ready for this moment. I probably deserve it, if we're being honest. I'm the archetypal teenage shithead. I have no ambitions, I'm on drugs 25 hours a day and I have multiple misdemeanors and a stupid ass felony charge on my record. I'm not a serial murderer or a violent person by any means, but my appetite for drugs is "socially unacceptable," and I always seem to have a problem with authority. But I'm 17-years-old. Has there ever a better time to be a rebellious drug addict?
***
My parents looked at a bunch of different institutions to send me to. There were Wilderness programs, which is just, like, a two week stay in the woods with other fucked up kids. Then there were juvenile detention centers, which are more like jail than rehab. The most logical choice, however, was a therapeutic boarding school. As far as my parents are concerned, it's imperative I not only got my shit together, but graduated. The Family Foundation School was their choice and now the burly Bruce Willis impersonators are taking me there.
In the middle of fucking nowhere known as Hancock, New York, the Family Foundation School sounds like the perfect place for a messed up boy. They have sports, camping, hiking, plus therapy and drug counseling. The brochure makes it look like a nature retreat—a bunch of white people hiking through woods crying to other white people about their problems. But that's not what it's like at all. The brochure forgot to mention physical and emotional abuse, sexual predators working as teachers and the "isolation room." But solitary confinement doesn't sound as appealing as fly fishing. I get it.
As soon as my captors drop me off, I'm told to strip naked. A staff member and two students look on as I head into the shower, dick and balls out, and they examine my body. My first thought is they're looking for gang tattoos. I don't know, I'm still fucked up from the night before. Maybe they've never seen a black penis before.
The objective of this process, known as intake, is to strip the new student of his identity. Any clothes that they deem inappropriate? Gone. Music? Don't even think about it. Books? Unless it's about Jesus, it's going in the trash. The staff member tells me how things are gonna go from here on out as if he's a prison warden. I won't have contact with my friends for the foreseeable future. I won't speak with my parents for months. Worst of all, they're cutting off my gorgeous dreadlocks, which I've been growing for 10 years. Any sense of self is disassembled within my first 30 minutes. When I ask what purpose this serves, the staff members replies, "Because you're a piece of shit who doesn't know right from wrong." This coming from the guy who was just studying my dick a second ago.
After intake, the two students introduce themselves as my "guides," here to help me adjust to a new, sober life. The Family Foundation School will be a culture shock, they say. There are rules. Tons of them.
Fuck.
"No cursing."
Sorry, can I borrow your pen?
"That girl's not allowed to talk to boys."
I'm going to go the bathroom.
"We have to come with you."
And watch me shit. I mean, poop?
"Yes."
These rules are minuscule, though. I can live without cursing or Dipset mixtapes for a bit. I put myself here and I know it. I'm a bad kid, so now I'm in a bad kid place, where bad kids are supposed to be because they're bad. Totally understandable. Until it isn't anymore.
***
I’ve been here for a few months now and I've learned how to play the game. Don't swear. Say you want to stop using drugs. Be a good, polite black boy. I'm even a guide now. I'm helping my own newcomer, Drew, adjust to the school. I'm supposed to show Drew the ropes, teach him how to play the game and try and help get him off drugs. The only thing is, Drew doesn't do drugs. He cuts himself. Incessantly. I know nothing about cutting, but the staff has given me the responsibility of assisting Drew anyways. "Pray," one staff member tells me. "Jesus will help Drew through you." Sounds legit.
One of my "Drew duties" is to make sure he doesn't have anything sharp on him. This means I thoroughly search him every morning, during lunch and again at night. He has to remove all of his clothes, spread and cough, just like during intake, while I watch. I'm his personal prison guard, armed with no training, just the Bible and a set of prayers. I'm sure there have to be laws prohibiting this.
Since he hasn't cut himself for weeks, I'm negligent in my search one night. Once I'm done surveying his naked body, I leave the trunk room, which is basically our inspection area. A few minutes pass and it's about to be lights out, but I haven't seen Drew walking around the dorm. Then it hits me.
I run back to the trunk room and it looks like a fucking murder scene. He hasn't severed any veins yet, but his forearm is covered in blood. He sees me and starts slicing faster, knowing he may not get the chance again once he's sent to the isolation room. I swear I'm in a Tarantino movie at this point. Myself and another nearby student grab him, do our best makeshift version of a restraint and after a 30 second scuffle get the razor out of his grasp. I'm cut badly in the process. I doubt the Family Foundation School ever mentioned this scenario as a possibility when my parents applied.
Another evening, I'm watching Drew in the isolation room. He had just cursed out a staff member, so, as punishment, they threw him in an 8x8-foot box with no mattress, windows, pillows or blankets.
Drew loathes the iso-room and I don't blame him. It feels like the staff enjoys throwing him in there. They come by and tease him, saying things like, "Too bad you're in the box. We're having your favorite for dinner tonight." I feel terrible for Drew, but I'm told not to show him any remorse. And if I ever want to get out of this shithole, I must do as I'm told.
In an act of defiance, and probably insanity considering he's been living in a small box for five days now, Drew starts throwing his feces everywhere: at the wall, on his food and, of course, on me. Not knowing what to do, and having feces thrown all over me, I retaliate. One addict taking physical control of another. How is this therapeutic?
I wish I could say this is the worst of it. It’s not. Staff at the Family Foundation School routinely tell me that I'm a piece of shit and that my life won't amount to anything. I'm told that once I graduate, I have to avoid my best friends because they don't really love me. They just want to see me die. In one instance, I'm even told that my mother should have swallowed me. I am a stupid, foolish teenager with a terrible attitude, but this cannot be how I'm supposed to get better.
***
I finally leave the Family Foundation School stripped of any sense of self and with a whole new set of problems. I'm far more insecure. I have nightmares of Drew cutting himself and crippling guilt for treating him the way that I did. I have self-doubt and at times feel worthless. I know what those people told me in Hancock, NY wasn't the truth, but it's ingrained in my memory. Being a Huxtable would've undoubtedly been better than this.
Kids can be shitty and I was one of the shittiest, but cutting off their dreadlocks is pointless and treating them like animals is amoral. Turning them against each other is cruel. Telling them their mother should have swallowed them is fucking heartless. Maybe just try and show that you're concerned. Take time to hear them out before throwing them in a windowless box. I know all Drew wanted was someone to love him. It pains me every single day that I didn't.
Brian Padilla is a writer living in Brooklyn. You can follow him on Twitter here.
