When I was at Juvie, my closest friend was a boy named John Eustace. He was in the same year as me, and he was a nerdy, ungainly fellow with blonde hair and a boyish face. He had a lot of moles on his skin. We were both pretty intelligent fellows. When we first started out at Juvie, we were in separate rooms. I was in a room with about 15 other guys. Later in the year I got moved to a special, smaller room designated only for the Advanced Students. There were about 6 or 8 in that room. John was in there with me, and it was then that our friendship really matured.
I remember a few things about him. He used to steal my pillows out from under me at night, and he drooled profusely when he slept. I would wake up and my pillows would be under his head, covered in drool. He was very lanky and limber. When we were in chapel or something, whenever anybody passed by him to get to their seat, instead of pulling his legs in, he would put both of them up behind his head. He was very close friends with a chubby girl, I forget her name, and people would try to get at him by insulting her. He would always get incredibly angry and spoil for a fight, especially whenever somebody insinuated that he was her boyfriend.
Speaking of Chapel, all of the students were required to attend every day. It was incredibly boring, and the Chaplain spoke with a slow, dull cadence that was like a Soporific, naturally inducing you to sleep. The teachers were always watching the students like hawks, and waking them up if they dozed off. In addition, we had to walk to the far end of campus to go to church every Sunday, and we were required to wear dress clothes. The Church was headed by a different man who served as Pastor, and it was tiny and dilapidated. I think they had multiple services to accommodate all of the students, and each student was assigned to a particular service. (It was on my way to church one Sunday that I received the “where’s the flood” taunt.)
I had another acquaintance by the name of Whistler. He was a short, young fellow, perhaps 12 or 13 years of age. He would talk about how he was embarrassed to go to the group showers, which were basically indistinguishable from the ones in prison. Another friend of mine was named Bryce, and he was about the same age, though a little taller. Both of them were awkward fellows, the kind that would be targeted for bullying.
All three of us used to get together and record “Radio Programs” on my little boombox. We would dub songs onto tape by copying them from one to another, and intersperse little commentaries and interviews between the songs. Bryce played off of his name, and called himself “A.D.B.C,” pretending to be an ancient man who had been alive since before the time of Christ. I forget what Whistler’s persona was. I don’t think John Eustace ever participated in these sessions.
There was another fellow there named Jim, who was massive and mentally handicapped. He started the year with everyone picking on him and making fun of him, but one day he just snapped and belted one of the bullies in the face. After that, everyone was rather intimidated by him, and they left him alone. I remember one of the Dorm Faculty claiming that Jim told the bully to “go back to making railroad tracks” when he punched him. Jim played his newfound strength to the hilt, actually becoming somewhat of a pushy jerk. He used to always go around rapping “I’m Gonna Knock You Out,” by LL Cool J.
There was another extremely young kid named Timmy there. He was about 10 or 11, but everyone feared him, because he was close friends with a huge, intimidating dude by the name of Milton. Anyone who disrespected or picked on Timmy would have to answer to Milton, who would more than likely beat your ass instead of look at you. As a result, everyone kowtowed to Timmy. People 5 years older than him would accede to his demands. I remember developing my theories about “leagues” while observing everyone bowing down to Timmy. There were certain people who were in higher social classes than others, and if you were in a lower class, you couldn’t associate with the higher and were relegated to humiliation and obscurity. I expounded this theory to John Eustace one day. I still hold it, especially with regard to romantic relationships. People just don’t cross leagues. Junior High and High School never truly leave a person.
I remember a few other things about Juvie. There were strict “Lights Out” and “Wake Up” times, and every morning a particular member of the Dorm Faculty would burst into each person’s room and shout at the top of his lungs: “Get up, getupgetupgetupgetup, get up!” It was exactly the same, every morning. I think the obnoxious fellow relished it.
Another thing I remember was “Red Neck Alley.” The high school kids would create a Corridor of themselves on the way to the lunch room, with groups lined up on either side, and they would lick their fingers and smack the back of the Junior High kids’ necks as they passed by. At the end of the “Living Corridor,” the kids’ necks would be bright red and terribly painful, thus the “Red Neck” moniker.
Speaking of the lunch room, most of the foods were terrible. A lot of it was grown on the Farm attached to the school, tended by the most severely disruptive students. They had home-made French Fries and home-made Potato Chips that were godawful. Each day we only had 30 minutes to get to the Cafeteria, eat, and get back to our classes, so we mastered the art of inhaling our food extremely quickly. My Brother and I both eat rather fast to this day. (Myself less so since I developed difficulty swallowing, which I will talk about in a later entry.)
One also had to go to the lunchroom for Study Hall, which attempted to force the sub-par students to do their homework. I rarely had to go there because of my Advanced Placement status, but I attended a few times. It was incredibly boring.
Another time, I remember kids running into our room and shouting for us to come outside. When I emerged from the Dorm, I saw that fields on the low mountains surrounding our school were ablaze with rivers of fire. Somebody told me later that the hillbillies in the area around us were burning each others’ Marijuana fields. I’m not certain it was true, but I am certain there were a lot of drugs in the area. That’s true for every extremely rural area of Kentucky. (Probably because the inhabitants’ lives are so depressing.)
Another incident. One time a kid had pissed off some of his Dorm Mates. He put his clothing in the dryer and left them there, intending to come back later to pick them up. (If somebody else needed the dryer after your clothes were done, they would just pile them on top.) When he returned, he discovered that some asshole had shit directly into the dryer, and wiped his ass all the way down one of his pants legs, and then turned the dryer back on. You can only imagine the foulness. That was just the kind of people these kids were.
There was also this kid in my brother’s class who was incredibly obese, and also nearly deaf. He had huge hearing aids in each ear. Whenever classmates began to pick on him, he would turn his hearing aids up to maximum volume, generating a lot of feedback, which created an incredibly loud, high-pitched squeal that would cause everyone to cover their ears. “It was his only defense.”
This one is pretty funny. At the time I attended Juvie, one of the big controversies was Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court, with the scandals involving pornography and sexual harassment that he was subject to. All the faculty rooted for Clarence Thomas and regarded his difficulties as unjust, and the rumors untrue. I remember when the news that he was confirmed came over the television, Dawn and her Assistant hugged each other warmly and cheered. I also remember her showing us video footage from a gay pride rally, and all the faculty expressing their disgust. I’m sure there were many warnings about the Dire Homosexual Conversion Conspiracy, as well. It was evidence, to them, that our Society was going down the toilet, and that schools like Juvie were a last bulwark against its ruination.
Eventually we left Juvie near the end of the 199X Fall semester. The key moment was when we visited Granny Bernadette at her home in [REDACTED]. Dad and Grandma both asked us if we wanted to continue attending Juvie. My Bro looked at Granny, tears started to roll down his face, his bottom lip quivered, and he said in a tremulous voice: “Grandma, I want to live with you.” That convinced Dad and melted Granny’s heart, so from that point forward we lived with her in a small house on Cherokee Trace, part of a subdivision behind a local shopping district. The next semester, we went to Saint Academy.