Chapter 2
Two
Much to my surprise, I found the staff at the residential treatment facility to be mostly funny, honest, and passionate people.
They were easygoing and completely devoted to the kids in their care.
Sure, there were exceptions. People who didn’t seem to like other humans in the slightest. Some who seemed to think their job consisted of watching the kids during commercial breaks. Overall, though, I was quite impressed.
Lester placed me on a team that was responsible for seven of the oldest boys in the building.
There were three of us in charge of taking care of our residents, enforcing rules, leading small therapy groups, and playing the role of mom and dad.
My teammates were two sisters, Sandra and Christina.
They’d been working for Lester for nearly four years.
Together, they did the impossible: they made me feel at home immediately.
They didn’t barrage me with questions or overwhelm me with bossy instructions.
They treated me with respect and were thoughtful and sincere. We quickly started to become friends.
Both Sandra and Christina constantly raved about what an amazing man Lester was.
They said he was one of the best men either of them had ever met.
Within a short time, I was able to understand what they meant.
I watched him interact with the kids and other staff in a way that communicated constant care and respect.
Just like in our interview, Lester remained slow to talk and long-winded.
Nearly once a week, he’d seek me out to take me to his office and riddle me with questions and offer his extensive views of the world.
After being initially wary of him and reserved for the first couple of discussions, I began to look forward to our weekly meetings.
It was the first time in my life I thought I might be able to understand what it could have felt like to have a father.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that the one man who might be able to fill the father role would be a seven-foot-three-inch black man with a lazy eye.
It only took a few days to understand that the questions Lester had asked me in my interview were not really about me specifically, but more about his fear of me not being able to handle the types of kids they had, due to my background.
I’d been there for only a little over a month, and I’d already caught one of my boys sneaking down to the laundry room in the basement to meet up with one of the girls from the other side of the building.
During nightly room checks, I walked into one of the rooms in the back of our cluster only to find two of my boys having sex, using Vaseline as lube and a rubber glove as a condom.
They simply glanced up when I opened the door, and then continued with their activity.
I shut the door and went in search of Lester.
I have the blessed privilege of having my birthday on Valentine’s Day.
Not only did I consistently have horrible birthdays but also the constant reminder of being perpetually single.
Sandra and Christina somehow learned about my birthday.
After a rather rough and upsetting restraint where one of our kids tried to smash his face into the ground for over an hour, they pulled the rest of our boys out of their rooms, gathered them around the table, and uncovered a birthday cake.
They made my favorite—pumpkin cake with cream-cheese icing.
Sandra knew how much I hated Valentine’s Day, and she found it hilarious that Christina had written “Happy 25th Birthday, Brooke” across the top in pink icing and outlined the entire cake in red little sugar hearts.
I’d never before had “Happy Birthday” sung to me by gang members, child molesters, and car thieves, but I didn’t remember ever hearing it sound so good.
In honor of my birthday, Lester told me to leave work early, so I was on my way to the gym by six thirty.
As I again rode up the elevator, I laughed to myself over Henry, a little Hispanic eleven-year-old boy who I had helped calm down in the time-out room, who insisted that women had babies because they got kissed by a man.
He had declared that his mother told him he was made when his dad kissed her under the mistletoe one Christmas night, and there was no possible way to convince him otherwise.
I didn’t know what had gotten Henry on that topic, but I had burst out laughing when Henry paused in his manic pacing, looked me straight in the eye, and warned, “Mr. Brooke, if you don’t want no kids, then you’d better not be kissin’ any girls. Not that you’d want to anyway. Girls are gross!”
It was somewhat off-putting to realize how much I was starting to enjoy my life, despite having another stupid Valentine’s birthday.
It was becoming easier and easier to let the past fade away, like it was lived by a completely different person.
Work made it easy to get lost in the lives and struggles of my kids; I didn’t have to constantly ponder over my own life.
My daily routine now set, the man at the front desk waved me in without checking my ID. “Good to see you, Brooke. Early today, huh? Hope the kids didn’t get the best of you.”
“Not quite yet, Ken. However, I’ll feel better after a workout.
” I didn’t meet Ken’s eyes for more than a second before refocusing on the floor and walking into the locker room to change clothes.
For some reason, I always worried that random people would figure out it was my birthday and would want to sing to me.
Luckily this hadn’t yet happened, but it didn’t stop me from worrying about it.
Soon I was in the workout room on the incline bench press. I was on my third set when I thought I heard something over the music from my iPod. After placing the weight bar back in its cradle, I hit the pause button and sat up to look around.
Sure enough, a low male voice wafted through the gym. “…In your dreams, whatever they be, dream a little dream of me….” The voice sounded good, a natural singer, but still, it wasn’t the typical thing you hear at the gym.
As I glanced around, I noticed I wasn’t the only one trying to find the source of the music. “Stars fading, but I linger on, dear, still craving your kiss….”
Finally, I looked over to the section containing the treadmills.
My eyes narrowed so I could see clearer across the room.
No way! I shook my head and laughed to myself.
This guy can’t be real. In the midst of six or seven other runners, legs and arms pumping, eyes closed, a huge smile spread across his face, was the same man who had been dancing in the elevator.
I gazed at him in fascination. Either the man was partly mad, had never been taught a single ounce of social skills, or was starved for attention.
He didn’t look crazy. He looked like he just stepped out of a magazine, except for the joyous expression residing where a sultry gaze should have been.
Still, first the Beach Boys and now Mama Cass…
. Who was this man, and what kind of life must he live?
I watched for a few more seconds as his wide shoulders cut through the air around him.
I couldn’t help but have an ounce of awe and respect tinge my reproachfulness.
How wonderful it would be to not care what others thought.
How completely thrilling it must be to be able to sustain for even half an hour the happiness this strange man exuded.
I shrugged and turned back to my chest workout.
He must be on the highest dose of medicated happy pills anyone could be on outside of a mental institution.
I glanced once more over at the man, who seemed to have become aware that others around him may not have desired a serenade.
The singing stopped; however, his smile never wavered, nor did the bobbing of his head in time with the music.
Still bewildered, I continued my workout, even as my mind maintained its focus on the peculiar man.
I was glad he hadn’t seen me. I had a feeling he would have been the one to realize it was my birthday and lead the entire gym in endless verses of the birthday song.