The Long Answer to a Short Question.

In the comment section of my post on Quindaro I was asked by a reader , Leigh Ann, who has about a million blogs going all at once,” How do we fix it?" I gave her the easy way out answer and said I had no idea. Well that wasn’t an entirely truthful response. So here is my answer. I apologize in advance for taking you the long way around the block, but stick with me and in the end we will get there.

Boonville Missouri State Training School for Boys. Some kids go to Penn Day or Notre Dame di Sion to get the all important middle and high school education. I received mine courtesy of the state of Missouri. I was deemed incorrigible and beyond parental control. My crime was Truancy and I was a habitual violator. The court in its infinite wisdom decided it would be in my best interest to be sent to the notorious reformatory nestled in the central Missouri farm land. Nowadays the juvenile justice system in Missouri is touted as one of the finest and used as a model that other states strive to emulate, but in the early 70's being sent to Boonville was as bad as it could get, short of being sent to an adult prison. In all fairness the courts did try other options and methods to get my mind right before washing their hands of me and sending me to that little corner of hell. I ran through those options in short time. There were alternative schools, Vocational schools, group homes, and McCune boys home, I did the full tour.

To my mothers credit she did the best she could, but working two jobs and caring for 3 kids virtually on her own there was no way to keep up with me. So after running off from McCune 3 times the court sent me to Boonville. When I arrived in Boonville it was during a transitional period. They were revamping their approach to dealing with Juveniles. During the day the place was filled with well meaning and completely clueless social workers and shrinks. At night it was pure bedlam, and probably more violent than any prison or jail I’ve been in. There was a popular saying at the time, "Fight, Fuck, or Climb a tree". I was scared of heights so I got in a lot of fights those first few months. In fact I spent more time in disciplinary lock down the first 6 months I was there, than I spent in general population.

I don’t want to give the wrong idea here, I wasn’t a tough guy, I didn’t like fighting. But I had 3 strikes against me when I first set foot in Boonville. I was 14, the average age was 16. I had long hair and was a good looking kid, if I do say so myself. And I was white. That’s right, being white made me something that most people don’t associate with being Caucasian, I was a minority. So I fought , raised hell and earned a reputation as a trouble maker. I spent 20 months in Boonville when the average stay was 6 to 9 months.

It wasn’t a big leap for me to continue to raise hell and generally screw up once I was released. I was pissed at the world, and had a chip the size of the sprint center on my shoulder. So if I seem to have some empathy for these young guys from the inner city that do heinous shit, its not because I think they are blameless, I don’t. But I do understand that anger and getting dealt a bad hand does have some major implications on the choices they make. In the end, we choose to go one way or another. We can take life’s hard lessons and be better people for it. Or we can be hardened by it all and take a path that ultimately leads us to even more trouble. I chose the latter, and it took me 25 years to figure out that I couldn’t win. I wont go so far as to say that I'm a better person for it, that all of those wrong headed years somehow transformed me in to a good person. I hear that from a lot of ex cons and former criminals. They equate going straight with some spiritual metamorphous. They make it sound like all those years of doing dirt and going straight makes them like Gandhi. That line of thought is pure unadulterated bullshit.

The truth is that most criminals will continue to be criminals until they reach middle age. They stop because they don’t want to grow old in prison and not because they have suddenly seen the error of their ways. That’s why I stopped. I take no pride in saying this, nor am I ashamed to admit that I would much prefer pulling down a large chunk of change once or twice a year and doing as I please. As much as that still appeals to me, the thought of spending another day locked up is unacceptable.

Am I a better person than I was 10 years ago? You bet I am. Is it because I am reformed and rehabilitated? If by reformed you mean I underwent a major transformation and learned the error of my ways, then no I am not. If a guy is a plumber for the majority of his adult life and changes careers at 4o and becomes an electrician, that change in his day to day life doesn’t change his way of looking at things. He will always be a plumber at heart, deep down he looks at things through the eyes of a plumber. That said , I find my life now more fullfilling and I would never return to my old ways.

So what is my point to this rambling missive? Well it goes back to those early years in Boonville. I don’t lay the blame entirely at the feet of the system. I had ample opportunity to change. I made a conscious decision to ignore the rules of society and I accept full responsibility for the decisions I made. The thing is , if there was ever a chance to turn me around, it was when I was in Boonville, those early years. Hopefully the system of dealing with young offenders has figured that if you catch a kid early and really make effective change in their surroundings and their way of thinking, then you have a shot at turning them around. If not, then eventually time or death will do the job. Hopefully I have answered Leigh Ann's question.

Great Expectations

I was prepared to let the Obligatory Mothers Day post pass me by. My mother died in 1982, 6 years younger than I am now. It's been a long time. She gets all of the credit for what few saving graces I might have, and none of the blame for my many flaws and short comings. She did her best and raised 3 kids, 2 of whom turned out relatively normal and productive, and one who is still trying to figure it all out. Her name was Reba.

She battled cancer for 5 years, I never heard her complain, I never saw her quit, right up through the end she carried herself with a grace and courage I couldn't begin to emulate if placed in her position.

From day one she encouraged me to read. By the time I was 6, I must have had hundreds of little golden books. I remember 2 book shelves crammed full of them. She worked two jobs to provide for my brother, sister and I. When I fell far short of her expectations and my own potential, she loved me anyway.

I remember a letter she sent me when I was in the Missouri State training School for Boys, in Boonville Mo. Even though more than 30 years have passed, and that letter has long been lost, the content of it has stayed with me. She sent me a copy of Dickens Great Expectations. Inside the book was a letter. She told me that I could turn it around, that my time in Boonville was just a bump in the road. She told me that she had high hopes for me, great expectations. She closed as she always did, with much love.

Throughout the remainder of her short life, Reba never gave up on me. She always had high hopes for me, in spite of my best efforts to prove her wrong. There came a point when she must have known that it was out of her hands. She was wise enough to know that sometimes the people who need help the most, don't want it. So you love them and and hope in time they get it right. That's what she did, right up to the end.

So this ones for you Reba, it's been a long and bumpy road, but I think I'm finally turning it around.

For The Juice.....

Everyone knows a Quinn. That person in your group of friends and associates who has a perpetual smile affixed to his mug. In a normal circle of friends, a guy who smiles a lot, never gets in trouble with the law, graduates and goes on to a square world career, is the rule rather than the exception. In my world, Quinn was the exception to the rule. Most of the people I came up with, went on to become criminals, addicts, strippers, hookers, dope dealers, so success stories were few and far between. That's not to say that Quinn was the only person I knew who wasn't a complete detriment to society, but he was definitely in a minority.


Southwest High School, I'm fresh out of Boonville Missouri state training school for boys, I'm 15, 16 years old, well on my way to becoming a major league detriment to society. In my mind there was only one road worth taking, the wrong one. At this point, I'm already done with school, had a GED which I picked up in between fights, trips to the hole, and the infirmary, Booneville being a Gladiator School in the juvenile justice system. When I came back out into the world, I had a mindset that would stay with me for 25 years or better. In the afternoons when classes would let out, there was a group of 20 or so who would meet up along the street that ran along the north end of the high school. We would bullshit, pose, smoke dope, and wait for the few people we knew who were actually still in school. Girlfriends, a few guys who were either smart enough, or had parents strict enough, to keep them in school. Quinn was one of those, and he would always come out of those doors with that big grin stuck to his mug. He was one of us, even though he couldn't have been any less like the majority of us.


Most of us had known one another since grade school, although our group dwindled over the 8 or 10 years of school up to that point. The kids who matured and took the normal path fell to the wayside, either rejected by the group, or smart enough to stay away. But a few still maintained ties, refusing to move on to more sensible friends. Quinn was in that group. As the years gave way, school was replaced by jobs for some, criminal careers for others, we would slowly loose that close knit bond. Still we crossed paths on a fairly regular basis, parties, bars, going about our daily business, even though most were of an illicit nature. I moved to Midtown, most of the guys I knew moved there as well. But Quinn stayed home, in the same house he had grown up in, went to college, or some kind of school, became a paramedic. That was a big deal in our circle, Quinn was a big deal in our eyes.


You have to understand that most of us, this loose knit circle, were already lost, already deep in to whatever vice, habit, lifestyle, criminal career, give it a name. We had all started down our chosen paths, and the majority of those journeys wouldn't end well. Now that's not to say that any one of us couldn't have changed direction, most just chose not to. That mindset is a hard one for most square world people to grasp, the logic is twisted, and reasoning is absent from the equation. The ignorance of youth aside, I think most of us knew things would end badly, or abruptly, prematurely. The conclusion foregone, a given. So we held Quinn, and maybe a couple of others, to a higher standard. I guess he was like a symbol, a saving grace, proof any one of us could have been better if we had wanted to be. I doubt that sentiment was something we were conscious of, and since 30 years have come and gone, maybe I'm just choosing to dress shit up, soften the edges, but that's how I remember it today.


So I'd see Quinn around from time to time, we weren't close, but we had that history of our youth, and it was always good to see that he was still staying clean, doing some good, being a responsible person. It also annoyed me, to be honest, at the time I just assumed we had so little left in common that a few minutes of small talk was all I could stand. Truth be told I was probably a little jealous, or envious, or maybe his success and security, made my life seem shallow and lacking. Whatever the case, by the time I was 20, we seldom crossed paths, and the conversations were short.


I've written about how some people like to rub elbows, brush up against the darker, seedier side of life. They aren't criminals, they work jobs, lead otherwise productive lives, but every now and then they like to play the part. You might recall the story about Gina, who I wrote about here. Her story was different than Quinn's, she did what she did for different reasons than his. But they were similar in one respect, they were drawn, or attracted to the seamier side of life. They weren't alone, square people who associate with criminals are a dime a dozen. It's hard to really explain it, this often fatal attraction, but I'll try.


There are really only two kinds of career criminals, and the difference is in their motive, the reason they do what they do. Call it the Juice, the thing that makes them tick. For me, the money was the juice. The criminal act was just a means to an end, there was no thrill in the commission, or at least it wasn't what drove me, the reward was the payday. The other type of career criminal, the payoff is the act. Most bank robbers and arsonists are a good example. There are easier and more profitable ways to make your money than robbing banks or burning down shit for hire. The juice for them is the crime itself, the money is secondary, almost an after thought. It's the rush, the risk, that's what makes em tick. The act itself is the juice. Square people who dance around the edge, rub elbows with criminals, do it for the rush. That's their juice. It also rarely ends well.


Like I said, I only saw Quinn every once in awhile. We were never really close, we didn't go out of our way. I ran into him at a mutual acquaintances house one day, hadn't seen him in probably a year. He was gaunt, nervous, hyper, eyes bright in the same way a persons eyes are bright when they have a high fever, or are a little crazy. He was leaving as I came in, we exchanged a hey, a whats up, and he was gone. The guy told me Quinn was on that end, coked up. Lost his job, his medical license or whatever paramedics have. He was there to borrow money, that's what this particular guy did. He loaned money, fenced shit. We both gave the head shake and sigh, maybe threw in a shoulder shrug and a "what can you do?", and that was the last I thought about it for another 6 or 8 months.


I don't recall if someone told me, or I first heard about it on the news, or in the paper. Quinn left a bar in Waldo one night, his last night. I later heard he had a good size chunk of cash on him at the time, but that could have just been talk. What is certain, his body was found rolled up under a bush in Loose park, partly covered in the snow. A jogger or someone walking their dog found him, just as still, and just as dead as he could be. There was a coroners inquest, he died of a cocaine over dose. I heard a lot of talk afterwards. He was robbed, he died in someones home from doing too much dope, somebody intentionally gave him a hot shot to steal whatever he had. You tend to hear plenty of rumor and conjecture when someone dies like that, so who knows what the truth was. They say his mother was inconsolable, and I heard she did what more than a few parents do when they lose a child, she left his room untouched, like a shrine, and went slightly mad. I didn't go to the funeral, and to be honest, much as the case was with Gina, I didn't give it much thought over the years. Quinn's story wasn't unique at that time and place, neither was Gina's. I knew plenty of Quinn's and Gina's.


Time runs on a loop. You reach a certain age, you start remembering things, reminiscing. Reruns of the mind . Lately I find myself replaying shit in my head, thinking about people and places in time I'd long since put behind me. The Quinns, the Troys, the Ginas , the only traces of them left behind are enshrined childhood bedrooms, broken hearted family members, grave markers, and mental reruns.


You can't help but feel a little guilt. You wonder why some people had their tickets punched early, while you managed to make it through mostly in one piece. I used to think it was just luck of the draw, the right place at the wrong time. But now I think it comes down to being out of your element, in over your head. Some people are so attracted to certain things, they get tunnel vision, they lose sight of the risk. They gotta have the juice, even if it kills them. Sometimes it does.

It gets so you don't mind it. That's the worse thing I have to confess.

Funny the things that will jar the memory, bring it all rushing back in a moment. I made a pick up for work last week and had one of those moments. I was at a local home for boys a week ago Saturday. It was pouring rain in buckets when I pulled up in front of one of several large old brick buildings. The kids were just coming back from supper, a fairly even mix of white and black, ages ranging from about 8 to 13. Three 20 something staff members charged with their care, looking bored, going through the paces, putting in time of their own. I had to ring a bell to get in, the rain was creeping down the back of my neck, no hair on my head to slow it down. I'm thinking to myself "this job sucks". I wasn't thinking, "This place is familiar, been here done this".  When the staff member let me in, practically a kid himself, young black guy in dreads, I stepped into the entryway my only thought was this is my last stop of the day. Then it hit me. The smell. All institutions that house people have "The Smell". I can't really describe it, a scent is a hard thing to put in words. Best I can explain it is to say that the smell of these places, boys homes, prisons, mental institutions, they all have this smell. Decades of sweat, shit, piss, old paint, industrial cleaners.  Al Pacino as Tony Roma delivers a line in Glengarry Glen Ross "All train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don't mind it. That's the worst thing that I can confess. You know how long it took me to get there? A long time."  That pretty much sums it up. You enter the institutional life at an early age and your senses are assaulted with that smell. After 5 or ten years it gets so you hardly notice it. You give up, you resign yourself to a particular thing. This is your life and there's nothing you can do but try to get through the moment.

That's how it starts. You grow accustomed to it all. You give in and up. That's how you get through it, you stop giving a damn.

I'm standing in the hallway, and all I want is to pick up the package and get out of there. But the package is locked up in another building across the campus, so I wait while one of the bored staff members goes to get it. The entryway is an institutional yellow. Not a bright sunny Martha Stewart Living yellow. More of a brownish yellow, like bile more so than daisies.

Then the sounds give my senses another wake up. The two remaining staffers are bitching at the kids, about a dozen of them total. They are going on about how this chore wasn't done right and there won't be any TV time until it is. A few of the boys are popping off, nothing like a little defiance to get you through the day to day same sameness. I can tell the staffers are holding back, on their best behavior because there is someone else in the building, an outsider, in this case me. The guy who went to get the package comes through the door, soaking wet, slightly pissed, he hands me the package, mumbles something I don't understand. I can't get out of there fast enough, away from the smell, the past. As I turn to leave, a black kid all of 8 or 9,  asks me where I'm going. I tell him I'm taking the package to a hospital. He asks if he can go with me. I tell him " Man, you don't want to go there". He looks up at me, all brown face and almond eyes as I move past him. Maybe I'm just getting sentimental as I get older, or maybe I am just reading too much into a nothing moment, but he gives me a look. That look says, "I'd rather be anywhere than here old man".

" All train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don't mind it. That's the worst thing that I can confess. You know how long it took me to get there? A long time."

The more things change the more they stay the same. In 1972 I started the Juvenile Delinquent circuit, Highview, McCune, group homes, halfway houses, a short stint in Western Missouri Mental health Center, and the cherry on the shit sundae, Missouri State Training School for Boys, or Boonville for short. By the time I hit prison I was like Ricky Roma, it got so I didn't mind. That's the worst thing I have to confess.

This all took place 9 days ago and I can't stop thinking about that kid, that look, those 5 words. "Can I go with you".  The entire incident lasted maybe 10 minutes, but I can't shake it. Maybe I'm just prejudiced by my own history, but I didn't see any signs that the institutional methods of dealing with these troubled kids had changed much over the past 30 or 40 years. House em, keep em busy, move em around like cattle from one place to the next, each one a little worse than the one before. When they reach a certain age you turn them out into the world, worse off than when they left it. If you ask me what the better solution is I'd be at a loss for an answer. But I can tell you the answer to how it will end. If you have been reading me for any time, you already know the answer, how it turns out. And I'm one of the success stories. I finally woke up after 30 years. Ain't that a bitch.