“Fuck off, prick! You too good to look where you’re going?”
I forced my eyes open to look toward the voice. An obese man with a patchy beard, multiple layers of greasy clothes, and a cardboard sign that was unreadable through the wet streaks of color running down the front bared his teeth at me. He was clutching at his right shoulder.
“You rich assholes think yer better ’n everyone else. Yer shit stinks same as mine!”
I bent down and picked up my bag from the puddle. Mumbling a hurried apology, I brushed past the man as he continued to rant until I was halfway down the block and something or someone else caught his attention.
At last, I stood in front of the large glass double doors of the towering building that held my gym. Doing my best to brush most of the sludge off my bag, I only managed to flick it onto my pants. With a growl, I wiped my hand off on my jacket and pulled open the door. I hit the up button of the elevator, my breath escaping in frustration. It always took forever for this elevator to arrive. I contemplated walking up the six flights of stairs to the gym but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. I’d probably trip or manage to drop my bag down severalflights of stairs. Might as well wait and build up a sweat on the stair-climbing machines—less height to fall from.
After three or four minutes, a ding announced the arrival of the elevator, and the doors slid open. I took a step forward, then stopped. My eyes widened as I took in the scene in front of me.
Inside the compartment, a man faced toward the rear of the elevator with his back to the door. He looked to be around six feet tall and wore a tweed jacket and matching pants. A briefcase was lying on the floor blocking the entrance. He had his arms bent in front of him and was swiveling his knees in what looked like his own version of the twist.
I watched as the man proceeded to shrug his shoulders and grind his hips. I wasn’t sure if I should walk away so I would not be caught staring, or if I should say something to make my presence known. I felt my face flush. This was humiliating. Walk away; I should definitely walk away. As I took a step back, at that moment, the man’s eyes opened and met my gaze through the mirror in the back of the elevator. We stared at each other, trapped in our own awkward universe. He paused in midgyration; an uncomfortable smile began to cross his face. I continued to stare stupidly while trying to figure out something to say.
The man dropped his arms to his sides, turned around to face the front, gave me a little wink, and bent to pick up his briefcase. As he straightened and began to walk through the doors, he gestured to one of his white earphones. “Nothing like the Beach Boys, right?” His voice was deep and overly loud due to the earphones, causing me to jump a little. Speechless, I managed to make my head create the smallest of nods.
Flashing me abrilliant smile, he slapped me on the shoulder as he stepped past. I continued to watch the man as he straightened his shoulders and walked casually through the lobby and out the front doors.
The man cut off my stare when he turned the corner and moved out of sight. I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the sixth floor. The elevator started its silent journey; I shook my head and muttered to myself, baffled by the man’s bizarre behavior.
Still thinking about the man in the elevator, I showed my ID to the woman at the front desk, changed clothes in the locker room, and headed to the workout area. The unexpected distraction of the scene had already helped me relax somewhat, and I quickly got lost in the country music serenading me through my iPod. I did a quick shoulder workout, doing my best to watch my form in the mirror while not really taking in my appearance. I was stressed enough; I didn’t need to make a list of all my imperfections.
After finishing my fifth shoulder exercise, stair-climbing didn’t sound good after all, so I hopped on the treadmill and ran. As the speed continued to increase, my brain was finally able to shut out everything around me. I didn’t have to worry about my interview with Lester and what his questions implied. It didn’t matter that in a couple of weeks my life would be changing, going in a completely different direction than I’d been planning for years. It didn’t bother me that I’d be spending Christmas alone, with the phone turned off just in case someone uncharacteristically might decide to call. It didn’t matter that I’d once again be going home to another night of frozen leftovers, endless sitcoms, and the prospect of rereadingHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkabanfor thefifth or sixth time. There were no thoughts of who I used to be, where I came from, all my plans that never came to fruition, or of how my family and I would probably never be able to live together in peace again. I barely noticed that several of the men and women in the sparsely filled workout area would occasionally glance in my direction. All that mattered was the adrenaline rushing through my veins, the sweat running down my back, fiddles wailing in my ears, and the pounding of my feet.
I awokethe morning of January 8 in a cold sweat thirty minutes before the alarm began screeching. I glanced out the window; sunrise was just beginning to show promise, the snow on the ground illuminating my front yard. I lay there, trying to calm my heart. It seemed as if I could feel every molecule in my body, and each one of them was screaming in terror. I stayed in bed, the sheets down around my shins, trying to focus on breathing, trying to pray, trying to simply think. What if I just stayed in bed? What if I simply never left my house again? What if I just quit breathing and drifted away?
The alarm at the foot of my bed began to wail at the same moment the alarm in the bathroom let out its own high-pitched scream. With a groan of anguish, I leapt out of bed, punched the alarm closest to the bed, and proceeded to do the same to the one in the bathroom. I immediately made my bed and brushed my teeth. Before getting into the shower and shaving, I simply stared at myself in the mirror.
I glared into my blue eyes, criticizing what I saw within. Not the man I thought I would be. I took in my auburn hair and pale skin and the freckles that dotted my shoulders and back. Maybe they were cute when I was a kid, but they looked rather ridiculous on a grown man. Igrimaced at the muscles that stretched across my chest and wound around my arms. The more I looked, the more I felt my muscles made my five-foot-seven-inch frame seem even shorter and boxier than it already was. Not for the first time, I considered the possibility of quitting working out and trying to get skinny in the hopes of appearing lankier. I knew that wasn’t a real option for me. I would never have the discipline required to be slender. It was either stout and boxy or pudgy and round, and I had barely survived my childhood in such a state—I wasn’t going back.
What did it matter what I looked like, after all? I was a counselor now, and that’s one of the perks. I didn’t have to look good or attractive. I simply had to counsel.
I wished it were so simple. If I could be left alone with a room full of kids, I would have been fine. Even if they were mean kids and wanted to hurt me. It was dealing with the rest of the staff I was dreading. Adults are a lot more terrifying than kids. What if Lester wanted to play twenty-thousand questions again? What if other people saw the same things in me Lester must have seen? What could I do if this didn’t work out? I gave a growl of disgust as I pushed away from the mirror with a curse and stepped into the shower.
Two
Muchto 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 lookforward 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 havethe 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 hilariousthat 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.
