Big Brother is Watching (or, Weapon of Gas Destruction)

Sometimes a kid would simply tick you off so much that you just wanted to put him in a headlock until he begged for mercy and promised never to do anything bad again. Seriously. If you've worked in direct care for some time—or even if you're just a parent—I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But alas, we live in a society that has its limits and controls and affords us a semblance of freedom only if we refrain from doing bad. And so for moral as well as practical reasons, we must regulate our impulses. Else, we be no different from the anarchic kids I served, who made the ruffians in "Lord of the Flies" look like pansies.

To compensate for not being able to act on one's impulses, however, those who work in direct care with mega-hyper, mega-disrespectful, mega-obstinate, mega-aggressive kids necessarily develop certain strategies for handling the stresses of the job. Also known as "coping skills," these methods vary in their self-destructiveness: some of us take up drinking excessively, some take up smoking, some develop tics, some take prescription sedatives, and some take up chronically cussing and venting to their coworkers. And some take up all of the above.

Anyway, one coping skill I spontaneously discovered one day was to pass gas on a kid who deserved it. Here's how it all began.

Lara and I directed a client to take a time out because he was being rude and disruptive during a therapeutic "team building" group (aka, kickball) that Lara was running. This client, a challenging (to put it mildly) fifteen-year-old named DeShawn, refused to serve the time out.

DeShawn was a challenging (again, an understatement) persona all around, the kind of kid only a mother could love. Except, even his mother didn't love him, else he wouldn't have been in residential placement for the reasons he was.

Now, when I suggest he was hard to love, I'm sure there are people who could find it in their hearts to love this child, including when he crapped in his pants and then refused to shower, when he cussed you out, when he refused to follow your directions, when he spit on you, when he tried to hurt you physically—all on a moment-to-moment basis of every single day, for weeks on end. Yeah, there are surely some Mother Teresa types out there who probably could find a special spot in their heart for DeShawn. But, unfortunately, I just couldn't find this place in mine.

I have possessed overwhelming sympathy for virtually every single kid I have ever served. But DeShawn simply made the list of the one or two kids in over seven years whom I simply could not develop a fondness or feel sufficient pity for, because his behaviors were so aggressive, mean spirited, and intentionally infuriating. I knew his monstrous nature was not originally his fault, but he was a monster nonetheless, and he flaunted this persona by smearing it in your face every day.

Anyway, Lara and I forced DeShawn to serve his time out by grabbing him on each forearm and leading him to the time out area (a particular spot on the floor adjacent to a wall). He offered minimal resistance getting there, but once on the spot he kept trying to get up. So, Lara and I continued to hold each forearm of this rather large young man—nearly six-foot tall and about 235 pounds—and we held him down by pressing down on his shoulders with our other hand.

(This physical enforcement of time outs was standard practice at my place of employment at one time; however, any hands-on method of compliance was later prohibited—in my opinion, to the detriment of the clients. For, they then had the green light to be as disruptive, defiant, and oppositional as they wanted to be no matter the circumstance, as our only allowed response was to verbally encourage them to stop misbehaving. If they refused to heed our imploring, we were essentially powerless to do anything else about it. In fact, many of the staff resorted to bribes, which only made things worse, as some of the kids realized they could always demand more and more loot and keep getting these rewards for their escalating badness. So, the kids were empowered to run the show, and they simply learned that terrorizing others into yielding to their demands pays off—and pays well.)

So, as Lara and I held DeShawn in place, I suddenly felt the urge–as every human does at times—to pass gas. But instead of holding it in, as decorum requires, I got the brilliant idea to vent some of my frustrations toward DeShawn on DeShawn himself, in a relatively harmless yet potent way. Thus, I pointed my caboose at DeShawn's head and let loose.

Lara and I instantly groaned and croaked, trying to stifle our laughter, as we attempted to maintain some semblance of professionalism. But Latisha, sitting at the staff desk, cried out, "Mr. Dave! I can't believe you did that!" And we ached even more to explode in laughter.

Suddenly, the unit phone rang. Latisha answered it, listened for a moment, looked at us gravely, and then hung up. She then turned to Lara and I and said, "That was Brandt (our supervisor). He was watching on the cameras and just asked if Dave farted on DeShawn's head."

Lara and I looked at each other grimly. We thought we were in trouble ourselves.

"Dave, he said for you to be more subtle next time."

God, it hurt so much trying to hold back the tsunami of guffaws now trying to force their way out of my body and head—that I just couldn't do it, and I let loose in an explosion of laughter, as did Lara. And, man, it felt so darn good to finally adequately "vent" my frustrations with DeShawn. So good, that tears came to my eyes.


********

© 2008 David Lee Cummings