The Assthrax Incident

There were numerous occasions in which a child would attempt to, or would successfully, sneak prohibited contraband into the unit from a home visit. Once, a very clever and disturbed nine-year-old boy snuck in a four-inch long folding hunting knife. We discovered it only as he threatened to press it into his chest during a manic outburst. A coworker was fortunate enough to snatch the knife away from the boy as he was distracted. Needless to say, from that point on we always did a thorough strip search of that child after every home visit.

Another time, a female teen was caught trying to sneak in something a little less dangerous than a knife—yet still a "pointed" implement, if you will. Two female coworkers noticed a bulge in the middle of the teen's chest as they were checking her in from her visit. The coworkers took the teen into a bathroom and had her remove her shirt, and as she did, a vibrator slid out from under the middle of her bra and fell onto the floor. We all had a good laugh over this one, for we really couldn't chastise the girl for trying to add a little excitement to her forced stay in a locked and depressing institutional milieu.

But no other contraband story quite compares to "The Assthrax Incident." This one is a classic.

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Joey was an eleven-year-old Caucasian boy who was very devious and sly, and also quite troubled. He once snuck out of the short term residential unit by every day picking away at the caulking around the window fan in the boys bathroom, until one evening he was able to remove the fan and slide through the opening. After noticing that Joey was taking an unusually long time in the shower, a coworker knocked on the bathroom door. When there was no answer, the coworker unlocked the door and went into the bathroom, only to discover it empty and a hole in the window and the fan hanging by its wires.

Apparently, however, Joey's cunning went only so far, as he had a plan to sneak out of the bathroom and onto the fourth-floor rooftop at night, but he had not thought out how to get down from there. A couple of coworkers were able to get onto the roof through a door—one coworker, a big muscular guy, tiptoeing gingerly and slowly across the flat, rock-covered roof; the other, a part-time flying instructor and born into a family full of doctors, bounding across the roof with reckless abandon and absolutely no fear—and they corralled Joey back into the unit.

After this incident, Joey was "demoted" to the crisis unit. Where "The Assthrax Incident" occurred.

One day, Joey went on a home visit and returned a day or two later. Later during the day of his return to the crisis unit, a couple of coworkers found a picture from a porn magazine folded up and hidden under his mattress. Naturally, they confiscated the picture. Antwone later showed up for work and found the picture folded up on the staff desk. Out of curiosity, he unfolded it and took a pleasurable gander at it.

Suddenly, Lara came from the back hallway where the bedrooms were located and screamed at Antwone as she rushed toward him.

"Antwone! Put that down!"

"What, woman? Not like I've never seen something like this before."

"No, you don't understand. Joey had that up his ass!"

"What the—! What are you talking about?"

"Joey had that folded up and snuck it onto the unit by shoving it up his ass. I was just in his room talking to him and that's what he told me."

Antwone immediately dropped the picture. "Shit! And I've been touching my face!" He then sniffed his hands and ran to the staff bathroom.

Lara then stuffed the picture into the trash and followed Antwone to the bathroom to wash her hands. As she entered it, she discovered Antwone in a state that she would often describe later with much animation and laughter: "And when I went in there, he had the hand soap lathered all over his hands and face. His head was like a big ball of white foam! And he was scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing! It was hilarious!"

When I heard about this event the next day, I, like all of my coworkers, had a tremendous laugh over it. And suddenly the label popped into my mind, which I just had to share with Antwone and Lara: "Hey guys, you know, that's forever going to be known as 'The Assthrax Incident.'"

And so it is.


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© 2008 David Lee Cummings

Damn Tooth Fairy

Isaiah was a small African American eight-year-old boy with wide-set eyes and a bulbous head shaped somewhat like a light bulb. He looked a bit like a miniature version of NBA player Sam Cassell. As well, one of his upper front teeth was missing, giving him a cute smile and a tenacious frown.

Isaiah was also born a crack baby and now couldn't sit still to save his life. He perpetually shifted, wriggled, got up, jumped, jiggled, readjusted, wandered off, spaced out, got sidetracked, impulsively spoke out of turn—whatever ... except sit still.

One morning, Isaiah awoke early and approached a coworker, an obese Anglophile man named Calvin Humperdink who never seemed to wear a shirt that would fully cover his rotund, pearly white, baby smooth belly.

"Mr. Calvin, can you throw this away for me?" Isaiah asked.

"What is it?" Calvin asked, looking down at the minute object in Isaiah's hand.

"It's my tooth," he said, holding up the white chunk of calcium and separating his lips to display his teeth. Isaiah had lost the other of his two upper front teeth. "I've had it under my pillow for the past two nights, but the damn tooth fairy never came. So now I just want to throw it away."

"Oh, Isaiah, I'm sorry. I guess no one let the tooth fairy know you had lost a tooth. Why don't you put it under your pillow one more time tonight, and I'll be sure to tell the tooth fairy to come visit you."

"Okay," Isaiah responded in a sad, little voice, and moped back to his room.

And that night, thanks to the grace of Humperdink, the tooth fairy indeed finally paid a visit to little Isaiah.


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© 2008 David Lee Cummings

Disclaimer

Please allow me to express that, although this blog focuses on many of the humorous and perhaps even shocking incidents I have engaged in and witnessed in my experience working with children, I and others have done a lot of good work in our time. Though our efforts at times may have bordered on the unprofessional, I think it is because of our willingness to be human beings in front of our clients that we were often able to earn their trust and make progress with them in ways not possible were we to be sterile and clinical automatons who rarely displayed a hint of humanity.

We have loved our little angels, and I think it showed.


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© 2008 David Lee Cummings