Locker Wars

Over the years, a few of us staff at Apple Tree Orphanage engaged in a series of battles collectively christened the Locker Wars. The epic struggle for locker supremacy begot a cycle of supreme victories and anguishing defeats.

Here's how it worked: Our unit had eight small, metal lockers stacked in a casing in the staff office, each locker about twelve inches high, by six inches wide, by eight inches deep. The lucky eight of us who had a locker acquired it at some point through seniority, nepotism, or timing.

Anyway, a few of us locker overlords, who each worked a different shift, engaged for some time in guerilla locker warfare against one another in which we'd give the other guy hell by doing something cruel and unusual to his locker, or to him via his locker. Hence, the next time we worked our shift, we each expected our locker to have received a guerilla attack "in the night." Back and forth we struck, retributing one dirty prank with another.

Here are some of the battles we waged:

• I believe the very first Locker War skirmish occured when my shift partner, Justin, and I surprise attacked the locker of our coworker Martin, who worked a different shift from us, by stuffing it full of Cheerios via a small square hole along the bottom rim of the locker door. This attack was Justin's idea, and it was a stroke of genius. We heard later that Martin opened his locker, and hundreds of tawny Cheerios poured out in a rockfall onto the floor, which Martin had to subsequently vacuum up. Ha ha.
  
  Get this: I then followed up this offensive with another by taking a digital picture of Martin's photo on a wall in a hallway of the Orphanage -- a wall where our horrendous badge photos hung, I guess to illustrate some kind of organizational unity or to project some other kind of image (maybe humilation of the photo subjects?) -- and Photoshopped Martin's image into a Wild West "Wanted" poster with more or less the following text:
  
  "WANTED DEAD or ALIVE: The Cheerios Bandit.
  
  "Wanted for stealing Cheerios from innocent children.
  
  "Reward: 500 bonus tokens.
  
  "Caution: He may be armed and dangerous with a jug of milk."
  
  I posted the "Wanted" flyers in a multitude of various places, including one on Martin's locker, one in an obscure wing in the Orphanage, and one in the staff janitorial closet. I had made Martin infamous.
  
  
• Martin counterstruck by taking a styrofoam cup full of glitter and blowing the tiny glitter squares into my locker, via the square hole in the rim of the door, through a straw. He blew enough glitter into my locker that, when I opened it the next time I worked, it looked like a snowstorm of colorful sparkles had settled on everything in my locker. It was a Winter Wonderland of tinsel confetti on my stuff.
  
  
• In response, I filled a styrofoam cup with glitter about a third full and placed it right above Martin's locker, which was on the top row of lockers, and taped one end of a black thread to the cup and the other end to the locker door. I attempted to make the thread as inconspicuous as possible. The punch line would be that Martin would open his locker door, thereby pulling the cup off the top of the lockers and spilling all of the glitter onto him and the floor. Unfortunately I guess I didn't hide the thread well enough, and Martin discovered the contraption as he began to open his locker. He dismantled it without incident, foiling my clever counterstrike. Damn.
  
  
• Okay, fast forward a couple of weeks: My coworker Brant, covering for Justin, and I come in one night and discover that Martin accidentally left his locker unlocked (O, how we never forget to lock them now!). Heh, heh. This was going to be good. Really good.
  
  Brant took Martin's badge from the locker, wrapped it up in masking tape, and wrote, "Hi, I'm Martin," on it. He then taped a tampon onto the badge and taped the end of the tampon string to the ceiling of the locker, hanging it as a humiliating greeting for Martin the next time he worked.
  
  I, co-conspirator, took the joke a little further. I then plastered the inside of Martin's locker with a whole bunch of stupid stickers of some sort. I next took a styrofoam cup half-full of glitter and set it on some stuff in his locker, and tied a string between the cup and the door. I took another string and tied it between the door and a cup of glitter perched atop his locker (the decoy).
  
  When Martin next worked, he found the cup (the decoy) atop his locker and removed it, thinking he had successfully averted a viscious locker attack. He then cocksuredly opened his locker and -- boom! -- was showered, by the cup inside, in a blast of tiny fluttering sparkles. After that humiliation and ego-injury, he was then greeted by his flattering, "Hi, I'm Martin," tampon badge.
  
  
• Another time, Martin ambushed our coworker Alvin, who never bothered to put a lock on his locker, with a brilliant prank. Alvin came to work one night, and when he opened his locker, it was stuffed full of boys underwear nicked from the boys clothing closet. Alvin immediately knew it was Martin's doing and, like the rest of us, had a good, hearty laugh over it.
  
  
• Yet another popular surprise attack has been to coat the backside of a coworker's lock with peanut butter, margarine, lotion, or some other foul-feeling substance. Occasionally we're vigilant enough to check our lockers for booby traps before we begin the process of opening it, but more often than not, we rush right in and mindlessly grab our lock and—Crap! I got suckered again!
  
  I'll tell you what, peanut butter becomes an utterly filthy, disgusting mess when smeared across the fingers and palm ...
  

***

There were other battles in the "Locker Wars," but I shall continue the recounting of them at a later time.

********

© 2008 David Lee Cummings

Jesus & the Coal Miner's Daughter

Cara was a thin teenage girl who spoke with an awkward and hesitant quiver in her voice. She was relatively good natured with mid-length straight blond hair and large, thick glasses. She was, I believe, of Appalachian blood and reminded me of a sort of modern day Laura Ingalls from the frontiers of a riverside trailer park.

At the time, I had my hair grown out in a long and thick mop of mangy waviness rippling down to my shoulders, and I possessed a full, moderately close-cropped beard. For reasons I cannot imagine, Cara one day took to calling me "Jesus."

She enunciated the syllables with a deliberate cadence in her quivering Bluegrass drawl, sounding not unlike Dana Carvey's "The Church Lady": "Jee-zuss." She then smiled at herself with an immense visage of self-satisfaction at having thought of the clever moniker.

Her barb was good natured, but as I prided myself on always keeping an upper hand on the taunts between the kids and me, I had to think of a retort quickly, lest I lose my perch of superior wisdom and wit. I smiled at Cara and offered, "Oh, yeah?" to stall for time to think of something good.

"Yeah!" she responded.

"Okay, no problem," I said. "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Cara's jaw dropped. She took on a look of incredulity, a loss for words. She gazed around for help, but all she saw were my coworkers laughing apparently at our comedic name-wrangling and the fact that I had pinned down her counter-ego so precisely. She huffed a few times, and then retorted, "Jesus."

"Coal Miner's Daughter."

"Jesus."

"Coal Miner's Daughter."

Later I discovered that my coworkers were not only laughing at our tussle of nit-wits, but also at my naivety. Apparently I was too simple to see that Cara's barbs emanated from a crush she had on me. A very innocent crush, no doubt, but a crush nonetheless, and prudent to discourage. Once I realized this, I kept vigilant about our interactions.

Yet, I could not resist, and I continued evermore to christen Cara as our resident "Coal Miner's Daughter."

And I continued in the role of "Jesus."

Amen.

********

© 2008 David Lee Cummings

McGuyver

Some of the kids I enjoyed most were the ones with ingenious minds, good or bad as they were. They were intellectual masterminds -- high logical IQs, though perhaps low emotional IQs. Even though they were deprived in many ways, their intellect still found a way to express itself in spite of all the soul had been through.

One of these unbreakable spirits was Stewart. He loved his Legos and paper and whatever raw material he had to work with. He could build anything out of nothing. Like a Buddhist mind. He even had a buzzed head, almost bald -- the Buddhahead buzz cut common among white kids at the time.

I had a natural affinity to Stewart, whom we affectionately called "McGuyver." I loved to spend time with this kid. Building whatever. A Lego city of various colors. A set or origami creatures from paper -- I don't even know what now. I just recall that he could build things out of anything. He was a clever kid, sharp as a tack. But with just a snowball's chance in hell of a normal life that could channel his talents in any meaningful way.

I fell in love with that kid. Yearned for him to have a productive life that offered him happiness and enabled him to express his talents.

***

A couple of years after Stewart discharged I was able to visit him. He was living in one of our facilities in another city about 60 miles away. I went there with a case worker who was visiting another kid for some unrelated reason.

I found Stewart, hanging out at his cabin of sorts and playing with an R/C car. He remembered me, but as I reached out to hug him, his response was cold. As if he had been through this before -- the adult once in his life who was no more, the shoulder to lean on that withdrew its perch, the advocate just like all others who got lost in the shuffle, not really there for Stewart when it mattered most, but just a cog in the system that felt some pity but not enough to snatch him up and take him home. Why should he bother to hug me back? Why should he care? Essentially, no one else really cared about him.

And then I understood a great deal. A great deal. A goodly little bit about how meaningless even my empathy and sympathy and pity was to these tortured souls who'd endured so much. Unless I could do something to change their lives, what good was my presence in their lives? I crossed their paths -- so, what difference did I truly make?

I left Stewart with a heart broken in my chest. I have agonized about him to this day, as I have agonized about many of our kids. I wonder if he has done okay. I would love to know.

********

© 2007 David Lee Cummings

The Boy with an Ordinary Name

This first group of kids, of course, was a challenging bunch. Yet, over the years, I would encounter clients who would be even greater threats to my safety as well as my sanity.

During the following several weeks after my first day at the orphanage, in fact, the client composition would change dramatically. A few of the kids would discharge—and be out of sight and nearly out of mind forever—and others would take their place, others of a far more dangerous and disturbing nature.

One of these replacements was Mikey Smith, a boy with an unassuming, typically ordinary name. Mikey Smith—must be the football team's backup tight end … or glee club member … … or friend’s second cousin … or someone else mundane and harmless.

But Mikey Smith belied his name. Mikey Smith was a psychopath. An undersized, thirteen-year-old psychopath driven by circumstances to inflict torment upon others.

One day Mikey told me how he had literally stabbed his step-father in the back. In a raspy, soft, serene voice he said, "He was on a ladder cleaning the gutters. I ran up the ladder and stabbed him in the back with a kitchen knife."

"What? What'd you do that for?" I asked.

"Because he deserved it."

“He deserved it?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

"Why did he deserve it?"

"'Cause."

"'Cause why?"

"Cause he is an evil man."

"Why do you think he’s evil?"

"He would whip me with a belt, call me 'stupid,' beat my mom. Punched my sister in the face once. I couldn't take it no more. So I stabbed him.” Mikey smiled

He continued: “It was funny. He has a fake leg, and after I stabbed him he tried to chase me. I ran away and laughed at him; he looked so stupid limping after me. He was yelling, "I'm gonna kill you, you little fucker!' But I just laughed at him."

"Gees.” I shook my head. “So … what happened later? I mean, didn't you have to go home and face him eventually?"

"Nah. My mom called the cops. And the ambulance came, and they took my dad to the hospital. The cops found me at a friend’s house and took me to juvie hall. Then I came here."

"Man." I didn’t know what else to say. I did know, however, from that day on to watch my back around Mikey.

***

One day, Mikey became aggressive and destructive in his room. I don’t recall exactly why, but it was likely because he didn’t get his way with something. Mikey often became aggressive simply when told ‘no.’”

What I do remember well is this:

A fellow staff member and I ended up having to physically restrain Mikey (manually hold him prostrate and face down against the floor, keeping his arms tight against his sides—for his and our safety alike) in his room. His neighbor on the RTU, a boy named Ronny Jones, started throwing pens and pencils into Mikey’s room. In spite of our firm prompts to stop, Ronny laughed and continued as if it were a game. Even from the floor, Mikey smiled and laughed heartily as if his restraint were part of some grand joke—whose punch line was his twisted life.

Mikey was a wiry, slippery, and tough kid. He managed to wriggle an arm free and grab one of Ronny's makeshift weapons. Just as he was going to stab me with it, I managed to snatch his wrist. He then bent his wrist and angled the tip of the pen against my skin and thrust as hard as he could: he managed to draw a short, crooked blue line up my wrist but fortunately did not pierce my skin.

Eventually my coworker and I were able to wrest the pen free from Mikey, and someone else helped out and was able to confront Ronny, forcing him to stop encouraging Mikey's frenzy and feeding him weapons. We collectively managed to take control of the situation and end the two thugs’ episode of terror. For the time being, anyway.

***

It wasn't long after that incident that Mikey and Ronny stirred an even greater, and comedic, madness.

One day I was on the RTU alone with Mikey and Ronny, as my two coworkers, Travis and Stacy, took the eight or so other RTU clients to the gym. Mikey and Ronny were prohibited from going off the unit with their peers because of earlier negative behaviors. So here I was, stuck in a small locked milieu with the two most volatile kids in our care. Naturally, the two took advantage of the situation to foment chaos.

They began running throughout the unit, climbing and overturning furniture, tearing down curtains and posters, and running into their peers’ bedrooms and taking their toys. I tried my best to keep up with them, but as soon as I got a hold of one, the other would be off pillaging; as I made for the other, the one would slip free.

Finally, I had an idea: I would toss one into a locked space called the Seclusion Room. The other, I would then be able to snatch up and control.

So, l captured Mikey and corralled him into the Seclusion Room. It was more or less a proverbial “padded room” in which we occasionally placed clients who were violently out of control and displayed little hope of calming down anytime soon. Except this room wasn’t padded: rather, it had concrete and steel walls, a hard tile floor, and a medium-sized thick-paned window on one side through which the staff could observe clients inside the room.

Very curiously, Mikey did not resist going into the Seclusion Room and actually smiled brashly as he entered it. I thought his response odd, but I attributed it to the insane psyche of Mikey Smith.

I tracked down Ronny and seized him by the arm, dragging him out of a peer’s bedroom and into the living room. I sat him down on a couch and firmly directed him to sit there quietly for a while. I then walked over to the Seclusion Room to check on Mikey.

Now, here’s where the story gets humorous.

I peered through the window of the Seclusion Room to check on Mikey. To my astonishment, inside the room with him was a podium that was usually kept just outside the Seclusion Room and used as a hard surface for staff to write on and keep up a log to document the use of the Seclusion Room. Somehow—through real magic or deception—Mikey had gotten that podium into the room with him.

Perplexed, I used my magnetic key to release the heavy electronic locks that secured the thick metal door of the Seclusion Room. With a gentle thunk the locks released and I opened the door and removed the podium.

“I don’t know how you did it, Mikey,” I said, “but don’t do it again. You need to stay in here until I let you out.” Mikey smiled mischievously. I shut the door once again, this time carefully observing to make sure the door was flush and the locks indeed fastened securely.

I didn’t know how he had done it. I thought perhaps the Seclusion Room door had malfunctioned or I had not shut it properly. Whatever happened, I didn’t feel comfortable at all being alone on the unit with Mikey and Ronny.

I then went into the staff office to call down to the gym for assistance. Ronny had remained on the couch as instructed when I had checked on Mikey, but now as I was on the phone, Ronny snuck away.

Suddenly, Mikey went running past the office window.

“What the—?” I said, then to my coworker on the phone: “Hang on, Travis, I got a kid on the loose!” I laid down the receiver and went chasing after Mikey. I was getting rather irritated now and was intent on getting Mikey back into that room. Then, I would find Ronny and give him a piece of my mind for wandering off.

I captured Mikey and then returned him to the Seclusion Room, but when I opened the door, inside stood Ronny.

“What the—?” I yanked Ronny out and threw Mikey back in, sat Ronny on the couch again, and then returned to the phone.

“Travis, you still there?”

“Yeah. What the hell’s going on up there?”

“Dude, you will not believe what has been happening. What the—?” Now, Ronny and Mikey were chasing each other in the living room, running in circles and giggling like carefree children. I dropped the receiver.

This time, as I threw Mikey back into the Seclusion Room, I checked his pockets and found a small, round piece of shiny metal in one of them. It was about the size of a dime and looked like a watch battery. It was the functioning component of a magnetic key! That’s how he was getting out of the Seclusion Room—using this key, which had obviously broken off the plastic housing of a fellow staff member’s key and which Mikey then found.

Mikey struggled with me as I took the key away from him, but I managed to seize the key and to shove him deep into the Seclusion Room as I slammed the heavy metal door shut before he could get his footing and try to dash out. His affect had changed, and now he was livid and belligerent. He began banging on the door, cussing me out, and spitting on the window. My, how the tables had turned.

Ronny came running toward the Seclusion Room when he heard the commotion, but I cut him off and told him in no uncertain terms to “Sit down!” on the couch. At that moment, the main door to the milieu opened up, and Travis and Stacy walked in with the other kids.

“What’s going on?” Travis asked.

“Dude,” I said, shaking my head, “you simply won’t believe it.”


********

© 2008 David Lee Cummings

"Interlinear"

A few things to keep in mind as you read on:

- The memory is an unreliable thing; I have recollected these events to the best of my abilities.
- I’ve kept true to the events but have embellished a detail here or there for dramatic effect.
- It's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain an accurate chronological sequence of events; apologies if I begin to skip around in time.
- Unless you were present for these events, you probably wouldn't have noticed any of these issues anyway.
- Enjoy the remainder of the narrative.

David

********

© 2007 David Lee Cummings

Ugly Kid

Vejee was a huge University of Kentucky sports fan. Well, a huge basketball fan; the football team's enduring struggles kept Vejee lukewarm about the pigskin program. (Indeed, everybody loves a winner.) Vejee was so crazy about UK, in fact, that he asked another staff and I to shave the letters "UK" onto his head.

It was a routine event for us to cut the kids' hair from time to time. We would get out a set of Wahl clippers and go to work -- on the boys. The girls required hairdressers of superior skills to ours. But the boys would get our standard clipper cuts with fades.

So, when another staff and I got out the clippers for the present round of hair cuts, Vejee begged us to shave "UK" onto his head.

"Please, please, please, Mr. Brent," he implored

"Are you kidding me, why would you want that trash on your scalp?" asked Brent, my coworker, fellow Purdue University alum, and longtime friend who actually got me hired at the orphanage (which is a long story and to be addressed at a later time in this narrative).

"What are you talking about? UK is the most awesomest team in the world."

"No way. Purdue is."

"Purdue sucks."

"UK sucks."

"Whatever. UK rocks."

"Whatever."

"Just do it, please?"

"Only if you say Purdue is the best team in the world and UK sucks."

"No way."

"Okay, sorry then. No UK in your head."

"Oh, alright." Vejee rolled his eyes.

"I'm waiting."

Vejee rolled his eyes again, then whined, "Purdue rocks, UK doesn't."

"That's not exactly what I said," Brent replied, at which Vejee sighed. "But it's good enough."

***

"Ha, ha, ha!" I laughed and pointed at the back of Vejee's head when Brent completed his haircut. (Brent and I had planned a little trick on Vejee.)

"What? What are you laughing at, Mr. Dave?" Vejee implored. "What did Mr. Brent do?"

"Well, he didn't shave UK in the back of your head, that's what he didn't do."

"What? Are you kidding me? What did he put? What did he put?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yes I do! What is it?"

"Um, it looks like 'PU' to me, for Purdue University."

"What? Are you joking? Mr. Brent, what did you put on my head?"

"What do you think I put? I put PU there, just like Mr. Dave said," responded Brent. "I couldn't let you go around with that other crap on your head. That just wouldn't be right."

"Yeah, Mr. Brent did you a favor, young man," I added. "You'll get your butt kicked with that UK crap. Now you'll walk around with dignity and respect from others."

Vejee looked like he was about to cry.

"Here, take this mirror and go into the bathroom and check it out," Brent told Vejee. "You'll like what you see. I promise you."

***

"You guys are not funny!" Vejee shouted at us as he returned to the main living area, where our makeshift barber shop was set up.

We busted out laughing. Brent had actually shaved "UK" onto the back of Vejee's head. We just wanted to torture him for a bit.

"Yeah, but I still didn't shave the University of Kentucky into your head," said Brent.

"Yes, you did."

"Nope. It doesn't stand for that. The UK stands for 'ugly kid.'"

"Shut up. No it doesn't."

We laughed and pointed at Vejee. "Ha, ha, ugly kid, ugly kid!"

"Shut up."

"What?" asked Brent. "No 'thank you' for your haircut?"

"Yeah, Vejee," I chimed. "You at least owe Mr. Brent a 'thank you' for your haircut."

"Whatever."

"Geesh," I said. "You do these kids a favor and they just disrespect you. What a shame."

"No matter," Brent responded. "If you're not man enough to thank me for your haircut, at least I'll be man enough to say, 'You're welcome ... ugly kid.'"

And we laughed some more.

***

We played this game a few more minutes before Brent and I finally reassured Vejee that we were just kidding and that the UK indeed stood for the University of Kentucky. Vejee had a good sense of humor, so it really didn't bother him. We picked on him like a little brother, and he enjoyed it, in spite of his ostensible protests.

In fact, to this day Vejee, at age 22, still keeps in touch with us, calling Brent and I each nearly every day. And we still dish out the insults to one another. Vejee frequently jokes that he's going to buy my four-year-old son a UK jersey; I joke that I'll burn it. We laugh. It's all in good fun.

********

© 2007 David Lee Cummings

That's Liposuction!

"That's liposuction!" exclaimed D.J. out of the blue, perfectly illustrating his penchant for non sequiturs.

"What?" I said.

"I said that's liposuction!"

"Uh, okay. Where'd you learn that word from?"

"From T.V. There was a show about it one time. They suck the fat out of your butt. And then they stick it in your forehead. I saw a guy on T.V. get that done."

"Are you talking about Geraldo Rivera?"

" I don't know his name."

"Probably was. Anyway, what's liposuction -- I mean, what do you mean by, 'That's liposuction'?"

"This toy." D.J. held out a remote control car.

"What's liposuction about it?"

"It sucks. Like liposuction."

I laughed. "Okay, so what's so liposuction about it?"

"It doesn't work right. I think it needs new batteries."

I got D.J. a new set of batteries, which indeed solved the problem.

***

A couple of weeks later, D.J. had a new expression.

"That's colonial village!" he exclaimed.

"What?" I responded.

"I said, 'That's colonial village!'"

"Okay, D.J. ... What's colonial village?"

"I can't have any Flaming Hot Cheetos." The kids were being served small bags of these spicy delicacies for their afternoon snack.

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

"His mom won't let him have any," Drew spoke up. Drew was one of my shift coworkers. He was a large man with a lumberjack beard and a wolf tattooed on his hairy chest. He usually wore a flannel shirt and a tattered tan canvass baseball cap.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because it apparently makes his lips break out in cold sores."

"That's colonial village!" D.J. responded.

I laughed. "Okay, now what's up with this phrase, 'colonial village'?"

"It's what it is. It's colonial village," said D.J.

Drew added, "We took them on an outing to this place called Colonial Village the other day after school. He's been saying that name ever since."

"Oh, I see," I said.

"What's a matter with you, son?" I said to D.J. "You got Tourette's or something?" I was joking.

"Yes."

"What? You do?"

"Yup, I've been diagnosed with a slight case of it."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Mr. Dave, you're colonial village!"

"And you're liposuction, D.J."

********

© 2007 David Lee Cummings