This is not where I worked; this is actually a juvenile detention center in Australia. Imagine Colorado trees and bushes and you have a good sense of what the facility I worked at looked like.
If I have any superpower it is writing.
The most important thing I learned in college and law school was effective, clear and (even in supposedly viewpoint neutral documentation - persuasive) writing. I will share a fictionalized account about the day I learned this was a superpower.
When I worked in juvenile corrections/psychiatric hospital, I had a supervisor, an LPN on night shift who slept through the shift. It was an open secret but nothing was done about it despite multiple complaints from workers. He was the golden guy, who managed to slough responsibility from himself to those under him. You don’t cross Craig, I was warned. I saw why a few weeks later as a fellow tech lost his job; it came down to his word vs. Craig’s. I always wondered if there was nepotism that gave Craig such power but never learned if that was the case. Maybe it was just white, male privilege, he and I were really the only two white males on staff.
Alone on night shift
Then came the fateful night, the night our female staff member called in sick and no female staff could be found to cover, leaving two men to watch over 36 adolescent boys (some convicted of attempted murder) and 16 adolescent girls overnight. And just like clockwork, at midnight Craig said, as usual, “I’m gonna get some shuteye, I’ll be up in a couple of hours and then you can take a nap.”
That meant Craig would sleep until 5AM, wake, apologize that he overslept and ask me to take care of the documentation for him. Back then we documented in handwritten charts; fortunately most was very minimal for night shift. Craig liked the couch in the visiting room, which meant that to wake him in an emergency I’d have to leave both the girls and boys units unstaffed - in a crisis. Worse yet, in these pre-cell phone days, there was no phone in the visitation room.
I told Craig this was a bad idea, we were short-staffed with no female staff at all. He laughed and said nothing happens on night shift.
introducing The lesbian with ‘penis Envy’
“Nothing” started happened at 2AM when a young woman on the girls unit had a nightmare.
She (we’ll call her ‘Amy’) was a favorite patient/inmate of mine; a proudly out lesbian in the 1990’s. I did not interact with the girls much; for obvious reasons - male staff worked the boys unit. But Amy was a favorite because one time she came to the nurses station to check out a cassette tape from her personal possessions box - the Go-Go’s she said. It was a white cassette tape with a transparent sticker with black lettering that LOOKED like a cassette label saying it was the Go-Go’s. Kids were not allowed mix tapes or unlabeled cassettes. Wouldn’t want any dangerous gangsta rap or satanic heavy metal, would we?
My first thought was why isn’t the label printed directly on the cassette itself? Some tapes did have stickers but that was rare. And very carefully pencilled to the left of the sticker was a tiny circular logo; the logo of the British Anarcho-Punk band CRASS.
I handed Amy the tape and said, “Which CRASS album is it?”
Her face registered surprise and fear. Punk rock was a musical no-no and per policy I should confiscate the tape and report it. After all, punk rock might encourage anti-social thoughts.
Before Amy could answer I added, “My favorite album is Stations of the CRASS.”
Relief poured across her face. In a conspiratorial whisper she said, “It’s Penis Envy.”
Not the cover art you might expect for a tour-de-force of feminism, is it? Highly recommended but remember: CRASS made art, not music.
Penis Envy is a masterpiece of punk rock feminism. For that album, the male lead singer, Steve Ignorant, had stepped back allowing singers Joy De Vivre and Eve Libertine to speak their powerful truths as women in bold, sarcastic and utterly uninhibited songs of women’s lived experiences. Personally, I could think of no music that was more appropriate for a young lesbian runaway to have access to.
With an absolutely straight face I told Amy that she was the first lesbian I had met who truly had Penis Envy. The was a second of silence where I doubted myself - had I crossed a line? Then, Amy laughed so hard other staff members turned. I smiled and loudly said, “You like the Go-Go’s? My favorite song is Our Lips Are Sealed.”
Again she laughed. From that point forward I was Amy’s favorite male staff; something that became critically important that night we had no female staff that I was alone on the floor.
Improvising with no backup
So, at 2:00AM when I heard a girl cry out, I ventured down the hall to her room doorway And discovered Amy awake from a nightmare. From the door’s edge reassured Amy’s roommate all was well and invited the Amy to the TV room (again, against policy, but what was I to do? Pull aside a 15 year-old girl for 1:1 counseling with male staff, no women present? Hell no).
Instead I let Amy pick a movie and watch it to calm down. I thought about going and waking Craig at that point but something told me do not leave the unit for any reason.
Bathroom hijinks
Over back to the boys unit to walk rounds. Let’s see, two boys in this room, two boys in that room, two boy - wait. Only one boy here. Bathroom empty. Holy shit, where is ‘Chris’?
Next room down the hall - one very awake boy, let’s call him ‘Tom’, who looked terrified to see me, one empty bed where ‘Paul’ slept and a closed bathroom door with light shining underneath.
“Don’t go in the bathroom!” Tom exclaimed before I asked. “Paul’s in there!”
“Is Chris with him?” I asked in a low voice.
Tom nodded mutely. I felt my stomach clench.
I knocked on the bathroom door. “Come out!” My voice was low. I did not want to wake the other 33 boys.
“No!” That was Chris, an ultra defiant, often angry kid. The one with multiple assault charges. The one I who I thought might be able to take both me and Craig and win. There was NO backup for me to get. I would not win. I felt dizzy with fear.
My training from working as a relief staff in domestic violence shelter saved me. What do you do when you cannot walk in on someone in the shelter to check on them? How to de-escalate?
“Are you both safe?” I asked, trying to keep panic from my voice.
Then Chris said, “What?” He didn’t expect that.
“Are you and Paul safe?” I repeated firmly.
Silence. Then a muffled “yes” from Paul and a “yeah” from Chris.
I followed up with “Are you both dressed?”
Silence. Then a very quiet double “no.”
“Ok, take your time and get dressed.” There, that bought me a minute. “then come out.”
Chris answered and he sounded hard. “What’s gonna happen to us? I can’t get into trouble, they’ll move me to jail!”
This was true, due to repeated incidents of fighting, Chris was on thin ice.
From the doorway came a new voice “What’s going on?” The other boys were hearing the noise, waking up.
“Hey,” I spoke in a low voice to the bathroom door. “Get dressed while I send the others back to their rooms. We’ll talk again in a minute.”
I turned to Tom, the remaining boy in the room, who had left his bed and was standing. I asked “Paul and Chris - they both wanted to be in there?”
“Nobody made the other do anything, right? They both wanted to go in the bathroom together, right?” I clarified in a whisper. He nodded. Hell yeah, that’s one nightmare off my plate.
I raised my voice, “Everybody back to bed. It’s under control, there is no problem.”
After repeating this a few times and moving to the hall, the other boys slowly returned to their rooms, murmuring.
I knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you decent?”
A murmured “yes” and I opened the door on two somewhat abashed teenage boys. Excellent, neither looked like they wanted to get physical. Keep them de-escalated.
“Hey, finish up getting dressed and meet me in the TV room. I’ll make popcorn.”
“We ain’t in trouble?” Chris asked, disbelief in his face.
“You probably are in trouble. But you are doing what I asked, you didn’t hurt each other, and I think we should talk before anyone does anything. What do you say?”
Paul saved my butt by saying “Yeah, ok.”
“Okay, I’m going to finish rounds, then I gotta check on the girls unit and make popcorn. I can trust you both to meet me in the TV room?”
Paul and Chris both nodded.
Promoting the kids to staff with no authority to do so
I smiled and threw the dice, “Good, because I am promoting you to Junior staff. Anyone comes out of their rooms while I am checking on the girls, you tell ‘em Andy has it under control and to go to bed. And that way nobody needs to know what you were up to. Sound good?”
It took a second for them to process but when they did, both nodded, looking confused. This was not going according to their fears.
I completed my rounds on the boys unit and found the Amy at the nurses station “I heard something, what’s going on? Where’s Sherri?”
Sherri was the female staff member who called out sick.
“Boys need me. Can I trust you to be junior staff?”
Amy nodded eagerly. I knew she’d want to help.
I took a deep breath. “Sherri called in sick tonight and it’s just me and Craig.”
Immediately she said, “You mean it’s just you.”
She knew Craig was useless. “Yep.”
“How can I help?” Kid was awesome. I was so proud of her.
“I’m unlocking the door between girls and boys unit. You don’t enter any other girls rooms, but check if everyone is in bed and let me know if anyone is out of bed by opening the door to the boys unit and I’ll see you from the Tv lounge.” She nodded earnestly and started to turn to go.
“Wait!” I called “You want popcorn?”
I started popcorn and returned to the boys. I did not give them a chance to speak.
“Here’s the plan. I have to report you, I have no choice. But I’m going to make it absolutely clear that you both cooperated, that it was consensual, that from the moment I caught you both of you were completely honest and helpful, got it? And Chris — what are you in trouble for? Fighting, right? So, I’m gonna make sure EVERYONE on staff knows you did nothing violent, nothing to make jail necessary. You both good with that?”
“Shake on it.” I demanded. “I stick up for you. I fight so whatever consequences there are - your cooperation gets real consideration and doesn’t get glossed over. You don’t give me shit tonight and do as I ask.”
They shook my hand. “Right, we have a deal. Chris, you sleep in the Isolation Room 1. I won’t lock it, the door stays open, the lights go out.”
Policy said that when a kid goes into Isolation lights are on for the first hour minimum and door was to be locked. I already felt I was on thin ice and Chris could turn ugly. I was not going to push him.
Chris nodded and looked relieved.
“Paul, you get the other isolation room. Same deal.”
I got the popcorn, made sure awesome Amy got a bowl when she opened the door to the boys unit to let me know everyone was in bed. Then I gave the boys their popcorn and we talked sports while they ate. When they were done, I sent them to bed in the isolation rooms.
And then I documented every fucking thing
Thanks to notes on my rounds board, I could give exact times, exact names and exact circumstances. I considered lying, pretending I did not unlock doors between the units, that I had not left the two boys alone to check on girls and make the promised popcorn. But immediately I knew that was dumb; the kids would tell them I did those things anyway. The only path forward was the best path forward: the truth.
I held nothing back. I reported the consensual sexual encounter between the boys but I gave both boys absolute praise for cooperating once caught, made it damn clear everything was consensual. I took time to very clearly note that Chris did not escalate to violence and that he even helped get boys back to their rooms under my directions.
Then I made sure my favorite punk rock girl got full kudos and I told how she had stepped up in the absence of staff and made sure all the girls were safe and in bed when I was handling the boys issue.
Finally, I turned my attention to the still absent Craig. I was factual but not kind. Methodically and with damning details I recounted his habit, my fear of reporting Craig for sleeping and that other night staff also felt Craig would retaliate if they told on him. I detailed how Craig deliberately chose a place off unit and without a phone for his ‘naps’. My fear of being beaten down by Chris, possibly with Paul or Tom joining in. I reasoned through my decisions to suddenly place the two causes of the problem into a minor role of responsibility and Amy into a major role of responsibility.
It was page upon page.
Aftermath
Amy went to bed before Craig awoke. I said nothing, let Craig assume things were good. He didn’t even know two boys were sleeping in the isolation rooms. As always Craig insisted on handling the shift change meeting with morning staff.
And that left me free to grab the formidable head of Nursing Staff when she arrived and hand her my sheaf of papers saying “When Craig finishes the shift change meeting — you need read this.”
I clocked out and went home to a bottle of ice cold vodka. I was pretty sure I would not have a job to go to that coming evening.
No call came telling me not to show up for work. So, ignoring my hangover, I went in. When I arrived up for my night shift that night, reluctantly sober and counting the hours to my next drink, Craig arrived at the same time. Mentally I cursed, assuming that I was in for Hell with Craig that night.
We walked onto the unit together and there stood the head of Nursing Staff. She barked “I want your keys and badge“ at Craig. He was fired in front of my eyes.
Paul and Chris were both on 24 hour watch and other consequences - but Chris was going to remain here and would NOT go to jail. Thank the gods, that kid needed a damn chance, not a kick in the teeth.
And slowly it dawned on me. My documentation bought that Chris that chance. My documentation caused Craig to be fired. I was being lauded as extremely responsible and resourceful after breaking just about every rule!
I was allowed to send a letter to Amy’s probation officer and I told her that this kid was a goddamned rockstar. My girl (I have no right to call her that but I thought she was so awesome I would have adopted her in a damn heartbeat) was discharged two weeks later, released for the excellent track record she had created during her stay with us and on her way out she gave me a hug so tight it hurt.
Whatever else I fuck up or fail at - I am a goddamn WORDSMITH. I can write the story to raise the money so a person does not lose a roof over their head. I can craft the the letters in defiance of rule and regulation that allow people to receive their disability benefits. I cast the spell that made you read this absurdly long essay.
That is my superpower; I am a wordsmith. And this is the story of how I learned about this power.
