After I got back home, for a little while I was treated with kid gloves, Debbie didn’t do anything to really piss me off. My dad had a very strange way of dealing with me, almost like he didn’t know how to deal with me, how to make sense of the information he was given about what had happened to me. I think he felt responsible in someway. My dad was still living in the same Apartment complex, and after 3 weeks he enrolled me in public school. During the first 2 or 3 weeks I still had a cast on my arm, all these kids around me didn’t know me, and was asking me why I had the cast, I really wasn’t to talkative, I didn’t want to make friends, I became a target for one of the bigger kids, a bully kid named Bobby, he would pick on my because I didn’t talk much, or tell them why I had a cast on my arm. and to be honest, I don’t think I could explain why or what or even how, I believe I was still in a state of shock from my experience, I don’t think my dad mentioned anything to the school about it either, I think he was embarrassed by what happened. Me and Debbie started to butt heads again, about homework, chores, picking up after myself, it was all normal things I should have had no problem with. But in my head, she was the cause of my pain, the unspeakable things that had happened to me, and my anger with her was starting to come out more and more with every fight, every disagreement, really every word that would come out of her mouth was a trigger for me. I hated her, her voice, her smell, her cat, everything about her. I often went to sleep wishing she would die, that something bad would happen to her.
Then came the day that everything came to a head, it was after Christmas break at school, it was January 1981, and we just got back to school for a few weeks off, and being home with Debbie really had me on edge, me and her had a few physical altercations kind of small. she would grab me, and I would pull away, or push her away. One day at school We were in the gym playing dodgeball, and I was targeting the bully Bobby, I was mostly just trying to get him out, I threw the ball and hit him upside the head, I celebrated. He just looked at me like “I’m going to get you”. After the next game or two, we ended up in the shower room. I didn’t feel comfortable in the showers with other kids, so I would just go into a toilet stall and change clothes, I walked out of the Stall and Bobby was standing there with his buddies, and he pushed me up against the wall, got in my face and raised his fist to my face, like he was going to hit me. I completely lost it, I don’t remember what I did to him, I just know that he was on the floor bleeding when I was escorted to the principal’s office.
I sat in front of the office, it felt like it was forever, finally the principal called me back into his office, just as the nurse was walking Bobby into the office. The principal told me to have a seat, and he started to ask me questions about what happened, I just told him that Bobby started it, I really didn’t know what happened after I his fist was in my face. He told me that I was going to be out of school for a week and that he was going to give me 10 paddles, I was thinking I wasn’t going to be able to come back to school, I had no idea or clue about the school paddling us, he told me to stand up and put my hands on his desk. He pulled out a wooden board about two feet long with a handle, and holes in it. He walked behind me and told me to keep my hands on the desk and not move. I just stood there, expecting to be spanked like my dad did. He reached out to me and pulled my pants down, I grabbed the Stapler that was on his desk, and turned around and threw it right at his head, he fell down and dropped the paddle, I grabbed the paddle and just started hitting him everywhere I could, I was putting every ounce of anger into each and every swing, at some point a male teacher ran into the office and grabbed the paddle from me and me as well and held me, I was shaking and crying. I was being restrained, the principle was bleeding from his head and nose, he was mad at me. He told the secretary to call the police, the nurse that was with Bobby came into the room, and then left, she came back before the police got there and was trying to help the principal. The police showed up, and he told them what happened, my dad was at work, they called my house and told Debbie they were taking me to the police station for assault and battery, and my dad had to come down to the station.
This was the first time I was placed into the back of a Police car; I really did not know what to expect, the officer took me to the station and walked me inside, he asked me some questions about what happened, and I answered them. The officer took me through the booking process, took my picture and fingerprints, He then put me into a holding room, it had a toilet/sink and a concrete bench to sit on, he closed the heavy door and turned the key. I sat there waiting, not knowing what was going to happen, all I knew was that my dad was supposed to come to the station, I was hopeful that he could take me home, but I didn’t know. My dad did show up, the officer came, and unlocked the door and escorted me back to a room where my dad was, and sat me down and had a conversation with my dad, I remember him telling my dad that charges were going to be sent to the prosecutor’s office and it would be up to them to determine what to do about this incident. My dad took me out to the car, and asked me what happened, I told him everything that I remembered, he told me that I was in a lot of trouble, and he then told me that I’ve got to learn to control my anger issues. Then next day my dad got a call from the school, I was sitting on the stairs out of sight listening to his conversation with the school, he hung up the phone, and started talking to Debbie, that’s when I found out that I wasn’t going back to that school. That also when I found out that I wasn’t going to be at home much longer either, apparently, they had already talked with another placement facility, because of the problems me and Debbie were having, I went to my bedroom and started to make a runaway plan, I grabbed a little duffle bag and put some items in it. I didn’t know what to take, but I knew it was cold out, so I made sure I had warm stuff, I already knew where I was going. I just had to pick the right time so Debbie couldn’t stop me. The next day my dad had to go to work, and I was in my room, and Debbie knocked on my door and from the outside asked if I had dirty clothes, I told her yes, she said to put them outside my door and she would pick them up. I collected everything I could and put it into the basket and put it outside my door. I could hear her in my sister’s bedroom grabbing her dirty stuff, and her sheets, my sister still wet the bed, and it really pissed Debbie off, she would often call her a bed wetter, or a pee kid, it made me mad that she would pick on my sister. I told my sister that I was going to run away, because dad was going to send me away again, I asked her if she wanted to come with me and she said she couldn’t, that she would be afraid of what Debbie would do. I knew this was my opportunity to get out of the house, she was going to be in the basement doing laundry, she wouldn’t know I was gone until dinner time at least.
I heard her go down into the basement. I walked down the stairs very slowly, I got my coat and gloves out of the coat closet put my boots on, and went out the front door very quietly, I grabbed my bicycle from in front of the house and took off in the opposite direction of the basement window by the washer and dryer. I rode my bike to the back of the whole apartment complex and got into the woods by the reservoir. This is an area that was supposed to be off limits to everyone, but there always seemed to be a way in, kids liked to ride their bikes back there because it was like a track, with jumps and berms and large concrete type pipes, older kids liked to go back there and have fires and drink and smoke, so there was broken bottles everywhere, the reservoir was on the other side of a large hill and it had water in it, from large concrete pipes, it was the storm drain pipes from the major road next to the Apartment complex. If you rode your bike inside the pipe you could ride for a long time before the pipes got smaller and you couldn’t ride any more. You could hear cars driving over the manhole covers up above, which were about 12 foot up above the pipe, every so many feet there was a ladder up to the covers. I rode my bike 8 covers in, and it was like an inter section, I now realize that it was the road that was in front of the apartment complex, because the pipe went that way as well. This is an area where kids would meet up and just hang out, there was a manhole cover up above, some light shined down, I had a little bike light on my handlebars, someone had brought some logs in there to sit on. I hung out there for a little while, nobody was there so then I rode back out and went to the 7 11 at the front of the complex, I was hungry, and needed to steal something to eat, I pocketed a candy bar, I took a few bottles in to return, and got like .50 cents and grabbed a few pieces of candy and paid for that and walked out of the store. I then rode my bike down the main street to the other side of the complex and went through another fence into a Storage yard.
There were boats and campers all over the property, I had been a part of breaking into the campers before and we always found good stuff. And there were beds and tables, So I knew this would be a good place to sleep. And it wasn’t more than 200 yards from my dad’s apartment. So close that later that night when my dad got home and realized I was gone, I could hear him and Debbie calling out my name looking for me. Over the next two weeks I was a runaway, I would sneak into my dad’s apartment, and get food out of the refrigerator, we had a hidden key next to the porch, I didn’t go far away from the area I knew, some of my friends knew that I was a run away and they would bring me stuff too. Then I got caught, stealing at the 7 11, they called the police, they took me to the station, and called my dad, I guess the police were looking for me too, my dad came and got me from the police station, it was late at night, the next morning my dad put me in the car and drove me to my next place of confinement.
Sarah Fisher Home for boys and girls, was split into cottages of boys and girls. When I got there my dad left me with the Counselor that would oversee my group/cottage, I was upset that I was leaving home again, but I wasn’t going to plead with my dad at this point, it was useless to even try. This place was a lot different than St. Francis, it was in a really nice neighborhood of Farmington Hills, I was started back on the meds that I was receiving at my previous placements, the treatment was different, it was more direct with adults that had a background in social work and counselling, there were group meetings where we would sit in a circle and have discussions about how to deal with problems and learn how to deal with emotions, there were about 10 kids in each group, I was doing good, no violent out bursts, didn’t have any fights, when we were outside, in recreation times, the girls side was also out, this is where I met my first girl [friend] Lisa, she was nice, and pretty, we talked a lot outside, or played kick ball with the other kids. It was the summer of 1981, and my group and Lisa’s group got to go on a field trip to the amusement park at Cedar point. Lisa was almost 12 that summer, and we were friends, we were sitting on one of the benches under the overhead trolly cars next to the flower beds when she leaned over and kissed me on my cheek. I was always afraid to try to kiss her, but she did it, we talked like little kids do, and we were boyfriend girl friends at that point. Anytime we were outside for the next month we were together, it was August and one night a staff member told me to pack up my stuff, that in the morning I was leaving.
During this time, I was at Sarah fisher, I got to go home on weekends, but mostly to my mom’s house, my dad started to let my mom pick me up, to stop the battle between me and Debbie. My mom would have both me and my sister on most weekends I went home. My Mom had a new husband, his name was Kenny, and he wasn’t a bad guy to me, he never treated me the way Debbie did, he let my mom handle any problems with me. It could have been that he was a major pot head, but I was good with that we didn’t butt heads.
That night after I was told I was leaving, I knew it wasn’t a good thing, I had heard my mom and dad talking about court and what had happened with the principle, I knew that I was going to go to court for the assault and battery of the principle, but I did not know I was leaving the placement, my fight or flight instinct kicked in, not to mention I had to talk to Lisa just one more time. It was raining like crazy out that night, I climbed out the bedroom window and went to Lisa’s window, I told her what was going on, and that I must leave. I was scared; we were both crying. I took off running it wouldn’t be long before the staff would do their hourly rounds, I ran down a ravine to a wooded area on the front side of the property and into the woods, 20 feet into the woods I couldn’t move, I was thigh deep into sticky mud, I got one leg out and lost my shoe, then lost the second shoe, I was stuck. About 2 hours passed and I heard the voices looking for me, I didn’t want to yell out for help, but I was freezing cold, from the rain and exhausted from fighting with the mud, I yelled for help, not knowing where I was going in the morning, but I knew I couldn’t make it out of the mud by myself. A staff member got me out of the mud, walked me back up to the housing unit, got me showered, and sat in my room all night.
The next day would be my introduction to Michigan’s juvenile justice system, the courts, the placements, the messed-up programing or treatment plans, the Juvenile detention center, and what it meant to be a Ward of the State.
