My first arrest

I can’t call him dad. He wasn’t a dad. I definitely can’t call him father; it’s obvious he was not a father. It is too wordy and awkward to call him the biological sperm donator every time I refer to him. His real name is irrelevant. It doesn’t come across correctly in all sentences to just refer to him as him. As old as I am now, one would think I would know the way to handle it, but I do not.   To me he's just another douche bag.

Anyways.

I just sat there smiling. I think it confused them or something. The officer was explaining to us, him and I, that they could not keep me in the jail because I was only thirteen. It was illegal or something for me to be in a real jail at that age. The police were quite shocked when I just showed up at the door to their station by the way.  I just didn't have anywhere else to go.  They called the juvenile detention center in Columbia and those people were on their way to pick me up. I was going to be staying there until the courts decided what to do with me. My future was now in the hands of a judge. I had turned myself in at the police station so that my father wouldn't put it to me again. There was no reason to take another beating and go to jail, so I just skipped the beating and went straight to jail.

I had finally snapped inside. I did not care anymore. I didn't care, so much so, that I was actually proud of what I had done. Fuck every one. Fuck you. Fuck them. Fuck the whole world. All anyone had ever done was shit on me. I had decided to do a little shitting myself. It was time to return the favor. The animal in me was now in charge. They raised me like an animal, so an animal is what they got.

I had gone on my first crime spree. I was only charged with a couple of felonies, the rest were all misdemeanors. For each crime that I was charged with an alphabetical letter was attached to it. My list of charges went into the double letters. Double g or something. I used to brag about how many charges I had racked up. They didn't get me for everything either. It was mostly vandalism. I mean I was only thirteen and pretty naive at that because of how she had raised me. I wasn't out trying to rob people, or get rich or something. I was out to make people suffer like I suffered. I wanted others to hurt like me. I didn't master mind some great crime spree. I simply went around town and the surrounding country side destroying shit. Destroying anything I could. People's property, their cars, their mailboxes, whatever I could get my hands on. If you didn’t know, it hurts like hell to hit a mail box with an aluminum bat when the car you are in is going 30 mph. The first time I did it I thought it broke my arms or something. I was pouring paint on people’s cars.  Just doing random and mean things. I salted a yard or two. The worst of it was when I went around knocking over tomb stones in grave yards. This was the worst of my actions. The only thing going on in my mind was fuck those people. I had a serious chip on my shoulder. Worse yet, I felt no remorse whatsoever. This caused a great deal of concern for those working in that juvenile detention center.

There is great freedom in not caring anymore. It is intoxicating. When one decides in their heart that they do not care what the consequences are there is no greater freedom. I didn't know it then, but this principle saved my life, but not at this juncture in the story. Or maybe it did.

Some friends helped me accomplish all this. I didn’t have a car so they were helping me get around. Because I am so passionate about the way I do things I have always been able to get people to tag along. No matter what I am doing I can always find someone to join in. Running away was a felony charge back then and they were accessories to it. I think I was gone for about a week before I turned myself in. I had no money, no food, no family, no nothing. The last couple of days I was staying in the ghetto in Mexico, MO. I know now that it wasn't a real ghetto, but if you’re a small town kid, it was a ghetto. Kids would run around at night with golf clubs and whatnot looking for trouble. They were just like me. The cops didn't go there unless they just absolutely had too.

My friends were having trouble covering for me though; their parents wanted me to go away. They didn't want another kid to feed, to house, to take care of. Their parents were probably more like mine than I realized; their kids were a burden to them too. Their parents didn't know yet that I was a criminal on the loose. I told all my friends to just blame it all on me. They were very worried about getting into trouble too. They were not like me and they were not looking forward to going to jail. They didn’t think it was nearly as cool as I did. So they did exactly what I said and blamed it all on me. It was my doing after all. I didn't have a problem taking the fall. For some reason I was proud of what I had done.  I think they just got some community service. 

I know now why I was so proud, even though the realization of it hadn’t happened yet in my mind. It will be a few years yet before I figure it out. Her second husband did a certain thing to my mind that plagued me for a long time. He hyper masculinized me. I had become proud of being violent and destructive. All that being called a pussy really took a toll on my psyche. All that verbal abuse infused in my mind that to be a man I must be tough, violent, aggressive, strong, and most importantly not a pussy. Not ever having a father figure made it even worse. I had to be my own male role model, which meant I had to be even tougher. The only typical hyper masculine trait I did not exhibit was in regards to women. I just wanted a woman to love me and I would do anything a woman said to get that love. Being quite feminine myself, but not realizing it, kept me from outright abusing women like the men in my life always had. I unlike those men could identify with women on a different level.

When I got to the juvenile detention center I still had the smile on my face. They were greatly troubled by this. I was interviewed by the staff to access my mental state and then placed in a room with another kid. What I did not know was that they recorded everything said in those rooms. They had microphones and speakers in the ceilings of the rooms so they could listen and then chime in whenever they wanted. They always made sure to listen in on the new kids. The kid in the room with me got into trouble for letting me talk about why I was in there. It was written in the rules handbook not to do this, which they made us memorize.  I just hadn't read it yet, so I was bragging about what I had done, literally.

It was cool to me being locked up. I was proud to be locked up. I knew right then they were just going to love me. I knew right then, these people played head games. I knew this because they didn’t stop the conversation until after it happened. You see, I was smart enough to know that if we weren’t supposed to do it they should have stopped us before it happened. But they let it happen and then handed out the consequence. This is very typical behavior in the justice system. I knew these people couldn't lay a hand on me though. The worst they could do was confine me to a room and lock the door. That was laughable to me. I didn’t give a fuck.

I wasn't bitter about being in there. I was bitter about my life. It was fun in a certain way.  It was something from my hyper masculinized perspective that I was going to get to brag about to other kids once I got out. I was going to be the kid in school that went to juvy.

I had some life changing moment in there though.

I remember a counseling session. The counselor said something to me that left me stunned. She said, “Ben, just because you think something, doesn’t mean you have to do it.” I was pole axed. Dumbfounded. That had never occurred to me before. I think my mind deepened instantly. I have always remembered that moment.

I remember taking my first IQ test while be mentally evaluated.  They do all kinds of tests to make their college degrees worthwhile.  There was never any real help in there.  The staff there had no idea what it was like to have parents like we did.  The guy giving the test was as shocked as I. I had just learned that I was not stupid. Being called stupid all my life I just assumed it was true. It was not true! I couldn't believe it.  I felt giddy.  I was elated. I was told only a small portion of the population had a higher IQ. How could this be I thought. I am a loser. How can a loser have a high IQ? Just goes to show, intelligence and wisdom are two very different things. Very different indeed. My intelligence could get me into trouble quicker than you could blink an eye. It always has. Having a high IQ does not make life easier.  Actually it is the opposite.  It didn’t mean I was actually smart. Give me a puzzle and I can figure it out quicker than most, but being able to figure out a geometric puzzle helped me not one bit in life. So naturally, when I got into trouble, I did it better than most. Trouble is trouble though, whether done well or poorly. I knew it then, and I didn’t care.

The craziest thing was the kid in the padded room. He was deathly pale. He was never allowed out of his room if others were out of their room. All of our doors had to be locked before his could be unlocked. They waited until night time when we would all be locked in before letting him shower. He would only get to go outside, the real outside that is, maybe once a week. If he was allowed out of his room he was always fully shackled. He had been in that room for over a year by the time I got there. He stayed in that room the entire time I was there.

He had a twin brother in a different detention center. They had killed someone and neither would confess. There was an older brother involved too, but he was old enough to be in a real jail. Since they couldn’t prove who pulled the trigger the court process took a long time I guess. None of the brothers were willing to sentence the brother who pulled the trigger to a life sentence. I wouldn’t do that to my brother either. They shot a guy in the face at point blank range with a hunting rifle. That was all I knew. He never got to talk to anyone really. He never talked to me. He just sat in that padded room all day and all night. He was just a kid like me. I have never forgotten that look in his eyes when we would look at each other as I passed his room.