Tom Frye

The last two nights, I received phone calls from two kids I worked with in the recent past. Daniel, now 17, called to tell me of his three month runaway spree that got him room and board at Hotel Hell, an  institutional setting in western Nebraska. I liked this kid from the moment I met him. That was four years ago when I asked him if he had ever read my book. Daniel replied, “I’ve read all of your books. They are awesome!”

So when I asked him if he would like to play Vince in my upcoming play based on 8-Ball, Daniel laughed and said, “Ironic. You want me to be the kid in your book who quit drugs and wanted nothing more to do with them? Ironic.”

I later found out exactly what he meant. Daniel attended sixty percent of our rehearsals, high as a kite. He was usually so lethargic, it was a wonder he memorized his lines. And while he thought that none of the other actors noticed his sad state, they hung in there with him, accepting that he definitely had an addiction problem. Daniel went on to not only play Vince to a packed house at the Joyo Theater, but he and his two friends, received the highest marks over all the events for their presentation of my play at Lincoln’s Indian Education conference.

He called this past Wednesday night to tell me he was soon to be released to a foster placement, but I cringed when he told me of all the desperate things he did while on run. I wondered what the future held for him, as he was still in a state of denial. How badly I wanted to say, “I told you so.  How come it was so obvious to me when I saw the writing on the wall in regards to all your troubles, you simply scoffed at me? How come no matter how hard I tried to warn you of the dead-end on the road you were traveling, you still ended up hitting so many walls at the end of that road?”

But I held my tongue and said nothing. Besides, it would have simply fallen on deaf ears.

The next night, I received a call from Jason, a 13-year-old kid, who I have met only over the Internet and through our frequent phone conversations. Jason is also living in a group home situation. I will not go into details, due to his privacy, but I cannot help but write about the pathetic story he shared with me about the Christian Group Home he is living in.

When Jason spoke of “paddlings” I thought he was talking about a game other kids were using as a hazing for new kids. But when he said he nearly had his wrist broken when he placed his hand over his butt to stop the wooden paddle from stinging so badly, he said the key word, “Staff.”

I asked him, “The staff there whack you with wooden paddles when you misbehave?”

Jason said, “Yes, spare the rod, spoil the child. It says that in the Bible. So if God says I must be punished for doing bad things, then I guess I should be. If it weren’t for paddlings, I would be a lot worse than I am now.”

Flabbergasted, I asked, “Do they hit you hard with these wooden paddles?”

“Hard enough,” Jason said, “to leave bruises.”

Again amazed, I asked, “Does your father know of them hitting you with wooden paddles?”

“Yes,” Jason replied. “He condones it, because it says so in the Bible. Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

I sat there thinking of the night long ago when those very verses of God-breathed Scripture were quoted by a deacon from the church where I was the youth pastor at. It was in the earlier days of my youth work, and while taking correspondence courses for the ministry, I was working with all the troubled Havelock kids who came my way.

On that night long ago, I found two 13-year-old girls drunk in front of Ballard swimming pool. They were running out into the street and playing “dodge” the passing cars. I ran over and latched onto their wrists and herded them over to the pool where I sat them down on the sidewalk. One of the girls, Kathy, puked up green grapes all over my new sandals. By the time I settled them down, I was so disgusted with them, I demanded to know where they had obtained the booze. Kathy drunkenly pointed to two 18-year-old boys over by the pool, saying, “They got us drunk, thinking they could have sex with us.”

Thoroughly pissed off at the two boys, I walked over and told them I was calling Kathy’s father, and as they both stood there looking sheepishly at their feet, I told them I knew what they had done. I then called Kathy’s dad, Bud, a Born-again Christian and deacon in our church. When I told him of how and why the girls got drunk, he came roaring down to the pool in his van. He squealed to a stop, and hopped out of the van, armed with a shotgun!

“Where are they?” Bud demanded to know. “Where are those little bastards who tried to take advantage of my little girl?”

I placed my hand on the barrel of the gun and eyed those two boys standing over by the pool shaking in their tennies. I dared not rat them out to the enraged Bud for fear of what he might do to them. And after calming him down, I managed to get him to give me his shotgun. As I unloaded it and placed it back in his van, Bud ran over to his daughter, swinging the deflated inner tube of a bike tire. He proceeded to beat her and her friend both, shouting, “Spare the rod, spoil the child! Spare the rod, spoil the child! Spare the rod, spoil the child!”

Each time he shouted out his Bible quote, he whipped the two girls on their butts and their upper legs. Both girls yelped in pain as they came up off the ground with each stroke of his tube. The rubber smacking their butts and bare legs sounded like the crack of a whip. He was so far gone in rage that he whipped them all the way over to his van. I could do nothing but stand there, blinking in amazement as this Godly man so hell-bent on punishing his daughter, beat her into submission. “Spare the rod, spoil the child!” he shouted once more as he peeled off down the street, driving Julie and her friend home to whatever punishment he deemed God wanted him to dole out.

I can’t make this stuff up. It actually happened, and as I sat there listening to Jason tell me about these abusive “paddlings” delivered by Christian group home staff, I shook my head in amazement that they took the Bible so literally that there was not an inch of reason in their deliverance of such punishment. I tried to convey to him that this was not only “abuse” of him and other kids living there, but abuse of the Bible, to take it so far out of context that they justified their actions basing them on Scripture.

Jason spouted, “Well, look at God in the Bible. He punished and condemned his own people! For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him, shall not perish, but be saved. If God didn’t want my staff to beat me with a wooden paddle, it wouldn’t be in the Bible, would it? If it says so in the Bible, then it is so!”

Speechless for several seconds in light of his remarks, I could not help think of another kid I had met over the Internet and just what he would say to Jason’s interpretation of the Bible and justifying the “board to the butt” punishment that God inspired these Christian staff to deliver to the wayward youth placed in their loving care.

Aeon, my 13-year-old friend down in Brazil, is not only an unbeliever, he is well-versed in the Celtic belief system. One night while conversing over the Internet, he said, “I don’t believe in God.”

I promptly responded, “You might not believe in God, but He believes in you.”

This enraged him. Aeon spouted off, “Your people have burned my people at the stake! Your people have hung my people and persecuted them all because of what they believe! And why? Because God ordered them to? Because God demanded that they burn, hang, and kill pagans? And you expect me to believe in this kind of God? I don’t believe in your Christian Bible! Because of that book, thousands have been killed because of your religion! And you call that right? You say your God is a just and loving God, and yet he demands that his followers trample all over those who don’t believe like them? That is not a god, that is a dictator? A God who demands that his people stamp out evil by doing something more evil is a loving God?”

I started to respond, “Hey, not my people who burned or hung anyone, don’t judge all Christians by what other Christian have done in the name of God . . .”

But I stopped myself, and saved my breath. Aeon had made some very good points and instead of offering my own self-righteous Christian opinion back to him, I found myself forced to “defend” the God of the Bible as he went on to say, “According to your Bible, God is wrathful, vindictive, and a jealous God? He is a God who punishes? A God who kills those who do not follow his laws to the letter? A God who made 678 commandments, knowing full well His people could never follow them, but who mercifully provided a system of sacrifice and atonement for them in the slaughter of thousands of innocent animals? Lots of blood and guts in the Old Testament. How do you explain, that God ordered his Hebrew people to attack cities and bash the heads of babies on stone walls? How do you excuse God from the fact that he ordered every man, woman, and child slaughtered before his soldiers? And why? Because they did not believe in Him or believe like the Hebrews? They were really the Chosen People? Really? What made them so special that God showed them such favoritism that he ordered any other tribe or nation to be slaughtered? This is a God of Love or a God of War? If this is the God of the Christian Bible, I do not want to follow him or believe in him, just because he demands that I have to. There are many religions, many beliefs, some more ancient than others, some right, some wrong. But any God who kills you because you do not believe in him, is no God I want to even know.”

It was spooky to hear Scripture in the mouth of this kid versed in Celtic beliefs, but it was spookier to me that I had accepted so many verses in the Bible, and never actually looked at them that closely. I know the Bible. I studied it for 4 years as I prepared for the ministry. I knew exactly what verses he was talking about. And I had no good answer for Aeon’s questions.

I tried to put the spin on the fact that all Scripture was God-breathed, but I could not wrap my mind around that fact, when so many verses made God look so bad. I then tried to put the spin on the fact that, Scripture was all inspired by God, yet written by Man. But if I ask my fellow Christians if any of those men made any mistakes in their interpretation, they considered me a heretic and not a True Believer? I thought of Godly men like Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland, and Jimmy Swaggart. Now days, if people were told that these Men of God had written the divine Word of God, most would laugh at how ridiculous this sounds. So how can we set these other “holy” men apart and say they got it just right?

In regards to paddling, whacking, and whipping kids, I wondered how many other well-meaning, self-deceived Christians were out there, taking the Book so literally that they justified their abuse by calling it Godly discipline. I wondered what long term damage it did to these kids. In reality, these Christian folks are “using” Scripture to bend them, to mold them, to force them to abide by God’s rules. Those poor kids, and what a fine example these godly staff members are setting for their young charges.

When my mind can’t quite get around something tragic or so utterly ridiculous, I usually put a humorous spin on things, and therefore this all reminds me of a bumper sticker I once read: Read your Bible, it will scare the hell out of you!

Another saying also comes to mind: Don’t feed your children harsh laxatives, just beat the crap out of them!

But in light of hearing about these strokes with a wooden panel, in the name of God, it almost made me embarrassed to call myself a Christian.

I took my youth work seriously, but at times, when I stood before an audience as either a storyteller with the Nebraska Arts Council or as an anti-drug crusader, I tried to make light of some of my more tragic experiences by adding a humorous twist to my tales. At times, this worked wonders to warm up an audience, but other times it backfired, badly.

My first speaking engagement was at the Men’s Reformatory when I was just 16. I only knew two songs, and when I finished all 200 inmates gave me a standing ovation. When I meekly explained that I did not have an encore song to perform, one inmate shouted, “Sing them again, Brother Tom!” So I did, leaving that place wondering if it ever got any better than that.

Things did not go as smoothly ten years later when I returned to the Men’s Reformatory. As my band members, Gary Williams and Danny Dakan, and I took to the stage, Gary said, “If a fight breaks out, I am grabbing my Les Paul and heading for the door!” Three songs into our concert, my mustache got stuck in my harmonica holder, so I jerked my head back and saliva flew out of my mouth and landed on an inmate in the front row. He angrily snarled, “Hey, you spit on me!”

Without missing a beat, I made the sign of the cross and said, “Bless you, my son!” The audience roared and the appeased inmate wiped the spit from his cheek, chuckling in good humor. “Good save,” Danny whispered as we both eyed Gary standing there cradling his Les Paul and looking anxiously at the exit door.

Five years later, I spoke for Drug Free Nebraska, opening their conference for teachers from every county in the state. I broke the ice with a joke grenade. I began by telling those 300 teachers, “My band and I were once performing at the Legion Club here in Lincoln. Into our second song, some heavy-set lady stood up from her table and gestured at me, shouting, ‘Sing your heart out, son!’ She then promptly sat back down, took a swig of her beer and toasted me, shouting, ‘That’s my boy! That’s my boy!’

“My band members laughed at this crazy lady, who in her drunken state of confusion, thought I was her son. She pulled a finale for the night, too. As she and the man at her table got up to leave, she called out, ‘Sing your heart out, son! That’s my boy! Don’t be late coming home tonight. Your father and I want to talk to you!’

“We played one more song and took a break. I went up to the bar to get a pop and the bartender rang up my bill. It was for $95.45. I nearly choked on my pop and asked, ‘What is this?’

“The bartender said, ‘The forty-five cents is for your pop, but the $95 is the bill for your mom and dad. She said you would take care of their tab.’

“I tried to explain to him that the lady had obviously pulled a scam by calling me her son. He would not believe me. I was so frustrated, I went to the bathroom, and splashed cold water all over my face, when the door to the bathroom burst open and that lady barged in and started pulling my leg . . . just like I’ve been pulling yours!”

There before the 300 teachers of Drug Free Nebraska I finished my story, waiting for the joke grenade to explode. Five, long seconds of silence passed, then those teachers responded with laughter. It worked! And I went onto to speak, and to eventually close my presentation. As I did, an Afro-American female teacher in the back stood up and shouted, “That’s my boy!”

It brought the house down.

My sixth and last year speaking for this same group a State Trooper introduced me with an opening statement that I thought deserved some explanation. He said, “I have a feeling that this guy and I grew up on different sides of the track . . .”

Oh, I thought, since I was a long-haired guy, while he was a clean-cut fellow, he assumes that we had lived very different past lives. So I opened my presentation with, “It’s ironic that I find myself speaking here tonight, because as kids my friends and I used to come up here on this Ag. Campus and steal eggs out of the chicken coops and egg neckers in the parking lot!”

A strange silence passed through the crowd. I went on to do my show and afterwards three teachers approached me, stern looks on their faces. One of them said, “We need to clarify something. Did you say you used to come up here and egg niggers in the parking lot?”

I gasped, “NECKERS! We would sneak up to Lover’s Lane and lob eggs at couples NECKING!  NECKERS are what they were called back in the day! No way did I say the N word!”

Drug Free Nebraska never invited me back.

A short time later, I was called by a Specialist with the Nebraska Arts Council who told me I could no longer use Arts Council funding to address social issues. That was a low blow since I  specialized in using “edutainment” to empower kids.

After I received this discouraging phone call, the director of Camp Kitaki, Bob Furman, went before the Arts Council to explain to them how effective my interactive storytelling program had been with 2,000 kids each summer for the past seven years. He tried to convince them how profoundly moronic they were being to cut off such funding when my art impacted so many kids.

However, the Arts Council refused to support me if I continued using my art to address social issues. Most administrators who invited me to their schools, by-passed this new ruling and asked me to continue as I usually did, conveying my anti-drug message through my storytelling.

Word of this infraction got back to the Arts Council, and I was asked to come up to Omaha to be evaluated by a panel. I knew what it was about the moment I hung up the phone. So I went before this panel thinking to win them over. I held up my sword, lit the lighter taped to the hilt, sending flame trickling up the blade. The flame hit the flash packet filled with sparkle addictive on the tip, and Whoosh! magical sparkles drifted through the air.

Smoke from the fiery sword drifted over to one heavy-set lady and she began to gag and cough. Several panel members leaped up from their chairs. One to open a window. One to hand the poor choking lady a Kleenex. And one to get her a glass of water. The 12 panel members in the room offered me such cold, frosty scowls they could have melted the snowballs off of a Snowman!

This ended my career with the Nebraska Arts Council.

However, Camp Kitaki of the YMCA, loved my fiery performances, and each year I enhanced my stories with new and exciting magic. One summer, the pop bottle rocket taped to the end of my sword went off and did not take flight as it was supposed to do. Instead it spun round and shot straight down into the collar of my shirt, exploding with a bang that had the audience on the edge of their seats.

Another time, I used sleight of hand with a lighter and flash paper to create a huge fireball before 200 kids seated at an evening campfire. I used an entire page of the highly flammable stuff, and as dusk settled on the woods, I tossed the fireball into the air. At that point, a dove flew out the shadowy woods and passed completely through my huge fireball! I stood there, gaping up in amazement and the audience gasped in surprise. That poor dove struck three trees on his dazed flight out of there, leaving behind a scattering of blackened feathers.

After campfire ended, director Bob Furman walked up to me shaking his head, saying, “Wow, that fireball was great tonight! But how did you perform that trick with the dove?”

I casually blew on my knuckles and said, “Magic!”

A year later, when invited to become a Guest Artist out at the Regional Center, principal Sandy Delano, urged me to use my magical swords during my performance. She explained that she had received a grant for her middle school students, and all she needed was 10 kids to sign up for my program. So she said, “Really wow them, will you?”

Ten minutes into my story, I raised my sword, flicked the lighter taped to the hilt, and fire trickled up the blade. When it ignited the flash paper on the tip, the sparkle addictive began to crackle. So I gave a quick snap of my wrist, which usually left a scattering of bright sparkles in the air. This time, however, the flash packet flew off of my sword, sailed over my head, and landed directly in the center pocket of the pool table behind me!

Earlier, this kid had stuffed his homework into the very pocket of this table, and when the fiery flash packet connected with the wadded up mass of papers, the whole thing caught fire. It was then that all fifty kids seated in front of me began pointing excitedly at the pool table, and when I turned around to look, a two-foot geyser of flame was rising out of that center pocket! One teacher, Chris Lyford, casually walked over, tipped his can of Mountain Dew into the fiery pocket, and promptly extinguished the fire.

About this time, principal Sandy Delano, appeared in the room, gaping at the scorched table. The kids were wide-eyed with disbelief. The teachers looked to her, gauging her reaction. And I stood there, wondering if I was about to get fired as a Guest Artist. Sandy dramatically placed her hand over her heart and said, “Goodness gracious! Great balls of fire!”

Later, 35 kids signed up to participate in my program, because as they put it, “We want to see what he burns down next!”

I guess the topper of all my blunders on stage took place in an old movie theater down in Falls City, Nebraska. I was speaking to a church youth group down there. I had my guitar depending from my shoulders with a strap, and as I raised my hands in the air and spoke, my guitar slipped off of my shoulders and crashed to the floor and broke. So I started out by saying, “And Jesus said–” and ended by saying,  “. . . oh crap!”

And instead of God sending a lightning bolt down there to zap me as I probably deserved, I  think he simply shook his head in exasperation, and said, “That’s my boy!”

We sat there in the quiet hour before dusk. Snow was lightly falling outside. A fire crackled in the nearby wood stove. My two dogs were curled up at our feet, totally unaware of both the peace and turmoil drifting through the dimly-lit den as we faced each other.

I sat there at peace.

Jon sat there in turmoil.

I calmly reflected on my day of getting unruly kids to school. My truancy tracking program often took the wind out of my sails, and it was moments like this that I cherished.

Jon worriedly reflected on what his doctor discovered during a recent check up. At 14, he wasn’t prepared for the diagnosis.

“I have it,” Jon solemnly said.

I held my breath for that next ten seconds, slowly letting it  out until my lungs were as empty as his dark eyes.

“You told me,” Jon said, “that I couldn’t keep messing around. You told me to at least be safe.”

I sat silent, waiting for him to continue.

“Usually,” Jon said, “positive stands for something good. But in this case, testing positive stands for just the opposite. But that is what my doctor said. HIV. Positive.”

I sat there, a little disconnected. It was like one of those frozen moments in time when the all-too-real springs up into your face and you find it difficult to recover from the blow that sent you reeling.

Jon shrugged, seemingly unaffected by the looming disaster that would take him out of this world in the near or distant future. “My doctor said I had five years at the most.”

To hear a 14-year-old gay boy talk about the end of his life was unsettling.

“I,” he continued, “don’t even know who burned me. I had so many unsafe encounters that I have no clue who it might have been. I mean, I have been racking my brain trying to figure out who might have been a carrier, but what difference does that make now? I can’t help thinking about all the others I might have infected. I imagine it might make a big difference to them to know that someone they had sex with might have burned them, too.”

I nodded, wondering if he even remembered how many kids and adults would be on that list. I knew Jon had been selling himself down at the Loop, in front of our State Capitol, for the past two years. Kids were his main partners, but he had many adult partners, as well.

Jon identified early on and had been sexually active since he was 6. He had experimented with many male partners before he was even 12, and when he reached puberty, he was already addicted to sexual activity.

The caseworker who called me to work with Jon informed me, “Jon has problems with his sexual preferences.”

On our first meeting, Jon hopped in my truck carrying a large purse. He was just 13 then and he was adamant that “preference” was definitely not the right word.

Jon told me it was his “orientation” to be gay. He told me “preference” indicated he had “chosen” this lifestyle or that he “preferred” being gay. Jon swore to me that this was not the case. Orientation meant that he was born this way and there was no preferring or choosing involved. As Jon said to me, “A dog is a dog. A cat is a cat. A dog cannot prefer to be a cat.”

Simple explanation, and as I got to know him better, I understood what he meant.

During that first meeting, Jon pulled a black dress out of his purse, panty hose, a bra, and a couple of hefty dish rags.

Trying to remain open-minded, I asked, “What are the dish rags for?”

Jon laughed. “Don’t you know anything? I am going dancing tonight and the dish rags are to stuff my bra with.”

I flippantly asked, “Why not just use tennis balls?”

Jon laughed, “That’s actually hilarious! That’s why I like you. You don’t know anything, do you? If I use tennis balls and I rub up against my partner, he will think I am aroused already! Dish rags are more subtle! You do not want your partner to think you are turned on before you even start to dance!”

Enlightened, I grinned and said, “God forbid.”

That next day, Jon went to school, walked into the girl’s rest-room, and put on his dress. He got in trouble for  interrupting classes by parading up and down the halls. He also got into trouble after school, when several bullies tracked him down and lit his hair on fire. The hair spray he wore did not help the situation, and fortunately someone had the good sense to pour pop on Jon’s head to extinguish the flames.

At this point, his casework asked me to take Jon each Tuesday evening to the only support group for gay kids in the city. This was in 1989, and the support group met in a gay bar on O Street, the main drag of our capitol city. I was to remain discreet about these meetings as the caseworker knew if the public ever found out I was transporting a 13-year-old gay boy to a gay bar for his weekly support meeting, there would be hell to pay.

Unfortunately, Jon’s attendance of this support group was short-lived. His support group leader was a young gay man who called me one night after two months of Jon attending group. He was frustrated because no matter what he tried to do to persuade Jon to stop pursuing him as a sexual partner, Jon continued to come onto him. Jon liked guys with beards.

So with that not working out so well, I tried to include Jon on fishing trips and skateboarding ventures with some of my hard-core delinquents, but Jon’s mannerism’s and his arrogant attitude did not win him a popularity contest with them.

The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back came when one day five of my at-risk  kids were painting my house. It was a scene right out of Tom Sawyer, with five tough, street-wise delinquents dabbing at my house with paint brushes. When Jon showed up there on his bike, the other five kids reluctantly let him join them.

Things were going good, too, until Jon lipped off to one of them, and in running to avoid an ass-kicking, he slipped and fell and cut his knee on a board. When I brought him a wet wash cloth to clean his bloody knee, one of the boys said, “Destroy that rag when he’s done or you might get AIDS!”

“Screw you!” Jon responded.

“No,” the other kid said, “you would like it too much!”

And it all went down hill from there.

Soon after that, Jon was booted out of his home and his caseworker was scrambling to find him a placement. Two gay men agreed to take Jon and even went through the foster care training, but the powers that be would not approve as they thought it would lead to a sexual abuse situation.

So Jon was moved into the home of a 66-year-old Grand-mother-type who would not allow him to come in her front door. She insisted instead that Jon use her backdoor for fear of what her neighbors would say about her having a gay youth as a resident. She also once slapped him on the hands with a ruler for getting milk out of the kitchen fridge.

I often wondered if placing Jon in the home of those two gay guys would have given him the type of support he needed. Because Grandma Jones sure wasn’t the right placement for a sexually active gay boy like Jon.

One day, when picking him up for school, I noticed bruising around his neck. When I asked him about it, Jon openly admitted he’d had an S and M session with a partner the night before. And choking him out was part of the session.

Several weeks later, Jon called me in the middle of the night to tell me of one of his sexual experiences with an older man. At 2AM, I was less receptive then he wanted me to be, and so he let me have it with telling me he’d been selling himself to boys and men on the Loop for the past year. He also told me he had been barebacking (no condoms), and that this relationship with this older man meant more to him than all his fooling around. He insisted that I at least understood the purpose of his call. To let me know that even though everyone in society condemned sex between men and boys, that this was one experience that wasn’t just about the sex.

I continued for the next several months to play cat and mouse with Jon, trying to steer him away from the Loop, but by then, I honestly think he was addicted to the sex.

One evening he came over to the house. He had a Michael Jackson tape with him and asked me if he could place it my tape machine and dance for me. I laughed at the absurdity of  Jon doing the moon walk in my living room.

After I told him no, Jon went off to my den. Michael Jackson was soon blaring from the back den and my two dogs came scrambling through the kitchen and into the front room to avoid getting their sensitive ears blasted with Billy Jean and Thriller.

When Jon was done dancing, he came back out to the living room where I was watching a movie. He plopped himself down in front of me and promptly said, “I am ready to do you now!”

Awkward! echoed through my mind. Unbelievable! Bizarre!  Definitely skating on thin, black ice. Time for Jon to go home and take a cold shower!

And that’s exactly what I told him.

Ironically, the next day, his caseworker called me and asked me if I would consider taking Jon for a foster placement. He told me that his time with Grandma Jones had come to an end, and he thought my home might be a better solution. He offered me $3,000 per month.

Now that was unheard of in those days.

My last foster placement was a special needs kid who netted me $1,400 per month, but that was because he came straight to my home from the group home he trashed in a psychotic rage.  The kid had taken a shovel to all 19 windows in the house, on the coldest day of the winter, and on a weekend no less. It cost an astronomical fee to replace all those windows. So therefore, the caseworker set my payment extremely high to cover the cost of any damage the kid might do to my home. Fortunately, I only had one violent incident with the kid and it never involved a shovel and my windows. But I digress.

While I was slightly tempted at Jon’s caseworker’s offer of three grand per month, I shared with him the incident of the night before, and went on to say that I did not think I could continue to work with Jon. I told him that gay support leader had been right: Jon liked guys with beards.

The caseworker was disappointed that I did not accept his offer, but he did persuade me to continue working with Jon.

He set me up , too, pointing out all my many successes with many other state wards. At that point in time, I was the only truancy tracker in the city. And though it took me a long two years to consistently get 60-some delinquent kids to school, to court, to treatment, and to remain in their homes, by that third year, I had a proven track record.

I was ahead of my time, too, with a vision fulfilled. My caseworkers agreed with my plan to pay their wards $1 per day to go to school. They also agreed with my “skip days,” or as they became known, “mental health days,” in which if a kid had gone to school for 30 days straight, I rewarded them by allowing them to skip a day. I spent that day with them on a one-on-one basis, taking them to MacDonald’s, to a movie or out to skate or on a canoe trip down the Platte.

At first, kids dreaded to see me coming in the mornings. I  not only woke them up with my motorized squirt pistol in hand, but I escorted them to school.

They also hated the fact that if they skipped once I got them there, their administrator had my pager number and they would not hesitate to call me and send me on the hunt for them.

Those kids did not ever appear in court again with a 3-month truancy problem. They did not have a chance to continue skipping, not when I networked with their caseworkers, probation officers, parents, and school staff.

It was magic. And it worked.

So the caseworker used my proven history with kids to convince me to continue trying to work my magic on Jon.

Jon continued to sell himself on the Loop.

And therefore, ended up in my den, telling me that he had tested positive for HIV.

His doctor had been right: Jon lived another five years before he died of AIDS complications at the age of 19.

The book that follows was written in memory of him.