The Program

I arrived at work just in time to see a fight between one of the students and Margie. Al had come to her rescue as Adam, a student who had only been there a week, had Margie up against a wall threatening to hit her. Margie was yelling at him and started pushing him backwards, her hands slapping him in the chest. Al came up behind Adam, picked him up like a rag doll and threw him into “The Dungeon.” Adam was kicking and swinging his arms wildly at Al’s face. Adam hit the wall and slid down to the floor. Al held him there trying to calm him down, but Margie continued to pummel Adam verbally until Al finally told Margie to leave them alone. As she turned around to leave she looked at me. I had stopped dead in my tracks just outside the door. “What the hell are you looking at?” she screamed. I could feel my face flush. “Just trying to see if there was something I could do to help,” I said softly. “Al has it under control. Can’t you see that?” She stormed off around the corner to find all the kids in the computer lab trying to get a glimpse of the action. I followed behind her. “Get back to your seats. There’s nothing more to see,” she said angrily. Then as if someone had flipped a switch, she laughed and in a sing-song voice said, “I won, as usual,” and walked to the back of the room to talk to Janie. Adam was a fourteen year old Black boy and wore his hair in several pony tails around his head, like a jester’s hat. He was all of five foot and weighed about 110lbs. if he was lucky. He was no match for Al at 250lbs. Adam picked up a chair sitting inside and tried to throw it at Al as he backed out the door. Al caught it in mid-air, screamed some obscenities at him, set the chair down, and forced Adam into the chair. They exchanged some more words and the door slammed shut with both of them inside. Everyone wanted to see the excitement, including me. Margie was busy yelling at the other kids to sit down, threatening to call their P.O.’s if they didn’t obey, but they continued to crowd around the hallway. I went around the corner where I could still see what was going on, but tried to make it seem as if I was helping to keep other kids away. There was some more yelling and Adam’s face slammed against the glass. His nose and lips were smashed to one side exposing his teeth and gums. Al held him there for what seemed to be a couple of minutes while the kids on the other side of the window laughed. Adam, obviously embarrassed, began to cry. Al pulled him back and sat him in the chair again. He yelled at him some more, opened the door and slid the desk out. Then he slammed the door behind him. He stood quietly at the door watching Adam cry. Within minutes, the police were there. They talked to Al and Richard for a minute, handcuffed Adam, and took him off to Detention. Adam was draped in red, “all flamed up” as the kids called it. Wearing colors to The Program was a direct violation of the rules and I was sure that was what instigated the fight. Joy came in just as the police were taking Adam out the front doors and Al told her the whole story. Margie had given Adam some clothes to change into, but he refused. He threw the clothes at her and told her to fuck off. He recanted the whole story again when Richard walked in a few minutes later.