He was like a legend or something

[Paul St. John]

There was this guy, I always heard talk about in Daytop.  Everybody hated him.. Everybody, especially, the higher members.  he was like so bad.  There were all kinds of stories about him, and he had been sent to many Daytop facilities, all to no avail.  Then, all of a sudden one day, there he is. He didn t look so bad to me. I was shot down at the time, he came in shot down, and as well, he was the first person, I seen earn the status of "House Tool".  That meant, that anybody could make him do pretty much anything they wanted, at any time. Ya know.. not like really crazy shit. But the most important thing about " house tool" was that even shot downs could boss him around and make him do shit.  the status would get a glow in their eye, when they mentioned that little clause. After all, what could be more degrading then being fucked with by a shot down.  Shot downs were like the house losers. They had to sit on the floor all the time.  they only got 2 cigarettes a day, if they were lucky, and they had to "account" for those to earn them, they weren t even allowed to humm, and they just basically  couldn t show any signs of happiness, as well as getting all the worst chores.

I don t know. His first day, they put him up in front of the family, and all fucked with him.  I could see very clearly, that he wasn t a bad guy, but that he had at this point also accepted their view of him, as a burden that was his to carry. He was beaten to an extent but just not giving in. I remeber, they kept like trying to pressure me to boss him around cause i was a shot down, and that would like be so cool.  I was just always like , " Nah.  That s alright."

"But you re a shot down .  You re supposed to"

"Is there any rule that says that I have to?"

"No."

" Then I am not going to"

In my head, I m thinking.... Are you fucking kidding me? Why the fuck would I wanna do that?  Do you think I am an asshole like you?"

One day, the poor kid was actually given the opportunity to have a cigarette, but he didn t have one, and of course, no one would give him one, so I did.

" You re not allowed to give him a cigarette"

"Why not? It's my cigarette. "

"he's that.  he's this... He's the other thing."

"Okay.. well, I m giving him a cigarette.  you got a problem with it, you run it up the chain of command, by the time you get an answer, he ll have already smoked it."

Fucking punk, thought he was gonna bully me.  You wanna torture somebody, do it yourself asshole.

It s amazing how I can go right back into these memories.

The "House tool" was all like thanking me and shit.

I said, " For what? All I did was give you a cigarette."

I wasn t defending him, and I didn t want him to think that I was.  I didn t need him latching onto me. All I did was give him a cigarette.  With everything after that, I was defending my right, to be nice to someone who had done me no harm.

Paul

[Paul St. John]

There were all sorts of tactics you could use.  For example, Higher Status members loved to put medium status members in their place.  I often used this to my advantage. Had that punk run it up the chain of command, (I think that he might have.. I can t remember), he probably would have been accused of abusing his power by a coordinator, and if not, he would have been when I was done talking to the coordinator, because all I had to do was put enough doubt in his mind, so as to get him to think that a counselor might have taken my side had it went far enough, because that would be humiliating, to have a counselor take my side.  Their whole self-concept was based on their status.

Paul

[Paul St. John]

Counselors were very rarely present.  You could sometimes go a whole day without seeing one. But in the mind of the coordinator, they were more there when they were not.  On the surface, the coordinators, and counselors relationship looked all lovey-dovey, but in the back of their minds, most of the coordinators were scared shit of them.  No one could see this.. But I just remember that I did.

Coordinators had to pretend to be  some type of authority, too, so, if talked all smart to them, they would sometimes go along with you, just to pretend that they knew what you were talking about.  You had to be careful with this, though.  This was risky.  You could never abuse it, because if you fucked it up once, it would never work again.  Also, if you could not trick the minds of all (3 or 4 them) coordinators.. if you weren t sure of this, you couldn t do it, because everything quickly got to all the coordinators. They were all nosy bodies who loved to lay the smack down, and also, if one was unsure, s/he would confer with the others.

Every coordinator had their weakness... and I knew all of them.. there was only one who didn t.  She was so evil, and so aware of how evil she was, and such an amazing manipulator and politician, that I could only find one weakness in her, and she even had this achille's heel guarded well, and it was flattery. I never took advantage of that a single time, because I couldn t stomach it.  While, she was a very physically attractive girl, she was disgusting inside, and I would not feed her pseudo-ego, for all the tea in China, and I m a big tea drinker..lol

Also, if "pre" members were in the building, you had to beware of them too.

Paul St. John

[Inculcated]

House tool? Could they have come up with something more messed up to call that? Doubt it. Wow, lower than a shot down…that’s low. The closest I’ve ever seen to that was the shunning (sort of isolation), but “in the community”. That involved time on chair and a scalping (haircut) plus a house meeting where the screaming continued from more than the panel and then the meeting broke with the instruction that interaction was off limits. This included status members AIRC. It sucked. I got it. It had also been dealt to a boy a few months prior to when it happened to me. He had run away from home (this was the day treatment and that counted as a split) and his isolation lasted a day and lead to him going through the regular shot down routine. Mine lead to upstate.

The only location I remember where counselors were on the periphery and not on our asses was at the 30 day facility. Since pretty much everyone there had no time in (at the most there were a few irregulars that had ten or twenty extra days) the hierarchy thing wasn’t played out the same way as it was elsewhere. Basically, I remember there were morning meetings and groups, but nothing as intense as the Houses. Just a lot of playing cards and smoking.

The worst was transferring into two facilities right when they were first opened. At the Day TC we were actually outnumbered by staff for a couple of months and didn’t even have school set up, yet to break the day. There was a lot of talk as the family grew about "house foundation". I believe a concerted effort was made to ramp up the first in set in order to set us all up for the weirdness of being senior members at only three/ four months in. Being a status member under those conditions involved a lot of constant pressure from counselors. The difference was that there was a rare modicum of dignity  afforded to these positions as the criteria for what they felt was called for was biased. As in a status member who steps out of line might get a different punishment than a newer member. Often times this was due to politics and favoritism. It would get handled in a closed sitting.Conversely, since the position and the idea of it was more important than the individual sometimes the threat of being made an example of was carried out with a twist of schadenfreuden when the time came that a senior member required a comeuppance that was intended to both warn and gratify the others.

It all comes out in the wash: kids will be kids and status member or not many would eventually be outed for the same transgressions they were doling out punishments for. This typically involved the persons they’d had contracted with dropping their guilt on the eve of a promotion. Often the timing and circumstances of how something was dropped impacted the consequences for holding it in the first place... which pretty much was just a furtherance of the politics/gamesmanship. Integrity was reduced to a meaningless buzzword that was often trumped by manipulations- Take it from a former staff pet, they nurtured distrust and discord and fostered fear to an intense degree at that level of the program. In the beginning it’s basically cop and cry and clean…later it was game on. Being up there meant less time scrubbing grout with a toothbrush, but more time in the dirt.

[Paul St. John]

House tool? Could they have come up with something more messed up to call that? Doubt it. Wow, lower than a shot down…that’s low.

Yeah.. I always heard talk about it, but never thought I d actually see one.  It was suppose to be very rare.. and then this kid was one.. I think he was only it for a few weeks, and then graduated to regular shotdown. In my facility, the first day or two of any shotdown sentence was alwasy the stupid ass chair.  You had to sit up straight, in metal chairs with backs, designed to back in.  That shit hurt your fucking back.  you could not move.  Couldnt twiddle your thumbs or anything.. just stare straight ahead at the wall for a good ten hours, except for when they brought your lunch, you could eat it.. Of course, with my damn luck, they forgot my lunch once, and I ended up getting raisins or something..LOL



The closest I’ve ever seen to that was the shunning (sort of isolation), but “in the community”. That involved time on chair and a scalping (haircut) plus a house meeting where the screaming continued from more than the panel and then the meeting broke with the instruction that interaction was off limits. This included status members AIRC. It sucked.

That does suck, except for the interaction off limits thing.. I would have loved that... but with me, it was the other away around.  They always tried to get me to relate. They had a thing like that though where I was.  It was called "bans"  You could be "on bans with boys", " on bans with girls" , or "on bans with the house", in which case you could talk to no one, even while working with them.


 I got it. It had also been dealt to a boy a few months prior to when it happened to me. He had run away from home (this was the day treatment and that counted as a split) and his isolation lasted a day and lead to him going through the regular shot down routine. Mine lead to upstate.

I heard a lot about upstate.. crazy shit like they would put you on a roof, in the early morning, and tell you to keep sweeping it, 'til you got all the sunlight off of it.  There were always people coming back to my place from upstate. Some said it sucked.. Some said they preferred it, but the chores seemed ridiculous.


The only location I remember where counselors were on the periphery and not on our asses was at the 30 day facility. Since pretty much everyone there had no time in (at the most there were a few irregulars that had ten or twenty extra days) the hierarchy thing wasn’t played out the same way as it was elsewhere. Basically, I remember there were morning meetings and groups, but nothing as intense as the Houses. Just a lot of playing cards and smoking.

In my place, most of the day was run by the coordinators.

The worst was transferring into two facilities right when they were first opened. At the Day TC we were actually outnumbered by staff for a couple of months and didn’t even have school set up, yet to break the day. There was a lot of talk as the family grew about "house foundation". I believe a concerted effort was made to ramp up the first in set in order to set us all up for the weirdness of being senior members at only three/ four months in. Being a status member under those conditions involved a lot of constant pressure from counselors. The difference was that there was a rare modicum of dignity  afforded to these positions as the criteria for what they felt was called for was biased. As in a status member who steps out of line might get a different punishment than a newer member. Often times this was due to politics and favoritism. It would get handled in a closed sitting.Conversely, since the position and the idea of it was more important than the individual sometimes the threat of being made an example of was carried out with a twist of schadenfreuden when the time came that a senior member required a comeuppance that was intended to both warn and gratify the others.

It all comes out in the wash: kids will be kids and status member or not many would eventually be outed for the same transgressions they were doling out punishments for. This typically involved the persons they’d had contracted with dropping their guilt on the eve of a promotion. Often the timing and circumstances of how something was dropped impacted the consequences for holding it in the first place... which pretty much was just a furtherance of the politics/gamesmanship. Integrity was reduced to a meaningless buzzword that was often trumped by manipulations- Take it from a former staff pet, they nurtured distrust and discord and fostered fear to an intense degree at that level of the program. In the beginning it’s basically cop and cry and clean…later it was game on. Being up there meant less time scrubbing grout with a toothbrush, but more time in the dirt.

That was the impression that I got..

Paul