I’m in the corner again. I’m always in the corner. I didn’t even do anything. I never do anything. Mami gets angry and then I’m in the corner. I really hate it down here. It’s cold down here. It’s not just cold this time though. It rained today so the concrete I’m leaning against is cold and wet from the water dripping. Sometimes I get a drip on my shoulder and it makes my whole body shiver. I hurt all over where Mami hit me, especially on my back. It kind of feels better to lean against the cool concrete. The bumps hurt a little, but mostly it’s my stomach that hurts. I wish Mami had gotten angry after dinner. All I had today was an apple this morning. Then she sent me down here because I didn’t eat fast enough. She let me back up again, but only to clean the kitchen floor. I can still smell the nasty cleaner in my nose. It burns my hands and makes them red. When she pours it on the floor, it hurts to breathe. As I scrubbed she started hitting me with a wooden spoon because I had to keep stopping to sit up and take a breath. Finally she just sent me down here, poking and smacking to the door then slamming it as soon as I stepped onto the top step. Each time I step carefully down them, the stairs make the same eeeee. It’s a sad, tired groan sort of the kind I want to make as I make my way down, feeling along the wall to get to the corner.
Uh oh, I can hear Mami again. This time she’s hitting Adrian. I wish she wouldn’t. He’s so little. Sometimes she’s nicer to him because he doesn’t know any better. But sometimes she’s meaner because he does silly things without meaning too. She got really mad when he broke part of a chair. He was just stepping up on it because he’s too little but it broke under him. She made him stay down here a really long time and I felt bad. Oh, there’s the door opening; I can see just a sliver of light. It’s like it wants to come down here but it can’t. The dark coldness swallows it up. Adrian comes down the stairs and sits next to me. He’s crying. I put an arm around him and try to help him.
What is that? I hear someone upstairs. They are yelling. Dios mio, I hope it is not Papi. It is so much worse when he is here. He’s much more angry and scary than Mami. I don’t think it is him though. There is more than one yelling voice but they don’t sound angry. They sound more... more... I don’t know exactly, like they’re searching. Like they need something. They are walking around upstairs now. I know Adrian hears it too because he has scooched closer and started shaking. I rub his arm, but I’m scared of the loud people too. Someone shakes the door and now opens it. I hear them call for a light. They are going to come down here! Why isn’t Mami doing anything to these people?
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Uh oh, I can hear Mami again. This time she’s hitting Adrian. I wish she wouldn’t. He’s so little. Sometimes she’s nicer to him because he doesn’t know any better. But sometimes she’s meaner because he does silly things without meaning too. She got really mad when he broke part of a chair. He was just stepping up on it because he’s too little but it broke under him. She made him stay down here a really long time and I felt bad. Oh, there’s the door opening; I can see just a sliver of light. It’s like it wants to come down here but it can’t. The dark coldness swallows it up. Adrian comes down the stairs and sits next to me. He’s crying. I put an arm around him and try to help him.
What is that? I hear someone upstairs. They are yelling. Dios mio, I hope it is not Papi. It is so much worse when he is here. He’s much more angry and scary than Mami. I don’t think it is him though. There is more than one yelling voice but they don’t sound angry. They sound more... more... I don’t know exactly, like they’re searching. Like they need something. They are walking around upstairs now. I know Adrian hears it too because he has scooched closer and started shaking. I rub his arm, but I’m scared of the loud people too. Someone shakes the door and now opens it. I hear them call for a light. They are going to come down here! Why isn’t Mami doing anything to these people?
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The tip we received today was correct. We recovered two small boys who I’m certain have indeed been abused. They were locked in a small, horrible cellar. We entered the house and the woman claimed there were no children there. She said it was just her and her husband but that he had been away for a few days. However, when we opened what she said was just a closet, we found a small, dark, dank basement. To begin with, the smell was horrible. The kitchen must have just been cleaned because it smelled like the kind of horrible cheap cleaner that they sell at the corner store made of who knows what chemicals. As we walked into the basement, that mixed with the smell of urine and dirt. The stairs creaked and there was no light, we had to look around with a flashlight. The cellar was concrete and dark and cold, sort of like a prison cell but even less hospitable. It was basically empty except for a bucket and a few boxes and two small boys huddled in the back corner. They were sitting together, shaking, cold and probably terrified. They were wearing only shorts and t-shirts; no socks, no shoes, no sweatshirt. We took the children into protective custody and arrested the mother on charges of neglect and abuse. The poor children are really kind of pathetic. They are very small and wiry; they look about 7 and 4 but they are probably older, just small. What is more worrisome is that neither has said a word since we removed them. They won’t make eye contact either. As I put them into the system, I discovered we actually removed what seems to be an older half brother about six months ago. Apparently the younger boys were not home at the time and were thus overlooked. They will probably be placed in the same place as the brother: the orphanage La Casa de Esperanza.
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I don’t understand what is going on. A bunch of people came and took me and Adrian out of the house and to a big place with white walls and a lot of desks. We’ve been sitting here a long time and I’ve been trying to listen to what they’re saying; I think they are from the government. I know they said Mami is going to jail but I’m not sure why. Usually it’s Papi that goes to jail. Oh, now they are saying we are going to be going somewhere again. We are going to be placed. I don’t know what placed means but they better not try to take Adrian away. We’re brothers and they can’t take us apart.
We just rode a whole bunch in a big car. The outside was tan and so were the seats. They were squishy. It felt weird because usually I’m sitting on the floor or a wooden chair. We just drove up a long bouncy dirt road and into a place with a whole bunch of yellow buildings. I see some kids sitting at tables in the biggest one. Have they brought us to a school? We used to go to school but not in a long time. Why would they bring us to a school now? The lady who drove us walks us up to another lady. The new lady is bigger than Mami. She has gray and black hair and she looks tired. She has a big poncho with red black squares. She doesn’t look angry though. We walk into a building and sit down on some small green chairs. The lady with the car and the lady with the poncho talk for a long time. Finally, the poncho lady turns and talks to us. She says she is Maestra and she is the director of this place. It is an orphanage called La Casa de Esperanza. She says we will be staying here because Mami hurt us. She says there are lots of kids here and we will like them. I keep my head down and look at the floor. I don’t say anything because I don’t want Maestra to get angry like Mami. I wonder if they have corners here.
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We got two new placements today, another abuse case. They are brothers: Ulysses and Adrian. They are 9 and 7 but they look much younger. They came in and sat small and quiet in the chairs. Neither of them will make eye contact and neither has said a word. They government woman said that they were removed from a basement. Apparently they were often beaten by both parents but more severely by the father. When you speak to them, both hold their head to the side and will dart their eyes up to your face, but mostly just look at your feet. They remind me of the skittish street dogs that come around, wishing for love, but ready to bolt at any indication of attack or even contact. They’ll be placed with the other boys but I will need to keep a close eye on them. I’m not sure they’ve ever been in a group this large or whether they’ve lived their whole lives in that one house. They won’t go with the rest to school for at least a week; after that, Profe and I will decide based on their interactions with the children here.
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After the car lady left, Maestra brought us to where she said we’ll sleep. I’m finally getting the idea that we are going to be staying here. We are not going back to Mami, not going back to the corner. There are beds, a whole lot of them. I’ve never slept in a bed before. I think I would fall out. There are toys all over the floor too. I am a little bit afraid to be in here with all these other boys. I wonder if they are angry boys. There were some angry boys at the school I went to a long time ago. They hit Adrian so I hit them and then we didn’t go to school anymore. We follow Maestra as she shows us around this place. She says it is an orphanage where kids with no parents come. I want to say that I have parents, but then she says it is also a place where kids whose parents hurt them come. She shows us her house and the office and where the girls sleep. She says we are not to go in those places, especially not the girls’ house. Then she takes us to the big building. It smells really good. I think they are eating lunch and I am suddenly really hungry. The kids all are still sitting in there. It’s very loud but as we walk in it gets quiet. Maestra speaks to all the kids and says Adrian and I are new and they should be nice to us. Maestra sends me to get a chair from against the wall. She puts it at a table and says that this is where I will sit for all the meals. I will get a chair from the wall and sit here each day. She puts Adrian at another table with a bunch of littler kids. Finally she sends one of the boys at my table to the front or some food for us. It is noodles and sauce and some tortillas. I start to eat fast. If we didn’t eat fast enough before, Mami would take away the food. Sometimes she would eat it, sometimes she would throw it on the floor and make us clean it up. Maestra tells us that the rule is we have to eat all the food on our plate no matter how long it takes. I think I can do that easily because I am always hungry.
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Adrian and Ulysses have now been here almost two weeks and they are adjusting fairly well. They still have trouble following some of the rules but their interactions with others have generally improved. They play better together than with the other children. The older one, Ulysses, is very protective of Adrian. Ulysses almost got in a fight with Felipe because Felipe wanted the same toy as Adrian. They will talk now though, mostly to each other but also to the other children. They do not hold their heads to the side as much although they are still reluctant to make eye contact. Based on their improvements, they will begin school next week. I will go with them the first day because the school is much larger than this. They will probably have to be tested because they have obviously not been to school in some time, if ever, and will need to begin lower than their age group.
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Adrian and I are going to school now. I like it but it was very scary the first day. We rode on the orphanage bus with all the other kids. There are so many kids! There were 3 or 4 sitting in every seat all jumbled with the little kids sitting on laps. Riding the bus was a constant rattling. I liked to look out the window though. I never realized the city is so big and loud. There were signs and store and cars and people everywhere. When we got to the school there were even more kids everywhere, way more than at La Casa. We followed Maestra into a building where she talked with a lady about us going to school. Then we answered some questions because they didn’t know what level we should be in. Adrian went to kinder and I am in first level. The room is big and bright. It is mostly white except the desks are brown and there are some paintings on the wall. We are learning about reading and writing and bugs in science time. My favorite time is math though. I like the blocks we use for adding and subtracting. We took a test about adding and I got all the questions right. Maestra was really happy and I felt happy because she was happy.
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Adrian and Ulysses and have been here for several months now and I am pleasantly surprised at their progress. They are actually doing very well in school, particularly Ulysses. He is thriving on the opportunity to learn and prove himself and get rewards. He soaks up any bit of praise he receives. They both do. They are doing well here at La Casa too. They play with the other children and they actually smile and laugh. I couldn’t believe it the first time Adrian laughed. I happened to be outside walking around and saw that he was playing with Brian and Javier; they were crashing trucks as the boys tend to do. He and Javier let their trucks run down the hill and they crashed together, flipped over and startled a cat. Javier burst out laughing and Adrian looked at him, looked at the trucks and burst out laughing too. That was several weeks ago and it was the moment that I knew for sure they would be ok here. It amazes me every time we get a new placement how resilient kids are. They often have had horrible experiences that seem impossible to recover from but many bounce back. Granted, some do not and they end up placed elsewhere. But a surprising number that arrive small and scared gradually reach out and interact and end up functioning fairly normally.
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Today, when I showed her a 100 on my spelling test, Maestra told me something amazing! She said that there is a way for me to go to even more school after this one. She said if I keep getting good grades and working hard there is special money for me to go to a college in the United States! In the United States they have really good schools and I could maybe become a doctor. College is a many years away but Maestra said that if I really wanted to do it, I had to start now. I would have to be one of the top students in my class and learn English really well. She said thinking about university should be my motivation to work hard in school. After she said that, she got quiet for awhile and I knew she was thinking. She finally said that she was very happy that I liked school because she was worried about me when Adrian and I first arrived. When I left her office, I thought about when we first came here. I haven’t thought about the corner in awhile. It finally seems like I’m out of it for good. I think the day the lady came down those stairs was the day the light came and that if I stay here and work hard in school, the light will keep coming
