From Ranch to Redemption: South Dakota Part 3

          Once Norm was on the mend the time had come for me to go back to work. While food and shelter hadn’t been a problem for the first 4 months the money I had saved was gone and Denise was pulling most of the load. We were fighting a lot and had decided that if we were going to make it I needed to work and get my own place both acknowledging that with the pressures of Norm’s accident and going from living 3000 miles from each other to having the weight of the world on our relationship that this was the best course of action. 

         In Huron, 14 miles from the ranch was the nearest civilization. There you could find a Walmart, a grocery store and restaurants. It was about 18k people. In town they also had a job service where jobs would be posted of all kinds. There were a lot of warehouse type jobs that were posted that required little or no experience. For some reason however I didn’t get any calls.  I started to become desperate and began applying to literally every job that was posted whether I was qualified or not. Finally after 3 weeks I got a job at a plant that sprayed powder coating on door hinges. The hours were 5pm to 2am. A grind is an understatement. I had to stand still for 4 hours and literally hang hinges on a rack as it went by me. It was mindless tedious work. Each shift felt like it was 3 days long. There were 5 of us and we got along ok. It just didn’t stimulate me at all and I was miserable.

          Then I got the call for an interview at a place called Our Home Inc. A rehabilitation center for teens. When I arrived at the interview I was wearing a shirt and tie and when I walked into Jackie’s office she laughed in my face and said “you have to be the guy from Connecticut.” I had no idea what to say. Here I thought I was dressed to impress and she laughed at me. First question she asked was how long have you been clean? Umm… I had never used drugs in my life outside of alcohol and cigarettes. Even today in my 50’s I haven’t so much as inhaled marijuana a single time, but here is this question. Without thinking I replied.  “7 years”. I told her that I had bouts with heroin and acid. I had turned my life over to Christ and through his grace I got clean. I never thought there would come a time in my life where I would have to lie and say I didn’t do drugs to get a job. But there I was with a job offer. She explained to me that there was an employee meeting that day and asked if I would sit in on it. Jackie thought it would be a good opportunity to meet the entire staff at one time. 

          When the meeting began I was introduced to everyone. We sat down and before anything could be said each staff member stood up and handed Jackie an envelope. They were grievance letters. Complaining about money and scheduling. I listened without saying a word. Jackie was in tears, caught completely off guard. The staff kept saying the kids were the most important thing but here they were ready to walk out. I wasn’t trying to throw my hat in a ring or cause any kind of problem. I had just been hired and hadn’t worked a day on the job. But my mouth is often times bigger than my brain. I asked out loud. “If the kids are the most important thing, why are you gonna walk over a few bucks a week?” I felt like I was in a snickers commercial. “Wanna get away?” but no one stepped back up to me. And that put me on the right side of Jackie from the beginning. 

          Our Home Inc. was three buildings set in a triangle. Building 1 was known as ASAP. Adolescent Sexual Adjustment Program. This is where juvenile sex offenders go for treatment. The second building is called Rediscovery. This is where I worked. The rehab for youth drug and alcohol addiction. And the last building was called Inhalant. This program specifically targeted kids who huffed or inhaled glue, paint, gasoline or anything else that give them a rush or blackout. Generally speaking you stayed in whatever program you were hired for. 

          As a youth leader my day consisted of reading the notes from the previous shift. Learn about new arrivals and read the reports on how the current kids were behaving. Sometimes counselors would fill us in on things to watch out for. The kids were broken into two groups of 12 and there were 3 youth leaders. 1 to a group and one to float. Floating was great because you were the person to take kids to doctor’s appointments and if it was the later shift you had to cook dinner for everyone. The early shift involved taking them over to school. There was Rec time where they played volleyball or basketball or soccer. Most days were just plain fun. It was more fun if you were the type of person that could be detached. I’m not that person.

          One of the harder responsibilities was performing an intake. When a new arrival comes to the facility. They can come in without warning at any time of the day or night. And it needs to get done. The intake process is hard on the youth. First they have to strip naked in a cold locker room and raise their hands above their heads while someone circles them and writes down everything they see. Moles, birthmarks, tattoos, bruises, cuts, track marks, absolutely everything. Then they have to bend over and pull their cheeks apart before stepping into the shower for a literal 3 minutes. Finally exiting to receive their plain gray sweatpants. Two staff members have to be present at all times, regardless of the sex. So if a girl comes in and there is one male staff, and one female staff or God forbid two males the intake still takes place. I hated doing intakes for many reasons. Chantel is someone I have thought about nearly everyday in the 21 years since I left. My first female intake. The night Chantel arrived we were short hand and it was up to me and another staff member named Jeannie to do the intake. Chantel was a 14 year old native american girl. She was clearly frightened and was trembling like one i have ever seen. She was compliant up to that point but had not spoken a single word. I’m not sure why but I remember feeling so much shame that I had to do this. Jeannie was like a grandmother to her. She spoke soft and sweet. I can’t remember a more awkward time in my life. Then the lord took over. I rounded on Chantel and told her that I would turn around while she undressed. I would take the notes of everything on her back and Jeannie would do everything in the front. Chantel was agreeable, honestly her only option was to be picked up by the police but she complied. While I was writing down all of her “street” tattoos I came across three small bumps in her back that were gray. Almost like a pimple or ingrown hair but a weird gray color. I noted them and then Chantel stepped into the shower thankful it was over. She went to bed without saying a single word. 

          Now it was time to go through her belongings with a fine toothed comb. Anything that could possibly be used as a weapon is taken away. If we opened a bag and almost all their clothes were red or blue they were taken away in favor of gray. On the reservations gang violence is a huge problem and that was something you didn’t want in a setting such as ours. Once that is completed you read their file. Chantel’s file was on 14 years of pure hell. I weeped as I read to a point that Jeannie sat on the couch next to me and took me in her arms. Those gray bumps on her back that I noted weren’t pimples or ingrown hairs. They were BB’s. She was drinking with her two cousins, just the three of them with a small campfire. They grabbed her, tied her face against a tree as if she was hugging it and raped her repeatedly. When they were done they went back to drinking and took turns shooting her in the back with a BB gun. She was 13! 

           I was going to quit the next day. Jeannie said to me “You can’t. These kids need someone, anyone to care. They do bad things because bad things have been done to them. If you quit you are enabling that process.” Damn Jeannie. I couldn’t quit after that. Care? You bet I cared. It didn’t take long for me to become the kids’ favorite staff. When I showed up for work I always had a smile on my face. It was the only job I ever had that if the phone rang and I was asked if I could cover a shift I jumped at it. When I would come in each day the first question I would get asked was “are you on staff today?” I would have to hush them because the counselors would think something was amiss. The kids in rehab aren’t supposed to like their staff. I disagreed with that sentiment.

            Despite loving the job, I was still trying to adjust to life in South Dakota. Several months into my employment a new staff member came on board. Jennifer. Jennifer was younger than me by a few years and I got along with her well from the beginning. I was hot one particular day and she drove into town and came back with a can of coke for me. I looked at her and said “Oh my God, I love you right now. Thank you”. The next day Jackie called me into her office. She said, “Corbiey, I’ll get right to the point and ask you. Did you tell Jenn that you loved her?” I was so confused. I asked Jackie if she was serious. She said, “Corbiey the L word is a word that holds its meaning here. You can’t joke about that.” then she asked another question I didn’t expect. “Corbiey, you aren’t in recovery are you?” I went pale, but I couldn’t lie. I told her no. I knew that was the end and there went my job. To my surprise she broke out laughing. “Corbiey, you are such a good guy. Talk to Jenn, and don’t tell anyone you’re not in recovery cause you are great at this.” I honestly don’t remember if I spoke with Jenn about the incident but she remained one of my favorite people to work with. Years later we spoke and as it turned out she hadn’t made the report at all. Another co-worker heard it and reported it to Jackie. 

          Where Jenn and I and Jeannie were on the same page was that the job was bigger than us. Yes it was our livelihood but we were getting paid to care about other human beings. Many of our co-workers didn’t see it that way. They wanted to punch in and hang for 10 hours and go home with as little drama as possible. It pains me to say this but the reason was that 90% of the kids at Our Home were native americans. The racism is deep there, very deep and the sword cuts both ways. Chantel would share with me toward the end of her stay that the reason she was afraid during our intake was less about undressing in front of us and more about the fact that me and Jeannie were white. Sundays were always tense at the rehab. On odd Sundays we took the kids to church and on even Sundays a medicine man would come and there would be a traditional Lakota sweat … .if there was a staff willing to go in with them. 

          Imagine  a giant dome tent large enough to fit 30 people sitting down with a pit in the center. In groups of 7 glowing red rocks are brought. With everyone inside the tent it closed up. The only thing visible was the faint red glow of the rocks. It doesn’t take long to begin to sweat. The drum starts and the sounds of the native songs start. Round 1, prayers of praise to the Great Spirit known to them as Tunkashila Wakantanka. Round 2, Prayers of thanks for the blessings bestowed. Round 3 Prayers for others. And round 4, prayers for yourself. Most of the staff wouldn’t go in the sweat because they claimed adamantly it wasn’t their way. But I found that I felt quite close to God in the sweat lodge and their way of praying wasn’t that different from my own. I also felt that spirituality was vital to anyone’s recovery. But boy do you sweat a lot. Unfortunately, sweats would sometimes get canceled if staff wasn’t willing to go in. 

          One Sweat Sunday I had come in so the Natives could have their sweat. Boys and girls had to have separate sweats because quite frankly they would get up to no good in the dark tent. Like the intake process the sex of the staff member didn’t matter but it was obviously ideal to have a female staff with the girls and a male staff with the boys. On this day there were no staff members willing to sweat with the girls. Not one. They were going to cancel the girls’ sweat. This event would come to change everything about my time in South Dakota. I approached the medicine man Ed Whiting was his name. If you imagine the stereotypical native american chief it, would look like Ed Whitting. I told Ed that I would do both sweats. He looked at me like I had two heads. I thought that maybe this was disrespectful in some way. I asked if this was the case. He told me no, but he didn’t advise it. It is very dangerous to be in a sweat lodge for that amount of time for a variety of reasons which include raising my core body temperature to high and dehydration. I didn’t think about any of those things. i was going to do it? I just simply said I will be fine and will drink plenty of water. Ed seemed so confused and it was creeping me out. There were no issues in the boy’s sweat. About halfway through the girls’ sweat I started to feel sick. I became very light headed. I had enough room to lay on my side, placing my red hot cheeks on the still cool ground, occasionally sitting up to drink water from a steel ladle. I must have been close to passing out completely because I have no recollection of the end of that sweat. But I remember the rush of the late summer breeze on my face when they opened the tent. Ed helped out of the tent. It’s funny what you remember at times like this but I remember thinking, “For a long haired Indian man in his 60’s that just sweat for about 4 hours. He still smells pretty good, he should stink.” They gave me water and all the girls looked genuinely concerned about me. I wouldn’t understand until later in life how rare it is for a Lakota girl to have any concern for a white man. The native kids never looked at me the same again. It confounded them that a white person would see any importance in their ways let alone put their health on the line for them. 

          Ed and I would have many conversations over my time there. Deep spiritual conversations that I cherished. He would teach me the proper way to start a sweat fire and the prayers that needed to be said. These were not things that were normally open to a white person. I wish with all the recall in my brain I could remember the name he gave me. It was a Lakota name that roughly translated to “Man With Loving Spirit”. 

          The ripple effect from this was almost comical. Kids were in treatment for a mere 45 days but it seemed like the story of what I did was passed along from group to group and the natives seemed to give me more trust than the average white person. And admittedly I gravitated to them. About a month before it came time to move back east we got a new arrival. Lucy was about the cutest little thing I have ever seen. She was from Wounded Knee and one of the worst reservations in the country. She was quiet and for the most part behaved. She was flying under the radar to get through her 45 days. I knew from reading her file that she was molested as a child by a family member and her alcohol abuse went back to the age of 11. She was now 15. Jeannie and I made a decision that we were going to “Blow her Up” . That’s a strategy that is used in therapy to bring issues out. Basically you intentionally set them off in the hopes they face their issues. Jeannie and I normally were considered the kindest staff but this night we didn’t give Lucy a break on anything. Every little thing she did we got on her for. Nothing she did was fast enough. Everything she said we checked for her attitude. It broke my heart to watch her go from confusion to all out frustration. Finally the group calls a RAP(resolves a problem.) something kids do, to hold each other accountable. Finally, Jeannie started yelling at her and asked her why she hadn’t dealt with her step father. That was it. The powder keg exploded and Lucy’s claws came out and she went after Jeannie. I intercepted her and flipped her on the ground and restrained her. I had full knowledge of how terrifying that must have been for her especially since she was a sexual assault survivor. I know I was crying. The rage, I remember the rage as if I was holding the Devil himself. She fought and clawed and even tried to bite me. But then it changed, the anger and rage gave way to weeping. I loosened up on her. And it came out. The horrors she endured at the hands of her stepfather. Her group stood there in silence. I don’t know that there has ever been a time I heard someone cry like that. Both Jeannie and I were a wreck and many of her group too. I shifted off her and scooped her up in my arms and just let her cry and I cried with her. After a long while she calmed down. It seemed forever since anyone spoke a word. Finally Lucy looked around and said “Have you guys been here the whole time? I must look like shit.” We all laughed, including Lucy. Jeannie asked how she felt and she said “Surprisingly good”  The next morning the head of the counselors called me into her office. And questioned my integrity. I was grilled about why Lucy was sitting on my lap and what that might do to a girl who has been sexually abused. And what a terrible lapse in judgment on my part. Then in a very petty way said, “What were you thinking?” I’m proud of my reply. I said, “Heidi, I was thinking may God strike me dead if I ever stop caring for these kids. I will be happy to take accountability for my part last night. I have 9 days left do what you need to do” Iwas already set to move back home. 

          Lucy was still at the rehab on my last day. When I came in to say goodbye, my brother Matt and friend Phil were with me to make the drive back. I wished the current kids good luck and said goodbye to the other staff members. As I was walking out the door something crashed into my back. I heard Lucy’s sobbing voice say “can’t you just stay a few more days? I won’t make it without you.” I reassured her that she would. Lucy finished her treatment program with the highest level of success. The last word I had about a month after I left was that she had started her own AA meeting in her house. There was so much that surrounded the rehab that I could all fit. Perhaps those are stories for another time. In all, I worked there for just a year but it was probably one of the most defining years in all of my 51 years. 

Footnote: Of all the people involved with my almost 2 years in South Dakota, Norm, Denise, all the people at the ranch and rehab, even the friends I socialized with, I have lost touch with all of them except one. Jenn is my last connection to South Dakota. The girl I was reported for telling her I love her. It’s funny how God works. When my wife had her breast Cancer scare, Jenn went through the same thing and at the same time. We leaned on each other quite a bit and like my wife, Jenn received the same good news.