Now while the
status of our work with the residents of the Morris County Juvenile Detention
Center remains in limbo, I’ve been thinking about the experience the five
tellers, Paula Davidoff, Julie Pasqual, Julie DellaTorre, Gerry Fierst and I,
have had there. Julie P once commented
that our purpose at the DC was to address aspects of the detainees’ lives that
had been ignored and left to atrophy. We
worked under the belief that stories have connections, that they resonate with
the value of courage, honesty, empathy and a willingness to listen and
cooperate with others.They are full of
the dangers of temptation, isolation, violence, carelessness and of misplaced
trust. They show how endurance can
succeed against overwhelming odds. In
other words, they were relevant to our audience. They also provided a context to discuss other
cultures and new ideas. And they were
fun.
For me the DC
was a venue way outside my usual box. It
was not a comfortable place to work. Our
effectiveness was not often clear. It
could be demoralizing. In spite of this,
working with the residents there was very often rewarding, sometimes exhilarating. Here are my first experiences.
My first session
was in 2012. I went in with Paula. We
had nine boys for two sessions of 45 minutes each with a fifteen minute break
for muster when the guards changed. The plan for the day was to tell stories about
essential needs and desires and talk about them. I was telling “The Theft of Fire”. I brought in photos of Chippewa life as an
introduction. The boys filed in, hands
behind their backs. They were sober,
compliant but unenthusiastic. I handed
out the pictures. Polite but
uninterested glances. I told my
story. Polite but minimal reaction. We listed needs and desires on the board
pretty good list, actually. In the
second session, Paula told her story.
Much the same reaction. They
understood where we were going but weren’t eager to help us get there. We came to a halt about ten minutes before
the end of the session. I resorted to my
go-to story for these occasions,
“Jack and the Beanstalk,” also about wants and
needs. I told, they listened with some
enthusiasm, and when I was done I had time for one last question, “Why did Jack
need to go back for the harp?” “For the
spirit!” came back an immediate reply.
And we were done.
This first
experience took away some of the naive glow I had brought in with me, expecting
more interest and energy than I found. It was a fairly typical session, a bit of a slog with flashes of insight
that showed what could happen when things worked.
My second
session was with Julie Pasqual who told a story from Haiti and then began an
account of her experiences in that country after the earthquake. Julie’s accounts of Haiti kept the boys
fascinated and full of questions for the whole time. Wants and needs were still
the theme. I didn’t tell my story. One boy, Big H, the Alpha male at the time,
said at the end that he’d rather be where he was - the DC - than in Haiti. Could their interest be aroused? Could they
make connections? Oh, yes.
My third session
was solo. Working alone in this venue
was a particular challenge. We always
felt more comfortable with someone else, someone to work with and off of and
someone to share the burden with if things didn’t go as expected. My plan was to work with The Fool, using the
tarot card to discuss the nature of foolishness. My story was
“The Golden Bird.” Again I had twelve boys for two
sessions. I told. They listened well but didn’t get it. What seems to me to be foolish behavior on
the part of the hero who ignores good advice repeatedly was to them ordinary
behavior. He made bad choices. He went for the gold and ended up in
jail. What’s the big deal? I tried to tell them. Bad teaching. I tried the tarot card. They made a few half-hearted observations.
When the time was up for the first session the guard asked me if I wanted them
back. Not seeing that I might have a
choice, I said yes. Big H, on the way
out muttered a curse followed by “storytelling.” I sat through muster in the chilly common
room with the sinking feeling of being in the middle of a self-inflicted,
ongoing disaster that I had to see all the way through. When they came back we had a bit of
discussion about the fox in the story that seemed to be going somewhere. Then I
made a mistake and went back to my plan which was to have them write. Things screeched
to a halt. Most didn’t write anything. Those who did managed a couple of
sentences. Nothing to work with. Close
to despair, I just started telling stories, including ones Julie and I hadn’t
gotten to the last time around. When the
clock ground to 4:00, they left. On the
way out, one of them turned back with a grin and asked, “Are you coming
back?” “Sure,” I said. “I’ll be back.” But my heart wasn’t in it.
I got my heart
back as time went on, sometimes filled to the brim.
To be continued...
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