Juvie interviews

Every Sunday I used to lead a writing workshop at a juvenile detention center in Indiana, in the eensy town where I was going to school. I’d never taught anywhere before, and I did the project completely on my own. A year after I stopped teaching, the local paper said the jail was shut down for “human rights violations.” One girl found me on MySpace and we talked for a couple weeks, but otherwise I never heard from anyone again, warden included. For one project I decided to conduct a collaborative get-to-know-one-another interview using questions I yoinked from a Sister Spit tour diary (God help me). Here it is…

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CARS I have known:

– I like all the cars because they are all beautiful and have architecture

– My Chevy, a four-door white with two red stripes. I had 18-inch rims with a CD player, beats and everything. It also had white seats with one big red stripe down the middle of each seat. It was an ‘88 with a 2005 hookup

– The nicest car to me is a ‘96 Yukon XL

– ‘77 Firebird, candy apple red with metallic flakes

– OK, my uncle stays in Alabama, and he came up here last Christmas. He had a Lincoln Navigator, and everybody liked it

– Chevy Bubble Caprices. I love those kinds of cars because they are shaped like a bubble on top

– I most remember my gray 1988 Delta 88. It was my first car, handed down from my parents. I remember doing a lot of stupid and crazy things in it.

– I’ve never really owned a car. But my mom owned a Grand Prix. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world

– I know someone with a red Impala with red-and-white carpet on the inside with three big TVs in the back and a loud system

PLACES I have worked:

– I did chores at the crib

– I have worked at KFC and Taco Bell with three family members

– I’ve picked up scrap metal and trash with a neighbor, and it sucked

– I babysat for my aunt while she went to Mississippi for two weeks, and she has four kids: 3, 4, 5, 6

– I’ve worked at a hospital. I wasn’t getting paid, but it was volunteering first

– Babysitting. Show Place 10. White House Restaurant. Ponderosa. Old Country Buffet. Subway. Little Bear. Hampton Inn. TGI Friday’s

– My little cousins worked at the fair. It was weird because they were younger and shorter than me

TATTOOS – what would you get, and where?:

– Lion with cross, Heavyduzit, child’s face

– 7-15-02 on my own arm

– I would like to get a big cross that fills up my back. To represent my dead sister. And with my six brothers’ and three sisters’ names on it. And my mom and dad’s names too

– A big cross on my back with my mom and dad’s names

– An uncle had a tight tattoo that was “laugh now, cry later”

– I am going to get a ghost on my back. It is going to be my name over a city over a cross over a ghost

– Last name on back (Old English), first name on forearm (Chinese letters), Bible scripture

– I’m gonna have a castle with warriors and a dragon or two on my back

– I want to get fat and be a plumber so I can have a tattoo of a quarter on my back that looks like it’s falling in my crack. LOL. Just playing. But I thought it would be a funny joke

– The best tattoo I’ve seen is the one 50-cent has on his back of a naked lady and her name. The tattoo was a mermaid

– I want a tattoo because I like the shape and the design

– I like tattoos, but I would never get them. I think they would degrade your body. I don’t have a problem, but if you’re sixty and have a tattoo, it would be silly

– My mom has a tattoo on her arm. It is of a big rose that is so beautiful

– At school in the bathroom, I’ve seen a heart with wings on it. It’s really, really nice

– I have a tattoo on my right thigh. It’s a “J.” It stands for my ex-boyfriend James. Wish I never got it because we are no longer together, but we still talk as friends

– My fiancé has a crazy twisted man on his back and a cancer sign on his arm. I don’t have any, though

– I only have one on my left middle finger, and it says “CH” for Charles

– I want a tattoo that says “Capricorn” and my birthday

PLATES OF FOOD and the person who cooked them:

– Sushi, biscuit and gravy

– Chicken paprikash, fried chicken, cheeseburgers

– Strawberry ice, lasagna, honeycomb

– I really hate this food because it makes me fat

– I don’t like broccoli without cheese because it tastes like wet bread

– My mom makes her cornbread different from everybody because she puts sugar in it

– My uncle cooks his cornbread in hot water, seasons it, and then puts it in the oven. That’s why they call it hot water cornbread

– My grandma makes the best peanut brittle, and my sister always eats potato chips with catsup on them

– My mom makes cookies that are always half-baked. They never get hard and they always taste fresh. And those are the best

– Every time my grandmother makes mac and cheese. On holidays, she always uses three layers of cheese

WHEN YOUR BODY WAS BEYOND YOUR CONTROL:

– There was a time when my boyfriend left me and my granny left me. Now she’s dead and gone

– I had a couple of drinks with my friends, and I was really hyper

– My body has been beyond my control when I got drunk and could not get home. Tried, but couldn’t

– Now. Right now! I’m pregnant, so my hormones are going crazy! So are my emotions and everything else.

FIGHTS that got physical:

– My brother fought a few preps and beat them all up

– Some females have a mouth on them, and they think they is hard so they get into fights

– I have been in three fights that have gotten physical because females want to run around spreading rumors

– I got into a fight. I felt badly. It started out with just yelling the physical. It made no sense. That was the first fight I was in

– The time when fights got really, really physical was when me and another got into it cause she said something disrespectful to me

DREAMS you’ve had:

– I had a dream that I got pushed off a house

– When ur locked up and you dream ur at home and then you wake up looking at a metal toilet

– When you locked up and you think you at home but not

– I was dreaming of a red guy opening a door, and as it opened my door opened and woke me up

– I had a scary dream that I was fallen and died

– I had a dream about Candy Land

– I had a dream about I was driving and drove off a cliff

PLACES YOU’VE SLEPT:

– Bath tub

– I woke up on a trampoline

– I slept on the concrete at the JJC

– One day I got messed up at a party. I was going home and forgot my bike. So I went back and got it and started to go home. Then I crashed into an empty trashcan. I tried to stand up but I fell, so I just slept in the trashcan

– Front porch when it was snowing

– An abandoned garage next door to home, so when my mom leaves I can go in and get some food

– I have slept in the most weirdest places. I slept in a baseball park one time. It was summer and just really weird.

– In my mom’s queen-sized bed

– I slept in my car at Wal-Mart. Before I came here, I used to sleep with my fiancé

– I slept over at my boyfriend’s house with him

TIMES YOU CRIED:

– I cry about my mom because I miss her so much. And I miss my granny

– I have cried so many times because of depression. I cried three times because some of my family members have passed away

– I cry whenever I’m sad, angry, and frustrated. I don’t really cry that much, though

– A time I cried was when everyone made fun of me. I went through school with people who treated me badly

– When my dad died. When my family moved. When my aunt died. When I got locked up. When me and my boyfriend broke up. When me and my brother fight. When me and my best friend fight. Every time I get really angry

– When me and my boyfriend get into arguments. When all my friends abandoned me. When the judge tells me things I don’t like. When I hurt my boyfriend. When I am away from my boyfriend

– The times I have cried were when some people in my family died or when I got depressed. Really, really depressed

SECRETS YOU KNOW:

– My secrets are secrets

– My dad cheated on my stepmom

– A secret I know is that my friend has about 20 crushes. She doesn’t know what to do

– My friend told me a secret

– My friend told me that she was going with her sister’s baby’s father

– I know plenty of secrets and to this day I vow not to tell them

– I know a lot of secrets and I have a lot of secrets, but I’m not tellin’

RANDOM-ASS PEOPLE:

– Alonzo, Bolo

– Guy on a bike who sings to himself all over the city

– I have a friend who looks crazy

– 50-cent, Michael Jackson, Alicia Keys, Mrs. Richerson

– I met someone who was beautiful, but when she smiled she had no teeth

– One day a friend I’ve known since I was really little died his hair orange. Everybody started making fun of him. I came up with the worst one. He hates it so much. Whenever I call him it, he looks at me really weird, like he’s mad. The name is “Leprechaun.”

– I once took care of a friend who was drunk. She had almost cracked her head open. But it was alright. We ended up fine

– There is this guy who goes to a bar at the same time every day. It’s weird

– This lady I know, I used to see her walking up and down a street everyday

– I’m friends with all the “random odd people”

PEEING IN PUBLIC:

– I remember a time when I was in here and I had to go, and the staff didn’t let me so I peed and everyone was laughing

– I have urinated in public before, but not where everyone was. I got drunk and was walking and couldn’t wait until I got to my destination, so I peed. I had tissue

– I have peed on back roads hundreds of times, but I’ve never really done it in public

– I had been walking down the street. A voice said, “Stop. Don’t look.” My first inclination was to look. But I shouldn’t have; there was a chick peeing on the grass. I thought it was the grossest thing

– I was drunk, and I peed in my friend Abe’s backyard with Samantha. My boyfriend always pees on the side of my house, and so do his friends. My mom’s ex-boyfriend used to wake up drunk and pee on the wall. My mom’s boyfriend made me hold my pee for five hours straight, and now I can hold for a really long time

– I know someone who peed in public because he was drunk and there wasn’t a bathroom around

WAYS YOU’VE KNOWN DEATH:

– I had a pet that died. It was a rat. He was my first pet. And I started to cry

– I do not like it, but I know it’s going to come

– I am sometimes scared of death, but I think about it sometimes and I’m not scared because we have to go sometime. It’s going to be the end of the world soon

– I’ve had a lot of really close friends die. Death is scary to me. I’m afraid to die.

– My granny. And I am scared to die