FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

INDIANA - JUVIE INTERVIEWS, HEAVYDUZIT

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…

Advertisement

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

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

Advertisement

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

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

Advertisement

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 fatherv - 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'

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 CASEY RAID