Youth Detained - 1. YD Chapter 1

I guess it was my own fault for getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, Jimmy, Toddy, Hog and me, we had been sort of friends since entering year eight in high school, I didn’t smoke tobacco or weed like they did, nor did I drink alcohol, and my school mates seem to accept that, and still let me hang out with them at night on weekends.

We often would go to this abandoned old warehouse when we were bored and had nothing better to do, where we could use a baseball bat to hit rocks around the inside the building, until eventually one would hit and break a window, then we would scatter in the darkness and made our way to our separate homes. My home was living with my grandmother, although she was only 52 years old, she was all I had left as a relative, after my parents were killed in a car crash when I was 5 years old.

Now at the age of 15, I was now being processed to enter a juvenile detention centre for a period of 3 years, for the brutal killing of an elderly man with a baseball bat, the same bat that my mates and I had been using for over a year now in the warehouse, and that’s how they found my prints on the bat.

I continued to plead that I was innocent, but no one bothered to listen to me, I had a minor record for stealing when I was 10, so they had my prints to compare with those on the bat, I refused to tell the cops who else was with me at the time of the murder, and continued to say it was not me, that I had no idea how the bat became a murder weapon. The so called junior lawyer from Juvenile Justice was so new at the job; she had no idea what to do, when I faced the judge in the Children’s court.

“Is your name Miles Andrew Kyle Silverton, aged 15 years, born 18^th of October?” I was being asked, and I just nodded my head, I was in shock, couldn’t believe that I was heading for a detention centre, no one believed me, I tried to tell them that I was nowhere near the area where the old man was killed, but they just didn’t want to accept my side of the story, and didn’t bother to check on where I was at the time of the murder.

I was still in a daze as I was strip searched, told the rules of the detention centre, told to shower and given a fresh set of detention centre clothes to wear, presented with another set of clothes, a towel, a toothbrush, and toothpaste, before I was shown to my cell.

The is a 4 meter by 3 meter room, that contained a desk and plastic chair in the back corner with a single bookshelf above it, next to it is a single bed along the side wall, a small bedside cabinet between the bed and the desk was all the storage space I had available for clothes, and there is a toilet in the other back corner, with a 1.25 meter concrete partition for partial privacy.

The bed consisted of a steal frame secured to the wall and floor, a foam mattress, a pillow and bed linen, there is also a single window that is just 1 meter wide and about ½ a meter high, which is located at the end of the cell just below the corner of the ceiling and the wall.

When a bell went off, I ignored it as I made my bed and put my second set of clothes away in the cabinet, then sat down on the chair and just stared at the wall. The next thing I knew, I was being yelled at, which made me jump with fright, a detention guard was telling me to get my butt out of the cell and into the dining room for lunch.

The dining room was large and had about twelve tables in it, with four plastic chairs to each table, and I joined the line to collect my meal, when I saw what it was, I wrinkled my nose in disgust and elected to skip my meal, and grabbed a plastic cup of juice, as I made my way to an empty table in the far corner.

It was some time before I realised that other boys had sat down at the same table soon after me, all three of them had tried to get me to talk but I decided that remaining silent was the best option for me, and they continued to talk amongst themselves.

Listening to them, I learnt that we had education studies after lunch, and they all complained about the horrible teachers they had to put up with for three hours. The afternoon seemed to race past reasonable fast, once again I was yelled at by a guard for ignoring the bell, which indicated time for school, and during the three classes, I listened to what was being taught but remained silent.

I liked how me remaining silent seemed to be allowing me to be left alone most of the time, and I decided that this was the best plan of action to remain as invisible as possible, and the teachers seemed to be not pressuring me to answer any questions after they worked out that I refused to talk.

When it came to dinner time, I had no idea what the meat is that was being dished out, so I only accepted vegetables on my plate, as well as a small bread roll and a cup of juice. Sitting at the same table as I did at lunch time, I soon found the same three boys sitting next to me again, two of them, Matthews and Anderson were in my education classes, the other boy Kenyon seemed about a year older than me, and he kept trying to get me to join in with their conversations.

After dinner we had about an hour of free time, and I elected to spend this time taking a bit more notice of my surroundings, the dining room, kitchen, laundry, and work training room are in one block, the library and education rooms are in another block, plus there are ten accommodation blocks, in each there is the recreation lounge, the shower room and five pods of cells.

Each pod consisted of five cells, and I was sharing a pod with Matthews, Anderson and Kenyon, with one cell currently empty, going back to the front door of the block I read on the door – Block D, Pods 10 – 12, Cells 46 – 60, after reading this I went back to the entry to the pod where my cell is, and on the door it read Pod 11, and on my cell door it read Cell 52, so many numbers to remember, but I repeated Block D, Pod 11, Cell 52 in my head to make sure that I do remember it, in case I have to provide that information.

As I was repeating this information to remember, Kenyon appeared at my cell door, “Hey Manx, it’s time to shower, grab your towel and follow me” at first, I didn’t understand why he called me Manx, then I realised he was using my initials of my name with a slight variation, I smiled as I realised this, and Kenyon gave a short laugh and waited for me to gather my towel and follow him.

When we entered the shower room, the first time for me, I saw there were five showers, with a 1.25-meter-high divider between each one and no front screen and curtain, already in the showers were there other two boys from my pod, naked and busy washing themselves clean.

I froze at the door shocked that I too would have to be naked in front of the other boys from my pod, Kenyon stripped off and headed for one of the vacant showers, showing that he was very well endowed, and circumcised like myself, while the other two were not circumcised and a little smaller in size than Kenyon, who turned to face me, after rinsing his hair to let me know that each pod only gets ten minutes in the shower, so reluctantly I stripped naked and went to have my shower.

“Nice tool you have there Manx” Matthews said to me making me blush with embarrassment, “At least you’re not the smallest in the pod” Kenyon added, having a dig at Anderson who was slightly smaller in size than Matthews, I don’t know why, but I held up my little finger and gave it a bit of a wiggle, which made Anderson protest at the action and Kenyon and Mathews laughed.

A guard walked in and told us to stop the noise and get on with showering before exiting again, luckily, I had my back to the door, so I wasn’t embarrassed with the exposure, and the other three didn’t seem to care that the guard saw them naked. “He is an alright guard Manx, but just be cautious with some of them, a couple of them like to take a perve every now and then, or have a feel of your tackle. Just remember to not react if they do, or you will get into real trouble, if you contact them with a fist or anything” Kenyon warned me, which sent shivers down my spine in fear.

After our showers, I did as my fellow pod mates did, and tossed our dirty clothes into a basket and with just towels wrapped around our waists, we returned to our pod, to get changed into fresh clothes. As I was hanging my towel on the end of my bed to allow it to dry, I heard a buzzing noise and then a loud click, sticking my head out of my cell, I noticed the door to our pod was locked, the pod consisted of a small central room, that was no more than 4 metres in diameter and it has a lounge suite and lounge chair, a fixed coffee table and a television is located up high on the wall, protected behind a sheet of thick clear plastic, to protect it from damage.

Below the television is a fixed bench, with a kettle, 5 cups, two plastic tea spoons and four plastic jars with coffee, tea, sugar and Milo in them. Looking up to me and seeing my confused look, Kenyon smiled before informing me that after showers each night, we are locked into our pods to relax and watch TV or read books. I nodded that I understood and returned to my cell, where I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I was exhausted from all that had happened to me today, firstly dragged out of my bed at 8am on a Monday morning, with my grandmother screaming at me to hurry up and get ready for my court appearance, and then go through the motions of appearing in court, hearing the sentence, and be sent straight to the detention centre, without a chance to speak to my grandmother, to apologies to her and ask her not to worry.

I soon realised that I was softly crying, and I turned over and buried my head into the pillow so my fellow pod mates wouldn’t hear me, and at some stage later I felt the bed sag down more as Kenyon sat beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I have heard that you are the kid who killed the old bloke with a baseball bat, I have also heard that you have pleaded innocent, but were still found guilty, I don’t know the full story but if you want to chat to me at any time, I am here for you ok buddy” he said before standing up and headed back out to the centre of the pod.

“Oh, and I agree with Matthews, you do have a nice tackle, plus you are a funny man with that gesture aimed at Anderson” Kenyon added from the doorway with a short laugh, before returning to the lounge to watch the television.

At some stage I fell asleep, and when I woke up to take a piss, I found a blanket had been placed over me, and that my cell door was now closed. At first, I was not sure where I was, feeling disoriented, then it all came back to me and I started to cry again as I climbed into bed. When morning came, I was still exhausted and with me little sleep, I didn’t want to get out of bed, it was only when the door swung open and a guard started yelling at me that I jumped out of bed.

Kenyon came to the door and explained to the guard that I had been crying most of the night, and that I had not slept much, I nodded my head to agree with what he had just said, and the guard looked at me before storming out. I heard him say something to Kenyon from the main pod door, but it was too far away to understand, and shortly after Kenyon appeared again and suggested that I get tidied up and ready for breakfast in ten minutes.

Reluctantly I made my bed and tidied up my cell, folding up the blanket and placing it at the end of my bed, before joining the others in the pod lounge, when we heard the buzzer and click, we left the pod and joined the others from the block in the dining room for breakfast.

There are a total of twenty teen boys in our block, with only four vacant cells; all of the boys are aged from 13 to 19 years old of various backgrounds, I was feeling a bit nervous today, I guess because I was more aware of my surroundings, some of the boys looked very mean and dangerous, and I did not want to get into a fight with them.

Kenyon had obviously been watching me as he smiled and told me to not to worry, that the dining room and recreation lounge are the only times that we ever got anywhere near the Bad Bunch of Boys or BBB’s as they are known, and that during that time they are very carefully watched. He said that I was very lucky to be placed in the pod with him and the other two guys in our pod and that they would look after him.

As I was aware from my little look around yesterday, two pods are on the west side of the block, two are on the East side and one is on the north side, which is the isolation pod, that houses the BBB gang, so I was thankful that they were well away from the pod where I was allocated.

As we were putting our cutlery and dishes on the trolley, a guard approached Kenyon and told him to show me where the medical centre is and wait till I am finished, to guide me back, I showed a look of shock and concern, which Kenyon saw and told me it was fine, and that the detention centre nurse was a very nice lady.

When we arrived at the centre, we sat on chairs outside the door and waited for ten minutes, till I heard my name called out, looking at Kenyon he smiled and nodded as I stood up and went inside. “Now Mr Silverton, I believe you are known as Manx, I’ve been told that you don’t talk at all” the nurse said as she remained seated at her desk and indicated for me to sit, I sat down and nodded my head.

“Ok so is there any reason that you don’t speak now, considering that you were speaking to the police and at the court hearing?” the nurse asked and I just shrugged my shoulders. Seeing an old-fashioned type writer on a side desk, I stood up and walked over to it, a fresh blank paper was already in place, so I just started to type out a message on it.

“I am innocent of the crimes that I have been charged and found guilty of, and I will not speak again until after I have left this horrible place”, the nurse stood up and walked over to the desk and read what I had typed, before returning to her desk and writing down some notes.

Once back at Block D, a guard came up to Kenyon and hand him a piece of paper, which he read and with a big smile he handed it to me to read.

“As recommended by the medical nurse, I hear by grant Prisoner Silverton also known as Manx, light work duties, and allocate him to the library under the supervision of Prisoner Kenyon”, I couldn’t help but smile when I read this, and for some reason I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

When I realised what I had just done, I raced into my cell, closed the door and lay face down on the bed and began to cry. A few minutes later I heard my cell door open and Kenyon entered and sat on the edge of my bed, softly he placed a hand on my shoulder and held it there.

Eventually I rolled over and looked at Kenyon through my watery eyes, “I’m sorry for what I just did, please don’t report me, I promise that I won’t ever do it again. I have never kissed a boy ever before, and I’m not even sure why I did it, I’m just so confused… I have these feeling for you, which I have never had with boys before.

I’ve had a few girlfriends through high school, but not many because of the guys I use to hang out with, who are a bit rough around the edges, as they smoke weed and drink alcohol, but they were ok with me not joining them, I just hung out with them for company and doing some occasional stupid things, like…” I stopped because I suddenly remembered something, and it was the real proof that I was not responsible for the death of the old guy.