When many at-risk boys get kicked out of their home, usually because they come out to their families, fathers seem particularly threatened, the boy will surrender to the dramatic emotion of the moment, frequently leaving behind things they call, My Stuff. Whether they had a lot of stuff in their sacred bedrooms, or no stuff at all, their stuff gives them an excuse to see these places, and how they have changed in the kid’s absence. They can be completely abandoned. Abandonment becomes a central issue.

I am just the guy who listens. First, to weeping. “So, what you’re saying is that the aloneness of your life hurts.”

“I don’t need your shrinking bullshit, Tim, you’re not going to shrink me. Especially now. I don’t know where they went. They took my little brother, and I loved him. They’re going to destroy him, or turn him into a MethHead just like themselves.”

These kids will plan and plot a return to what was the Family Home Estate. Often, it will now not be a home to anyone. It can be abandoned, and the kid can fall apart when he realizes that he has no home to return to, and no family he can connect with. I am likely to accompany the boy who is going through this because the kid can so easily fall completely apart.

Into a black hole from which there is no escape. He has now entered the quiet rooms of suicide.

The ride back to Smash Street is always soundless. I can hear them breathe.

The boys who want me to leave them by themselves have planned for this. Razor blades or sometimes a rope stuffed down their jeans.

He will claim he never knew they were going to do this.

He knew. At some level it was living like a blood clot in his head.

I know this: He’s going to come with me because I won’t give him any other options. And he will return to his peers, and everyone there will hold him tight.

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