In 2000, I enrolled in a government-funded residential vocational training program called Job Corps geared toward helping at-risk teens and young adults learn trade skills and find lucrative employment.
One of the students there made it more than obvious that he was simply there for the free ride. Aside from sleeping in class, he found amusement in bullying other students who generally could not fight back due to his massive 300-pound size. His antics would include snatching food out of other students’ hands and eating it, wrestling smaller students around while ignoring their shouts to get off of them, taunting students relentlessly even when no one was responding to him, and in one instance, calling a student’s mother and telling her about a very personal and embarrassing incident that had happened to him. Complaints about him were usually addressed with a “knock it off” talk and nothing further.
As my luck had it, this goon ended up being assigned to my dorm room. I probably shouldn’t need to go into detail about how he made it a hobby to make life absolutely unbearable for me. It came to the point where I once ended up going to management and asking them to just give me a bus ticket back home if they weren’t going to move me to another room.
Now, again, this was in the year 2000, and cell phones were not as widespread as they are today. For security reasons, Job Corps had a very strict policy against possessing cell phones or pagers. (Rumor had it that it was to discourage drug deals and gang activity on the campus, but I never got a clear answer.) At one point, after a student was involved in a serious incident that had been facilitated by the use of a smuggled cell phone, the center director announced that anyone else caught with a cell phone on the campus would face automatic termination.
A student approached me saying, “Hey, look. I just got this phone, but I don’t want to take the risk of automatic termination. I spent a lot of money on it, though. Could you take it for $50?”
At that point in time, I had become so disgruntled and disillusioned with the Job Corps program that I honestly didn’t care anymore if I completed or was terminated. I bought the phone from him, planning to stash it in a sock and use it in lone places like the utility room.
By strange coincidence, one of the dorm resident advisors announced that his phone had fallen out of his jacket and was offering a $200 reward for its return. The brand name and color didn’t match the phone I had bought from the aforementioned student. However, later that day, the bullying roommate spotted my phone, which had fallen out of my sock as I was rummaging through my things.
Bully: “YO! That’s that cell phone from [Dorm Advisor]!”
Me: “No, his was a [description].”
Bully: “Naw, naw, naw, that’s the phone! Give it to me!”
Me: “It’s not the same phone—”
Bully: *Grabbing me by the collar* “I SAID GIVE IT TO ME BEFORE I BREAK YOUR JAW!”
I gave him the phone, and he ran out of the room with a huge smile on his face. He ran straight to the dorm residential advisor.
Bully: “Hey! I found your phone!”
Resident Advisor: *Looking it over* “This is not my phone, but what are you doing with a phone on the campus anyway? The center director made it crystal clear that anyone else caught with a phone would be terminated from the program!”
Bully: “[My Name] had it. He was trying to sell it to me! I thought maybe it was yours! It’s his phone!”
I heard the resident advisor making his way down the hall and I knew this was about to become a fabulous day.
Resident Advisor: “Is this your phone?”
I pretended to read a book and looked very uninterested.
Me: “Huh? No, that ain’t mine.”
Bully: “TELL HIM THAT’S YOUR PHONE!”
Resident Advisor: “[Bully], I’m going to ask you to come with me, please.” *Pulls out his radio* “I need security down to Dorm 4.”
Seeing [Bully]’s bed stripped and his belongings cleaned out of his closet felt like Christmas had come early. I still get a chuckle when I think about how the problem took care of itself — the bully ironically bullied himself out of the program!
