Escapes and Growing Rage

Our first escape from detention didn’t work out very well. We’d had big dreams of doing B & E’s, getting all kinds of cash and making our way out of Newfoundland. Things just didn’t go as planned. Our first issue was finding footwear, but that proved to be fairly easy; It is amazing how many people in St. John’s leave sneakers out on their back steps. We found a couple pairs (ok, we stole a couple of pairs) and then had to work on jackets, which turned out to be a little more difficult.

That first night we ended up sleeping in a fishing boat that was in someone’s back yard. It was covered with a plastic covered frame and we simply cut the plastic to gain access, needing somewhere to get out of the cold, even if it was just inside an unheated fishing boat. It never occurred to us that we had just committed a break and enter the moment we cut the plastic. The next day we ventured out, first needed to get some food, any food. We stole bread, potato chips, and some other things from a grocery store. We didn’t really care what we stole as long as it was food, and we were both fairly experienced in shopping with no money. In our minds, it was a matter of survival – when on the run you did what you had to do. There was no time to consider the consequences and if we did even for the briefest of moments, it would not matter. It made no difference to me if I had one more charge against me or a hundred. I just did not care. I couldn’t see beyond being in the system.

That trip into freedom lasted about two days. We nearly froze to death and I for one was relieved to be arrested and brought back to the warmth of the detention center. Upon our return we were confined to our cells for some time, but we had earned a new respect from the other inmates (residents is what we were called, but hey – we slept in cells with locked steel doors so were inmates in my book) and I enjoyed the attention and respect. We laughed at the staff and how they hadn’t believed that we had actually left the building. The respect we had gained from the inmates was about equal to the distrust we had earned from the staff. Some of them seemed to take the escape as a personal insult, treating us much differently afterwards.

With more time in our cells I found myself trapped with no distraction from my mind. I had way too much time to think and it led me to depression which turned into my default reaction – rage. I would pace around the small cell for hours at a time, sweat pouring off of me, riding out waves of adrenaline and I walked and walked in tight circles, changing direction when my knees started screaming. I would punch the brick walls and steel door with quick jabs that would quickly swell my knuckles. I had yet to be sentenced, had no idea how much time I was going to get, and by now had increased the number of outstanding charges greatly. To me, at fourteen, this was forever.  That feeling adding to my negative attitude – I just didn’t care.

I became more self-destructive while in detention, once digging at my wrists with a small piece of glass. It was while I was confined to me cell for something, perhaps an escape (there were a few of those) and at first I think the cutting was intended to be another escape attempt: they would have to take me to the hospital, and when they did I would run. But once I had my wrist opened up a little, I could see what I thought was a vein. Again, this was a very small piece of glass and it took some time to actually get past the skin. The pain was minimal. After the first couple of cuts I didn’t really feel it. I began poking at the vein with the sharp end of the glass, knowing that I would not bleed to death by cutting it, but wanted to see just what would happen. I never got to find out – the staff caught me and I got my trip to the hospital. I never got the chance to run (or chickened out perhaps)  and was simply brought back to detention afterwards.

I was not the only one who displayed self-destructive behavior. I once watched a guy break his own arm just to get a trip out to the hospital. He smashed his forearm against the corner of a concrete post repeatedly. He told me he was going to escape when they took him to the hospital, but he returned a few hours later, with a cast on his arm.

The police brought us into the building and all I wanted to do was sleep. I was half drunk, and dead tired. Being on the run and actually running every time you see a police car will beat you out. I was looking forward to going to my cell and sleeping.

“Take Veinotte in here.” one of the staff members said. I am not sure if they took Jim into another room or if they just kept him outside until they were done with me.

“Strip!” Brofie said. My response: “Fuck you!”

With that I was grabbed and thrown down on a table on my stomach, while my clothes were unceremoniously torn off of me. “Every fucking time you are outside this building you bring something in. Well not this time! I am going to make sure of that!” Brofie roared at me.

I struggled but it was useless. I was stood up and then was soon naked, standing there in a room full of men. I shook with anger. I glared into Brofies eyes while tears streamed down my face. “Fuck you” I hissed.

“Lay back down on the table” he told me. “On your stomach!”

I refused, cursing him some more. I knew what was coming and it did not matter what I did, he was going to get his way. So I fought them, but ended up laying on the table naked, face down. Brofie’s way of searching me was to use his keys to spread my bottocks. Embarrassment, rage, shame all rolled over me with a strength I had never felt before. I felt a new level of hatred and I felt the cold keys touching me.

They took me out of the room and led me to my cell. I was crying uncontrollably, hating myself for the tears. As I went into the cell I looked out past the guard who was closing the door directly into Brofie’s eyes. “I am going to get you Brofie, you hear me? I will fucking get you, you bastard!”

That threat, hissed at him with pure rage, was a mistake. He pushed the other guard out of the way and had him close the cell door behind him. “Go back to the control room,” he told him as the door closed. I stood at the back of the cell, trapped. “You want me, here I am you little fucker!” he growled, stepping towards me. “Come on you little fuck. Hit me!” He pushed me against the back wall and continued screaming at me.

I swung.

I don’t know if I actually hit him or not. I don’t think so, but he grabbed me, threw me to the floor and then slammed my head off of the bare cast iron bed frame (the mattress had been taken out as part of my punishment) hard enough that I saw stars. He was still screaming as he slammed my forehead back into the frame again. I don’t know how many times my head hit the frame, only two or three I think, but I can’t be sure.

When he left the cell I laid on the floor for some time, wishing there was some way out of this mess. There was only one way of course.

In November I was flown to Goose Bay for sentencing on my original offences and was sentenced to seven months secure custody. By now I had a whole list of charges still to be sentenced on in St. John’s, so the seven months didn’t mean much to me, other than one point: It would mean that they would have to take me out of the detention center and move me to “The Floor”. The Floor was how the main building was referred to. I would be leaving the cells and moving to the floor where there were no cells, just rooms, though you shared them with other guys. I felt like I was about to go on a vacation!

I loved in on The Floor. The main building was a whole different world than the detention center. There were also a couple of girls there, one who I quickly grew very attached to. We could never seem to find a way to be alone, but that didn’t stop me from making out with her when there were no staff members around. The guys were cool, no one paying any attention to us as I tried to make up for lost time in the romance department. That did lead to some embarrassment when a staff member asked me if I had pissed myself. I just grinned and went upstairs to my room.

I got into a fight or two but they were minor. I did end up spending some time in the detention cells because of it – these were actual cells in a part of the main building that were used to punish various infractions, fighting being one of them. I still could not settle down and just do my time though. I didn’t want to get into trouble, but when the opportunity presented itself I just couldn’t say no. The first fight was with the guy I had been on the run with back in Goose Bay. I was standing with my arms up, holding onto the top of the door frame talking to a couple of other guys when he walked up.

“Hey Veinotte, I heard you were calling me a rat?” He said. I was scared but tried to act cool. I didn’t think I could take him. I was taller than him, but skinny, and he was much stronger than I was. But I knew that this was a turning point. If I backed down from him now I would have no respect in this place. I would have guys thinking they could walk over me, so I knew we were about to go at it.

“Well, are you?” I asked. “You spent a lot of time being interviewed by the cops back in Goose. And then Scott and the guys all got dragged in and questioned. So are you a rat?”

I was still standing nonchalantly holding the top of the doorframe and barely saw the punch coming. He hit me in the mouth, and that was the only punch thrown in the fight. I grabbed him and managed to get him in a headlock, dragging him into the washroom behind me. I was still trying to hit his head off of the toilet (don’t think I ever managed to make contact) when the staff came in and broke us up. That was the only time we fought.

I was only there a week or two when my buddy Jim and I decided we were going to run. This time it was easy – no escaping involved – you could just walk away. And that is what we did. As usual though, we didn’t last very long and a couple of days later found ourselves in the detention cells again. I had managed to sneak in some matches that the staff didn’t find. If you had matches, you had to burn something. I passed some of the matches over to Jim in the cell next to me. These cells had bars on the doors so we could easily reach out and pass things back and forth when the staff were not sitting in front of us. I actually managed to steal a pack of cigarettes once when the staff had left the room (they were not supposed to – there was supposed to be one there at all times) and I took off my clothes, tied them together and managed to snag the package and drag them to me. We didn’t get much chance to smoke them, but managed. Had we still had cigarettes maybe we would not have started the fire… maybe.

The only thing in our cells were the plastic covered foam mattresses. They burned, but the smoke was unbelievable. We lit them both at the same time and by the time the staff managed to get us out of our cells I was ready to pass out from inhaling the toxic black smoke. The cells and the small room outside them was thick with smoke. I staggered out of the cell with a staff member helping me out. He was the only staff to come in, the smoke beat back the others who stayed outside the door in the hallway. He choked and coughed and his hands shook so badly while he unlocked my cell that I was afraid he was not going to get it opened.

They put the fire out with extinguishers and we added to our list of changes. Mischief, destruction of government property and I don’t know what else. It was decided that we were not good candidates for the floor and we were sent back to the detention center – the only inmates there who were serving time and not just on remand.

I was later to learn that I would likely be serving all of my time in the detention center. I was basically barred from the floor. I bragged about being ‘kicked out of the boy’s home.’ As it turned out, it would not be the first institution that I would be barred from.