I will remember the day we were ushered into assembly. The program owner, who we never saw, who we knew nothing about besides an ominous first name, was there. In cowboy boots and a southern drawl he announced to us that the boys dorm nobody talked about would be discontinued. Their members would be released, or assigned to different dorms, and the dorm itself would remain empty for some time. As I looked around, I realized many members from other groups were missing too. Our program was smaller. Where had they gone? How had I not noticed?

He told us that the boys dorm nobody talked about was the target of an underground gang initiation ring. A staff member had been smuggling in drugs. He had sectioned the group into two distinct sections, and he had made them fight each other, group member on group member, to break their will. He fought them like dogs, and he trained them in kind. He fed them drugs, and gave them booze, and he told them they were only worth what he gave them. And they fought for him, and they fought for drugs, and they fought for respect, and they fought for their lives. And then one by one, as they put on their brave faces and applied for home visits on the terms of good behaviour, they trickled out of the program that had caused them such harm, and they ran, and they never, ever looked back. Their parents would find them in far away states, in hiding, angry, backed into corners, afraid. Or they would never find their children again at all. A runner knows to run fast, and far. A runner knows to not help his comrades back at the dorm. He knows he must protect himself. He knows he will not be believed.

But I suspect one boy did. The boy who went home, and came back. The fresh faced boy who stood tall on his return. The boy with recommended release, who hugged his dorm mates with such force I almost did not notice their shudders as they cried into his shoulder. I suspect this boy was different, because he was unafraid to challenge what was happening in his dorm. Because he would suffer either way, but he might be able to save the others if he tried.

And he did. He did save them. In a way, at least. They were taken in by a program designed to help them conquer their issues and were isolated, abused, and brain washed into becoming violent dogs of men. These were kind boys, who may have had futures. We are all kind people, in the end, with positive possible outcomes that only need be nurtured, aren't we? These were strong, tall, and entirely silent men, and it was some twisted strength that pulled them through. I wonder, did they love one another, like I so often loved my dorm members? Did they sense an apology coming from the soul of the boy about to throw the punch, swing the soap-filled sock, or pin with the force of a line backer? I wonder, could they thrive after surviving such a hideous betrayal? Could they learn to live with what they had sustained? Could they? Could you?

Months later, I, too, witnessed an abuse of power. A series of unethical, manipulative, corrupt practices being enacted on my own dorm. I knew what it would cost me, the shining star of our program, who had invested so much, who had a discharge date set for the near future, who was universally adored and admired by staff and student alike. I knew what I had would be ripped away, and I made the choice anyway. This program would burn. It would smolder in front of me, beams exposed, and that idiot program owner with his cowboy boots and southern drawl and his massive earnings from this privatized mental health "treatment center" would be stripped of all his comfort and his excuses and he would cower before me, and cower before all of us, the rising children of a drowned empire. It could have been something beautiful, this program. It could have helped. It did help me, at first. I was stronger, wiser, more resolute because of it. What irony it must have been, to foster my full potential, to raise me up with such a loud, strong, triumphant voice. To give me a position of power, and to see me use it in full force against them.

And I did. The program burned. And all of the staff, and all of their corruption, and all of their profits burned with them. But not before I was denied my release. Not before they stripped me of my Challenge title. Not before I was slandered as a trouble maker, defiant, "back to my old ways".

But someday, I hope to see Mr. Bill with his cowboy boots and fancy car again. And I won't say a goddamn thing to him. But I sure as hell will wonder how the ashes of his great dream taste. And I hope he knows that I remember. And my dorm remembers. And the boys from the dorm that we all talked about remember. And we will not soon forget.