The Call of the Wild

Michal says: “We’ve had three dads in our family. Mine is the middle one, but I don´t know him. Mom wanted to leave me in the hospital, when I was born. Just walk away and leave me behind. She always had problems with me. But George, my mom’s third partner who is now living with us, persuaded her to take me home. But George beats my mom. When I was about three years old, he beat her and she threw shoes at him. It didn’t help. It just made him more angry, so he broke her nose. That’s my family, just like that.” Michael is twelve years old. He has seven siblings and lives with her parents in a small house in a small town. Michal often hangs around the streets of the small town where I live. “He is a rascal and a rogue,” say the locals. He likes math. In the skate park he sets different mathematical tasks for himself. His teacher says he is exceptionally intelligent. But he doesn’t want to learn as he thinks he doesn’t need the education. He is not interested in working anywhere like a stupid sheep as he says.
One day in winter Michal with his buddies snuck into an Indian tepee on somebody else's property. They cut holes in the canvas and decorated the interior with ketchup and mustard. “I was shocked when I saw it”, said the owner. “It was a complete mess. However, Michal´s mum called me and said she was very sorry. She pleaded desperately with me not to call the police. But I called the cops anyway because of the insurance. No report, no insurance. What do I care about the rascals that did this to my property. They didn’t care about me.” And that’s how people and the system treats the misfits. It’s better to call the police, get insurance and not care where the kid will end up. We are living in a post-socialistic country where a solution for kids like Michal is to put them for few months to the borstal and that’s it. Does that make them better people? No. Does it make them feel even more excluded? For sure.