The only time I was ever dumped by a woman, at the age of 20, it effected me so much so that I tried charity work for the first time, as a salve to make myself feel better.

Teaching art to little kids sounded feasible for a few reasons, but mainly because the girl who dumped me would have thought the pursuit very noble, and though she had run off with her new boyfriend and wasn't around to witness my altruism, I thought my volunteer spirit might make her change her mind about me.

I was taken on as a volunteer by the first daycare I solicited. During the interview, they did ask me which church I attended, but I didn't realize they were a Christian organization until I'd already agreed to come in once a week and teach a one-hour art class. The religion aspect didn't bother me as long as I wasn't called upon to give big-ups to God.

I had no experience with kids at all and I was amazed at how easily I walked in out of nowhere and gained access to 75 kids, ages 6 to 10. The daycare's traditional, old, school marm warmly excepted me into the program without even a background check.

On my first day, the marm took me to a small classroom and introduced me to the 35 kids in the After School program. They had just partaken in an afternoon snack of Cheetos and sat on the ground, staring up at me, smiling and licking their orange fingers.

When the school marm and her sidekick; a horrible fat lady with sewing needles in her hair, asked the children, "who would like to volunteer for art classes with 'Mr. Michael?". One kid got up and ran to me, grabbing at my shirt.

"Hey, easy with the cheese hands!" I exclaimed down to him with a smile and a ruffle of his moppy brown hair. Suddenly, the kids exploded in unison as if Hulk Hogan was coming down the aisle to whoop someone's ass. "CHEESE HANDS!" they screamed, rushing me, hunting-orange hands extended. The way a school of piranhas can strip a cow down to it's skeleton in a matter of seconds: within a minute I was covered in spitty, cheesy handprints.

When the dust settled, the school marm put me in a room alone with several little girls: my students. I was not ready for the psychological power of 8-year-old girls: they revered and respected and adored me without question. They tried to sit in my lap, stroke my hair and arms, rest their chins on my shoulders as I tried to teach. They told me I wasn't like the other adults. They acted like a little harem and it was truly unnerving.

A little brown-haired, tan girl named Chelsea was the prettiest, and she knew it, but not in a snobby way: she wanted to make me happy with her attentions. And her attentions were most definitely feminine. Even at her young age she wanted to flirt. I would be trying to teach and Chelsea would grab me softly by the face, turn my head toward her and look into my eyes, smiling silently as if to say, "This is all great…this art stuff…but what about you? Who are you?"

The other girls were relatively innocuous, but still gorged me with unnecessary, unfounded love. I was not used to it and it made me confused and uncomfortable. "I love you Mr. Michael." One would say. 'You don't love me,' I would secretly think in a bit of a panic, 'You don't even know me, I don't even remember your names.'

"I love you too." I would say, looking around to see who witnessed my reciprocity.

New students came and went each week, 90% girls, but the core three or four girls showed up consistently. One week I set about teaching them simple tricks of portrait drawing. It was a bit advanced for their age, high school stuff at least, but they did well.

At the end of the class, as a lark, I asked them to draw me.

One girl drew a picture of me falling from a bridge with a rope tied to my leg. Chelsea drew me with money falling out of my pockets ("That's what I wish for you," she told me later). One six-year-old girl left off my red hair completely; in her picture I was bald, but she drew the entire picture with a crayon the color of my hair.

After four or five classes with the girls, the school marm offered me a staff position in the after-school program. It paid more than any job I'd had before, and judging from the girls' reactions; I assumed I was great with kids. So I took the position. But it was much different than the art teaching gig. Much worse.

The Department of Children and Families' (formerly HRS) law allows as few as one adult per every 25 students. Our after school program featured three counselors and 75 kids. Which is insane.

The kids' after-school time with us was as close to anarchy as they were afforde during their daily routines: while the sun was out, they were under their teachers' official rule, and their time at home fell under their parents' jurisdiction. Their time with us after-school was purgatory. And they spent our time together unleashing their demons, letting them out for some air and exercise. And I was expected to read them Bible Stories.

It was mandatory that all the counselors took turns reading the Bible Stories. During their school year, I did everything I could to avoid my turn reading. But when the summer came, we were all trapped together in a hot, thinly carpeted cafeteria for nine hours a day and it became inevitable that I would eventually read.

The other teachers stood on the light-blue, carpeted stage in front of the children, reading enthusiastically despite the dozens of little eyes drooping and sagging to sleep. Certain kids revolted, denounced the stories as "BORING!" But at that young age, their attention spans were too low to stage an efficient group uprising. So the stories went on all summer, and I too, was forced to read.

When reading to them, I added levity (and mocked the institution a little, I admit) by assigning different cartoon voices to every Bible character. Jesus' voice was always the most dynamic and goofy: I did a helluva Jesus. My big sloppy voice would fill the room all the way back the school marm and the knitting-needle-haired lady standing, arms folded, brows furrowed, unimpressed.

But the kids loved it. And in turn, loved me. They loved me so much that I became one of them, and they eventually showed as little respect for me as they did each other.

Most people's first instinct upon working with kids is to win their friendship, be their pal. The young idealist mind I was burdened with at the time I worked at the daycare center, sought the approval of those kids more than I ever had my peers. But that attitude is suicide in the child care biz.

Kirby LeValle was an especially rabid (though somehow endearing) kid who worked himself up to such a fever pitch on the playground that he wasn't able to shut it off once the group came back inside to the cafeteria. The first time I noticed that Kirby hadn't run all his steam out on the playground, I conceded to wrestle with him on the carpeting of the cafeteria, in hopes of satisfying him, while the other kids stood in line for snacks.

Of course Kirby couldn't budge me: he'd jump up and I'd just brush him off like Cheeto dust. But he was wearing himself out trying, which was the point. Eventually one of Kirby's friends came to his aid and joined the fray. I easily disposed of him as well.

Seconds later I found myself battling three kids, then four. The battle grew tougher and louder until I was forced to yell for the 6 little boys to have a bit of mercy on me. But their merciless numbers grew and they eventually took me down like a chicken wing in a fire-ant pile. The other counselors had to break it up and they weren't happy with me. They often weren't happy with me.

I was admittedly unfit to work with children. As I said, I was mentally unprepared because I didn't see myself far enough removed from their age. I hadn't the objectivity. I couldn't differentiate those kids from my peers and when they failed to show me the proper respect I would lose my temper and kook the fuck out. The kids relished my red/purple-faced screaming and, though I practiced good one-on-one relations with most of them, none of them resisted bringing color to my cheeks and hoarseness to my voice if the opportunity arose: I was just too entertaining. And since I had more energy and anger than the old women I worked alongside, my rage was much more compelling to the children. I can't blame them for enjoying it. I can't blame them for baiting me. My temper was ridiculous and those kids were heady enough to make something good from my childish outrage..

Kirby's best friend, CJ Barker, was a loud, tragic, insecure, 6-year-old with a blonde bowl cut. He came from a divorced family and bit the other children often. But he wasn't a pathetic puddle of piss and drool like some of the dysfunctional kids that would lapse into a boneless pile, in protest, when led by the arm to time-out: CJ would rip his arm away from me and walk ahead of me, arms crossed, with authority. I related to him. And when things got crazy in CJs world, he would bury his head in my neck for protection against whatever scared him. He would cry into my shoulder and then bite down as hard as he could until we were almost both crying.

As I walked behind him to time-out, red-faced but secretly sympathizing with CJ, he apologized profusely through tears, and called my "Daddy". He once called me "Daddy" in front of his bitchy, Joan Crawford-esque mother and the eye contact I shared with her when CJ called me that, was indescribably uncomfortable. And though I don't understand why he called me "Daddy"; I'm sure he had a motive.

CJ was an impressionist. He rarely spoke directly. One morning, after staying up all night smoking pot, I came in stoned and as I stepped in the door, CJ stomped toward me with his arms folded and his face screwed up. He stepped high when he walked with his giant shoes dangling on the ends of his unusually skinny legs. His feet came down loudly onto the thin carpet with each step. When he reached me, he looked mad as hell and intimidating for a six-year-old. I looked down at him from what seemed like 10 feet up.

"Put---it---out!" CJ commanded.

"What? What CJ? What's the matter?" I replied, stoned, amused. He noticed that I derived pleasure from his disgruntled state and turned up the volume.

"Your HAND!" He screamed.

I put out my hand and CJ's voice grew deep. He bellowed, "NO LOVE!," cranked his arm back like a baseball pitcher and slapped a palm-sized piece of paper hard into my hand before stomping off: CJ had given me a small contour drawing of a blue church with a red cross blooming from the top of it. Underneath was the phrase, "NO LOVE," in a child's scrawl.

I had no idea what it meant, but I was high out of my mind and it seemed so sad that I excused myself to the bathroom where I sat and studied the picture and tried not to cry. The daycare teemed with overwhelming pathos.

Jimmy was a bear kid: slightly chunky, a round face and earthy brown hair. He rarely got in trouble but he still had friends. He was defiantly smarter than I was. Jimmy seemed so together and meditative that I sometimes found myself daydreaming of hanging out with him away from the daycare center and how my friends would have liked him. I told his mother that once and she knew exactly what I meant, so I never worried about Jimmy's home-life the way I did for CJ and most of the other kids.

One day Jimmy sat on a jungle gym, head in hands, removed from the other children. Naturally, I walked over, knelt down on his 8-year-old level, and asked him what was wrong. Jimmy shook his head at me exasperatedly. He waved me away without making eye contact and snickered as if to say, 'you wouldn't understand'. It made me mad but I kept calm and asked again.

"Seriously, Jimmy, I'm your friend, when something's bothering you, you can definitely talk to me, dude."

Jimmy was silent for a minute. Then…swear to god…he put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye and said, "You know, Michael, just because someone chooses to be alone doesn't mean that they are unhappy." Those weren't his words exactly, but his expression of the sentiment was equally as level and eloquent.

The most striking part was that I'd never thought of it that way. From that day on, I have never assumed that a person's silence denoted unhappiness and I have little patience for others that don't already realize what it took Jimmy to teach me. CONCLUSION COMING SOON: