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dan before/after Dan
with a receding hairline, supposed hellion, but really just scared of life, the uncertainty of it all. He turned 18 while in placement, and his case worker said to me, absent any sympathy, "I don't care WHERE he goes, as long as its NOT HERE." She just wanted him off the rolls. I spoke to Dan about rejoining Society, in all its glorious ways, emphasizing the beauty of that which he was most afraid of, the fact that anything can happen. "You gotta' get out there, Dan," I'd say, "Get back into the mix," He'd shrug his shoulders and put his head down, the insecurity of the man-child, showing his bald spot, just like he showed his fear, whenever I wasn't around, picking fights with the other kids, getting restrained, 'nutting up' as they say, but never when I was there. I was the patriarchal-boot-in-his-ass, that he needed to get out the door, back into the fantastical possibilities that lay in the greater world beyond confinement. I saw him a few years later after he left, He was riding a motorcycle, a thousand miles away from where I met him, still the man-child, chattering away with an excited expression on his helemet-less face, which changed to stark terror the moment I pulled up beside him at a stoplight outside Denver, and our eyes met. He immediately stopped talking, started trembling, and stared straight forward. His companion asked him what was wrong, but from him, not an answer. I was a ghost from an avenging past, a past that he seemingly could not escape.
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