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Sandcastles and Clients before/after And that walk we make, down the powder filled halls of righteousness, the stops we make immortal, as beach sand are we, washing up on distant shores, with no real reason as to how or why, just that we are, just as it is, desirable to have sandy beaches, perhaps are we, rather than not, and sometimes this just triggers memories, fading from one beach to the next, washing up on another's shore, I mean washing up as in to come in from the ocean, not bathe, and these memories come unbidden, just an endless ride through the tides, keyed by a word, a phrase, or nothing at all. Remember Dave?� I liked Dave.� Client of mine, once. I worked on dave like a motherfucker.� Built him up, over and over and over.� Much like building a sand castle or a house of cards.� Tried, really did.� But with need/neglect cases, sometimes their whole trick is to get someone to try, try, try.� Have no real interest in building things for themselves, feeling gypped out of a caring environment or a mother's love that had been owed to them, and felt they'd been owed ever since. Dave was a tall, lanky kid.� A natural street hustler who's mom was crazy as a bedbug.� True to the core schizophrenic, an unfit mother.� She was never sure if I was part of the collusion to keep her kids from her, and I walked a tight line avoiding suspicion as she rambled on about how the mayor and other prominent city officials, lawyers and such had plotted to take her children away, make her lose her job and home.� Not wanting a paranoid schizophrenic on my ass, I stayed well away from that, and tried quite hard to make sure she had every available opportunity to see her child.� Bussed her in.� Called and called again to make sure everything went smoothly.� Only got her to visit once or twice.� She managed to fuck it up, what was a foolproof plan, calling me from whatever shelter she looned into, not sure how she got there, raving about the conspiracy to deprive her of her children and job, the fatal flaw being a definite denial of responsibility that ran through every statement because the foundation was fucked. You could listen to her at times, and I did with a certain level of fascination, observing a scizophrenic loose in the wild coming to terms with their reality is a bizzarely interesting thing to behold, and at times catch myself thinking, "Damn, this almost sounds plausible..." and then pausing to look at the case file spread out in front of me, David's actually, with annotated documentation that his mother was crazy as a bedbug.� Well documented session notes, diagnoses and prognoses laying flat in my face saying, "No, nonsense.". Sometimes it was almost rythmic and hypnotic to listen to, until I shook my head and cleared it out.� Not in the best interest of my client.� Realizing the mayor had nothing to do with her, didn't know her name, but that she had likely made so much noise officially, that someone may have consulted him on what to do.� David was involved in a high profile court case, discrimination or something, that I didn't investigate to fully, other than to process it with him in group.� Realizing that she had somehow decided to stop taking her meds, and not come home to her children for a year, by then they had been scooped up by the system.� Realizing that likely she just didn't show up for her job for a few weeks, and that was that.� Homeless, jobless, medicationless, she lost her kids. And then there was Dave.� That goofy smile and uncertain look in his eye.� Almost made you believe he wanted to do what was right. Not in on any special charge, just mainly need/neglect until he freaked out in a youth home and attacked a guard that was restraining his brother, as his brother was getting kicked out. I built and rebuilt his confidence daily.� It was a chore, but a glad one.� Every day a little more stuck.� Every so often giving him a challenge, seeing how he would respond.� After awhile it was aces everytime. I got so deep in his head he started talking like me.� This has happened more than a few times.� Dave achieved a rank on camp in the honorary club, which was an incredible turn of events.� He was on task and high functioning.� One time, a truly evil soul was in the RTC, and he took a swing at Dave, connecting.� It was a cheap, blind shot.� Funny thing was, it happened right in front of me, in front of my group, and my group was a well oiled machine at that point.� If I had armed them, we could've stormed the town. And I remember watching the kid throw the sucker punch in slow mo, thinking, "That is one weak-assed punch." And my group took him and restrained him.� Dave, to his credit, could've done any number of things, such as in the intervening time that our group grabbed the culprit, and brought him down, which was about a heartbeat from when the words left my lips, Dave could've easily stomped him into the hospital, or otherwise taken revenge.� He did nothing.� Showed restraint.� He earned his rank for that. And then I took Dave to court.� As usual, they called me to testify.� I always wore my customary black sports jacket, red paisely tie, jeans, dress shoes, and sunglasses.� Not in court, though, the sunglasses.� That would be disrespectful. Dave's mom had been lurking around on the fringes, like a predator, sizing me up all afternoon, directly ignoring anything I said to her.� To talk to her, I had to talk through Dave. And Dave had been busy hustling.� He got a new caseworker, and she didn't know shit.� In the space of an hour or two, he had arranged for his release, almost magically, by beguling the woman, and probably mixing his mom into it.� Still not sure how he pulled it up to that point, other than pure street charm and fast-talking double speak. Didn't matter.� I swaggered up to the stand and winked at Dave. "Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"� the baliff intoned.� She was a fat african american girl with the regional inflection.� The 'God' sounded more like 'Gawwwt". "Sure," I said non-chalantly.� I had always wondered if my non-commital 'sure' would pass official muster, as I often mean it to say, "Believe what you will" rather than "yes". "uhh...does that mean yes?" the baliff floundered. I affirmed, and the court seemed eager to hear me.� But then I floundered and suffered one of the worst of the few cases of stagefright that I ever had.� Confusing, sometimes it sneaks up on me.� Some people its relative to the room.� Maybe to me its expectations.� They really wanted to hear me.� Usually, in terms of stages, I have no problems.� Could pull my scrotum out and flip it around and not feel much one way or the other about it.� Not on this day.� Anyway, I gave my testimony, saying David needed more treatment, and the judge, as they all do, took it as advice, me being the one knee deep in the case.� And David was kept in the RTC. Rightly so.� The kid still had a lot to work on, and nowhere to go but the streets. And his mother sobbed loudly in the courtroom, cut-off by the judge.� She had made some long scenes in the past, and when she was called to speak, they got the facts and shut her down. Dave and I stood outside the courtroom proper while his mom hugged and kissed him and cried.� Loony as she was, a mother's love hardly ever comes undone.� It is a cardinal sin against nature should it do so. "I will not give up the fight David, " she said inbetween tears. "I love you." And she actually spoke to me, upon David's prompting, seeming confused, but giving me the benefit of the doubt for his sake, saying she was going to trust me because he said so and so on.� I invited her up to the RTC for a visit, and said I would arrange transportation. She agreed, and Dave and I walked off to the van.� As we walked outside I saw her don a billboard sign, with words and pictures.� Right out in front of the building. I pulled up, and she was screaming.� Screaming at the top of her lungs. "There will be no peace until there is justice!!!� There will be no peace until there is justice!!!� No justice!� NO PEACE!!!" Carrying on the fight, as it were. Pictures of Dave and his brother on the billboard sign.� Some scribbling that meandered and was ill sized. She looked at us and smiled as we drove away.� She may have waved at us, as if this was a normal affair for her, much like being a hot-dog vendor, or a salesman. I felt for Dave, and the presence this must have been in his life.� Had that been my mother, I don't think I would have liked it. He seemed allright.� Over the years, the embarassment must have steadily worn away. Dave was doing so well, they took him from my group to stablize another, which hated their groupleader and was on the edge of riot. He wilted when taken away from me.� His mother had trouble with the switch, and I think I ended up on her blacklist, shortly before, I'm rather sure, she decided to disappear for awhile.� Perhaps the heat was too thick and her imagined enemies too swift and it called for a non-job, non-home low profile.� I'll never know, but am all right with that.� I talked to her a few times after the switch, and sounded like a progressive degredation.� Take the meds, take the meds, take the meds! This didn't seem to bother Dave too much.� He admitted to some bitter feelings, to put it mildly, towards his mother in group later on.� He was back with my group for a visit, his group was on a trip and he had court. But didn't get discharged or moved, I believe.� Tried to hustle his way out of the system again, but I had warned all relevant parties before they even got there. Don't know what happened to him after that.� If I had to guess, I'd say he either hustled his way out, or worked his way out, and is floating around out there some where, not doing anything relevant. �
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