Tom Schreck: On the Ropes

“Al-lah-King, Al-lah-King, don’t worry. Mommy’s going to be all right.” Walanda suddenly calmed herself for the sake of the dog. The dog, whatever his name was, stopped howling, started to whimper, and he waddled his fat self down the two steps of her porch and went over and licked the tears from Walanda’s cheek.

“Duffy,” Walanda said, “promise me something, right now.” The craziness had left her voice and was replaced with a desperate but calculated take-care-of-business tone.

“Tell me what you need, babe,” I said. Kelley had her up and heading toward the car.

“You got to find my stepdaughter Shondeneisha.” Kelley was putting her in the car. “She’s gone and I think the Webster got her.”

I didn’t have a whole lot of time to get details. I also couldn’t ask much from Kelley. He had had a bad morning himself and he wasn’t going to appreciate a lot of social work mumbo-jumbo.

“Duff, you can catch up on the finer points of these issues when Walanda gets situated. I’ve kind of had it for this morning,” Kelley said.

“Gotcha,” I said.

Walanda wasn’t through yet. She started crying and yelling again.

“Take Allah-King while I’m away-promise me,” Walanda was back to wailing. “He needs someone and there ain’t no one else. You gotta, Duff-you gotta.”

I had no time to think and I panicked.

“Don’t worry-I’ll take care of him,” I heard come out of my mouth.

“Don’t feed him no pork-he’s Muslim,” Walanda yelled as Kelley hit the siren and pulled out.

“Assalaamu alaikum,” I said to my new best friend, Allah-King.

Assalaamu alaikum is the respectful way Muslims greet each other. I knew a couple of guys from boxing who were members of the Nation of Islam and I admired the discipline in their lives. I think the greeting means “peace be with you,” or maybe that’s what us Catholics say in response to whatever the priest says. I don’t know if it mattered much at all to Allah-King. Judging from his appearance, he would have been more pleased with a greeting of “Salami and bacon.”

He was sitting there whimpering, watching Kelley’s patrol car disappear. Long after it was out of sight, he cocked his head in my direction as if to ask, “What next?” I’ve never had a dog, let alone a Muslim one, and I didn’t know the first thing about having one. I wasn’t really thrilled about having this fat stepdog to take care of for a month until Walanda got released, but I told her I’d take care of him, so I would.

“Let’s go, Al.” I made the decision to go with the shortened version of his name, not out of disrespect to his faith, but rather out of convenience. I headed toward the Eldorado, and a somewhat reluctant Al followed along. I opened the passenger-side door for Al to hop in, but he just sat there on the curb.

“C’mon boy, up you go,” I said.

Not only did Al not move, but he also growled a little and had a look on his face like he resented being called “boy.” Suddenly, I felt a bit like a white devil. I leaned over and grabbed Al under his front paws and hefted him up.

Al probably weighed about eighty pounds, but it wasn’t a neatly balanced eighty pounds, and his back legs hung down while I kind of flopped his front legs onto my front seat. The landing caused a rush of flatulence to escape out of Al’s ass, which was perfectly positioned a mere eight inches from my face. Judging from the fragrance of his landing, I thought maybe Al’s diet would be enhanced with some pork. We headed back toward my place when I realized I was going to need some dog supplies, so I changed directions and drove toward PetSmart. Al had his eyes closed and looked to be making his lifestyle adjustment by sleeping. A pool of slobber gunked up the velour on my front seat.

Walanda had been a client of mine on and off for five years. There was no doubt she was nuts and addicted. Of course, if I had her background I don’t know if I could function as well as she, at least sometimes, did. She was sexually abused all through her childhood by her stepfather and several of his friends, got into prostitution at thirteen, and was addicted by fourteen. Her five kids by four different men were taken away from her six years ago because she was whoring and using, and she didn’t have a chance at getting them back.

I had never heard of a stepdaughter, but she lived the kind of lifestyle where family was a broad term. The interesting thing about people like Walanda was that most people write them off because they don’t ever seem to get better and because they just continue to do shit that gets them in trouble. Somehow, that qualifies people to devalue the Walandas of the world by calling them “hos” or “crackheads.” The reality is that these folks are flesh and blood, and from a very early age, the cards they were dealt weren’t winning hands.

That’s not to say that they have no responsibility for how their lives turn out, but it means you’ve got to do some thinking when you look at people and the places they have found for themselves in life. It would be simple to suggest that they should just pull themselves out of their miserable existence and better themselves. I tend to think that if your existence has been miserable enough, then you may not have what it takes to pull yourself out of it.

Unfortunately, it’s much easier to devalue folks, and some people take great pride in looking down their noses at folks like Walanda. Giving them a label like “ho” or “crackhead” makes it easier to not see them as being human. Most people would much rather head to the mall, watch Survivor, and get in their SUV than give this shit any thought at all.

All of Walanda’s men were abusive and at least two of them pimped her out on the street for their drugs. There was a brief period when she joined the Nation of Islam, and for eight months she was clean, sober, and working. I don’t know if she ever even understood the principles of Islam, but the discipline and structure sure made a difference in her life. Then she found out her oldest son had been stabbed and killed in the boys’ home he was in and that was it-Walanda went back to her old lifestyle.

She keeps about half of her appointments with me, which means I see her about twice a month. Most of the time we just shoot the shit, but that’s an hour when she’s not getting high or turning a trick. Sometimes in her sessions, she actually sets some decent goals for herself. Recently, she was talking about getting some training to be a nurse’s aid. That was before the Dollarama arrest and lots of crack. I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks, which probably meant she was on a binge, getting into that ugly cycle of getting high and whoring around the clock. Walanda knew what happened when she got into the crack and though she could compartmentalize her behavior to a degree, it left scars on her psyche and, more importantly, her soul. Though often hard to recognize under the addiction and the craziness, Walanda cared about things and valued her family. It would be easy to say that she valued crack more, but that was an oversimplification of what was going on.

Al started to make a low humming noise and he shifted position. Anything he did seemed to require intense effort because of his belly. He stretched a bit, seemed to yawn, and then barfed into my carpeting. Once he got things out of his system, he shuffled about in the front seat until he was comfortable and then, when he was convinced he had found the exact right spot, he laid down and started a new puddle of drool on my front seat.

It was fun having a pet.

I got the essentials for Al, made sure he had a bowl of food and water, and headed back to the office. The Michelin Woman confronted me the second I walked in.