Tom Schreck: On the Ropes

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Home visit with Walanda-she got arrested and was having a tough time,” I said.

“Considering our discussion this morning, Duffy, that’s not a good use of time. You need to focus on your records.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t want the people on my caseload to get in the way of writing about them in their records,” I said.

“Duffy, one of your issues is your inability to set appropriate boundaries. You don’t let your clients feel the responsibility for their self-defeating behavior. They seek attention and you give it to them,” she said.

“Gee whiz, boss. I never thought of it that way. Let me get after those records,” I said.

Fortunately, Trina buzzed Michelin’s phone, giving me a bit of a reprieve. As Claudia left to get the phone, I looked around the corner and gave Trina a thumbs-up and mouthed a “thank you.” She winked at me and seemed to hold her eyes on mine for a second or two longer than she had to. It was summer and Trina’s skin was smooth and tan and it contrasted nicely with the plain white collared shirt she wore. Her dark brown, almost black hair seemed to gather light and her teeth were flawless, as were most of her body parts.

I grabbed some records and headed back to the cubicle, ready to start on Eli’s chart again. Monique, the caseworker whose cubicle was just across the small aisle made by the partitions, rolled back in her office chair.

“Why do you bait her like that?” Monique said. “It only makes it worse for you. Can’t you just let it go?”

“If I can piss her off and not cave under her bullshit, I feel a little redeemed,” I said.

“Talk about self defeating…” she said.

Monique was all right. She’s a forty-two-year-old black lesbian with a cold veneer. She had her shit together and somehow was able to balance being good with her clients, getting her paperwork done, and keeping the Michelin Woman off her back. Monique tended to wear baggy clothes, often with an African print, which offset her almost midnight-black skin.

I liked and respected Monique and, though she often rolled her eyes at the things I did, I got the sense she respected me. She was for helping people, and she knew I was too. Even though I was Walanda’s primary counselor, Monique had her in group and it was often the case that the client’s group counselor would have different information on the clients. I filled her in about Walanda and her claims about her stepdaughter Shondeneisha and the whole Webster deal.

“In group, she used to talk all the time about Shony,” she said. “She was the kid of one of the men she was involved with but didn’t marry. For whatever reason, Walanda bonded with her, I think, as a reaction to the death of her son. That kid was her pride and joy.”

“I wonder why she didn’t bring it up in our sessions,” I said.

“It’s a motherhood thing, Duff,” Monique said. “She talked about it with other women when the topic came up. She didn’t talk a lot about it because it wasn’t a problem for her. At least not until all this.”

“I’m trying to remember if she ever mentioned the father,” I said. “It’s not easy keeping track of Walanda’s men.”

“You’re right, you just described every single guy she was ever involved with.”

“What about Webster-does that sound familiar in any way?” I asked.

“Webster?” she said. “That doesn’t ring any bells. I don’t remember any men with that name. You got me on that one.”

“Yeah, me either.”

Before Monique and I could do any more problem solving on Walanda’s mysterious ramblings, Trina buzzed me to let me know the Abermans were here for their couple’s session. The Abermans were one of the few Jewish clients we had, which was kind of ironic considering the name of the clinic.

Morris and Michelle had been married for seventeen years and they hated each other, which strangely enough seemed to be what bonded them. Their therapy sessions consisted of them bitching at each other, ignoring anything I said, and then leaving with absolutely no intention of changing anything at all about their lives.

I would like to say that the session with the Abermans would take my mind off Walanda, but it had just the opposite effect. Michelle was droning on about how Morris swam to the opposite side of the pool during adult swim at the Crawford Jewish Community Center and totally ignored her. I couldn’t blame Morris-hell, if I had to swim with Michelle, I’d try to break the record for holding my breath underwater.

I know I’m not supposed to allow it to, but the lives of my clients get to me. Not the Abermans’ chlorinated crisis-shit, that was all their own doing. Walanda never had a chance, and all psychobabble bullshit aside, what was there in her life to be hopeful about?

I stewed while the Abermans bickered. Morris had moved on to the pressing issue of Michelle’s refusal to attend Morris’s college debate team reunion. I decided we didn’t have enough time to tackle such an emotionally challenging issue this week and I politely ushered the lovely couple out.

Right after the Abermans, I had an appointment with Michael Osborne.

“Mikey,” as he preferred to be called, was a flaming gay guy who hung around Jefferson Park taking hits of poppers and engaging in anonymous sex with the crowd of gay men who frequented the park. There was also fairly consistent traffic of straight men that seemed to gravitate to the park to play an anonymous game of kielbasa hockey with guys like Mikey. Mikey spent a lot of time in women’s clothing and some of what he talked about in sessions was the idea of getting the series of operations to get transgendered. He wasn’t terribly committed to it, so it was never really pursued. Mikey favored leather skirts and they were usually of a color not found in nature like electric pink or purple, but it worked for Mikey-that is, if you liked a really hairy calf coming up from a stiletto pump.

Mikey got into treatment because he was forever getting arrested for his park activities and he always had some drugs on him. My concern for Mikey was that he was either undiagnosed with HIV or he was bound to catch it very soon. The goal of treatment was to get him out of the park and out from behind the bushes. His lifestyle excited him and he was addicted to all of it, not just the drugs or the sex-it was all of it together.

Mikey always made his sessions and he usually was fun to talk with. He played the flamer role to the max and with it came a terrific sarcastic sense of humor. Several times when he talked about how his family disowned him or his lifelong failure to sustain any kind of normal relationship he’d break down and sob. He cried so hard one day I hugged him and he shook and cried until he seemed exhausted. When he was done, he broke our hug by goosing me and then winking at me.

That was kind of a microcosm of who Mikey was. There were layers of hurt that he would get to and touch, but as soon as he could muster the strength, he would gather it and assume his role. It was the shell he’d retreat into to feel safe.

Mikey didn’t show for his session, which was very unusual for him. That would’ve given me time to get after some more notes, but I just wasn’t in the mood. That meant that for the day my bookkeeping took a few steps forward and a few more steps back, but I didn’t care. Honestly, it made me feel a bit uneasy, but not uneasy enough to stick around writing.

I got home just after six; I was exhausted and had picked up a cup of coffee on my way home. I live in a 1968, twenty-seven-foot Airstream Overlander trailer on some land out on Route 9R that belongs to Doctor Rudy. There’s nothing on 9R in either direction from my place, it is just a series of stretches of land east of the industrial section of Crawford. The area’s environmentalists insist that the fields on 9R are polluted from SGG Industries, a multinational corporation that used to be headquartered in Crawford. SGG made those hockey-puck-shaped disinfectant things that go in urinals and other plastics up until the mid-seventies when they moved to Bolivia. For twenty-five years, their sewage emptied into Cramer’s Creek, which runs about 250 yards from my trailer. I’ve lived on 9R for the last six years, and I still don’t glow in the dark and I haven’t grown a third ear in the middle of my back or anything. My environmentalist social worker friends insist something like that is coming real soon.