the august after i graduated from college, i moved to montana to start my year as a jesuit volunteer. during that year i worked at a shelter for battered women, and lived with four other volunteers who were working at different non-profit agencies in town. it was one of the best years of my life. among many other reasons, i was thrown, head-first, into the life of a social worker. my job was case manager to the women at the shelter and training volunteers to work on the crisis line- i had absolutely zero experience in any of it. it was baptism by fire, at its finest.
working with the women and children at the shelter was sometimes way more fun than i would've ever guessed. there were times when we'd all sit around the living room, share stories and laugh our asses off. other times, it wasn't so fun. during that year i heard some cases of abuse that were unimaginable to me. that job gave me new meaning to "having a bad day at work."
april fool's morning i got to the shelter bright and early. the residents were all visibly upset and talking over each other, a mile a minute. i was finally able to piece together the story. carrie, one of the residents, had been put in jail the night before. she got pulled over for speeding and because of a history of writing bad checks, forgery and breaking parole, she was immediately arrested. this left her six year old son, billy, without anyone to care for him. the police contacted billy's dad dean, to let him know that carrie was in jail and had been staying at the shelter. dean called the shelter the previous night, demanding his son. if even a fraction of the stories about dean were true, this was not a good idea. everyone was freaking out.
billy went to his first grade class like it was a normal day. he showed me his "2, 5, 10 award" on the way out. he could count by 2s, 5s and 10s. it took everything in me not to cry, as i congratulated him and made sure he had everything he needed in his backpack. billy's grandmother was the emergency contact, so she was called. she was driving from out of state to go talk to dean in person. she said there was no way she'd allow billy to be with his dad.
apparently, dean wasn't going to budge. he spent the morning making the rounds to child protective services, justice court and the victim's advocate office, demanding that he get his son back. i was sitting in the shelter, feeling helpless, when carrie called from jail. "is billy ok? please make sure he's ok." carrie told me that she and billy had an order of protection against dean. she asked me to go up into her room, and find the custody papers that were in her top dresser drawer. i immediately went upstairs and searched. along with scores of credit card bills, statements of past arrests, speeding tickets and pictures colored by billy, were custody papers. the entire morning i had been talking to people at the agency's main office and they were in constant communication with an attorney. i took the custody papers, and left for the agency's main office. a police car was parked right outside the office. i was greeted by the news that the judge had ammended the order of protection, so it no longer included billy. scribbled on a piece of paper, it said that dean could come to the agency office and "take the child." dean who gave carrie a black eye and a broken tooth while billy watched. dean who told billy, and his older brother (who dean had custody of) "it's okay to hit a woman. the only thing they're good for is to suck your cock and then you roll them over and fuck them up the ass." he's a regular ward cleaver.
my co-workers and i paced around the director's office trying to think of a master plan. the cop and dean were getting antsy. we called the agency's attorney and found out that child protective services wouldn't get involved. i had found paperwork that included billy's brother telling a cps worker, "dad touches my penis and puts his mouth on it." but the case was investigated and closed, so that information couldn't be used. we stalled dean and he agreed to come back at 4:30pm with the cop. one of the shelter volunteers gathered billy's belongings, picked him up at school, and brought him to the office. he came sauntering into the building with all of his belongings fitting into two bags. stuffed animals, a tape player, his bookbag and a soccer ball. my co-worker jen and i took billy into the playroom, and we all kicked the soccer ball back and forth. billy yelled, "i won't go with him! he throws me up against the wall. he hits me whenever he wants to. he gave mom a black eye. he hits my brother too."
after jen and i pleaded with child protective services, they agreed to send over someone to talk with billy. we told billy that someone would be coming to talk to him, so he should tell the person everything he told us. billy sat in his tiny black sweatpants, with his bangs trimmed straight across. his mom must have used the ruler method. he waited patiently, with his little butt balanced on his soccer ball. finally a jolly friendly man came in, and introduced himself to billy. "hi! i'm john!"
jen and i left them to talk, and we slipped into the kitchen and stood in silence. the girls gymnastics class continued their practice in the huge room in front of us. little girls tumbled happily to the sounds of disney music. a sickeningly sweet vanessa williams song came on, and jen and i looked at each other, with tears streaming down our faces. we decided to go downstairs and see what our co-workers were up to. who was standing in the lobby but dean. he was as friendly as a disney song and it made me feel sick. after john finished talking to billy, he talked to dean. minutes later, dean and billy left together. billy looked back and waved, "bye jen. bye mary.", dragging his bag of stuffed animals behind him.
i stood there thinking about my own life when i was six. i had a whole room full of stuff. stuffed animals, books, pictures, little useless thingies on my shelves, the smell of dinner oozing in from downstairs. the safety of mom and dad down the hall. brothers who loved me. friends at school. a neighborhood that i could play in. i was fearless. except for the monster in my closet and the bats that came out in the dark. but i didn't fear my parents. they were the ones who got rid of the monsters. they weren't the monsters.
after sitting in silence and sadness with my co-workers for a while, i got on my bike and headed out of there. when i got home, i slowly ascended the old wooden porch stairs and spotted a box in front of the door. it was for me. i went inside, slumped my tired body on the couch, and opened the box. mom and dad had sent me a care package for easter. i sat, eating my chocolate eggs, and wept.
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