My Life as a Kidnapper

Delving into the dark underbelly of crime is not a path that is taken suddenly or lightly. There are always mitigating circumstances, chance encounters, and, on occasion, a 10 year-old who assist in the fall of the law-abiding citizen and the rise of a criminal mastermind.

For me, my decent was carefully, expertly and meticulously planned.

The date was Thursday, November 23rd.

Thanksgiving Day to all the suckers who hold down day jobs, pay taxes and use their turn signal when changing lanes. For me, it was an opportunity in the works. When live hands you lemons, you make gin and tonic with a twist, shoot it down, strap on your Callahan full-bore auto lock and head out looking for trouble.

It never takes long.

Even less time when there’s a girl involved.

In this case, Justice, a ten year-old with a thirty-year chip on her shoulder, began by making demands.

“Can I go play with Brianna?”

Normally, a request like this is met with an affirmative, but today is Thanksgiving. Nana and Papa are in the house, turkey is roasting, potatoes boiling, and in general, it’s a family day. Lillian, my long-time partner in crime, denied the request.

Justice, true to form, pouted.

I looked at the clock. It was after 1pm, which is our usual time of solace and serenity, in which Justice takes a nap, and the entire house heaves a sigh of relief, and the neighborhood in general is thankful for the peace and quiet.

“Time for your nap,” I responded.

Justice through a fit. Not just a little fit either, but one of her ultimate-combo, Queen-of-Hearts-Off-With-Their-Heads fits that have been notoriously chronicled on this site. Consider: yelling that she wouldn’t go to sleep; yelling that she wasn’t sleeping; yelling that she hates this world; yelling in general. These are the markers of where the conversation had devolved.

Lest you think that I was alone in my irritation, Lillian had shut Justice’s door, and in order to keep it closed, had to stand station, holding the knob, while Justice tried to pry it. This means that Lillian has lost all patience, that Justice has gone so far beyond reason that she could star in an Aronofsky film, and that nothing is going to settle. In my family, and probably in some of yours as well, a parental unit would at this point sell you to gypsies, trade you for a rabbit, or spank you.

Since Justice is a foster-child, none of these options are open.

This is when running usually helps.

As you know, I love to run, and I can do it for long stretches of time at a pace that would likely kill most ten year-olds, and, according to the Fat America reports, most twenty year-olds also.

True, Justice can yell and scream when we go for a run, but she’ll run, and she’ll get tired and then she’ll settle down, and we don’t have to resort to beating her with a pillowcase of brass doorknobs and assorted blunt instruments. Once she’s sufficiently settled, and tired, we can talk, run our cool down home, and she will generally comply with whatever rules have been established for the day.

On this day, however, Justice decided to maintain her fit status, refusing to run, refusing to even go outside, and throwing a I’ve-been-kidnapped-by-a-mean-man fit outside.

“LET GO OF ME! I DON’T WANT TO GO! LET GO! LET GO! LET GO!!”

I ran on, unperturbed, and in a few minutes, Justice did calm down, and we were able to talk. She agreed that she’d been out of hand, that she really needed to take a nap, that she was tired and then we began to make our cool down way back to the homestead.

That’s when the cop car pulled up, the cop jumped out, pointed at me and commanded, “Get down on the ground now!”

I’ve seen CSI, I’ve watched cop movies, I live in Southern California, and I know about the LAPD.

I got down. I sat in the still damp grass, worried a little about my muscle fatigue, but more about the large, strapping man in blue with the semi-automatic weapon and the right to discharge large pieces of metal into my favorite skin.

“What are you doing?”

I looked at my running shoes, running shorts, running glasses and Wild Run IV: Run Through the Detroit Zoo commemorative t-shirt.

“We’re out for a run.”

“What about the lady who called in the report that you were kidnapping this girl.”

I looked at him.

Kidnapping? That wasn’t scheduled until Tuesday.

In an impressive display of self-control, I did not say this out loud. In another two minutes, six more patrol cars, all with lights flashing, all with large, strapping men wearing similar semi-automatic looks and weapons screeched to a halt and surrounded me.

Yes, yes, I’m that dangerous looking in my running clothes.

“Do I need to lay down, or is sitting ok?”

“Just calm down, sir!”

You may recall that I attempt to not use the exclamation point inappropriately. You will also note that I used one in the above statement. This should tell you exactly the disposition of the officers of the law toward me, the rogue runner.

Rogue. I like the sound of that.

“Who is this girl?”

“What’s your name?”

“Where do you live?”

“Who shot JFK?”

“Where is the Lindberg baby?”

Somehow, they even managed to angle the sun right through my Oakley sunglasses, so that I was sweating freely, and squinting against the light. People drove by and threw tomatoes. Not the fresh kind, either, but the ones especially grown for flinging at prisoners and Keanu Reeves-type actors.

Actually, knowing how the sunglasses make me look, I perched them above my head. Again, I had no desire to be “shot while attempting to escape”, as one of the officers suggested I might do.

I’m not yet fast enough to outrun a bullet.

So here’s what happened. When Justice threw her fit outside, screaming loud enough to warrant sufficient attraction from the general populace of Mars, one lady decided this must be a kidnapping and called it in. My erratic running path, a square along city blocks which had looped us back toward the scene of the crime (which proves that cliché) had proved the truth of said concerned-citizen’s phone call, and the police had responded in force.

When all was said and done, the officers packed up, and began to pull off, out to stop other evil-doers. Justice and I were given a ride in the back of one patrol car to the house and I can tell you, for the record, they are not comfortable seats in the least. The officer told me, “When we get there, I’ll try to scare her a little into not doing this kind of thing again.”

What could I say? The police were aiding and abetting in my continued abuse, mentally and physically of this poor angel of a child who only wants love, hugs and to do whatever she wants whenever she wants without considering the consequences to herself or others.

It was a good Thanksgiving Day.

Wicked

"Whoa, awesome," Justice said this morning as we drove to her daycare. "That tank is spraying that water with pressure."

I glanced through the passenger-side window to see a large construction water-tanker indeed spraying water over the dirt to keep the dust down.

I smiled.

I didn't smile because it was funny, but rather because, to Justice, the sense of wonder about the world is still reasonably fresh. Of course, Justice can find awe in a pencil.

"Awesome, this pencil is shiny!"

Everything to Justice is awesome.

Equally fortunate, very little is bogus.

It might be "not fair" or "uhhhnnn" when she doesn't like it, like . . . doing her chores. But she has yet to descend into the infernals of "bogus" descriptives.

I'm not certain if this is because Justice just hasn't seen that much of the world. Last year, either for Thanksgiving or Christmas (poor memory . . . no need to point it out) Justice nearly froze to death. She is, as she can proudly state, a California Girl. Of course, this is the same child who thinks that Europe is a city, and that France is a state.

It might be a state of mind, but I think the French would prefer their country be labeled as such. On the other hand, who really cares if we offend the French. Walt Disney World in France has enough security to occupy the country, and the next time they get out of line, it's gonna be a Small World After All when we annex France as our 51st state and ban smoking!

I'm sure they'll still sneer down at us with their uppity French accents, but it won't be nearly as cool in their silly berrets withouth a cigarette dangling from pouty lips.

But I digress.

So there is Justice, all amazed at this water-tanker pouring out water, and me smiling. Lovely morning, even with those silly Frenchies sneering at us.

Social Worker Dayle

Writing is my release.

It’s my anti-drug.

Check that. It’s my drug of choice.

I can sit on a train full of disgruntled, annoyed, loud, talkative people who have nothing better to do for a full hour than bitch, moan and otherwise vent their general frustrations regarding a world that is neither fair nor friendly, and lose myself completely within the text that I am writing. I have, at times, looked up to realize that I’m now at my stop and must quickly save and shut down my laptop, shove the mass into my briefcase and shoulder the whole affair while stumbling down stairs and hoping those sliding doors won’t maim either of my writing hands.

It’s a gift.

Check that also. It’s a curse.

Any writer worth their salt, and that’s all most writers make, will tell you that writing is as much rapture as it is apocalypse. There are stories that writers want to tell, and there are stories that need to be told and sometimes, if you’re very lucky, those stories will be one in the same.

The rest of the time, what flows from brain synapse to keystrokes (though a few still use pen and paper) to electronic screen is as amazing to the writer as it is (hopefully) to the reader. Some stories sit like a Nazi-monkey in khaki and jackboots on a writer’s shoulder, beating their back with a leather riding-crop and mercilessly chirping, “Write me, write me, write me,” in their abused eardrum.

The appeal to me, and I would think for most authors, is that they are the god, the Yahweh, the Jehovah of their own little created world. If they don’t like a character, or if they particularly like him/her, they can kill them off to applause of tears. If, for instance, a social worker of particular despicable abilities refuses to return calls, any number of interesting and devilish tortures can be created for hours, days, months, years of trauma.

Such visions of nasty sugarplum-coated vengeance are currently dancing in my head.

Sherman, set the Way Back Machine for, oh, September of this year. At that time, apparently, our house needed to be re-evaluated for approval as a safe place for Justice to live. We carefully hid the high explosives and blasting caps, cleaned the rust from the punji sticks and buried all the skeletons at a remote desert location. I wasn’t present for the review, which is usually a good thing as I have a tendency to become quickly and irrevocably annoyed with any agents of The Man.

The end result was that our house was certified safe once again, and Lillian was cleared to care for Justice, but that I had failed to sign some particular line of a form, and needed to be finger-printed again. Not my fault, mind you. This was a failure of the inept and poorly trained electronic finger-printing expert who took about two hours of frustrating time to actually finger-print Lil and I. Lil had to go back in for a second grueling session.

Apparently, finger-prints change as you get older.

This was pointed out to me, in excruciating detail, by the assigned home evaluator who, quite annoyingly, refused to contact me directly, but instead spoke with Lillian. Lillian, in her kind and pleasant way, kept saying, “CALL MY HUSBAND ON HIS CELL PHONE, DAMNIT!”

Alright, Lil didn’t yell and she didn’t say “damnit” but I think you’ll agree this is far more dramatic.

When I finally did speak with the home evaluator, she was quite vehement that I go in for my finger-printing. I advised her, quite calmly (no exaggeration) that at this time my work schedule was quite hectic and I would do my best to get in as soon as was possible. When she insisted that I provide her with a “when”, I’m sure my tone became slightly harsher.

“As I already said,” I said, “I will get to it as soon as possible.”

“Well,” my evaluator nemesis replied. “If you don’t do it soon then any funding or services will be cut off.”

Yes, that’s right. Justice had been in the house for over a year, and between her original placement and this conversation, with a lack of “properly signed finger-prints” on file, our house was about to be deemed ineligible for services.

In case you’re wondering, services mean Justice’s health, dental and vision care. Justice’s therapist care. Justice’s stipend for food, clothes, school supplies and any trips to the shoe-store. That’s right, we’re making a bundle off this little girl who never gives us any problems and who never grows, wears out her old clothes, eats much more than a pittance and never, ever has been sick. I’m surprised more people don’t foster simply based on how easy it is to work within the system and the large piles of cash they deliver you.

My response was simple and to the point:

“You do not need to threaten us,” I replied.

“Sir,” whenever someone calls me “sir” I know I’ve hit a mark, “I’m not threatening.”

“Ma’am,” I like to be condescending like that, “You just suggested that if we don’t do what you want us to do that you will punish us by removing a foster-child’s services. As I stated, I will get to the finger-printing as soon as I can, but right now is difficult.”

I then hung-up.

Oh, but the fun doesn’t stop there. About a month later we received two notices that Justice’s stipends and healthcare had been cut. True, I had not been finger-printed just yet, but I had made the appointment that week. Immediately, I was on the phone to Justice’s attorney, Sue, who told me that I needed to call the social worker first, but that if I didn’t get an immediate response to call her office back. I called the man, who I thought, was Justice’s social worker, Jonah.

“Oh no, Mister McCandless,” he said in his amazing amorphous African accent, “I am no longer the primary social worker for Justice. But I will call the new social worker and let her know. Here is her number.”

I waited one day, did no receive a return call, and began calling the new Social Worker Dayle. Three days later, I still had no return call. I called Justice’s lawyer again. In between Sue calling me back, I went and got my finger-prints done. While driving home, and I kid you not, while in my truck driving back to my house from taking half the day off to go get finger-printed, Lil called:

“Did you get a message from the social worker?”

“No.”

“She left a message on my phone saying they’re taking Justice out of the house on Thursday because you refused to get finger-printed.”

Metaphorically, I hit the roof. Hitting the roof literally hurts your head, hands, or whatever appendage you decided was most convenient the moment before you remember that it hurts. I don't mind anyone saying I'm annoying, rude, uncultured, self-important or self-centered egomanical letcher, but lies are something I pride myself on when I tell them. This was not one I told.

I called Social Worker Dayle, left my fifth unreturned message, and then was on the phone to Sue, the lawyer, for the second time that day.

Sue answered the phone.

Sue hit the roof.

I cannot say if it was literal or metaphorical.

I filled her in on the entire story, she then contacted Social Worker Dayle, but also received a voice mail message and then called Social Worker Dayle’s supervisor, Cathy, who had just taken over the department and had worked with Sue in the past.

There are times when utter ineptness is met with utter ability and is crushed like pepper in a mill and sprinkled on a nice salad to be chewed thoughtfully, thoroughly and then passed the bowels.

This was one of those times. Supervisor Cathy made certain that Justice’s healthcare status was reinstated, she was ordered to remain in our care, and Social Worker Dayle was ordered to contact us and give us a status report. For the moment I was sated by the exquisite taste of a successful day spent working the phones.

However, that victory was short-lived. I kept calling both Social Worker Dayle and her Supervisor Cathy. Cathy and I now have a witty repartee going, but until today I had not heard from Social Worker Dayle. This is a problem because Justice is court ordered to have a meeting with her father supervised by Justice’s therapist and an evaluation report is court ordered to be sent in prior to the December 4th trial.

Without the meeting, the therapists evaluation, and the court reading that evaluation, it's entirely possible that the trial will have to be "continued" until the following month.

Today, Wednesday, Social Worker Dayle left me a voice mail stating that she and Supervisor Cathy would like us to come in “with the child” (seriously, that’s her term, she never once said “Justice” . . . perhaps the word sticks in her throat and chokes her like a chicken-bone . . . a boy can dream) “Thursday before 4pm.” She said Thursday as if it was a week or so off and we had plenty of time to make preparations and rearrange our work schedules and lives to make this impromptu meeting, never minding such inconvenient and bothersome facts that tomorrow is Thursday.

Lovely.

I called back immediately, since I'm sure Social Worker Dayle was packing up for the day, not to be heard from or reachable by any human, alien, or telepathic means. We went through the same courtesies that a mongoose and a cobra go through upon initial introduction (by the way, I'm the mongoose). I then cut to the chase.

"We will try to be there, but this is incredibly short notice," I began going straight for her throat, and latching teeth near her spine, loathing the taste of snakey-nastiness.

"Yessss," she hissed back, "But my sssssupervisor issss going out of town sssssoon."

"We'll try," I said, trying to get a better grip on her scales with my razor-sharp teeth. "Can I ask if the father has been contacted for the visit?"

"No, not yet," she lashed with her tail trying to dislodge me.

"When will that happen?"

"Sssssssss . . ." she replied.

In my mind, I broke her back at that point and she writhed on the dirty ground of an India village garden. It's not true, of course, but this Riki-tiki-tavi fantasy is nicely gorey and has an upbeat ending, in complete contradiction to the real world.

We'll have to meet Thursday, but my teeth will be cleaned and my mongoose-ian claws will be at the ready.