by Nigel Latta
The bad guy frowns. ‘Dog shit with glitter and perfume on it.’
‘Correct,’ I say. ‘Dog shit is dog shit no matter how nicely you dress it up. So what does all this have to do with you?’
He usually shrugs.
‘Well, you’re trying to sell me dog shit. You’ve stuck a few flowers in it, sprinkled some glitter on top, but it’s still dog shit. That’s why you’re stinking up the place. So how about we open a few mental windows, let some fresh air and bit of sunlight in, and start again.’
I could just tell the guy he’s distorting the facts to make it easier on himself, but I think dog shit has more leverage.
So poor Gerard’s sitting there staring at my pile of grotesque wonders looking somewhat confused. In the pile are a bunch of Halloween masks, some twisted little dolls, weird figurines, a mannequin’s fist, some plastic knives, some handcuffs and the odd container of slime.
At this point I have no idea who Gerard is or why he’s come to see me. I make the decision not to do one of my introductory raves because I have no idea which one fits the occasion. At this point he thinks I know what’s going on, so why blow the image? Never look stupid unless you have to.
‘Where’s the best place to start?’ I ask. Nice safe beginning. Cheery and functional.
‘It’s my neck,’ he says, keeping one eye on my toys.
I’m still blank, but I’m rolling with it. ‘OK.’
‘I hurt it at work.’
‘Right.’
‘My GP recommended I come and see you.’
I frown. ‘About your neck injury?’ Stress related? I wonder. ‘And what specifically were you wanting from me?’ I ask, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Now he frowns. ‘I guess some exercises or stretches or stuff. Whatever it is you guys do.’
I pause, because there’s a degree of confusion to this conversation that is outside even my normal level. ‘You were wanting a psychologist, right?’
‘A psychologist?’
‘Yup.’
‘You’re not a physio?’
I shake my head. ‘Nope.’
‘I thought you were a physio.’
‘Nope.’
‘Oh.’
‘If you were crazy I could maybe do something to help, but necks aren’t really my thing.’
‘That’s weird,’ he says. ‘I spoke to a Nigel on the phone who was a physio and booked this time.’
‘Was he real or did you hallucinate him?’
Gerard laughs. ‘Real.’
‘Ah well, can’t help you then I’m afraid.’
‘OK then,’ says Gerard, standing and looking at my weird toys. ‘I guess that explains all this stuff.’
As he leaves I give him my card. ‘Give me a call if you ever go crazy.’
Gerard never did call, so I can only assume all his chickens are still safely tucked up in the hen house.
I hope his neck feels better.
LEARNING TO SWIM
IT’S TAKEN ME YEARS to get to the point where I am now. There have been many times when I’ve felt confusion, anger, despair, sadness and utterly lost. There are still times when I feel all of those things; it’s just now I’ve learned to accept that these feelings come with the territory. If you work down here and you don’t feel those things with some frequency then you’re simply not paying attention.
At the beginning though, you feel as if you should know what you’re doing. You feel as if you should have all the answers. It takes a little while to figure out there are no perfect answers or magic beans. After a while you figure out that at best all you have is a compass and feet. Stay on the road and keep moving, that’s the thing you learn with time.
Looking back now, I would say that it took me something like five years to really get a handle on doing this kind of work. I went through a series of stages, progressions from one level of understanding to the next. Almost all of that has been an increasing understanding of myself. To stay in this work over the long haul you have to deal with a vast array of personal feelings. You have to look under your own stones first before you can start rolling other people’s over.
We’re all a bit crazy; that’s about the only truth there is when it comes to the human condition. Most of us can fake normal pretty well, but the world would probably be a much easier place for us all to live in if we dropped the facade and just let the craziness out. At least there wouldn’t be so many lonely people feeling like they’re the only crazy ones.
The thing about doing this work is that you have to have at least some understanding of your own stuff. You have to be able to dance without tripping over your own feet all the time.
No one learns to swim the first time out. Everyone swallows a few mouthfuls. I suppose you have to sink a few times before you can really understand the concept of floating.
So in that vein, let me tell you about one of my less than shining moments.
I didn’t like Jimmy from the moment I read the file. This was only a year or so after I first started working with bad guys, and I was still a baby. Back then I was struggling to find my feet. The thing with feet though, is that if you don’t tell them what to do, they almost always seek the easy road. And the easy road will almost always be the wrong one.
The referral said Jimmy had been sexually abusing his partner’s two sons. The boys were aged seven and nine, and he’d been at them for something like two years. Three months ago one of the boys told a teacher at school and finally Jimmy had been stopped. According to the referral Jimmy was still denying he had done anything.
Outside it was raining, late in the afternoon. Jimmy was last up for the day, sent to me by a colleague who worked in the same agency, because I was the sex-offender guy.
The biggest problem you have to deal with is that it’s so easy to be angry. Here’s a guy who sexually abused two little kids for years. Who wouldn’t be angry talking to such a man? Who wouldn’t want to pound on him just a little?
There are some who work in my field who would be horrified by that statement, who would say they don’t ‘judge’ people, they think all people are worthy of respect and it is their behaviour which is unacceptable.
It sounds very nice, but it’s really just a sophisticated lie told by people unwilling to face uncomfortable truths. If you can spend all the years I have talking with bad guys and not occasionally feel like pounding on someone, then you probably weren’t paying attention to the stuff they were telling you.
I’m not a dispassionate practitioner. On the contrary, I work hard at getting involved, at engaging toe to toe and head to head with the people I work with. I feel just as anyone does, I just don’t have the luxury of being able to revel in it, something it’s taken me a long time to understand. Our minds are tricky places and can disguise all kinds of unpleasantness as having purer motives.
Like that long ago winter afternoon with Jimmy.
I didn’t like him any more when I saw him. He looked self-assured and arrogant, with the look of someone who expects the shit to never stick. A Teflon man, who thought he was far cleverer than the rest of the world.
We shook hands and went through into my room. I gave him my usual routine about confidentiality and all the guff. ‘So,’ I said, after the housekeeping was done. ‘Where do we start?’
‘I suppose you know about the accusations that have been made against me.’
I nodded.
‘It’s been the most stressful time of my life,’ he continued. ‘It’s almost destroyed me.’
‘How so?’ I asked, feeling the anger bubbling around inside me. Two little kids’ lives destroyed and all he can tell me about is how terrible it’s been for him.
‘I don’t know why the boys would have said those terrible things about me. It doesn’t make any sense, because I was like a father to them.’
Still I don’t speak. I’m letting him trot out his line before I pull him up short.
‘That’s why I’ve been smoking so much canna
bis lately, just as a way to handle the stress.’
‘And does it help?’ I ask.
‘Some. If it wasn’t for that, I probably would have killed myself by now.’
Whiny, self-pitying sod, I think to myself.
‘I just wish it would all go away,’ he moaned.
‘I bet they do too.’
‘Who?’
‘The boys.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ he replied, misinterpreting what I said to suit his needs. ‘I’m sure they miss me as much as I miss them.’
‘What do you think they miss most? The hand jobs or the blow jobs?’
And here’s where it goes pear-shaped, because the only thing motivating that question was the fact that I felt angry.
He looks up, and the self-pity has been replaced with something much colder. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I asked which do you think they miss the most, the hand jobs or the blow jobs?’
There’s a long pause as Jimmy stares at me with a look that was all about baseball bats and dark alleys. ‘I didn’t touch them,’ he finally says.
I laughed. ‘Give me a break, of course you did.’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Why would they lie? What do they have to gain?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well you better have a theory if you’re putting up the “I didn’t do it” defence. Because if they did lie then there has to be a reason.’
He just looks at me, furious. And all of that is my fault.
‘How much money are they getting for lying?’ I ask. He doesn’t reply. ‘Twenty grand? Fifty?’ No response, just the staring. But I keep rolling on, ignoring the fact that I’ve almost completely lost him in the space of a few minutes. I’m all caught up in a stupid ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ dynamic. What I didn’t have enough experience to remember in that moment, is that pushing people just makes them dig their heels in harder.
‘Well, then they must really hate you. They must want to see you in jail pretty damn bad. Maybe they should be the ones in counselling? Maybe they need help for whatever made them such vengeful, spiteful liars?’
‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘All I’m saying is that if the boys lied then there must be a reason. There must be something to explain their motivation. Right?’
‘I came here to talk about my cannabis use, not about that other stuff.’
‘You brought it up,’ I said. Again with the stupid argumentative ‘I’m right you’re wrong’ stuff.
‘Well I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Guys like you never do.’
‘Guys like what?’
‘Sexual offenders.’
‘I’m not a sex offender.’
‘Does it make you feel good about yourself, to say these things? To call those poor wee boys liars? Does it make you feel proud?’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘You are lying, Jimmy. You did it and you and I both know it.’
‘Know everything, do you? You can see into people’s minds?’
‘Not everyone’s, just yours.’
‘Well, I’m sorry but you’re wrong.’
‘You should be sorry, Jimmy. You should be lying on the floor sobbing over what you did to those two kids.’
He shook his head. ‘This is pointless, you’re not prepared to listen to anything I say.’
‘I’m prepared to listen to the truth.’
‘So you want me to say I did it, even if that’s not true?’
‘All I want you to do is fess up to what you did. Stop hiding from it. Face it. Deal with it. This stuff is like cancer, you have to get it all out or eventually it will get you.’
‘So you think I’m a liar?’
I nodded. ‘Yup.’
He sat there for a long time, just looking at me. I think if we were to weigh up who liked who the least in that moment we would have come out pretty equal. There wasn’t a lot of love in the room.
‘So that’s that then?’ he said.
‘Yup,’ I say, letting my self-righteousness override what’s happening right there in front of me. I was still paying more attention to being angry than I was to what was happening between Jimmy and me.
‘I may as well leave in that case.’
‘If you’re not going to be honest then I guess you may as well.’
‘Right then.’ And just like that he got up and left.
I sat there for a while, and gradually as the time lengthened and I realised he wasn’t coming back, it slowly dawned on me that tactically I’d just played a really stupid hand.
I’d got into a fight with the man because he made me angry. I’d skilfully assisted him to develop the same level of dislike for me that I had for him, and then I’d pushed him out the door. Guys like Jimmy will find any excuse they can to leave. He didn’t need any help from me, but I’d leapt in and helped him just the same.
Sitting in the chair, my self-righteous anger rapidly dissipating, I realised how stupid I had just been. ‘Bugger,’ I muttered to the empty room, by now feeling the full weight of my own arrogance and thickheadedness.
The anger was completely gone by this stage. Now all I felt was stupid.
I should point out here that one of the safety nets people who do my job have is regular clinical supervision. This entails you meeting with a more experienced and wiser colleague to discuss the various issues that arise with your clients. Needless to say I discussed this case with my supervisor the next time we met. Of course, by then I’d already replayed about a dozen slightly more productive lines I could have taken. I learned my lesson in the 10 or so minutes I sat alone in the room after Jimmy left.
You’d expect that, over a decade on, I’d be over the whole anger thing. Not really. I still get angry about stuff; the difference is that now I know how to utilise that anger in a productive way. Emotion is important in my work. Emotion provides the power to get things moving, but emotion should never make the tactical decisions. The wind can move the boat, but it should never pilot the boat. Sometimes I might sail downwind and sometimes I might tack against it, but I don’t let the wind make the decisions about where I go.
That’s the mistake I made with Jimmy. I had a good breeze, and the boat was flying, so I went with it, not thinking about where I was heading. It’s OK to feel angry, that’s just being human, but it’s not OK to act from these feelings. Anger is a poor tactician, and if you let anger pilot your boat, then you’ll always hit the rocks.
In the Darklands you must pay close attention to everything, especially yourself.
MY FIRST MURDERER
MY FIRST MURDERER was the most frightening of them all. I hadn’t known what to expect, but I certainly never expected to be so badly shaken. If I had to pick one to tell you about, my first killer is probably the most important one.
He was a lifer, recently paroled, and was told to report to a Department of Corrections psychologist within 72 hours of his release. At the time I was doing some contract work for the Department at one of the local Community Probation Offices. This particular office had a bit of a reputation for giving psychologists a hard time. In truth though, they were a great bunch of people and, as long as your head wasn’t stuck too far up your own arse, they were very nice.
I saw Pat for the first time just after lunch one Thursday. Ten years ago he got into an argument with a gang associate, they fought in the pub and then afterwards Pat ambushed him in the car park. He’d beaten the other guy to death with a piece of wood. His list of previous convictions was pretty extensive and involved all the usual gang-related offences: property crimes, violence, drugs, assaulting the police and some dangerous driving.
When I went out into the waiting room I spotted him straightaway. He wasn’t tall but he was solid, with jailhouse tattoos and scarred wrinkled skin that was rough as guts.
‘G’day,’ I said, aiming for nonchalant. ‘I’m Nigel.’
‘Pat,’ he said,
standing up and shaking my hand.
We went through to the interview room, sat down, and I ran through the usual blah-de-blah about who I was and what I was doing.
It was a strange sensation sitting with him, because this was the first actual murderer I’d met face to face. I’d seen a lot on the telly, and no doubt passed a few in prison halls, but this was the first one I’d met. It seemed strange to think I was sitting in a room with a man who had actually killed someone.
‘So, where should we start?’ I asked, interested to see what he’d want to talk about first, if anything.
‘It’s my kids,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘My probation officer said you worked with kids as well and you’d be a good guy to talk to about this stuff.’
‘I do work a lot with kids and families, that’s true. What’s up?’
If I’d asked the bosses if it was OK to talk with this man about the troubles he was having with his kids, they probably would have said no. They probably would have told me I should focus on assessing and addressing any antisocial thoughts and/or behaviours. Luckily, they weren’t there, so that left me free to make my own decision about what was clinically relevant to keeping this man from offending again. If he wanted to start by telling me about problems with his kids, that was just fine with me.
‘Well, they’re having a lot of trouble adjusting to having me outside.’
‘Like what?’
‘I’m back staying at my missus’ place, not living with her, you know, just staying there. I wanted to help her out with the kids and stuff because she’s working, and they want me there too, but it’s like they don’t as well.’
‘How do you mean?’
Pat went on to explain that the most difficult thing was his relationship with his 15-year-old daughter. Initially she said she wanted him to live in the house but seemed to resent everything he did. She frequently screamed at him and told him he wasn’t her father. Afterwards she’d be apologetic and remorseful.
‘It’s like she wants me there but she doesn’t want me to be her father. If I tell her anything she gets mad straightaway.’
As Pat is talking I’m getting the very clear picture that he really does love his kids. His tone of voice when he talks about them is soft and very caring, completely at odds with his rough-as-guts physical appearance. When he talks about his son’s sporting accomplishments the pride is so obvious it’s infectious. This is a man who really wants to be a good dad to his kids. He was also remarkably sensitive to their stage of development.
