Haffling (The Haffling series)

by Caleb James

  “Mom!” Alice shouted after her.

  Jerod blinked and extended his hand. “I’m Jerod Haynes.”

  “I’m Marilyn… Alex is my son.” She looked at his extended hand and clearly did not want to take it. “He’s great. That’s why I named him that.”

  Jerod pulled his hand back and looked at me. I could see his thoughts as he tried to piece together my mom’s odd pronouncements and weird expression. She was staring at him. I shot her a look, and if looks could truly kill it would have made me an orphan.

  “He is great,” Jerod said.

  “I said that. I don’t need you to say that,” Marilyn said.

  “That’s it, Mom. We’re going home. Jerod, I’m sorry.”

  “But we’re on for this weekend. Right? I’ll Google the details. You going to be in school tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, of course.” I wondered if that was true. I needed to get Mom home, call her social worker, Lorraine, and fix the mess at DSS. Which might mean my migraine would be continuing for another day. “Yeah, we’ll talk in school.” I couldn’t stand seeing his expression; it was pity, like poor Alex. But something else too. At least I thought there was, but I was probably just seeing what I wanted. “Bye.” I turned back to Mom.

  “I’m sorry,” Alice whispered. “I tried to stop her.”

  “Not your fault.”

  “So I’m the bad guy.” Marilyn seemed perplexed. “I tell the truth, and I’m the bad guy. I named you because I knew you’d be great. And Alice… just look at her, it’s obvious.”

  “Come on, Mom.” I took the hand she wouldn’t shake with Jerod, and Alice took her left. And walking three abreast, we escorted Marilyn Nevus home.

  Nine

  IT WAS bad. I knew it the moment we walked into the 10 a.m. DSS review. It was me, Mom, and her short and stocky mental health caseworker, Lorraine Needleman. This was a catastrophe in the making and why I cut school to be here. No way I could leave something this big to chance, even though I did trust Lorraine as much as I trusted any adult, which wasn’t a lot. But it had less to do with Mom’s well-intentioned caseworker and everything to do with the crapshoot of my mother’s illness. I was here for damage control. And between three cups of coffee, walking Alice to school, trying to get some pills down Mom—and I have lots of tricks—and then praying she wouldn’t make too much of a fuss when I’d locked her in her room while I was out—my anxiety was through the roof. I tried to steady my breath. Just be cool, this is going to be okay.

  As we waited on a bench outside the hearing room, I tried to gauge Mom’s state of mind. “You look nice,” I told her. Her black hair in a thick braid, her outfit a kind of trendy—and very Mom—mishmash of an ankle-length skirt, white shirt, and vest, with strands of clunky wooden beads around her neck.

  She shook her head; she was not happy with me. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  A security officer called her name. I looked up.

  “You can go in now,” he said.

  Just breathe, I reminded myself, and slipped into the kind of head state I use when sparring at the Dojo. Stay in the moment, don’t freak. This is going to be fine.

  Inside, there were three DSS reviewers behind a long table. A dark-suited woman flanked by two men, one with a gray beard, and all three with Department of Social Services picture IDs around their necks. The woman glanced up. Her face was all angles, and her hair was tightly pulled back in a bun. Something about her was familiar.

  “Ms. Nevus.” Correctly identifying Mom, either by her outfit, her rapidly darting eyes, or the paper name tag on her vest. “You sit across from me.” Her expression was pinched as she stared at Mom over half-glasses. She gave me a questioning look and nodded at Lorraine. She quickly rattled off her name—Clarice Carlton—and those of her colleagues.

  Without waiting for a response, she pushed her glasses to the edge of her nose and flipped through a thick file. It started okay, basic questions and answers, with her and her two subordinates filling out forms that would add to the bulk of Mom’s dossier. Where do I know her from?

  “In the past two years, how many times have you been in the hospital, Ms. Nevus?”

  Mom didn’t answer.

  “Ms. Nevus?” the woman persisted, her gaze fixed on Mom as she slid the chart to the man across from me.

  “Marilyn,” Lorraine said softly. “You need to answer the questions.”

  “Why?” Mom said. “There’s a question for you.”

  Realizing we’d get nowhere fast, I supplied the information. “She was at Bellevue last September for ten days, then again in February… just about two weeks.”

  The man on the right recorded the information.

  “Why did you need to go into the hospital, Marilyn?” the woman asked.

  “Why aren’t you wearing earrings?” Mom replied.

  I looked at the woman’s name tag—Clarice Carlton, LCSW. The name meant nothing… but something about her…. “Ms. Carlton, is it okay if I answer?”

  “I’d rather hear it from your mother, but go ahead.” She was annoyed, or maybe that was just the resting point of her face.

  “She needed med adjustments.”

  “Liar!” Marilyn said. “I didn’t go to the chiropractor.” Her arms shot forward and landed hard on the table. Her jaw clenched, and she glared at the reviewers. “My son is a liar!” Ms. Carlton cast a worried look to the bearded man on her right.

  “It’s okay,” I said, recognizing the woman’s fear and seeing similar looks of alarm in the two men. I’m so used to Mom and her outbursts, I forget how they scare people. Even those who supposedly know about mental illness. “She gets loud, but not violent.”

  “Never?” Ms. Carlton asked.

  “No.”

  “It says she’s hurt herself in the past. Clutching the thick file, she flipped through her record. “There have been at least three suicide attempts. I’d certainly call that a form of violence.”

  “Nothing recent,” Lorraine said.

  “Hmm.” The man directly across from me pointed to something in Mom’s record. He slid it across to Ms. Carlton.

  “Interesting….” She looked from Mom, to Lorraine, and then her gaze landed on me. “It says here that her psychiatrist wanted to pursue involuntary outpatient commitment. Were you aware of that?” The last bit directed to Lorraine.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What happened?”

  “The judge ruled against it,” Lorraine said. “She felt that Ms. Nevus was taking care of her basic needs and that forcing her to take medication was an infringement on her civil liberties.”

  Ms. Carlton snorted. “And the children?”

  “What about them?” Lorraine asked.

  “Her parental rights were never terminated?”

  “No,” I answered, and tensed for what I knew was to come.

  The man across from me gave me what was meant to be a compassionate look. I knew it for something else, the prelude to bad news. “I’m assuming the Office of Children and Family Services has an open case.”

  “They did,” Lorraine said, before I could answer. “The case was closed.”

  “Why?” The man glanced at Mom, his tone incredulous. “Obviously she’s in no state to care for children.” He looked at Lorraine. “You are a mandated reporter. We all are.”

  Lorraine did her best. “I’m in the Nevus apartment at least once a week. It’s clean, there’s adequate food in the refrigerator. There is no evidence of neglect or abuse. If I felt there was, I would contact OCFS.”

  Mom turned to Lorraine. “Of course there’s food in the refrigerator. I don’t put food in the toilet. That comes later. What a stupid thing to say.”

  I felt the meeting spin out of control. Keeping my emotions in check, I had to say something. “I go to Stuyvesant High School,” I started. I let that sink in. New Yorkers know what that means. I was in the most prestigious magnet school. I got there solely based on my exam scores. “Alice is getting straight
As at the School of the Transfiguration. My mother may have… an illness, but we’re doing okay.” I looked first at Ms. Carlton, and then to each of her flanking subordinates. “Every time OCFS has gotten involved, bad things have happened… to me and to my sister. I know they mean well, but….”

  Ms. Carlton interrupted me. The corners of her mouth twitched, it might have been a smile. “Mr. Nevus, I can appreciate your concern.… We have no choice in this matter. I can see that your mother’s disability benefit should be continued.”

  That was the good news. I waited for what was coming next.

  “But I have no choice based on today’s presentation. Your mother’s schizophrenia….”

  Oh no, I thought, as the S-word left her mouth. You did not just say that.

  Mom shot up. She banged her fist on the table. “I do not have schizophrenia!” She was livid, her lips drawn back, her eyes bugging. “Who do you think you are? You’re no doctors! There’s nothing wrong with me! You’re sick. You’re all sick. Trying to paste names on me. I’m no poster child.”

  “Mom, it’s okay.” I tried to take her hand. She yanked it back.

  “And you. With your locking doors and your secrets and your pills, pills, pills. You should have left me with Cedric.”

  I didn’t need to see the pair of armed guards entering the room to let me know someone had pressed the panic button. Ms. Carlton and her two colleagues had pushed their chairs back from the table, the three of them staring wide-eyed at Mom as spittle flew from her lips and she raged. And that’s when it hit me… the bug-eyed look on Ms. Carlton’s face, her half-glasses, the odd angles of her wrists and hands; she was like the human twin of May’s Dorothea.

  “You need to calm down, ma’am,” a female security guard said as two more officers entered the room.

  “I’m calm. I don’t have schizophrenia. I’m a mother, and mothers aren’t supposed to take pills. It’s bad for the baby. And I’m not Katharine Hepburn!”

  “What?” I pushed up from my chair, looked at Mom, and then at the guards coming from either side of her. “Mom, Mom. Please, just look at me.”

  Her eyes met mine, and something shifted. She started to cry. “You should have left me there, Alex. Can’t you see?”

  Her tears ripped me apart. I hated it when she got like this, like the pain inside of her was too much to bear. “Are you pregnant, Mom?”

  She let out a deep groan, like a wounded animal, and nodded.

  The female guard approached, her tone gentle, and for a moment I thought maybe we’d make it out of there. “Ms. Nevus, would you like some water?” she asked.

  But just as I thought the emotional storm had passed, Ms. Carlton’s voice cut through the room. “She needs to be evaluated in an emergency room.” And then to Lorraine, “I’m calling OCFS today. I will follow that up with a written LDSS-221A. Clearly, with two minor children… and the possibility of an infant. And Ms. Needleman”—glaring at Lorraine—“I will be in touch with your supervisor. What were you thinking?”

  In its own way, what happened next was as surreal as yesterday’s romp at The Cloisters. The guards surrounded Mom, clearly prepared to take her down, even Taser her or use the pepper spray holstered on their belts.

  Sobbing, she offered no resistance as a pair of EMTs entered the room with a stretcher. “I’m not a schizophrenic. I’m not a criminal.”

  “I know, Mom. You haven’t done anything wrong.” She let me take her hand as they strapped her to the orange mattress on the gurney. “Is it okay if I go with her?” I asked a female medic. “I know all her history and stuff, and what meds she’s supposed to be taking.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  And leaving Lorraine and the three DSS workers to wreak havoc on my family, I went with Mom.

  Ten

  THEY wouldn’t let me into the psychiatric portion of the emergency room. I had to wait in triage with a couple dozen sick and injured. I wasn’t the only one dealing with bad stuff. Although, considering how the morning’s hearing had gone… what am I going to do? I knew what was coming, and with Mom in the hospital I had to find a responsible adult who could serve in loco parentis so that OCFS didn’t toss Alice and me into emergency foster care. I needed someone fast, and didn’t have many options. Out of necessity, I let few people know about our lives because of crap like this. The only adults who knew the truth were Lorraine and Sifu William. My only other hope was to convince whatever doctor and emergency room workers were with my mom to let her go. I wished Alice were here—not because I wanted her to see any of this mess—but maybe her blue-eyed innocence could get Mom released.

  I glanced at the triage nurse as she directed a man with his arm in a blood-soaked bandage to a chair. I heard the exasperation in her voice. “They’ll call you as soon as they can. You need to have a seat.”

  I watched and waited. I’m good at reading people, and when folks are pissed off, asking for favors does not work. I needed to stay calm. I pulled out my cell and dialed Sifu. He picked up on the third ring. “Yes, Alex?”

  “Sifu, I need a huge favor.”

  I laid out the broad strokes. And ended with, “Would you be willing to say you’d be responsible for me and Alice… just for a little bit.”

  There was a silence, and I wondered if we’d been disconnected.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I would like to, but my citizenship status will not allow it.”

  I knew Sifu had left China during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Some nights, when most of the students had gone home, he would talk about it. His parents had been physicians and were made to leave their practices and work as laborers on a collective farm. Sifu had a wife and grown children; I’d just assumed somewhere along the way he’d become a citizen. “It’s okay,” I said.

  “No, Alex, it is not okay. Let me talk to my son Thomas. I’ll get back to you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You must not let them take your sister and your mother, Alex.”

  “I know.”

  “You should come back tonight after this is settled. We’ll talk then.”

  After I hung up, I felt a tiny bit better. Sifu’s son Thomas was a physics professor at City College. He was also a highly skilled martial artist who would occasionally run class when his father was held up with patients in his thriving herbalist and acupuncture practice. I didn’t know how much Sifu would have told Thomas about my situation, but right now I needed help from any direction.

  I looked at the triage nurse. There was no one in front of her window. I seized the moment. “Hi,” I said. “My mom—Marilyn Nevus—is back in psych being evaluated. Is there any way you could call back and see if they’d let me be with her? I have all her information.”

  She looked up. Her expression was unreadable, as was her name tag, which was turned around.

  “Please.” I thought of Alice, and what she would do. I tried for my best puppy-dog-lost smile.

  “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” I lied.

  “Let me see.” She picked up the phone. “Okay to send back Marilyn Nevus’s son?” She nodded to me and hung up the phone. “Someone will get you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” And her attention shifted to a young mother approaching with two toddlers in a stroller.

  Five minutes later, a redheaded man with a receding hairline and wire-rimmed glasses appeared through the ED’s double doors. He called out, “Mr. Nevus?”

  I resisted the impulse to raise my hand and stood up. I walked toward him. “I’m Alex Nevus.”

  “I’m Kevin. I’m working with your mom. You sure you want to come back?” he began, hand extended. “She’s not making a lot of sense.”

  I shook his hand and tried to get a feel for him. He held a clipboard and had a pen wedged behind his ear. “That’s her baseline,” I said, slipping into the psych jargon I knew well. “She makes sense… in a way, but she functions.”

  “It can’t be easy,�
�� he said. He pressed a button, and the doors slid back. I trailed behind, never having been in this particular emergency room. Mom’s go-to place was Bellevue off First Ave….

  “It’s not that bad,” I said, knowing that an OCFS report was already in the works. I needed to be careful and not give them any more ammunition to pull us into foster care. I had one objective: get this Kevin and whatever ED doctor would see my mom to agree to let her leave with me.

  “Anyone else in the home?”

  “It’s Mom, me, and my sister, Alice.”

  “Your father.”

  “MIA.” I offered. “Mom has a caseworker with DOHMH.”

  “Good to know.” We came to a locked door with a small rectangular window. He pressed a buzzer and waited. “It’s been a busy day.”

  Good to know, I thought. Maybe I can move things along.

  He pressed the buzzer a second time. There was a pause, and the latch clicked.

  Kevin held the door for me. It closed behind with a decisive click of the lock. Looking around, there was a nurse’s station behind a curved Plexiglas wall. There were five closed doors with tiny windows—two on the right and another three to the left.

  “She’s in four,” Kevin said. “I get the feeling you’ve been through this before.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, we had to give her a shot to calm her down.”

  “Is she awake?”

  He rapped on the tiny window. Inside, I glimpsed Mom in a hospital gown, her legs bare, her face to the wall. She didn’t move, and Kevin turned the handle. “Ms. Nevus. I brought your son.”

  She rolled back slowly. Her eyes met mine. I could see her struggle to stay awake. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You should have left me there. Did you see him? Did you see me dancing?”

  I shot her a look. This was not a conversation to have here. What I needed to do was convince Kevin that my mother represented no threat to herself or anyone else. I’d been on this ride before. The ED doc and Kevin the Crisis worker had to believe Mom was safe to leave, and that they wouldn’t see her on the nightly news or the front page of The Post. “It’s okay, Mom. We’ll get you back on your meds. This will be okay.”