The Things I Want Most

by Richard Miniter

The boys came tumbling down the stairs. Mike looked mussed but clean, with his lank hair wetly brushed.

  Sue raised her eyebrows in appreciation. “Thank you, Liam.”

  “No problem.” He grinned and then walked over to take the deacon’s hand. Liam and Deacon Carroll had spent many a Saturday afternoon together when the deacon was Liam’s altar boy instructor, and now they laughed together as if at some inside joke.

  Liam sat, and Mike, his facial tic remorseless, sullenly slouched into the remaining seat.

  Sue paused with her wineglass just under her lips. “Mike, this is Deacon Carroll, and this is Mr. and Mrs. Hydecker.”

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “Mike,” said Sue, her smile strained, “introduce yourself. Say hello, please.”

  Mike ignored her. “The glasses belong on the other side of the plates.”

  “Little Miss Etiquette,” Liam quipped.

  “You always set the table wrong.”

  “Mike, introduce yourself, please.” I tried to put as much iron in my voice as I could.

  Mike knocked his water glass over, and Alice stood up to avoid getting water in her lap. Sue leaned over and fussed with a napkin. “Mike, be careful!”

  “What’s for dinner?”

  “I think we’ll say grace. Deacon, will you do the honors?”

  Deacon Carroll bowed his head, and Mike shouted out, “I’m a Baptist.”

  Deacon Carroll’s head came back up slowly, and his eyes went frosty until he looked again at the strained, thin, twitching little face. Smiling warmly, he said, “Mike, I know many Protestants—”

  “I’m a Baptist” Mike interrupted loudly.

  The deacon patiently began again. “I know many Baptists, and they are all Christian folk, not shy about offering a blessing at meals, either. So won’t you join us? We’re all friends here.”

  Mike just looked back with a blank-eyed stare. Then he started to yell something else, but before he got one more word out his face went dead white and his eyes rolled back.

  Alice was startled and put a hand on his shoulder in alarm, but the deacon just dashed a quick look at Liam and bowed his head. “Bless us, O Lord,” he began.

  When grace was over Sue whispered to me, “What happened?”

  “I think Liam kicked him in the shins.”

  Sue’s eyes opened wide, but she managed to smile winningly at Garrett and pass him the garlic bread.

  Alice was still looking at Mike with concern. “Mike, I have a little boy just like you.”

  “No, you don’t,” he corrected her through clenched teeth.

  A couple of long, argumentative, wearing days later, Joanne picked Mike up from school, took him to Burger King for a chat, and brought him home.

  When we sat down for tea, Sue began with the issue of Mike’s behavior. “I don’t know which is worse—the first month of nonstop talking, or this new, nasty brat who picks apart or curses literally everything we say or do.”

  Joanne shrugged lightly. “It had to come—it always comes— and there’s no way we could have prepared you for it. You have to look at the situation from his point of view. You’ve gone through a shakedown period, and now Mike has to begin relating to you. But he’s interacted with literally hundreds of adults already—caseworkers, police, doctors, therapists, teachers, staff workers, foster mothers and fathers. Each one came into his life, said what they believed to be true at the time, and then rotated away, never to be seen again. You and I had our parents, our brothers and sisters, and maybe a couple of friends and neighbors. A small group, maybe five to ten people, who stayed with us all through childhood. You get to know and trust people that way, develop long-term relationships. These children have never had that. All of Mike’s experience says that you’ll be out of his life in a couple of months no matter what he does, no matter how good he acts or how happy he is here. So you’ll just have to settle for what you’ve got right now. I’m sure you’ll work through it. Mike is smart—he’ll come around.”

  Sue shook her head. We had begun with no grand strategy regarding Mike, other than to treat him as our own child. But when you bring a child you have not raised into your home and transfer the very same expectations to him that you’ve had of the kids with whom you’ve had years to establish some mutual and very strong expectations about behavior, block by tiny block, you’re totally bumfoozled when he calls you a “fucking bitch.” You just don’t know what to do—at least, the first time around.

  But Joanne put her hand up. “No, Sue, believe me. After a life like that, they have to believe you’re lying to them, want to believe you’re not being totally honest. The alternative is to be disappointed, dropped back off an emotional cliff again. I see this to a greater or lesser extent in all my kids.”

  Sue shook her head again. “I can see what you’re saying—I even agree with what you’re saying—but I don’t think it explains all of what’s going on with him.” She paused to grope for the words. “This unwillingness to trust is too exaggerated—almost comically exaggerated in him. Maybe everything is. When he was talking at us, he didn’t talk some of the time, he talked all the time. When he was quiet, he was quiet all the time. Now, when he’s arguing, he isn’t arguing some of the time, he’s arguing all the time.”

  What was the point Sue was dancing around?

  Before I could finish the thought, Joanne crossed her arms, put her elbows on the table, and announced, “I have to be frank. We’re very worried about what you two did by enrolling him in that martial arts program. You should have discussed it with us first. Mike’s not all that strong—he’s almost frail. He’s emotionally disturbed, and we’re not sure this instructor knows how to deal with special-needs children.”

  Despite my initial misgivings, I had become a proponent of the training. At the very least, it seemed to promote discipline and respect, and Mike appeared to love it. He was certainly eager enough. Getting ready for the trip to karate school was about the only prompt he wasn’t calling us on. Part of it, I was certain, was the ninjalike black uniform, but another aspect, perhaps more important, seemed to be the dynamics. It looked like Mike wanted to be part of a regular group of people. Still, I knew that if anybody from Harbour ever visited the school, they’d be appalled at the rigorous discipline, the almost servile ritual respect that had to be paid to the instructor, and the exposure to public ridicule. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

  But that alone wasn’t half of my discomfort because I could sense in the discussion to follow the seeds of insistence upon “resources.”

  Harbours approach to adaptive and behavior-management issues within the child’s new home was a formal extension of what we had done with our own children, rational and well thought out, and I particularly admired the detailed organization and follow-up involved. A series of meetings developed a written treatment plan that identified the most important areas of development for each child, and although I didn’t recognize them at first, these areas were classified in a Medicaid terminology that allowed them to be billed for: Counseling Services (CS), Behavior Management Training (BMT), Health Services (HS), Daily Living Skills Training (DLST), and so on. Then the professional parents were required to address the various areas identified in this treatment plan twice a week, recording a narrative of the sessions that always included some comment about the child’s response. All this was posted on a blocked-out form in the parents’ “logs,” which the family specialist collected at the end of the month.

  In addition, The Harbour Program required parents to spend some minimum “positive” time with the child every day. This could be an outing, or just a few minutes working with the child in the kitchen. Parents had to record this experience in yet another form in the logs. Then parents were required to find some one thing to compliment the child on each day, such as doing his or her homework, acting responsibly, taking care of a pet, etc. This event also had to be recorded in a short narrative on the second form. Finally, the professional parents wer
e required to assign a number from one to five, with one being the most positive and five the most negative for the day This, too, was recorded on the second form.

  It was a tedious and time-consuming procedure, but had the enormous benefit of reminding one of what one should be doing anyway, following up on areas within which the child needed help, trying to get a little positive experience into each day, and then tracking the progress.

  But I had a completely different opinion of Harbour’s second and backup procedure for using “resources,” i.e., outside counseling and some additional form of rewards-based behavior modification.

  So far, we had been able to avoid hooking Mike up with a therapist. We didn’t know very much about the profession. None of our children or our friends or family had ever been in counseling, and it seemed a little too mushy for us, particularly when a number of other parents we met at Harbours monthly meeting explained that, upon the advent of behavior which might displace a child, Harbour would involve a therapist or counselor who would more often than not establish a daily checklist of required behavior and insist that parents record each and every deviation, The idea was that all the deviations for a day would be summed up, and the child’s privileges would be reduced or increased according to an established formula. For example, a child might be allocated one hour of TV time daily, and each check mark for a bad word would result in the subtraction of five minutes from that time. Certain scores might cancel an outing or provide a reward.

  Adding or subtracting five-minute increments of TV time? Whose life was long enough for something like that? Besides, the technique seemed to undermine parental authority. The child was, in a very important manner, singled out from the family group to be rewarded or punished separately from other children. What did that have to do with being a family? What did it have to do with the parent being the source of discipline and direction?

  I didn’t want to argue with Joanne or The Harbour Program about this. I just wanted to keep Mike and ourselves away from any system like that.

  So when I coupled these factors in my mind with the fact that Harbour’s gentle approach bore about as much similarity to the boot camp operating up in the karate school as a garden hoe did to a bulldozer, I couldn’t see how we, or rather Sue, could possibly bridge the gap.

  It was accomplished with insouciance. She downplayed the entire issue and instead presented the karate class as a logical extension of Mike’s treatment plan. Then she flourished a filledout form from the karate school that listed short-term and longterm goals Mike had established for himself and written down under the instructor’s supervision. They were grouped under various categories:

  Goals to Strive For

  Personal:

  Short Call the Dogs Dec. 93

  Long Make Two Friends April 94

  Family:

  Short Write Letters Nov. 93

  Long Plant a Garden June 94

  Work/School:

  Short Do Work on Time Dec. 93

  Long Read Books April 94

  Inner Strength:

  Short See What I’m Afraid Of Jan. 94

  Long Conquer It July 94

  Martial Arts:

  Short Stay Focused Oct. 93

  Long Become a Black Belt Oct. 98

  Joanne studied the little document. “Well, I’m impressed and touched. But still, there’s the issue of schoolwork. Won’t his karate schedule interfere?”

  Sue played her best card. “No, Rich and I reached an agreement with the instructor, and he discussed it in a one-on-one with Mike. Mike will have to produce his report cards from school, and if his marks fall, he’ll have to forgo karate for the next quarter. In other words, he’ll be earning his reward.”

  “I see.”

  But then Sue overplayed it. “And besides, many people feel there’s a strong correlation between martial arts and academic performance; also, that it helps with his social skills. And the improved muscle tone might even contribute to less bed-wetting and better digestion.”

  Joanne looked Sue squarely in the eye. Sue knew, I knew, and now Joanne knew that she was being conned. But then a curious phenomenon kicked in.

  Since that discussion about Mike and karate, I’ve seen social workers suborn the system when they’re confronted by adults who act with good motives as advocates for “system” children. It’s as if, having seen so much abuse and neglect, they’re ready to excuse almost any action that has as its purpose the good of the child—even if they believe the adults are seriously misdirected, or that important guidelines are being ignored.

  The best guy I ever worked for called this “giving meat to eagles,” meaning that you break the rules in favor of somebody doing something, anything. But this wasn’t manufacturing. It was social work. Social workers have more rules than anybody, and they’re dealing with fragile lives. In the order of things, it takes a lot more guts.

  I watched it happen as Joanne said, deep in thought, measuring the risks, “Before you do anything else like this on your own, you have to discuss it with us first.”

  “Oh, sure,” Sue said quickly.

  Afterward, I started to talk to Sue about the incident, but she quickly cut me off with, “Rich, karate is yesterday’s news. We handled it. And that little tempest begs the real question of why Mike’s acting the way he does now, and I never got out what I wanted to say to Joanne. There’s a wrongness about Mike, and I don’t mean emotionally. I mean he’s out of focus or too focused.” When she said “too focused,” she smacked her hand on the table.

  “I agree, I suppose. But we signed on the dotted line with Harbour—you agreed to play by their rules. Before we do anything else, we have to work it out with them.”

  Then she cleared her throat and I started to worry.

  “Sue, are you starting something else?”

  Long silence. Then she said, “I just can’t take any more abuse. I refuse to be told any longer by some sawed-off eleven-year-old that I’m lying, so I called Dr. Reis.”

  John Reis, a family practitioner, had been one of Sue’s clients for a long time. Puzzled, I waited for what she was going to say next.

  “When you feel the muscles in Mike’s shoulder, they’re as rigid as an iron bar. When you massage them, they loosen up and his facial tic disappears for a while. His voice tones down, too. He even loosens up a bit mentally and doesn’t seem so argumentative.”

  Then she bit her lip and cut to the nub. “Mike’s been on medication ever since he arrived and for years before that. Who really knows at this point what it’s doing to him or what it’s done to him already? I read what he was taking to John, and he said that there shouldn’t be any adverse side effects if he stopped, and that the tic, the tension in his muscles, and his extreme behavior could at least partially be a result of the meds. I can accept the fact that he doesn’t really believe anything we say—I’m sure Joanne is right about the whys and wherefores of that—but I’m sure that’s not the whole reason he’s such a Tasmanian devil. Something else keeps him at that low threshold— perhaps the same something that kept him acting like a suicidal spastic in the children’s home. Maybe it’s the drugs; maybe it isn’t. I think we should see.”

  “Well, it’s an interesting supposition,” I said. But then I understood what she was really telling me, and I put my hand over my face. “When,” I mumbled through my fingers, “did you stop his medication?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  trooping the autumn colors

  Mike doesn’t cry at night when the dogs are on his bed. When the whimpers begin, Teddy Bear or Pupsy nuzzles a snout under his arm, and he goes quiet.

  I’ve seen it happen a dozen times by now, and it almost frightens me. It’s as if the dogs know something we don’t, or know how to do something we don’t.

  Sue said it one way when she was watching the three of them troop along outside her office window. “Somehow, they’re on his page.”

  But I think of it differently. I feel the little beast that’s riding Mike
’s back has a certain degree of malignant intelligence. It knows it can’t win an argument with dogs, so it doesn’t try.

  Mike never tries to correct them. Whatever they want him to do is okay in his book. When he’s outside with them and calls them, if they saunter off in a different direction, he changes direction and follows along. If they come with him when he calls, that’s okay, too.

  “Drug-free in ninety-three,” Sue cracked as she dialed Joanne’s office phone number.

  “Sue,” I protested.

  “Relax, I’m doing it your way We’ll follow the rules, get a doctor to pull the medication.”

  “After the fact?”

  “We’ll get a doctor to pull the medication,” she repeated.

  Joanne answered the phone, and after about two minutes of chat, Sue told her she was worried about Mike’s physical condition.

  “He’s not eating right.”

  “No?” Joanne responded.

  “No. The children’s home wanted to get him to a nutritionist and I pooh-poohed the idea. But now I wonder if we shouldn’t get him to see a doctor and see what he thinks.”

  “Well, sure,” Joanne said doubtfully, “but he is scheduled to see Dr. Jacobsen.”

  Dr. Jacobsen is the psychiatrist with the Mental Health Association.

  “Yes,” said Sue, “but that’s not for three weeks, and we do need a family doctor for him—someone we can call if he gets sick. No family doctor will see him on short notice unless he’s already examined him. So maybe we should kill two birds with one stone—get him a family doctor and see if the practitioner wants to recommend a nutritionist.”

  “Okay.”

  With her token team effort out of the way, Sue shopped around for a family physician. Not so easy. If you’re on Medicaid, it seems, the government’s health care system wants you to go to a clinic in a city. At least that’s what Sue came to believe when she found out most of the doctors in rural practice— those in Ulster County, for example—won’t touch Medicaid.

  But she did find three in the next county down. The first one was an aged, upright GP named O’Mara living way back in Pine Bush.