“Lick my balls!”
“Dash, I don’t want you to speak like that to me. I don’t want you to leave.”
“No! Fuck off, you whore!”
Like I’d been slapped, I dropped his arm. I wasn’t going to fight. Dave had heard the yelling and come outside. Dash threw the skate-board at him. Dash glared at me for a long moment, none of us spoke a word. Dash stalked off. I glanced at Dave. Let him go. I called the police, quoted our case number again, and told the officer that Dash was probably on his way back to his father’s. I was shocked when the officer said, “Oh. I know Peter Hart. I hope he’s sober.”
The police called Peter. “Has he run away again? She drives him nuts,” he said. “Dash isn’t here.” But in the meantime Dash had called me and told me he was there. He said he’d gone straight there from my house. Who knows if that was true, but Peter changed his story. He told the police that there had been “a big fight” at our house and that’s why Dash had left. The next day, when Peter drove over with Dash, I thought I was dreaming. Hope surged in me. Peter was bringing Dash back to see out our summer. But no. They were here only to reclaim Dash’s skateboard. It was over. I hugged Dash. “I love you,” I told him, and he was calm when he quietly replied, “I do, too, Mom. I’ll be back on Tuesday in time for dinner, okay?”
But that wouldn’t happen either. Peter had enrolled Dash in a skateboard camp, and they left the next day. What should have been a ninety-day summer access came abruptly to an end. Dash never returned, but I had broken the back of the alienation and re-established a fragile connection with my son. Dash had run away only when we were in Vancouver, and I had proved to the judge that Dash would stay with me if given half a chance. So I let it be. The intervention had worked.
I saw Dash a lot after that. We had proved that Dash and I could rebuild our relationship, just as Allison Burnet had predicted we could, if only we had unbroken time. I saw Dash every week, sometimes every two, but he didn’t resist me any more, there were no more flimsy excuses. If I didn’t see Dash for a week, it was just because I didn’t live with him. He was older now and had plans with other people. I doubt whether Peter saw him much either. When they moved to their new house on West Tenth Avenue Dash got his own phone line, which gave us unfettered phone access for the first time in years. And it worked. We talked every night, lightly, easily.
But L.A. changed nothing for Dash on a grand scale. Our relationship had drastically improved, and that provided him with some mooring, someone to talk to and a mother’s love and care, but the damage had been done a long while ago. Dash was an undisciplined and emotionally fragile young man. Though he was now in the intervention program at Lord Byng, he was still in a mainstream secondary school, and although Bob Lewis had bent the rules and let him start Grade Nine, despite his failed subjects, he began failing predictably quickly. Discouraged and isolated, he rarely went to school. In just one term he was absent forty-two times and late so often they probably stopped counting. When he did show up, he was exhausted and moody. In January 1999 he made a contract with Bob Lewis, whereby he would either attend and participate, complete homework, and behave appropriately, or drop out of school. Dash broke the contract every week. By early March, Dash’s teachers were declaring they’d had enough, and although he did scrape through Grade Nine, it was a miracle and spoke more to the school community’s support than Dash’s work. Peter’s illusions about his son remained intact. He wouldn’t countenance the idea of finding an alternative program for him. Although, based on the sole guardianship order I received from Justice Brenner on September 23, 1997, legally I did not need Peter to agree to anything, I did need Peter to be onside emotionally, and over the past three years Peter had proved that he was totally incapable of seeing how badly Dash needed help at school.
I also asked for – and got – joint custody. Bittersweet victory, for it was too late to expect Dash to want to live with me. In fact, if he had joined our family, he was so badly damaged it would have affected everyone. It wasn’t about me bringing up Dash any more. It was more that I had to somehow find a way for him to survive. The summer intervention had shown me just how directed Dash still was when his father was in the picture. Vancouver was where Dash failed to function.
When fifteen-year-old Dash entered Grade Ten at Lord Byng Secondary in September 1999, my fears were realized within weeks when he nominally dropped out of school. The vice-principal, Terry Howe, told me Dash was “screaming for help.” Peter had fallen off the wagon again and Dash, who would have placed a lot of hope on life improving with his dad sober, was pulled once again under its wheels. Dash couldn’t focus and no longer knew how to behave. As a mother, I had, for so long, wanted Dash to be happy, to thrive, and excel and become a success at whatever he chose. Now I just wanted him to function. No one but Peter thought Dash was thriving.
Dash had no boundaries and had become the sort of boy parents didn’t want their children hanging out with. If there was any trouble, Dash would usually be leading the group. He thought he was dumb, but he wasn’t, he just hadn’t done school work for two years. He thought himself a loser, but he wasn’t, he just hadn’t been taught how to live outside the walls of his father’s home. He thought he was ugly, but he wasn’t, he just couldn’t see the beauty I saw. Dash knew how different he had become from his peers. He had always been the class clown, the funny guy, but Dash knew his performances weren’t funny any more. They no longer bridged the chasm between him and the healthy kids. He couldn’t concentrate for longer than a few minutes; he could hardly read what the teachers gave him. I could see in his face that Dash was beginning to feel frightened, knowing he was falling further and further behind the kids whose families had provided him with sanctuary for years and who were now drifting away from him. He dealt with it the way his father did — by denying, defying, fighting, acting out, demanding attention, or simply not showing up and staying at home sleeping, smoking dope, and festering.
A few days before spring break in 2000, Bob Lewis called a meeting at Lord Byng with Terry Howe, Peter, and me. I don’t know what got Peter there. Bob talked through the options for Dash. None were good. Terry Howe said that Dash could stay at Lord Byng until he turned sixteen, because they could not legally ask him to leave until then. “But, Mr. Hart, Dash is not really here anyway. The contract that Dash and you and Mrs. Richardson signed about attending and doing his homework has not been honoured.” Bob and all his support couldn’t help Dash any more. He had needed specialized help, in a different sort of environment, for years. This was the end of Dash’s time at Lord Byng. Bob looked squarely at Peter. “I have some things I would like to say to you.” Terry and I fell dead silent. I felt a panic rise in my stomach. What is he doing?
“I am taking early retirement as you know, and I need to say this before I go and before Dash leaves this environment and starts up somewhere else. Your son is in this terrible situation because you have never given him permission to have a relationship with both his parents. I have met with you enough times over the years and I have talked to you on the phone many more times than that, and I have watched Dash very closely, and I believe that is absolutely true. Your child has been ‘at risk’ since the day he started here because you have not supported the relationship between your son and his mother.”
Oh, no, I thought wildly, now Dash will stop seeing me again. I drew in my breath as Peter flew into a rage.
“This is none of your business!” he shouted. “You have no right to discuss my personal life! You have not formed your own opinion — this was given to you by Pamela. I’m not going to sit here and listen to this. Not in front of her. Frankly, I have a few things I want to say to you, too. We can go into your office, but I won’t speak here.” Peter stood abruptly and they both left the room. Neither Terry Howe nor I spoke. I had had no idea this was going to happen. Every time we pushed against Peter I was terrified that things would go from bad to worse. But another part of me swelled: good for Bob. He called me that
night, so exhausted that he had left school straight after his meeting with Peter. Bob told me that he and Peter had argued for two hours.
“He can’t see what he’s doing to his son,” Bob said, strain evident in his voice. “I tried so hard to get him to understand that he’s destroying this boy. But Pam, I just don’t think Peter is capable of accepting that. He can’t see it. He can’t hear it. He can’t conceive that this is what he’s doing. I hope I’ve been able to reach him on some level.”
Knowing we had to get Dash into a different school, I spent weeks researching, phoning, and doing background work before finding a special-education school in Vancouver called Glen Eden Multimodal Centre. It was run by a wonderful and caring man named Dr. Rick Brennan, who had started the school to help kids who had fallen through the cracks, children whose problems were too complex to be dealt with in regular schools. With a $20,000 yearly price tag that I assured Peter I would pick up and a maximum student population of forty, Glen Eden was a good next choice for Dash. I had already met with Dr. Brennan and toured the school. The school body consisted of adolescents with psychiatric, medical, and behavioural problems, but over 80 percent graduated from the program. Some 13 percent didn’t graduate high school but found employment in their communities and functioned well. Only 6 percent of Glen Eden’s students remained unable to function at a “socially appropriate level.” That was a small enough figure for me. Dash was headed somewhere far worse. Not many children graduate from the streets.
If the idea had come from me, we all believed Peter would have rejected it, but coming from Bob Lewis when we met to discuss it, he didn’t quibble. Bob and I had soft-pedalled Peter to ensure that he wouldn’t walk out of the room and ruin our chances of moving Dash. We hadn’t talked about Dash’s emotional problems. We had concentrated on Dash’s academics and his need for one-on-one teaching like Glen Eden, which was tailored to each individual child. And so Peter agreed to let Dash try Glen Eden.
Dash had come around on his own after many conversations with me in the weeks before we decided. “There’s no point is there, Mom, continuing at Lord Byng?” His clarity had surprised me. He was not living in a twilight zone. He was aware of what was happening in his life.
“Well, it doesn’t seem to be working,” I replied.
“I’ll be better off at Glen Eden, won’t I? I need that help right now.” Dash was thinking about his future in constructive ways. He was thinking about a future.
I stuck with my positive message. “Glen Eden will get you back up to speed, Dash. It will get you through Grade Ten.”
In March 2000 Dash agreed to come on family holidays with us. Ironically enough our trip to Maui was the first holiday for which I had not booked accommodation that included a bedroom for Dash. By the time he told me he really wanted to come, I couldn’t change the booking and get a bigger place, and I hoped that wasn’t an ominous sign. I didn’t even let myself believe Dash would really come, and in fact the night before we left Dash must have panicked. He called a friend and asked him to come with him. Of course the friend couldn’t come — it was expensive and no one had as free a life as Dash — and yet, when I called Dash late in the evening, he said he still wanted to come.
To this day I don’t know how he managed to do it. Why are you going anyway? You hate those people! Well, if you’re going, you’re on your own. Dash jumped into my car with a bag packed for two weeks in Maui that brought tears to my eyes. He had brought ten dollars and some underwear. Maybe a T-shirt. I looked down at his bag and Dash shrugged his shoulders and said defiantly, “Whatever.” I don’t know any other parent who would send their child on holiday with ten dollars and some underwear, and I bet he didn’t either.
Every time I was with Dash I was violently reminded of why I was fighting so hard for him. He was so badly damaged, and being confronted with that was very hard. In Maui he was often rude to me and rough with the boys. He played with them too hard now, pushing them; occasionally he punched one of them. Though Quinten still adored Dash, ten-year-old Colby was realizing that Dash wasn’t the nicest guy in the world, and he didn’t go out of his way to be with him or include him, which made my job even harder. The good times, the Maui sun, Dash’s screams as he dive-bombed into the water, the fun we all had, the spear-fishing trip he took with Dave, the cuddles and endless back-rubs, never obliterated the knowledge that Dash had been changed so much as to be almost unrecognizable. When he watched TV with the boys, or slept, or lay in the sun, or was in some other way at rest, I watched him with an unbearable feeling of grief over all that had happened mixed with pure joy, at simply being with him.
I gained hope from the smallest of signals that he was looking to the future. He told me, “Next time, Mom, I’d like to bring a friend to Maui.” Dash was already planning a “next time.” He asked me if he could drive my Land-Rover when he got his licence, which was a year away, and when I said “Absolutely!” Dash smiled from ear to ear like any other kid. He was realistic. He knew he was in trouble and that education was going to be important for any plans he might make. An ability for Dash to contemplate any sort of future was all I hoped for. What he thought about in his black moments alone on his mattress on the floor with his father stumbling about upstairs I don’t know, but these things he told me in Maui were like nuggets of gold in my hand.
Dash started at Glen Eden when we got back from Maui after spring break, cutting short his horrific Grade Ten at Lord Byng. Rick Brennan took an active role in each and every student’s schooling and was good with Peter, but from phone calls and meetings with him, he quickly saw that Peter sabotaged and undermined Dash’s progress. Rick said, “Our job is so much harder when a child like Dash has to go back each night to the same environment that produced the dysfunction in the first place.” So Glen Eden didn’t work just with Dash. They nurtured Peter along, too. He had to be treated with kid gloves, coached and convinced at every turn, lest he sabotage Dash. I used to joke that I was getting two for the price of one. Rick treated Peter respectfully, never rolling over for him, but managing him as I had tried to do for years. It was an intricate relationship, and Rick balanced it well, always with the view that, for Dash, we needed Peter. We needed him to listen to the results coming from Glen Eden as Dash went along. If Dash didn’t do well, we had another plan, but we had to make sure the crumbs were out for Peter to follow.
Dash’s Glen Eden tutor was a caring, gentle young man named Oliver Pavek. He was creative in his approach, and used both structure and flexibility to help Dash’s learning. Sometimes he could keep Dash on track, sitting at work for hours, and when he couldn’t they would go for a walk or go out. I told Oliver that Dash already went to the Jericho Tennis Club, and they should go there on my tab any time he wanted to see Dash in a relaxed, neutral venue. They went often. Oliver, just married and brown-bagging it, got a hearty lunch; Dash had a lesson even when he couldn’t face Glen Eden. For a while, Dash made great progress. He attended classes and, for the first time in years, sat at his work for longer than a few minutes: Oliver’s gentle encouragement often had Dash sitting in a chair for three hours at a time. But years of trauma-induced inattentiveness, absence, exhaustion, and low self-esteem had taken their toll. The Grade Four struggles Dash had with pen-and-paper tasks had never been properly addressed at home, and now they were full blown; his reading and writing abilities were way below his overall intelligence level. Dash’s frustration and anger easily took over. He would only work on the subjects that he had traditionally been good at: Math and Science. Oliver allowed him this focus, realizing that the good marks Dash earned in these subjects would boost his self–confidence, and then they would tackle the others. Oliver inspired Dash to behave incrementally better and concentrate harder.
Peter’s support was so critical to the process, but he started to pull back. Although toward the end of Dash’s tenure at Lord Byng, Peter had participated in useful group meetings with me and Dash’s team, when Dash shifted to Glen Eden, Peter once aga
in refused to come to any meetings if I was also attending. Rick agreed to have separate meetings with each of us to keep Peter on-board, but it wasn’t as constructive. Peter remained steadfast on one issue. He insisted that he be the one to drive Dash to school. He wouldn’t budge, even though I told him many times that I badly wanted to do it — to make sure he got there, to encourage him on a daily basis, to see him — and that it was more practical for me to drive. “You’re working so hard rebuilding your practice and I’m a stay-at-home mom. I drive right past your place to get Colby and Quinten to school every morning. I can easily pick up Dash and drop him at Glen Eden.” But Peter remained adamant — and with that paralyzing control the seeds for Dash’s failure at Glen Eden were sown.
Dash faltered just a month into the program. His attendance became patchy once more. Peter wouldn’t drive him. Then Dash wouldn’t catch the bus. Then he would want to do his lessons with Oliver at Jericho. Then he’d want them at home, but couldn’t wake up in the mornings. Peter couldn’t get him out of bed. Tensions within their household reached a peak and their internecine battle underwent a dramatic power shift. The monster roared back at his master. Oliver saw Dash abuse his father when Peter tried to get him out of bed. Peter took to spraying Dash with water to try and get him up. It was chaos again, and this only frightened me more, because, as controlling as Peter was, without him what did Dash have? I pleaded with Peter again to let me be the one to get Dash ready in the mornings, but he said, deadly calm, “Pamela, I told you. I’ll do it.” I was beside myself. I couldn’t bear that Dash’s great progress was falling away.
After Dash missed a number of days in a row, I phoned the house to offer him a ride. Dash picked up the phone and groggily agreed, but he must have fallen asleep again, because he didn’t come to the car when I pulled up. I called from my cell phone, but there was no answer. I walked around back to the door that served as the entrance to Dash’s half of the house, but it was Peter, not Dash, who yanked open the door. “I’m taking him to school!” he said, eyes red and blazing. Peter’s drinking again, I thought as I backed away from the door. Oliver had told me he had smelled alcohol on Peter’s breath in the mornings lately. After that Dash didn’t speak to me for two weeks. He told me, “You got me in a lot of trouble turning up at the house like that.” I had to back off. I left it in Oliver’s hands. He started to go and try and get Dash to school himself, but soon Dash refused to go even with Oliver. The gentle-mannered tutor would not fight with him about it, so that fell off, too.
A Kidnapped Mind Page 25