by Gay Courter
The director of psychiatric services said, “Mrs. Courier, while I respect your advocacy for this child, the state has spent a great deal on Rich Stevenson to no avail. A cost-benefit analysis dictates that my limited budget must be spent on the youngest and sickest children in the system.”
Finally everyone was asked to summarize his or her position. Mitzi wanted to allow Rich and Janet a chance to get married, which would free up two places in the system. Horizons Unlimited was pressured by several of the specialists to try to work with Rich a little longer, since he had been relatively compliant there and had formed a tentative bond with Garth.
I stated that Rich needed to be in a locked facility with intensive treatment. “To allow him to be released with Janet without any money, housing, or support, seems like a prescription for them to commit a crime.”
The director removed his glasses and gave me a benevolent smile. “Mrs. Courter, wandering around the streets of this city today we have two hundred dysfunctional people exactly like Rich and Janet.”
“Are they all potentially violent?” I asked challengingly. “Are they all a danger to themselves and the community?”
The director half closed his heavy-lidded eyes. “Unfortunately we have neither the funds nor the legal right to hold any of them.”
Two hundred Richs! Myopia had allowed me to focus on my guardian child alone. Until that moment I had fought for him vigorously, but now I felt deflated. If they would allow hundreds of demented people loose, I had no hope of winning any services for Rich.
The meeting adjourned with the decision not to spend any more of the state’s funds on Rich.
From the earliest months of his life Rich had suffered a classic syndrome that led from the deprivation of security in infancy to a low self-esteem and seriously diminished sense of himself as a person by the time he started school. His educational failures resulted in further feelings of worthlessness, and soon he was unable to make realistic judgments or good choices. The more he flopped in program after program, the more he turned inward and reproached himself for being unable to function normally, and this brought him into an early onset of depressions. Over and over he was rejected. His father did not want him, nor did most of the mothers who moved swiftly through his life. Overwhelmed by feelings of grief and loneliness, his unresolved anger seethed beneath the surface. Hence his self-destructive and suicidal tendencies. Studies on these syndromes were made part of ongoing guardian training courses. I turned to a chart titled Results of Failure to Mourn Successfully Following Separation and ticked off every stage as one Rich had suffered through. While the recipe to create an antisocial person capable of psychopathic behaviors was well known, the remedy was more elusive.
A few days later I sat on the screen porch of Horizons Unlimited with this product of an unattached childhood, this rejected, dejected person with sapphire eyes and a crooked grin trying to figure out what might happen next.
Rich couldn’t remain still. He tapped his foot on the floor while patting his knee with his hand. His head jerked as he spoke and every noise sent him spinning around. “The way they want Janet and me to get together could be a trick. They say I can walk away from here and get on a bus, but I’ve been around long enough to know that puts me on runaway status, and the police can pick me up.”
“How will you get a bus ticket?”
“Janet’s Mom is sending me one, then once Janet gets out of the hospital, she’ll take us to get married.” He had the permission from his father, or so he claimed. “This is my one chance to get me a family.”
“You mean have your own baby?”
“No, to have a mother again. You know, Janet’s mother will be mine too. She told me to call her ‘mom’ and I will.”
“You know you also have a real mother.”
Rich ignored this. “They’re jacking me around,” he said in an angry tone.
“Who is?”
“Mitzi and Clay and everyone.” Rich crossed his arms and sulked. “If they don’t let me get on that bus, I’m not going to be around this time next week.”
“Where would you go?”
“If they screw me about this, I’ll put an end to my life, and anyone in my way is going where I’m going—even if it is straight to hell.”
There it was! Rich had made a direct threat to kill himself and harm others. I had enough to Baker Act him on those words alone.
I went to Garth Clay’s office to see if Red Stevenson had actually sent a form saying Rich could marry. The file was shown to me and the paperwork was there. With Rich lingering in the doorway, Garth confirmed that he had spoken to Janet’s mother, who had stated that she was sending a bus ticket and would take the children to be married. I told Garth I would call him later about something important, then left and phoned Lillian.
I repeated Rich’s threats. “May I break confidentiality on what Rich said to me?” I asked.
“You are required to report it.”
“Whom shall I call?”
“You’ve spoken about it to me and you should call Mr. Clay.”
“Gay, you know Rich runs off at the mouth all the time,” Garth said when I told him.
I repeated Rich’s exact words. Garth exhaled loudly and said he would observe Rich more carefully.
“Rich thinks that if he leaves, you’ll call the cops.”
“We’re merely giving him this chance to do what he claims he wants to do.”
“What about the Baker Act?”
“I don’t think he’s going to hurt himself or anyone else, so that isn’t the answer.”
“He’d get a new psychiatric evaluation and that might qualify him for some help.”
As a last ditch effort I managed to get Janet’s mother on the phone that night. When I questioned the wisdom of assisting in this scheme, she said, “Janet has always done whatever she wants anyway.”
Monday I called Mr. Clay. He was out, but his assistant, Kurt, told me that Rich had left on Friday morning, and they had not heard from him since. I tried Janet’s mother. The phone was answered by a male voice, who said he was a friend of the family. I explained who I was. “I suppose Janet married Rich this weekend,” I said.
“Actually, it didn’t work out. When they went to the courthouse, the clerk said Rich’s form from his father was invalid.”
“Where are they now?”
“They’re in a foster home.”
“Together?”
“Yes, but it is temporary. Janet lived there before entering Garrison House, and they agreed to take her back until the paperwork could be straightened out.”
Cheered by this stroke of luck, I called Lillian. The next day there was a prescheduled six-month judicial review of both Rich’s and Alicia’s foster care status. We discussed strategies for getting Rich more help. Lillian was going to speak to Kit Thorndike, the Guardian ad Litem staff attorney, about sending me the Baker Act forms, which as a party with an interest in the case, I could submit. She also told me to give Rich’s current address to the clerk of the courts because if Rich had not married, he was technically a runaway.
In preparation for the court appearance, I had written two separate reports for the judge on each of the children because their needs were so different. In Alicia’s report, I explained the reappearance of the children’s mother and recommended a home study and a trial visit to Spokane before Florida severed responsibility.
The next day, in the corridor of the courthouse, Mitzi Keller showed me a pickup order for Rich.
“Mitzi, this is precisely what Rich was afraid of. You set him up to be a runaway, and now he might make good on his threats.”
“I’ve been hearing that crap from the kid for years. He’s been in the system so long he knows how to push everybody’s buttons, especially yours. Anyway, I spoke to Rich about fifteen minutes ago.” She smiled smugly. “Here’s the deal. Rich already has spoken to his father about the new form and supposedly Red sent it to him.”
“So they’re g
oing to try to get married again?”
“That’s plan A, but he also questioned me about Tammy and asked for her phone number.”
“Do you realize what this means?” I said excitedly. “Until now Rich hasn’t even acknowledged that Tammy exists. Maybe he’s thinking that he doesn’t have to rush to get married to find what he’s looking for.”
Mitzi tossed her curls and gave me one of her skeptical smiles. “Yeah, well, I am not going to lose my job over that little jerk, so I have the pickup order for the judge to sign to cover my rear.”
After we were called into Judge Donovan’s chambers, Mitzi quickly explained that Alicia was in a stable foster home and doing well. Then she brought the judge up-to-date on Rich’s situation.
“Where will you put him when you find him?” the judge asked the caseworker.
“In a foster home,” Mitzi replied.
“What would prevent him from running away the next day?”
When Mitzi didn’t have a response to the judge’s question, I made my plea for a locked facility. I mentioned the phone call to his mother, suggesting that this was a window of opportunity.
The judge asked what I knew about Tammy. I filled him in on her present circumstances. “In any case it will take several months to arrange a reunion and right now I have a duty to inform the court that Rich told me that ‘If they screw me about this, I’ll put an end to my life, and anyone in my way is going where I’m going—even if it is straight to hell.’ “
“Are you willing to Baker Act him?” Judge Donovan asked me.
“Yes, Your Honor. I have the paperwork here.”
“We need three signatures. Will you sign, Ms. Keller?” To my surprise Mitzi nodded. “Who else can you get?”
“I think his counselor at Horizons Unlimited would agree,” I said.
“Okay, pick him up, then Baker Act him. I don’t want to look like a fool if he does make good on those threats.”
When I arrived at my office, there was a message from Tammy in Washington.
“Rich called me!” she said, elated. “I can’t believe I actually talked to my boy. His voice sounds like a man’s. And do you know what he asked me? He said, ‘Mom, if I don’t get married would you want me?’ What was I going to say? I had to say yes to my son.”
Tammy’s voice choked up, then she continued. “He said he had an old birthday card I had sent him and he had hidden so his father wouldn’t throw it out, which made me cry. Then he told me about how his father had beaten him since he was young and he finally couldn’t take it anymore.”
I reached Mitzi to say that Tammy might be more inclined to help out with Rich.
She groaned. “That won’t do anything for his immediate situation.”
“What about the Baker Act?”
“You know the Baker Act will only lock him up for twenty-four hours? Then what?”
I pulled out a copy of the relevant statutes and read from section 394.463. “Actually they have forty-eight hours to examine him to see if he meets the criteria for involuntary examination and then they have seventy-two hours from when the patient arrives at the hospital to when the physician documents that the person has an emergency condition. After that, there is an additional twelve hours when he either must be released or transferred for outpatient treatment or be talked into giving voluntary consent for inpatient care, or the administrator can petition for involuntary placement in the least restrictive treatment facility consistent with the optimum improvement of the patient’s condition.”
“One day or three days, what difference will it make in the long run?”
“I was hoping for a psychiatric referral. Even if it is outpatient it’s still better than having him on the street. With a good therapist and the possibility of a real mother, he might respond this time.”
Mitzi exhaled loudly. “It’s not going to happen.”
“But you’re going to pick him up, aren’t you?”
“Not me. That’s police work. However, I don’t think anyone is going to look too hard for him for a few days, just in case he gets married in the meantime.”
“You want him to marry, don’t you?”
“It takes him off my caseload once and for all.”
“It will never work,” I said in exasperation.
“Nothing else has either,” Mitzi reminded me.
Two days later Mitzi’s early call woke me. “Rich is on his way back to Horizons Unlimited. You ever meet a guy named Kurt there?”
“Spoke to him, I think,” I muttered sleepily.
“He’s been the foster parent for several boys transitioning from that program to regular foster homes and has had a lot of success with emotionally impaired teenagers. He takes them to counseling or school every day when he goes in for his shift at Horizons, then brings them home to a family setting at night. It’s expensive, over five hundred a month, but it is cheaper than a residential program. Kurt seems to have made some inroads with Rich and is willing to try him out in his home.”
“What about the marriage plans?”
“Rich got cold feet and said he needed time to think about it. Janet’s going home with her mother for a while.” There was a long pause. “What do you think? You still want to Baker Act him?”
I told her I would get back to her. Lillian took my call at her home on the first ring. She agreed that it might be wise to put the Baker Act on hold. “Why not see what happens? I have a good feeling about his mother’s attitude and Kurt stepping in now. You can always use the Baker Act if this placement falls apart.”
That evening I spoke to Rich at Kurt’s house. He claimed he loved the location, which was hidden in the woods, and the other kids were “pretty cool.” Then he said he hadn’t wanted his sister or brother to see him in the hospital or at Horizons, but he hoped they could visit him there. Kurt confirmed that guests were welcome, so I set about making arrangements for the three Stevenson children to get together for the first time in over six months.
I traveled more than three hundred miles that afternoon. My home was at one corner of a diamond while the other three points were the whereabouts of the Stevenson siblings. First I picked up Alicia at the Levys’, then drove to the Rose/Perez home for Cory, and continued ninety-two miles south where Kurt lived in an entirely different district. After several wrong turns, we finally found the lane to Kurt’s house.
On the way Alicia and Cory made me stop twice so they could each have turns at the front seat, but otherwise bantered quietly about rock musicians. As soon as they saw Rich, though, they became more boisterous.
Rich greeted Cory with a hard pat on the shoulder, then grabbed his arm in a wrestling hold and twisted it behind his younger brother’s back. Finally I shouted, “Hey!” and Rich broke his hold.
Once inside the house I met Kurt, his wife, Noreen, and five other foster kids, including a biracial boy of six, whom they were adopting. Kurt offered me a seat at the table of the double-wide trailer and together we observed the Stevensons horsing around in the living room. At one point Alicia shoved Rich and he stumbled back against the wall, knocking his arm on the fish tank so hard that water sloshed over the side. Kurt directed the kids outside.
“Rich is a good kid,” Noreen said with surprising warmth in her voice. “He’s just a big baby. If I treat him like one of the smaller children, he does fine. I even read him the Dr. Seuss story Horton Hatches the Egg, and he loved it.”
She handed me the book. Thumbing though it, I recalled the story of the steadfast elephant who is asked to mind the egg of a bird named Mayzie while she flies off to have a good time. Despite taunting and storms and being transported to a circus, Horton stays with the egg because “an elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.” Then Mayzie shows up suddenly and wants the egg back just as it is hatching into a half-bird, half-elephant creature. It didn’t take a Freudian scholar to figure out why this story appealed to Rich.
Outside there was a large crash. Kurt leapt up like an uncoiled spring and wa
s out the door before I had even processed the sound. Following after, I saw that Alicia and Rich were dueling with sticks. Alicia had been backed into a shed and had knocked over an empty steel drum. Nobody was hurt, but Kurt took away the ersatz weapons. I suggested it was time to go out for lunch and the kids got into the car. Alicia handed me a new tape to play. As we rode into town we were serenaded by Skid Row singing “Piece of Me.”
Pizza Hut might have been fun for the kids, but it was an ordeal for me. The Stevensons used foul language, elbowed one another, spilled a drink, and shot spitballs to the ceiling. They ate messily and argued over who got the largest slice of pizza. There was poking and joking and smoking, as Cory passed around cigarettes to the other two while I was in the rest room. When I returned, I asked them not to smoke in front of me, and they went outside.
While I drove back to Kurt’s, Alicia sat in the back with Rich, her head resting on his shoulder. After we arrived, neither wanted to get out of the car. I went in the house to talk to Kurt, who said that while we had been at lunch Janet had called three times.
Back at the car Alicia and Rich were saying their good-byes. He pulled her hair back so hard that she was grimacing. To get released, she punched her fist into his chest, then handed him her dime store ring and told him to wear it always, and not to give it to Janet. He promised he wouldn’t and placed it on his pinkie. Then she kissed him on the back of the neck and he spun around and kissed her hard on the side of her mouth. She pretended to be disgusted and made a raspberry sound, but all the while she was squeezing his hand. Annoyed at being left out, Cory kicked dirt in the driveway.
Rich ran around and opened my car door. “Could you lend me ten bucks?”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
“Hey, never hurts to ask. No hard feelings?”
“Of course not, Rich. Talk to you soon.”
That was on Saturday. On Tuesday I called and spoke to Noreen, who said that if Janet continued interfering, she had some doubts about Rich lasting there, but that at the moment he was doing fine and she had no complaints. Two weeks later the situation had improved even more. Noreen informed me that Rich had met a girl in group therapy that he liked better than Janet. The next time Janet phoned, Rich told her he was breaking up, and Janet claimed that she had a new boyfriend as well. Kurt saw this as progress and was going to enroll Rich in the school program he had selected.