The Briers

by V.J. Goll

  Twelve

  The heist for Mara's documents was planned carefully. I stayed polite to A to garner information about Mara's father. Bear helped me confirm it. Bear and I stayed low and didn't say much. We didn't allow A to know that we were talking. The day we left for Mara's hometown. The sky was supposed to be sunny, but as we drove, clouds gathered above us. The house was a house. It was abnormal because of how perfect it was. I walked through it feeling sad that this home could have been a perfect place for a family, but both houses that I have seen have their own versions of destruction. We found her documents hidden in a Bible. It fell upon some more sexual verses in the Bible that I knew Pastor B was using to pervert. I scowled when I saw this, but I didn't allow Mara to see it. We left not lingering too long. She didn't want to take anything with her. Admittedly, I could add more details, but the truth is terrifying close to be out in the open if I did. So, I won’t.

  Then, the rain poured. It poured so hard that the water stained red from pounding the red clay in the ground creating mini-rivers that rushed against the sides of the roads. It thundered. Lightening flashed and high winds came down. I am unsure what brought the storm, but it was the year that the tornados tore the roads up. We traveled through the storm. I felt something beside me as I drove as Mara slept in the back seat. Something was covering us. I felt it. I was scared driving on the roads, but I felt a calm come over me. Something was being signified by the red water. I knew it. I couldn't explain the feeling, but it was true. The same way that I found forty dollars in the middle of a field. There was something watching over us. The return to the dormitories were less eventful, but I knew it was time to start severing my relationships here.

  One of the greatest skills in life is to recognize an end as it is beginning.

  "Hi Allison," said A to me. Her tone of voice was not polite. I was too tired to feel anger at her. I just looked at her. The drive wore me out from the previous day. A seemed indigent with me.

  "What is it?" I said quietly. It wasn't an invitation. I knew she already decided the outcome of everything.

  "I warned you," she said with passion, "I warned you countless times against Mara. I warned you that she would lead you down the wrong path. Not once can you see how she is manipulating you with her lies and stories. You were supposed to help her!" A was angry. She was waving her hands in front of my face. I just looked at her. I knew my expression was blank. I was going to leave it blank to let her stew a little.

  "What is this to you?" I asked her. My voice was hoarse, but I was angry. "That you can be the golden girl at the church when cutting down a rape victim who is trying to straightened out their lives? When she was suffering and begged you for help, what did you do? You judged her. You told everyone how she didn't read the word and believe in God enough. You slandered her to everyone. You raped her with that holy book and defiled God's purpose. Even now, you sit and stew that you are right? Tell me, are you right?"

  "She was never-" started A. She was going in to fight, but I was not going to tolerate it.

  "She never had nightmares? She never had fucking post-traumatic stress? That she was suffering all this time and you are telling me that she is perfectly normal? It is normal for someone to suffer like that? To be afraid to sleep on beds because of their trauma? Fuck you, A, and please, I don't want you or anyone from that cursed church in my life again. If I didn't know any better, I would say that you are worshiping Satan himself." That was the end of it. I was fuming.

  "But-" she started.

  "Leave," I growled at her. I pointed at the door. I was not going to run away or let her inconvenience me. I wasn't going to let her bully and harass me anymore. I remember why the lecture on First James bothered me so much. Perfection is not in what we appear. It is perfected through Christ coming to terms with our sins and inadequacies. I admit that I am sinner, and there are things that I haven't done right. I am writing this book in atonement because the Lord spoke to me one day and said to me: "You know better." I do know better.

  No one ever tells you that being in a corrupt environment does corrupt you. It erodes the purity of the spirit. I admit when I moved that it took me three years of turning around to try to straighten out, but like Mara, I suffered from my own ability to repeat the past. It took a hard time to break the cycles. I wrote this book to shatter the cycles. I didn't want to be a punching bag anymore.

  They, the state, had changed the appeal time knowing with the time the mail took to get to me, and the time to respond. I wasn't going to win. I knew it. It would not arrive in time. I couldn't tell how exhausted that I felt at that moment. I was glad that I didn't have to write anymore letters. It was left unresolved. A lot of things were left unresolved. I think I was okay with that fact.

  Then, as much as leaving seems as hard as it is, we left. I left. I already left when I moved things up north. We choose to drive in my old rickety car, but we didn't care. The engine purred and sighed on the road. I knew it was keeping together for me. It did. I loved that car. It would only work for one more month after that trip. When it went, I knew that something held it together for me in just the right amount of time.

  "Ally," said Mara to me. I was silent. I was so angry at people. Her voice seemed to jolt me from my rage.

  I looked back at her through the mirror. She was in the backseat trying to sleep.

  "How did your speech go?" she asked me.

  "It was a speech," I said to her plainly. I had my white coat lying in the passenger seat. I glanced at it for a moment as the shadows of the streetlights fell upon it.

  "Can I listen to it?" she asked me.

  "Sure," I said to her, "it isn't a great speech to warn you."

  "That's okay," she said to me in her drawl, "I just really want to listen to it."

  I didn't say anything and turned it on the CD player. I wasn't really fond of it.

  “When I began the COATS program,” I said, “I was a person who needed assistance. When I conclude the COATS program, I will be a person assisting. We struggled with the recent budget cuts with the sequestration. We struggled with the redefining of the founding father’s dream of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ These things are unalienable rights that founded our country. These dreams are the structure of the basic American dream for all citizens that drive our country.”

  I was on the podium. I opted to wear the white coat instead of the darker one. I wore a dark dress to it. My coat laid in one of the pews. The red curtains were closed behind me hiding its secrets.

  There was a murmur. I knew the sequestration was a huge struggle.

  “There is one thing that I learned about our great democracy. I learned that it is responsive to the people and the will of the people. I learned that despite the fact that I may believe that all individuals with special needs whether it is physical or psychological need significant support. I have learned the will of the people of this great southern state disagree fairly. In the process, I have learned that I have challenged fairly. We may not agree, but the events reconciled in peace, not war. They reconciled in words, not violence. They reconciled in the fact that even though today that the people of the state are not ready for change. Change can happen. Change can come.

  I reconcile this thought with the opinion of our founding father, Thomas Jefferson. He was against slavery. He actually sued in an attempt to abolish slavery, but he failed. The people of the country were not ready to treat people with dignity. Yet, in a wisdom of a man who believed in change, he penned these simple words into the Declaration of Independence: ‘all men are created equal.’ The law enacts changes through words. The very words of that I may speak tomorrow may change someone’s life for the better or worst. The very thoughts of my mind as I act may change someone’s life. The questions that were asked to me at the beginning of the COATS program: how do you think people should be treated? How do you think the system of government could change for the better? What is our future as a nation that we envision it?

/>   We envision peace. We have sought peace. I have sought peace. In the great dysfunction, we committed one of the strongest miracles of being able to stay together as one nation. Yet, despite the will of the people not being my will, I am able to go different routes to following my beliefs by law. I am able to be an advocate. I am able to be a COATS member. I am able to make a difference, and that cannot be stopped by the people or the law. Goodness is inseparable. It is above the law.

  Being young and naive, I thought it was education. I thought if we taught someone to think that they would be more aware. Yet, I realized thinking may be a part of awareness. Awareness does not come from education. It comes from the spirit, from the heart. We, the people, have to unite on the heart. We have to unite on our spirits. We are the law.

  I reflect upon the awareness that my exposure through the COATS program has brought me and from my personal life. I choose to specialize in working with cognitive cases during my tenure as a COATS advocate. I will focus my reflections on my report and awareness that is even today continuing to grow. Whether it is genetic or environmental, those with cognitive special needs such as mental retardation or developmentally delayed. Early intervention is essential. The federal government has acknowledged this crisis by creating programs for babies and the head start program to start intervening treatment. This country functions by the applicability of a human life. I argue that this is a central theme in special needs advocacy that every human life has a right to the American dream.

  Yet, special needs law did not take root into this country till the pass the mid-century of the 20th. I would argue that the reminders of the tragedy of the holocaust with the treatment of special needs individuals by the medical community of Germany and the state of Germany. It last lasting scars. Yet, we are not innocent. We spearheaded similar programs in the timeframe. We are always in danger in falling back upon a human life being worthless.

  Hitler in his own words wrote that he based the holocaust programs based on what we have done. I say we because we are citizens of a country that has committed atrocities. We were a partial inspiration for Hitler to commit the genocide and crimes that he did. For those of you who disagree, I present the evidence of these institutions that once stood on our soil.

  I speak about this history, not to reprimand, but to bring awareness. That feeling of applicability about a human life still lingers with us. We stick a price tag to it because for some of us. We are struggling to survive. To other of us, we do not want to waste resources and define what those resources are. To the few of us, lives do not matter. We do matter. I was an individual labeled with severe brain injury. I overcame because of our belief in progress. I did find roadblocks in our beliefs in being stagnant. As a nature, we must strive for progress, not as individuals, but as scientists, lawyers, representatives of the government, educators, medical staff, and many other roles. We must come to terms with progress.

  I am an evidence of progress. I am evidence of the spirit of people finding in my favor to give me a future to have a life, liberty, and a right to the pursuit of happiness. With this said, I want to begin my notes of appreciation to specific individuals…" This part drone on. I didn’t think it was worth adding.

  It ended there. The CD stopped. It wasn't a long speech. It wasn't supposed to be. I had to go to a dinner afterwards with some of the benefactors and other COATS members.

  "If you believe that someone will commit something in malice that will affect the quality of your life in the way of unjust circumstances," said the lawyer, "then, it is okay to lie if the retaliation litmus test failed."

  I looked at him. "That doesn't make it right," I said to him quietly.

  "It doesn't make it right for someone to take advantage of a person in poverty and hurt them," said the Lawyer, "it doesn't make it right that you have to work through not just your disability but the aftermath of what people have done to you. You have a great social deficit. People were not kind to you. You shouldn't be open to them either. You suffered enough. You have a right to remain silent on somethings. It doesn't justify it, no, but I rather you succeed then to carry the weight of this failure, to be continuously discriminated against." He was a grandfatherly type of lawyer, a pomp man. I looked at him quietly as he spoke to me. We were talking about disclosure of disabilities in the work place and other places. It was a soft conversations. The other ones were not interesting enough to continue in this book.

  I remembered Ravi's words to me: "You give so much to a people who will give you so little." I hated him for being right. Then, the realization hit me. It sunk into me.

  Ravi was the only person who cared about me. Eric used me for the betterment of the COATS and when I became a liability, he tossed me like trash. The state was using me as a statistic. I thought about what he said. He was right. We are sometimes demanded so much of that we can give so little.

  "People don't listen to science," I said to him. Ravi looked me wanting to argue. "Here, they won't listen to education. They won't listen to anything."

  Ravi opened his mouth to argue with me, but then, he closed it. He knew I was right. My life was evidence that I was right. People wanted the box, the labels, and the convenience. They did not want to be accountable to their actions, but I didn’t write this to sweep things under the rug. I wrote them to dust everything out in the open.

  Modern Day:

  He set down the tapes looking sat the manuscript at the large word document on his computer. He had a pile of reports piled on his desk of testing that he did with children. They have gotten routine. He felt a sense of sadness as he wrote the reports. He knew most of the children would not get the best of the services. People didn't listen to science. She was right on this. People do not listen to people either. Yet, the words in a book listened. It was here. No one can take the words in a book.