Dead Man's Honda

After the room full of dingy faces and the stupid demonstration given by a mindless NGO, I was livid. This is how they are dealing with street children? Teaching them that sniffing glue is irresponsible instead of recognizing why they do it? With silly cartoon demonstrations?

My assignment was to analyze the transitioning social welfare system particularly as it pertains to juveniles.

“Street children who used to be picked up by the police were taken to the juvenile detention center (it had a specific name I am deliberately leaving out here) but it closed.” I was told over and over again by various officials, social workers, analysts and government agencies.

“Well where did the children go?” I kept asking until the day I left Tbilisi.

No one gave me an answer. Children in the former juvenile detention center just disappeared, it seemed. For some naive reason I thought two years later there might be some improvements in that arena.


But then this.

My stomach is sick after reading it.

If legitimate institutions for children are so severely lacking (and I've witnessed them) in that country— like orphanages, foster care systems, etc. and if the prisons are miserable enough by adult standards— I can only imagine how awful the prisons must be on twelve year old children.

And all I can think of are the faces….

“I don’t like it when people come up behind me I don’t like the phone to ring or to get mail—do you have anxiety like that do you know how it feels and do you know what it’s like to be overmedicated so that your speech is slurred and you cut to feel and you urinate really frequently and I was wondering if you’ve read this book because it’s a book of all the medications they’ve put me on and it really doesn’t seem like it’s right…”

Tiny arms were crossed tightly in front of his chest and his intense blue eyes never wavered from mine as the stream of questioning consciousness flooded my ears.

Holy crap.

“Umm..I don’t know about anxiety but…” I responded to M. who has been in and out of mental institutions for the last five years.

I grew up with M. but he has never been extremely astute. When I was seven years old and he was in junior high I sold him a giant mollusk-thing I’d found in the ocean and told him if he put it a bowl of water and added a bead, it would grow a pearl even though I knew that it probably wouldn't and felt badly even at the time pulling the wool over much older eyes. He gave me five dollars for it and I thought I was rich AND a genius. Looking back I still feel guilty I profited from his ignorance. But not guilty enough to, you know, confess or anything.

While he spoke I felt sorry for his anxiety and didn’t even consider that I might have some as well. However, just a second ago I started to get...anxious...short of breath...feeling...suffocated. Perhaps it’s because I have heater on in here even though it's seventy degrees inside and ninety degrees outside and a woman down the hall asked what was burning and I actually think it’s my leg next to my heater. Or maybe it's because I've developed a lung infection from the cats that we're "fostering" but for whatever reason are not allowed to adopt out until they are two pounds-- and do you know how LONG it takes for five kittens to get to two pounds and how big they are at that size? Or maybe it's because my sister wants to kill me (though she'd never show it) for housing said kittens in our already slightly crowded apartment when neither of us are really "pet" people-- though we love what we have.

Or perhaps it’s because Saturday my “twin” sister will get married. Tuesday we find out about Grandpa Joe and whether or not cancer has overtaken his lungs and lymph nodes. Wednesday we make sure my twins’ dress is ready for the wedding (WHAT IF IT’S NOT?!) and Thursday the relatives flood in at an ear-piercing rate. Friday is the rehearsal dinner and time to flutter about trying to look like I know what I'm doing in these social situations where you need to a certain sort of initiative and tact (especially when my grandmother gets feisty in which case everyone should run for cover because even when she was driving on the wrong side of the road in France she still had the gall to tell Paris drivers to shove it) which I generally lack.

Saturday— the wedding.

And Sunday?

I will be teaching Sunday school alone to a room of psychotic two year olds and a “helper” woman who is, unfortunately, a little overmedicated herself so that when a kid poops in her pants and all over his clothes she just holds them up by the arm pits and whines in a high-pitch wail “LEIIIIIISSSEEELL….LOOOOKKK…” because Lindsey will be off on her honeymoon.

Son of a......

Teasing, of course.