Part 7 (2/2)
I got to the parking lot in front of Building C in a complex of identical three-story buildings marked A, B, C, and D off of Fruitville and Tutle. It was just before four-thirty.
Building C housed some of the offices of Children's Services of Sarasota. Buildings A, B, and D had a few empty office s.p.a.ces but most were filled by dentists, urologists, investment advisers, a jeweler, an estate appraiser, a four-doctor cardiology practice, and three allergists.
John Gutcheon was at the downstairs reception desk, literally twiddling his thumbs. John was thin, blond, about thirty, and very openly gay. His sharp tongue was his sole protection from invaders of his life choice. His world was divided into those who accepted him and those who did not accept him.
I was on John's good list, so I got fewer verbal barbs than a lot of Children's Service parents, who usually sullenly and always suspiciously brought in the children they had been charged with abusing. He looked up at me and shook his head.
”That cap has got to go,” he said. ”You are not a hat person and only real baseball players and gay men with a certain elan can get away with it. You look like an emaciated garbageman or, to be more socially correct, an anorexic sanitary engineer.”
”Good afternoon, John,” I said. ”She's expecting me.”
”Good afternoon,” he answered. ”I'm glad you prepared her. Are you saving someone today or are you going to try to pry Sally away from her caseload for dinner? She could use the respite.”
”Both.”
”Good. I'll sign you in.”
”Thanks.”
”It's been drearily quiet here today,” he said, looking out the window at the cars in the parking lot. ”I'm giving serious thought to moving.”
”Key West?” I asked.
John rolled his eyes up to the ceiling.
”No,” he said. ”Care to try for a second stereotype?”
”San Francisco,” I tried.
”You are a George Sandersalevel cad, Fonesca,” he said. ”Providence, Rhode Island, the city of my birth, the birth of my life which still puzzles my parents.”
”Providence,” I repeated.
”My parents are very understanding people,” he explained. ”Very liberal. They walked out on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? when they first saw it. Couldn't accept that a beautiful man like Sidney Poitier, who played a world-famous, wealthy, and brilliant surgeon, would be in love with that dolt of a white girl.”
”I get the point. You know any good jokes, John?”
”Hundreds,” he said, opening his arms to indicate the vastness of his comic memory.
”Tell me one.”
He did. I wrote it down in my notebook.
”Flee,” he said with a wave of his right hand when I finished writing. ”Your lady awaits.”
He pulled the clipboarded sign-in sheet on his desk and began to carefully enter my name.
I took the elevator up to the second floor unannounced and went through the gla.s.s doors.
In most businesses, with the clock edging toward five, the employees would be in the act of preparing for their daily evacuation. Not here. The open room the size of a baseball infield was vibrating with voices from almost every one of the small cubicles that served as office s.p.a.ce for the caseworkers.
Most of the workers I pa.s.sed were women, but there were a few men. Some of the workers were on the phone. One woman looked at me in a dazed state and ran a pencil through her thick curly hair as she talked on the phone. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back.
”Then when will you and your wife be at home?” she asked.
Never, I thought. Never.
Sally's cubicle was big enough for her to sit facing her desk with one person seated to her left.
The person sitting was a thin black woman in a sagging tan dress. She was worn out, clutching a little black purse against her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She looked up at me with tired eyes as Sally spoke to a boy of about thirteen standing to the right of the desk. The boy looked like the woman with the purse. His eyes were halfclosed. His arms were crossed and he was leaning back against the thick gla.s.s that separated Sally from the caseworker across from her, Julio Vegas. Vegas, on the phone and alone, gave me a nod of recognition.
”Darrell,” Sally was saying evenly, ”do you understand what I'm telling you?”
Darrell nodded.
”What am I saying?”
”I get in trouble again, maybe a judge takes me away from my mother.”
”More than maybe, Darrell, almost certain. And you heard your mother say that if you didn't straighten out, she didn't want to see you till you went somewhere else and came back a responsible man.”
”Yes,” Darrell said.
”You think you can straighten out?”
”Yes,” said Darrell without enthusiasm.
”Really?” Sally said, sitting back.
”Maybe,” the boy said, avoiding his mother's eyes.
”Mrs. Caton?” Sally asked, turning her eyes to the thin woman. ”You willing to try once more?”
”I got a choice?”
”Considering his police record and breaking into the car last night, I can start the paperwork now, put Darrell in juvenile detention, or we put him into Juvenile Justice and see how fast we can get in front of a judge if you say you can't handle him anymore.”
It was a lose-lose situation. I recognized it. Sally had told me about it a few dozen times. Kid goes back to his mother, and there is no way outside a miracle that he is going to straighten out. Kid goes into the system, and the odds were good that if a foster home could be found, he wouldn't straighten out and the foster home might even be worse for him than living with his mother. There was at least a shot if a good foster home could be found, but generally it was lose-lose.
Mrs. Caton looked at her son, at Sally, and at me. Sally watched the woman's eyes and turned to me. She held up a finger to indicate that she would be finished in a minute. Normally, Sally's minutes were half an hour long. She turned back to Mrs. Caton.
”Guess we can try again,” the woman said with a sigh and a shake of her head.
”Darrell?” Sally said, turning her head to the boy.
”I'll habilitate,” he said.
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