I Speak For This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate (23 page)

“Where should he go next?”

“That’s the problem. There’s an HRS district case supervisor trying to find him something, but so far he hasn’t been successful, and the news of this latest crisis isn’t going to help.”

“May I see Rich?”

“He’s asleep. Thorazine does that.” She checked her watch. “It might be wearing off enough to wake him.” She hesitated a moment. “Or maybe you’d rather come back on a better day.”

“It’s over a hundred miles round-trip …”

“Yes, well …” She pulled out her ring of keys and led me down two corridors and asked me to wait by the nurses’ station.

An anorexic waif of a teenager with wispy blonde hair drifted beside me. “You a doctor?”

“No, a visitor.”

“Visitors aren’t allowed back here.”

“I’m a special case.”

“Who are you here to see?”

“Rich Stevenson.”

“Oh!” Her eyes brightened and she brushed back her hair. This maneuver allowed me to see her heavily bandaged wrist. “I’m Daphne, Rich’s friend. I just
love
him. He’s so cool! And his story made me cry and cry. I thought I had it tough! God! First his mother and brother are killed in a car wreck and then his dad goes to jail. No wonder he’s acting crazy.”

“What do you mean, Daphne?”

“I hate what happened this morning. It wasn’t fair. He needs kindness, not bullying.”

A nurse came in carrying a tray filled with paper cups of Jell-O. “Daphne, where do you belong?”

Daphne touched my arm. “Tell him I’ll see him in group,” she said, then disappeared as silently as she had appeared.

Dr. Newman beckoned me across the hall. She unlocked the door to a lounge. Plastic-covered sofa pillows from several divans had been laid on the floor as a makeshift bed. A boy in jeans was facing the wall. His arms were encased in a white canvas restraining device.

A beefy orderly knelt beside him, talking softly. “You got a visitor.”

“Huh?” He turned his head and blinked in the bright light. “Who …?” His nose was dripping, but he couldn’t wipe it, so he pressed it into the mattress. That gesture—of misery and helplessness—pierced me. I moved toward him.

“Take it off,” Dr. Newman told the orderly.

More gently than expected, Rich was unbound. I noticed his back was covered by islands of infected acne. He rolled on his side, eyes still closed.

“Can you sit up?” the orderly asked.

Rich’s eyes opened again, then shut. “Thirsty …,” he muttered.

The doctor left the room and returned with a paper cup of water and set it on the table. She pulled up a chair for me on one side, while the orderly helped Rich to his feet. He staggered toward the table on unsteady feet. The orderly arranged Rich in the chair and held the water cup up to his mouth. When he sipped, he did not center the cup in his mouth. Some water spilled down his chin. He turned away from me, embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I didn’t mean to wake you from your nap. I’m a friend of Alicia and Cory and I wanted to meet you too.”

“You seen them?”

“Yes, both of them within the last few days. They’re fine and they asked about you. I promised to call and tell them how you were.”

With enormous effort Rich lifted his chin and focused on me with the familiar large marble blue Stevenson eyes. To me that moment is like a frozen drop of water in a strobe-lit Harold Edgerton photo. For in that split second Richard Leroy Stevenson, Jr.—the weird, the crazy, the violent, the sick, the reviled, the shunned, the holy terror—became Rich, my guardian child.

The upwelling of feeling, the sense of connection was utterly unexpected. Any fears dissolved. “We’re fine,” I said to the doctor and the orderly. “We’ll just talk for a while.”

The doctor nodded to the orderly and they backed away, leaving the door wide open.

In the simplest terms I explained about being Rich’s advocate and that of his siblings. I gave Rich a brochure and a card with my office phone number and went over how to place a collect phone call to me. The orderly brought Rich his tray so he wouldn’t miss lunch.

Rich lifted his fork. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead.”

He pointed to a plastic tote bag on a table at the far end of the room. “That’s mine. Could you bring it here?”

I went and retrieved it and he pulled out three notebooks filled with drawings. There were a variety of fine pencil sketches showing the Grim Reaper, skeletons, and other personifications of death. One cemetery scene depicted tombstones engraved with the names of dead rock stars including Elvis, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix, and Duane Allman. In the center was a very small, but elaborately embellished grave marked: Richard Stevenson, Jr., the year of his birth, and the current year.

“Where do you want to live?” I asked.

“With Ally. In our own apartment. I’d take care of her. They think I can’t, but I can’t do worse than our father. I’ve seen what he did, but nobody will listen to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“This summer, when I was still home. You know there was only one bedroom, and my grandfather had that.”

“I thought he had his own house.”

“He rented it because he was having heart problems and didn’t want to live alone anymore.”

“So where did everyone else sleep?”

“I crashed on the couch and Ally and Cory had bunk beds on the porch.”

“What about your father?”

“He had a twin bed in Gramps’s bedroom.”

“But he was married until recently.”

“She slept on the porch in the cot most nights, or they’d open out the couch bed and I’d get the cot.”

“What is it that you think you saw?”

“Hey, I know what I saw, okay?” he said belligerently. I nodded that I was listening. “So, Dad came out to the porch, picked Ally up like a baby, and took her into the dining room and laid her on the floor. It was dark, but there’s this green light on the VCR. I could see the shadows and hear the noises.”

“And …?”

“And? And? And he was fucking her, that is what he was doing! Fucking her real good.”

“Would you tell that to someone else, someone who could help prosecute your father?”

“Sure, I would.”

“Do you think your father should go to jail?”

“He’s there now, isn’t he?”

“That was for cussing the judge. He’ll be out next week. But I mean for a longer time because of what he did to your sister.”

“Hey, he fooled around with me too.”

“Like how?”

“You know, jerked me off, and made me do it to him.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t remember.”

“We don’t have to talk about that now. But let me ask you one thing. Do you think Cory should go back and live with him?”

“No, he’d be next, if he hasn’t done it to him already.”

I encouraged Rich to eat his lunch. He complained about the food and how boring it was at the hospital. There was nothing to do, no school, no activities. He wanted out as soon as possible. He also wanted a pizza.

When Dr. Newman returned, she smiled at us. “Looks like Richard might be ready to join the others at group.”

“Too tired,” he mumbled.

“I met a girl, Daphne, and she said she hoped you would come,” I added.

“She did? You know why she’s here? She tried to off herself this weekend. But she’ll be out of here tomorrow and I’ll still be locked up.” He wagged his finger at Dr. Newman. “Right, Doc? You love me so much you won’t let me go.”

“That’s not exactly the way I’d put it, Richard.”

“See, they don’t tell me nothin’! Like, it isn’t important for me to know what’s happening in my own life.”

“I’ll try to find out what is happening and call you,” I said.

“Nobody can phone me here.”

“They said I could call the nurses’ station and they’d get you.”

Rich brightened. “Okay.”

“Okay, you’ll come to group with me?” the doctor asked.

“Guess so …” Steadying himself with one hand on the table, Rich stood. I placed his notebooks in his bag, tucked the guardian information on top, and handed it to him.

“See you soon,” I promised.

“Yeah,” he said with the cocky Stevenson grin that Cory had perfected. “Soon.”

Today, when I look back on my notes of the next few weeks of the Stevenson case, I wonder how I had time to conduct my normal life. I know that I had a manuscript in the editing process and was in the early stages of researching a new novel, but I also was working almost full-time in our documentary film company and busy with one child still at home. Our fourteen-year-old son, Josh, required the usual chauffeuring to soccer practice and orthodontist appointments, encouragement, nourishment, and attention. On one occasion Josh and I had plans to buy soccer cleats, which he wanted to break in before the first game of the season. Just as I was finding the car keys, Patty Perez phoned to say that Cory was upset after a call from his father in jail and he wanted to see me. I went out to the car, where Josh was already waiting. After explaining that one of my guardian kids, whose father was in jail, was very upset and needed me, I said that even if we went shopping the next day he’d still have three days before the soccer meet to wear his shoes. Josh shrugged and got out of the car.

“Maybe it’s not fair for me to be a guardian for other children if it means I have to break a promise to you.”

“Oh, Mom, I don’t mind,” Josh said graciously.

“Really?”

He gave me one of his deep-dimple smiles. “I love what you are doing.”

“Because it helps other kids?”

“Nah, that’s not it.” With a flip of his foot, he picked up his soccer ball, tossed it in the air, and bounced it off his forehead. “See, ever since you’ve been a guardian, you’ve been off my case.”

Laughing, I realized that this was true. Something that had once irritated me—like a wet towel on the carpet or a glass placed in the sink instead of the dishwasher—now went without comment. How could I “sweat the small stuff when my kid was doing wonderfully in school, coming home on time, was cheerful, helpful, funny, clever and … and normal! He loved us and we loved him. There had never been a moment of disruption in his life because there had always been a stable marriage, a comfortable home, plenty of food, and access to medical care. He was close to his brother, his grandparents, a nearby aunt and uncle, plus a large extended family that would support him when we were not around.

Nobody had ever hurt, abused, or neglected him—and his father and I would make sure nobody ever would!

Yet, as I hurried to meet Cory, there was a tiny tingle that made me wonder whether I had better focus more on my own sons—just in case.

The following week Red Stevenson was to be released from jail after serving time for his cussing offense. Red had called Cory and told him he wanted to see him that same day. Patty Perez didn’t want Cory to be pressured into anything, but I soon determined that this is what Cory wanted and agreed to facilitate the reunion for him. Red only was permitted supervised visits with his son on the grounds of an HRS facility. However, Mitzi Keller, who was not shy about her intense dislike for Mr. Stevenson, claimed that she had too much office work to travel to Cory’s foster home, bring him to her office, and return him home. “Hey, but if you are willing to transport Cory, that’s fine with me.”

For the child’s sake, I made the arrangements for the first visit even though I had no desire to meet Mr. Stevenson, who knew I also represented his other children, the children who wanted him behind bars.

When we arrived at the drab HRS facility in the county seat, Cory’s father and grandfather were already waiting in the parking lot. Jeremiah Stevenson came forward first. His gray eyes flooded with tears and his scrawny arms quivered as he hugged his grandson. Cory patted his grandfather’s corded hand gently and led him to a picnic table next to the social services building. A long line of food stamp recipients snaked around the yard, but Cory didn’t notice. He climbed on the bench, snuggled close to his father, and tugged on his arm like a much younger child.

Red Stevenson was a husky man with the expected red hair dulled by a greasy patina. He wore a full beard that retained flames of the youthful color. His cobalt blue eyes proved the genetic link, although it was hard to see them at first because Red refused to make eye contact with me.

Cory prattled on about what cars he might drive when he turned fifteen.

After about ten minutes, Mitzi Keller came out and sat down on the far end of the picnic table, but said nothing.

“You know your mother called your grandfather and said she might be coming to Florida?” Red suddenly asked Cory.

“Yeah,” Cory admitted, since I had told him about the call.

“She has a hell of a lot of nerve showing up after all these years.

Who raised you? Who fed you? Not her, me! And what do I get for it? Shit, that’s what. Now she thinks she can waltz in here and interfere.”

“Mr. Stevenson, please change that subject or I will have to end this visit,” Mitzi said.

“Dad …,” Cory pleaded.

Red saw Mitzi’s frown and said, “Okay.” He placed his arm around Cory and squeezed the boy to him. Cory’s head leaned against his father’s chest. “You know I don’t want anyone to take you away from me, don’t you?”

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Everyone is out to get me. They are talking about a separate trial for what they claim I did to Dawn Leigh. Now you know I never touched that kid.”

“I know, Dad. She and Alicia just wanted to stay together and made the whole thing up.”

“If they ask you to swear to that in court, will you?”

“I only have to tell the truth, right?”

Red ruffled his son’s hair. “Good guy,” he muttered.

Mitzi’s mouth twisted into a disgusted expression. “I have another appointment,” she said, standing. “But you should know that Cory’s been caught smoking and he needs to stop.”

“You smoking again?” Red chided with some annoyance.

“Once in a while …”

“If we’re going to get back together you are going to have to behave better.”

Mitzi seemed satisfied and started for the door, but I was furious. After Mitzi had departed, I said, “Cory, none of this is your fault.”

Then Cory did something odd. He reached for his father’s hand and used it to hit himself in the face. “See, I’m hitting myself this time, you’re not hitting me,” he said, then did it again, much harder.

As planned, Patty Rose drove up to fetch Cory. Jeremiah cried again as they said good-bye, then waited on the picnic bench for Red to walk Cory to the car. Mitzi came out and pulled Patty aside to give her some new Medicaid forms, and I followed Red and Cory.

Apparently Red did not realize I was behind him. One moment he was chatting about a new hydroplane engine, the next he balled his fist and punched Cory in the chest so hard both the child’s feet lifted off the ground at the same time, yet Cory didn’t utter a sound of complaint.

“Hey, Dad, how about some cash?” he said a few seconds after the blow.

Mr. Stevenson reached into his pocket and handed Cory a five-dollar bill. Still unaware of my presence, Red clutched a handful of hair on Cory’s neck and yanked his head back as far as it would go. I could see the boy’s expression: a forced smile that didn’t ease up until his father let go and his head snapped back. I stepped protectively between Cory and Mr. Stevenson, opened the car door, and told Patty I would be by the next day.

After they drove off, Mitzi asked Mr. Stevenson and me to come into her office.

“I don’t like the way that visit went,” Mitzi said. “I think we should curtail any more for a while.”