Compliance
by Debbie Ann Eis

My boy opened the door because he was home and the doorbell rang. So, there you have it. He was home, the bitch shows up, he answers the door. I am screwed.
    I should have stayed home, but they started asking all these questions at work–- can't you get help, can't your relatives take him, isn't there a neighbor? Then they send me to the personnel department man with blown back hair and brown socks, who tells me about personal leave, which is unpaid, so, like, no can do. We have to eat, all three of us. Hello? So blown back hair man says through this smile that sinks at the edges, you are responsible for finding ways to deal with your sick children. We can't help you out there.
    My oldest is fourteen and helped out last week, but she can't do that all the time because she has hormones and a sassy mouth. Then there is school.
    My boy is not sick, not really. He has problems with his temper and wondering mind. He throws things, spits, stuff like that. So, what do you do? He does not like school. The third grade teacher is lumpy and boring. And they do arts and crafts. Like everything is make this and make that. Draw Martin Luther King's face. Make a book out of cardboard, make the characters with toothpicks blah blah. My boy wants to throw rocks. So he walks away, out the classroom, because he is his Daddy's boy.
    The school calls that noncompliance. They say it like this, "your child is noncompliant and if we cannot get him to be compliant, then we will not be able to accommodate him here at school." I said, well, comply this-- fuck you. So I kept him home, found some books for him and taught him multiplication when I got home at night.
    My boy said when he opened the door, a woman with hair like Lisa Simpson and a body like Sponge Bob bent down and looked into his eyes, like he was a munchkin or something, and said, real quiet, is your mother home? And like a noncompliant fool that he is, he said, no my mom is at work. And there you go.
    You think you own your child, you do. You scream your way through labor and out he comes and he sucks your tit and you say to yourself, well my life has been hell, but look at this. You've never had anything free; you've had to sweat for food, fuck for friendship, plead for mercy. But right here, right here, is something that is yours, something that takes your heart squeezes it into life.
     But you do not own your child if he turns out wrong. The government does.
     She looked around the house when he said he was alone, then sat in the den and took out a notebook and asked him questions, which he answered because he said she acted like a teacher. Then, he goes, so you want something to drink? She says that would be nice, so he brings in my Johnny Walker, because, well, there it is, in the kitchen, and when I ask for a drink, I mean Johnny Walker. He said her face squinched up like Pikachu.
     There was no use arguing with them. My boy and I had to fill out these papers and talk to some doctor who sat, stared and said nothing every time we visited. They said here is what you do and handed me this list -- therapy, behavior programs, anger management, alcohol rehab, and so on. The last thing on the list was medicine. I'm like whoa, medicine for what? They said for his behavior. I said so he will be in compliance? I said comply this, fuck you.
    And he was gone. Just like that. You do not fuck the government.
    They would not give him back until I agreed to stimulants. I said no. And six months later, I did not recognize my angry boy--thin, wired up, violent-- the violence was because of me, they said.
    I found a lawyer, a cheap one, from social services who gave advice to the poor for next to nothing. Some people, he told me, help out the poor because it's the right thing to do. He said he'd get my boy back in a year, but I would have to give him the drugs for a while until he figured something out. He said, you got to do it, for now, just say yes, because you are strapped, you have no choice, and when you have no choice, you got to do certain things to survive here.
    He said this after I put my clothes back on. He had a glass of Johnny Walker in his hand.



About the author:
My work has been online and in small print. I live in Connecticut with my two boys, husband and English bulldog and read, write and build snowmen.I have completed my first novel which I play to toss out to the world very soon.


© 2009 Debbie Ann Eis