TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: This granddaughter crap is costing me a fortune.
THERAPIST: Yeah? You don’t say.
CLIENT: Oh yeah. Thank the lord Heath paid for her trip up here. She comes up with one big suitcase, a backpack, so we decided we’re going to open up the big suitcase. There’s nothing in it but another suitcase, another small carry-on one that had her clothes in it. So I guess the hint was—
THERAPIST: Stock us up, restock us with clothes.
CLIENT: She came with a package of new underwear, a package of socks, a couple pairs of shitty shoes that had seen their last day, some bras, maybe three pairs of socks and a couple of tops. [00:01:17] That was it. And her makeup and stuff. So I says well, I guess that means Nana’s filling up the suitcase, but she tells me she doesn’t plan on going home, and she doesn’t plan on going back to her grandmother’s, with Margie. She wants to stay where she is.
THERAPIST: Oh is that right?
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: Has she turned 16 yet?
CLIENT: Oh yeah. She’ll be 17 in August.
THERAPIST: Is she emancipated at 17?
CLIENT: 16 you can do it. [00:02:01]
THERAPIST: At 17 does she even need to do that, or does she still need to sign—
CLIENT: She’ll need to sign. She just went and got her birth certificate. Deborah says, “Oh, we’ve got to go to Hingham and get her birth certificate.” Because she was born in Hingham. I says, no you don’t. You just go up to Medford City Hall. It’s there. “No it’s not.” I says, Deborah, I was born in Falmouth. I went there and got my birth certificate. Your brother was born in Revere. I said, we got his birth certificate from Cheshire. I says, so go ahead. So she just called me and said they picked it up. Let’s see. Sunday she went – no, Saturday she went to Peabody Oaks. From Peabody Oaks she went to play miniature golf in Boxford, and from there they went to Winthrop to the (inaudible) for something to eat.
THERAPIST: You’re paying the tab? [00:03:02]
CLIENT: Well the kid upstairs, Jim, took them, and he paid for some, but I only gave her 60 bucks, but that was gone. They went to the movies together in the movie theater. Supposedly it’s fantastic. They have seats you can really recline in, and she says it’s almost like being in a bed, that’s how they recline, how far they are. I say, okay, that’s good. That cost me another $50.00. This was $33.00 for the tickets alone because it was in 3D, then a tonic and a cup of corn, then of course putting money on the card, costing me 10, 15.
Last night they took the bus to Naomi’s house. [00:04:01] Then she went and saw Naomi, and Naomi drove them home. They just took the bus to City Hall and walked from there to Naomi’s house, and tonight they want pizza. Darla wants pizza with pepperoni and black olives. I go, I don’t do black olives, so why don’t you just get a large (inaudible) pizza for you and Darla, and I’ll get a small cheese one myself. Darla says, “Don’t forget the mozzarella sticks, and the chicken wings.” (inaudible) Darla, you know?
THERAPIST: A side of Darla.
CLIENT: Friday night they’re going into Providence to see all the lights and walk around, and everything, her, Naomi, and Deborah. [00:05:04] Saturday night she’s going to the lake. Kid upstairs, Jim, is taking them. I don’t know what they’re doing Sunday. God only knows. Then the following weekend is the July 4th weekend. We’re going to something up in Falmouth that (inaudible) puts on for the seniors. I get a free hotdog, and bag of chips, and a drink, because I’s a senior citizen, but they have music, and all kinds of things, activities going on, fireworks, but then they’re going into Providence to see the fireworks in – I don’t know, is it Saturday night they do that? I don’t know. July 4th day?
THERAPIST: Probably the 4th, on Friday. [00:06:01]
CLIENT: I’m like, okay.
THERAPIST: And you’re footing the bill?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: How’s that for you?
CLIENT: I don’t mind.
THERAPIST: (laughter) Is that right?
CLIENT: I’m just making those $20.00.
THERAPIST: What do I care, right?
CLIENT: What the hell, you know? She’s walking around in shoes she’s had for six, seven years. This kid eats. Last night for supper she had a big plate of macaroni, two meatballs, two sausages. She went to Naomi’s and she came home, and she was starving, so this time she wanted four meatballs, a sausage, and macaroni. I don’t know where she puts it. [00:07:03] Do not know where she puts it. She’s 5’5. Deborah’s 5’4, and I’m 5’3. So okay. (inaudible), forget it.
THERAPIST: Oh yeah?
CLIENT: Tall, really slender.
THERAPIST: She’s still the same?
CLIENT: Yeah, big busted. She got a (inaudible). Long brown hair, blue eyes, yeah.
THERAPIST: Attractive girl, huh?
CLIENT: Yeah, very attractive kid. People look at a few single guys in our building. Who’s she? Deborah, is that your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister. Deborah goes, “That’s my daughter. Go near her and I’ll fucking kill you. (laughter) [00:08:09] He’s all, “Okay.” She’s (inaudible) three days a week and it’s costing—
THERAPIST: Costing you a lot, huh?
CLIENT: Yeah. I said just wait until (inaudible) pick up that money for you.
THERAPIST: Oh, huh.
CLIENT: Uh-huh. God love the kid. Have you called home yet? “No. Why would I want to do that?” I said, just to let them know. Call home. “Okay.” You know? [00:09:00]
THERAPIST: I was thinking about that empty suitcase—
CLIENT: I think she did it just to be a ball buster.
THERAPIST: Who—
CLIENT: Darla packed it at her grandmother’s house.
THERAPIST: What’s the message, I mean, outside from—
CLIENT: The message to the grandmother was that I’d buy her all new clothes. The message to us is, “I ain’t going home.” Oh yeah, the kid’s got it all figured out. The kid’s too smart. So let’s see, for classes next year, this time in September she’ll be taking advanced college English, advanced college math, advanced college physics, and advanced college history. [00:10:02]
THERAPIST: AP? Advanced placement?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Going towards her credits, college credits.
CLIENT: Yeah. I think she’s got like three years of college credits, then she’s taking summer units.
THERAPIST: She’s registered down there already?
CLIENT: Yeah. Up here she’d have to go to Medford High, get all her courses from down there switched to here.
THERAPIST: Where would she stay?
CLIENT: I said that to Deborah. Where is she going to – you know? Mind you I went out and bought a queen-sized inflatable mattress that she sleeps on, and it’s in my living room. You’ve got to blow it up every night, take it down every morning. [00:11:07] It’s a pin in the ass. The sucker weighs a ton.
THERAPIST: Who does it?
CLIENT: Deborah attempts to do it but then she gets pissed because she folds it up, and, “It takes too long to let the air out.” I said, but you’re not doing it any good by folding it half full of air. The damn thing weighs a ton. She folds it this way, and that way, then throws it on my bed. They’re up nights. I take it from my room, carry it into the parlor, which I’m not supposed to be doing, unfolding it and plugging it in so it inflates.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:12:02] Well how are you feeling about her being – if she stays up for the year?
CLIENT: I’d love it.
THERAPIST: How about living in your place?
CLIENT: Well let’s face it. Who do I have for company? Nobody anymore. I haven’t heard from Artie in three weeks. I called him for Father’s Day and wished him a happy Father’s Day, but he didn’t answer, so I left a message. Same for his birthday, didn’t answer. I just said Happy Birthday and that was that. I haven’t bothered him at all. I think when I left a message on his birthday, I said let’s remember this. It takes two to get into an argument, Artie. So I says, I’m not to blame for everything, you know? [00:13:00] I said, you did mostly a very good part of it, you know? Then that was that.
THERAPIST: Yeah, he’s at least temporarily upset.
CLIENT: He’s out of the picture, you know?
THERAPIST: Hmm. Yeah. Well how do you feel about taking it all on?
CLIENT: I don’t mind because she’s the type of kid that every parent would want, really, you know? She does love school. The work for her seems to come like a breeze. [00:14:02] She really doesn’t – well here she doesn’t do much of anything because she doesn’t know any kids from here. If she knew other kids, it would be fine. Even Sue’s son, Lee, was trying to put the make on her. I said, Lee, she’s 16. You’re 32. Don’t even think it. “Well I can introduce her to my friends.” I said no, because they’re just as old as you, and they’re junkies just like you. No. Texted me the other day, “Do you know where I can get any colonicans (sp)?” I said, no, why don’t you ask your mother? She’s the one that takes them, you know? I said, Darla don’t fall far from the tree, believe me. [00:15:01] Then Darla saw in our hallway Susan and him interact with each other, and she says, “I think that’s a little odd.” I says, okay.
THERAPIST: So they came over and they were kind of—
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: What you had seen, you just got lost on that.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: She said, “I think it’s time for you two to go. Bye.” (laughter) Yeah, they left. I said, they are a sick group, you know? I said, it can’t be on the Ashton side, must be the Skellen (sp) side, which is her mother. I said, because that’s not normal. [00:16:00] I don’t know if when she was doing that she did it to make up for not being in his life, because of the way he was brought up by his father.
THERAPIST: Probably guilt.
CLIENT: Yeah. Oh, she’d take him up skiing, take him to Disneyland, really overdo it, because she was making up for not being there. So he was a kid to think that everything should be his, like Deborah. Susan’s money is his money. My money is Deborah’s money.
THERAPIST: Yeah, not a clear whose is whose?
CLIENT: Yeah. Deborah thinks everything should be hers because she grew up without a father figure and a grandfather figure, and that’s all my fault. [00:17:00] I said, oh well.
THERAPIST: I think it sounds like her feelings about that for you are very hard on you. It’s as if – do you feel as if you’re getting a guilt trip from her?
CLIENT: She’s trying to give me one, but it doesn’t work. I broke my ass with those two kids, supporting them, putting a roof over their head, putting food on the table, buying them clothes and things like that, taking them places.
THERAPIST: So you feel very much like you have to defend what you’ve done, but still it doesn’t satisfy her?
CLIENT: No, doesn’t satisfy. I said, well when you wanted to stay with your father, you should have stayed with him, you know? [00:18:02] If that’s what you wanted so much in your life, Deborah. “No, I don’t want to stay with him either.” Well good. He was taking you to night clubs when you were like 13, 14, dressing you up, looking like a slut, no.
THERAPIST: He was?
CLIENT: Oh yeah, went out and bought her all these dresses that were for somebody over 21, not—
THERAPIST: Kind of sexual.
CLIENT: Yeah, and the high heeled boots. I’m like, whoa.
THERAPIST: What did you think of that?
CLIENT: I said, well, I knew your father was an asshole. I knew your father liked them young, because he was screwing the babysitter, but yeah. [00:19:02] His own kid? No. He was taking her to bars.
THERAPIST: Did you think anything had happened?
CLIENT: Oh yeah.
THERAPIST: That he had done something to her?
CLIENT: Well no. Well, she went up with her girlfriend Deborah, and either her girlfriend Deborah put the make on him or he put the make on Deborah, the two of them.
THERAPIST: This was when – how old was Deborah?
CLIENT: 14. Her and her girlfriend went up. He was into drugs by then, selling drugs and—
THERAPIST: Taking them, doing drugs?
CLIENT: Wes (sp).
THERAPIST: Yeah, was Wes doing them too?
CLIENT: He was. [00:20:01]
THERAPIST: He wasn’t with another woman at that point?
CLIENT: No, no.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: Yeah, he was an asshole.
THERAPIST: I can see about Lee actually seeing things, but noticing, being on the lookout for wolves at the door around Darla.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: People, men will take their liberties with women, young women, girls. What am I saying? Girls.
CLIENT: It’s a different story now, isn’t it, Deborah, when you have one around that age, and boys coming around the house and all that shit. What was today’s conversation? Something about – oh yeah. “Darla’s what? 16? I bet she’s screwed a half a dozen guys by now.” [00:21:10] I said, well, talk about taking after her mother, huh? She said to Darla, if you do, use condoms. Darla says, “Why? You didn’t use one. You had me.” Chock one up for the kid. I said, your mother didn’t use them, but she had them. They were all inside a present box up in her closet, and when Nana found them, she blew them up and tacked them up to her bedroom door so when she came home from school, they were all over the door. Darla goes, “You did that, Nana?” I go, you bet your ass I did.
THERAPIST: What did you feel when you saw them? [00:22:04]
CLIENT: The usual. Leave it to Deborah to do that. When she came home she came with a couple of friends and saw them up on the door. I said, Deborah, who do these belong to? I says, wait a minute. It’s got to be the cat, huh? Oh yeah. Then they were her friend, Deborah’s. I said, oh, what is she doing? She lives in Providence. When she decides she wants to get laid, she comes over here and gets a Trojan? I don’t think so, Deborah. This was at the age of 13.
THERAPIST: This was 13? Oh boy.
CLIENT: And she was sneaking – her bedroom window was here. There was a garage. She would climb out the window, get onto the roof of the garage, get down, and go out for the night. [00:23:08] So while I thought she was sleeping in bed, she wasn’t even home.
THERAPIST: Well, it does make me wonder about her and what will happen with Wes, taking her out like that on the town.
CLIENT: “Oh, I was showing off my daughter.” Showing off for what reason? “She’s such a pretty girl.” I said, yeah, so what do you do? Take out every pretty girl you meet? What were you trying to do, (inaudible) on her? “Why do you always think that way?” Because it’s men like you that make women like me think that way, that’s why.
THERAPIST: You were trying to protect your daughter. [00:24:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. So I said, I guess you can send her and her friend home now. The friend didn’t want to leave. I don’t remember if she stayed for a couple weeks extra or what.
THERAPIST: What Deborah?
CLIENT: Deborah’s friend Deborah. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Wow. Where were her parents?
CLIENT: Well, where was her mother. She was living in Providence with her other five kids. (inaudible). She only had four kids? She had to have one (inaudible). Mindy who got pregnant at the age of 13 and had her first kid when she was 14.
THERAPIST: Her sister, Deborah’s sister? [00:25:00]
CLIENT: Deborah’s mother.
THERAPIST: Oh, Deborah’s mother. Okay.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: So what happened – what did Deborah’s mother do?
CLIENT: She didn’t—
THERAPIST: (inaudible).
CLIENT: She didn’t give a shit.
THERAPIST: Oh boy.
CLIENT: It was one less for her to feed, which her oldest daughter that she had when she was 14, her name is Mindy also, she had her – she got pregnant with her first kid when she was 13. Her and her boyfriend at the time were walking through the graveyard and decided to lay down and get screwed. I said, shit, like mother, like daughter, huh? Oh yeah. Mindy picks some really doozers for boyfriends. She was my neighbor who lived up my street – well, the corner of my street and another street. [00:26:07] She would send the kids down for rolls of toilet paper. She never had anything in the house, never. So she was going out with this kid, Wyatt, and he would take her underwear and rip them because he didn’t want her wearing underwear.
Now Mindy was as scrawny as they come. One day she sends the kid down. She says, “Can I borrow a pair of your underpants?” I said, Mindy, first of all, they would be hanging to your toes if you got a pair of my underpants. You’d be better off wearing a pair of your daughter’s underwear than mine. It was unbelievable. [00:27:01] She was a good one for a lot of laughs. She’s the one I took to breakfast at this diner in (inaudible) square, and they had baked Virginia ham on the menu, and my girlfriend, Mildred, worked there as a waitress. She says, “What do you want for breakfast, Mindy?” Mindy goes, “I’ll have baked vagina with eggs.” (laughter) I mean this was—
THERAPIST: Because she had sex on the mind.
CLIENT: She went to the 7th grade and that was it. After the 7th grade, forget it. She was a riot. (laughter)
THERAPIST: Oh boy.
CLIENT: We had more fun with her than (inaudible) has with the pills. She’s the one – I used to drive her kids on the school bus. That’s how I got to know her. [00:28:00] She wound up getting pregnant by her husband again. He had a thing that he liked to punch her around and throw her down the stairs. Well I took care of that. He never went there again after he got the beating of his life.
THERAPIST: You took care of it?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: What did you do?
CLIENT: I had a friend beat the shit out of him.
THERAPIST: You did?
CLIENT: He was told to stay away from her. When she was about due to have the baby, she was staying in my house, and I gave her a bottle of castor oil. That kid was ready in about five minutes after that bottle of castor oil, to be delivered. So I took her to the hospital, and they were filling out the papers, and they said, “father.” I said, deceased. [00:29:10]
THERAPIST: Not to be on the birth certificate.
CLIENT: Right. Finally on the day she was coming home, he found out what hospital she was in, and he went up. I says, well, it looks like I’m going to have to have the police called and have him removed, because he’s not supposed to be near her. I have the restraining order with me. Security. Oh yeah. Divorce city, got that taken care of, everything. That will be the last time he’s in that kid’s life, fucking deadbeat dad. Those were the days when I could get things done. He got the beating by one of Wallace Harris’ (sp) favorite men. [00:30:07]
THERAPIST: You got one of the guys—
CLIENT: Yeah, (inaudible) guys to beat the shit out of him.
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.
CLIENT: I says, I got to look into these Wallace Harris things, because thank the lord, no mention of my father, or my uncle, or anything like that, because I tried to look up online – my father’s (inaudible) got up in the driveway.
THERAPIST: That was Paul, wasn’t it?
CLIENT: That was Paul, but at the time they thought it was – Wallace Harris’ wife had the same pink Cadillac that my father had, so of course they connected it with Wallie Harris’ and all of that. So Paul got off on that one. He never admitted to anything for like, 10 years, then he mentioned it. [00:31:02]
THERAPIST: To you?
CLIENT: To me.
THERAPIST: You didn’t know at first?
CLIENT: No, none of us knew. My brother didn’t know. Nobody knew.
THERAPIST: (inaudible).
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: Wow.
CLIENT: Right? And my uncle Conrad, he sold his building to Wallie Harris, and we had the building next door to Wallie Harris now that he sold the garage. There was a – Wallie Harris used to put a lot of things parked down at my father’s garage because he had a humongous garage and all that stuff. Oh yeah. A lot of hot property was down there.
THERAPIST: At your dad’s place?
CLIENT: “Yeah. Let’s go steal a couple of (inaudible) and this. We’ll bring down a (inaudible).” [00:32:04] Yeah, bring it down to Mickie’s. (inaudible) put somebody in the (inaudible), they could never find anything, bones and all, just gone. That’s why that movie Mystic River with Sean Penn reminds me so much of my brother, Mickie.
THERAPIST: Yeah, the Sean Penn character does.
CLIENT: Because I can see Mickie doing that, honestly and truly.
THERAPIST: The story was around a girl—
CLIENT: His daughter.
THERAPIST: His daughter gets raped and killed, and they think it’s somebody, they think it’s the Tim Robbins – they take it in their own hands. [00:33:03]
CLIENT: I said, that would be Mickie. He’s done that many times. “You calling up my sister Louise and giving her a hard time on the telephone? Good. You get your ass down here now.” Had them in the street, laying in the street, with the oil truck within inches of going over him. That kid shit his pants. “I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again. I’m sorry Mickie. Mickie, I’m so sorry.” “Don’t say you’re sorry to me. Say you’re sorry to my sister.” I said, Mickie, you can’t do those things. “Who said I can’t?” If it wasn’t Mickie, it would be my cousin Jonas, and if it wasn’t Jonas, well, Dave did pretty good because he got into the Marines with no problems, and got discharged with honorable discharge. [00:34:03]
He went the full course. Jonas, he got kind of thrown out of the Marines. Mary was the same. She thought nothing of – she didn’t want this one kid Robin, Robin (inaudible). She hit him with her Mustang, and up over the Mustang he went. Good thing nothing done about it, no charges, no nothing, because his father the accountant for the City of Falmouth, and Falmouth was kind of crooked then. A lot went on in Falmouth. You (inaudible) in Falmouth, stay in Falmouth. [00:35:02] Yeah. I had a good childhood.
THERAPIST: You what?
CLIENT: I had a very good childhood. (laughter)
THERAPIST: What does it make you think about?
CLIENT: I was hanging out with gangsters when I was little. I know my mother had me tied in the driveway, and my uncle drove in the driveway and ran over me.
THERAPIST: Had you what in the driveway?
CLIENT: Tied, when I was young. There was no fence, no nothing, so she had a long rope on me, and my Uncle Conrad decided to back up, didn’t know I was there, ran over me. I wound up in the hospital for that, for having skin abrasions on my back.
THERAPIST: After he had run over?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Or hit?
CLIENT: Hit. We didn’t stay in that neighborhood for—
THERAPIST: What? [00:36:00]
CLIENT: My mother decided it was time to move into another apartment at that time. I tell you.
THERAPIST: Hearing you talk about your childhood and all the kind of violent and all the—
CLIENT: Never a dull moment.
THERAPIST: What is it like to hear it though, think about it?
CLIENT: I think it was really whacked out, but what the hell? That’s the way they – I guess we lived like that. One big whacked out family. My mother still had Mary and Jonas living with us because every time my aunt and her decided to get sloshed, Uncle Conrad would drop them off at our house. [00:37:00] So it would be me, and Mary, and Mickie, and Billy. The latest thing on that is with Darla staying with her grandmother, Margie, one of his brother’s, Bobby, has two kids – well, he has three. The boy is 11 and I think the girl is 13 or something. Well the married brother Willie, and his wife Savannah, have had custody of them ever since they were little. Well now Savannah doesn’t want custody of them anymore. So now they’re going down to Nana Margie’s house to live. I said, where’s Nana Margie going to put them? There’s only one bedroom, and she can’t put the two of them in the same bedroom, Darla. Let’s face it. They’re too old to be in the same bedroom. [00:38:04]
That means that one of them will have to – the girl will have to go in the bedroom with you and share it. Darla says, “I’m not sharing my room with anybody.” I said, I don’t know what your Nana Margie’s going to do. She says, “Now you know why I don’t want to go back there.” I says, at your father’s house, you have your own room. “I’m not going back there either.” I guess Heath finally agreed to get her counseling. That’s a start when she gets home. She’s all, “Why should I start there? I might as well just start here and stay here.” The kid’s got the answers to everything.
THERAPIST: She’s got a plan. She wants to stay. She doesn’t want to go back, (inaudible). Is it that she wants to stay with her mom? [00:39:01]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Or with you?
CLIENT: Mom.
THERAPIST: Mom.
CLIENT: I said, Darla, how do you expect your mother to afford to support you? She says, “I don’t know.” I says, y you’ve got to think all these things out, Darla.
THERAPIST: It’s a good question to ask.
CLIENT: Does your father get insurance for you or whatever’s available for you down there? “No.” I says, does he collect any money for you down there? “No.” I says, why are they charging Deborah for support when he’s not getting any, or from the State, or nothing? Deborah said to her, “Tell your father to write a note saying he gets no support for you and all this, so I can apply for health insurance for you up here, so you’ll have insurance.” [00:40:07]
THERAPIST: Yeah. Would she know if she’s insured?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You might want to check with Kenny to see if he signed her up.
CLIENT: I think Deborah thinks if she does that she can get support for Darla from MassHealth.
THERAPIST: It’s insurance though.
CLIENT: I think she’s thinking she can get a check from them for—
THERAPIST: I don’t think from insurance.
CLIENT: No.
THERAPIST: Maybe from the State.
CLIENT: Yeah. I said, I don’t know. You better find out all these things, Deborah.
THERAPIST: I don’t know. Who knows? There’s probably some support. I think it would be more likely though that Deborah would have to enroll for some support in some way, rather than it be Darla. [00:41:08]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: You claim you have a dependent, but it’s not like they’re going to send a check to Deborah. I mean to Darla, instead of to Deborah. She would have to also establish residency.
CLIENT: She would have to get housing too.
THERAPIST: But that might be a way for her to kind of – if she does pursue that, she would have to get involved with the system and get some help through them. I can’t – I think – I don’t know. Could she say her residency is at your place, or would that raise a red flag for you? In other words would they—
CLIENT: She’s supposed to be supposedly homeless. The only thing she gets is her mail delivered to my place, and she might come by every now and again to pick it up. [00:42:06]
THERAPIST: I got it. She’s technically homeless?
CLIENT: Yeah. Our neighbor is making threatening threats against Deborah, which is—
THERAPIST: That’s the one from upstairs?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: They had the relationship?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: What’s the (inaudible)?
CLIENT: I don’t know. She came knocking at my door the other day, a few weeks ago. She says, “Is Deborah home?” I says, no, she’s around in the building somewhere, but I don’t know where. “Well you tell her I’m sick and tired of her shit. She’s spreading rumors about me and I’m sick of it. She’s out of here. She doesn’t even belong living here.” As she’s walking down the hall, “She’s out of here. She’s out of here. She’s out of here.”
THERAPIST: Whoa. [00:43:00] What did you think of that?
CLIENT: Alice’s whacked, you know? She sent Deborah a letter with a little envelope of marijuana in it, and thanking her so much for taking care of her cat, because the people who owned the cat were visiting Alice, and saw what care the cat was getting, and all this shit. So I guess Deborah showed the letter to a few people, and that was it. Who knows.
THERAPIST: Oh, that was the rumor?
CLIENT: Yeah. Of course Kelly and I had another big fight. It’s a fucking jungle there.
THERAPIST: It sounds like it. What happened between you and Kelly?
CLIENT: These new people that moved in last year, the woman’s name is Petra. The husband’s name is Javier, something. [00:44:07] Well Petra has such a loud mouth on her that you can hear it no matter where you are in the building. I guess she was yelling at this girl Pat – she’s not a girl. She’s like, 55, and she’s slow. She got hit by a car when she was little, and had brain damage, and lost a kidney, and all this shit, and she is a little slow, and Petra was calling her a fucking idiot, and a fucking retard, and fucking this, and fucking that. Well Kelly went and told Alice she called Alice a retard and an idiot.
Again, she would report her to housing. I guess she got called into housing on Monday, and it wasn’t because Alice called. It was other residents that called into the building of her foul language. [00:45:01] I guess she was saying something about Kelly and her son being in jail, and Kelly goes, “The only one that knew my son was in jail was you and Deborah.” I says, you don’t think people can’t Google your name and anything like that and see that come up about your son? I said, give me a break, Kelly. I never said nothing, and Deborah never said a damn thing. I said, believe what you want to believe, which is always natural, you know? So what the hell.
THERAPIST: Well you say it’s a jungle, really captures the way it can feel and maybe you talking about your childhood in some ways, how it’s always felt this sort of sense of things can really get explosive fast, and relationships can get like, destroyed quickly. People get hurt. [00:46:02]
CLIENT: Yeah. “I never called a (inaudible). You know why I don’t like him, because he’s cheating on his wife and he’s using you.” I says, you think I don’t know that? I says, like I tell Deborah, it’s my money. I’ll do what I want to do with it. She has a roof over her head. She has food on the fucking table, and she has clothes on her back, so what she’s bitching about, I don’t know.
THERAPIST: You mean she was bitching to—
CLIENT: To Kelly —
THERAPIST: About you and—
CLIENT: (inaudible). So I said—
THERAPIST: Oh, she’s saying this is not good for (inaudible).
CLIENT: Yeah, and that’s why she doesn’t like Artie (sp), Fran, you know?
THERAPIST: A real jungle.
CLIENT: We have out front by the main entrance, two benches on one side, two benches on the other side, and there will be this lady Gilda, Lily, Gilda’s son Jeff, Deborah Annie, Stu, Nadine, Lucy, Pat, and whoever else walks by all sits out front. [00:47:22] This is where all the gossiping goes around, you know? So God forbid I sat out there one day with my chair, and Kelly walked by, “I see you’re right out there with the rest of them getting all the gossip.” I said, Kelly, I was sitting out there because I was waiting for the fucking ride to pick me up to go to a doctor’s appointment, Kelly.
THERAPIST: People are really suspicious of one another, really feeling like somebody can hurt me or mess with me.
CLIENT: Yeah, and someone messed with two of the cars in the parking lot. (inaudible).
THERAPIST: A real jungle. [00:48:04]
CLIENT: “He’s got four cars parked here. Why does he have four fucking cars? He deserves to get it smashed.”
THERAPIST: People calling on each other.
CLIENT: Oh yeah.
THERAPIST: So listen. In two weeks I will actually be out of town, two weeks from today, on that Wednesday, the 9th. Oh boy. Let’s see. We were doing every other week. I don’t have us down for next week. Let’s see. Let’s definitely put us down for Wednesday the 16th, okay?
CLIENT: That’s the day Darla leaves.
THERAPIST: Is that right?
CLIENT: I don’t think she leaves until—
THERAPIST: She’s going to go?
CLIENT: Well she’s supposed to go, but you know. I never know. [00:49:05] I think her plane’s not until that night.
THERAPIST: Okay.
CLIENT: So the 16th?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: If there’s any change, I’ll let you know.
THERAPIST: Yeah, let me know, and if something changes and we can still meet, the problem I had next week, and I didn’t realize this, I’m sorry, since we’re doing every other week, I scheduled something in and totally forgot that we’re not meeting the 9th. I’ll try to see if we can work something out for next week and get in touch with you if I do. Otherwise it will be the 16th, but would that work if I called?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Would that be enough time to arrange something for next week?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: All right. Of course I’ll have my phone with me.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: If you need to get in touch. [00:50:02]
CLIENT: Okay. I’m not sleeping at night at all. I go every other night, I’m up all night.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Too much running through my—
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I’m taking like, 300 milligrams of Trazodone at nighttime and I still can’t sleep.
THERAPIST: What’s most central on your mind?
CLIENT: Mark.
THERAPIST: Mark, yeah. Missing him?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Of course.
CLIENT: I tell Deborah, Deborah, I know you hate him, but he kept my mind preoccupied. He as somebody else to talk to. “Da da da (inaudible).” I know that.
THERAPIST: She certainly can understand a need for a man’s love. Look at Bennett. She’s— [00:51:02]
CLIENT: You like the tie-dye shirt my granddaughter made?
THERAPIST: Is that right?
CLIENT: Yes, the one with the tie-dye, and (inaudible).
THERAPIST: Okay.
END TRANSCRIPT
