Sparrow- Page 2

 When he cried foul to the AG’s Office, he was bluntly informed that it “wasn’t any of his business”; that his ex had every right to “move wherever she wanted whenever she wanted” and if he found that objectionable his only recourse would be to “hire an attorney and pursue the matter in court there”; furthermore– and to the heart of the matter, that “We don’t get involved with custodial matters.  Our job is to collect child support...One has nothing to do with the other, don’t you know!” 

Really?

He did some preliminary checking and learned it would cost approximately $3000 to engage an out-of-state attorney; in addition, he would have had to have made himself “available” to appear in court, entailing travel, housing and food expenses.  The attorney fee alone was prohibitive, as he was working for less than ten dollars an hour at the time.

That was then.  Now, of course, this is patently illegal.  But then he was SOL.  Let’s forget for the moment that he packed up his things and moved halfway across the country to be with his daughter; that when she moved back to Texas, he packed up his things and relocated again; that when she again moved to that other state he did so, as well, at enormous personal cost and sacrifice.  Let’s also overlook the fact that he “held on” in this other state when he was laid off from the only decent paying job he has ever had, working as a clerk in a bookstore and living in a rooming house so he would still be in his daughter’s life.  Eventually he was “compelled” to return to Texas, when his mother became terminally ill and after her death he no longer had the wherewithal to go back to his daughter.  That was the last time he saw her, seventeen years ago when she was just five.  Adding insult to injury and ironically, he was left in the compromising position of appearing to be the one who had abandoned his daughter.  (Based on the “attitude” of the woman who bore his child, who flatly denied him permission to see his daughter, were he to visit her in that other state, or even allow him to fly her down for a brief “reunion” when she was then sixteen, it would be safe to assume that his daughter’s mother more than likely exploited my friend’s apparent lack of fatherly concern to the max.)

All the while my friend had other serious difficulties.  Unlike his siblings, both of whom hold master’s degrees and had successful careers, he was unable to hold a job– any job, consistently.  Evidently, he was having problems with drink and was suffering from emotional instability.  His family wrote him off as a garden-variety “alcoholic”, a miscreant, a “black sheep”.  Still he managed to graduate with honors from the University of Houston and was awarded the prestigious, “Aware For Excellence In Psychology” by the Houston Psychological Association upon so doing.  (He was on his way to graduate school with glowing letters of recommendation from several of his professors, when the first “move” came.  A second such opportunity never occurred.)  Along the way he has also managed to author an anthology and has recently completed his fourth novel; he also has another book of verse, a collection of essays, and a philosophical treatise in the works– all of this while working sub-par jobs and living in what  charitably might be described as low-rent housing.

At the ripe old age of fifty and after repeated hospitalizations and suicide attempts, he was finally and formally diagnosed as having bipolar disorder– some consolation for a “nightmarish” life.  Four years later it took a mediation judge to officially declare him disabled.  Two years after that he was granted SSDI, a whopping $1000 a month on which to “live” (This tidy sum is several thousand dollars below the national poverty line.); the following year the Texas Attorney General’s Office garnished the state-allotted legal maximum of half of his income for back child support.  (As I have alluded, this is impermissible in a number of other states, but not in the moralistic, revenge-driven state of Texas.)  In the eyes of the AG’s Office, he is a no-account, hedonistic, irresponsible “criminal”, who unreservedly deserves to live on the streets and all that it implies.  End of discussion.  The ledger balance confirms it.  No further proof is required.  Five hundred dollars a month is more than enough for any normal disabled body to live on.  End of discussion.  Case closed.

Now fifty-eight, at the current rate of interest my friend will be spend the rest of his natural life in abject destitution.  Morally, spiritually, emotionally and financially bankrupt, he has completely given up.  His last novel will never be redacted, never see the light of day; neither will a living soul–  especially his daughter see, the remaining of his unfinished works...In all likelihood she will never even know that his very first novel (written over two decades ago) is dedicated to, “My Cupcake”.

What he wanted most in the world– to be with his daughter, to be only a “part” in her upbringing, to see her grow up into what he can only hope is a fine “morally upstanding” young lady, he will never have.  All he wants now is for her know his side of the story, and that, too, may well never happen, for his ex-wife has moved again and left no forwarding address.  Once again– he is SOL.

The question begs– no, cries out loud: WHO has been served by this–  rather THE state of indifference?  (One can be sure “momma” has.)  Certainly the “state” has; there’s no disputing that, although just about everything else it has done in this matter should be called into question.  Is it morally right to deprive a disabled citizen of his only means of a livelihood, to personally hold him accountable for his own “illness”, to in effect render him homeless and bereft of his personal dignity?  To hold him up as an example of what happens to “riffraff” who dares to “mess” with the dishonorable state of Texas?  Doesn’t anybody realize that white-collar criminals, who committed their “crimes” with malice aforethought, are invariably treated with far more lenience, with what is comparatively tantamount to “kindness and understanding”?  Is there even one legislator in the state of Texas who’s aware that the Supreme Court is now seriously considering the legality of putting to death “mentally incompetent” capital offenders?  And is there anyone out there anywhere who can see the asinine logic in this type of justice and how blatantly it ignores, if not outright undermines, what should be a father’s inalienable right?

My friend doesn’t think so.  Unfortunately he’s more occupied at the moment with trying to remain alive in the scant hope that he may live long enough to have contact with his daughter again one day– someday, somehow.  Realistically, the chances of that are not very good, however. Chances are he’s back in the hospital again, if not dead by now, just as he was the first three months last year when the “good old boys” at the AG’s Office put in to effect what in no uncertain terms amounts to another officially state-sanctioned murder.  At this juncture I think it’s more than fair to say he would have been better off, had he in fact committed a capital offense and was now waiting to be quietly put to sleep with a semblance of dignity– to be put out of his misery.  What’s “fair” about this?  Not a goddamn thing.

Maybe, just maybe, in another twenty years this joke of a state will come to its senses and finally catch up and modernize its prosecution of alleged “dead-beat” dads on a more personal, individualized, humanitarian basis. 

I, for one, seriously doubt it, for a state that also ranks near the bottom in money spent on mental health.  Still, there is reason to hope it may come to pass, that a person with a legally adjudicated disability (mental illness) will one day be treated with a measure of respect and more like a “human being” than an animal or a scurrilous criminal.

 Richard David Kennedy 

RD Kennedy

Poetry- Continued