People Are Funny. Really.

Remember the Only God Can Judge Me guy? Let's call him Roger. Roger's original guilty plea was rejected by the Judge. He tried to renig on his confession and de-implicate his co-defendant. They got all that sorted out and he was back in court on Monday to plead guilty again.

Following his guilty plea and his release from jail, he trudged down to our office for his initial intake. He arrived at 11:45 a.m. I tried to get some personal data from him, and ran into a bit of trouble. He is barely 20. His family are migrant workers and have all returned to the valley. They won't be back here until gin season. He had no idea where he would stay - homeless. No car, no phone, no money and no kinfolk.

Then he remembered a friend of his parents who still lives at the Campito (local migrant housing). He might be able to stay with the friend. I quickly read over the terms and conditions of probation with Roger. I felt pretty sure this would be my only chance to do so. I let him leave at 12:00 with strict instructions to return at 2:00 p.m. and to tell me where he would live.

Then the secretaries and I tried to make some wagers on whether or not he would return. It was pretty unsuccessful, as betting goes, since we all bet no.

Two o'clock, and no Roger. At about 2:30, Roger called the front office. He spoke to Sophie, one of our receptionists.

"Hey - this is Roger. Will you tell that lady that I'm going to stay at the Campito - apartment 2B."

"Didn't she tell you to be here at 2:00, Roger?"

"Well, yeah. But I don't have a ride. Tell her I will be here until December."

Sophie quickly convinced him that he needed to report prior to December. She hung up the phone and came to my office to tell me all about it. By the time she finished the story, Roger was in our waiting room. Even though he claimed he had no ride, he managed to make the three mile journey in less than ten minutes.

I went to the front to talk to Roger. I took the information on his new abode. As we spoke I noticed he was chomping wildly on a peppermint. Just as I was explaining how much time he would spend in prison if he didn't follow these rules, I caught a wiff of his breath.

Wheeeew!

"Roger! How many beers have you had?!"

"What?" Roger tried desperately to appear stunned. He managed to look stoned. "I don't know what you mean - I'm not drinking."

"You're lying Roger. Don't lie to me. How much did you drink?"

"Well, ok. I had two beers. But I just got out of jail, you know?"

"You're still lying Roger. How many?" We are nose to nose at that point. He tried to break eye-contact.

"...I had five. Maybe six. But, but, how did you know?" Roger was pretty well wasted.

Not being one to waste a chance for manipulation of a soddenly suspicious mind, I glared at him over my glasses. "Never, never, never believe that you have us fooled Roger. We. always. know." If I'd trusted myself to do it without cracking up, I'd have thrown in a bit of maniacal laughter just for effect.

I have to admit a modicum of grudging respect for Roj. If I had been released from custody with nothing but the clothes on my back, I certainly couldn't have scored a place to live and a ride into town, not to mention a few cold ones in under two hours.



I gotta tell ya this story too. I have a woman on my caseload - about my age. No teeth, almost bald but kind and cheery as can be. But, good grief, she is naive. After ten years of smoking crack with her no-good, abusive husband, she sobered up. She's been clean most of the last three years. He hasn't. A couple of months ago, he beat her up. Again. As usual.

This time, however, she had a job. And co-workers who convinced her he couldn't do that to her any more. She left him and went into the women's shelter. The last straw came when she discovered he'd been smoking crack all the time she thought he was clean. She never suspected that all the time he spent hanging out with his same old druggie friends was time spent doing drugs. I don't know what the hell she thought they were doing!

Today she told me a mutual friend came to visit her at her new digs at the pay-by-the-week motel. At this point, she told me she had to tell me something embarrassing. "Um, ok?" was my brilliant response. She then whispered that she and her husband hadn't done "what married people do" since January of 2005. I think I just blinked stupidly at her. Today, while talking to her friend, she learned a horrible truth. Her husband has been seeing another woman all this time.

She sat back and waited for me to fully grasp the magnitude of this bombshell.

"Well, uh, you knew something was wrong all along, right?" I said. "I mean, you knew he was up to something, even though you didn't know all the details, didn't you?" I stammered.

"Nope. I didn't have any idea. He always told me he just couldn't, you know, do it with me while I was on probation. And I always reminded him that I was gonna be on probation for three years." She paused and I clamped my mouth shut. "He told me he could wait."


Regardless of whatever else happens - political shenanigans, budget crises, and bureaucratic inanity, I love my job.