The wit and wisdom of the outrageous Brigit Brat
reprinted from the Compost NewsLetter
Litha 91
Kids
The phone rings.
It's 2 am Monday morning.
Damn! I just got to sleep.
Hey Brigit, I decided to take
you up on your offer.
Wha?? Who is this??
It's DJ.
Oh, shit. Wha, what happened?
I turn on the light and slip into a bathrobe.
My dad beat me up so I split.
Fuck! Where are you now? I'm
at Justin's.
You got a way up here?
Yeah, Lisa will bring me up.
OK, get here quick. I'll make
a bed for you, we'll deal with it when you get up here.
DJ is 15 years old. His father
is a rather large and violent man who works in a correctional facility,
his mother is an alcoholic and from the description he gave of her
I'd say she is extremely close to a condition called alcoholic hepatitis.
Bad memories kick in the adrenaline,
so I get up to make a bed for my impending waif. I remember my dad
grabbing my throat. I broke his grip and gave him a hip throw. He
said, "When I get up, you better be gone!" I got on my bike and pedaled
for my life. The fear hits my lower back as I spread the sheet out
on the floor. Now where is that extra comforter? He was actually trying
to run me over with the family station wagon. I escaped by riding
into a cornfield. I stop myself before the fear paralyzes my sense
of reality.
DJ arrives. He looks exhausted,
scared, and is sporting a vertical welt on his right cheek. Throughout
all of this he is trying to maintain the air of toughness so important
to the adolescent male American (and doing a damn good job of it).
He briefly tells me the events of the evening and I put him to bed.
An hour and a half afterward
I drag myself out of bed and manage to make it to work. My objective
for today: find a shelter for DJ.
First call is to my therapist
(Naomi O'Keefe -- she helps people get happy). Naomi tells me of the
Huckleberry House in San Francisco.
I call H. House and inform
them that I have inherited a 15-year-old battered runaway. The first
thing they want to know is his zip code. WHAT !! He's a fuckin runaway!
As in no fixed address. What a stupid thing to ask. (I didn't go off
on the person; I have found that when one is requesting aid from a
state funded agency politeness is required.) They tell me that since
his parents live in San Jose, I should call a shelter in San Jose.
I call a group home.
"Is this your child?"
"No" I say.
"The parents have to have
the kid admitted. Someone (usually the parents) have to pay."
Well, that's mighty damn helpful!
Same response at other group
homes.
I even call a Christian work
farm in Sacramento -- no shit, me, Witch with an attitude, about to
feed a traumatized child to the Christians.
Children's rights -- they
don't exist. If DJ had a drug problem or was in trouble with the law,
the system is set up to handle him. But if a child simply realizes
that his parents are not capable of being healthy parents, there isn't
a damn thing that he can do, except run away.
At my home DJ entertains himself
by playing in my music studio. Drum machines, guitars and computers
-- everything a growing boy needs. He ODs on MTV and Showtime and
gives my disk player the workout of its electronic life. This is his
first taste of freedom and he's going to get as much as he can now!
The future doesn't exist past future encounter with girls (he has
an active scheming mind and an appearance that will probably allow
him to get away with many a young girl's heart). The future never
meant anything to me either. Life went as follows: you were born --
but you don't remember that. Daddy beats you and tells you you're
shit and he's going to kill you one day, so you believe him. You lose
connection with your body and lie awake at night wishing he would
just get it over with and you could be free. Safety is in the blue-black
zone of nonexistence found between dreams and psychosis. Pleasure
is found by offering your body to anyone who will care to touch it.
There is no future. Whatever immediate pleasure I could find, I immersed
myself in (the making of a sex toy).
Over the course of the week,
DJ begins to talk more about himself and his home life. He doesn't
really need to tell me -- it's all too familiar. But I listen. It's
what he needs. If there had been someone around who I felt could understand
me at 16, I would have been able to see the world in a much different
manner.
Trying to be responsible for
another human is quite a task. Now not only do I have to remember
to feed myself, I have to see to the feeding of one teenage boy (large
quantities inhaled vigorously).
Though having DJ around is
a large chore, it does have some interesting rewards. I get to see
myself as I was 10 years ago; this time I can do something about it.
Not to attempt to rescue or save him, mind you, but to simply relate
my life to him and let him know that he is not alone in this. I tell
him what it was like for me, how horrible my father was, how I reacted
(the sexual and gender confusion, deliberate self harm, self-destructive
passive-aggressive behavior). Then I tell him how I've been able to
recover and actually build a decent life for myself. I see a faint
glimmer of hope entering into DJ's personality.
For the first time in my life
I start to have a strange feeling of some monumental personal achievement,
as if I have reached a milestone in my life. And a seemingly elementary
realization solidifies in my mind: My Life Matters.
Epilogue: If anyone knows
of a set of foster parents or of any program that might be able to
accept DJ without the intervention of his parents -- please let me
know. I am seeking solutions working with the Santa Clara Department
of Family Services. The best they say is for DJ to be placed in a
foster home, or for me to become a licensed foster parent (I don't
think that the state will be too hot on the idea of granting a foster
parent license to a bisexual cross-dressing bondage fanatic).
The lovely and talented Ms. Brat