Bowerman did the same job as Claudia at our sister agency. The Eagle Heights clinic operated in much the same way as ours with the exception that many of their clients came from more rural areas. Eagle Heights is a couple of towns away from Kingsville, where the new halfway house was going to be, and is about a forty-five minute drive from Crawford. There are dairy farms and cornfields, but there’s also some of that unwashed small-town feel to the area. Lots of broken-down cars and large, rusted appliances in big backyards that lead out to sections of woods where kids go to drink, get high, and feel each other up. Many of these people lived on public assistance just like the clientele at the Crawford clinic, and they had a lot of the same issues. The difference was that somehow they had an attitude that they were above people who lived in the ghettos. I could never figure out if it was a notion of racial superiority or the fact that their forefathers, however scummy they were, lived on the same land for generations. Just the same, between our two clinics you could cast the Jerry Springer show and still have enough characters for half a year of Montel.
Bringing Bowerman in was supposed to give the committee an element of an impartial, unbiased view. I highly doubted that had any chance of occurring because Claudia wouldn’t risk it. Bowerman and Claudia were acquaintances, if not friends, and they were both part of that sorority of angry, unattractive female social workers. Bowerman was a tall, mean-looking woman who resembled Katherine Harris, that scary-looking woman who was counting or not counting, I forget which, Al Gore’s hanging chads. Bowerman looked like Harris’s less attractive older sister with frizzy dishwater-brown hair, cut in a misshapen bob. I didn’t know her well and only met her a couple of times, but it was enough to draw the conclusion that I didn’t like her.
I was the last one to make it into the conference room for the meeting. Monique sat with a chair between her and Espidera. Monique, without saying anything, could show more disdain for a person than most people could by spitting. The thing was, Monique never did anything to put herself in a compromised position. I also believe spending her life as a member of three minority groups gave her the capacity to read people and to some extent know how to protect herself. Some people in the same position get aggressive, some get subservient, but Monique got quiet and thoughtful. She exuded confidence, and at five feet four inches and no more than 130 pounds, she gave off an air of being, if necessary, very dangerous.
The only chair left meant I got to sit next to my best friend, LT.
“Hey Duff,” he said. “What’s happening?” He threw a few shadow boxing combinations, trying to impress me. They were poorly thrown.
“Good morning, everyone,” Claudia was getting the meeting started. “Thank you for coming. The purpose of this committee is for us, as an agency, to examine where we are at risk in regard to regulatory standards.”
She was at the head of the table and fortunately, I was four seats away from her, which meant I could doodle and have it look like I was taking notes.
Claudia cleared her throat.
“The New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse clearly states…”
I figured she was good for twenty minutes before anyone else got a chance to speak. If I could occasionally look up, make eye contact, and nod, she wouldn’t have any idea what I was thinking about or writing down. During these types of meetings, I usually take the time to write my all-time list of boxing’s best pound-for-pound fighters. By the way, Willie Pep gets my number one spot and Ali isn’t even in the top five. I’ve also tried to relive every sexual episode I’ve ever had, but that never got me through more than a few minutes. Sometimes, I simply resorted to my Salvador Dali-type pencil drawings. Hippopotamuses were my favorite.
Claudia was going strong.
“… The essential feature of the new regulations is the importance of the quarterly treatment plan updates, which must be signed by the client, the primary counselor, and the supervisor on or before the seventh visit for those in nonintensive programs, the third visit for those in intensive programs, and on the second visit for those in day treatment…”
That was as interesting as it got. I was on to my fifth hippo and I just couldn’t get the ears the way I liked them. The trick was to make the ears ridiculously tiny against the round fat of the hippo’s body. The perfectionism of my art often tortured me.
I looked up to give one of my nods to show that I was paying attention and Claudia was in mid-sentence.
“… which is the biggest challenge we face here and now. It is what will define our agency and ultimately lead to our success or failure. Duffy, can you give our board members and Rhonda three examples of how we’ve already begun to address this issue?”
“Uh… of course, Claudia. Uh… before I do that though, I would like to point out that we, as an agency, uh, excel in the face of challenge, and to quote Vince Lombardi, ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.’”
“Thank you, Duffy.” She glared at me. “But please give us three examples.” She knew I wasn’t paying attention and now she wanted to embarrass me.
“Yes, uh, well first and foremost, it is something that both Monique and I have incorporated into our daily work here. It’s something that she thought of, and I don’t feel right taking the credit for it. Monique, go ahead.”
She didn’t blink, God bless her.
“Thanks, Duffy, but you’re being modest. The three things we’ve incorporated that exemplify what Claudia is speaking of are one: peer review of all records; two: monthly self-audits of treatment plans; and three: corrective action within forty-eight hours when outliers occur. It has made a big difference.”
“It sure has!” I chimed in.
Claudia barely hid her rage, but she didn’t want to lose her cool in front of the outsiders. Monique saved my ass perfectly. The list of people I owed favors to was getting longer.
Mercifully, the meeting only went on for another half an hour. I never did get the hippo like I wanted, but the important thing with art is progress. After the meeting, I made sure I finished the death reporting form and put it in the Michelin Woman’s mailbox. The rest of the day I spent catching up on records because I didn’t have any sessions scheduled, which I was grateful for. Walanda’s murder had me feeling less than therapeutic.
I spent the early evening at the gym listening to Smitty tell me how I threw the hook like a bitch. He drilled me on the footwork to stay away from Suggs’s power. The plan was for me to jab him and keep moving to my right so he couldn’t reach me with his right hand. The problem with that was he could also throw a wicked left hook and I’d be moving directly into that.
The thing with fight strategies was that they always looked good on paper, but when you’re standing in front of someone set on taking your head off, it didn’t always seem as easy. Smitty’s strategy was the right one, though, and I planned on following it as closely as I could.
After the workout, we sat in Smitty’s office and watched tape of the guy on Smitty’s old TV console. Suggs was a huge and ripped white guy with a shaved head and a Fu Manchu beard. There was no doubt this guy could fight. The guys who fight in the South and Midwest circuit fight shitty competition, but it doesn’t mean they all suck. Suggs was knocking everyone out and doing it quickly. Sure, a lot of them were tomato cans, but he was making them unconscious. My movement was going to be the key.