Rose's Mother

I'm furious. Today was supposed to be easy time with my clients; I'd planned to pick up Rose Shaw from her home, take her to court, watch her get sentenced to prison for 30 days or so, and go home not having to worry about her for... 30 days or so. Of course, when I got to her home at 8:30 in the morning, she wasn't there. Her 88 year old mother was sitting on the bed and looking at me casually, despite the fact that I had let myself into the apartment and could have been anyone dangerous.

"She's already got goin' to the court, Ms. Ellen."

Awesome. All Rose Shaw does is beg me for money for a bus fare, and now she somehow managed to get herself to court? She's running, I think to myself. She's trying to get out of this any way she can because there's a bench warrant out for her arrest and she knows she's going to jail. Last time Ms. Shaw's court date occurred, she was suddenly suicidal and checked herself into the hospital. I had half a mind to go to George Washington Hospital Center and ask if Rose Shaw was their newest patient.

Rose is a very demanding woman, and though she comes across initially as a sweet person, she knows how to get what she wants. It's a learned survival skill of people formerly on the streets, but it's difficult to deal with sometimes. In the end, she still ends up losing, but at least she can say she tried to get herself out of trouble. I have a hard time remembering to call her "Ms. Shaw," even though we're supposed to address all our consumers as "Ms." or "Mr." I always find myself saying "Rose." Today, she's made me late to court and I don't even know if she's absolutely there or if she skipped town.

I start driving to the Northwest quadrant of DC, and the raw edges of the Southeast slowly turn into polished office buildings and monuments. I do enjoy this part of my job; DC is a fascinating city, not only in its cultural contrasts, but the speed with which one can merely cross a street and go from a trashy neighborhood to multi-million dollar housing. I'm driving and it looks like rain, but the overcast clouds have made it cooler. My windows are down, and I'm pleasantly surprised to find myself glad I get this morning to myself, without having to hear Rose complain.

My car has become my second home. Community Connections requires all their employees to have cars with them every day in case they need to drive a consumer somewhere or make an emergency hospital visit, etc. At first, I was pretty bitter about not being able to metro into the city every day, but as a prisoner begins to embrace his prison and make it his home, my car started becoming a sanctuary of sorts for me. After a while, I was content to not call my car a prison and view it as an escape from the office. I could turn on my music, pray, cry, talk to myself out loud, or just process what my next move would be. DC traffic, however, is not an escape. It's not a sanctuary and it's not anything I want to encounter if I have to, and today, Rose Shaw was making me drive in the awful traffic to 500 Indiana Ave at 8:45 in the morning, right before that golden hour of 9:00 am. My pristine morning was shattered by sirens and horns from all directions.

Meter parking didn't start until 9:30, so I had to park in a garage and pay 17 dollars for the entire day. I decided I'd just metro back to work and leave my car at the courthouse, considering I needed to go back there later in the day.

Rose wasn't in court. In fact, Rose wasn't even on the docket for the courtroom she told me she'd be in. Rose's attorney wasn't on the docket, and there was nothing in the records at the information desk that said Ms. Rose Shaw had a hearing in room 318 at 9:30.

I'd wasted 2 hours of my day. Fuming, I stop quickly at Community Connections, where Unity Clinic had set up a free HIV testing booth. There were swarms of people there to get tested, which was good considering one in 20 adults in DC have the virus. Rose's sister had passed 2 weeks ago from full-blown AIDS; Rose's mother had now lost 2 of her children to the virus, one to cirocsis brought on by alcoholism, and now her Rose might be facing prison.

Her mother was a sweet woman, but so old. Every time I visited Rose's home, her mother was in a chair staring out the window at the cars or the pedestrians. She always seemed to me like she was waiting for someone. There are pictures scattered all over her walls of when she and her husband were younger; they were a beautiful family with beautiful children. It was the 1950s, and Rose's mother must have anticipated so much. She wanted promise for her children; she saw Martin Luther King present his dream and she must have thought the problems of oppression were going away. She must have wished such things for her kids that she was never able to experience: better jobs, better opportunities for their children. But crack came, and from harsh desperation, her children fell prey to the plagues of impoverished DC. She began burying family members: her husband, her children, a grandchild. The pictures are ghosts of a promise that should have come true, and still she sits by the window. She waits. She wonders at her life, and the paths that Southeast DC has laid for her and her family. She walks them with the pride of a prisoner of war; someone who knows who she is and where she came from and that life was unfair but she gave it her best anyway. She looked all the obstacles square in the eye so they could see the strength behind the woman they were knocking down. Rose's mother waits by the window when I barge into the apartment for the second time that day, furious that her daughter isn't at court, and looks at me with tired eyes.

"I was wrong, I'm sorry. Rose never went to court, she was with her niece. I'm sorry, I didn't know."

Rose comes out of her room. She's clearly upset. I sit down on the couch because there's nothing for me to say. I'm pointlessly angry right now; Rose didn't run from the law. Her mother is simply exhausted and forgetful, trying to take responsibility for a 54 year old criminal daughter. Rose is mad at me for not waiting for her; Rose's mother is trying to explain that it's her own fault for steering me wrong; I'm trying to console an old woman and simultaneously enforce to Rose that when I say "be ready at 8:30," she better be ready at 8:30. There's a slight amount of chaos as Rose's voice begins to rise above mine; I start to lower my voice yet remain firm. We're always being told to speak "below" the client's voice level if they start to get seriously angry.

"I'm going to be here tomorrow at 9:00 am. 9, Rose. You and I are going to court tomorrow morning and we're just going to try this again."

"Uh-huh, I was- I was- Ms. Ellen wait, I was ready my mama didn't know but I was ready and and aaand I was ready and waiting, Ms. Ellen!" There's panic in Rose's voice and I hardly care.

Her mother is quiet again. She's back to her window. Outside a woman smokes a cigarette, ignoring a man walking by making crude remarks. She's back to her waiting game. Something better should come along, some new generation should do better than the last. With quiet dignity, she sighs to herself. Today both Rose and I have disappointed her.