Category: Family

N. calls me about once a day. He calls collect from Edmonton and I accept the charges. The number shows up as a local number. It might be a cell phone, but some long distance calls show up as local calls in call display. He called me on Friday morning at work. He knew the number.
He seems to have a good memory for some things. His mom always believed him when he used bad memory as an excuse for broken promises or unwillingness to accept directions and rules. I always thought he was pretty clever and that he had a problem of attitude, not a problem of ability.

Continue reading “Teenage gigolos”

N. seems to have arrived in Edmonton. He called me collect this morning and the collect caller notification was from Telus. He wouldn’t give me an address because he said he thought I would send the police. He said a friend had provided some money for the bus but had ditched him in Edmonton before they could a place or get jobs. He wanted me to send money through the MoneyMart stores because he needed food and a place to stay. He said the shelters were full and he was on the street. He said it was a loan until he got a job. He said his life and future were in Edmonton.

Continue reading “Save the Mallrat”

This morning I talked to n.’s worker who confirmed n. had not been back to the hotel or had any contact with the agency since Tuesday morning at 5:00 AM. He’s definitely gone. The worker said n. had been clear about his priorities. He wants to live his life with no rules. He would like someone to financially support his freedom.

Continue reading “The New Mallrat”

On Saturday morning (April 24) I awoke to find that someone had gained access to my garage and had tried to steal my vehicle – a disreputable ’93 Explorer. I mentally kicked myself for not arming the car alarm, and for leaving the passage door into the garage unlocked. The yard is pretty secure, with the gate to the outside lane locked, a high fence and lights on sensors. Enough to deter thieves, but it was still careless to leave the car and the garage unlocked.

Continue reading “On the street again”

Yesterday, I called n. to see if he wanted to go to a movie. He hedged at first, because his friends had a plan, and he tried to get a side trip to a model store, but he eventually agreed. I picked him up, and I agreed to stop at a craft store to get some paint brushes to let him keep painting his models.
He told me a little more about his friends. His friend Nigel is about 20, and short – “four feet high”. N. finds him hilarious. They hang out with a 15 year old named Adrian. They do “missions” in abandoned buildings. Missions involve sneaking or breaking in, and exploration, and risk-taking and vandalism. The idea of mission seems to be taken from video adventure games. N. says they gain powers by completing missions. I asked him about where Nigel lives and how he supports himself and n. became defensive.
On the ride to the theater, said he has a meeting on April 26 with his CFS worker to start on “independent living” which will allow him to get social assistance to cover a place to live and some food, living unsupervised. This appears to be what he wants. He also talked about starting to hang around the St. Vital mall again, because kids are starting to hang around there again, and it’s fun.
We saw Hellboy, which was a pretty good movie. It had a comic-book sensibility with enough humour to avoid becoming pretentious. There was a strong occult and satanic theme in the plot with the satanic forces opposed by a Hellboy, who responded to teaching of his “father”. The satanists do not prevail in the end.
On the ride back to his hotel n. talked about his occult beliefs. He says that Jan has magic healing powers, but she engages in white magic (she might agree). He believes in Kthulu and dark powers. I knew from previous discussion that he had read the Satanic Bible books a few months ago, and that he had been powerfully impressed. I had already told him that the book was written by man named Anton Szandor Lavey within the last 40 years, and that I thought Lavey’s Church of Satan was basically a scam. I didn’t get far with that approach then, so I didn’t argue about it again. I just asked him to elaborate on his beliefs and I asked how he knew these things. He said he just knew. My best guess is that Satanic themes pervade metal music, that kids who like that music learn about Satanism through song lyrics and fan information, and are drawn to the modern occult literature about Satanism, and that information is passed among teens by word of mouth.
When I dropped him, I said I would try to see him again another evening, perhaps with his uncle Frank. N. wanted me to give him $10 because he needed to light up on April 20. He said there was some kind of bud event and people were going to light up publicly. I declined.
This morning, one of the headlines in the newspaper was about the Firefighers’ Union’s warning that Firefighers were at risk going to fight fires in abandoned industrial plants. There have been many abandoned industrial plants in Winnipeg, and they have all been vulnerable to squatters and vandalism. Sometimes the vandals set fires, or squatters’ fires will get out of control. Firefighters will go in, at some risk, if they believe people are in these buildings.
My brother Frank is a firefighter. I have mentioned his efforts to contact n. and to help n. to move out of his present state in other posts.
Sometimes the irony of my life becomes palpable.

The daytime temperature has not been more than a few degrees above freezing since last Wednesday or Thursday.
On Thursday I met with n.’s worker to give him my sense of how I have let n. down and why n. found life on the street more satisfying and exciting than life at home. In the end, there was a great deal about me, but nothing concrete about n. The system is not going to do much for a kid who threatens to run away when if anybody tries to tell him that he has to live within some rules and take responsibility for his life. The worker has a large caseload and doesn’t seem to have any real contact with n. I learned that the worker admires Robert Bly and the other Jungian poet-gurus of the mens’s movement. He was curious about my bowel habits and he suggested I might want to join a men’s group to let my feelings out. He has a point about dealing with my emotions.
In the evening Claire and I watched 21 Grams which is a very good movie. Sean Penn is a great actor and Naomi Watts gave a powerful performance. The non-linear unfolding of the story created a building sense of doom and an almost unbearable sense of tension and anxiety.
Mike, Steve and I decided to ride to Grant’s Mill again on Friday. It was a day for tights or sweat pants, fleece tops and shells. The river and the creeks have not subsided, so the spring thaw and the run-off must be continuing. There are still small ice flows in the river. Steve’s pictures for April 9/04 show the grey sky and they show us with balaclavas and hoods, and our jacket collars turned up.
One of the pictures shows a building, the Pavilion in Assiniboine Park. It was originally an uninsulated building with concessions and lavatories, and it has been renovated over the years. It is a landmark of sorts, an easily identified meeting place. I was remembering that when I was in high school, I would ride a bicycle from St. James to my high school on Grant Avenue, fall and spring, using the footbridge in Assiniboine Park as the more quiet way to cross the Assiniboine River. I used to cycle past the Pavilion twice a day.
I was up early on Saturday, restless and sleepless. After reading for a while, after sunrise, I took the talk for a walk into the West Broadway area to drop a couple of video rentals at Blockbuster. I blogged and surfed for a while, and shopped for the week’s groceries.
Later in the morning, I visited my parents. My youngest sister Teresa was visiting, as it is part of her routine to take our mother shopping. I have started to visit regularly since early March. My visits have been much less frequent for many years. I stayed at home through University and even after graduation for a couple of years, paying some room and board. I visited regularly until I met Jan and got married. I used to think I was just busy with my job and taking care of my own family and home, but I think depression played a part in my discomfort with my parents and brothers and sisters and allowed me to become isolated and disconnected.
My mother has a progressive dementia. She is comfortable in her home with my dad’s support. She recognizes people and converses well about past events but can’t recall if she has taken her many medications or had a cup of coffee in the last few minutes. My dad is quite deaf. He doesn’t find his hearing aids help much because he can’t filter out the background noises to follow a conversation.
There is a warm feeling when I sit with my parents, in the house where I was raised, hearing the familiar tones of their voices and telling stories about family, neighbours and friends. It is also unhappy to realize that I cut myself off from that, regardless of what blame I can place on my parents for my less happy and more frightening childhood memories, and regardless of my old insights and beliefs about how those events have influenced my character.
After visiting my parents, I dropped in on n. We had short talk about plans for the next week, and what my might do around my time commitments around work and around Claire’s finishing exams. I said I thought I would like to promise to do things with him instead of just dropping by, and then fighting over extra money for his little habits. I told him that his uncle Frank would be calling and taking him out for some outdoor adventure and ATV riding, and he seems to be excited about that.
He would like to come home if we could just accept him as he is, let him play metal music as loud as he liked when he liked, and have his friends over. All he wanted, he said, was to be able to put a towel under the door and have a bong in his room. I asked him how he thought I felt when he and his friends were literally robbing us. I mentioned his raids on his mother’s wallet and purse last August while Claire and I were in Edmonton, and while I was in hospital. He couldn’t remember that I had surgery last summer. I asked him what he remembered about last summer and fall and he couldn’t think of too much.
I left it there. I listened. I gave him some new information to consider. I offered to come back often and to be present for him.
On Sunday, again, I was sleepless and awake early. There was an Easter sunrise service at St. Margaret’s Anglican, which is just a block away. I spent the later part of the morning tinkering with bike, and in the afternoon we rode to the Red River floodway gates.
Sunday evening, Easter dinner at Frank’s with my daughter Claire, my parents, my sister Teresa and her husband. Frank’s kids and Teresa’s kids had dinner in front of the TV in the rec room. Claire stayed with the adults. Frank was about an hour late. He had picked n. up and they had gone to ride an ATV near Grand Beach. Frank’s wife Jan was a good hostess, and she teased Frank about being late.
There has been some distance between Frank and me for many years. He has been struggling with anger and depression, and I have been depressed. He reached out a few weeks ago and is trying to help n. and to help me with n. I reached back and we have talked and done things together. I think this was the first time in many years that Frank has invited family – certainly me – for any family function.
There was friendly sense to the teasing and banter, and I had a good time. I thought I was a part of it, and I hope that Claire has started to find a different sense about my parents and brothers and sisters.
My mother was enjoying herself, but with her mind slipping she was more on the edge of the conversations. I guess if I am honest about it, she doesn’t have the resources to be threatening and manipulative, and this makes it easier to be with her. Dad couldn’t follow the conversation. He had his hearing aids off and he wanted to go home soon after dinner.
Monday was a slow day at work. Many people working in government or in jobs that interact with government had a holiday and downtown was quiet. I called home to talk to Claire but she didn’t answer the phone. I became anxious and I went home for a short visit, and then went back to work to try to move ahead with some pressing projects.
In the evening I went to meet n. to go to a movie but he wasn’t there. He had gone out with friends. He called me later, and I visited him and bought him a burger, and we talked for a while. He had gone out and gained access to an abandoned factory and spent his day exploring, chasing pigeons, breaking things. I told him about my bike rides, and about dinner at Frank’s. He told me about his Sunday outing and ATV riding with Frank. He wants me to buy some Warhammer 40,000 models for him, and we wants me to arrange for him to have voice lessons so he can become a metal singer. I said could contribute if I could afford it, after paying for his care with CFS. I thought it would be easier if he stayed in in his placement and got a job to cover some of his own needs. His reply was that he could go to his lessons even if he lived on the street, and then I would have more money for the lessons and for him. I said I would not be letting him decide how to spend the money I set aside for his support.
He started to accuse me of not caring for him, not understanding him, not understanding drugs, not respecting him. I said I didn’t agree. He began to throw lines at me – I had to ask if they were song lyrics or personal poetry. He said I wasn’t listening. I repeated several phrases back verbatim and asked him what he was trying to tell me. I said I felt I had failed as a parent and let him down, and left him on the street with no skills or resources to take care of himself.
I felt the communication was starting to break down. I said I had to go. I talked about calling him to make plans for later in the week.

I had a short and nasty meeting with n. after dinner. I picked him up at the hotel where CFS (the Child Welfare Agency) has parked him. He forgot that I was picking him up, and then began to hint, suggest, request, demand, bargain and threaten. He wanted a pack of cigarettes. My position on cigarettes and other such items is that I don’t subsidize his wishes. If he wants to have those things, he will have to decide how to get the money for them by making other choices like getting a job.
I stopped at home before going on to my meeting. I discovered that he had already phoned my wife Jan and complained about my failure to fulfil his wish. Old pattern. If I gave him something that Jan didn’t want him to have (if I told a joke or played a prank or expressed a view that she did not support) he would rat me out and she blamed me for corrupting him. If I supported her articulated values and wishes, and denied one of his requests, or disciplined him, he unloaded on her about how mean I was. In fact he didn’t have to say a word. She would react to protect him. What she has always heard, felt and seen and then thrown at me is that I don’t respect and love him, and that his pain and her pain are my fault.
This is not a conscious process with him. He has been trying to protect himself and to meet his needs with the resources available to him. In plain terms, he has been using his parents’ attachment to him – our need to feel good about ourselves and our connection to him – to get what he needs and what he feels or thinks he needs. If parents can’t manage themselves, if either parent can’t stand the bad feeling that comes from setting and enforcing rules, then they let a child’s feelings rule the family. One of our problems was that both parents needed to feel good about ourselves with n., while we had different beliefs and ideals and differing ideas about how to raise him.
That’s the history. I can’t change it.
N. still wants me buy stuff, and reacts the old way when he doesn’t get stuff …. It’s a learned behaviour and he can’t stop. If I contact him, he will react. He will ask for stuff and then accuse me of trying to control him when I don’t get him what he wants. Does this mean I shouldn’t contact him?
Do I have to be afraid of what Jan will feel and think or what Claire will feel and think? I am afraid, and I can’t manage their reactions. I have to respect my judgment and integrity now. Right now, all I can do is listen to him, support him, love him.
Tonight, I listened to him rage about his smokes and I left him at the hotel.
After that I went to a meeting. When n. ran away Jan and started going to meetings of local group of Families Anonymous. I still go. Jan has stopped. I think I know the flaws of a 12 step approach, but it is still helpful for me to go to meetings and share and listen.
Then, a new day.

I reached my n. by phone. He is not living at home. He ran away last fall, just before his 16th birthday to try to find independence, drugs, anarchy, metal music, sex and friends who appreciate his interests. He tried living on the street and he has settled down in a placement through a child welfare agency – at least for now. I have been visiting and talking to him over the last three weeks, after a long estrangement. He seems to have worked out some of his angry sense of having been forced out of school and out of his home by intolerable parental and societal rules.