All the Children Sing

If I were that rabbit kid -- what's his name? Not Peter, but the rabbit from Rabbit Hill, who ran around singing "New Folks Comin'! Oh, My!" Georgie? Was that it? Isn't ringing a serious bell, but possibly Georgie -- if, as I say, I were he, I would have a song to sing that incorporated the words, "I've got a job! Hallelujah!" and mixed in a little "But I'm still pretty anxious about money, and no one is buying my house," and drop down to a darker, minor key bridge that went, "And my son is messing up his life as hard as he can," and follow it all up with, "But my family loves me, so no matter what happens I will be all right, tra la!"

So. Last night, the phone rang at about 2:10 am. I had been asleep for several hours, but I got up to answer it, thinking it was probably Joe, who had been supposed to get home at midnight. It was not Joe, however, but a Clackamas County sheriff, whose name I have forgotten, who was calling to tell me to come and get Joe from a party where he had been drinking. Instant flash to the night I got a call from a girl at a 7-11 to come and get Michael who was supposed to be at the VA hospital, but was actually in the middle of some ridiculous, staged set-up to get him more attention, and resulted in me getting no sleep and having to pretend to Michael that I believed the crazy story he was telling me in which he did not recognize me at all, nor know anything about his life. Man -- that is a bad memory, and I am devoutly thankful that a memory is all it is. Devoutly thankful that I never have to see that man again in my life.

As I was driving over to pick Joe up, I kept telling myself, "Hey, it can't be as bad as that! It can't be as bad as that! It's just going to be a matter of driving there, driving home and that will be that!"

Well.

But I had reckoned without Joe. Joe was, of course, drunk. He will deny it, but he was, otherwise he would have just left with me. Instead, when the little short cop with the attitude problem started trying to make Joe kowtow to him (by trying to make him kowtow to me) Joe got instantly aggressive, hostile and combative, not unlike his father, once again, when we were pulled over because drunken Michael was shouting torrents of abuse at some officers. Joe got right up in the guys face (Joe was TALLER than he was) and bit off angry answers to the guys stupid questions along the lines of, "Tell Mommy how bad you are and how lucky you are that we aren't arresting you."

So then in the car Joe was overwhelmed with tearful fury that he had been so unbelievably badly treated and wanted me to do all kinds of things at once, like pick up some other guys who were hiding on a nearby street, and get the officers name so Joe could find out where he lived and make his life hell. I kept asking him not to talk, but just go to bed, and we would talk in the morning, but it actually took almost two hours before I was able to get to sleep. It is now noon -- and Joe and his three friends are still asleep downstairs amid welters of wrappers and jugs of OJ.

Now that it is morning, I am feeling better about it all. Joe will no doubt feel better when he wakes up, too.