I blinked rapidly as I stepped fully into the small chamber and waited for my eyes to adjust to the sudden dimness. It so starkly contrasted the brightly lit rooms and corridors through which I'd just traveled. What little light there was seemed to come solely from the French doors on the far wall, their outer slat shutters drawn tight and latched. Pale strips of winter afternoon sun filtered through the shutters, flecks of dust dancing in the weak light. I saw, as I trudged forward, that more dust plumed out of the carpets with my every step.

"Here," Josh said, shoving past me, "let me turn on the lamp."

And I wished he hadn't, for with a click, false light, the colour of bile, flowed into the room. Josh stood at his desk which might have been, at one time, a regal piece of man's furniture. Those days were lost under mountains of rumpled and stained paperwork, dirty dishes, and office paraphernalia. Grime dulled the surface of every furnishing in the room. It choked and discoloured the lamp shade, rendered the gilt titles on the leather bound volumes in Josh's shelves nearly illegible. I touched the grime on the arm of the stout little chair that faced the desk, and rubbed my fingers together. Tar. Cigarettes.

"Yes, please, sit," Josh said, mistaking my action. It was more a command than an invitation.

I suppressed the urge to brush off the seat before sitting down, and idled myself with watching Josh manouevre his hulking frame into a comfortable position in the tall, black leather chair across the desk from me. His face was pink and streaming with sweat from the exertion of the abbreviated tour he'd given me. The thick, clotted scent of body odor and dimestore aftershave wafted toward me in nauseating waves. Josh's belly, much larger than it had appeared while he stood, now stretched out before him, and what must have been his belly button rested against the lip of the desk. I looked down at my hands, disgusted at the thought of having to suffer him for even a second longer...much less for the next two years.

"Why are you here?" Josh asked.

"My parents sent me," I said.

"Yes, I know that, and look at me when I speak, girl," he snapped.

I lifted my head and stared at a tiny spot on the wall just above his head.

"Why are you here?" he repeated his question as though I hadn't heard him the first time. As though it had not yet been asked at all.

"I don't know," I said.

Josh sniffed. "Why do you think you're here?"

I don't know," I repeated.

"Why are you here?"

"‘Here' could mean many things."

"Why are you here?"

"Because I am not someplace else."

"Why are you here?" His cheeks had gone red with anger and frustration. I supposed the interview wasn't going as he'd planned.

In reply, I spewed the contents of the school's brochures at him. "I am disaffected, having trouble fitting in with my peers. I've dropped out of school. I worry my parents and stay out all night with boys and men, smoking pot and drinking beer. I may even have violent tendencies, or a history of violence that has led to numerous arrests. I require gentle yet firm behaviour modification in a secluded, loving family atmosphere if I am ever to regain the privilege of reentering society as a functioning and productive member of the community."

"Really?" he asked. "And why would you do such things?"

I shrugged. I hadn't done any of the things I'd just said, and wondered if Josh had ever read the literature for his school. "I guess I'm just wild like that."

"That isn't much of an answer," he told me.

"If you don't like it, ask someone else."

"Maybe I already have," he said cryptically. With that, Josh leaned over his great stomach, and fished out a stack of papers from the many piles of paperwork before him. "Rules," he told me as I took the stapled packet from him.

Grateful for something else -- anything else -- to look at, I quickly bent my head to study the seeming endless list.

"Not to read," Josh grumbled. He tossed at pen at me. It glanced off my knee and landed on the rug nearby. "To sign."

I shook my head at him. "No, I'd really like to..."

He cut me off. "Just sign!" he demanded.

"Excuse me, but I don't sign anything I haven't..."

Josh got up and stomped to me in two heaving strides. "Sign it."

But I held firm, looking him in the eye. This man was nothing to fear. He couldn't hit me, as my stepfather so often had, and his tongue certainly wasn't as sharp. He was no threat, except perhaps an idle one...and that only in his own mind. Maybe the other kids cringed away from him, but not I. Summoning my best, most lucid bluff ever, I said, "May I remind you of two things?" I asked him in a haughty voice so like the one my stepfather used with me. I didn't wait for Josh's reply. "My parents are not present to witness this interview, which, I believe, may be unlawful. If not, it should be. Secondly, I'm a minor. My signature is worthless."

"I have had enough of your bullshit, girl," Josh said, his words carefully enunciated and punctuated by brief pauses between. "Sign." He jammed the pen into my hand and forced it down on the paper.

There were two problems with my signature, neither of which Josh was aware of as he surveyed the papers before tucking them into a folder. The first was that he'd shoved the pen into my right hand, not knowing that I'm left-handed. The second was, in illegible writing, I'd managed to scribble "Jane Doe."

Archives