Page 14 of The Rebel of Raleigh High
“Compromise? To settle a dispute by mutual concession.” I push back in the chair, leaning so that the front feet hover off the floor.
“And? Your point being?”
“Me not riding my motorcycle isn’t a compromise. There is no mutual concession. Jackie isn’t meeting me halfway. She’s just getting her own way. Sets a terrible precedent, Rhonda. Makes her think I’ll bend over backward to whatever random, stupid demand she makes next. And that….is not going to happen.”
Rhonda throws down her pen, sighing in frustration. She turns an open, weary look on me, and I finally do see her. She’s tired. This is a thankless job at the best of times, I know that. That’s why every single social worker I’ve ever met is jaded and completely resigned to the fact that the system is broken. “Haven’t you learned how to pick your battles yet, Alex?”
I shrug a shoulder, unwilling to surrender my point of view. “If I concede on any ground, I ultimately lose. And I won’t lose Ben to her. He’s the only family I have in the world. As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m petitioning for custody of him. I’ll take him to live with me, and I won’t have to worry about Jackie’s bullshit anymore.”
Rhonda isn’t surprised by this statement. This isn’t an idea I’ve just snatched out of the thin air. It’s always been the plan to take Ben as soon as I’m old enough. I’ve been waiting seven years, and now the end is in sight. Now, I only have seven more months to wait before I can become Ben’s legal guardian, and we can get the flying fuck out of Washington altogether.
“Baby boy, right now, I’d say the chances of any judge awarding you custody of that child are sitting at a big fat zero,” Rhonda informs me. “Take a look at yourself. You do ride a motorcycle. Your arms are more ink than skin—”
“Oh, is that how it is? I expected better from you. Given that you’re not only black but a woman, I’d have thought you’d be a little less judgmental than—”
Rhonda holds up a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t even try and pull that shit with me, boy. I don’t have to be sitting here, wasting my time on you. I have a kid of my own, and I finished work twenty-five minutes ago. I am free to walk outta here at any time, and you can sit here with your bad attitude in silence if that’s what you want. Or you can shut the hell up and listen to me.”
She waits; from the look on her face, she really will get up and walk out if I say one more word, so I keep my mouth shut. At the end of the day, loathe as I am to admit it, I need Rhonda on side.
“Hmm. That’s what I thought,” she mutters under her breath. “I don’t give a shit if you have tattoos on your damn eyeballs, Alex. I don’t care if you drive a repurposed garbage truck around and refer to yourself in the third person all day like a goddamn lunatic. The only thing that matters to me is Ben’s welfare. If I thought that you were mature, responsible and serious enough to take care of a ten-year-old boy, then I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending Ben be placed with you once you’re eighteen.”
Heat prickles at the back of my neck. I grind my teeth together, wrestling to keep my temper in check. One heated, angry word and I’ll only be proving her point. Somehow, I manage to affect some level of calm as I force out the words that are burning at the back of my throat. “I’ve been looking after myself for years, okay? Me. I worked. I bought my own food. I cooked my own meals. I learned to look out for my own wellbeing when the guy you people placed me with got wasted and beat the shit out me every night of the week that ended in the letter Y. I am more than capable of looking after my own little brother. And guess what? I’ll do it for free. You won’t have to pay me a goddamn dime—”
“This isn’t about money, Alex—”
“And what do you mean, if you thought I was serious enough about taking Ben? I’m serious as a heart attack. The day after my birthday, I will be walking away from Jackie’s place with my little brother, and there won’t be a damn thing she can do about it. So please. Go ahead and tell me how that isn’t serious enough for you.”
“You are treating him like he’s a PlayStation, Alex. Despite how you may feel, Ben is not an object or a piece of property that was confiscated from you. You don’t deserve to have him handed over to you once you meet the barest of criteria, just because you share a mother and a father. That is not how this works.”
Oh, god. If I even part my lips right now, I am going to fucking explode. I grind my teeth together as hard as I can, but the rage doesn’t subside. I have to look away from her, back out of the window and onto the winter landscape beyond as I silently fume.
Inhale.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Exhale.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Inhale.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Exhale.
Rhonda huffs—she’s obviously having trouble letting go of her own anger. Her voice is much calmer when she speaks again, though. “At the end of the day, a stuffy old man is gonna review your case. He’s going to take into account your age, and the way you’ve chosen to decorate your body, and the fact that you ride around on a fucking deathtrap, and he’s gonna form an opinion real quick. And then, he’s going to look down at your file in front of him, and he’s going to read that you were Tazed in an open grave ten days ago, while you were pissing on a dead man. What do you think he’s going to say about that?”
I can already feel my hackles rising again. I do my level best to keep my shit together as I return my gaze to her. “I don’t know. Maybe the old bastard will have a sense of humor. Or some sense of justice?”
Rhonda slowly pushes away from the table, sliding back her chair. She gets to her feet and crosses her pokey office, collecting her purse from a hook on the back of the door. “I like you, Alex. I really do. You’re a smart kid. Your grades are…” She throws her hands up, her eyes rolling to the ceiling. “If you wanted to go to college, I do not doubt for one second that you’d get a scholarship based on your grades. I’m not going to bother wasting my breath trying to lead a charge on that campaign, though. Instead, I’ll give you some sound advice. You need to fix your attendance. You need to start building up some extra credit. You need to create a stable, clean, safe home environment. You need to get a job—”
“I have a job.”
“Shut your mouth and listen to me for five minutes. You do not have a job. You bus tables at a dive bar until the early hours of the morning, which is nothing but a huge, giant black check mark against you. Have you thought about who’s gonna be there to watch Ben while you’re out until two in the morning on a school night? No. Uh uh, Sweetheart. You need a proper job, with reasonable hours, and the potential to build a career for yourself out of it. If you want to stand a cat’s chance in hell of becoming Ben’s legal guardian, then none, I repeat, none of this is negotiable. You have seven months to accomplish all of that. You think you can handle it?”
My tongue is stuck to the roof of my fucking mouth. I feel like smashing every stick of furniture in Rhonda’s office into kindling, but instead, I calmly stand, grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair. “I guess I don’t have much choice, do I?”
