Random encounters.
Jun. 6th, 2006 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaAbout six weeks ago, I noticed a woman watching Alex and me play in the park. After a while, she came over, asked about the baby, and eventually told me that she'd just found out that she was pregnant for the first time at forty. Scared, excited. We wound up chatting for more than half an hour - she had lots of questions about pregnancy, labor, delivery, and of course I had lots of opinions and suggestions. I remember her telling me that she had just moved to Baltimore - used to have family here, didn't anymore. I gave her my midwife's name, and we parted ways.
This afternoon, I was walking from the clinic to the Institute with a biohazard container full of blood samples. Just by pure chance. One of my assistants got stuck at the clinic longer than she'd expected, the blood needed to get to the lab, and the other assistant wasn't around to send, so I went myself.
Someone stopped me. "Hey! Remember me? How's the baby?" She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. I assumed she knew me from the clinic, until I answered her "What are you doing down here?" by saying I was taking some blood over to the Institute and she said, "Oh, you work here?" Then she mentioned her pregnancy, and I realized who she was.
Things weren't going so well. She'd found the father of the baby cheating, and when she confronted him about it he beat her up. The baby was fine, she'd been checked out, she was okay too but dehydrated - they'd given her fluids at the ER. But she had no place to go - she'd slept on the street last night, and all the shelters were full. She had nothing. Well, at the hospital they'd found one place with a bed, but it was in Reisterstown - did I think she could walk there? She started to cry, just a little.
"Are they holding a bed for you at the shelter?" I asked her. Yes, but she had no way to get there. "Did they give you directions for how to get there?" Yes, she had bus directions.
"Okay. I need to take this blood to where it's going; I can't stand here in the sun with it. But then we'll get this figured out."
So she trailed me to the Institute, and sat outside smoking a cigarette (yeah, I know) while I ran the blood up to the lab. I walked her to the hospital cafeteria and, over her protests, bought her a liter bottle of water, some orange juice, and a couple of bananas. She told me that she had an emergency appointment with the housing office at Social Services tomorrow morning, and was told that she'd probably be given high priority for available housing. The police had told her that they would escort her to her place to pick up her things, also tomorrow. She told me that she was expecting a girl. She told me that I had stuck in her mind, after our encounter in the park, because of how kind I was to her.
I saw something on the strap of her purse that gave me pause, and debated mentioning it for a while. Then I decided that I had to give it a shot. "I don't know if I mentioned before that I'm a psychologist," I said. "That means that I'm incredibly nosy with questions. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business... but I see your NA keychain (Narcotics Anonymous. They give out keychains as symbols of "clean time" without drugs or alcohol.), and I'm wondering how you're doing with all this, in terms of your recovery."
She looked down. "Oh! Oh, yeah. I'm ten years clean, I just kept this one because it was the first chip I ever got. And... let me put it this way. If I didn't use when my parents died, I'm not going to use now." Then she said, "Besides, there's too much at stake."
I gave her my business card, with my home number written on the reverse. I told her to call me when she got to the shelter, and that if she was still there over the weekend she could call me and I would come visit her. I told her that, when the time came, I could help her out with some baby things.
I gave her $3.50 in cash, the price of a one-day transit pass. I told her to keep in touch, and that although I didn't have much spare money I could certainly spare a helping hand. And then I saw her to the door of the hospital and watched her go.
Here's where I'm kind of hating myself: I haven't been able to shake the small, nagging suspicion that I got played. I'm obsessing about it a little, actually.
On the one hand, what are the odds that she'd even run into me again? That could hardly have been a setup. If she were scamming me, wouldn't she have tried to play it for more money after I made it clear that I believed her and was willing to give her something?
On the other hand, for some reason my gut isn't willing to let it rest. I don't know what that is - whether I subconsciously picked up on some sort of inconsistency or flaw in her manner, whether it's just the general "trust, but verify" approach I've picked up from working with my client population, whether I'm just reacting to the considerable social differences between us.
I just Googled for Baltimore homeless shelters, and found that there is in fact a women's emergency shelter in Reisterstown, run by the YWCA just as she had said. For what that's worth. (She hasn't called. For what that's worth - I'm not sure what access she'd have to a telephone, staying in a shelter.)
I'm trying to tell myself: if she played me, well, that performance was impressive enough to have earned her the $7.50. ($3.50 in cash, $4 in cafeteria stuff.) I'm out less than $10, and feeling like a fool doesn't actually injure a person. On the other hand, if she was telling the truth? Then passing her by would've done a lot more than $7.50 worth of damage to my soul.
"You didn't give her enough for a rock," my assistant Greta said. (It's the basic manufacturing and sales unit of crack cocaine.) And that's true. "We see research subjects every day that we know are using, and we pay them in cash knowing what they're going to do with it." Also true.
I wish I knew why this bothered me so much. Okay, okay, I know that it pushed all my buttons - domestic violence, woman and baby in peril. Maybe that alone is why I can't let the suspicion go.
Man, do I feel like a jerk for even letting liar-addict-scammer cross my mind, much less take up residence there.
This afternoon, I was walking from the clinic to the Institute with a biohazard container full of blood samples. Just by pure chance. One of my assistants got stuck at the clinic longer than she'd expected, the blood needed to get to the lab, and the other assistant wasn't around to send, so I went myself.
Someone stopped me. "Hey! Remember me? How's the baby?" She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her. I assumed she knew me from the clinic, until I answered her "What are you doing down here?" by saying I was taking some blood over to the Institute and she said, "Oh, you work here?" Then she mentioned her pregnancy, and I realized who she was.
Things weren't going so well. She'd found the father of the baby cheating, and when she confronted him about it he beat her up. The baby was fine, she'd been checked out, she was okay too but dehydrated - they'd given her fluids at the ER. But she had no place to go - she'd slept on the street last night, and all the shelters were full. She had nothing. Well, at the hospital they'd found one place with a bed, but it was in Reisterstown - did I think she could walk there? She started to cry, just a little.
"Are they holding a bed for you at the shelter?" I asked her. Yes, but she had no way to get there. "Did they give you directions for how to get there?" Yes, she had bus directions.
"Okay. I need to take this blood to where it's going; I can't stand here in the sun with it. But then we'll get this figured out."
So she trailed me to the Institute, and sat outside smoking a cigarette (yeah, I know) while I ran the blood up to the lab. I walked her to the hospital cafeteria and, over her protests, bought her a liter bottle of water, some orange juice, and a couple of bananas. She told me that she had an emergency appointment with the housing office at Social Services tomorrow morning, and was told that she'd probably be given high priority for available housing. The police had told her that they would escort her to her place to pick up her things, also tomorrow. She told me that she was expecting a girl. She told me that I had stuck in her mind, after our encounter in the park, because of how kind I was to her.
I saw something on the strap of her purse that gave me pause, and debated mentioning it for a while. Then I decided that I had to give it a shot. "I don't know if I mentioned before that I'm a psychologist," I said. "That means that I'm incredibly nosy with questions. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business... but I see your NA keychain (Narcotics Anonymous. They give out keychains as symbols of "clean time" without drugs or alcohol.), and I'm wondering how you're doing with all this, in terms of your recovery."
She looked down. "Oh! Oh, yeah. I'm ten years clean, I just kept this one because it was the first chip I ever got. And... let me put it this way. If I didn't use when my parents died, I'm not going to use now." Then she said, "Besides, there's too much at stake."
I gave her my business card, with my home number written on the reverse. I told her to call me when she got to the shelter, and that if she was still there over the weekend she could call me and I would come visit her. I told her that, when the time came, I could help her out with some baby things.
I gave her $3.50 in cash, the price of a one-day transit pass. I told her to keep in touch, and that although I didn't have much spare money I could certainly spare a helping hand. And then I saw her to the door of the hospital and watched her go.
Here's where I'm kind of hating myself: I haven't been able to shake the small, nagging suspicion that I got played. I'm obsessing about it a little, actually.
On the one hand, what are the odds that she'd even run into me again? That could hardly have been a setup. If she were scamming me, wouldn't she have tried to play it for more money after I made it clear that I believed her and was willing to give her something?
On the other hand, for some reason my gut isn't willing to let it rest. I don't know what that is - whether I subconsciously picked up on some sort of inconsistency or flaw in her manner, whether it's just the general "trust, but verify" approach I've picked up from working with my client population, whether I'm just reacting to the considerable social differences between us.
I just Googled for Baltimore homeless shelters, and found that there is in fact a women's emergency shelter in Reisterstown, run by the YWCA just as she had said. For what that's worth. (She hasn't called. For what that's worth - I'm not sure what access she'd have to a telephone, staying in a shelter.)
I'm trying to tell myself: if she played me, well, that performance was impressive enough to have earned her the $7.50. ($3.50 in cash, $4 in cafeteria stuff.) I'm out less than $10, and feeling like a fool doesn't actually injure a person. On the other hand, if she was telling the truth? Then passing her by would've done a lot more than $7.50 worth of damage to my soul.
"You didn't give her enough for a rock," my assistant Greta said. (It's the basic manufacturing and sales unit of crack cocaine.) And that's true. "We see research subjects every day that we know are using, and we pay them in cash knowing what they're going to do with it." Also true.
I wish I knew why this bothered me so much. Okay, okay, I know that it pushed all my buttons - domestic violence, woman and baby in peril. Maybe that alone is why I can't let the suspicion go.
Man, do I feel like a jerk for even letting liar-addict-scammer cross my mind, much less take up residence there.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 08:25 am (UTC)I think you got basically the truth - she is in an appalling situation and needed help for herself and her baby - but probably slightly amended to whatever she thought put her in the most likely to get help light. She probably hates herself, at least a little bit - why would you, however kind a stranger you are, want to help her?
And as for the phonecall... begging once takes a lot of courage. Phoning back to say "You know how you gave me handouts before? Can I have some more, please?" well, I couldn't do it.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 11:06 am (UTC)This makes a huge amount of sense, and it would account for both my uneasy feeling and the implausibility of it being a straight-out scam all the way through. Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-07 04:10 pm (UTC)Not calling makes sense too. A lot of times my aunt wouldn't call once things went from dire to merely bad, when she'd had time to get embarrassed.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 05:05 am (UTC)(Um, that is, me as an ex-homeless person, as well.)