pederast.
“Mr. Wisotscky, the Mulcaheys are here to see you.”
In stumbled a bedraggled working-class couple from the township, their overly seductive adult daughter–typically named Carole–and their alienated, adolescent son. The husband was standard from these parts. Late forties, looked sixty. Never took care of himself. Bad food, bad shampoo. The mother was inappropriately girlish. She was flirtatious and overfeminized in a manner that was unbecoming. Infantilized. The son, predictably sullen, was quite small for his age. The sister was underclad.
“Mr. Mulcahey, Stew.” He looked at the chart. “Carole. You’re the married sister. Mrs. Mulcahey.” Another glance. “Brigid. Please have a seat, all of you. There, on the couch, or I also have these two chairs. Please sit down. Good.”
He noted that the boy gave up the best chair to his mother. Good, everything would have a happy ending.
“What else do you know about us?”
“Can I call you Marty? I am Daniel Wisotscky, County Family Counselor for Van Buren Township. I see that you were referred by Officer Bart, that you’re trying to make some tough decisions about your family.”
“I don’t understand why we have to talk to you about our decisions.” Marty was putting on a show for his daughter. “It’s our family, we’ll do what we want.”
Wisotscky said nothing, so of course there was an awkward silence. He had long wished for the day when these blue-collar families would come into therapy as naturally as they took their cars in for lube jobs. But, unfortunately, these people would rather buy some self-help book or watch a daytime talk show than put their lives into the trained hands of a professional who could make a difference. It was the submission that was important, the capitulation to experience that signaled a real effort to change. What the alcoholics called “helpless.”
“Daddy, there are some problems.” There was Carole, being the substitute wife.
“I don’t even know this guy.”
“I know,” she said sweetly. “But the officer said you can’t do anything without the approval of a social worker.”
“Why should he have all the power?”
Dan smiled at the real wife. “Do you feel this way, Brigid?”
“I have no power over anything, especially my son.”
Okay, so she’s the martyr .
“Have you told him how you feel?”
“It doesn’t matter what I say. I ground him, he sneaks out. Do you know what it’s like to make dinner for someone who won’t look at you?”
“Then my wife and I get into fights.”
Carole joined in. “Stew is taking no responsibility.”
“I can’t manage him,” Brigid said. “It’s too upsetting for Stew, and it is too upsetting for us.”
Stew sat impassively.
“He sits there like a crazy person.” Marty gestured toward his son. “He grits his teeth and makes fists. He cries like a baby.
He yells at us. He’s a bad kid.”
“I am not,” Stew said. “I just have my own ideas.”
“Like what?” His mother sighed. She’d been through that one before.
“Like, Mom–like old is better than like new. Did you know that?”
“Not when you’re my age.”
Wisotscky noted on his pad that the kid was inarticulate .
“See, Doc,” the father said, pointing. “What is he talking about?”
“I know he was molested.” Mrs. Mulcahey sighed again. “But even before he was molested, he never co-operated.”
“This kid has got serious problems that have nothing to do with being molested,” Marty explained deeply. He had done a lot of thinking to come to this revelation.
Brigid looked at her husband. “Doctor, Stew is ruining our lives. He is angry all the time. He wants to leave.”
“Get it, Doc?”
Wisotscky could see Marty’s annoyance at having to re-create and summarize this concept for the doctor’s benefit. Obviously Mr. Mulcahey frustrated easily.
“No, I don’t,” Stew almost cried. “Shut up.”
“Doctor,” Brigid said. “I’m afraid
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