After Five- The Anthology of a Social Worker "Short Story"
Hello Steemians!
I am still continuing to work on my book, "The Anthology of a Social Worker". This book will combine about 20 stories about what it was like to be a social worker out in the field' in child welfare. This story is a little more boring than the other stories, but to break up the high emotions that run through the book. I would love feedback and hope you enjoy.
After Five By: Bee Millz
"Bree, you're up for another case." Bree sighed, but then changed her look to a smile as soon as she noticed the negativity in her own breathing. It was the third case of the day that she would be going out on, and she was exhausted after the first two. Although exhausted, she always tried to keep a smile on her face, always keeping the team motivated even when they had poor attitudes. She walked up to the desk of the secretary, Martha, who was quickly trying to throw together a case file so Bree could leave as quickly as possible.
"What are the allegations on this one?" she asked, hoping that it was going to be something easy, like a dirty house or no food.
"It's a dirty house case", Martha replied, gritting her teeth and slowly handing over the case file, trying to not upset Bree as she noticed that it was already four p.m., and clock out time for everyone else would be five.
"It's no biggie Martha, really. I will run next door and see if I can grab a detective before they all suddenly disappear." Bree grabbed the case from Martha giving her a warm smile and patting her on the shoulder at the same time. Everyone felt guilty when it case would come in later in the day, and no one wanted to be the person to have to give it out.
The child welfare and Special Victims Unit were housed in the same building, right next door to each other, sharing a hallway. Child welfare would only deal with allegations of abuse, abandonment, and neglect, while the Special Victims Unit had specialized detectives that would accompany the social worker out to the house in case anything was criminal. Most of the time the cases were simple, with no serious activity, but Bree always felt easier going to a house with a cop, as she herself was not allowed to carry any type of protection. There had been many times over the weekend that Bree was not fortunate enough to be assigned a police officer or detective, going out to a house solo. You never know what's going to happen when you start talking about child custody with a parent, and sometimes it ends in anger, with a desperation to do anything to fight for your family.
She walked as quickly as she could without it being considered a jog and entered in the back door of the Special Victims Unit. Paul Parker, a newly assigned Detective to the unit, was the only one sitting at his desk. He glanced up to see Bree, then formed a furrowed brow and a frown at her.
"Man, it four o'clock!", he exclaimed to her with frustration across his face, clenching his hands up into fists as they sat on top of his desk. She could never understand why cops would get so angry at her when she would call at certain times of the day for assistance. It was almost as if they were blaming her for making the abuse phone call, like she had anything to do with the time that it came into the office.
"It's just a dirty house case, so it won't keep us out too much past five. House is around the corner," Bree stated with a flat affect. She didn't dare smile while bringing this case to his desk, in fear that the detective might think she is getting enjoyment out of ruining the end of his day.
"Well let's go!" The detective jumped up from his desk grabbing his keys, and started to walk out the door. Bree followed closely in order to read him the allegations before they jumped into the car.
"Alright, looks like it is a young mother and father, with a one year old child. Report says the house is always dirty and the family is up at all hours of the night. There's no prior reports or criminal record. The reporter looks like the grandma."
"What kind of grandma would call in a report against her own daughter for the house being dirty? I swear people have gotten too chicken shit to tell their family when they aren't doing good enough. Get in the car now, cmon!" Detective Parker impatiently waved his hand at Bree towards the car in order to get her to start moving her feet again after standing still for a minute to read the report. He flung open the cop car door and jumped inside. Bree opened up the passenger door and tried to fit her heavy build between the awkwardly placed laptop and the passenger seat. She had wondered how anyone could ever comfortably ride in that passenger seat on a long-term basis, as she knew that there were laptop setups and all of the cop cars. She rode with her body squished up against the car door, barely able to even fasten the seatbelt. On the ride over, Bree started to think to herself, why would a grandmother call in an abuse report against her own daughter? Was there a real concern? What mom crazy? Even worse, was Grandma crazy? Bree would have never called protective services against a family member, unless she felt they were getting nowhere as a family to solve the problem. It started to concern her that the case may have been more serious than she had originally thought.
The investigative duo pulled up to a small string of apartments, in a new-ish looking building in a middle-class part of town. By looking from the outside, you couldn't tell that any of the apartments could have possibly had dirty environments, with new-ish cars out in the parking lot, and each porch swept and clean with no decorations outside. They walked up to apartment 4B, and gave a harsh knock to the door. Bree always used a firm knock to let whoever that was inside knew that she meant business, and this knock was important. Sometimes it was a struggle to get people to even open that door and let you know that they were inside.
A meek, young woman, with a smiling baby on her hip opened the door slowly, looking startled. Bree wondered what was going through the young woman's mind as she saw the social worker with a detective standing in front of her, both with stern and serious looks on their face. She could tell that the young woman had wished that she wasn't home after all.
"Thomas residence?" Bree asked, keeping it stern and professional. The young woman was still in her pajama bottoms and a tank top, while the baby was in nothing but a diaper with his hair wild. Brown smudges appeared on his left cheek, like maybe he had not been cleaned up after a meal.
"Y-y-yes", Miss Thomas stuttered out slowly, still staring at them both wide-eyed with a touch of fright. Bree could see the anxiety riding up into the young woman's chest, which caused Bree to have a small bout of anxiety as well. Whenever she saw that look in someone's eye, sometimes it was too late to reel them back in. They were going to be uncooperative, which could lead to violence. Bree started to soften and hopes that it wouldn't lead to that. She relaxed her jaw and her shoulders, and spoke soft with the next sentence.
"Hi, I'm Bree and this is Detective Parker. We're here about a child abuse report that we received, and we're only here to help. We would like to come in and talk to you about the allegations." Miss Thomas open her door a little wider, a motion that equated to "come in, I suppose".
As Bree walked through the front door, her eyes started to scan the small residence. This was definitely not what they considered a dirty house report. There was a pile of unfolded laundry on the edge of the couch, toys and clothes strewn across the living room floor, with bits of outside that had not been yet swept up mixed in here and there. The kitchen counters and sink were piled with dishes that appeared to maybe be one or two days old, with a dining room table that was smudged with leftovers and other mystery stains that Bree could not identify right away. Miss Thomas was not a great housekeeper, but also definitely was not a child abuser. She let out a small sigh that was unrecognizable to anybody else in the room, happy that this was going to be an in-and-out case, hoping to make it back to the office by five if they could get this moving along.
Bree sat on the couch with the new mother, noticing that she appeared to have just crawled out of bed, hair and clothing disheveled as she rubbed the crust out of her right eye. She let out a half yawn, then asked, “what is this all about?”
The social worker read off the allegations, “The home is filthy and uninhabitable. There is no food in the home. The parents are up all hours of the night and don’t let the child sleep”. Ms. Thomas’ mouth dropped open slightly, surprised that she was hearing these claims on her family. Bree continued, “Just by looking around your house is fine. Don’t get me wrong, you are a slob, but the house does not have hazards. Now tell me about these claims of being up all night”.
Detective Parker shifted his hips as he stood in front of the front door, refusing to take a seat. He had a look of boredom as he stood there, leaning around the corner to check out the other rooms without actually walking into them. “This is fucking ridiculous”, Ms. Thomas said out loud. She was visibly annoyed that Bree had called her a slob, and held the stance that the house was immaculate in her own eyes. “Look, my boyfriend works nights at Rhodes Insurance, and I am a stay at home mom. He is in customer service. We are on his schedule, so we stay up all night, and do all the same stuff you do during the day, then sleep during the day. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is either”, Bree reported, happy that it was all about working. This could have been a real turn for the worst. On the way to the home, Bree was actually worried they were going to go into a home that may have well been a meth lab. This mother didn’t look like a junkie, and the baby’s diaper wasn’t droopy enough. Bree got a tour of the home, checked for food, saw running water, and had the regular paperwork signed. She offered daycare to Miss Thomas, who refused it, but agreed to play more of a part in cleaning up the home. “Set a good example and get baby into the idea of cleaning”, Bree said to the young mother, trying to sound more like a friend giving advice, than an authority figure demanding her to clean up the pigsty. Before leaving, the social worker explained that the case would close within 30 days if everything checked out, and that if she ever needed anything, even after the case was closed, to give her a call. Bree said this to every client, although they never called after she left the home. Bree and Detective Parker left the messy house just as the clock hit 4:57, with three minutes to spare.
“You don’t think it’s a big deal that the baby is up all night?” the Detective asked as they pulled out of the parking lot, heading back towards the office.
“Sounds like there is a schedule. It is not conventional, but it is a schedule”, Bree reported back as if she was dictating her report that she would have to throw together quickly before leaving the office. “It could have been so much wor--.”
“Whoa!” The car came to a jerking hault as a white van pulled in front of the undercover car, then started to swerve and dip right off the side of the road. “We have a live one!” The Detective flicked on his interior red and blue lights, forcing the van to come to a swerved top, half off the road. “I bet he is drunk!”
“But..” Bree stammered out to the Detective, but he was already out of the car and walking towards the van. Bree understood that she was supposed to go on these boring dirty house reports, but she didn’t think she was allowed to go for DUI’s while in the field. The man in the van swung open the door, and fell out of the van, face first, hitting the pavement hard. He was attempting to push himself up off the ground, showing that he was in fact snockered and celebrating that it was five o’clock somewhere. As he pushed himself up, Bree could see that he was saying something, but could not hear the man. She imagined it was something like, “RrrrrrI’m not DRUNK ossifer!”
“Call for backup!” the detective yelled, as Bree started looking around the car frantically, seeing the CB radio in front of her, with no knowledge how to even turn it on. The Detective was pulling out his cuffs and manhandling the drunk citizen, while Bree kept scanning the car for a way to call someone. She decided maybe she shouldn’t help in the matter.
“I don’t know how to call for backup, I’m not a cop!”
“Oh!”, the detective leaned the drunk driver against the van as he sprinted back to the car. He effortlessly used the CB radio to call for help. The look on his face proved to Bree that the Detective completely forgot where he was and what was going on. He had forgotten that Bree wasn’t an officer of the law, and was a innocent bystander along for the ride. After radioing for more fuzz, he looked over at Bree with a smile and said, “I’ll get one of the other officers to get you a ride back to the office”. Bree knew that the new detective wasn’t going to cut it in the Special Victims Unit. He was looking for a different kind of adrenaline rush, that involved being an authority figure in the town. She was sad that they would probably lose the new detective, but happy that he was no longer upset about being in the field after five.
Word Count:2518