Books by a Poet

First Day as a Case Manager at Temnpid (Part 1)

7/24/23

I meant to get out of bed at 5 and charge around the city while listening to Lupe Fiasco’s (b. 1982) “Mural” (rel. 2014).

Though, the morning didn’t go exactly as planned.

My agenda is an accounts & records log with a black cover that reads ‘Cash’ in gold letters. ‘Every day is cash.’ ‘Every day is cake.’ I had written in the book that my tasks today are…

run,

send a lesson to my other job,

read,

write,

first day as a Case Manager at Temnpid –

I meant to get a few things done off that list before work at 9:45 but I kept going back to bed. I wanted to dream more. During my 5 years of strategic depression, I would do this; sleep in, and then think about what a loser I was until the nighttime when I would be able to relax after another day of self-doubt. Though, this morning I could handle sleeping in differently. I lay there and thought of myself like a bear. Yes, I had tasks to do, but my body is that of a ferocious, stately bear, and I was not ready to get the day rolling yet.

Then I got up, ate a tangerine, put on my pants and polo and entertained the cat.

I put a half-pot of coffee in my cup and sent that lesson to my other job. Then it was time to walk downstairs and across the street to the bus stop. I’m at the point in street knowledge where the best thing I can do in my area is be the best I can be.

It’s invigorating when you learn nobody wants what you do but we all want to overcome what plagues a mind.

I don’t have to confirm so much or look around as much. I do what I think the women and children want me to do, focus on who I can be for them.

I caught that bus.

I got a whiff of sour milk.

I rode the bus to Main and Ridley then I walked up a green hill to the brick building. I said hello to the receptionist, Dick, and he told me he had been reading politics this morning. The walls on the first floor are painted amber. The other new case manager and I waited for fifteen minutes and then went into the director’s office to fill out W-4s and give our forms of identification. The director played soothing music that reminded me of my time in cafés in China, and I thought of how I could study something having to do with Chinese culture and return to China again someday then reasoned it might be the calming the effects of the music I liked, and I might not need to direct my attention to China.

I couldn’t.

I am now going to be a case manager for addicts.

His office is large with gray walls and a few graven images are above his desk. The room was cool because of the air-conditioner.  The W-4 asked pointed questions that no average citizen would understand about income. They changed how the W-4s work. I called my friend who works with taxes to get a hint about how to not owe money like I did for my other job this year, and we did our best to fill the sheet out accordingly, my pen the agent; the government greed is disgusting. Of course, this form could be simpler.

If Jesus let’s George Washington come up here again could we blame him for forming a militia? I’m the peace man though. I was the peace man filling out the paperwork. I listened to many people today peacefully. I was shown my office where the walls are also amber…I chose to take a smaller wooden desk rather than a large metal one. There were folders, an extension cord, and pencils in the office supplies room.

I set up my office, though did not have much to furnish it. I just moved the desk and wiped things down with disinfectant. Boxes with new filing cabinets were in the hall. I took one box, and put it by the bathroom.

I’ll set the file cabinet up this week.

I have my own bathroom.

I’m going to put my painting of a dinosaur in a beret outside a church on the wall to remind me to take my time at this job.

I put the air conditioner on and read the intake packet for new residents.

Temnpid is part of a Religious Charitable Organization. The residents are expected to live in the Temnpid “House,” for 3 to 6 months. They can go out during the day and work. They must be back for 6 for dinner. They are expected to stay clean, get a job and save money to pay for their own place. They must have breakfast at 8AM. They either go to an AA meeting or Buddhist Meditation session outside of the “House.”

The director, Mr. Mall, has short curly hair, and smells like shaving cream.

At a place like this, most of the staff identifies as an “addict,” although they seem to have “recovered,” so it’s the same word, “addict,” even if you no longer are, preceding from the notion that once you’re an addict you always are.

They say, you have that personality.

Temnpid is expanding.

They’re turning the offices on the first floor into rooms for more beds.

I sat and read about 8 pages of the introduction packet in my office, which is on the first floor, and then the other new case manager visited. He was quiet in the lobby, a bespectacled man with sharp eyes, fit. He then started to talk a lot. This man, Victor, was animated, after all. He would pause, gulp and nod. I sat reasoning about the line between having multiple personalities and moods.

I had seen him go from near mute to telling me several stories in a half-hour conversation, as I sat behind my desk and got old.

Victor told me how he worked at a Spanish speaking rehab for 5 years.

He’s studying to get his CADOC, an education and certification that will allow him to be a counselor.

He spoke about kinetic therapy, giving an  example:

“If that street over there was your stomping ground when you were using how can we fix it so that you don’t feel the need to use over there?”

‘Kinetic Therapy’

He kept looking out the window and I kept getting old, and I think me getting old bettered his posture and his shirt was tucked into his jeans.

Victor then told me about quite interesting work.

His other job is at the UMASS medical school, being what’s called a “standard patient.”

To help the students simulate medical care, he’s given a script and has to act sick. He acts like a patient in need of care. He routinely gets catscans and x-rays etc. They even have a ‘doomsday scenario’ where the “standard patient” wears make up and might put fake glass in their arms.

So this guy’s got acting experience.

 I’m working on mine.  

*

I used to think that life was some big lie. That my society had come to the point where all materially successful people were lying that they knew what they were doing.

I didn’t understand how differentiated areas of expertise could be because I had not learned psychology.

I was all macro, no micro.

Or what, in psychology, might be called “repressed.”

The book industry had me doubting my gift, swallowing something so immense I could not live with it in my gut.

My empathy was only for those visibly distraught and the crowds seemed to be making a mockery.

*

We had a meeting with two other case managers that have been working at Temnpid. I got to introduce myself again to people. I told them I believe in faith healing.

My ability to be articulate had gotten me that far.

I would learn that there’s a lot to how people handle a Sober House.   

We chatted and made schedules. Then we went into a meeting for the residents. As I walked toward the meeting room that also functions as a cafeteria and place to relax,  there being couches, a tv, and tables and chairs moved from against the wall and back, I thought of how I didn’t mean to distinguish between the ‘addicts’ and anyone else I met that day because mostly I just wanted to be getting old with everyone, for that’s what the kids need.

Though, when we sat in the room in a circle with distraught men, I found I had to practice a few other aspects of meditation, for these people were suffering more than the normal sort and it was my job to help them.

I didn’t know what to do exactly since I was not the one presenting.

At that afternoon meeting, it was another Case Manger’s time to present.

I sat there.

I didn’t say anything after introducing myself.

The men were disgruntled, in grubby clothes, tattooed.

In a place like that, granted the opportunity to live in a Sober House, the men care for one another.

They seem to know it is their last resort.

What got them there must weigh on them in those meetings while many sit on foldable chairs.

They also share rooms.

Those rooms are on the second floor.

They joke they are “junkys,” rhymes with “bunkies,” people who share a bunk.

I’m not going to introduce myself as an addict, though.

They’ve hired the mule.