OBLIGATION FAILURE - IN WHICH I APPLY FOR FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

There are as many security guards as staff at my local Work and Income office. As I enter, I am asked for ID and checked against the list of people allowed in that day. I wait on a row of chairs. A woman is coughing and sneezing. Other customers are annoyed by this; they think she should not be there as she is clearly ill. A staff member comes to see her and tells her she cannot have money that day. She is angry and waves her arms around, and leaves. Already today the office has been locked down because of someone's violence. It leaves the staff edgy.

A screen plays videos on a loop. They advise me of the importance of being drug free, and they tell me motivating stories about how I might be able to find a job if I have the right education. They warn me that my child must be vaccinated for me to gain financial assistance. Kind looking people tell us that having a job will be good for us.

Already I have been to the seminar on registering. We were told all about Obligation Failures. If you don't come to your appointment, that is an Obligation Failure. If you don't come, that lets the whole side down. Only hospitalisation should dissuade you from your appointments. If your voicemail message is not positive and friendly, that is an Obligation Failure. If you cannot show that you are spending 30 hours a week job hunting, that is an Obligation Failure. If you fail a drug test, that is certainly an Obligation Failure. The penalty for Obligation Failures is that your financial assistance is docked by 50% until you do what they want you to do. If you persist with your Obligation Failure, you lose financial assistance altogether. Of course there are many Obligation Failures than I have mentioned here, and the system is slightly more labyrinthine regarding drug testing, but I have given a range of them with the aim of showing the tone of the Work and Income experience. We are also told about how small the amount of financial assistance is that we may actually get, and shown figures that are only slightly distorted, to prove this. Employment is so much better. Much, much better. You don't want to be on financial assistance. You can't live on it, don't think for a moment your life will be easy.

Work and Income is currently being restructured and the woman who delivers the seminar is clearly jittery. She even talks about how she may lose her job. Her jitters do not give her empathy. I'm not your PA, she says. I will contact your previous employer, but that is the last thing I will do for you.

So here I am two days post seminar. I am waiting to see this same woman. As I sit in front of her, she expresses disbelief at my situation, which is undeniably complicated. She tells me I may not be eligible for financial assistance; there may in fact be a further 13 week stand down.

Now, I used to have a little dog called Tigger. I would talk to him often, like this: Now Tigger, you know not to eat the cat food, you are a naughty Tigger, you need to be a good Tigger. And Tigger, being a dog with a vocab of about 15 human words, would hear this: Blah Tigger blah blah blah Tigger blah blah Tigger.....

In front of the Work and Income woman, I am reduced to a working vocabulary of 15 words. I hear no money, thirteen weeks stand down. Oh sure, there are other things. Like, I have appointments to see someone at another office in another town, and I have a seminar to attend on how to write a CV and another one on how to go to a job interview. And much of the information I carefully and expensively have gathered for her is actually not required. But my hippocampus has shut down. All I am is hard wired freaked out amygdaloid system. No money thirteen weeks. No money. Thirteen weeks. No money. Shit. Shit shit shitshitshit...........

I am trying not to cry. I shift in my seat, I stand up and sit down and even windmill a little. No way am I going to cry. I am crying anyway. I rummage through my bag and pockets. I can't find a tissue. Things spill out and I am too disorganised in my head to put them back in properly. Hell, I am actually whimpering. If I was young, male and Maori the security guards would be around me by now, as I am plainly 'agitated'. The woman avoids eye contact and enters my data. I suppose this happens to her several times a day. What might she be thinking? Best just to box on, really, if you buy into it they just get more upset and then there's no end to it, keep your own head above water, it's all you can do. Too wretched even to say thank you (for what?) I leave when she's finished and sit in the car and sob.

So, hey, I have been a part of the precariat for some time now, living partly off grid. Now I have a system interested in the minutiae of my life. They also expect me to be wired for them for life. Everything is done online and a taxing degree of computer literacy is required. For those without such skills and without internet, which is often poorer people over 45, people who have been in institutions a lot, or the homeless, Work and Income must be an impossible place. They have no free wi fi for example; I have to pay for data to show the staff the information they require. Note: they require. I am only paying for data because they need it, and therefore so do I. They require in my case travel between towns to attend two offices. And for me to own a printer to see evidence of job hunting. And a positive attitude. They tell me I will go a long way with a positive attitude. Perhaps I will try it some time.

I am lucky I am not a real beneficiary. I am only a gentlewoman in reduced circumstances. I don't rage and flip desks and demand attention. I delay gratification in a genteel if slightly shabby fashion.  My phone still works. There is money on my bus card for travel.  I still have good work clothes, which they tell me I must wear in case they send me to a job Right Now (sure, honey). I even own a car, which they have not required me to sell even though I can no longer really afford to run the damn thing. I do not have a disability or a mental illness or a background that makes understanding the world around me difficult and traumatising. I can read and write and 'give a good account of myself', as they say. I am lucky. I really am.

If I was a gun

If I was a Star Wars character, I would be R2D2. I have a thing for R2D2 as I see myself as small, brave, clever and cheerful.

If I was a gun....

I used to see guns as requiring Great Moral Seriousness. Because they, like, kill people. And it is Ok to kill an animal, but only if you intend to eat it and only if you are grateful for its life and understand the place both you and the other animal have in the Great Circle of yada yada yada.

Now that I have actually fired guns, I just want to make things go bang.

I was out in a forest with my friend and learning about his guns by firing them across a river.

First I fired a .22 and it was a snippy little high tech thing, and it had a silencer, and I figured it was kinda cool but it would take me a while to get on side with.

Then I fired a Magnum 44. A Dirty Harry gun.

I was in love just looking at it, so beautifully made. When I fired it I was so excited I literally jumped up and down. It was noise and the power and the smell and the bang and the zing and the sense and the everything. It was the most awesome thing in the world.

If I was a gun, I would be a Magnum 44. A short, intense little shit kicker of a gun. That's me.

I was then offered the possibility of firing more powerful guns. This is a thought that is both thrilling and sobering. Because knowing me as I do, I suspect I am only slightly more lethal behind the sights of a gun than I am behind the wheel of my Holden Statesman.

Hi, I'm.....

Back when I was a respectable person with a job and money etc I would get to go to training sessions or conferences, and there would be name tags with things like

'Hi, I'm...'

and you are supposed to put your name on them. Back then I would refuse to wear one in order to show I was capable of minor rebellion. Recent events have shown I am in fact capable of major rebellion. So if I am ever again in a position to go to training sessions or conferences I will write other things on my name tag.

Here are some ideas:

Hi, I'm...
An innocent bystander.

Hi I'm....
The Doctor's new Companion.

Hi I'm....
Devastated. Just devastated.

Hi I'm...
Not really here.

Hi I'm...
His lovely assistant.

Hi I'm....
Exquisite.

Hi I'm...
Real.

Feel free to add to these.

This is a poem about prison

OCCULTATION

You
gut me
You
strew me
in wet strands across the dark beach.
My last breaths come through my ears,
like blood,
like brain.
There is the desperate stillness of celluloid here,
the sky a hung screen.
At last the rain begins
and my eyes run with this black blood -
or tears,
or just mascara.
I turn over and my hips scrape pits in the damp gravel.
I see you in the shadows, a dark shimmer, an unnatural lambency, an occlusion.
Are you coming towards me?
Or are you walking away?

THE POEM FOR COUNTY MONAGHAN

THE LITTLE FAWN OF ORIEL

Damnat, little fawn, Lily of the Fire,

First refugee of Monaghan,

Fled her father,

Went to Gheel

And worked miracles. 

She was only little still

When her father killed her,

But her spirit caught flame, and its bright shadow sheltered 

Those of us in search of healing. They

Are Monaghan's refugees too, they

Follow her journey and rest under her.

The old kings of Oriel fought each other, 

And then they fought the English,

And then they died,

And then they left. 

Now there are new kings,

And they fight each other,

And they fight the English,

And they die.

And they leave.

It's not their fault. 

Their graves are too shallow. They

Never touch the dark bones of karst, even in death, they

See the stones but not the grass, they

Watch the rain and it hurts them, makes them hard.

I want them to find their way to shelter.

A little fawn awaits them in a magical green clearing.

She believes them, all the bad things they don't talk about, she believes them.

Her milky purity is all she needs to heal them. 

She awaited their ancestors, but they never came either. 

Go on then,do it hard, like they've done for centuries. 

Leave Monaghan, find it all out for yourself.

It's there is Belgium, Brooklyn, Christchurch - 

It's there in the clearing too.

So, the references. Damnat is an older name of St Dymphna, who was the child of a pagan father and a Christian mother. Her Christianity is emphasized of course, but I see her as a more complex figure who straddles two cultures and two beliefs. Her father either wanted to commit incest with her or did so, and she fled with her retainers to Gheel in Belgium, where she worked miracles.Her father found her and killed her, and she was only 15 when she died. She founded a hospital for the mentally ill, and she is the saint for the mentally ill, victims of incest, runaways, and psychiatrists and psychologists (and probably social workers!) Damnat and Dymphna mean little fawn. She was also known as the Lily of the Fire, for her sexual purity. 

Oriel is the old name for a more or less legendary kingdom which took in most of Ulster. The McMahons were its main clan and they were a great thorn in the side of the English, as they lived close to the Pale. 

County Monaghan has suffered great losses through wars, the famine and the resulting diaspora, and now the Troubles of course. I saw Damnat as a refugee who made good, and thought about the whole Irish tradition of leaving and making good elsewhere, after terrible loss and suffering. And yet there is healing in the land, if only they could see it. 

DEFAULT SETTINGS

So, I was feeling low and miserable so I went to the doctor, and she referred me to a case manager. The case manager seemed OK, but then she wanted me to do stuff way before I was ready and I just couldn't cope, so I stopped going.

It was like this.

We got on OK and I was saying that I had no money, and couldn't get ahead. and I was working just to pay the mortgage, and my marriage was more or less over and I didn't know what to do. And she said, well, we have the best evidence based treatment for this, and she told me to rob a liquor store.

I thought, that was pretty hard out. I didn't want to do it; I didn't see the point. It's just not how I think. I said, I don't even drink. I hardly even have been in a liquor store, why would I want to rob one?

She said, well, Karen, I am sorry that you are not taking responsibility for your own treatment and your decision making. We are suggesting the best treatment we have. If we had anything better, we would give it to you. I know that you are new to all of this and we are asking you to make some pretty big changes, but you do need to work with us, you know. Look, there is time for you to think about this. How about I see you in three days? By then I expect we will all be on the same page and you will have been able to rob the liquor store.

I went back in three days and she asked, how did you go?

And I said, I had felt so fucking stressed about it I had hardly got out of bed and I wasn't sleeping.

And she said, now, Karen, there is no need for language like that. I am not going to talk to you if you won't engage. I take it you didn't rob the liquor store, then.

So of course I had to say I hadn't even left the house except to buy food and then I felt bad about not robbing the supermarket, like I thought she would want me to.

She said to me, well, maybe you would do a bit better if you were high. It's OK, you know. Lots of people need to get high to be able to do a robbery, we treat a lot of people like you and there is no shame in it. No one should discriminate against you for this. I will get the doctor to see you and he can give you some methamphetamine.

Hell, I said, I am not keen on that. I suppose you are the experts, though.

She said now, Karen, that is not the best attitude. We might be the experts at knocking over liquor stores, of course we are, but you are the expert on your own life and we need you to participate fully in your own treatment. He is a nice doctor and he will give you the best deal. So I will see you in a week.

I went back in a week and of course she asked how I got on now I was on methamphetamine. I thought about it and said well, it is certainly easier to get out of bed in the morning, in fact sometimes I don't even go to bed at all. And I had some sort of fight with the neighbours and the Police came. Are these side effects?

You can imagine what she said. She said, well, if you really can't tolerate the meth, you should have let us know. You really aren't making the best choices about this. We can only do so much you know. The rest is up to you. You need to take responsibility. Have you robbed the liquor store yet?

Well guess what, I hadn't robbed the liquor store. In fact I said, this is so far out of my usual way of thinking, I was further away from robbing the liquor store than ever. And the meth was just making me say stupid things online and keeping me up all night. I didn't even know where to start. I felt hopeless.

She sighed and said, there is a limit to what we can do, Karen. We only have the contract for brief intervention. We can't run your life for you. We are trying to help but you are doing nothing for yourself. You seem to have quite a treatment-resistant illness here. I think you will be with us for a long time. You can't expect the meth to fix you, it is not the whole answer. You have to ask yourself if you really want to get better. We don't want you becoming dependent on services. Tell you what, I will make a referral for a Criminal Support Worker. They can help empower you to make the right choices and get alongside you, you know, take you out to Gun City, find some gang connections, that sort of thing. In fact, this is a great organization for you, because it is peer led. Everyone there has known what it is like to struggle almost as much as you are right now. Probably some of them found it just as hard to rob their first liquor store.

I was like, my first liquor store? Does that mean I have to keep on robbing liquor stores? Am I going to spend my life robbing liquor stores, fighting with random people and getting fuck all sleep? I can't live like this! I am over this! I can't cope. I don't want to rob a liquor store! I never did. You aren't listening to me, you are just trying to make me do stuff that doesn't make any sense.

Then she told me I was being histrionic and that I had a choice to refuse their help. And that I should stop crying. Then she got security and I was escorted off the premises, as they say. So that is why I didn't go back.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The above piece riffs on mental health services and how they talk to people, of course. And the criminal justice system, indirectly, when it fails to realize the desperate daily pull back to crime. It is also about the nature of change itself. How hard it is not to default, to eat the cream bun, smoke the weed, do the thing that gives a moment's relief or a fleeting sense of being part of the human race.

Thanks to Tina for suggesting the concept, and Dex for being my inspiration.

INVOCATION TO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN

 

 INVOCATION TO THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN

I hail Astarte;
I call you by your ancient names:
Innana, Ishtar,Sekhmet, Ashtart, Ariadne, Ashtaroth.

I have much to thank you for.
You touched my breast.
You hid me in your red cloak.
You sent your men away.
You bade me kneel between your glorious pale thighs,
And your sweet cave opened for me, the origin of the world,
And a golden snake emerged, and I took it in my mouth.

My very own snake.

Now, my dark lord approaches.
His very footfalls send me shuddering.
Oh, Astarte, what can I do?
Make me ache for him.
I ache for him.
Make me say his name when I come.
Oh, Astarte, I said his name

Again,

And again. 

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