“Can you get more specific,” said the attorney,
my first, who wasn’t an actual attorney, just
something of an advocate, but I’d avoided
such things for over half a century, except
when schmoozing in board rooms, schmoozing
of the most naïve and hunky-dory kind, nothing
improper about schmoozing, or that’s what they
teach us in the textbooks, I was never comfor
table schmoozing. An “advocate,” she called
herself, with “over 25 years” of dealing with
the folks down at general assistance. “So,
these folks, the ones we’re taught are our
advocates, they’re actually . . . evil?” I ask,
a bit lost in space, a bit more lost in space
than usual. There was a pause, I think, and
so it was a dramatic one, by all means, until
she kind of quietly said (the most calm portion
of the hour and a half-long conversation), “Yeah,
they’re evil.” Long, extended silence. Which was
quite a change from one of us steamrolling the
words of the other, something I know I do all the
time when I get a bit too excited, something she
did because she’s not an attorney but an advocate
working with the folks who deal with the folks down
at general assistance, day in, day out. It was one
of those draining “Aha!” moments. At least for me,
surely not for her, Sabrina was her name, no, surely
not for Sabrina, because she’s been doing this for
25 years, right? She knows the idiosyncrasies of
how to handle these things, of how to fight them,
even though she’s not a real lawyer. I had just
been doing what I was told to do, answering the
questions honestly, saying everything I thought
relevant. But it turns out that what’s relevant
has nothing to do with how I was wronged, how
I was lied to, that simply doesn’t matter. It has
nothing to do with the fact that everyone on the
other end of the phone down at general assistance
kept repeating the same lie, which, upon being
repeated and repeated, despite the fact that it
was absolutely untrue, was, according to my
advocate-not-attorney, and here I’m not sure
exactly whether she, well, she kept asking me
why I did that, what they said I did, that I didn’t
do, over and over she asked me that. And I’d
tell her no, nothing of the sort, and then I’d
say what I said instead, and then what they
each had told me, the promises I’d gotten from
all of these people on the other end of the phone
that were simply not going to happen. Sabrina
was completely uninterested in this part. I’d
been coerced this morning into, well, I’m not
even sure. I was just handed a phone, told
what to say. This before I met over the
phone my first and only advocate-not-
attorney. How helpless I felt. I had
followed their every request. I had
double-checked and triple-checked
that I was doing things correctly, in
such a way that when I showed up
today I’d get my check. There was
no check. Will there ever be one?
It was promised? But yet. Why
was I spending half the day speaking
with Sabrina, my advocate-not-attorney,
who answered when I was given the number
for legal aid and told I needed to speak with
an attorney; that that will help? Will she? Or
will I, at some point, finally break, finally
realize that everyone is evil, that I’m just
performing whatever I’m told for kicks, and
not my own, but somebody else’s? Whose I wonder?
25 years, right? She knows the idiosyncrasies of
how to handle these things, of how to fight them,
even though she’s not a real lawyer. I had just
been doing what I was told to do, answering the
questions honestly, saying everything I thought
relevant. But it turns out that what’s relevant
has nothing to do with how I was wronged, how
I was lied to, that simply doesn’t matter. It has
nothing to do with the fact that everyone on the
other end of the phone down at general assistance
kept repeating the same lie, which, upon being
repeated and repeated, despite the fact that it
was absolutely untrue, was, according to my
advocate-not-attorney, and here I’m not sure
exactly whether she, well, she kept asking me
why I did that, what they said I did, that I didn’t
do, over and over she asked me that. And I’d
tell her no, nothing of the sort, and then I’d
say what I said instead, and then what they
each had told me, the promises I’d gotten from
all of these people on the other end of the phone
that were simply not going to happen. Sabrina
was completely uninterested in this part. I’d
been coerced this morning into, well, I’m not
even sure. I was just handed a phone, told
what to say. This before I met over the
phone my first and only advocate-not-
attorney. How helpless I felt. I had
followed their every request. I had
double-checked and triple-checked
that I was doing things correctly, in
such a way that when I showed up
today I’d get my check. There was
no check. Will there ever be one?
It was promised? But yet. Why
was I spending half the day speaking
with Sabrina, my advocate-not-attorney,
who answered when I was given the number
for legal aid and told I needed to speak with
an attorney; that that will help? Will she? Or
will I, at some point, finally break, finally
realize that everyone is evil, that I’m just
performing whatever I’m told for kicks, and
not my own, but somebody else’s? Whose I wonder?
