The story below is part 2 of Working for the County Part One, if you haven’t already done so — read the first part, trust me. Otherwise, you’ll be so confused that you’ll be screaming.

The Kids

A couple weeks ago I started the first part of the ‘Working for the County’ story. It was an introduction and left off at the kids who I would regularly (on schedule, on time) pick up from schools, homes, etc. These kids ranged from ages 13-20 years old because according to the provisions by law a 20-year-old was considered “responsible” enough to handle themselves. This always perplexed me considering most of these 20-year-old adults were already moving ahead in life (i.e. marriage and kids) and for the most part stayed within the ILSP program for the handouts.

Yet, I digress because I’m sure they were also there for the comfort and for someone to listen to them. After all, they each had their own stories to tell and I was to act as not only their driver but their counselor as well. Most days this meant lending an ear and casually listen to their stories.

For example, a girl who I’ll call Lisa who originated from Mexico came to the United States with her mother. Not too long after the 14-year-old girl winds up pregnant with her 25-year-old boyfriend’s baby. Through some personal struggle of which Lisa would never fully reveal to me she winds up in a foster program with her baby and her boyfriend upon hearing that she’s pregnant flees the scene. Yes, it’s all and always will be very soap-opera.

Every Thursday I would pick up Lisa from her foster care home (with baby of course) and I’d transport her to the class site, which in this case was in Hemet, California. The drive usually took anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour depending on traffic which meant there was room for discussion and a bit of language-gap education. You see, Lisa only spoke very little English (she did speak better Spanish than I do so as I figured we were even).

As you can imagine this would lead to interesting topics; world events, college preperation, etc. I took this opportunity to also learn some Spanish and she always looked forward to it as well. As we would drive I would come up with the craziest statement I could think of and she would translate into her native tongue and then I would repeat. One day I came up with, “Her shoes are made of red candy and the sky is purple and green.”, Lisa thought this was funny and I would of course fubble the translation where it would sound more like “Pizza is made of thumbtacks.”

Lisa eventually relocated somewhere else with Leslie, but I’ll always remember her smile and her outlook on life. On her last day I asked her what she was planning and she mentioned that college was in the horizon. She wanted to be a case worker and teach foster children about her experiences. This was a good thing considering with Lisa I always mentioned her goals should be high and that college was important. I’m hoping that she’s studying hard at some Ivy League college.

Another student I would pick up who I’ll call Troy lived in a trailer park. His outlook on life (unlike Lisa) was more along the lines of what I thought was an alien instead of a 17-year-old boy. In class when I would set up the goodies (which were comprised of soda, chips, and sometimes candy - yeah, we feed them healthy) he would approach me when I was pouring a drink and stick his finger in the carbonated fizz. He would then tell me that the oils in a “human’s skin melt the fizzzcha”… yeah, he would say ‘fizzzzcha’. After this, the Bill Nye lab assistant would share this bit of information with the rest of the class. Inbetween teaching me about fizz and human skin oil, Troy would read his gamers guides in hopes of learning how to evade the Dark Lord or learn how to collect the most coins.

Troy was an extra terrestrial — I’m for certain of it.