My job responsibilities at The Salvation Army Foster Parent Program included answering the phone for my supervisor, Helga, typing up forms, filing, and transcribing interviews conducted by both the psychiatrist and psychologist who evaluated foster children that had behavioral problems. Health clinic hours were offered twice a week for parents to bring in their foster children for examination and I served as the receptionist for these clinics.

 

It was mostly moms who showed up with their children for medical appointments, and they formed a chatty, congenial group in the waiting room. Some of the children were extremely sweet, one of them planting a grave, careful kiss on my cheek when I gave him some crayons and paper to play with. The foster mothers sat and beamed at this interaction; these ladies seemed to me to be some of the kindest, most nurturing, big-hearted women I’ve ever met. I suppose some could have been gaming the system, but the ones I met seemed sincerely committed to helping out children in need. As you can no doubt imagine, in lower Manhattan during this time, the need was extreme.

 

Some of the children, of course, given their parentage and early upbringing, were quite disturbed. I learned this while typing up the transcripts of interviews conducted with some of the foster kids and either the psychologist or psychiatrist. One teenaged boy seemed intent on killing one of his foster brothers. In fact, I was typing up his transcript (using the head phones, of course, so that the information remained private), when I realized that this self-same boy was in the waiting room, here for a medical appointment. I didn’t expect him to jump up and start ax-murdering everyone on the spot, but the more I learned, the scarier he seemed. And when I snuck a peek at him, he had one scary, deranged smile on his face. I met one of the biological mothers who had six children in the foster parent program, and this poor woman showed up reeking of alcohol at ten in the morning. She used so much crack and other drugs that all of her children had horrendous medical problems—holes in their hearts, for example. She couldn’t even remember which hospitals she gave birth in.

 

Helga absolutely adored these children, and I have to say, this organization, despite the segregation according to job type, was one of the most color-blind I’ve ever encountered. It was so heart-warming to watch her examine a child on her table, her pleasant, motherly face full of affection and good will. I knew, from conversations that we had about the children, that she cared deeply about each and every one of them, even the ones that were scary. This organization gave me hope that well-designed and well-managed social work could really make a difference in the world. I ended up loving working here.

 

Because I could type so fast and there was such a heavy transcription load, I ended up doing quite a bit of it. The only drawback for me was the fact that the psychiatrist, a dapper older gentleman with a neatly trimmed white beard who wore a black beret, had a very heavy French accent. Many times I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I would give it my best shot and put the typed draft in his cubby, and he would send them back to me with corrections marked in red.

 

One time I was typing up an interview with an older boy, a boy who had spent quite a bit of his life in juvenile detention centers. He said he didn’t mind, though, because he liked … something … I listened to it half a dozen times and all I could come up with was, “I like beaver, myself.” I decided he was probably figuring out some way to get nooky while locked up. From movies that I had watched, I figured it happened with some regularity. Must have been easier there, for some reason, than on the outside. Or so I deduced.

 

Imagine my dismay and embarrassment when the corrected transcript came back to me, the psychiatrist having drawn a line through this sentence and replacing it with, “I like to be by myself.”

 

Ah, well. I think I’m finally over it now.

 

Helga was delighted to have me working for her, and aware of the fact that I wasn’t really getting paid all that much; so she did everything in her lovely, maternal power to make me feel appreciated. She took me out to lunch every now and then, and brought me small gifts upon occasion, like jars of Nutella and once, a turquoise turtleneck she picked up from a street vendor that she thought I would like. She never could remember my name and always called me “Cecily,” which from anyone else would have been annoying, but in her case, was endearing. In subsequent years, when she would call to see if I was coming back to temp in New York and I’d pick up the phone, she’d say, “Cecily?” And I’d say, “Helga?” And she’d reply in surprise, “How did you know it was me?”

 

The place was full of great characters. The sad-eyed Cuban cleaning woman found out that I spoke Spanish, and she loved to stop by my desk and chat in her soft, susurrous accent. It tickled me to find out that in Cuban, the verb for having lunch was “lunchar.” In Costa Rica, it’s “almorzar.” Most of the social workers fit the profile that you’d expect from someone who has chosen this profession, but there was one guy there, a sharpie, who looked sort of like an Eastern European Rhett Butler. One time when I was distributing memos to the social worker staff, he came out of his office and hissed at me.  

 

I glanced up at him, in surprise.

 

“Pssst!” he hissed again. I walked toward him hesitantly and he beckoned me closer. I took a few more steps.

 

“I’ll bet you think I’m a social worker,” he told me, when I got close enough.

 

I glanced at the name plate on the door, which had his name on top, and beneath it, the title, “Social Worker.”

 

“Uh … well, yeah,” I said. Was this a trick question?

 

“I’m only a social worker by day,” he told me proudly. “By night, I am a loan shark!”

 

Jesus, what was he doing here, trolling for clients? I gazed at him with concern that I believe he interpreted as admiration.

 

“I loan somebody two hundred dollars, they pay me back four hundred dollars, even if they pay me back the next day. They don’t pay, I break their knee caps.”

 

Jesus God! “Really?” I said, as nonchalantly as I could.

 

He nodded vigorously. “You ever need anything, you let me know.”

 

“Um, thanks,” I said, smiling more widely than I thought physically possible as I backed away, mumbling something about having to get back to work, unclear as to whether he was offering his services as a loan shark or a repo man.

 

Helga was heartbroken to find out I didn’t live in New York, so that I couldn’t take the position I was temping for. They needed a new medical secretary, and the low wages that they paid (could afford to pay) meant that they rarely were able to keep anyone for long. But soon they had a promising candidate, so after I trained the new secretary, I left, promising Helga I would stay in touch. I had one more week’s worth of work to come up with in Manhattan before Richard and I flew back to the West Coast.

 

My contact at the temp agency first tried to give me a job at a real estate office. “No way,” I said stubbornly. At this point, I was starting to get picky. She offered a couple of other options, none of which sounded good to me. Finally, she said, “Okay, I’m not taking no for an answer. There’s a week’s position at Condé Nast. Show up in your nicest clothes and report for work Monday morning.”

 

 

A bit of a contrast, I would say, to the lower East Side Salvation Army Foster Parent Program.