Fishbowl

By: David H
(© 2011 by the author)
Editor: Ken King

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

 Chapter 4 

Elias woke on a Wednesday morning and went about the routine that he’d set up for himself when he started working several weeks before.  What was different about this day, though, was that he was going to direct his first group session.  He was a bundle of nerves as he thought about the activity that he had planned for the six kids that would be joining him in just a couple of hours.  Even though he’d read all their files, he didn’t know what to expect from them, or, for that matter, from himself.  Were those kids going to be as bad ass as he had been?  Or were they going to be meek when it actually came time to speak?

Regardless of all that, though, his body was on autopilot, basically, as he showered and then dressed comfortably.  One of the things he remembered from being a student there was that the counselors never dressed professionally.  They always wore jeans and a nice polo, and since no one had told him otherwise, that’s what he was going to do.  All ready to go, he fed Max, left the apartment, and headed up I-65 for work.

When he got there, he found the roster for the Wednesday sessions in the cubby beside his office door, and as he grabbed them and took them inside, he realized that he didn’t have very much time to get everything together for the session.  He snatched up a couple of things, the lists, and headed from the Admin Building to the School Building, where his classroom was and where he’d be doing his group sessions.  Walking in, he sat his photo album on the desk at the front and started doling out paper and colored pencils for the activity of the day.  As he was making sure that everything was perfect, the first student walked in. 

He’d seen her around campus a couple of times, and now, like all the other times, she was wearing a frown and holding her head down.  She said nothing as she took a seat toward the back of the rectangular arrangement of wide tables.

The next arrival was a kid he’d noticed walking around the campus with a sort of pimp walk.  “’Sup, teach?” he called as he took a seat on the side opposite the door and sprawled out as he opened the box of colored pencils and dumped them onto the table.

“Not much,” Elias said.

Before long, the six kids that were scheduled for that session were all in place.  Elias took the roster and began calling names.  “Miranda…”

“Present,” one of the last to come in said as she sat wondering the purpose of the activity.

“Blake…” he asked.

“’Sup?” the first guy that walked in said again.

“Charlie…” he said as a guy sitting close to the door raised his hand to note his presence.

“Damien…”

“Here,” an effeminate kid sitting close to Miranda responded.

“Tommy…”

“What’s your name?” a guy sitting close to Blake asked as he sort-of acknowledged his presence.

“We’ll get to that in a second,” Elias smiled.  “Zoe…”

“Here,” the girl sitting toward the back responded.

“So we’re all here.  My name is Mr. Thompson,” Elias professionally introduced himself.  “It’s very nice to meet you all,” he said as he walked around the room, trying to make eye contact with each of them.  “Part of your therapy is to learn to express yourself through art.  Just like your private meetings with your counselors, or poetic therapy with Dr. Owens… or sports therapy with Ms. Ranaldi… there is no right or wrong.  There is just the attempt.  Like those other people,” he continued as he made his way around the small table back to the front, “my goal for you is that you learn to express yourself, for, as I learned a long time ago, developing yourself is the key to finding your own confidence.”  He looked around for understanding from the group as he took a seat at the head of the table, so that he was then on eye level with them.  “OK.  The first thing I want you to do is to look at me,” he said as he again checked for compliance.  “Now.  Since I don’t know any of you, I want you to close your eyes, and imagine that you are seeing a sheet of paper, blank, like the ones in front of you.  Once your page is completely blank, I want you then to picture yourself.  I’m not going to give you any more instructions; I want you to picture yourself, and, once you’ve got that image in your mind, I want you open your eyes, take the colored pencils, and start drawing.”

Blake quickly opened his eyes and started working, followed by Damien and then Miranda.  Tommy opened his eyes to arrange the pencils and then he closed them again to start drawing.  Charlie took a moment, but he eventually started as well.  Zoe was the one though, that took the longest to commence.  As he’d learned in his internship, observation was as important as what was being said or drawn.  Zoe looked almost as if she were stricken with fear at the thought of drawing the image in her head.

“Zoe?” Elias asked.  “Are you OK?”

“Yes,” she said shortly as she opened her eyes and began drawing. 

Much as he expected, Blake was the first to finish.  He quickly turned his paper upside down and wrapped his hands behind his head as he looked at the progress of the other students.  Within minutes, everyone but Zoe was finished.  From his point of view, Elias could see that she was using as many colors as she could, filling the page with everything that she’d imagined.  When she was done, she turned the paper upside down, as the other students had done.

“OK,” Elias said as he took the photo album out and opened it to the first page.  He peeled back the film that was holding the page in place and took what was one of the first drawings of Super E to show the group.  “Before I ask if there is anyone that wants to share, I would like to show y’all who I am.  I am ‘Super E,’” he said in an ominously deep voice.  “Super E can do anything; he can scale tall buildings with a single leap; he has super strength, and he can run faster than the fastest animal.  He, in short, can defeat anything that the forces of evil throw at him.”  He looked up to see that Dr. Owens had stepped into the open door and was watching as he conducted his first session.

“Is that the cartoon character from the library?” Blake said.

“It is, actually,” Elias answered honestly.  He wasn’t going to lie to these kids about his past; if anything, his truth might help set them free.

“Wow.  That is super cool!” Tommy asked.

“Fuck, yeah!” Blake added as Dr. Owens gave him an eye.  “Sorry, Dr. O.”

“You know you can’t cuss, Blake,” she reminded him as she continued to stand there.

“Is it OK that I’m standing in here?” she asked the kids rather than Elias.

“Yes, ma’am,” they answered within split seconds of the others, except for Zoe, that is.

“So, would anyone like to share their drawings?” Elias asked.

Blake, as he’d expected, was the first to stand, “Since Mr. T’s got a super hero, I’m gonna show you mine…” he said as he prepared to turn the picture for everyone to see, “Stick Man!”  On the page was a single stick figure, with a smile, drawn in black colored pencil.

“So, what is Stick Man’s super power? Or does he have one?”

“He can hide!” Blake joked, telling more with those three words than he could have with a million.

“Why does he hide?” Elias asked.

“Because he can…” Blake said as he sat down, again, telling more than he probably thought he had.

“OK…” Elias smiled.  “Good job!” he said, looking right at Blake before moving on.

Miranda’s photo was of a beautiful princess, draped in a blue gown with a shiny tiara atop her jet black hair.  Tommy drew himself as he was dressed that day, very casually, with jeans and a t-shirt.  Charlie, who told Elias that he was a man of few words anyway, drew himself as a quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, complete with the black jersey and a brown football in his hand.  He said that football was his favorite sport.  Damien drew himself as a girl, in the latest fashions with… as he specifically said… a Louis Vuitton bag hanging from his hand.

“Zoe?” Elias asked as she held her head down.

“No… I don’t want to share,” she told them.

Being that there were no more than 125 kids at the school at the same time, that there were no distinctions based on ‘grade,’ they were all, in effect, in the same class.  They knew when someone was ‘new’ or when someone had been there for a while.  With that being said, they all knew that Zoe was new, that she was one of the kids that hadn’t yet learned that there was nothing wrong with self-expression.

“Zoe?” Damien asked.  “Are you afraid that we might make fun of you?” The question was to the point, but very sweet at the same time.  Elias, who was there simply to guide them at that point, didn’t correct him for speaking out.  The purpose of his sessions, he felt, was to get them communicating with each other, to learn from each other, to build on each other’s strengths.

It took a second to answer, but she slowly nodded her head.  It was barely noticeable. 

Blake, looking in her direction, “Since you didn’t make fun of Stick Man, I won’t make fun of your drawing.”

“Me neither,” each of them said to her, encouraging her, helping to build her up as they had been built up at one point.

Slowly, she took the paper and looked at it before turning it around for the group to see.  She hid behind it, waiting for them to prove her belief that people weren’t very good.  Instead, as she didn’t see, their jaws dropped.  Zoe was a big girl, but she’d drawn herself, in great detail, as a model, walking down a runway.  Her right hand was on her hip while the other hung casually to the side.  Her hair was big and poofy, and the smile she’d drawn was genuine.  The runway on which she stood was black, and the curtain behind her was red.  She’d even taken the time to draw little lights along the runway shining up on her and only her.

“Wow,” Elias managed to mutter as the rest of the kids looked to him for reaction.

“I like her shoes!” Damien noted.

“Uh huh!” Miranda called.

“See,” Blake started, “I need you on my arm, sweetie!”

As she slowly pulled the paper down and looked at each of them, she saw smiles and looks of happiness on their faces.  For the first time in her memory, she also saw genuine feelings.  She hadn’t ever felt that from her parents, or any of her foster parents before coming there.  Her eyes began to swell somewhat as she felt the wall breaking down a little bit.  She’d learned to protect herself by keeping quiet, by not saying anything out loud, by not expressing herself, by bottling up her pain and anguish.  Voices in her head had told her that she was fat, that she was unlovable, that she was worthless, but, in that moment, the voices were silenced by her fellow students’ expressions of happiness for her.  As a single tear came down her cheek, Miranda found her way from her chair and walked over to hug her; Damien followed a moment later.

Elias looked at Dr. Owens, who was smiling as she stood in the doorway, gazing at him as he tried to hold himself together, and he began to realize again just what that place had done for him and why he had chosen counseling and art therapy as a profession.  Lifting herself from the doorway without uncrossing her arms, Dr. Owens simply turned and walked away quietly, a smile on her face for all the same reasons that he was smiling on his.

“OK,” Elias brought himself back to reality, “so the session is over for today, but I would like you to take your pictures and fold them, put them in your pockets, and keep them with you.  We’ll bring them back out later!  OK?”  He saw everyone complying as they started toward the door.  What he wasn’t expecting to see, though, was Blake as he stopped to wait on Zoe, offering his arm to escort her to wherever she needed to go.

After his other sessions ended, he returned to his office to get some work done before heading home for the evening.  As he typed out notes on the laptop at his desk, Peggy walked in like she owned the place.  An open door, after all, was an automatic invitation to enter.

“So, being that this is a relatively small place,” she said as he stopped and looked up at her, “I’ve heard you had a bit of a breakthrough in your very first session.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he invited her to take a chair that was in front of his desk. 

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Really good, and almost bad for having put you through as much hell as I did,” he smiled.

“Apology not necessary, but accepted,” she said as the pair shared a laugh.

A few minutes later, Dr. Owens joined them and they all talked about their day.  Whereas Elias’s first session had gone great, Dr. Owens was having to pull from her bag of tricks in hers to keep the kids from turning on each other.  Elias reminded her of something she’d done with him at one point, which was to do a stream of consciousness exercise, wherein every single word that popped into his head was then written onto a sheet of paper.  Once both sides of the page were filled, even in the margins and in spaces where words might not necessarily be, the pencil was to be broken and thrown away.  She hadn’t thought of that, but with a couple of her kids, that might just work.

After she thanked him for the reminder, the three of them took their leaves of each other.  Dr. Owens returned home to her partner; Peggy went home to her family; and Elias went home to Max. 

To be continued...

Posted: 09/30/11