“Your Honor, Collin Daily is a pathological liar!" William Spohn, juvenile attorney for the city and county of San Francisco –  a bow tied,  mustached weasel - spun around in front of the judge's podium and twirled a gnarly finger at my face. Closer and I would have taken a bite.  Wouldn’t have mattered.  So, what if they added cannibalism to the rest of my charges. And now Spohn’s gnawing on the stem of his glasses.  Probably saw some T.V. lawyer do that. Thinks he’s cool.
  "Your Honor, Collin Daily knowingly defrauded the government of California and the welfare system. He forged documents. Doctored records. The Kid's in the eighth grade and he’s been driving a car. A stolen car—
    [ It wasn't stolen. I borrowed it. ]   
  “ — All over San Francisco for a year for god-sake. . . Jeopardizing the safety of every citizen. He’s barely thirteen— ”
    [I'm almost fourteen. ]
    “This damn kid is heading for —”
    The     WHACK of the gavel startled everyone.  "MR. SPOHN!” Judge Klien’s sneer rivaled the Wicked Witch of the West’s.  “This is a court of law. My court. A juvenile court. Look around. . . There are no members of the press.  No television cameras. Present your case and do not, I repeat, do not rant, rave, or posture in my court!"
    ‘Three cheers for Judge Judith Klien,  I thought, and gave my Daily family ring a twist for good luck.  She was a tough looking woman. Large.  She could have been a prison guard.  Men’s or woman’s prison. Except for her innocent blue eyes and alabaster skin. The woman needed to get out in the sun.  Two week on Waikiki minimum.  I wondered if  under her black robe beat a sympathetic heart. I needed a few folks on my team. I looked over my shoulder at my one advocate, Sister Mary Michael Marie for support. She was praying hard. Already on the third decade of the Rosary and her fingers were moving fast.
    Spohn rattled on about jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, the fire at St. Agnes and how I defrauded various charitable institutions, including St. Luke’s hospital. I knew he was saving the planned escape of an inmate from Ferguson psychiatric ward for my second hearing.  That and the cruelty to animal charge our friendly neighbor Mrs. Gummersault had added to the proceedings.  
    Cowed by Judge Klien, Spohn went on for ten minutes in a much lower voice.
    Finally, Judge Klien smacked her gavel. “I believe we've heard enough for now Mr. Spohn.”  Judge Klien turned to me. "Young, Mr. Daily, do you have anything to say in your behalf?"
    I wanted to plead the fifth, but I didn't want to come off as a wise ass. Besides almost
everything the weasel said about me was true. Of course, the circumstances were different than he described. But what chance did a thirteen-year-old kid have?
     I shook my head no.
     “If you have nothing to say, Mr. Daily, be it so ordered that you will be returned to Juvenile Hall. During the next eight weeks you will undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The results of that evaluation and CCAD findings will be presented at the time of your trial or placement hearing." Judge Klien gave her gavel a whack.  
     I knew the psychic exam was to see whether I was nuts or not. I had no idea what a CCAD evaluation was. I should have used some of my 'Juvie' jail time to find out.
   

II       

 

    Judge Klien told me to be there or there would be consequences. Apparently she didn’t trust me.  I had an escort.  Juvenile Police Officer Fred Virgilio – my fellow prisoners in ‘Juvie’ called him the mountain.  He was big.  But with his crop of unruly beard, hair and foot long pony tail ‘Big Foot’ was more fitting.  
    Officer Virgilio had things to do.  A life to life to live.  Baby-sitting a juvenile delinquent as not one of his priorities.  And he told me so ten zillion times on our way to the office of Dr. Edward Alan Foultz, Psychiatrist.

    Foultz didn't move. He didn’t look up or down when his secretary - Greta Stern - probably a former second-tier sumo wrestler, poked a spiked finger nail into my spine and shoved me into  his office. The office was a ‘gagger.’ Musty. Murky. A bat cave without Batman or Robin. An ideal breeding ground for new strains of fungi and virus.
    Dr. Edward Alan Foultz didn’t acknowledge my existence. Why should he? Foultz was paid by the hour. By the government. The more time he spent not acknowledging my existence the more money he got. The more time I spent with him the older I got, and hopefully wiser. I was the one under arrest for defrauding the government; not him.
    I stood there and leaned back staring at the ceiling - wide-eyed - like a roadkill gopher flattened beneath the fourteen wheels of a fully loaded Safeway produce truck. I waited for the vulture behind the desk to start circling.
    “See anything interesting, young man?”
    It talked. I looked at Foultz. His desk was a mess. Books everywhere. One tome.  A thick leather-bound book had a florescent yellow bookmark in the middle. Yeah, like he’d actually read up to that part and had to stop because of some psychiatric emergency or something. I wasn’t impressed. I was impressed with his wardrobe. Tweed sports coat with those leather elbow patches. Blue, buttoned-down shirt and a bow tie. Add his wire-rim glasses and Dr. Edward Alan Foultz look… well psycho-atric-ish.
    He stuck out his hand for a friendly handshake. Man to boy. Psychiatrist to patient.
Law abiding person felon. I stared back with indifference. I’d been bounced around by too many adults in the last few months. I never offered my hand. I pointed all eight fingers and two thumbs toward the floor. I’d wait awhile before I'd decide if Foultz was friend or foe. Foultz eyed me with suspicion and withdrew his hand. “Well, Collin, I can understand if you’re a bit hostile.”  
    He didn’t have a clue why I was hostile. With formal introductions rejected, hands unshaken, greetings ignored, I felt good. Hell, I was a kid. Foultz was a Yale educated adult.  A large certificate on his wall said so. I was just a punk sucking up his time. But contributing to his bank account.
    I crossed my eyes and tongued a string of drool out of the corner of my mouth. It’s difficult to drool while trying not to laugh. I went into heavy eye crossing and uncrossing. Foultz squirmed awkwardly on his black leather chair. He turned toward the window. I stifled a gasp. A single beam of sunlight poured through the heavy beige curtains and reflected off his bald spot. But it wasn’t where a bald spot should be. Foultz’s bald spot shone above his right ear. It was about the size of a miniature Frisbee. I thought of Cyrano de Bergerac and his underling warning Viscount Christian. 'Sir, whatever you do, do not mention his nose.'
    I don’t know if he polished the spot.  But sun light hit it and reflected back in my eyes like a mirror.  I started to shield my eyes.  I didn’t.  I wanted to ask him to face me head on, but I didn’t.
    He watched me suspiciously with his right eye. I kept staring at his bald spot. It seemed to be blinking a telepathic message. Sunlight on and off at his slightest move.  It was like trying to communicate with an alien being. A shinny blob surrounded by wisps of hair with an ear instead of a nose, where the nose should be.  Nature does dream up some unlikely combinations.
    Finally, Foultz swiveled around and faced me. A few frontal. Praise the Lord. Although I could no longer see the bald spot; I knew it was still there.  "Why don't you just take a seat, Collin," Dr. Foultz pointed to a high-back wicker chair with large arm rests. I was about to put my butt in the chair when I noticed it had a turquoise blue cushion embroidered with a Siamese cat. If the cat was a favorite pet, it was an odd place to put its image. And I didn’t want to put my butt in its face.  
    I like animals.  Even bugs.  Especially dogs, cats and horses — then I realized this could be a trap.  If I plopped down on the face of the Siamese Cat later at my trial, when Mrs.
Gummersault or Attorney Spohn charged me with cruelty to animals,  Dr. Foultz might testify I sat on his cat.  I was catching on.  I picked up the cushion and gently set in on his long gray couch.  
    At least Dr. Foultz didn't make me lie on damn thing.  I sat in the chair. An amoeba on a slide. He inspected me. I inspected him. His nose needed a trip to the local nose-hair plucker. His glasses needed a bag of rags and a gallon of Windex.

    I remembered the good days.  When my mom was more like a mom. She was cleaning her glasses. ‘Collin, if you ever must wear these darn things, never use Kleenex or tissues. They’re made of paper.  Paper is made from wood. Wood scratches glass.’ When mom used to be mom she had lots of neat facts.  My brother and I where eating Zim burgers and having a Coke.  Mom came into the kitchen and said, ‘Did you know Coke-a- Cola was originally green?’ Then she would walk out of the room.   

    What the heck, I thought and looked at Foultz.  “Did you know that Coke-a-Cola was originally green?”
  “What?”
  “Nothing.”
    Foultz placed the stems of his glasses on his ears. His left ear was larger. Longer.  I wondered why. "Tell me about yourself, young man." He tugged his left ear lobe. Bingo! Question answered. He turned.
    I coughed stalling for time. Where to begin? And how much of what happened after the accident, the separation and arrest did I really want to share with this guy?  

    "I was born here in San Francisco." I knew he knew that, but I had to start somewhere. "I'm sixteen and a half, blond hair, brown eyes, five foot ten and a half. Mature for my age, people say." I rubbed non-existent stubble on my chin.
    "I'm sure they do." Dr. Foultz leaned forward. So did his glasses. A stiff nose hair stopped the descent.
    I laughed. Foultz didn't. He tried to bend the stems over his lopsided ears. The stems wouldn't bend, and his ears held fast. I coughed away a laugh. He laid his glasses in the middle of the desk clutter. "Collin, you do understand that this is a most serious matter."
    I nodded seriously. Well, the most serious nod I could nod.
    “You’re thirteen —”
    [ Almost fourteen ]     
    “-- Maybe five-five. Five-six tops. You have red-curly hair—”
    [ You should see Police Officer  Fred Virgilio’s crop of curls]  

    Dr. Foultz tried to shuffle a few papers.  They didn’t shuffle. Looked down. Then back at me and quoted from the top of the page,  “Bright, but immature for his age and tends to exaggerate.”
    “A liar, I am,” I confessed with downcast eyes and an apologetic snort.
    He pulled a second paper out of his file, stared at it a long time before looking up. "Says here you where citied for jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge? This has to be an . . . Exaggeration . . . Isn’t it?"
    I shoved my voice low, mature, reasonable. "That was three years ago. Aren’t there statues of imitations?"
    “You mean, statutes.” He tugged his ear again. “Of limitations.”

    “What-ever.” I knew it was the statute of limitations. I wanted to see if he did.  My mom taught me to read before kindergarten. She loved books and words.  It was contagious.  For me, the longer the word, the better. My kindergarten teacher called me exuberant.  I told her I was placid and serene.  After that she always spoke Spanish when she was talking about me behind my back.  

    “Had you been arrested before that?” Foultz interrupted my thoughts.
    [I wasn’t arrested. I was detained.]
    Foultz squinted and ran a well-manicured finger along a few lines of text.  Says here there was a whole gang of you.”
    [Yeah, like we were Jesse James, or the Mafia]
    I shrugged.
    He gave me an incredulous look.  “This can’t be . . . This isn’t true . . . is it?”   
    He wanted the good stuff. With the sun at his back, it was like talking to a shadow.  He  wasn't there.  So, I told him.

    Quickly, I mentioned my best friends. Craig ‘Cheat Cheats’ Risso, Steve, and James Mills - I didn't give Foultz any last names. I don't mind ratting on myself, but you never rat out your friends.  
    “It’s what you said . . .an exaggeration.” I eyed Foultz. I knew there was an edge to my voice. The damn bridge thing kept coming up. Every time I told the truth they called me a liar.  It was annoying.   “I have a question.”
    Foultz decided this would be the perfect moment to straighten up his desk. He looked away and at the same time said,  “I’m listening.”
    “If three kids jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge. . .”
    [There were five of us. But I wanted to see if he was listening.]

    “. . .And landed smack into San Francisco Bay, don’t you think it would have made the headlines? Or been on the T.V. evening news?”  
    He said nothing.
I got a feeling Dr. Foultz was one of those people who took a few hundred years to digest a simple sentence.  Maybe it was a condition that came with a diploma in psychiatry.  All he said was, “Please continue.”  So, I did.
    “We were hiking to Sausalito and planned to take the ferry back to the city.  
    [Every true San Franciscan called the city the ‘City.’]  
    “We were all standing near the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.  It all started with Craig ‘Cheat Cheats’ Risso daring Steve Mills to climb over the railing onto the painters mobile platform.
  ‘How much?’
    ‘A quarter.’
     Steve started to lift a leg over the railing. Cheat Cheats grabbed his collar.  A double dog dare followed.
     “Fifty cents, but you have to climb down the stairs, jump into the netting and onto the ground.”  
     I looked at Foultz for a reaction. Talk about a poker face. Either that or he had no idea what I was talking about.  I continued with a more elaborate description of events.
     “At the north end of the bridge — the tower is built on land — the five of us decided to take a short-cut to Sausalito.  We climbed onto railing. Clasp hands for a special effect and leapt. Traffic in both directions  screeched to a halt as we disappeared over the edge. But it was a short leap. More of a big step. Or a hop. Maybe, two feet, to the maintenance platform.”
    “I’m confused,” Foultz adjusted his glasses.
     How did this guy ever graduate from Yale? I thought. But I tried to explain again.  This time more slowly.  
    “There are three sections to the Golden Gate Bridge. South, Middle and North. Beneath each section are motorized contraptions that the maintenance crews use to keep the bridge in good condition. They dangle there like metal jockstraps. A series of ladders connect five tiers. The walls are wire mesh. At the bottom, thick strands of rope are weaved together for a safety net.
    “And?” Foultz scribble away on a piece of paper.
    This man was not a Mensa candidate.  “IN CASE SOMEONE FALLS.”
    “Oh, I got that part,” Foultz gave me a thumbs up.
    Hallelujah.  We have blast off, I thought.
    “Three weeks in a row we jumped off the North section. The net there is only about three feet from solid ground. A quick flip out of the ropes and we went over the hill to spend the day on the beach at Kirby Cove.”
    Foultz wore a bewildered expression.
    “See! The cars are whizzing by in both directions. They can't see the platform. We'd hop on the rail. Hold hands for a second, then  leap on to the metal platform and scurry down the ladders. On the bottom tier, we'd back-flip into the safety net, monkey across the rope webbing and do a circus-somersault dismount to the ground.  
    “We’d hear screams from above. Laugh. Share a high-five then shriek like we were in pain and disappear into the Marin headlands.”
    Doctor Foultz stared at me in disbelief, then cleared his throat, “How did you get caught?"
    It was a good question. “I figured that someone must have figured out our Modest Operendus. Our M.O.”
  “You mean modus operandi,” Foultz said.
    I was impressed; Foultz had a rather good vocabulary. “What-ever.” I took a deep breath. “For several weeks we'd meet in Golden Gate Park,  hike across the bridge, climb up on the railing, leap, scurry down the steps, listen to the cries above, laugh, hop in the net and head for Kirby Cove.”
     Foultz tugged his ear. “How did you get arrested?”
    “We never got arrested,” I blurted. “We got yelled at.” I had to catch my breath. . . “It was the fourth week. We hiked, climbed, leapt, scurried, listened; but when we somersaulted onto the ground,  we somersaulted into a make-shift army.
    “There were two mounted police officers, an empty Highway Patrol Car, six retired members of the National Guard standing at parade rest, one guy revving the engine of a chopped down Harley, and a group of old pot-bellied geezers smoking cigarettes.
     “Someone yelled, ‘Halt!’ Someone else yelled, ‘You're under arrest.’ If you want to arrest a kid never say you're under arrest until you have the kid you want to arrest, arrest-able. You have to have a good grip on the kids shoulder or handcuffed. Something.
    “My brother Patrick and I flew through the ranks of geezers. 'Cheat Cheats' headed up the cliff, and Steve and James disappeared into the bushes. I heard it took the two mounted policemen and the six members of the National Guard to catch 'Cheat Cheats.'.
     “A week later in his room we were flippin’ through a new Superman comic book. ‘You should've been there, Collin,’ he told me, ‘They had me trapped. I was all alone, standing on a boulder on the edge of a cliff.’ Cheat Cheats spat into the palm of his hand and tried to push down his colic. ‘A hundred feet above the ocean, surrounded by the enemy. I told them they'd never take me alive, but. . .’ He looked at me knowingly. ‘Hadn't been to confession in a couple of weeks. And I had a couple of big mortals. . . An eternity in hell is a long time. . .  So, I let 'em take me. . . Alive.’”
    I gave my voice a little wester . . . Cowboy edge to the last part.  But Dr. Foultz didn’t react so,  “Steve and James got caught when they tried to help the guy on the motorcycle. They told me the whole story a week later, up in the treehouse we built in Sutro Forest.
  “Steve confided, ‘You should've seen that guy. He was buzzing up and down the mountain, singing and laughing. He wasn't even looking for us.’ He looked at his brother James for confirmation.

  “‘No way, he was looking for us,’ James confirmed. ‘He was sucking it up from a flask of booze he had in his back pocket.’
    “‘And we were hiding in the trees. Weren't we, James?’

 

III    

    James was always called James. Every year we'd get a new nun as a teacher. Every one of them would go down the class list until they came to James P. Mills.  Every one of them would ask innocently,  ‘What do you prefer, Jim or Jimmy?’
    ‘James,’ James would reply politely. James was very polite.
    Next thing you know she'd ask Jim or Jimmy to respond to a question, read aloud, or go to the blackboard. No matter how much we loved or hated our new teacher, she’d slip down a notch in everyone's ratings. No one expected her to learn everyone's name after only a couple of days, but we were all on a list, right there, in her hand, in alphabetical order. We all knew there wasn't one Jim or Jimmy on that list.
    First week of sixth grade, James sat one row away and two desks up. James didn't hear  Sister Mary Damien call him. He was doodling. He was a good doodler. Clipper ships, horses, and rockets. Life like. Not stick figures.
    ‘Jimmy, I am talking to you.’ Sister Damien strolled from behind her desk with a long, stiff, sharp pointer.      All eyeballs went to the ceiling. Oblivious, James wiggled his pencil across a page. Sister Damien's heels made a snare drum ta tap-ta tap as she marched up the aisle.
  'Jimmy, you are not listening to me.’
    There was a statue of the Blessed Virgin perched on a short piece of plywood above our classroom door. ‘Jump,’ I prayed. ‘We need a miracle. Jump Mary! Jump.’    
    ’Jimmy, are you listening to me?’  
    He kept scratching away on his pad.
    A tearing sound broke the silence of the classroom. Sister Damien ripped a page from James' drawing pad.
    She stared, then gasped, ‘This is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.’  
    Our entire class stirred. We all wanted to see the most disgusting thing Sister Damien had ever seen. She was old.  She must have seen a lot of disgusting things.
    She grabbed James by the ear and pulled him to the door. ‘Take this piece of smut and march yourself right down to the principal's office, Jimmy.’
  ‘My name’s James,’ James said as he sauntered out the door.

 

IV   

 

  “Collin," Dr. Foultz interrupted my thoughts. "Where did you go?

    It was of picture of Wonder Woman and Superman doing the dirty deed, but I didn't tell Foultz. I was in enough trouble with forgery, defrauding the government of California, arson, and car theft. I didn't want him to think I was a pervert too.

    Our time is limited. Could we please get back to your first arrest?"
    “I was not arrest . . . Forget it.”  I repeated the part about how we were all in treehouse and James was saying:  ‘Yeah, we were hiding in the trees by Dead Man's Trail.’
    ’Right by the creek,' Steve said.
    ‘Right by the creek,' James took over. ‘The guy on the motorcycle comes barreling down the trail goosing the gas. Then he misses the turn, flies off the Harley, does a half twist and dives head first into the middle of the creek – ’
    ‘We saved his sorry ass.’ Steven interrupted. 'Dude would have drowned.’
    ’He's driving around drunk, and we got busted,’ James finished.

    "If you don't mind." Foultz looked at his watch. "We only have six visits, Collin." He held up his hand. "Six to explain your side. What you did and why you did it. This is about you, your brother Patrick, and your mother. Time is of the essence." Foultz glanced at his watch. “I have another patient waiting. You only have eight more minutes. Do you understand?”
     I understood. Well, I understood most of it. So, I kicked it up a notch and skipped a few parts. “Patrick and I spent most of the day on the beach in Kirby Cove. We huddled in an abandoned army bunker for a while. Then we looked for Steve, James, and Craig. When the afternoon fog rolled in, we headed back across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was cold. The fog was thick. We were numb. Could barely see in front of us. We were almost to the toll gate on the San Francisco side when over the blare of Fog Horns, in our semi-frozen state, we heard a shrill, female cackle. ‘That's them!’
    ’That's who?’ A deep voice asked through the mist.
    ‘The kids that jumped off the bridge, that's who.  I’d know that skinny red head anywhere.’
    Out of the mist came an octopus of humanity. They grabbed us. I couldn't believe it. Some woman and a group of men had spent the entire day waiting for our return. Get a life. Didn’t they all have something better to do?”
     I looked to Foultz for a response. He shrugged. I continued.  
     “The shrew kept yelling, ‘We got them. We got them,’ like she’s just captured Bonnie and Clyde. We were paraded into a dark, windowless room somewhere in the bowels of the Golden Gate Bridge complex.
     The woman had straggly brown hair, a long lean horse face, and a stained white sweatshirt that said U.S.C. Within her maroon slacks, you could see the craters in her butt bobbing up and down. I almost laughed.
    The man behind the desk wasn’t laughing. He had a stern – prison warden -- look. He was pudgy with red cheeks, puffy eyes, and tendency to spread spittle when he spoke.
    ’You the boy's been jumping off MY bridge?’ He tapped the plastic desk sign that identified him as H.P. Stearson. The lettering was in cursive, painted in green.
    “Like, this short Santa Claus clone owned the Golden Gate Bridge. Stearson tapped his finger on the violet frame of his sunglasses. Six o'clock, on an extra foggy San Francisco evening, sunglasses were a must.”
    “Patrick had goose bumps running up his arms. I had goose bumps everywhere. U.S.C. had one humongous protrusion on her chin. Probably a wart.”
    ’Do you boys hear me?’ Stearson's basso voice cracked into a shriek.
    “We heard,” I said. Patrick slinked closer.   
    ’They're the ones. I saw them jump,’ U.S.C hissed.
    ’You two are in very serious. . . trouble.’ He removed his violet glasses, wiped the lens with a tissue from a box of Kleenex.  I hoped he scratched his. He pushed his green swivel chair against a bookcase and stood. Dramatically, he rose to his full lack-of- height and puffed his chest. Stearson wasn't an inch taller than me. Probably, an inch less.  
    ’I don't like kids playing on my bridge. Who, whom. . . do you think you are?’
    Stearson didn't want to make an error in English. I was going to help, but I didn't want to piss him off.
    ’Miss Gable?' Stearson turned to U.S.C. 'I'm afraid these kids have no idea of the trouble they’ve caused.’
    ’Call me, Margaret.' U.S.C. smiled.
    Now it was obvious why she'd spent the day waiting for us. U.S.C. had the hots for Stearson. Why? That was the question.
    ’I almost had a head on collision,' U.S.C. turned her attention to Patrick and me. ’I could have been killed!’ She rubbed her chin. It was a wart, and there was a hair growing out of the side. I wanted tweezers.
     Stearson was no dummy. He was aware of the glint in U.S.C.'s eyes. The stage was his. He lifted a stapler from his desk, leaned against the wall at a jaunty angle and began popping it in the palm of his hand. ‘Are - tap - you - tap - tap - little - tap – fuckers--’ he stopped talking and tapping and tilted his head to U.S.C. ‘Sorry, Miss Gable,’ he apologized. ‘Excuse my language.’
     Shivering and pale my brother Patrick turned to me and mouthed Mortal Sin. The 'F' word is a Mortal Sin. Mortal sins are important to Patrick.
     Some women didn’t mind cursing. U.S.C. was one of them.
    ‘That's quite all right, Mr. Stearson. And please call me Margaret. Or Maggie.’
    ‘Only if you call me, Hal,’ Stearson smiled.
     Patrick looked at me with dismay. We were smack in the middle of a soap opera. They made eyes at each other, faces flushed. If Patrick hadn't sneezed from a sudden chill, we would've been smack in the middle of the porno – ‘Maggie does the Golden Gate Bridge.’
    Stearson snapped back into focus. He filled out a report while the two of them spent a half hour yelling at us. Properly chastised, Stearson called our mother and told us to go outside and wait.  
    We headed for the door slowly. It was freezing outside. Behind us the gruesome twosome we’re already into an animated conversation.
    ‘You're our only eyewitness, Miss Gable -- I mean, Margaret. Oops, Maggie.  I'll need to get all the particulars.’
    'Why of course, Mr. -- Hal,' U.S.C. gave Stearson a titter followed by a good eyelash batting.
    I knew what particulars he was after. And I knew what particulars she'd give him. What drove me nuts was how unparticular they both were. It was really cold─”

    Foultz’s intercom buzzed breaking  my discourse.
    'Doctor Foultz, may I speak to you for a moment?' There was a sense of urgency in Greta Stern’s voice.
    “Will you excuse me?” Foultz asked.  

     Although he'd been tugging his ear and scratching away with a number two pencil through my entire dialogue, it was the first time Foultz had spoken in a long time. He hustled out of his office never waiting to be excused.  
     I pushed off the wicker chair, hustled to his desk and peered at his scribbling. It was more serious than I thought. On the top half of the page were a series of statements:

      delusions of grandeur

      misplaced aggression  - which was underlined several times.

      for an eighth grader, Colin seems to know quite a bit about adult seduction.

     overprotective mother???

    I hadn't said four words about my mother.  
    The bottom half of the page was covered with doodles. James was a much better doodler.

    "Collin, your time is up," Foultz called through the open office door.  
    Delusions of grandeur, misplaced aggression, I'd graduated. I knew I wouldn't be sitting in the chair next week. It would be couch time for sure. I kicked it on my way out.
    In the waiting room, Officer Virgillio waited. I held out my wrists. “Officer, please don't put those handcuffs on so tightly.”
    Greta Stern looked up from her desks. “Handcuffs?  No one warned us that he was violent and supposed to be handcuffed.”
    With my arms extended, Officer Virgillio escorted me toward the elevator.  “He’s a wise ass, ma’am. A real, wise ass.”