Where Are the Toys?©
I’ve been a caseworker for Child Protective Services, Iberia Parish Louisiana for twenty-six years. To say we are overworked and under-staffed is a giant understatement. As of today, I have thirty-eight children in family foster care out-of-home services. Recommended guidelines call for a maximum of fifteen. I have eighteen additional cases waiting for me to investigate allegations of abuse.
Weeding my way through those allegations, I pulled my old Chevy up to the address I’d been given on Pellerin Road, just south of Lake Fausse Pointe. A neighbor had called in saying she could often hear children screaming inside the house, but never saw any playing outside.
The accusation didn’t seem unreasonable to me. With TV and video games so prevalent now, many kids never step outside except to go to school. And what child doesn’t scream from time to time?
I stepped up to the old front porch, not knowing if it would hold my weight. An adult female was shouting from inside. A child cried, saying “No! No, Mama. I promise I won’t…” The voice trailed off just as the adult started yelling again. And then a loud thud echoed from inside. Oh dear God! Had she thrown the child into the wall?
I wasted no time in knocking on the loose-fitting aluminum storm door. More screaming from the adult. A baby was wailing from somewhere toward the back of the house. Without waiting for an answer, I pulled on that storm door. It was locked. I yanked hard. The cheap lock gave way. It flew open and smacked me in the face. I grabbed the knob on the paint-peeling wooden door—locked.
There was silence inside. “Open up!” I said. Then with no response, I repeated it.
“Go away!”
I waited. The child was whimpering. Another loud whack. I moved to the window to my right. It had been covered from the inside with aluminum foil. Again I yelled “Open up!” If I revealed that I was from CPS, there would be no hope of being allowed in that house. The child was still sniveling. Another child was pleading, “Mama, she didn’t…” Another loud whack! Then more crying.
On impulse, I walked around the house, hoping to find an open window or door. The view was appalling. The entire back yard was littered with everything imaginable, from broken furniture to rusty hubcaps. A grungy toilet tilted awkwardly in a depression in the ground, and discarded disposable diapers—probably strewn around by some dog—decorated the weed infested yard. The stench swarmed into my nostrils uninvited. Disgusting! No wonder that neighbor had never seen children playing back there.
Bloated trash bags covered any ground not already occupied by car batteries, old tires, twisted wire, doll clothes, a shovel with a broken handle.
I stepped over more discarded diapers. Some critter had pawed at one, leaving a mound of fiber suitable for a rat’s nest. To my right, a child’s stick horse perched awkwardly in a five-gallon paint can filled with sand. A new Tonka truck lay to one side. A jump rope snaked out in front of me. A bedraggled Barbie lay in the dirt. A shiny new tricycle was to my left. Toys! At least I’m seeing some toys.
A doll—a beheaded Little Peanut doll, similar to the one I gave my granddaughter last Christmas, had been thrown into a dug out area of the ground in front of me. The eyes were…
Oh dear Jesus! That is NOT a doll.