That day will come.

I imagine this to be the perfect lyric expression of my client's experience.



To this we've come,
That men withhold the world from men
No ship, no shore for him who drowns at sea,
No home nor grave for him who dies on land.
To this we've come,
That man be born a stranger upon god's Earth
That he be chosen without a chance for choice;
That he be hunted without the hope of refuge.
To this we've come. To this we've come.
And you, you too shall weep
If to men not to god we now must pray
Tell me secretary tell me, who are these men?
If to them not to god we now must pray
Tell me, secretary, tell me:
Who are these dark archangels?
Will they be conquered?
Will they be doomed?
Is there one, anyone behind those doors
To whom the heart can still be explained
Is there one anyone who still may care?
...
Oh, the day will come I know
When our heart's a flame
Will burn your paper chains
Warn the consul, secretary, warn him
That day neither ink nor seal
Shall cage our souls
That day will come.
That day will come.

[Patricia Neway performs Magda Sorel's aria "To This We've Come" from the Giancarlo Menotti's The Consul. It is a melodramatic reading but I can't find much fault in it. It ends around 7:50 but the poster has included more of the piece.]

Today I met with two of those clients who remind me that my purpose is little more than to answer the question: can this person find a place in society? It's about capitalism as much as it's about anything. The fellow this morning is caught between his inutility the cost of containing him. He's cognitively barely there and reads as likely having no impulse control, not things you can do a lot about at age twenty. He's fucked. His day will not come.

The one this afternoon is pretty likely to die in prison if the ADA is having a bad day. It never really comes down to risk of recidivism--I'd be a fool to make many pronouncements on people's future--but this guy looks too frail to do much now. He's here because, I don't even remember fully, some kind of squabble with someone else the ADA and the aggregate vulnerable public would doubtless recoil from. The fear is not what they'll do to each other, but whether their bullets will go astray. We punish them mostly to exorcise the fear, because unless you're going to throw almost everybody in jail, it's going to happen anyway. And I think you kind of have to leave 51% of us unincarcerated or things get tricky.

This squeak of anguish brought to you by my day. Perhaps I'll try and blog a little more here again.