The Martian Child Gerrold.pdf

From the Sept. 94 issue of Magazine of Fantasy & Science

David Gerrold, CIS: 70307,544

THE MARTIAN CHILD

by David Gerrold

Toward the end of the meeting, the caseworker remarked, "Oh -- and one more thing.

Dennis thinks he's a Martian."

"I beg your pardon?" I wasn't certain I had heard her correctly. I had papers scattered

all over the meeting room table -- thick piles of stapled incident reports, manila-

foldered psychiatric evaluations, Xeroxed clinical diagnoses, scribbled caseworker

histories, typed abuse reports, bound trial transcripts, and my own crabbed notes as

well: Hyperactivity. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Emotional Abuse. Physical Abuse.

Conners Rating Scale. Apgars. I had no idea there was so much to know about

children. For a moment, I was actually looking for the folder labeled Martian.

"He thinks he's a Martian," Ms. Bright repeated. She was a small woman, very proper

and polite. "He told his group home parents that he's not like the other children -- he's

from Mars -- so he shouldn't be expected to act like an Earthling all the time."

"Well, that's okay," I said, a little too quickly. "Some of my best friends are Martians.

He'll fit right in. As long as he doesn't eat the tribbles or tease the feral Chtorran."

By the narrow expressions on their faces, I could tell that the caseworkers weren't

amused. For a moment, my heart sank. Maybe I'd said the wrong thing. Maybe I was

being too facile with my answers.

-- The hardest thing about adoption is that you have to ask someone to trust you with

a child.

That means that you have to be willing to let them scrutinize your entire life,

everything: your financial standing, your medical history, your home and belongings,

your upbringing, your personality, your motivations, your arrest record, your IQ, and

even your sex life. It means that every self-esteem issue you have ever had will come

bubbling right to the surface like last night's beans in this morning's bath tub.

Whatever you're most insecure about, that's what the whole adoption process will feel

like it's focused on. For me, it was that terrible familiar feeling of being second best --

of not being good enough to play with the big kids, or get the job, or win the award,

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or whatever was at stake. Even though the point of this interview was simply to see if

Dennis and I would be a good match, I felt as if I was being judged again. What if I

wasn't good enough this time?

I tried again. I began slowly. "Y'know, you all keep telling me all the bad news -- you

don't even know if this kid is capable of forming a deep attachment -- it feels as if

you're trying to talk me out of this match." I stopped myself before I said too much. I

was suddenly angry and I didn't know why. These people were only doing their job.

And then it hit me. That was it -- these people were only doing their job.

At that moment, I realized that there wasn't anyone in the room who had the kind of

commitment to Dennis that I did, and I hadn't even met him yet. To them, he was only

another case to handle. To me, he was ... the possibility of a family. It wasn't fair to

unload my frustration on these tired, overworked, underpaid women. They cared. It

just wasn't the same kind of caring. I swallowed my anger.

"Listen," I said, sitting forward, placing my hands calmly and deliberately on the

table. "After everything this poor little guy has been through, if he wants to think he's

a Martian -- I'm not going to argue with him. Actually, I think it's charming. It's

evidence of his resilience. It's probably the most rational explanation he can come up

with for his irrational situation. He probably feels alienated, abandoned, different,

alone. At least, this gives him a reason for it. It lets him put a story around his

situation so he can cope with it. Maybe it's the wrong explanation, but it's the only

one he's got. We'd be stupid to try to take it away from him."

And after I'd said that, I couldn't help but add another thought as well. "I know a lot of

people who hide out in fantasy because reality is too hard to cope with. Fantasy is my

business. The only different is that I write it down and make the rest of the world pay

for the privilege of sharing the delusion. Fantasy isn't about escape; it's a survival

mechanism. It's a way to deal with things that are so much bigger than you are. So I

think fantasy is special, something to be cherished and protected because it's a very

fragile thing and without it, we're so defenseless, we're paralyzed.

"I know what this boy is feeling because I've been there. Not the same circumstances,

thank God -- but I know this much, if he's surrounded by adults who can't understand

what he really needs, he'll never have that chance to connect that everyone keeps

talking about." For the first time I looked directly into their eyes as if they had to live

up to my standards. "Excuse me for being presumptuous -- but he's got to he with

someone who'll tell him that it's all right for him to be a Martian. Let him be a

Martian for as long as he needs."

"Yes. Thank you," the supervisor said abruptly. "I think that's everything we need to

cover. We'll be getting back to you shortly."

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My heart sank at her words. She hadn't acknowledged a word of what I'd said. I was

certain she'd dismissed it totally. I gathered up all my papers. We exchanged

pleasantries and handshakes, and I wore my company smile all the way to the

elevator. I didn't say a word, neither did my sister. We both waited until we were in

the car and headed back toward the Hollywood Freeway. She drove, guiding the big

car through traffic as effortlessly as only a Los Angeles real estate agent can manage.

"I blew it," I said. "Didn't I? I got too ... full of myself again."

"Honey, I think you were fine." She patted my hand.

"They're not going to make the match," I said. "It would be a single parent adoption.

They're not going to do it. First they choose married couples, Ward and June. Then

they choose single women, Murphy Brown. Then, only if there's no one else who'll

take the kid, will they consider a single man. I'm at the bottom of the list. I'll never get

this kid. I'll never get any kid. My own caseworker told me not to get my hopes up.

There are two other families interested. This was just a formality, this interview. I

know it. Just so they could prove they'd considered more than one match." I felt the

frustration building up inside my chest like a balloon full of hurt. "But this is the kid

for me, Alice, I know it. I don't know how I know it, but I do."

I'd first seen Dennis's picture three weeks earlier; a little square of colors that

suggested a smile in flight.

I'd gone to the National Conference of the Adoptive Families of America at the Los

Angeles Airport Hilton. There were six panels per hour, six hours a day, two days,

Saturday and Sunday. I picked the panels that I thought would be most useful to me in

finding and raising a child and ordered tapes -- over two dozen -- of the sessions I

couldn't attend in person. I'd had no idea there were so many different issues to be

dealt with in adoptions. I soaked it up like a sponge, listening eagerly to the advice of

adoptive parents, their grown children, clinical psychologists, advocates, social

workers, and adoption resource professionals.

But my real reason for attending was to find the child.

I'd already been approved. I'd spent more than a year filling out forms and submitting

to interviews. But approval doesn't mean you get a child. It only means that your

name is in the hat. Matching is done to meet the child's needs first. Fair enough -- but

terribly frustrating.

Eventually, I ended up in the conference's equivalent of a dealer's room. Rows of

tables and heart-tugging displays. Books of all kinds for sale. Organizations.

Agencies. Children in Eastern Europe. Children in Latin America. Asian children.

Children with special needs. Photo-listings, like real-estate albums. Turn the pages,

look at the eyes, the smiles, the needs. "Johnny was abandoned by his mother at age

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three. He is hyperactive, starts fires, and has been cruel to small animals. He will need

extensive therapy...." "Janie, age 9, is severely retarded. She was sexually abused by

her stepfather, she will need round-the-clock care...." "Michael suffers from severe

epilepsy...." "Linda needs..." "Danny needs..." "Michael needs..." So many needs. So

much hurt. It was overwhelming.

Why were so many of the children in the books "special needs" children? Retarded.

Hyperactive. Abused. Had they been abandoned because they weren't perfect. or were

these the leftovers after all the good children were selected? The part that disturbed

me the most was that I could understand the emotions involved. I wanted a child, not

a case. And some of the descriptions in the book did seem pretty intimidating. Were

these the only kind of children available?

Maybe it was selfish, but I found myself turning the pages looking for a child who

represented an easy answer. Did I really want another set of needs in my life -- a

single man who's old enough to be considered middle-aged and ought to be thinking

seriously about retirement plans?

This was the most important question of all. "Why do you want to adopt a child?"

And it was a question I couldn't answer. I couldn't find the words. It seemed that there

was something I couldn't write down.

The motivational questionnaire had been a brick wall that sat on my desk for a week.

It took me thirty pages of single-spaced printout just to get my thoughts organized. I

could tell great stories about what I thought a family should be, but I couldn't really

answer the question why I wanted a son. Not right away.

The three o'clock in the morning truth of it was a very nasty and selfish piece of

business.

I didn't want to die alone. I didn't want to be left unremembered.

All those books and TV scripts ... they were nothing. They used up trees. They were

exercises in excess. They made other people rich. They were useless to me. They

filled up shelves. They impressed the impressionable. But they didn't prove me a real

person. They didn't validate my life as one worth living. In fact, they were about as

valuable as the vice-presidency of the United States.

What I really wanted was to make a difference. I wanted someone to know that there

was a real person behind all those words. A dad.

I would lie awake, staring into the darkness, trying to imagine it, what it would be

like, how I would handle the various situations that might come up, how I would deal

with the day-to-day business of daddying. I gamed out scenarios and tried to figure

out how to handle difficult situations.

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In my mind, I was always kind and generous, compassionate and wise. My fantasy

child was innocent and joyous, full of love and wide-eyed wonder, and grateful to be

in my home. He was an invisible presence, living inside my soul, defying reality to

catch up. I wondered where he was now, and how and when I would finally meet him

-- and if the reality of parenting would be as wonderful as the dream.

-- But it was all fantasyland. The books were proof of that. These children had

histories, brutal, tragic, and heart-rending.

I wandered on to the next table. One of the social workers from the Los Angeles

County Department of Children's Services had a photo book with her. I introduced

myself, told her I'd been approved -- but not matched. Could I look through the book?

Yes, of course, she said. I turned the pages slowly, studying the innocent faces,

looking for one who could be my son. All the pictures were of black children, and the

county wasn't doing transracial adoptions anymore. Too controversial. The black

social workers had taken a stand against it -- I could see their point -- but how many

of these children would not find homes now?

Tucked away like an afterthought on the very last page was a photo of the only white

child in the book. My glance slid across the picture quickly, I was already starting to

close the album -- and then as the impact of what I'd seen hit me, I froze in mid-

action, almost slamming the book flat again.

The boy was riding a bicycle on a sunny tree-lined sidewalk; he was caught in the act

of shouting or laughing at whoever was holding the camera. His blond hair was wild

in the wind of his passage, his eyes shone like stars behind his glasses, his expression

was raucous and exuberant.

I couldn't take my eyes off the picture. A cold wave of certainty came rolling up my

spine like a blast of fire and ice. It was a feeling of recognition. This was him -- the

child who'd taken up permanent residence in my imagination! I could almost hear him

yelling, "Hi, Daddy!"

"Tell me about this child," I said, a little too quickly. The social worker was already

looking at me oddly. I could understand it. My voice sounded odd to me too. I tried to

explain. "Tell me. Do you ever get people looking at a picture and telling you that this

is the one?"

"All the time," she replied. Her face softened into an understanding smile.

His name was Dennis. He'd just turned eight. She'd just put his picture in the book

this morning. And yes, she'd have the boy's caseworker get in touch with my

caseworker. But ... she cautioned ... remember that there might be other families

interested too. And remember, the department matches from the child's side.

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