Jason Irwin: A Slice of the American Dream

After my parents’ divorce was made official and my mother was forced to return to the workforce, we suddenly were labeled low-income. Before this I had no knowledge of my parents’ financial situation. All I knew was that I was cared for, that I never lacked anything. Now that we were low income, we started receiving SSI (Supplemental Security Income), a federal program that gave monthly cash payments to the elderly and disabled to help them meet basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter. I can’t say I was ever thankful for all my birth defects, but looking back, I don’t know how my mother and I would’ve survived without them. 

To keep receiving SSI, however, we were made to go downtown to the Social Security Office periodically and suffer through an interview with Mr. Knowles, my appointed caseworker.

Before my mother and I even set foot in the Social Security Office she had to make sure our SSI renewal application was filled out correctly. This application required various boxes to be checked off and a series of questions to be answered. For instance, how many people lived in our house? Who, if anyone in the household, was employed? Did we own or rent? If there was a mortgage, who was responsible for paying it? Did we pay utility bills? Did we own a car? It also asked questions about my disability. Was the disability permanent, or short-term? If even one question was missed or answered incorrectly, if a copy of a pay stub or utility bill were not included, the whole process had to be started again. 

Years after my mother’s death I found an envelope with one such form from the Chautauqua County Department of Health and Social Services, dated December 28, 1983. It said an appointment had been made for my mother and me for a financial evaluation to determine whether we would receive “payments of services” under the Physically Handicapped Children’s Program. We were to report at 10a.m. on Tuesday, January 24, 1984.         

My mother was required to bring her income tax returns; eight weeks of paystubs (she was working part-time at U.S. News, and though I don’t know what she earned, I imagine it wasn’t much more than minimum wage, $3.35 an hour); bank account or savings statements (for which my mother wrote “none”); life insurance, stock, bond, or investment statements (all “none”); proof of health insurance; receipts for mortgage payments, house insurance, and house maintenance repairs (all paid by my father); as well as receipts for major medical expenses. On the back of this form my mother wrote that at the end of February I would be admitted to Children’s Hospital for treatment for possible peptic ulcers. Enclosed in the envelope was a final notice from National Fuel, dated April 23, 1983, for $680.61. There was also an agreement from Bart’s Services, from September of ’83, requiring my mother to make a deposit for repairs to our roof, which had been leaking for some time.

The Social Security Office was above West Drug, where we bought my ostomy supplies. A woman who wore wire rim glasses and a stern expression worked at the pharmacy. She never smiled or said hello. She had a son named John, who my mother said was “retarded” like Rocky at 7pm mass. Though he was probably only ten years my senior, I always thought of John as an old man. This might have been due to his quiff haircut and the tight suits and bow ties he wore. He had big blue eyes that blinked like caution lights, warning him and those around him of some impending danger, and wore a deep scowl, as if he’d just shit his pants. Sometimes I’d see him in other stores, or in restaurants. His mother always hurrying him along, tugging on his elbow as if he were still a child in a man’s body. On the rare occasions when our eyes met, I felt a spark of recognition, as if we were bound together by a mutual fate. What I feared most, though I loved my mother fiercely, was that I’d end up like him or Rocky, that I’d spend the rest of my life following my mother around and would never be able to live on my own. 

On the morning of one Social Security appointment, when I was ten or eleven, my mother and I woke early, just like I was going to school. Inside the office’s lobby, my mother and I sat on wobbly plastic chairs and waited along with other families who carried with them the same forms. The orange carpet that spread out beneath us was stained and frayed at the edges. It reminded me of the powder the janitor at Saint Elizabeth’s used to clean up puke in the cafeteria after eating too many tacos or pizza buns. 

Once our number was called, we made our way through the maze of desks and filing cabinets until we reached Mr. Knowles’ desk. Tucked in a corner at the far end of a long room, his desk was illuminated by a single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling by a string. It was like an interrogation room and Mr. Knowles, who sat behind stacks of papers, was like the clichéd interrogator of some Eastern Bloc country—menacing, and at the same time, incompetent. 

Mr. Knowles motioned for my mother and I to sit on the two metal chairs across from his desk. I soon became transfixed by the sight of his enlarged forehead and droopy hound dog eyes that looked out from behind his thick framed glasses, as well as his fingernails, which like my own, were bitten to the quick. Whenever he stretched, I could see puddles of sweat that had collected in his armpits, darkening his white shirt, the way piss darkened my pants whenever my ostomy bag leaked, and for a moment I felt sorry for him. 

My mother and I sat there like castaways, waiting to be rescued. My mother fidgeted in her seat, and I imagined she could go for a cigarette, or coffee, or some fresh air. I watched the clock that hung on the wall above Mr. Knowles’ head and picked my fingers until blood bloomed like a tiny flower at the corner of my left thumbnail, which I then pressed against the inside of my shirt until the blood staunched. Mr. Knowles sat groaning in his chair, rifling through our application. He did this over and over, rereading each page. Time gnawed and my mother stewed with impatience. In my mind I pictured her leaping from her chair like a panther and attacking him. Instead, she shifted in her seat and looking at me, rolled her eyes. 

My empathy for Mr. Knowles quickly turned to disgust as time wore on. Just the idea that he held our fate in his hands, that it was all up to him whether or not our application was approved or denied, and that he could take as long as he wanted and there was nothing we could do but wait, made me want to thrash him. Did he think us unworthy? Riffraff? 

In the stale silence as I watched the light reflect off Mr. Knowles’ head, he grunted at the same instant my mother’s stomach gurgled. Then, suddenly, with a violent jolt he set the papers down and heaved a deep sigh. 

“It appears that everything is in order,” he exclaimed, focusing his goofy half-smile in my mother’s direction.  “You’re good for another year.” 

With that my mother leapt from her seat, mumbled a thank you and hurrying toward the hallway, motioned for me to follow. In a week’s time we’d receive the confirmation letter along with our block of government cheese, our food stamps and our monthly check for $640. 

Naively, I thought that once my mother saved enough money, we wouldn’t have to keep coming here and sitting like beggars in front of Mr. Knowles’ desk, watching sweat pool in his armpits as he shuffled papers. I figured it was only a matter of time before we reached that promised land President Reagan spoke of with a twinkle in his eye—that shining city on a hill. But my mother never managed to save any money and we kept returning year after year, waiting, hoping, for our slice of the American Dream.

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Copyright 2024 Jason Irwin. An excerpt from a memoir in-progress These Fragments I Have Shored.

Jason Irwin’s collections of poetry include The History of Our Vagrancies published by Main Street Rag. He lives in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.