“Every hour of each day thousands of children are being exploited in Arkansas. Not only are children the poorest population group, they are the most physically and emotionally abused segment in society; they’re being provided an ever worsening education; they’re hooked into alcohol and drugs;
their inheritance, the environment and natural resources, are being wasted instead of conserved.” Amy’s voice returns to its natural pitch. “Her audiences eat it up. Children cut across class and race. It’s powerful stuff.”
I try to picture -Till Mary mount in front of the local Kiwanis Club and fail, but then I don’t have much imagination when it comes to politics. Jill is a tall brunette in her mid-thirties, striking rather than pretty, who reminds me of a high school English teacher. She scolds and shames juries more than persuades them, but I can’t argue with her record. Below a certain age, child-abuse cases are almost impossible to link to a specific perpetrator.
“I’ll take your word for it. She sounds like a nag to me.”
Amy, never modest in my presence, reaches inside her white blouse and painstakingly makes an adjustment.
“She’s got her statistics down cold, and she’s so intense, people hang on every word she says.”
I study my lap. Amy isn’t far from whipping off her bra so she can get at it better.
“What’s politics got to do with charging with manslaughter a psychologist who did his best to keep a child from battering herself to death?”
Finally giving up or satisfied (her expression holds no clue), Amy says, “Jill, I’m sure, in her own mind, honestly believes there is no connection. She sees the child who died as simply one more example of the way children are exploited in this country. It wasn’t the child who agreed to try electric skin shock it was her mother. What adult would voluntarily let herself be zapped with a cattle prod to stop self-destructive behavior? One of her arguments is that, for example, smoking kills thousands of adults each year, but they don’t go to psychologists for shock treatments to quit.