IN AN ARTICLE that appeared on this page three weeks ago, I wrote about preparing for jail for non-payment of child support. As it turned out, my court case was postponed until tomorrow when I'll again face the prospect of jail.
Meanwhile, I've been collecting stories from other men about their experiences with the child support system, and most of what I have heard is frightening. One of the worst cases is that of a fellow cab driver who doesn't want his real name to appear in the newspaper.
The driver, who's known by the nickname "Magoo," owes more than $15,000 in back child support that he will never be able to pay. "It's such a joke that I don't even try to pay anything at all," he says. "Why should I? Whatever money I can get hold of, it's never enough. I'm getting used to being in and out of jail."
Magoo, 55, once earned nearly $30,000 a year as a computer programmer in an SCM plant that is now closed. His current earnings are between $150 and $200 a week. If he is ill or can't work for any reason, he earns nothing. But no matter what, he is supposed to pay $100 in court-ordered child support every week.
Magoo lives in an $80-a-week furnished room, eats as cheaply as he can and buys second-hand clothes at thrift shops. But even this lifestyle costs at least $125 a week. There is no way Magoo can afford $100 a week in child support.
"They won't listen to you unless you have a lawyer," he says, "and I can't afford a lawyer."
The last time Magoo was arrested for failure to pay child support, he was in jail for a week until friends raised the $500 bail. While he was incarcerated, his child support debt mounted by another $100.
Every time Magoo is arrested he loses the deposit on whatever little room he is renting at the time and is forced to move. "I've lived in so many places I can't count them any more," he says. "I don't bother with no phone. It just gets cut off every time they take me away."
Magoo says he drives a cab because the cab company "is the only place that will take me back every time I get out of jail, and driving a cab is only thing I know how to do any more."
For the first few years after SCM laid him off, Magoo actively sought employment outside of the taxicab business, but no one hired him. "Every time I applied for a job," he says, "there were another 100 guys there with me, all laid off, all with good computer experience. Then some kid would get the job" at an entry-level salary.
It has now been so long since Magoo operated a computer that his skills are obsolete; he figures he's stuck driving his cab. But despite his frequent pleas, Magoo's child support obligation has never been lowered to a level that he can afford on his current income. And Magoo has given up trying to argue his case, either with child support enforcement agents or in court.
"You can't fight the child support people," Magoo says. "They're worse than the IRS. Don't even try. Learn to like jail. At least you don't have to work while you're there. Treat your time in jail as a paid vacation. This is the only realistic way to deal with the whole mess."
The worst part of incarceration, Magoo says, is the arrest itself. "They put you in chains, hand and foot, like a mass murderer, and parade you in front of everybody. It's humiliating. Then they tell you to get into a van, and if you're older, like I am, you can't hop up in it while they have your ankles chained together. Everyone laughs at you while you crawl into the van. Sometimes the guards push you down on the ground to make it worse."
And don't think about getting released on bail, Magoo warns. "They will [set] the bail at, like, $5,000. They know you don't have it. If you had money, you wouldn't be there in the first place, right? We aren't drug dealers who have money stashed and fancy lawyers to come get us. We can't even get public defenders. They're too busy putting armed robbers back on the street to bother with guys like us. That's why the courts pick on us so hard.
"[The courts are] frustrated with the robbers and drug dealers, who they can't put away because they all have slick lawyers, so they go after the weakest people they can find. That's why they're so hard on deadbeat dads. We're the only ones the prosecutors and judges can find who are too beat down and poor to fight back."
Robin Miller is a Baltimore cab driver.