My nephew is a freak.

When I was twenty-one, I met Amy's friend Georgia. Nice woman, life like an open book, extremely high Drama Quotient. We became friends, and she always taught her kids, Gavin and Conner, to call me Auntie.

She died this year. It was . . . not expected, but neither was it surprising. She was heavily overweight, diabetic, asthmatic, had a seizure condition, probably had polycistic ovarian syndrome, and might have had health conditions I don't even know about. They think she had an asthma attack and a seizure at the same time and her heart just gave out.

I'd like to mourn her, but I'm still too pissed. Because for years, we've been telling her she needed a will. Because she did have these health conditions, and two minor children, and no biological family except a father who was unwillingly legally severed from her. Ironically enough, I'm told she was at the computer, working on her will as she wore her Lady Death T-shirt, when she had the asthma attack that lead to her death.

No will. No bio family for those kids. Initially, they were with the stepfather (whom I'm not sure she was actually married to). I didn't know the man, but Georgia specialized in loser boyfriends, and my nephews agree he was just one more in the never-ending string of them. The court gave them a choice of the stepfather or their biological grandfather in Florida. They hate Florida, but they hated the stepfather worse.

Here's the thing. The grandfather never made the necessary court date for transfer of guardianship, so as near as I can figure out, they're still wards of the court in AZ. Except nobody has checked on them since they went to Florida. They're with the grandfather and they asked to be there, and if he was the legal guardian, I could understand it. But he's not, and Florida's child protective services is notorious for "losing" children. It should at least be a courtesy case. And no one's checked on them.

I've spent a couple weeks trying to find a way to talk to Arizona's child services, just to let them know there's a problem. The one person who's e-mailed me suggested calling the court of the county their in, and was sure to warn me that they wouldn't be able to give me any information since I'm not a relative. I don't need somebody to give me information, I'm trying to find somebody who'll listen to me. Do you know, it's almost impossible to talk to somebody in child services if you're not reporting an abuse case?

The younger boy, Connor, doesn't just have issues--he has whole subscriptions. He has some flavor of attention deficit disorder, and probably other psych problems that have never been detailed to me. He says he wears a coat year-round, because he used to be a cutter. He's been in some flavor of psych care three times--twice for violence and once for attempted suicide. And nobody's checking on him.

My heart goes out to the kid. He's also driving me completely batshit. He's twelve years old, living in a neighborhood with no kids his age, and school's out. And his grandparents have free minutes on their cell phones after 9PM, so he called everybody he knows. Including me. For long, rambling phone conversations, just because he's bored. I can take a certain amount of that, but three times a night is pushing it.

And when he talks to me I get to hear about him being at so-and-so's house and being drunk and high and getting the dog drunk. I get to hear that he prefers seventeen-year-olds because they're more experienced, and he doesn't do virgins.

And on the flip side, tonight he just called me up to say hi. I said hi back. He said, "Bye!" and then he hung up. I looked at the phone and said, "Freak."

He is a freak. And I can't do anything for him. Including, sometimes, just be on the phone and listen to him ramble for the second straight hour. I have a life, too.