For Ashley and Kevin, Prayers Are Answered--for Now

Ashley Bryan used to pray every night for a loving father who wouldn’t down beers for breakfast or smoke speed late into the night. Before drifting off, she would ask God for something good to happen in her life.

For now, for today, her prayers seem to have been answered.

By all accounts, Calvin Holloman has begun placing the needs of his two children--Ashley, 11, and Kevin, 9--above his rocky romance with alcohol and drugs.

“I don’t get all bent out of shape due to my kids,” said Calvin, who has put on 30 pounds since last summer and wears a silver medallion with the embossed image of Jesus. “I’m really tight with Kevin now. Before, I thought he was the devil.... I’m paying more attention to my kids than ever before.”

Calvin is convinced that he can remain sober unless something seriously traumatic invades his life--such as the loss of his children, a prospect that continues to hang over his head.

In November, when his children’s tragic plight was featured in The Times, sheriff’s deputies and social workers showed up at his trailer home near Lake Isabella, where the family had settled after their Long Beach apartment was overrun by addicts.

Authorities questioned Calvin’s children, gave him a drug test and ordered that he undergo six months of substance-abuse and parenting classes. Child welfare officials are monitoring his compliance and progress. Last Thursday, after months of foot-dragging, he finally began drug treatment.

Although life is far from idyllic for Ashley and Kevin, it has improved in ways that most kids would consider routine.

Both now eat three meals a day and regularly attend school, unlike when Calvin was in the grip of his addiction. A gold-framed certificate that Ashley got for making honor roll is displayed on a living room shelf.

Kevin is enrolled in special education classes and is enthusiastic about school. But the angry boy continues to have behavioral problems, the residue of the neglect and psychological abuse he long endured.

“He needs to be channeled into positive activities,” said Jay Barrett, coordinator of special education programs for Kern County schools.

Once a month, a social worker visits both children at school to ask how things are going, if their dad is using drugs or drinking, and if they are eating regularly. For now, they respond, things are going fine.

“My life got better,” Ashley said last week as she worked on a book report.

The gangly sixth-grader said she has made lots of new friends. She said she is happy her father has begun drug treatment and parenting classes and, for the first time in years, is looking for a job.

“It’s good because he’ll get smarter,” she said.

Kevin said he also is glad to have a more attentive father. Rushing outside, he shows off a bike that Calvin gave him. “Happy Christmas, son,” he vividly remembers his dad saying.

Friends and neighbors in the small town of Onyx, where the family lives, say they have witnessed a change in Calvin’s attitude toward parenthood, although they say he has seemed slow to embrace the idea of drug treatment and employment.

Candy Reynolds, Calvin’s sister-in-law, who lives a few trailers down, used to worry about his mistreatment of Ashley and Kevin. Today, she said, he is less prone to outbursts, more caring, inspiring a greater sense of calm and security in the youngsters.

“They don’t worry about the next meal,” she said. “They have a place to lay their heads at night.”

There are, of course, many lingering effects from the turmoil Ashley and Kevin experienced as a result of their father’s drug and alcohol abuse.

Kevin still wets his bed--a way of ensuring his father’s attention, Calvin’s friends speculate. Calvin, for his part, thinks it’s a biological problem and is taking his son to a doctor to find out what’s wrong.

As for Ashley, she still recoils during her father’s frequent fights with his girlfriend, Rita Green. “After so many years of being mistreated, you think someone will hit you every time you speak up,” said Calvin’s sister-in-law.

Determined to retain custody of his children, Calvin said he has applied for a student loan to begin classes this semester at nearby Cerro Coso Community College, as has Rita. Last week, she began training for a job. Calvin is looking for work as a welder.

“I want a job now, someone to put me to work,” he said. “I want to feel like a person again.” He complained that welfare officials are not being aggressive enough in helping him find employment, a serious concern because welfare reform ultimately could strip him of his $534 monthly government check.

Calvin’s longtime friend Lyn Miranda believes he is serious about turning his life around, even though he has procrastinated on entering drug treatment. “He means well. He has a really big heart,” she said.

She added that he was jolted by his daughter’s quotes in The Times’ “Orphans of Addiction” series about praying for a new father. It was, she said, “a wake-up call for him.”

“Two years ago, Calvin’s children could have been in his face, and he wouldn’t have known it,” she said. “Now, he knows they are in the room.”