Now Ben had been out in the streets. He stayed here and there with people he met. This life was getting harder, though, and he was probably testing the waters when he called his dad and said he’d like to meet. Jeff went to meet him at an In-N-Out Burger, relieved that maybe his son was through with this rough living and ready to come home. But as Jeff pulled into the parking lot, he noticed what looked like a skinhead in a wifebeater shirt, covered in tattoos.
Oh my God. It was Ben.
The sight made Jeff break down in tears on the spot. His handsome blond son was gone. There was no trace of that boy anymore. In his place was this tattooed street kid. It was a nightmare; Jeff couldn’t even speak.
This wasn’t the reunion he had hoped for, but he wouldn’t give up on Ben, and the problem was that Ben knew it.
Even when Ben claimed that he was ready to follow our rules, Jeff knew he couldn’t bring Ben home to us. Instead, his sister, Leah, picked him up and took him to Jeff’s parents’ house while we figured out our next move. After some talking, we agreed that Jeff would rent an apartment with Ben to try to work with him one-on-one. It was a small one-bedroom apartment, and across the street was a park with tennis courts. Despite all that was happening, Ben and Jeff still enjoyed playing tennis together, even though Ben didn’t look like a typical tennis player.
By this time, Ben had been kicked out of El Camino Real High School—the same high school his father had attended—because he got into a fight with one of Leah’s friends. The girl threw a milk carton at him, and he slapped her and got expelled. Jeff had to do some hard selling to get Ben enrolled in another school. He told one local school that Ben needed special-education classes, which is why they should accept him—and they briefly did, though it was soon apparent that he was not in need of special education, aside from special lessons in how to stay out of trouble.
For a few months, Jeff balanced a crazy schedule. He drove Ben to and from school every day, then brought him back to work with him. Most days, he put Ben to work running manufacturing equipment. Ben’s mother was now starting a new life with a man who had sons of his own. Ben felt totally unwanted. Worrying about Ben and trying to keep him in line was a full-time job, but Jeff’s life was split in two; he traveled back and forth to spend time with Nick and me.
Then a friend and his wife invited Jeff and me to Palm Springs for the weekend. It sounded like a welcome break from the chaos. Jeff and his friend were both avid tennis players, so it would be a couple of days of tennis, sun, and friendly conversation.
“I need to be able to trust you,” Jeff told sixteen-year-old Ben before leaving. “Just chill. Don’t have anyone over. I’ll be back in two days.”
Two days later, before Jeff could even walk into his apartment, the building manager came charging at him, screaming and flailing his arms.
“Your son!” he yelled. “You can’t stay here with him! You have to get out! Your son had a big drug party while you were away!”
The manager said there had been fistfights, destruction, and definitely drugs. And now Ben was gone.
He disappeared for about a week. Jeff came home and talked to Ben’s friends’ parents. Did anyone know where Ben was?
One parent, Rose, was a wonderfully caring woman. She was very open to “troubled kids” and had taken a liking to Ben. When he finally resurfaced, she and her husband offered to take him in. There were a lot of kids in and out of that house; it seemed like sort of a halfway house for kids in trouble. We weren’t sure if that was a good idea or a bad idea, but at that point, she had a roof and a heart, and that’s all that mattered.
Rose and Jeff got Ben back into continuation school—basically a neutral term for a school for kids who couldn’t get along anywhere else. No matter how many people tried to help him, though, nothing worked. After Ben had been at the new school for a month or so, Jeff got a call from the principal.
“Mr. Markowitz, you have to get down here!”
“What’s happening?”
“Your son has incited a gang war.”
The previous day, Ben had an argument with a black student. The boy told him that another student said Ben didn’t like black guys. It was a setup. The other student had said that just to cause a fight between the two of them. Ben walked into the classroom to find the boy who had set him up, and he knocked the boy out cold. That would have been bad enough, but now, Ben’s new gang members had arrived in their lowrider cars and confronted the black student. The day before, Ben had been initiated—or “jumped into”—a gang called the Black Hearts Pariah. He had met the gang members during the six months he had spent on the streets and with the tattoo parlor owner.
At the moment the principal called Jeff, there was a standoff outside the school, and it looked like there was going to be a fight.
“Get over here and talk to him!” the principal demanded.
Jeff drove down there in terrible fear, imagining what exactly he, a white-collar Jewish dad, was supposed to do in the middle of a gang war.
Luckily, by the time he got there, the police had arrived, and the crowd had dispersed without any bloodshed. But that was the end of Ben’s days in high school. He had run out of chances.
If you can’t make it in continuation school, you’re pretty much stamped as a lost cause.
Rose didn’t think so, though. She let Ben stay at her place despite all the trouble. Because he wasn’t going to school anymore, he and his buddies decided to take a trip. His friend showed up in an Acura Legend, and they planned to go to San Francisco. A marijuana run, most likely. They stopped in Chinatown, where Ben bought brass knuckles.
They stayed overnight; then, the following day, they took the Acura to a local beach with Rose’s teenage daughter. When they arrived at the beach, she noticed someone down the beach and exclaimed to the guys, “That’s the guy who was calling me six months ago and threatening to rape me!”
The guy was there with his friends.
Ben walked over to the young man, hands in his pockets.
“Do you know this girl?” he asked. His right hand already fitted with the brass knuckles, Ben swung and clipped the guy on the top of his head. His head split open.
What Ben didn’t know was that the guys had driven around the toll booth and lifted a chain to enter the beach parking lot without paying, so the person at the ticket booth had called police. At the same time that Ben was hitting the guy, police were walking toward the group and saw the fight. They took Ben to Lost Hills Police Station, and this time his mom went to pick him up. She got him a public defender and had him released on bail.
A few days later, Ben was driving around in the Acura Legend, the same car he had taken to San Francisco. He found out the hard way the car was stolen. Red lights flashed in his rearview mirror, and the chase was on. Ben pulled up to a warehouse and ran to the back to hide from police.
“Come out, or we’re sending the dogs in after you,” the police called into a bullhorn.
Ben surrendered.
Now he had two charges against him: grand theft auto and assault with a deadly weapon.
He might have seen himself as a crime-fighting hero that day on the beach, but it didn’t matter this time. Ben pled guilty to the charges against him. Sixteen years old, and he was off to a juvenile detention facility. Frankly, it was a relief for me.
Strange thing, that. I don’t think you’re supposed to feel happy when a family member gets sent off to jail, but by that point, it’s what I had been hoping for. It gave me a break from worrying about what Ben was going to do next, and how we were going to protect ourselves and everyone else around him. And it gave me the hope that maybe now he’d get it.
Maybe.
CHAPTER 4
PUSH AND PULL
The detention center was called Challenger Memorial Youth Center, and it housed several “camps” of kids who had committed different categories of crimes. These were no playful summer camps. Although the kids weren’t handcuffed, they had no privacy w
hatsoever in bathrooms and showers, they were monitored everywhere they went, and the concrete walls were surrounded with barbed wire.
Ten-year-old Nick was so sad that his brother was gone. December 6, 1994, he got his first letter from Ben.
Nick,
Hey, what’s going on with you lately? Not much here, except for kicking back in the day room of the camp I’m staying at. It’s called Challenger, but the dorm I’m staying in is called Smith. It’s all right in here except for the fact I’m the only white guy in here and we just sit around and talk.
Well anyway, I’m writing to tell you a few things. First of all if you think me going to camp is something I want to do, you’re wrong, cause if I could do what I wanted I would be home with you, your mom, and dad. Another thing, for the longest time I haven’t hung out with you like a big brother should with his little brother. I want you to know I’ve always wanted to, but for some reason (and believe me it’s always been a good one); your mom and our dad have always wanted to supervise me being with you. From now on, I want to hang out, and I want to be your big brother, not only on paper, but also in life too!
I love you,
Your big brother,
Ben
Ben’s letters came frequently—every few days, sometimes even more. He wrote to tell his dad that he was working on his fractions in math and that he was reading Treasure Island in his free time. He also told his dad that “some fool” had punched him, but he didn’t fight back because he didn’t want to earn himself any more time at the detention center. The staff applauded him for coming to them instead of “handling it” on his own, even when he knew he would now get labeled as a rat.
“P.S. Tell Susan and Nick I love them also,” he wrote.
On December 15, Ben wrote to Jeff.
Dad
Other than being away from my family and having to worry about being shanked, it’s all right. Anyway, what have you been up to? Same old thing here.
I saw a minister while I was in Sylmar, and we had talked for a while. I told him how you and my mom had been divorced since I was four, and all that junk. He told me that I was your treasure, and even though you had another son, I was your first, and that because you were wrapped up in your divorce, you didn’t take time away, and pull me aside to tell me I was your treasure. Is that true, or is it bullshit? He said a whole bunch of stuff, and it really made me think, but that’s good for me.
Anyway, I’m just writing you to tell you I’m OK, and I love you, so write back when you get a chance.
Love Ben
He wrote to each of us individually and collectively, and he didn’t hold it against us that we didn’t write back nearly as often. He said he understood.
Proudly, he mentioned that he was on the honor roll and that his teachers were encouraging him to take the GED, a high school equivalency exam that would enable him to get a high school diploma. Aside from studying and lifting weights, there wasn’t much else to do there. Sometimes he played dominoes, he said. And he was even reading a mushy romance novel that wasn’t half bad.
December 21, 1994
Nick
Hey how are you doing? I’m OK, except for the fact that I’m going to be missing Christmas this year. I don’t know—but it hurts when I think about it.
I moved camps on Monday, and now I’m at camp Scobee. It’s at the same facility, meaning Challenger. But it’s for people who are 707B’s. I don’t know if you know what I did, but I hit someone with brass knuckles. And that is an assault with a deadly weapon.
The supervisor of the camp that I’m at said if I do good, I could get out in two to three months from now. The thing is, is that I have to stay here for eight weeks, and if they see that my behavior is good, I go to an open camp. If they see my behavior is bad, then I go to a lock down camp. An open camp is more like kickback, and I will be able to leave at certain times. A lock down camp is a prison. Now if I do excellent while I’m here I could do the eight weeks and come home. But when I say excellent, I mean I have to be on good terms with all of the staff and I have to do excellent schoolwork.
You know I’ll try my best.
Now about you, if your mom and dad are coming down on you pretty hard, I hate to say it, but I am to blame. They see me, and how they treated me while I grew up and then they think they went wrong somewhere.
So don’t go haywire, and get all-rebellious while I’m away. Deal with it until I get home. And I promise when I do come home I will help you, and talk to them. If there’s anything you want me to tell them now, just write me, and let me know.
I love you
Ben
On the bottom of the page was a marking that said “OK to send out,” followed by a staff member’s initials.
Ben knew he had a problem keeping his temper under control, and in his letters, he talked about how he sometimes felt like he was about to explode on someone but that he was doing his best to keep his composure so he could come home sooner and get a “fresh start.”
From what we could tell, Ben was not just doing well there, but actually feeling some pride when the staff recognized his good behavior. He had a coveted “board leader” job, and said that the other guys were very jealous about it. He also took to informing the staff when guys needed to be kept in line, although that gave him “snitch” status and resulted in a fight.
The fight happened in the janitor’s room, where Ben had gone to get sponges to clean a bathroom. Even though someone else attacked him, Ben was sent to the “box” (solitary confinement) for forty-eight hours, and his board leader job was taken away.
One thing that got him through, however, was that his girlfriend stood by him. “She writes to me almost every day and every letter I get from her fills me with love and joy,” he wrote. It was nice to hear, even though we had very mixed feelings about the girlfriend—she was twenty years old and had a son. What was she doing with a boy who was just sixteen years old? We thought it was ridiculous, but it was hard to argue with something that filled him with “love and joy.”
He also wanted to set a good example for Nick. Jeff must have mentioned to Ben that Nick’s grades had slipped and Nick was gaining a bit of a “class clown” reputation, so Ben offered to talk to him—if we’d let him. He wrote Nick a letter.
I heard you have been having a little trouble at school. Well, I can only say this. If you’re going to be a class clown, you’re not going to ever get into any college, and if you have to be a class clown, you might as well be a screw-up all around.
If I were you, I would just do my work when I’m supposed to, but when I was your age, I wouldn’t listen to anyone. But look where I am now! I guess you’re going to do what you want, but think about tomorrow, not only today. Just think, I want to take you and your friends to Disneyland when I get out. But do you think Mom and Dad will let you go if your grades are bad? I don’t.
Well, enough about that. How is baseball? I heard Dad beamed you with a pitch. Don’t sweat it. I can’t even tell you how many times he’s hit me. The main thing is not to be afraid of the ball. Yeah, it hurts when it hits you, but it isn’t going to kill you. Who knows? Maybe you can be as good as me one day. I really doubt it, though. (Ha-ha.)
Write back and tell me how you are.
Be good,
Love, your Big Brother,
Ben
From Challenger, Ben was moved to Camp Miller, a low-security facility where he got to play on a traveling baseball team. When Ben’s release date neared, Jeff and Ben began preparing a plan for when he’d come home. He would work in the shop with Jeff from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and his curfew at night would be 10:00 p.m. Beyond that, Ben looked to me for guidance.
I really want it to work this time when I come home, so please work with me and I will do more than enough to make you happy with me. As of now, I am just waiting for you to write me back and let me know my boundaries at home, and what you can and can’t live with. I really want them in writing as soon as possible, so I can get them in
my head, and get used to the idea, and learn to live with them.
On February 25, 1995, Ben came home from Camp Miller. We gave him a “welcome home” card and got him enrolled in a baseball league again. A few weeks later, Nick wrote in our journal:Dear Mom,
We haven’t written in so long! I am really excited Ben came home. I want to do a lot of stuff with him.
For so long I have been so lonely with no one to look up to. Dad’s never home so I barely get to see him.
I hope Ben changes from what he used to do because sometimes he hung out with the wrong crowd.
Love Nick
Then Nick told me that he’d like to start keeping a journal with Ben, just like the one we kept with each other. I told him it was a great idea and that he’d never regret it. A few months later, though, Nick noticed that Ben hadn’t changed much. As far as we knew, he had avoided gangs and violence, but we suspected he and his girlfriend were both still using drugs.
“What’s her problem? Doesn’t she care about herself or Ben?” Nick asked me.
I didn’t have a good answer for him. Why do kids decide to screw up their lives? I have no idea, but some of them just seem determined to do so no matter how many chances they get to do the right thing. Ben was still an enigma to me. I wondered if he’d ever really get his act straight, if that angel on his shoulder would ever knock out the devil for good.
My Stolen Son Page 5
