Fortunately, a passerby found him on a nearby street corner, apparently headed home, and returned him to the school just as his teacher was realizing he'd disappeared.
“What were you thinking?” I said when I picked him up that day.
“School is too boring, Mommy,” he explained. “I didn't want to stay there anymore.”
I smothered an impulse to say, “Welcome to the real world, buddy! Everything in life feels that way sometimes, but you just gotta do your time.” After all, he was only five. I didn't want to break it to him yet that his best years were already behind him.
In fact, his feeling that school was kinda boring didn't change too much as the years wore on, although he knew better than to go AWOL in the middle of class. His favorite subject was recess; calls or notes home from the teacher were not unusual. He liked to fool around; he wouldn't concentrate. He claimed frequent stomachaches, sore throats, twisted ankles— anything that might get him a day off. Parent- teacher night was my most dreaded night of the year, every year.
I finally consulted our pediatrician, a wise man whom I privately regard as the medical equivalent of King Solomon. Although he doesn't have a beard, I think of him stroking his beard as he contemplates my questions, which over the years have ranged from “Are you sure he doesn't have leukemia?” to “Isn't he done growing yet?”
What's especially good about this doctor is that he could be counted on to give sage advice for things that really didn't have a lot to do with medical care, such as “How do I deal with a kid who pretends to be sick so he doesn't have to go to school?”
“It's simple,” the doctor said. “If he's not throwing up, if he doesn't have a fever, and if he doesn't have diarrhea, well, then, he has to go to school.”
I laid down the doctor's rule, and that was the end of the “My tummy hurts” game. If only everything about raising children were that simple!
Fortunately, when Taz first got to middle school, we saw a huge change in his attitude. The middle school had an emphasis on science and technology, and he loved experimenting with dry ice, counting bacteria, and learning how to make PowerPoint presentations. He'd never liked reading, and I still couldn't get him much interested in that, but at least he was enjoying a lot of his classes.
But it took a long time for it to register with me and Elon how much better Taz was doing in sixth grade than he had been in elementary school. We steeled ourselves for the first (and always dreaded) parent- teacher conference of middle school, but to our astonishment, one teacher after another came up to us and told us how wonderful our son was.
“Taz is an extraordinary boy,” his science teacher gushed. “He sets a wonderful example for the other students.”
Elon and I looked at each other incredulously.
“Are you sure you're talking about our son?” Elon asked. “Maybe you have him confused with some other kid named Taz?”
Just as she was about to remind us that there is no other kid named Taz, the real Taz happened to be passing through the hallway. He was on his way to help out at the table where kids were selling cookies and juice as a fund- raiser for the PTA.
“Hello Mrs. L!” he said cheerily to the teacher. “How are you today? Nice to see you!”
Mrs. L beamed. “See what I mean?” she said to us. “He's just wonderful. It's a lovely reflection on his parents.”
Taz's father and I were dumbfounded by this display. We were even more amazed to see his name on the list of top ten students in his grade that quarter. He immediately engaged in a contest with a couple of the other kids on the list to see who would be the highest achiever the next quarter.
This was completely contrary to everything he'd ever done in elementary school. Taz at the top of the class? Taz setting a good example for others? Taz adding up the points taken off his chemistry test to make sure the teacher calculated his grade properly? He'd undergone a total transformation.
The first half of middle school was also a good time for him socially. The boys he competed with academically were all sweet kids from nice families, and they spent a lot of time hanging out together. I got to know their parents; we kept in touch by phone and e- mail, saw each other at school functions, and occasionally compared notes. This was the gaggle of boys I mentioned earlier, who made our living room their second home sometimes, hanging out for dinner, video games, and sleepovers after school and on weekends.
The phone rang often during that period with parents looking for their sons, and if the missing boys weren't in my living room, chances were that Taz knew exactly where they were, who they were hanging out with, what movie they'd gone to see, or how to reach them by cell phone. “Your son is like the social director,” one of the other parents commented. Indeed, he seemed happily woven in to a secure, safe, and friendly world.
Then they turned thirteen and got to eighth grade. Suddenly, Taz and all his friends were the biggest kids in the school. Many of them were taller than their teachers. They were jazzed about being “seniors” and going on to high school the next year. I could see there was a lot less time being spent on homework and a lot more time being spent on MySpace, cell phones, and iPods.
Taz’ s first-quarter grades in eighth grade were OK, but for the first time in middle school, he hadn't made the top ten student list. What was more troubling was that he didn't seem to care, and some of his friends had also dropped out of the top ten competition.
This was when they stopped hanging out at our house. For the first time in three years, I was coming home to an empty apartment. Taz's daily calls to check in by cell phone after school tapered off, too. When I tried to reach him, all I got was the familiar “Yo, whaddup! It's Taz!” but he wasn't returning my messages. I called the parents who used to ask Taz where their kids were, but they had no idea where Taz was.
One school night, it got to be nine o'clock and I hadn't heard from him. I left Sport with a neighbor and went out looking on the avenue near our house where I sometimes saw kids hanging out. I peered into the pizzeria, the Starbucks, and the shadowy playground where groups of teenagers often congregated. The kids who noticed me looked away quickly, guiltily putting their cigarettes behind their backs and stopping their loud stories midsentence, not knowing whose mother I was and whether they might be held accountable for whomever I was seeking. But I didn't recognize any of them, and Taz wasn't among them.
I walked from one end of the avenue to the other, about a mile and a half round- trip, but didn't spot him anywhere. Then I walked up to the park where I sometimes, while walking the dog, saw teenagers gathering late at night to drink and smoke and do who knows what else. I had a whole speech prepared in my head about how dangerous it was for Taz to be in there this late, and how he should have called me, and how I didn't want him out on a school night, anyway. But I didn't get to make the speech. There was no teenage laughter coming from the park benches or the meadow where I'd seen kids in the past.
I sighed and headed home. I'm not the type to panic, but I wondered at what point was I supposed to call 911. I figured I'd try calling all his friends’ parents again, as embarrassing as that would be, because it would just be more proof that I had no control over my son. And I'd try his cell again, too, before letting my worries get too extreme.
And then I guessed that I'd have no choice but to call the cops. “Oh, your thirteen- year- old is missing at ten p.m. on a Tuesday night? Trust me, lady, that's not an emergency,” I could imagine the dispatcher laughing at me. But this had never happened before. To me, it was an emergency. In fact, the entire thirteenth year was starting to feel like one great big emergency.
I trudged up the steps to our building and opened the apartment door. There he was, grinning, standing with his dad and his brother, who'd been retrieved from the neighbor's house when Elon got home from work.
“Mom, where were you?” he said. “I tried to call you.”
Indeed, the answering machine was blinking. I pressed Play.
“Hi, Mom, I'm at
Trevor's house. Sorry I didn't call you before. I was hoping you could give me a ride, but I guess I'll take the bus. I'll be there around nine- thirty. See ya.”
I felt like crying, but I wasn't sure why. I gave him a hug. “You have homework?”
“No.”
I was sure he did. “Just go do it, quit fooling around,” I said wearily. “I've been out looking for you for an hour, I'm exhausted. You should have called me a lot earlier than you did, and you never should have been out so late on a school night. You have no idea how upset I was.”
He walked away. I told Elon how I'd been hunting for him up and down the avenue for an hour, how I went to the park in the dark imagining all kinds of terrible things had happened to him.
“You must have just missed his call,” Elon said sympathetically.
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to miss the calls from Taz's school. The one about the soda can was among many complaints about his behavior in eighth grade, and I wasn't the only parent getting those types of calls from teachers. All of a sudden, now that they were the oldest kids in the school, kids who had been just fine in sixth and seventh grades were talking back to teachers, throwing things at each other, getting into fights, skipping classes, flunking tests, and missing homework all over the place.
It seemed like a day didn't go by when I didn't hear about an eighth grader getting into trouble. It was as if a switch had been flipped. The eleven- and twelve- year-olds who had draped themselves on my sofa had been replaced by evil proto- teenagers who were too cool to hang out in a living room under the watchful eye of a grown-up.
Not all the calls at my desk about Taz's obnoxious behavior were from school, however. One day Elon called to let me know that he gave Sport's keys to Taz that morning as the boys were heading out because Taz couldn't find his own keys.
I assured Elon that Taz's keys were on the floor of his room underneath a pile of dirty clothes, where they always are. I pointed out that now that Taz had Sport's keys, Sport would not be able to get into the house with his babysitter if he got home before Taz.
Elon had not considered this, but now it was too late.
At 3:15 p.m. that day, the phone at my desk rang. When you are a parent and the phone at your desk rings at 3:15 p.m., it is almost never good news. Indeed, it was the babysitter, calling from her cell phone, to say that Sport's keys were not in his bag, and Taz wasn't home, so they couldn't get inside our house.
I told her I would call Taz on his cell phone and tell him to go home to let them in.
I located Taz, who was hanging out with his friends in another neighborhood. He flat- out refused to head home to let Sport and the sitter in, and, to my utter astonishment, he then hung up.
My blood was boiling. I called Elon and quietly but urgently informed him that he had to call Taz and yell at him, as Elon has an office where he can shut the door, while I work in an enormous open newsroom surrounded by hundreds of other people, most of whom do not have obnoxious thirteen- year- olds and who would not understand why I was screaming my head off about why it's not OK to hang out with other people when your brother needs his keys back.
Elon called back a few moments later to say that everything was under control. Taz was en route home to let Sport in the house.
Then Taz called from his cell phone. He'd gotten home, but the key wasn't working. They couldn't get in the house.
I sighed and said I would be home as soon as I could. I silently thanked the God of Work for remote access that would enable me to finish my work from home and headed out. When I finally arrived, they were all sitting in the hallway, Sport, Taz, and the sitter, looking glum.
I tried my key, but just as with Sport's key, it didn't work.
“I have something to tell you, Mommy,” Sport suddenly said in a small voice.
That is never a good sign, when they feel they have to announce whatever it is they want to say with a formal introduction. What it really means is “I'm about to tell you something that is going to make you want to kill me.”
I couldn't imagine what confession he felt the need to make at that particular moment. “What is it?” I said irritably.
He admitted that while he was waiting for Taz to come home with the key he found a bobby pin on the floor of the hallway and shoved it in the door lock, thinking he could jimmy it open like they do in the movies.
But the bobby pin broke off. He opened his fist to show me the seven- eighths of the pin he was still holding. The little rubber tip was gone. Gone inside the lock. And that's why nobody's keys were working.
I paid the babysitter and sent her home. A lotta good she did me today. I could have yelled at her, and said, “OK, you were doing what exactly while Sport was sticking a bobby pin in the lock?” but there would just be no point. She was a teenager, too, a little older than Taz, and just about as useless.
There's a locksmith three blocks from our house. I ran down and caught the guy before he closed for the night. He dispatched someone to meet me at home, and I raced back.
The locksmith arrived, fidgeted with his tools and the lock for a few minutes, and, with a long, pincer- type thingie, he extracted the missing piece of the bobby pin from deep inside the lock mechanism.
I tried my key. It worked just fine.
The locksmith then handed me a bill for $93.
I asked the locksmith if he would like to adopt a child named Sport.
He politely declined.
“How about the other one,” I said, pointing to Taz. “He's big enough that maybe you could put him to work. In fact, I'll pay you to take him.”
Taz got a pained look on his face. “What did I do? I didn't put the bobby pin in the lock!”
“No, but if you hadn't lost your keys and taken Sport's this morning, this wouldn't have happened,” I barked. “And furthermore, if you'd come right home when I first called you to let him in, instead of waiting until Dad yelled at you to do it, Sport might never have tried the bobby pin.”
“That is so unfair!” he said.
The locksmith cleared his throat. “Cash, credit, or personal check,” he said.
I sighed and got my checkbook, handed over the money, and started making dinner, a lovely rendition of frozen ravioli with sauce from a jar, with a healthy salad on the side that I assumed no one but me would touch. The entire time I made dinner, I was screaming my head off at my children.
At one point, Taz interrupted me to demand $25 of his bar mitzvah money to go buy a DVD.
The big bash had been a month earlier, and most of the money he'd received as gifts had gone into the bank. I'd told him at the time that he would get a little bit of it as play money, but first he'd have to write thank- you notes.
“You don't get any money until the thank- you notes are done,” I reminded him.
The DVD store closed at 7:30 p.m. It was then 6:10 p.m. He sat down with a pen and a stack of paper and wrote twenty thank- you notes in a half hour. He asked for the $25 again and promised to do the rest of the notes— another twenty or so— upon his return from the store. I demanded his cell phone as collateral. He agreed and handed it over.
The ravioli was done. I served dinner. I was still angry about the key, the lock, and the bill from the locksmith, so every three or four minutes or so, I would scream something at the top of my lungs like “You know, I work hard all day and I shouldn't have to come home to this nonsense!”
Sport, I felt, was responding appropriately, given his guilt. Basically, he wept quietly nonstop, and was looking suicidal. Unlike Taz, he apparently was still young enough that his conscience had not been obliterated by the hormones of puberty. He also refused to eat dinner.
Taz, on the other hand, ate a good portion of the ravioli, obviously untroubled by all that had transpired. Then he got up and headed to the DVD store, where he said he intended to buy a copy of Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
I walked down the hallway to his room. The sweater he'd been wearing the day before was on the floor. I picked it u
p. His keys were underneath.
At times like that, I wish I were the type of person who could just go to a bar and order shots, and drink a whole line of them, and forget all my troubles. Unfortunately, I am not that kind of person; I am simply a Terrible Mother, and an all- too sober one at that.
Taz's behavior, unsurprisingly, both at home and at school, did not improve over the next few months. At some point, it got so bad that a Grand Inquisition was scheduled at school. I was ordered to appear at a meeting with two of his teachers, the guidance counselor, and the principal— all women. We sat at an oblong table in a classroom while they read the litany of offenses he'd committed. Most of them were on the order of bringing the soda can to class— minor in the scheme of things, but forming a pattern of disrespect. Moreover, his fall from the top ten to habitual troublemaker had been dramatic. Some kids had been bad since the day they'd arrived. Taz had been one of the good ones— until lately.
One of the examiners leaned toward him. “We're here because we're all very concerned about you,” she said. “We don't understand what's going on.”
Taz refused to make eye contact. But like any animal under attack, he puffed himself up as big as he could. He lifted his chin up to the ceiling, stretched one leg out to the side, and began bouncing the other knee up and down. He was wearing a sweatshirt so big it practically hung down to his knees. He stared at the ceiling, and shook his head. His backpack was in his lap and he put his arms across it.
“Well?” his inquisitor asked.
He shrugged and mumbled something like “ion-hwanbehi,” which we all instantly understood to mean “I don't want to be here.”
“Is something going on? Are you having any problems? Because we're here to help,” another one of the ladies said.
Around the table, manicured nails tapped on coffee cups, lipsticked lips were pursed, pantyhosed legs were crossed, pocketbooks were zipped open and closed. Yes, we were all there to help, but it was clear to me that no self-respecting thirteen-year-old boy would take help from this group of middle- aged females.
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