I remember writing down what I thought was important during the phone call, but mostly I just stared at my mother who was standing in my dining room. I was so ashamed and horrified by everything taking place. I wanted Allison home, getting ready for bed after the evening’s choir concert like Tommy was doing. At the very least, I wished my mother wasn’t standing in the house, witnessing my family’s shame.
“So if you want to supply her with postage stamps,” the voice on the phone continued, “she can write to you after her first week.”
“Uhm, excuse me, what do you mean her first week? I was told she was only going to be there overnight.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I don’t have that information. I only do the intake portion. Your daughter will be seen in juvenile court tomorrow, and the judge will decide what happens after that.”
Court. Allison was going to be seen in juvenile court. I heard, I memorized, but I couldn’t comprehend.
“Do you have any questions of me, then, ma’am?” the voice on the phone asked, bringing me out of my fog.
“Questions? Tons . . .” I stumbled. “But no, really, I don’t. Thank you.”
How could I ask any of the questions rushing through my brain, when my mother was staring at me while I listened and took notes? What do you mean she can write to me after a week? Can I come visit her within that time? How long until I can bring her back home? What is it she has done, exactly, that allows you to take her from me and store her in your facility? What is she going to court for? Is that something I can show up for? What number can I call tomorrow, after my mom leaves, when I’m more able to talk freely?
“Would you like to go to the court proceeding tomorrow, ma’am?”
“Yes. Yes, of course I would.”
“Okay, then someone will call you in the morning with the time and everything.”
As I returned the phone to its cradle, I wanted to simply slump into the nearest chair and stare at the wall while I absorbed everything I had heard—but my mother wouldn’t let me. Like a lion sensing the weakest member of the herd, my mother pounced.
“Who was that? What was it all about?”
I mumbled something or other in the hopes of getting her to leave me alone, and then practically ran for the basement to hug Tommy.
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
“Nothing. You did a really nice job tonight, honey, but you just need to go to bed now,” I said in answer to his question about the unsolicited hug. “C’mon. Grandma needs to go to bed, but she won’t until you do. And I have a lot of stuff to do tomorrow morning.”
I really just wanted to go to bed and cry, but it would be a while before I could do either.
After Allison was released from the juvenile detention center, and was back home with me, she talked about her time in juvy almost like one describing a weekend camping trip or a week-long stay at a summer camp. She told me about the clothes she wore, the food she ate, the room she slept in—and the kids she met.
When we first got there [about 5:00 p.m.], the intakes got a bag lunch. I didn’t look in my bag, but the other girls had like an apple, some chips, if you could even call them chips, and a ham sandwich with little mayonnaise packets. Nothing to drink.
During intake, they make you go into a shower and take off all your clothes and jewelry. They go through all of your clothes, to make sure you don’t have anything, weapon wise.
Then they make you stand on the other side of a metal bar, against the door, naked. They would use a metal detector, and make you hold your hands up above the door; they would make you lift up one foot at a time.
After they used the metal detector, they would make you take a shower, and scrub up with the generic hand soap you find in schools—the kind that makes me itch and break out—so I didn’t use it. That’s your shampoo as well.
They give you a really small thing of deodorant, like travel size deodorant. They give you a comb, too, and a small, small towel, like a hand towel. You can shower once a day, at their designated time in the morning. Probably around 5:30 a.m.; we weren’t allowed to look at clocks.
The water was as cold as ice. They made you shower for about five minutes total, non stop. Then they would throw your state-issued clothes over the door, and make you wear other people’s underwear.
Orange socks, white underwear, two white shirts that you had to wear at all times, a bright orange, huge sweater, and dark-blue guys’ sweatpants that you can’t roll up, no matter how big they are. You were sometimes allowed to wear your own bra—I was. You were allowed two hair ties, but they can’t be on your wrists. You had to change into shorts for bed.
To be able to wear your own socks and underwear, you have to earn them back with good behavior and volunteering. So if you’re talking after lights out, you lose that privilege for another day or two.
After that, I think you would be able to wear your own shirt, and possibly pants and sweater, but it takes a couple of days, possibly more than a week, to earn your shoes back—and you have to do a lot of volunteering, and earn a lot of points. You always had to wear socks, though; my feet were freezing.
First, I was given XL pants. Ten minutes later, after telling them that they were way too big to even keep up, I was given a pair of L pants. They wouldn’t stay up either, so I rolled them up; I didn’t tell them, though. The crotch was still down to my knees, and the bottoms of the pants went over my feet—so I had to hold them up like a dress when I walked. (Reason I fell during basketball—and why the teacher thought I didn’t have socks on. No one could see my feet . . .)
My roommate had her own clothes; her own deodorant and shampoo. I don’t know about her own shoes . . .
She taught me how to make my own bed.
After that, they make you sit in the other room, and interview you about any and all information.
After that, you get issued your room . . .
When you go into your room, you get a cup, a little tiny cup, and you can drink from the sink—when given permission.
I felt like an animal locked in a cage. I didn’t understand why I had to be there; why I had to shower on command, why I had to have the lights out at 9:00 p.m., and get up at 5:00 in the morning.
Breakfast was at around 6:00 in the morning. Breakfast was a sausage patty and two tiny square waffles that weren’t even eggo brand [maybe two inches by two inches], and orange juice.
After breakfast but before school, we were allowed to brush our teeth. The toothpaste tasted like paste, with a tiny hint of mint. [Allison would later describe it as being the consistency of “the stuff they put between the concrete blocks, with a little bit of mint added in.”] The mint lasts a minute; the other flavor lasts hours.
We had “school” in juvy. We had to line up in the boy’s section, in a line.
The fifteen-year-old I met, and had classes together with . . .
We went to English first, and had to take a reading assessment quiz. After we took that, the teacher told us how well we read, and we had to go over to the mini bookshelves and pick out a book. I chose one about a girl who was in the Holocaust. She was a German, and somehow died and became a Jew. I don’t know.
Then we got the opportunity to write, but we had to turn everything in. I wrote about my many eating disorders, and why my self-consciousness is so high? If that makes sense. Why I’m so self-conscious.
Then we had to go to science. It wasn’t science. We watched a movie about antelopes having sex.
Then we went to math, and wa—
No, we went to social studies. Social studies was when we watched the stuff about the antelope. After we went to social studies, we went to science, and watched the movie Stargate.
Then I think we went to math. And math we watched, I don’t even know what we watched, it was stupid.
Then we went to gym, a
nd the girl and I were on one side of the gym and the guys were on the other. We had to constantly shoot baskets. We couldn’t stop for more than thirty seconds, or we would get yelled at. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to wear shoes, and so I fell when I was running after the basketball.
The teacher asked me why I fell. He asked if I was even wearing socks.
After that, we went to lunch. Nasty chilly and sandwiches without anything. Turkey sandwiches on bread, and gross chili with crackers. I didn’t eat.
After that, we went to what they call “elective,” which my class was going to learn about juvenile discipline judiciary stuff. I got called out to talk to my court appointed lawyer.
When I got back, I had to go to reading, which was just reading. You got to read the book you had chosen. I got called out, though, to go to court. [Court time of 1:30 p.m.]
During science or math, one of my male teachers called a pizza place and ordered pizza, bread sticks, and Diet Pepsi or whatever. Then, during lunch, it got brought to him. He sat there and was talking about how good the pizza was. After everyone was done eating, he mumbled something to a table, and one of the girls got up and grabbed half of a bread stick.
After a few more people did it, I learned he was having the people at the tables play rock-paper-scissors, and whoever won got half a breadstick. I didn’t want anything, so I just automatically let the girl at my table have it. We’re not allowed to talk across, table to table, either, and if two people were brought in together, from the same crime, you weren’t allowed to talk together at all, even in the lunch line. So, if you were brought in together, if one’s in the lunch line, the other has to sit at a table until the first one is sitting down.
Listening to Allison describe her time in the juvenile detention center was really, really hard. Part of the difficulty, though, was her matter-of-fact descriptions. It was almost as if being in there didn’t bother her at all.
On the other hand, was any of her tale true? Over the years, I’ve come to realize much of what Allison says, or sends in a text message, or posts to her social networking site is borrowed. She reads a lot of fiction about troubled teenagers, she watches a lot of reality TV, she copies a lot of sayings from websites on the Internet. Can I trust the details she describes, or did she borrow them from some book she read? The day she came home from the juvenile detention center, and told me the details I typed into the computer, I was still willing to believe—and trust—everything she said.
In my younger days, I told people I would do anything to protect my children. Listening to Allison’s description of juvy, I began to wonder if my mother-love could extend to doing something that might land me in jail.
3. Court
Tuesday morning. I herded my mother out of the house while yelling for Tommy to get into the car. Although my mother offered to take Tommy to school, and then return to stay with me at the house, I really just wanted to be alone. I was too ashamed to have an audience, too ashamed to have my mother see me not handling my own family as well as people give her credit for handling hers. I know it sounds awful, but I don’t give my mom full credit for the way I turned out. My fears should also get substantial credit for keeping me on the straight and narrow.
Finally, minutes after eleven, the phone rang.
“I’m just letting you know your daughter will be seen in court today at 1:00 p.m. Are you planning on being there?” the voice on the phone asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Okay. Her court appointed attorney isn’t able to be there today, but someone else from their office will be there with your daughter.”
Allison’s court-appointed attorney. I wondered what she needed an attorney for but didn’t ask. I had to gather my things and get to the courthouse.
I was back in the same courthouse Allison and I last entered in 2010, when she and I were both subpoenaed to testify against the father who helped her run away in 2009. Although the building only had four floors, all visitors were limited to riding in the elevator. Personnel who worked in the building were allowed to use locked staircases to travel from one floor to the next, but security concerns limited access within the building. I hate elevators but dutifully rode it to the second floor, and stepped out into the interior hallway.
There are two courtrooms on the second floor, one on either side of the elevator doors. Not knowing which Allison’s case was assigned to, I stood out in the hallway, then sat on a bench, checking my watch every minute or so. As it got closer to one o’clock, other people got off the elevator and drifted around in the hallway, but none of them were Allison. When everyone else in the hallway disappeared, though, and the hallway was empty again except for me, I got nervous. My watch said it was 1:15 p.m.
Just before I reached complete panic mode, the left courtroom door opened up, and a man stuck his head out. “Are you Allison’s mom?”
“Yes.”
“She’s going to be in here. I’m . . .”
I didn’t care who he was—I just wanted to see my daughter. But I was an adult, and I knew enough to honor the gesture of his outstretched arm. We shook hands, then he motioned for me to enter the courtroom through the next set of doors.
As I entered from the back doors, Allison was brought in through an interior side door. She was wearing ankle shackles over her winter boots. I nearly collapsed on the courtroom floor at the sight, but made it to the corner of the last bench and sat down.
Allison’s attorney motioned for her to sit on the bench to his right, then signaled for me to come closer, to join Allison as it were. I sat on the bench directly behind her.
It was March 1, 2011, and I was watching my seventeen-year-old daughter being arraigned on felony charges: Dissemination of Child Pornography. It didn’t make sense to me, because I only thought she emailed a topless picture of herself to someone, but she spent the past twenty-one hours in the juvenile detention center in town while I paced the floors at home, not eating, and not sleeping.
We all stood as the judge entered the room, and I immediately recognized him. He was the same judge who presided over the case I was called to jury duty for, the day after my first experience in court with Allison in 2010. Fortunately, I was dismissed from jury duty very quickly. I hoped he didn’t remember me, or why I was dismissed.
“So, what brings us here today?” the judge began.
The young, female county attorney stood up to present her case. “I haven’t had time to review everything yet,” she explained, “because the defendant has quite a history.” As she said this, she held up two file folders full of papers. “All I know at this time, your honor, is that the defendant confessed yesterday to sending nude pictures, via the Internet.”
I watched the county attorney continue grand-standing, making Allison out to be the worst criminal in the state, based on the five inches of paper held within the two file folders. Five inches of paper, all documenting the investigation—and subsequent court cases—resulting from Allison’s running away from home in 2009. I didn’t know this at the time, but Allison’s court-appointed public defender explained it all to me when she showed me her matching set of files during our first meeting a week later.
The grand-standing efforts of the county attorney worked, though. Since no one in the courtroom but Allison knew the entire truth of what she did, the judge granted the motion to postpone the case until all parties had a chance to review the evidence.
Before we were excused for the day, Allison’s public-defender-for-the-day requested house arrest while Allison waited for a later review of the case, rather than a return to the juvenile detention center. Considering Allison was still attending high school, he argued, and her grades were all solidly good, the public defender felt it would be in Allison’s best interest to go home. “Her mother is even here, your Honor,” the public defender said, motioning to me directly behind Allison.
“Is this true, ma’am?” the judge asked.
The public defender motioned for me to speak into the microphone attached to the table, but I didn’t want to bend awkwardly over the bench in front of me, nor take the time to trust my knees to carry me calmly and carefully around the bench to stand in front of the table. I spoke to lecture hall rooms of students every day without a microphone. I was confident in my voice’s ability to carry the ten feet to the judge’s bench in front of the nearly empty courtroom. “Yes,” I began, my voice shaking with adrenaline. “Allison is taking a couple college classes through the high school, and we in fact have parent-teacher conferences tonight.”
“Who else lives in the home with you?” the judge enquired.
“Just Allison, her younger brother, Tommy, and me.”
“And you’re okay with this arrangement the public defender is requesting?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, thank you. You may sit back down.”
I gently touched Allison’s left shoulder with my right hand on the way back down, and re-focused my attention on slowing the beat of my racing heart.
“I’m placing you on house arrest, Allison,” the judge began, “which means your mother is in charge. Do you understand me? You have to do everything your mother tells you, or else you are going to go back to juvy.
“You can go to school, but must go directly to school in the morning, and go directly home after school.
“You cannot leave the house,” the judge continued, “without your mother.
“You also cannot use the Internet without your mother, or a school teacher over twenty-one years of age next to you.
“You also can’t use a digital camera, an iPod, any cell phones other than to call 911, or any other electronic equipment that can transmit pictures.”
“But sir,” I wanted to say, “her iPod is such an old model it doesn’t have a camera, or transmitter capability. And, I disconnected her ability to send or receive pictures with her cell phone two years ago, when I discovered there was a fee for every second of data-use used. You can check with our cell phone provider, if you don’t believe me.” All the things I wanted to say, but no one gave me a chance.
Tarnished Dreams Page 3
