Conquering Chaos

by Catelynn Lowell

  Basically, school wasn’t the battleground for me. Home was the battleground. At home it was all parties and drinking. My mom had a different boyfriend every few months, and people were always over at the house partying and playing music loud. All the time there were parties! I used to get out of bed at night and ask them to turn it down so I could get some sleep before I had to go to school. And there was tons of drinking. My mom was always drunk. The only time she was sober was in the two years after my little brother was born. When that time was up, she went right back to her old ways, passing out at the kitchen table with the kids running loose. I’d have to put pillows under her head and make sure she was okay, then take care of my brother and sister. It felt like I was on guard all the time. We moved around a lot, too, from house to house. It was just never stable at all.

  My mom and I didn’t fight a lot, though. We actually got along really well, at least right up until I got pregnant. But before that, we were good friends. It wasn’t the healthiest relationship, though. She never pushed any rules or restrictions on me, and I pretty much got to do whatever I wanted. And growing up in a trailer park without supervision, you know, eventually I did end up finding lots of stuff to do that I shouldn’t have been doing. Tyler’s a witness!

  Tyler:

  At home, my mom was begging me all the time: “Tyler, just keep your mouth shut, for God’s sake, and you wouldn’t get in trouble! It’s simple!” And I would have to say, “Mom, I’m sorry, I can’t.” I didn’t have those authority problems with her, though. In our house, we’d get into it, but then we’d work things out. She debated things with me. She listened. She let me have the conversation. It wasn’t like “I’m 30, you’re 10, and this is what it is.” It was, “Let’s talk about this. What happened? What are you feeling? Why are you acting that way?” She gave me the opportunity every time to explain what was going through my head. I still got in trouble plenty of times, but at least I had a chance to feel like it was fair and we both got to tell our sides of the story. That’s what I wanted. I just wanted someone to listen to me, and then I was ready to listen back.

  But the school wasn’t really up to my mom’s methods. Teachers weren’t so much about sitting down and communicating through every problem. So my mom used to get called every single day from the principal’s office to come get her kid. She’d say “Sorry, I’m 40 minutes away at work.” But when we both got home, she’d ask me what happened and I’d tell her.

  Sometimes I was wrong and sometimes I wasn’t, and sometimes my mom had to have it out with the principal, too. He used to ask her, “You really believe his side of the story?” And she said, “You know what? As his mother, I have no choice. I have to. If I don’t listen to my son, what kind of parent would I be? What’s gonna happen if something really bad happens and he doesn’t tell me because he doesn’t trust I’d listen?”

  Mom was right. There was weird stuff going on sometimes. There were times when teachers were really out of line. There was a time a teacher was getting in my face and saying “What are you gonna do about it?” I shoved him against a locker. There was a time in the eighth grade when a teacher swung his car around in a parking lot and said to me, “You lookin’ at my wife? Are you checkin’ out my wife?” What the hell is that about? So of course we got into it, and then I got suspended! And when I told my mom about that, she called up every single teacher from every class and sat down and said, “What the hell is going on? I have this teacher doing this and this teacher doing that, what is going on here?”

  Just because you’re a teacher doesn’t mean you’re a good person. It doesn’t even mean you should be teaching. And sometimes it’s those kids who act up who become the target for a teacher’s aggression and anger. Teachers are people too, honestly. I’m not trying to make them out to be monsters. They’re human and they get stressed out and sometimes they don’t act right. But a lot of times when they act wrong with the wrong kid, the kid ends up taking the blame. And all you see is the kid freaking out at the punishment, and you think the kid has a problem with authority. But in fact that kid might be fine with authority, as long as they get a little respect.

  Fighting Up a Storm

  Catelynn:

  Everything I said about being laid-back at school wasn’t really the case once school was out. Before and after school, I wasn’t always very nice. This doesn’t excuse it at all, but mean behavior was kind of business as usual where I grew up. There was always some kind of brawl going on in the trailer park. One neighbor would start some shit with another neighbor, and then the families and friends would get involved, and the next thing you knew it was Wrestlemania. And these were all-ages events! Kids learn early in those kinds of neighborhoods.

  Here’s an example. One day I’m hanging out at home in the trailer park with my mom and my aunt when we hear a bunch of commotion. My mom’s boyfriend at the time is fighting with some other guy in the neighborhood, and they’re kicking up a fuss out on the street. So we walk out to see what the hell’s going on. At the same time as my mom, my aunt and I are walking down the road towards the fight, this crazy older lady comes screaming in on a bicycle. She spots us and assumes we’re enemy soldiers. So she screeches up beside us, jumps off her bike, and wails me right in the face.

  Of course that sets it off. My mom jumps on the old lady and gets her off of me, and they start fighting. So then I jump back in to help my mom, and we’re wailing on this old lady together. Then the old lady’s son comes charging in, picks me up, lifts me off the ground, and throws me through the air. I remember landing on my elbow, getting up, and running over to jump right back in again. That happened about four times, this guy throwing me across the trailer park road.

  Trailer park beefs were a regular occasion. In fact, that one was a rematch. The first time my mom’s boyfriend had fought with that guy, the dude had whaled on him with a tire iron. So there would be these long feuds and revenge sagas between the trailer park families, and I would always get involved when my family was involved. My main goal was always to keep the peace, but when a fight started up, I wound up in the middle of it. If someone came at my mom, it was on.

  This stuff was constant. I remember once when my mom was having a party. My uncle was there, and my aunt, and a few other people. A car pulled up outside, and they all went outside for some reason. And a huge fight broke out in my front yard. Someone threw this handicapped man out of the car and left him laying on the road! When I saw that out the window, I walked out onto the battlefield to try and help this guy back into the car. I remember my uncle helping me get him back in.

  Those are just a few of the battles I remember. It was chaos all the time. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t thrive on it, but I was familiar with it. It was normal to me.

  Tyler:

  I got into it with teachers a couple of times. When I was in fifth grade, there was one teacher I drove totally over the edge. I punched a filing cabinet, and he stomped up behind me, grabbed my backpack, and threw me across the room. Then he screamed at the whole class to leave the room. I couldn’t show my fear, but to be honest, I was pretty freaked out. I’d never pushed a teacher that far before. But when he got the kids cleared out, he turned and faced me and he had tears coming down his cheeks. He said to me, “Tyler, I want you to know that what I just did was not right, and I am so sorry.” He told me he’d had his own problems with his temper, and he’d lost control.

  I was like, “Psh, yeah, whatever.” But while I was walking home, I started crying! I was so worked up with adrenaline and caught off guard, I sort of fell apart. Of course when I told my mom what had happened, she freaked out. She was about to call the school and get this guy fired. But I said, “Mom, no. He doesn’t deserve to be fired. I was pushing his buttons and he lost his cool. Don’t do anything.” That put her in an impossible position, pretty much. But I said, “Mom, if you get this teacher fired, I’ll never forgive you.” She finally agreed.

  On Monday when I went into that teacher’s cla
ss, he had probably had a hell of a weekend. I’m sure he thought it was all over for him, but apparently he did a lot of thinking between Friday and Monday about how to make things right with me personally. I think what he realized was that I needed some way to channel all that restless energy I was putting into being a dick. I was always trying to be the class clown, always interrupting, always acting crazy. So that Monday he pulled me aside and said, “All right, Tyler, from now on, the first ten minutes of class is gonna be Tyler time. Whatever it is you need to get out of your system, just go ahead and do it. Then we’ll have our class.” And after that, it was like magic. The kids loved it, and I loved it. Every morning I got to have my Jim Carrey stand-up time. I got my outlet, he got his class back, and I ended fifth grade on the honor roll. Ten minutes of Tyler-time a day was all it took.

  That experience hit me hard. This teacher who snapped and lost his temper ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. At the very least, it taught me that not every authority figure who scolded me was out to destroy my life.

  Fast Times at Junior High

  Catelynn:

  By the time I was in middle school, I had learned how to act tough in certain situations. Most of the time I was the most easygoing person in the world. But certain conflicts triggered something more angry and aggressive in me, and sometimes things got violent. Like the time I busted down a door to beat this one girl’s ass. No, I’m not proud of it.

  It was the summer after the sixth grade, and I’d just gotten broken up with by this kid named Nick. I didn’t know why he did it at first, but one day on the bus he told me it was because of my friend Katy. It turned out he’d dumped me out of the blue because of something she told him.

  When we all got off the bus, Katy was walking ahead of me toward the trailer park where we both lived. I ran after her and called her out. This girl was about six feet tall, and I was just a little thing, but I was livid! I was yelling at her, “We’re supposed to be friends! What are you doing talking behind my back?” And then right there, in the middle of the trailer park, I just went at her. I started whaling on her in the middle of the street with all our friends looking on. And when she started running toward her house, I took off right behind her. I whomped on her a few more times before she got inside and locked the door, and then I started kicking it down. I was just going crazy. But the neighbor next door started screaming she was going to call the cops, so I had to get out of there.

  I went straight home and started calling people up to tell them this “cool story” about how “I just whooped Katy’s ass,” thinking I was a rebel. I was bragging away, thinking it was all fun and games and drama, but then the next thing I knew, I looked out the window and saw a sheriff’s car pulling up. Talking tough to the sheriff didn’t help me at all, and I wound up having to go to juvenile court. I was put on probation for ninety days.

  Tyler:

  Seventh grade, the year we got together, was was when I started growing my hair out, going to Hot Topic, wearing the chains and goth stuff, listening to metal and all of that. Seventh grade was one of the worst years ever for getting into trouble. From seventh grade on, I never saw the last month of school. They used to rush me out early. I had so many suspensions and stuff racked up that as soon as the teachers could, they’d say, “Tyler, clean up your locker and get out of here.” I’d go grab all my papers and run down the hallways throwing my papers everywhere screaming, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”

  Catelynn:

  Tyler really was in trouble a lot in the seventh grade. I used to walk by the room where they had detention and always see him sitting in there. I’d poke my head in and go, “Tyler, what did you do?” And he’d say something about teachers, you know, whatever. Then I’d tell him what everyone else was always trying to tell him, which was “Tyler, keep your mouth shut!” It didn’t work, but I tried!

  Obviously I was getting in trouble, too. We both were in our own ways, but we didn’t really do it together. Right around the time we started dating, Tyler had just started to steal a lot. He stole a lot of lip gloss for me, and I didn’t exactly talk him out of it. It was kind of a Bonnie and Clyde situation.

  Tyler:

  The stealing became a real problem, almost like a compulsion. If I walked out of a store without stealing something, I’d get this anxious feeling, like, “Crap! Why didn’t I grab something?” And it wasn’t just lip gloss for Catelynn I was stealing, either.

  Taking It to the Limit

  Tyler:

  At thirteen I was in the prime stage of my gothic appearance and bad attitude. My dad had just gotten out of prison a couple of weeks before, the first time he had been out since I was eight years old. He had just moved in with this desperate woman who, for some odd reason, thought he had the potential to be a stable lifelong partner. I don’t know how she came to that conclusion, but my dad was always the best con artist. He could sell glasses to a blind man, and he was especially good at convincing people he was reliable and then using that to get what he needed.

  I decided to stay with my dad for a couple weeks that summer. He lived in Warren, Michigan, a real ghetto cookie cutter of a town desperately holding onto the hope it could be something nice one day. My cousin Brandon was staying not too far from where my dad was, and we had plans to hang out and get into trouble just like we had the first time my dad had gotten out of prison. Back then, at the age of eight, Brandon and I had gotten our first tastes of weed, cigarettes, and beer. Now I was thirteen, and we were all geared up for another round of delinquent fun. For a couple of days we went to work with my dad, helping him install fences for some spending money. Afterward we’d hang around smoking cigarettes and drinking forties.

  Then one night we got an extreme idea. The houses in Warren were so close together that most people parked on the street to save room in the driveway. Brandon and I decided these parked cars would be a great place to look for some spare change. It started like a fun game, crouching, ducking and whispering between the cars like spies. But then we slipped into a car and saw a set of keys in the center console.

  We sat there and looked at each other in silence, and then Brandon started the car and took off. We went slow at first, on edge and almost shaking with adrenaline. But then we got cocky and started peeling out, screeching the tires and letting every whip and turn around a corner carry us into a whirlwind of excitement. After we put the car back where we found it, we weren’t interested in looking for quarters and nickels anymore. We went hunting for keys.

  We ended up stealing about a dozen cars that night. We actually couldn’t believe how many people were naïve enough to leave their keys in the car in that kind of town! For the rest of the night we jumped concrete driveways, e-braked every turn, and skidded along curbs, blasting Tupac, Biggie, and Bone Thugs until sunrise. Finally Brandon dropped me off at my dad’s girlfriend’s house, where I sneaked in and slid onto the couch with adrenaline still flowing. That was a night I will never forget.

  In those days I had a friend who would slip into houses with me, too. It was an adrenaline addiction kind of thing, like playing Mission Impossible. There was one guy we knew of, for instance, who mowed his lawn every week like clockwork. And I timed how long it took him to take his lawnmower from one end of the house to the other. It took exactly two and a half-minutes to do this one strip. So I knew I had two and a half minutes to go through the bushes, run into his house, get to his wallet, pull out some cash, and run out. I did it all the time. I’d take twenty bucks a time, and he had no idea. Or at least, I never got caught.

  Another neighbor down the street was a target of mine, too. That was the craziest thing I ever did. This woman was typing on her computer in the office about fifteen feet from the kitchen. I sneaked in through the garage and went into the kitchen, where she had her wallet on the kitchen counter, and I grabbed it and ran. But I remember feeling so bad. I just wanted some cash, but I had this wallet with all her debit cards and her driver’s license an
d everything. So I did something even dumber: I went back to the scene of the crime that night, crept in the same way, sneaked into the kitchen, and slid the wallet back onto the counter.

  When I was younger doing all those things, I think I was sort of daring someone to catch me. Part of the whole rush was thinking I was going to get caught, but then I kept on doing it. It’s like I was asking for it. I don’t know. Maybe I wanted somebody to get me in line.

  Catelynn:

  Oh my gosh. We sound completely insane.

  Closing Thoughts

  You know, when we put all these stories in writing, we started to wonder if it was really such a good idea. We were worried we sounded like we were really crazy, messed up people. Like we said in the beginning, we get a lot of positive comments from people who have watched our lives and really feel like they know us. We didn’t want to change their opinions by telling them all the bad stuff we did before they “met” us.

  But then we realized that was the whole point of being honest. Of course we want people to think good things about us, and we want people to recognize our accomplishments. But we don’t want them to think we were born knowing how how to act right and make good choices. It was a process for us, one that started as soon as we realized we were going to be bringing another life into this world. By the time the cameras showed up, we were already trying as hard as we could to do right by the child we had on the way. But before that there were plenty of mistakes and bad choices and behavior that went on right up to the day we found out Catelynn was pregnant.