Yesterday marked an anniversary I had not given thought to
in many years. Not to say I’ve not thought about it, I am after all writing a
memoir. But I’ve not marked it in my mind on the actual date, that on
11/05/1981 at the age of fifteen, I was taken to juvenile detention for a probation
violation that would span enough time to include my “sweet sixteen”.
My violation? I skipped two days of school and was failing,
which is no surprise considering I failed through Jr. High. My mother had pulled
a scene straight out of Forrest Gump by having an affair with the superintendent
of my school district; it was my mother’s infidelity that stamped me passable each
year even though I was failing each class, well except choir. Admittedly that did not go well after slamming
our choirs superstar Jill’s (Think Rachel from Glee) head in a locker, breaking
her nose. After that I wasn’t allowed to go to any classes and was put on “in
school suspension”. I really did prefer the at home kind, it afforded me all
sorts of freedom.
Why was on probation? Assault of course! But not for
breaking the nose of Barbara Streisand’s mini-me, no this one was for breaking the
nose of the girl dumb enough to fuck my boyfriend. Her name was Shelly, and to this day I rarely
meet a Shelly that I don’t want to punch in the cunt.
*thinks real quick…do I
have any Shelly’s on my friends list?*
On the evening of 11/4/1981 my probation officer called to inform me to be
out front of my high school in the morning with my toothbrush, I had violated my probation, I was going to jail, and that he was driving me to my arraignment and sentencing. That night is a blur of confrontations and tears but there was nothing for it. The next morning I stood frigid and angry in front of the
school alone with my toothbrush and crying at the unfairness of it
all. Really, this was a minor infraction of my probation, with my lovely mother
at the helm having called attention the violations to my PO. See, she had read that unfortunate (for me)
book called “Tough Love”, deciding it meant she was given permission to be a rabid
bitch to her child. She took her license to legally abuse seriously, doing to
me what she otherwise would have just fantasized about.
My probation officer was a young good looking blond spiteful
little man who enjoyed every minute of the long drive to kiddie jail. He
lectured me on all points of my being an awful teen who was headed for hell. I
shot off a few times that my violations were based upon what my mother had him
write into my probation document. He had allowed this in admiration of my mother’s
willing to exploit the control that that document bequeathed her, you know, all
in the name of "Tough Love". I was so fucking grateful to get away from him and
go into court, so much so that it did not enter my mind that I ought to be
worried. I was so lost in hostility, fantasying about telling my PO what I
really thought of him, that when the judge slammed a full 30 day sentence on me,
I started to silently sob. It was like being punished for having shitty parents.
And it didn’t stop there.
The day after I was processed and put into my green horizontal
stripped tee and itchy green polyester shorts, I was visited by my PO. My
stomach churned as I had thought myself free from his torment, but evidently he
was just getting started. In hindsight that only an adult can be afforded, there
was only one reason why he was there lecturing me further on what an awful piece
of shit I was and that I needed to clean up my act before I got into even deeper
trouble. But I know now he was there to provoke me, to punish me, or worst of
all, to dominate me, where I was imprisoned, had nowhere to go, or the right to
leave that small room with its glaring lights, two chairs, a table, a defiant
kid, and a sadist adult.
I have no memory of how long it took him to manipulate me
through a gambit of emotions ranging from crying to laughing as he prodded me along.
Oh how he latched onto this like a hungry dog, deciding this was a sign of an
unstable mind. What was to happen to me next seemed like torture at the
beginning, but in the end, totally worth it.
It was ordered that I would go through full psychological testing
to see just exactly how fucked up I was. At first I fought this pretty hard, but
then I started to realize that there was something interesting about the
testing, I started to wonder if I could figure out what they were looking for.
I really wanted to understand how drawing a house was supposed to give them any
insight to my inner workings. I found myself asking the nurses who administered
the tests what this and that meant. More than a few times I was answered. There
was a sense that this was all for nothing, that I clearly was not insane as my
PO flat out said I was, and so I learned a few things about psychology during
those few weeks of mind numbing tests.
My inquisitive mind and other intelligence testing led to an
unexpected result, one that made even my jaw drop as my probation officer had
to inform me, “turns out your gifted”. Now it’s not like I was told I was dumb,
really the opposite, there was always some school principle telling me I am way
too smart to act like such a shit. This was clearly not an era that you can say
“have you met my mother?” Finding out I was gifted was like being gifted a
secret that I had no idea about myself. One that I’ve never taken for granted
or allowed my ego to inflate with it. This was something none of them could
beat or berate out of me.
So the rest of days were less eventful and led to extreme
boredom till my birthday came along. As that date neared I became more
depressed and easy to cry. Little did I know a kind man who worked at the jail,
who always believed in me would go out of his way to make sure I was treated
like a princess, well a princess in jail wearing what we called an “alligator
suit”. He brought in with great fanfare
and to the screams and hollers of my fellow inmates, a huge sheet cake for them,
and for me, a Barbie cake. You know the kind where the skirt is the cake? I let
go of my cutesy tough girl veneer and began to cry quietly as I opened my lame
ass tax paid gifts given to me by my jailers.
I’ll never forget the generosity
of a man that would during future incarcerations, fight for me in ways NO
one else ever did.
But that's another story....
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