My Stolen Son

by Susan Markowitz

  “We’ll see,” Nick said.

  I worried about Ben being home again, and whether or not I’d find another gun in the house, or a gang on my front lawn. Some days I wished he were still in the detention center, where I could care about him from a distance and know that my son was safe from his influence and the dangers that seemed to follow him.

  In October, I wrote to Nick:I am very proud of you . . . who you are . . . how you act.

  The past 11 years of your life, my life has never been so complete. You are why I am who I am. And why I act the way I act. Our mutual respect and communication will take us through another 11 years.

  Let’s see—you’ll be 22. That would be either 3 or 4 years into college. I’m sure 11 years seems like forever. But I can honestly tell you, you’ll be looking back at this comment and thinking, “1995! That was like yesterday! And here it is, 2006.”

  It would be nice if we could slow down life, especially during the fun times, but we can’t. That’s why it’s so important to be as good as you can be. Make each day your best . . . be honest . . . be respectful . . .

  Just as you are!

  I love you, Nick.

  P.S. Ben is wearing me down mentally . . . as you said, “We’ll see.”

  In 1997, my father moved in with us following colon surgery. It was a very uncomfortable experience at first, bathing my own father and dealing with his pain. Nick had a very hectic after-school schedule that included tae kwon do lessons, three-times-a-week Hebrew and Judaism classes, and three-times-a-week drama club rehearsals. I was so stretched to the limit that I became frazzled at the stupidest things. When my father told me he didn’t want the chocolate ice cream I bought for him, I actually cried.

  Then our on-again, off-again living arrangements with Ben turned off-again when he came home with a pair of pit bull puppies.

  “You can’t have those dogs here,” Jeff said.

  “They’re my dogs!” Ben said. “If I can’t have them here, then I’m leaving.”

  And he did. Ben never stayed put very long at that time. He lived with a girlfriend, then with a couple of friends, then with Leah and her boyfriend, with occasional stops at our house, too, from time to time. Jeff made it clear to Ben that he was welcome at our house anytime, so long as he agreed to follow the rules. If he couldn’t follow the rules, we were through putting up with it.

  What made it worse was that Nick, now nearly thirteen, was going through what felt like a rough patch, too, where he was very concerned about fitting in. It was hard for me to understand—he was handsome, girls had crushes on him, and he was well-spoken and funny. Yet he felt like he didn’t know where he belonged socially. On one hand, he really loved the friends in his drama group. On the other, were drama kids cool enough?

  He began wearing safety pins on his clothes in a punk style to match with a tougher group of kids. I took the safety pins away, which upset him. Nick liked this new group of friends, and he didn’t like that his mom was standing in his way of “expressing himself.” I told him that I didn’t like that he was being influenced, rather than being a leader.

  He also wanted us to quit calling him Nicholas.

  “My name is Nick,” he would say. That only incited Leah, who loved to tease him.

  “OK, Nicole,” she’d say, which drove him up a wall. There were enough years between them that she didn’t see Nick as a pain-in-the-butt little brother; she and her friends enjoyed teasing him and hanging out with him. Even they noticed a difference in him around this time, though. You could just see the turmoil spinning around inside him.

  Nick’s friends described him as a good listener and well liked. One of the positive traits he shared with Ben was that he also thought it was important to stand up for underdogs and not let other kids get bullied. By no means was Nick a tough guy, but he was big enough to be imposing, and smart enough to intimidate even many of his teachers. He took advantage of that point sometimes when he was reprimanded in school. It was hard for teachers to argue with him when he could verbally outsmart them.

  That was partly due to his love for reading, which never let up. He treasured his books, and learning, though not necessarily the subjects that were taught in school. He wanted to learn about the things he felt like learning about, on his own schedule. So he would read history and science books for fun and still get only mediocre grades in his classes because he didn’t do the required homework—strange for a boy who had been placed in a gifted program in elementary school.

  I didn’t want to be one of those moms who lost her handle on her child because she wasn’t paying attention, so I boosted my already-impressive roster of spying techniques. I regularly went through Nick’s pockets and drawers and read his notes. Do you have any idea how hard it was to refold a letter into one of those crazy origami configurations kids used? Before long, I had to master stars and triangles just so that Nick wouldn’t realize that I’d read his love letters . . . which were very, very sweet. He made his mom proud. My romantic son!

  Of course, my overprotective instincts did not go unnoticed. It bothered Nick that I didn’t want him walking down the street to McDonald’s alone or that I wouldn’t let him go to a friend’s house if I didn’t know that friend’s parents—or their phone number. It bothered him that I was so “in his business.” But, I told myself, one day he would be glad that he had a mother who cared enough to keep him on track.

  In the midst of this struggle, he was making great strides in his drama club. Watching him perform, I thought, “Now, I may be biased because I’m his mom, but this kid is good!”

  Turned out my mom-bias was shared by lots of others. That month, he competed in his first drama festival. His group performed Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and took second place out of twenty-three schools. Nick competed in the “B Division”—a level usually reserved for older students. Friends said they had never even heard of a seventh-grader like Nick in the B Division.

  His drama teacher was so impressed with him that she called us at 10 p.m. one night to ask if Nick could audition for a Disney commercial. That was exciting for all of us. I told Nick that I would gladly be his chauffeur if he wanted to become an actor.

  That summer, we also began preparing in earnest for Nick’s bar mitzvah. The bar mitzvah is a ceremony marking the age of maturity (usually thirteen), when a person is expected to be ready to accept Jewish responsibilities and participate as an adult in the synagogue. Every single day of August was filled with planning. The celebration after the ceremony had to be at a big, beautiful hall (we planned to invite a lot of guests, after all). We needed to arrange dresses and suits, balloons, limos, flowers, challah, prayer books, yarmulkes, funny table decorations with a fast-food theme . . .

  At the ceremony, Nick spoke about how meaningful his bar mitzvah was to him, which I knew was true because he’d been talking to me about how important it felt to him. His father had not had a bar mitzvah ceremony, so Nick felt that made it doubly important—he wanted to honor his dad. During the ceremony, he called his dad to the Torah to recite a blessing, to make up for the one he’d never gotten to say when he was thirteen.

  Nick surprised even himself when he decided to continue his Jewish education by enrolling in the Los Angeles Hebrew High School program.

  The party afterward was a great celebration. Nick wrote beautiful little speeches to honor his guests, inviting each of them up with him to light candles. I embarrassed Nick by hugging and kissing him in front of his friends.

  There was a DJ and dancing and drinking . . . for Ben, a little too much drinking. Jeff hadn’t been paying attention, but I’d been watching how many drinks Ben had. At the end of the night, I overheard Ben asking his dad if he could drive Nick and his girlfriend home, and Jeff said, “OK.”

  “No,” I interrupted. “You’ve been drinking, and we’re responsible for these kids.” I knew he wanted to share a few minutes alone with his brother on this special day, but I obviously couldn’t allow him to drive them home. B
en looked to Jeff to override me, but Jeff doesn’t do that.

  “Sorry, Ben. I didn’t know you were drinking. You can’t take them,” Jeff said.

  Angrily, Ben left the party, jumped into his friend’s car, and screeched the tires down the street.

  Instead, as planned, Nick and his friends took two limousines back to our house, where we continued the celebration. Ben showed up and Nick followed him to his room. After a while, I walked in and said to Ben, “I’m glad you could pull yourself together and come to the house. This is a very special day and celebrating without you wouldn’t have felt right.”

  He stared me in the eyes and said, “I don’t believe you. I have never believed anything you’ve said to me.”

  I cried, which got Nick upset. Then came the anger. This was Nick’s day. This was a day I wanted to remember—how well Nick had done reading the Torah, how he’d handled the squeak in his voice, how handsome he’d looked. And yet somehow it was going to be about Ben again.

  Someone summoned Jeff from outside and told him I was upset. He came in and witnessed Ben and I yelling at each other.

  “You’re going to have to leave,” Jeff said.

  On the front lawn, Ben called out, “You’re a bitch. You do whatever she says. I’ll never talk to you guys again.”

  At some point that night, Ben gave Nick his father’s ring. It wasn’t really what Jeff had in mind. Because Jeff had received it as a gift for his sixteenth birthday, and gave it to Ben for his sixteenth, the idea was that Ben would one day give it to his own son on his sixteenth birthday, too. But maybe as a way of making up for the scene he had caused, Ben gave Nick the ring instead—and it never left Nick’s finger afterward.

  Soon after the bar mitzvah, we also threw Nick a thirteenth birthday party at our house. His friends played Ping-Pong, darts, and billiards. We gave them all disposable cameras, and they took pictures of the kinds of things thirteen-yearolds take pictures of. I have pictures of my toilet. Aah, kids.

  To compensate for my overprotectiveness, I also tried to be a fun mom. I let the kids and their friends listen to loud music even if it irritated my ears. I made fruit and ice cream smoothies for Nick’s friends, and I let Nick decorate his room however he wanted, as I had done with the other two kids, too.

  In March of 1998, Nick wrote in our journal:To whom it may concern, Of course you realize that in a few years NASA is going to send this very book into space, trying to frighten alien life forms. What could be scarier than our problems!?

  Just in case they read it 300 years from now, Ms. Young rocks! I’m in 8th grade. Now that I’m through being sweet, did you know that Geoff Capes threw a brick 146 ft 7 inches?!! Now you know.

  Love Rabbi Nick Markowitz

  That gave me a smile. Rabbi Nick. He would go on to sign a few of his journal entries this way, and it made me wonder sometimes . . . was my son really going to be a rabbi? He’d be the funniest rabbi in town, surely.

  We spent that summer going camping and on a cruise. Nick also convinced his dad to buy Rollerblades so the two of them could go in-line skating together. Nick was already pretty good at it when Jeff joined him for the first time. On their way down a hill, Jeff realized he didn’t know how to stop. He tried to roll into a patch of grass and instead tumbled into someone’s driveway.

  “Dad! Are you OK?” Nick said, racing over. With nothing hurt but his pride, Jeff got back up and kept going. The two of them would skate for miles together that summer and the next.

  We also let Nick take a trip to Colorado with Leah, and when he came home, he was glowing with energy and happiness. He told us a story about the trip—as they drove through the mountains in complete blackness listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a lightning storm began. With each enormous flash of light came some of the most awe-inspiring sights either of them had ever seen. Out of pitch blackness, silver-lined purple mountains remained lit for at least fifteen seconds at a time. Both of them felt it was breathtaking and otherworldly.

  The two of them were a good team. Leah acted as Nick’s confidante and tutor, and Nick taught her how to play video games and kept her laughing. They loved playing with people’s heads . . . they’d challenge each other to make up crazy “facts” and get people to believe them. There may still be adults out there who believe that the first tampons were made of bread, thanks to the convincing lessons by Nick and Leah.

  In September 1998, Nick started high school. My son, in high school? Wasn’t it just yesterday that he was finger painting and making macaroni necklaces? I tried to be a mature and reasonable mother, but I really just wanted to drag him back home and make cupcakes and try to get him to quit this whole growing-up thing.

  High school was an easy transition for him, though . . . easier than it was for me. He got smarter and smarter, and his vocabulary was increasing beyond mine. It embarrassed me sometimes that my son could out-argue me. He loved to argue about anything and everything, in particular psychoanalyzing us to try to weasel his way out of the household rules—he wanted to stay up later, use the phone later, go out with his friends whenever he wanted, postpone his homework.

  There was a fight brewing in his mind between being Mama’s Boy and Independent Cool Guy, but he was still my loving son. On my fortieth birthday, Jeff rented a limo for me to go out with some friends, and Nick made me a tape to play on our ride so we’d have continuous music. Songs like “Brown Eyed Girl” and “We Are the Champions” along with some purely silly songs and even some rave music.

  Leah had been in college in Colorado Springs, then lived with us again while she worked at Disney Studios, where she met Ian, the man who would become her husband. Ian was loving and easygoing, willing to do anything for Leah. I wanted to help her plan a big fairy-tale wedding, but in the midst of the plans, she realized she was pregnant—and going through horrible morning sickness—and wanted to scrap the big ol’ catering-hall idea.

  In July 1999, they married in Las Vegas. Nick and Ben were both in the wedding party, but Ben was late for the ceremony. Ben’s new girlfriend was in Las Vegas, too, but I don’t think she even showed up for the ceremony. They were drunk or on drugs, or both.

  The reception was at the Bellagio overlooking the beautiful fountains, and Ben wanted his dad to give him money to gamble. He had just turned twenty-one a couple of weeks prior, and somehow had gotten it into his head that we’d given Leah a lot of money for her twenty-first birthday. We hadn’t; I don’t know where he got that idea. But he argued with Leah about it right there in the casino after her wedding.

  “They gave you thousands of dollars for your birthday!”

  “What in the world are you talking about? They did not!”

  “Yes they did, and now it’s supposed to be my turn. I should have money to gamble. Or are we just going to forget that it was my birthday, too?”

  Jeff and Ben ended up in a screaming match that nearly came to blows. Another big event for someone else that somehow wound up with Ben as the center of attention. Leah kicked him out.

  She and Ian moved into an apartment with a tennis court close to our house. Nick, now almost fifteen years old, was Jeff’s doubles partner. They would challenge Ian and his friend Roberto about once a week, then come home crowing about their victories.

  One thing was bothering Nick, though: he was tired of us keeping him from Ben. More and more, he seemed to look up to Ben for reasons that were hard for me to figure out. He would sneak off and go to parties with Ben and his friends—including at least one at Ben’s friend Jesse James Hollywood’s house. I didn’t know that until years later.

  Hollywood was a drug dealer who mostly dealt “highend” marijuana and other recreational drugs. His father, Jack Hollywood, was a major drug dealer dealing more in low-grade marijuana. Of course, I didn’t know anything about the Hollywoods or their lives then . . . but they would one day take a place of monumental importance in my life.

  Nick’s best friend, Ryan Orenstein, had been at a party at
Jesse James Hollywood’s home with his older brother, too. Both Nick and Ryan had older brothers who were into the party scene, so the younger boys were invited along from an early age. Nick sometimes came home smelling of cigarettes. I chalked it up to normal teenage rebellion and didn’t make too much of it. I didn’t know he was with Ben at those parties, or that the parties were full of drugs, and guns. Actually, I didn’t realize that he ever went to parties other than the drama club parties that I took him to.

  Jesse Hollywood liked to pull out his guns to show off to people. Maybe he liked the idea of keeping people in line by reminding them that there was always a threat of death in the air. Jesse had many underlings, including Ben, who sold drugs for him, and he operated on a “consignment” basis—the other guys would take the drugs and try to sell them, then pay fees back to Hollywood. Several of them ran tabs, including Ben. They called the system “fronting.”

  When Hollywood took out his new TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol to show around the room, Ryan and his older brother left. But Ben, who noticed that the gun was loaded, decided to stick around with Nick. Hollywood also had a shotgun and an HK 40 semiautomatic handgun from his godfather that he kept on his nightstand and took with him in his waistband when he went out on drug runs and other trips.

  Hollywood also had a full-sized gym in his house, where he and Ben worked out together. One day, Hollywood went with Ben when Nick skipped school and called his brother for a ride. Nick failed a class that year and had to go to summer school; for a boy as smart as Nick, it obviously wasn’t because he didn’t understand the material, but aside from his drama classes and his social circle, he just didn’t care about school anymore by then.

  I didn’t like what I saw. Nick was taking steps closer and closer to Ben, while I wanted them to have as little contact as possible. But the more I tried to pull him back, the more Nick pushed away from me.