Suspended Sentence

by Janice Morgan

  “I know not everybody in the group is going to react the same way,” she went on. “We’re all individuals. Some of my people will come regularly for discussions, for example, but some of them won’t. I just figure if someone comes to an activity, then I want to be sure they get something from it. They’re welcome to come and participate as much as they want.”

  She admitted it was harder to reach the men at the Center. She regretted that one of the male counselors who had worked there left after the budget was cut. That was a big loss for everyone, but especially the guys.

  “It just seems like the men want a man to be their counselor,” she said. “People who already feel so different, like they’re on the outs from everybody else, they want to get their mentoring from someone who’s walked in their shoes, knows what it’s like from their perspective. So sometimes, I’ll admit, I have more luck with the women. They can relate to me.”

  We already knew from what Rita told us about her son’s time at Safe Harbor Center that it hadn’t worked out for him. Maybe Brett couldn’t identify. Or maybe he wasn’t well enough to understand how the counseling and group support could help him. Before he arrived, it certainly hadn’t helped his mental health situation to be out roaming around without any kind of treatment for so long.

  “When Brett gets really bad, really delusional and hears voices, he just wants to go to Western State Hospital,” Rita said. “He’s had so many bad experiences out there in the world. It’s as if Western is the only place he feels safe. But we’re still looking for a good residential center for him somewhere.” They had already tried so many.

  On this particular evening, there were about ten young nursing students in attendance, listening intently, along with a few others majoring in social work. Though our core group didn’t have the same degree of privacy when students were there, we were glad they could hear all this. We had each introduced ourselves earlier, and we learned that a couple of the students had siblings or other family members with mental illness. One student volunteered that she’d been diagnosed with bipolar herself, was taking medication, and had received counseling. Even at her young age, it had been a long road, but she was doing much better. She asked Laura questions and spoke compellingly about the need for better types of treatment. A student with a personal or family connection to one of these illnesses was especially motivated. I noticed, too, from previous discussions, that some members of the younger generation were far braver about these issues than we had been, at least until now. They were open, ready for change. They would be among those to make it happen.

  After the talk, we asked more questions, and Laura affirmed that her work at the Center was by far the most fulfilling she had ever done.

  “All I can say is, if you students should be interested in pursuing this as a career, it will be a very demanding one, but I would definitely encourage you if any of you feel the calling. It is stressful, though, I won’t lie to you about that. To be honest, I’m not even sure how much longer I can do it. But for however long, I’ll continue and do the best I can.” Her warmth and sincerity touched us all, and we gave her a round of applause when she concluded.

  After the meeting, we stayed for a while, talking, energized. It was as if the whole bunch of us, of completely different ages and life circumstances, were bound together in solidarity. I wondered if Dylan would ever agree to come to a meeting like this. I’d mentioned it to him once; he was reluctant.

  I knew Dylan held a hidden fear that he wouldn’t be able to fit in, especially not later on, not into a career, not into the life he wanted to have. That night, I felt the need to tell him: Look, don’t give up. Don’t think the world won’t make room for you. Sure, some doors may close in your face; you may have to give up some of your dreams—all that is true. But you can come up with different dreams, new ones. Not everyone is going to run when they find out who you really are. Keep working, keep walking. Just when you think it can’t happen, the world will shift and make a place for you.

  CHAPTER 30:

  VISIONS IN THE SLIPSTREAM

  Of course, my dearest wish was to see my son graduate—from Drug Court and from college. These were the double portals through which he had to pass in order to have any kind of regular middle-class life—that’s how I saw it. That’s what I believed. By the summer of 2013, both were coming into view, but both were still a ways off. Though Dylan thought at first he might be able to finish his degree by December, he later learned that not all his credits from UC would fulfill certain requirements because they’d been based on the quarter system. So, fitting everything in without overloads, it looked like May of 2014 might be the soonest he could earn a diploma. As for Drug Court, Dylan assured me (despite my growing skepticism) that graduations did actually occur. All of the current participants attended the ceremonies, too, Dylan said, and they took place only in December and May, the same months as the college graduations. I sighed.

  By now, I was getting used to backing off, being in the wings. You’d think I’d also get used to the recovery mantra: one day at a time. But this didn’t come easy for me, being a hardcore goal setter. In fact, until recently, I’d been an administrator whose job entailed creating goals for our small college contingent, and together we’d set timetables for their achievement. However, since we were being judged on our performance, we learned pretty fast not to set goals we weren’t at least ninety percent certain we could reach. Needless to say, things can be different in the personal realm.

  “Hum … any news about when you might graduate from Drug Court?” I would ask Dylan after another May graduation date came and went.

  “Well, I was told that I was high risk,” he said matter-of-factly. “I have to keep going and wait to graduate DC until I’m ready to finish my college degree, so I’ll have both together.”

  I could definitely see the wisdom of Drug Court’s decision to keep him in. I was pretty sure that if Dylan actually finished college, it would be largely because of the structure Drug Court provided. High risk, yes; no argument there. Just this past December there had been another sobriety slip-up. This time, the circumstances were completely different. Dylan hadn’t been at a low point; he’d been riding high. It happened that some of his classmates were going out to celebrate the success of a project they’d been working on for weeks. His group’s in-class presentation had played well; then someone suggested they all go to a neighborhood bar. Dylan said that under the jubilation of the moment, he’d let down his defenses and instead of ordering a soda, went with beer. Under the rules of Drug Court, he’d admitted what had happened. Now he’d be spending another week in jail, scheduled right after final exams. He would check himself in again, just like at a hotel. This time he didn’t feel he’d done anything wrong. It wasn’t fair.

  “Well, it’s not fair, but the world isn’t fair,” I told him. “Sometimes you just have to know what the rules are for you—not anyone else.” Then, to try to cheer him up, I said, “Look, it’s just a temporary setback. Just learn from it and keep going.” But we both knew he couldn’t afford any more slip-ups. His screw-up account at Drug Court was just about maxed out.

  So now, by June, we found ourselves entering another summer. Sometimes, it felt like doing the last five miles of a marathon race. Time to take a sip of water and fall deep into a trance-like rhythm of just running and breathing. “We’ll all get where we’re going eventually,” I told myself, trying to fend off the need to cross a finish line out there. In fact, I often wonder if the obsessive goal setting in our midst doesn’t interfere with the process of living. Fine, make the goals, then put the list in your back pocket. After all, unlike a race course, there are too many times when the real-life territory ahead doesn’t even exist on our maps yet. We have to get there first, then look for a map later—maybe make it up for ourselves as we go along.

  It was around this time that a unique opportunity came my way. One of my undergrad college friends put out a call for a possible reunion. She suggested a weeken
d in mid-June, while she was back visiting in Indiana where her father still lived. By now our group was scattered across the country, but in a relatively short while about five of us signed up. We could stay at Jen’s house in Richmond, since she had plenty of space. I’d only been in touch sporadically through the years—mostly on visits to conference cities—but now the prospect of reconnecting was too tempting to pass up. It must have been my age, the times. I was curious to reestablish contact with these women; we’d shared a significant period of our young lives. When we took up residence our freshman year at Todd Hall on the Bloomington campus of Indiana University, we were on the threshold of our adult lives: growing out from under our childhood families, seeking new relationships, making career choices. And all this personal drama was right at the beginning of the 1970s—a time of war, protest, change, and opportunity.

  Now many of us were on another threshold: leaving our professions behind, taking on new responsibilities as our parents faced old age, seeing our kids and step-kids go off on their own. How were we doing? How did my former college mates imagine their future lives unfolding from this vantage point? I packed my bags, bringing a few photos of my nearest and dearest with me, as we all agreed to do. Like in grade school, we would have a time for show and tell. We would try our best to catch up on each other’s lives. Intriguing, fun, and perplexing.

  It made sense to launch my reunion trip to Indiana from John’s home in the eastern hill country. When the weekend approached, John encouraged me to be open with my friends about what was going on for me, especially with Dylan. “Look, these are people you can share with. I’m sure they’ve had plenty of adventures and misadventures, too. Who hasn’t had major challenges to deal with by age sixty?” True. I resolved to be brave.

  The Friday morning of my trip, John and I trundled my last bag down the steps of the porch and into my car. Whenever one of us left, the other always waved goodbye and waited until the car was gone from view. It was the same today. John rehearsed with me how to take Route 32 to the northwest from Blue Valley. I’d been on it before and loved how this small road curved through woods and meadows, eventually climbing high up to a ridge where you could see for miles around. On a June morning, everything looked so fresh and green along the way: pastures with scattered barns and houses, grazing cattle with names like black Angus and white Charolais, dispersed like beads on velvet, all under blue skies that looked like they could go on forever. It was heaven, rolling free over the hills like that, listening to young Sasha Colette’s voice billowing out from the speakers like a strong wave, then pulling back to let the sinuous violin weave in and out around the cowboy dance steps of the electric guitar. The song playing was “Goodbye Buffalo” from her album with The Magnolias, Ridin’ Away. And when her voice came back again it was to sing about the desire to roam far into the wide-open spaces, leaving all troubles behind, and it felt exactly right for me on that day. After Flemingsburg, you can pick up Route 11, which goes almost straight north, until you come to the AA Route 9, a parkway heading west and north again, following at a distance the curve of the Ohio River all the way to Cincinnati.

  I admit I was looking forward to going through Cincinnati again despite—or maybe because of—all the memories I held of that city. I hadn’t been there in four years, not since Dylan transferred out of UC. This time I would be going through it solo. When I reached the city from the southeast, I felt a twinge of regret not to be approaching the way I usually did, through Florence and then Covington by the edge of the river, seeing the city from a hilltop, then going over the bridge. So many times I had come in that way, and I always felt the same anticipation. Especially going up that last big slope, slowly, slowly in all that traffic and then, at the top, the Ferris wheel exhilaration of gliding down into the fray, seeing the whole magnificent metropolis spread below on either side, pieces of it tucked into the surrounding hillsides. Back then, I would be excited to meet up with Dylan and see how he was adjusting to college life in the big city.

  Maybe it was the influence of the upcoming reunion and traveling back to the past, but on that day I was intent on plunging right into the vortex. Rolling with a multi-lane tide of vehicles, I held my breath because I understood that I would be entering another time zone of my life—already four to seven years distant. As I began flowing under bold green exit signs, each one became a gateway to another memory. Early on came the Hopple Street exit, the one closest to where Dylan lived near the University of Cincinnati. From there, we could visit the Gaslight District with its interesting shops and eateries. Or we could go for walks in one of the nearby parks. I still had a whole roadmap of those neighborhoods in my head. There were scenes, too, of us strolling about—sometimes just the two of us, but usually three with John there—and Dylan talking a mile a minute like he always did about this and that, with us asking a question or making comments. He sure loved showing off his new city, loved the dynamism of it, the constant movement.

  Soon came the Smith-Edwards exit: flashback to an evening together at our favorite Italian restaurant there, the one with the darkened rooms and nostalgic photographs of another era. John was with me, and on this evening we were celebrating Dylan’s birthday in full family-style culinary extravagance, joking and laughing as each gargantuan dish was set down before us, right down to the tiramisu for three. As the freeway snaked left and right around the hills, with me gliding along in the middle lane, I thought of another place: the nice, old neighborhood at Hyde Park we’d go to sometimes because it was interesting and had a magnificent grocery store. I flashed back to the produce department: me buying primo foods for Dylan the last year he was there, after the robbery incident in 2008. Dylan liked that store because, as he put it, the upscale middle-class setting reminded him of his journey forward, that even though he was a cash-strapped student, he was still upward bound. So many things happened during those three years back then! Who wouldn’t be looking for some oases of everyday normalcy, especially in that last year at the University of Cincinnati?

  More twists and turns of the highway, more flash photos coming back to my mind: Dylan’s dorm, then his series of apartments. Scenes from different visits we two sets of parents had made, separately or together, played like a shadow movie across the physical evidence of the road I was on now. We’d been all over town with one thing or another. Visits during those three years could be casual, friendly adventures, true. But toward the end of that time, they were more like salvage missions.

  Another scene came back, the memory of a district where Mike, Linda, John, and I had convened once. Together, we hunted down an office so that Dylan could pay a traffic ticket and make some progress on his driving record, which by then was only one speeding ticket away from suspension, as I recall. We drove through an amazing neighborhood on our way to find the office. It was an older, black community where people on a nice day would be outside, hanging out, laughing, and hustling. Talk, hustle, and rustle: that’s what Dylan loved about the city because he was just that kind of rough and ready person deep down. He loved the ambiance there but, being a white guy from a small town, he didn’t exactly fit in. He didn’t exactly fit into the college campus scene either. Social life was great, but then there were all those troublesome assignments, the endless schedule of demands. They weren’t nearly as easy to navigate as the streets.

  Where, exactly, would he ever fit in?

  So many adventures and misadventures! Another scene flashed: in a courtroom somewhere in downtown Cincinnati, Dylan facing another traffic violation. Back then, it seemed we were more worried about it than he was. Good God, how many traffic tickets there were! And later, hadn’t Dylan vaguely alluded to spending a night in jail up there? How many infractions and summonses and trips to the courtroom and the DMV to get reinstated had there been? Wasn’t Dylan always trying to get reinstated somewhere?

  Would my son ever be reinstated?

  I tried to steady my breath, my hands clutching the wheel. By now, the velocity of memories hit
me as hard as the G-forces around every curve. All the while pushing to keep up with the stream of traffic, I flashed back to the other side of the river. June, 2008: another rescue mission. It was after his second year in the city, the year Dylan was out of school, working on his own with his buddy Gabe at a string of temp jobs provided by an agency. Toward the spring he landed one he felt good about, the logistics job at a warehouse near the Cincinnati airport in northern Kentucky. Back then, he used to fly along in this city traffic every day back and forth across the bridge. He was in the maelstrom, being a regular working-class guy trying to hold it together. By then, Gabe could barely pay the rent; his family was insisting he move back home. “But hey, the job I have now is good,” Dylan said. “The boss likes me. I’m learning new skills.” He was sure he would move up soon. There was always optimism; there were always stories.

  One Friday he crossed the city on his lunch break to pick up his check to cash from the temp agency. He had to be back in time to start the afternoon shift, had to floor it to move fast. That’s when the cop pulled him over. “Were you aware you were speeding? Sorry, your record is over the point limit now, buddy. We have to impound your car.” This predicament gave us the opening we parents had been looking for. We could deliver our ultimatum: “If we come there to help, you have to sell the car and go back to school.” He took our offer. John met us up there, too. Seems like during those years we would all step back for a while and then—when disaster struck—we’d convene, explain, make agreements, set up a reimbursement plan, put things back on track again. Until the next time. Then we would feel better, and we would say, “Let’s hope this is the lesson he’ll finally get.”

  Is there a lesson out there that he’ll finally get? When will this happen?