Joan and I talk almost every day that I’m there, which makes me want to go, but classes are a nightmare. I’m so far behind in reading and homework I have no idea what’s going on, so I just sit at the window and enviously watch people walk by out in the free world.
There’s a police academy a few blocks away and the cadets are always walking around. I admire their crispness.
Kids know there’s something up with my gender. They whisper and talk and sometimes they taunt me, but I stay real retreated so I’m usually off their radar. I’m also almost never at school, denying them enough access to figure out where my weaknesses are.
I went to the army recruiting center in Times Square and asked them how soon I could enlist, but they said the absolute youngest was sixteen, which was crushing. I long for routine. I long for someone to tell me to make my bed, starch my shirts, shine my boots. I want to wear a uniform and a buzz cut and wake up at seven A.M. every day and only own one outfit.
One night there’s a letter under the apartment door. It’s from the Bureau of Child Welfare, saying they’d like to do a home visit to check on the state of the house. Ma loses her shit. I try to look away as she solders profane words together with the blowtorch that is her mouth. She accuses me of ratting right away, talking to these scum, trying to tell them yarns, but I deny it categorically. She crumples the paper and tosses it under a front table.
I look at the apartment, taking in what they would see if they came to inspect: there’s an area that’s supposed to be a foyer, which is crammed with stacks of wooden windows, doors, and moldings pulled from Dumpsters outside of tenements under renovation. Plastic deli bags, tied off at the top, lie in piles all over the floor, which you have to step over to get to the bathroom.
The tub has a thick black ring around it, remnant of the olive oil Ma covers herself in before her nightly bath. The white tiles are framed in gray-black, never having been cleaned. We only own one towel, which was a hand-me-down to begin with, and we don’t have a bath mat. The busted soap dish covered in black mold, the fuzzy tile caulking, and the unfaceable crust inside the toilet bowl.
Three pots sit permanently on the stove holding various Chinese herb concoctions and an unending supply of black tea. The pots are badly burned steel and a thick ridge of filth lines the burners underneath them.
The “living room” is a series of mounds—clothes, records, books, Excedrin bottles, lots of plants, twinkling fabrics, photos, piles of our head shots, candles, old flyers, napkins with poems on them.
The fridge is stuffed with empty bottles of hot sauce, old soup containers, bags of Chinese herbs, and condiment packets. A puddle of brown sludge has gathered on the bottom shelf and seems to have sloshed up onto the walls. There is not an edible thing in the whole fridge.
Ma’s futon is nested on the floor in the front bedroom. It’s a brief landing spot for the refueling of her rocket ship, a strictly necessary function, not in any way a sanctuary.
The inspectors probably wouldn’t like it that we use napkins instead of toilet paper. They probably would think it’s weird that we don’t have any silverware and there are cockroaches in the drawers. They’d probably ask for a glass of water and be appalled when we told them we don’t have any real glasses. They’d tsk tsk at my army cot and how it doesn’t stay flat, and they’d surely pooh-pooh the fact that we don’t have any real pillows.
A visit from them would be a disaster. No wonder Ma canned the notice. They can’t break the door down, so she probably figures that if she ignores them, they’ll just go away.
IT HAPPENS ON A TUESDAY. I’m on my way down the stairs at school to get my coat and cut out. It’s springtime, and I’m pissed that I even brought a coat, because I don’t need it. I’m wearing a royal blue button-down plaid shirt, white nylon Adidas pants, and white and blue Air Jordans. My head is shaved into a high-and-tight fade, and I’m wearing my Puerto Rican flag beads.
We just finished fourth period and kids are milling around prelunch, digging in backpacks on the stairs, charging around the halls.
I spot the woman from the other end of the school. She’s beautiful, with a small afro atop her wiry body. She’s wearing skintight beige pants, knee-high boots, and a cropped jean jacket. She hasn’t seen me yet, but I know it’s her. My first feeling is relief that she’s black, then I want to run. Yet something propels me toward her. Everything drops into slow motion and drowns out the cacophony. She looks at me. As I get closer I can see the long, ornately decorated fingernails she holds her files with. I am petrified and enamored.
“Are you iO?”
“Yeah. Who are you?”
“I’m Renee. I’m your case worker from the Bureau of Child Welfare.”
I don’t ask her where she is taking me because I don’t want to sound too accusatory and scare her off, but my heels are also digging into the linoleum.
“I have to call my ma and tell her where I am. She’ll freak if I don’t.”
“I’m sorry, iO, you’re not allowed any contact with your mother right now.”
Whoa. What?
I woke up there this morning. My clothes are there. That’s my home. What the fuck is she talking about?
“Then I’m not going anywhere with you. I have to warn my ma.”
My body is alert and erect, poised to spring away from this person. I don’t know her and her shackles are already too tight. I bolt into Joan’s office.
A girl is talking to her, but Joan can see the hysteria in my face and asks her to come back later. My voice is cracking and my throat feels thick with pain.
“Joan, they’re here to take me away.”
“I know, honey. It’s okay. This is Renee, she’s your case worker. This is what we talked about.”
Confusion twinkles on her face for a second. I won’t look at Renee.
“I need to call my ma, Joan.”
“You’re not allowed to have any contact with her right now, sweetheart, that’s normal.”
Something feels like it’s ripping inside. My mind is spinning out on how angry Ma will be, how violent she’ll become, how Joan is in danger. Tears overcome me.
“Please, Joan!”
She looks at Renee.
“I’m not gonna go otherwise! I can’t!”
This is almost a shriek. Joan is startled by my intensity. She puts a chair in front of the phone for me. I tell her the number.
“Broadway Dance Center! How can I help you??”
“Hi. Can I please speak to Rhonna Wright? She should be at the work for trade desk.”
“Hold on, please.”
There’s a beep when she puts me on hold. The silence is painful as I wait. Joan moves to talk to Renee in the vestibule.
Noise floods the line and the receiver clatters while being picked up.
“Hello? Kitty?
“Ma . . .”
“What’s up, kitty? Are you okay?”
“Ma . . . the . . .”
I can’t do it. It’s too hard.
“There’s a woman here Ma . . . . the Bureau . . . .”
“What!? What are you saying? I’m at work. I have to go.”
“Mom. The Bureau of Child Welfare is here. They’re taking me away.”
“What?! The fuck they are! Don’t go anywhere, with anybody, iO! I’m coming down there right now! That’s fucking kidnapping, those motherfuckers . . .”
“No, Ma, listen to me. I did this . . .”
“ . . . that fucking guidance counselor. I always knew she was up to shady snake shit, snooping around for some fake-ass fucking problems. I’ll kill that bitch.”
“Ma. I did this. Not her. I called them. I wanted this. Don’t blame her. I want to go to be with my poppa.”
There’s a silence. She processes this. My face is scrunched up in pain and fear.
“You’re just a kid! Why are they listening to you about all this shit? And now the government is involved! Fuck!”
The staccato on this last word makes me jump
.
“Ma, I have to go. Don’t come down here and attack Joan. I did this. They’re not kidnapping me. I just wanted you to know what was happening. I love you.”
I hang up the receiver, tears pouring from my face.
I have saved myself and struck her hard.
Now comes the violence.
Chapter 27
The Day
New York City Family Court, May 1998
MY HOME IS BURNING BUT NOTHING THERE IS MINE ANYMORE. The clothes I wear are the only thing I’m allowed and I’m fine with that. My ma is burning, I threw a match in her hair, but I can’t dwell on it.
From here out, this is all that matters. I’m almost there. I don’t need another shirt. There will be another shirt.
This is a place where you disappear. I feel myself melting, like the wicked witch, but instead of water I’ve been doused with a case number. I walked through those big stone doors with a social worker’s hand on my shoulder, and I disintegrated into dust, blended in with all the invisible children floating through the system.
We are numbers. We are case files. We are the sum of our hearing dates and dental records, grades and attendance sheets. I take orders here. I keep my mouth shut here. I don’t trust anyone here. They see a thousand mes a day. I have no sharp edges or defined shape; I’m just another circumstance to be assessed. I poured myself down this unknown drain and now I’ve disappeared.
But I can work this. I can make it out on the side I want to be on. When I get there, I can start to act like me again and someone will see me again. My pop will see me. I’ll have a face to him, hair, sneakers, feet, and hands. Knobby knees. I’ll finally be able to tell him my knees aren’t broken. They were never broken. I just wanted him to stay.
Chapter 28
In the Twisted Halls
New York, May through August 1998
RENEE LEADS ME, HER NUMB CHARGE, THROUGH METAL DETECTORS and a lobby of disrupted families. I am aware that something monumental is happening. It’s a sense of drama come to life, a scary invigorating notion that nothing will ever be the same again.
I am quiet in the elevator. It smells like envelopes and cheap shoes. People in ill-fitting suits sigh as they push buttons with chewed fingernails. Coffee-stained teeth chatter about caseload jargon.
I am breathing.
These are my breaths.
Where am I?
No one knows I’m here.
I am alone.
I wait in a plastic chair in a labyrinthine hallway while Renee goes into an anonymous door. When she comes out there is a woman with her. She has big red curls, glasses, and a smart face. She introduces herself as Sarah and invites me in.
Sarah seats herself behind a big black desk covered in files and trinkets and tells me she is my lawyer. In fact, she says, I have two. On cue, a younger black guy gives a courtesy knock as he strolls into the room, bespectacled too. Ben. Hi, Ben.
He stands, leaning on the end of her desk with both hands, as Sarah starts to talk. I’m not on the ceiling, but I’m not in my body, either.
Behind her halo of curls, the entire wall is covered in framed photographs of Sarah and a little girl, about my age, at Disneyland, camping, at graduation, on her birthday.
“That’s my daughter, Ashley.”
“Oh. Cool.”
They start to pepper me with questions. When was the last time I saw a dentist? Five years ago. How many days a week do I go to dance class? Every day. Do I enjoy acting? Yes. Sometimes. Was it my choice to live as a boy? Yes. Duh. What is our house like? Dark. Infested. I’m not allowed to be there. What do I mean? Like, I’m not allowed to have keys or go there without her. And what time do we usually get home? Late. After midnight. Has she ever hit me? Well . . . not really. But there was an altercation where she kicked me once I was on the ground.
This is a lie. She never hits me. It feels like she does when she screams at me, but she has never hit me. I have these stories in my mind that I’ve told myself so many times, it’s hard to isolate their threads from the truth now. Also, it’s the orange juice again. They need to know how it feels.
“Okay. Well, here’s the situation, iO. We can do one of three things, and it’s really up to you how you want to go forward.”
Already this is crazy. This is more power over my own life than I’ve ever felt before. Finally someone acknowledges that it’s my life, too.
“We can either send you back to your mom’s house, which might be the easiest; or you can go into a foster care holding situation while we find placement for you; or if there’s a family member who can take temporary custody, we can do that.”
My head feels thick and full. I look back at the wall of photos. This little girl looks so happy in every picture. I can’t remember feeling that lighthearted and smiley. She and Sarah adore each other, at least on paper. Ma documents every second of my life, but all we do is scream at each other now. I want what Ashley has. I want peace and calm and fun and safety.
I ask them if I can have a little time to think about it.
They send me into a conference room across the hall with some french fries and a decadent ginger ale. My Jordans dangle off the chair as I tenderly dip each fry in ketchup, pondering what the fuck I’m gonna do.
I’m in a limbo place in the universe, between cracks. Just me and the shirt on my skinny back.
Then I hear her through the walls. Her voice hits a piercing pitch when she’s enraged, like a banshee. Everyone in the building knows she’s here and that she’s pissed. The familiar sound of her fury tenses all my muscles.
Images of tap shoes and late-night classes fill my mind. I don’t want it.
I feel like I did every time she showed up at Edie or Olivia’s house to drag me out in the middle of the night—distraught, torn between duty and freedom, loyalty and my peace.
Why? Why, Ma, do you want me to go there so badly? Why do you want me in that dark shithole? Why do we have to stay there? Why is that what you call a life? I know why. Because it’s with you, and that’s where a cub is supposed to be, with the mother. We are supposed to protect each other.
She and I have a psychic connection. I can feel the pain through the forest of her rage. I know she is afraid. So am I.
Gingerly, I put my feet on the carpet. The delicious fries and soda are irrelevant now that she’s here. I don’t want them to be, but that’s how it works.
Lawyers are milling around the hall, people who rupture families for a living, and they are still moved by the velocity of her anger.
I move toward the door to the waiting room and stick my head out. She is towering over poor Renee, screaming, sandblasting her face with rage.
“This is BULLSHIT! You have KIDNAPPED my CHILD. This is BULLSHIT!! Go and get my fucking daughter . . . NOW!!”
“Ms. Wright . . .”
Renee is overwhelmed, like a news reporter trying to sound coherent on live TV during a hurricane.
“iO was removed from your care by the State of New York. You are going to be formally charged with neglect, and you no longer have custody—”
“NEGLECT?! Fuck you, neglect! I don’t neglect iO! What the fuck is she telling you people?!”
I want to look away. This tone makes my throat dry, but I’m scared that if I don’t watch she’ll win. Some part of me was tempted to just go back to normal when Sarah offered, but I’m so split now.
“She never went to the dentist?! Psh! Of COURSE she goes to the dentist. All the fucking time! News flash! She’s LYING to you!”
This hurts. I don’t like her calling me a liar. Or a she.
Just then Ma swings her eyes in my direction. Her face changes immediately to a big smile.
“Kitty! Hi, my bud! It’s all gonna be cool, my bud. It’s just a mix-up.”
She blows a kiss at me.
I feel sick.
I pull my head back around the wall.
I don’t want it. I can’t go back there. They can’t let me go back there.
I sprint down the hall into Sarah’s office.
“My ma is here! She’s pissed! She’s lying. She’s saying I made it all up!”
“Okay, iO, okay. Don’t worry. She can’t get to you.”
“I want to live with my dad. In Germany. I want to live with my pop. So bad. Please send me to him.”
“Okay. Are you sure?”
“Yes. I can’t go back there. I won’t make it.”
My fear is scaring her. I bet, as a mom, this whole scene really bums her out.
I tell her to call my aunt Olivia, because she lives alone. My ma’s little sister Alice has a husband and she’s pregnant so I don’t want to stress her. Olivia doesn’t pick up the phone.
Freedom is so close I can smell it, but until I’m out of this building, I won’t believe it. Having my ma right down the hall is terrifying. I start picking my fingers. It’s like being through a wall from the strongest magnet on earth, watching your chair slide toward it against your will.
Eventually they get ahold of my grandma Edie, and she says she’ll come get me but it’s gonna be two hours. Olivia is out of the city until tonight, so she’ll come get me from Edie then. This is like a jolt of electric hope. Could I really get out of here, not with my ma?
Sarah and Ben have me cross-check some facts on some forms, and poor, shell-shocked Renee takes me down a back hall to another elevator and out to the street.
The air smells different when we get outside, crisp and clean. I can smell soup from a stand on the street. Everything feels like I’m looking at it through a crystal. Each step away gives me life.
I don’t even care that Renee checks me in with some police officers, who make me give them everything I have on me. They’re nice to me, and they form a human, badge-toting barrier between me and my ma’s fury. It’s the only time I’ve been excited about befriending cops besides my ride in the police car in Hungary.
Renee leaves and I wait in a juvenile holding cell for the two hours until Edie arrives, tiny in her cashmere and corduroy slacks, purse on her wrist, tissue rolled into her sleeve. We take a taxi to Eightieth Street, and she sets me up in the bedroom where my poppa was raised. I am having trouble believing what has happened.
Darling Days Page 17