Peace Love Resistance

by Jettie Woodruff

  “Can you tell me your address, Tristan? Your last name? What hospital was your baby born in?”

  “No. I don’t have to tell you anything. He’s fine. I don’t need your help. Leave us alone. I’ll get in my van and pull out of here right now. Please. He’s fine. I promise.”

  My dad was the one who held my arms back while they ripped him right out of her arms. Like they had a right. Baby-T screamed, Tristan dropped to the ground and screamed, and went berserk, jerking my body from my dad. I tasted dirt in my mouth when my face hit the ground, a knee dug into my back, and my shoulder felt like it was being pulled from its socket.

  “Tobias, stop it. That’s enough. It’s done. Time to move on with your life,” my mom scolded, squatting to the ground beside my face. Had I been able to reach her, I would have spit on her. That’s how much I hated her. This was all her fault.

  The cop held Tristan’s arms, keeping her from the same thing I was after, Baby-T. It wasn’t right. We didn’t do anything. He didn’t do anything and he was sick. Tobias was being put in the middle of all this poison that Tristan tried so hard to protect him from, and he didn’t deserve it. God he didn’t deserve it.

  “You fucking asshole! Get off me! He’s sick! He’s sick!” Tristan screamed, but it didn’t matter. They still handed him through the window to another lady waiting for him in the back seat. That was the last time I saw him. His face was red, and he was crying in a way that I’d only heard him cry on other time. He grabbed my sunglasses off my face and pinched his little finger in the hinge connecting the frames. Add a terrifying gasp of air with every cry and you get a sound I never wanted to hear again in my life. Throw in his screaming mom, fighting with everything in her for her child, and you get a gutted animal. Me. I heard the lady in the back seat make a remark about him needing a bath and that was it. They were gone.

  As soon as I heard the gravel from the car leaving, taking Tobias away, I calmed, Tristan calmed, and both our screams stopped, silence filling the air. My eyes opened from the ground, landing right on hers. I tried with all my might to tell her I was sorry, hoping there was just an ounce of truth to her world, praying she felt me like I felt her.

  I came to my feet, shoving my dad away to get to her. “Tristan, I’m sorry.”

  “You told them he didn’t have a birth certificate? Why would you do that, Tobias?”

  “I didn’t tell anyone. I told my fucking mom. I’m so sorry, baby. I’m sorry,” I said again, my hands reaching for hers.

  Tristan jerked her hands away, looking at me like she’d never seen me in her life. Like she didn’t know who I was. “I don’t know you. Don’t touch me.”

  “Tristan.”

  That was the first time since I’d met her that I witnessed her lose her shit. She screamed at me, angrier than I’d ever seen. “Don’t fucking touch me. Give me your phone.”

  “Tristan. Please listen.”

  “Give me your fucking telephone, Tobias.”

  I reached into the deep pockets of my trail shorts and retrieved my phone. My parents and the cop were close behind me, but I didn’t turn to see where. All I could do was stand there and watch her trembling hand dial a number, and then listen to her shaky voice make a call that killed her to make.

  “Hi, I this is Savannah’s daughter. Vanna Wise. This is her daughter. I need to be put through to her right now. It’s an emergency.”

  Tristan waited on the gatekeeper designed to keep people away from her mom, her entire body bouncing with anxious adrenaline. Still, I just stood there, just as afraid as her, praying Vanna Wise was as powerful as Tristan seemed to think she was. I had my doubts, but I was praying for a miracle.

  I could hear the muffled voice come on the call and then Tristan. “Mom, I need your help.”

  Even though I couldn’t hear every single word, I heard enough. Vanna Wise came back with a threat, daring her to do this two months away from an election. She actually even told her to call back in December.”

  “Mom. Mom! Shut up about this stupid election. It’s me. It’s Tristan and I need you. They took my baby, Mom.”

  Again, the words were muffled, but clear enough to put two and two together. Another threat about coming out with a baby in the middle of one of the best years of her careers.

  That’s when Tristan stopped her, screaming tears of desperation. “Moooooom! Can you hear me? Can you put your goddamn status quo on hold for once in my life? Can you put me first just this once. I swear to God, you’ll never hear from me again. If you’ll just help me this once. One time. Please mom. Please. They took my baby. They have my baby. You’ll never hear from me again. No one will. I promise.”

  I didn’t hear anything for a few seconds. That’s when I looked over my shoulder at my dad, the cop, and my mom.

  “Where did they take my baby? What address? And I’m going to need a phone number for your superior,” Tristan ordered the cop like she was the one in charge.

  “Um, it doesn’t really work like that, sweetheart. Your baby will more than likely spend the night in state custody. It’ll be morning before the paperwork is complete.”

  “If my baby consumes anything that doesn’t come from me, you’ll never wear a badge again.”

  I turned, hoping to help. “You better give it to her. You have no idea who her mom is.”

  Robo cop gave me a disgusting once over, still being a difficult dick. “I don’t care if she’s the presidents, daughter. We all follow the same laws.”

  “She didn’t do anything.”

  Tristan wasn’t the least bit interested in an ego match between me and the newbie cop. “You grab everything else off your phone, can’t you just Google it. That’s faster than this cockfight over here on my end. Please, Mom. Do it now. Do it right now. He’s sick. Please take care of it right now. Grafton. Grafton County. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. It’s the same number. I’ll turn it on right now. Okay. Okay. I’m on my way there.”

  “What did she say?” I questioned, my hand out for my phone.

  “Don’t worry about it. Stay away from me. Stay far, far away from me.”

  “Tristan, come on.”

  Tristan didn’t come on. Tristan got in the van and locked the doors, waiting with her eyes straight ahead for the police officer to move his car.

  “Tobias, come on.”

  I jerked my arm from my mom so hard it just about ripped clean off. “You’re dead to me.”

  “Well, that’s enough excitement for me. I’m going to move my car before this crazy chick rams into it.”

  I just looked at him stripped raw. It was guy like him that gave the rest of the police force a bad name. He didn’t need to call her sweetheart, and his remark about her being crazy pissed me off. Giving him the exact same distasteful glare that he’d give me, I knocked him down a notch. “You’re the reason people feel afraid of cops instead of safe.”

  “Tobias, come on, son. Let’s go home,” my dad said like he had a right to call me that, too.

  “Fuck you. Fuck all of you. Right there’s my home. Right there in that van and you made her hate me. Stay away from me. Both of you. Go to hell.”

  Tristan never even looked at me. She pulled out right behind the cop, letting me beat on the window, begging her to talk to me, to take me with her. Not even a glance. With a clenched jaw she left me there.

  Of course I followed her on my slow ass bike, my parents begging me to stop to no avail. I would never stop. Ever. Tristan lost me before I made it up the next side of the mountain and when I got into town they wouldn’t let me in. The van was parked right on Main Street with the keys in the ignition. Right across the road from the sheriff’s office. That’s where I waited and waited and waited. Two hours, I sat, paced the sidewalk, and tried to see her, all for nothing. But I wouldn’t leave. I’d never leave. She had to come out sometime.

  And she did.

  At eleven minutes after six, a black Cadillac Escalade with dark windows and an official government license plate on t
hat back pulled right in front of the building. They looked official to me anyway. Tristan walked out of the police station with Baby-T, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Relief lightened the weight on my shoulders, but only for a second. I was about to lose her.

  I jumped out of the van, running across the road to her. “Tristan! Tristan!”

  There was no dirt to taste that time, and I have no idea where the guy even came from. I tasted blood, followed by the burning of the pavement across my cheek. I wasn’t sure what kind of hold the guy had on me, but there was no struggle. None whatsoever. I couldn’t move one muscle and it wasn’t until there was ample distance between me and my whole life that he let me up.

  “Sorry, kid. Orders from the boss. Get out of here. Go home.”

  I didn’t. I couldn’t. I didn’t have a home. She was gone. He was gone, and I didn’t know where they went. Baby-T didn’t even have his favorite quilt. He was sick. He needed it. My life was over and I didn’t know what to do. I’d die without them. Why would I want to live? It was all so surreal, and dreamlike, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wake up. I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like I could just go after her. Where would I even do that at? They could take her anywhere. I couldn’t go home. I’d never go there again.

  A little after nine, I finally gave up, but I still had nowhere to go. I knew already that Tristan had left our stash of money underneath our porta-potty, but without her, seven hundred bucks wouldn’t last long. I also knew the tape and Baby-T’s backpack was gone, but that was it. Everything else was left behind. Even her feather collection.

  I crossed the Turkey Ridge corporation limit at eleven minutes after nine with no direction. It didn’t even matter because my life was over. I was so painfully vacant that it hurt too much to breath. The visions of Baby-T frightened, being ripped from his sweet mama’s arms, the look on her face as it all unfolded, and her fighting hard for him. It all got stuck. That’s how it felt and the pain was so unbearable. I was stuck in a tragedy. Like I couldn’t get past that part. How could I live without her? How could she live without me?

  Mesmerized by the dark road and my headlights, I drove. That’s it. I drove. When I got tired, I stopped and slept, but not for long. When I needed gas, I stopped and filled up, and when I got hungry, I stopped and ate. And I drove. With no end in sight, I drove. I don’t think I really thought about anything in those first few days. I kept my cellphone charged just in case she called, but I ignored my mom’s over and over. I’d never talk to her again. I’d let her die before I gave her a kidney. That’s how much I hated her. I wanted her dead, and I’d probably even piss on her grave. She ruined everything. She ruined my life, and she thought it was okay, like she was watching out for me, and it was the right thing to do. Like my best interest was at heart.

  Tristan was never far from my mind, and I worried about them every second of every day, wondering where she was, what they were doing, and how they were. I listened to the radio, searched the Internet, and watched the news highlights for a three days straight, hoping to see something. Sure she’d be in the tabloids, I searched high and low, but she never was. Just like her dad, everything was hushed, and Tristan was gone. What else was there? They were gone.

  Time didn’t stand still anymore. Time dragged. I hated the sunlight because I knew it meant I had to start a new day without them. I hated the moonlight because it reminded me that I had to face another night alone. I hated the stars because they reminded me of my universe, and they were gone. Half the time I slept out in the open air just to keep from remembering the life that was no longer inside the van. No laughter, no laughing baby, no love. Nothing but a vacant reminder and a constant pain that I didn’t know how to handle.

  I spent an entire week in total silence, talking to absolutely no one, sulking in quietness, surrounded by national parks or the road. Back roads all leading to the same place. Towns spread about the east coast all the same. The people changed, the scenery changed, but nothing else did. One town looked like the next, one forest looked the same as the last one, and it didn’t even matter. Not anymore. The enthusiasm I’d shared with Tristan was all but gone, and I didn’t want to see fall. Not alone. Not without her and Baby-T. It was all ugly. The whole world was ugly and I didn’t want to be in it anymore. I wanted out of this tragedy and I wanted to be dead. That’s all I wanted out of life, to be dead. It was hard and not worth it. I didn’t deserve this. Nobody deserved to endure this kind of pain.

  I did finally answer my mom on the ninth day I’d lost her, but not on purpose. I was watching You Tube, watching her mom and step dad bicker back and forth at a round table, debating on who best fit the role to run our country was. But there was never a clue as to where she was and that worried me. Was she happy? Was she kept inside like a caged animal? Tristan couldn’t thrive locked away in a square box somewhere. Tristan needed the outdoors.

  My mom said hello three times before spewing shit I didn’t care to hear. “Tobias? I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Ty. Please talk to me.”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I pulled the van from parking spot at Walmart I’d planned on sleeping in, deciding to keep going, keep moving to God knows where. “I’m fine.”

  “Please come home, Ty. I’ve been worried sick about you. I’m sorry, Ty. I am.”

  “Really? What part are you sorry for, Mom?”

  “I don’t want to fight with you, Ty. I just want you home safe with us. We’re you family. Please come home. We’ll get through this. Your dad agreed to take us on a cruise for Christmas. You always wanted to do that.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked down at my phone in disbelief. “Yeah. Remember that art show that you couldn’t come to because you had that pure romance thing with your girlfriends? Rodney Bergs? Does that ring any bells?”

  “No, should it.”

  “Of course not. Why would you know what interests me? I took first place for the state of Connecticut with a painting I did of a willow tree, a long bridge in front of a city in the background. The branches of the tree dramatically cascaded all the way to the ground. Tiny neon blue leaves morphed into butterflies, but you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other one began. I got to study for an entire week with Rodney Bergs and fifty-one other winners on a Caribbean cruise. That’s when you were dating that baseball player. What was his name?”

  “Oh yeah, I remember that.”

  “Yeah, sure you do?”

  “Ty. Come home. Please come home.”

  “I don’t have a home. You vindictively took her away from me.”

  “Tobias Thomas. Come on. It wasn’t even like that and you know it. I’m sorry, but that girls not my problem. You are. I’m looking out for you and your future because I’m your mom, Tobias. Because I care about you and your future. You just told me this amazing story about a very talented boy. Don’t waste that on a girl and a baby, Tobias. Don’t do it.”

  “I’m sorry I held you back all these years. I’m sorry you wasted your whole life on me. I’m gonna take myself out of the picture now. You go ahead and get on with your life.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. You’re twisting my words into something I’m not even saying. You’re my child, Tobias, and regardless of whether or not you believe me, I love you and I only want what’s best for you. That’s it, Ty. I want you to be happy.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “Oh my, God, Tobias. Freaking stop. Will you? I can’t take it back. I’m sorry your friend got her baby taken away, but you have to admit, he’s a lot better off. She either needs to grow up or let somebody else raise that baby, and I’m not sorry she’s gone, Tobias. You’re way too young to take that plunge. You might hate me for it now, but I promise you, give it ten years, and you’ll be thanking me.”

  That didn’t even make sense to me, but I didn’t care to elaborate on it. I’d caught it from Tristan, and she was absolutely right.
I couldn’t talk to asleep people anymore. Not one thing she’d just said had anything at all to do with humanity and everything to do with her ego. Tristan was right all along. Did she really not hear herself? It didn’t even matter because I didn’t even care.

  “Leave me alone. Okay, Mom?”

  “Tobi—.”

  That was it. Hitting the end button, I knew I’d never speak to my mom again. I kept the phone for the slight chance that Tristan would call or send me a text, but I didn’t know how long I would keep it. The wait was killing me slowly, but for now, it’s all I had, and as long as my mom continued to pay the bill, I’d keep it. For now.

  I spent that night drowning in a bottle of vodka, alone, dying by a vacant lake in New York somewhere, a slow form of suicide, claiming my life bit by bit. Nothing worked. Not even vodka. If anything, it made it worse. The pain was unbearable and I was so over it. It never got better, it never went away, and I couldn’t get away from the tragedy. It played over and over in my mind, keeping the surge of terrified energy locked in my soul and I wanted release. I needed release. My heart couldn’t take one more day. It bled, day after day, after day. I was dying.

  Holding the empty bottle to my lips for the third time, I threw it as hard as I could, smashing it off a nearby rock. I screamed to the sky as loud as I could with tears streaming down my face. I’m not too proud to admit what I did next. I dropped to my knees and I cried, but I’m not sure for what. Part of me cried for the lonely little boy who learned at a very young age what it meant to be rejected and pushed aside, part of me cried for the eighteen year old, dying inside, dying in vain, and part of me cried for Tristan and Baby-T, my mind thinking the worse. I knew she was being kept in some fancy house with chandeliers in every bathroom by blackmail, Baby-T their leverage. That was like taking the lion king of an erotic jungle and caging him behind bars. I cried because I was sorry for putting her there.

  For an undetermined amount of time, I cried. If I couldn’t drink her away, maybe I could cry her away. That didn’t work either though. Nothing did. Finally, I dropped to my back on cold ground with chilling air-drying my tears. All cried out and drunk, I stared at the dark, cloudy sky, no stars of hope in sight.