Too Young to Kill

by M. William Phelps

  “I want her out,” Jo had said, probably more times than she wanted to recall, this back when Adrianne had lived in the house that first time. She later admitted she was scared for her two boys. Adrianne had made an accusation against her stepfather back in Texas, recanted, then made the accusation again. Jo was concerned she might do the same to one of her boys. She wanted no part of Adrianne’s dysfunction.

  But ever since Adrianne had been back, she and Jo, although not skipping stones together, taking sunset walks along the Mississippi, had reached an impasse. Perhaps it was a tough decision, but they were getting along. In fact, Jo and Adrianne had a scheduled session with a therapist on that Friday night, January 21, a follow-up to a session the previous Friday, which, according to Jo, “went very well.”

  In truth, they had reconciled. They were on the path of healing a broken relationship.

  And Tony, of course, was all for it.

  When Jo walked past Adrianne’s room on her way to the bathroom, she noticed Adrianne’s work garments all laid out.

  Odd, Jo thought, stopping, staring. She should be at work.

  So Jo took a quick peek around the house. Nothing had been touched. She had asked Adrianne to empty the dishwasher and do a few additional chores. Adrianne had always done what she was told to, as far as her chores were concerned.

  Where is she?

  Jo quickly succumbed to the opposite of one of those feelings you get when, after walking into your house, you just know—that feeling of violation—someone has been inside while you were gone. It was different for Jo, because she felt no one had been home all day long.

  Which was strange. Adrianne got out of school at noon. She was generally home every day, all afternoon.

  “Tony?” Jo yelled. Tony was glad to be home—a Friday night, nonetheless—from his truck-driving shift. Ten hours on the road wreaked havoc on the guy’s back. Tony needed some rest.

  “Yeah?” Tony answered.

  Jo knew Adrianne had to work that night. “I woke her up this morning,” she told Tony. “She told me she had to be in at five.”

  “Ain’t dat right,” Tony said in his heavy Southern drawl.

  They both peered into Adrianne’s room. There, on the floor, was Adrianne’s work uniform. The room was a mess—as most teenagers feel that cleaning is one of those “things” that can wait until later on in life.

  “Yeah, she said five.” Jo was certain.

  “She done went to work without her uniform?” Tony asked, more to himself than Jo. He looked at his watch. It was close to five. Adrianne should have been home to get dressed and head out to work.

  Jo spotted Adrianne’s work shoes on the floor. She’d never go to work without them. Moreover, Adrianne Reynolds was not a teen who blew off her shift. She loved the job at Checkers, a nearby fast-food joint. It was easy. Very little stress. Plus, it put a little pocket money in her purse. Adrianne was in a GED program at the Black Hawk College Outreach Center, nearby on the Avenue of the Cities. High school had been something Adrianne, to put it mildly, despised. So much so, she had not accumulated any credits to graduate—heading toward the end of her sophomore year—and would need to step it up in order to get her GED. The outreach program fit Adrianne’s school work ethic, her attitude toward education in general. No homework. Everything you did, you completed at school. You got out near lunchtime. This allowed a “people person,” like Adrianne, plenty of the day left for socializing, something the young girl had put at the top of her “to do” list every day.

  “Adrianne,” an old friend said, “wanted to be liked. She loved to have friends.”

  An understatement.

  Slightly concerned about Adrianne’s work uniform still at home, Jo called a few family members and friends, while Tony went about his daily routine, undeterred by Adrianne’s sudden disappearance. Who knew—maybe she had two uniforms? Perhaps she didn’t have to work, after all. She could have blown it off to meet up with friends.

  A thousand and one possibilities.

  “I was not the least bit worried,” Tony later said. “Not then.”

  Adrianne had been making lots of friends since moving into town. She was always hanging out with someone. One of her favorite places these days was the teen center at the YMCA. And, of course, the local mall.

  Ten minutes went by. Jo made several additional calls.

  “No one’s heard from her,” Jo told Tony. She said it, but didn’t like the feeling of those words coming out of her mouth. Something was wrong. Jo could sense it.

  Gut instinct.

  “Let’s take a ride to Checkers,” Tony suggested.

  2

  Jo and Tony didn’t say much to each other as they made their way to Checkers. The restaurant was just a short ride from their home. Adrianne had started working at Checkers only a few weeks back. She had never voiced any concerns about a problem at work, nor had Adrianne not come home from school. Still, Tony and Jo had an initial, nagging feeling that Adrianne had taken off. Run away. The rigors of teen life—that constant battle to find the right group of friends, how to fit in, to do or not do those drugs put in front of you, take a swig of that bottle, keeping everyone at home happy and content—had worn on Adrianne in the past. Jo and Tony were under the impression that Adrianne’s time of rebellion and contempt had come and gone—but maybe not. Perhaps she had packed it in. Teens can be so unpredictable. Maybe Tex decided to blow off work and go party with friends.

  Unanswered questions were all Jo and Tony had to go on at this point.

  “We were getting scared,” Jo said.

  Sometime after five o’clock, Tony pulled into the Checkers parking lot. Got out. Ran into the restaurant, Jo following behind. And found Adrianne’s boss.

  “No, we haven’t heard from her,” he said after Tony explained what was going on. “We were expecting her at five.”

  Jo and Tony looked at each other.

  “Her check is still here, in fact,” Adrianne’s boss said.

  Those words hit like a punch. Tony knew how kids thought. He had owned a bar once. Ran in that living-life-in-the-fast-lane crowd of druggies and drinkers. All of it was behind Tony these days, but he never forgot where he came from.

  What kid would take off without her paycheck? Tony told himself, standing inside Checkers.

  Something wasn’t right.

  Jo calmed Tony, while at the same time trying to convince herself. “Everything’s goin’ to be okay, babe. You’ll see.”

  They took off home. Anxiety pumping through their veins, those unanswered questions tugged: Why would Adrianne run away? Where was she?

  As Tony drove, Jo thought about the past few weeks at the house, and all that stress between her and Adrianne. The tension had been taut, sure. But now they were getting along. Moving forward.

  “We’ll find her, Tony, don’t worry,” Jo told her husband.

  Two weeks before Adrianne went missing, Jo and Adrianne had had a nasty argument. Jo was home. Adrianne walked into the house. She had a Band-Aid on her right eye, up near the brow.

  “What happened to your eye?” Jo asked, mildly concerned, knowing what was going on.

  Adrianne didn’t hesitate: “Oh, that. I was at work and cut my eye on something.”

  “Oh, okay . . . ,” Jo said, playing along, not wanting to cause any more conflict than necessary. She’d fill Tony in when he got home and let him handle it.

  But before walking away from Adrianne, Jo said, “Let me see it.” She said she wanted to make sure “the cut” was okay.

  Adrianne jerked backward, away from her stepmom. “No,” she said, holding the Band-Aid. “I’m fine. I’m fine, Jo. Really.”

  “Let me see it,” Jo insisted, looking more closely at the eye.

  “I’m okay, really. I am.”

  Sizing Adrianne up, Jo realized she had gone out and done exactly what Jo and Tony had told her not to do: had gotten her eyebrow pierced. Jo and Tony didn’t want Adrianne showing up at home one day wit
h a face full of metal, silver BBs under her lip, barbell through her tongue, silver rings in her nose and eyebrows, same as those friends of hers she was hanging around with lately. Jo, Tony, and others called the group “Goth.” But the correct term was “Juggalo,” a cluster of disobedient, directionless teens and twenty-somethings, some of whom went to Adrianne’s school. They liked to paint their faces with black-and-white greasepaint makeup and listen to groups signed to Psychopathic Records, namely Insane Clown Posse (ICP), a “horror rap,” antiestablishment, two-man band that dressed up like killer clowns and recorded songs with such titles as “Murder Rap,” “Birthday Bitches,” “Hell’s Forecast,” “Dead Pumpkins,” “Graveyard,” “I Didn’t Mean to Kill Him,” “Witching Hour,” and so forth. Supposedly, ICP had coined the term Juggalo during a concert one night when one of the band’s two rapper frontmen addressed the crowd as Juggalos, a mutant pairing of the words juggle (i.e., a clown) and gigolo, a male prostitute. The lyrics to ICP songs—same as with other groups signed to their record label—are vile, sexist, violent, profane, vulgar, and nasty. Many of the band’s songs promote murder and torture, blood and guts.

  Dangerous stuff. If you happen to have a fragile psyche to begin with, this music and culture can be a catalyst for any number of self-destructive and aggressive behaviors.

  Adrianne wasn’t a Juggalo (or, rather, a Juggalette), but she was certainly interested in running with the crowd. There was a house many of them hung around at in Rock Island, a skip from East Moline. Adrianne had spent her fair share of time at the house partying, fooling around with some of the guys, just hangin’ out. And there was plenty of other stuff she did that Jo and Tony hadn’t a clue about. This piercing on her eyebrow, Jo knew, was the beginning. She didn’t like the road Adrianne was heading down.

  Adrianne and Jo commenced a catfight. They yelled and screamed at each other. F-bombs here. “You bitch” there. And all those nasty, hurtful turns of phrase some hurdle at each other when embroiled in a heated argument.

  “Whatever,” Jo finally said, fed up, walking away from her stepdaughter.

  “Yeah, whatever!” Adrianne sassed back. Adrianne was never one to back down from anything. She spoke her peace—even when she knew it better to keep her tongue tied. Part of being a sixteen-year-old who knows everything, perhaps.

  When Tony got home, Jo pulled him aside and explained what had gone down earlier. As Adrianne listened with her ear up to the door, Jo told Tony how unhappy she was about being betrayed by Adrianne, and would surely not accept Adrianne yelling at her, obscenities aside. The situation was turning into what had occurred the last time Adrianne had stayed with them, when all Jo and Adrianne did was fight. Jo didn’t want that. She loved Adrianne. She wanted what was best for the girl. She was dealing with it. Jo knew Tony wanted his daughter with them. They were probably the last chance Adrianne had left. She had met with so much disappointment and trouble back in Texas.

  Tony came storming out of the room and cornered Adrianne. “Let me see your eye,” he said, playing along with the ruse. “How did you do it? How’d you get hurt at work?” (“I don’t talk,” Tony said later, “I act. I have no patience for bullshit.”)

  Adrianne said she opened a cupboard and a bunch of boxes and food items came raining down on her and cut her eye open. It was no big deal, really.

  Tony walked out of the room. What a joke. She was lying to their faces.

  Sometime later, while Adrianne was in her room, she screamed loud enough so Tony and Jo could hear her: “That bitch doesn’t think I heard her telling on me! What a bitch she is! Fucking bitch!”

  This was out of the norm for Adrianne. She wasn’t one to disrespect Jo so profanely.

  Jo barged into Adrianne’s room. “This is my house,” she snapped, pointing around, while Adrianne went on and on about how Jo had ratted her out to her father.

  There had been a trust between them that Adrianne felt Jo had broken. There was nothing, Adrianne and Tony had always told Adrianne, she could ever tell them that would make them stop loving her. Anything could be worked out. Just be honest. And here she was lying.

  One step forward, two steps back.

  “If I want to tell my husband what you’re doing,” Jo screamed back at the teen, “that’s my damn business. You got that!”

  Adrianne didn’t say a word. She stood, staring contemptuously at Jo, all up in her face.

  “We had told her from day one,” Jo said later, “that what we say goes. Period. No discussion.”

  Adrianne had agreed to live by that rule.

  After everyone had a chance to calm down, Adrianne realized she was wrong to disobey them. She came forward, admitted to the piercing, and said she was sorry. It was tough out there in Teenville, USA. Peer pressure sucked. As a kid, you felt like you had to keep up with the Joneses, too. You’d be ridiculed and cast out if you didn’t go along. Couldn’t they see both sides?

  Tony understood this, but his contention had always been: “Find new friends, then.”

  Jo and Tony wanted to know how sincere the apology was, so Jo recommended family counseling. Perhaps she and Adrianne needed to sit down with a therapist and talk things through. Any problem could be worked out. Adrianne knew she had a good life with her father and Jo—the best she’d ever had, possibly. She came from an unstable life back in Texas, mostly by her own doing, but an unhinged environment, nonetheless.

  With Jo and Tony, Adrianne could depend on stability and restraint. Discipline. Rules. As much as she balked at being told what to do, like any kid trying to figure life out, Adrianne Reynolds knew deep down her dad and stepmom understood what was best for her.

  Tony and Jo weren’t even making Adrianne complete four years of traditional high school. She was getting her GED. She was working. She was allowed to have friends. My goodness, her curfew was ten o’clock on weeknights and midnight on weekends. What more could a teenager with Adrianne’s background and history of trouble ask for?

  Adrianne looked at Jo. “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s do that.”

  Jo said she’d make an appointment.

  It was a major step in a direction Tony was glad to see her take it.

  3

  When Jo and Tony returned home from Checkers, Jo went back to working the phone lines. In this situation, when parents can feel helpless, not to mention guilty, you do what you can to keep yourself occupied and focused on locating your child. It wasn’t quite the heart-pounding moment of turning around in the supermarket and realizing your toddler was gone. After all, it was only six o’clock in the evening. Adrianne hadn’t come home. Was the situation truly that dire? She was a teen. She had a history of running away and drug use. There was no reason to panic. Not yet, anyway.

  Still, that sour pang in the gut, that internal alarm system, is something most parents have a hard time dismissing. Every emotion is rattled. Tony and Jo were doing their best to hold it together and believe—hope—that all would be well in due time.

  “Hey,” Jo said to Jo’s best friend, reaching her by phone, “you heard from Adrianne?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, we can’t find her. Was wondering if you’ve seen her.”

  “I haven’t. Sorry, Jo.”

  Tony was beginning to climb the walls a little as the evening wore on. Every car that drove by the house was enough to draw him to the window to push the curtain aside.

  Adrianne?

  Nope.

  Jo suggested they go through Adrianne’s room and look for phone numbers of her friends. Maybe someone had seen her. Or knew where she had run off to.

  It wasn’t easy, but they found a notebook with several numbers in it.

  Brad Tobias (pseudonym) was a kid from school whom Adrianne had dated for a short time. He was probably as good a source as any to begin with.

  Jo dialed the number as Tony paced. Each ring seemed to take forever.

  “Hey,” Jo said when Tobias answered, “glad I caught you.”

  She e
xplained what was going on. Jo didn’t sound nervous or scared, maybe not even worried. She made it appear as though she needed to get ahold of Adrianne for some reason.

  “I saw Adrianne leave school with Sarah.”

  “Sarah? Ah . . . Sarah.”

  Sarah Kolb, a tomboyish-looking sixteen-year-old student at Black Hawk Outreach, was one of the girls Adrianne had met this second time while living with Tony and Jo. Sarah was openly bisexual, but much more interested in females than males. She had a boyfriend, but it was no secret Sarah preferred girls. At any given time, Sarah presented herself with a different look. One day her hair was hay blond. The next, black as oil. She wore baggy black clothes. She had a face full of piercings that would send a metal detector into a frenzy. And she boasted a rep for being a tough little girl—“little” being an accurate description of her five-four, 110-pound figure. Adrianne hadn’t mentioned Sarah much around the house, only because she knew that Tony (more than Jo) would not approve of her hanging with Sarah and a group of Juggalos that Sarah favored. But Adrianne and Sarah had quite the history behind them in just the short time Adrianne had been back in the QC. There was even the chance they might have been lovers at one point.