Bebe Moore Campbell

by 72 Hour Hold

  When Mattie whispered for me to share, I pointed to my wristwatch. Mouthing, “I’ll call you,” I fled up the aisle and out the door.

  The telephone began ringing as soon as I got in the house. I thought it would be Orlando. He’d been staying over the last few nights. But the call was collect.

  “Mommy,” Trina said, her voice amped up with excitement, with manic pleasure. “I’m in jail, and I need for you to come get me right now.”

  “What happened, Trina? What jail? Where’s your father?”

  “I didn’t do anything, anything, anything. Get me out of here. Right now!”

  “Where’s your father? Why are you in jail? What did you do?”

  “They said I stole something from Saks. You get me out of here!” she bellowed.

  Shoplifting. I could barely breathe. “Does your father know where you are?”

  “No. He went out, and Aurelia wasn’t there. He left me with the housekeeper.”

  I tried to ignore my rage and concentrate on my leverage. “I will not bail you out unless you agree to go to the hospital.”

  “I don’t need to go to any damn hospital.”

  “Then stay in jail,” I said. Dial tone.

  Will you accept the charges? Part two.

  “You are going to the hospital, Trina. If you leave, I’ll revoke the bail, and you’ll be arrested again. And you’ll stay in jail. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Mommee.”

  The jail was on Martin Luther King Boulevard. The bail bondsman didn’t arrive for more than an hour, even though his office was right down the street. As soon as he came in, shaking the building with his slow, heavy steps, he disappeared downstairs to take care of the bail and didn’t come back up for another hour. Sitting in the waiting area, I tried to make my mind go blank, to pretend that waiting for my kid at the police station was as normal as tap water. He returned with bad news: He did not accept personal checks, and he didn’t take credit cards.

  “My bank is closed. I can’t get more than three hundred dollars out of the ATM machine. I don’t want her sitting in jail overnight.”

  “Sometimes that’s the best thing for them.” When he looked at me, there wasn’t a trace of kindness in his face. “Is there somebody you can call? Is the father in the picture?”

  “Yes. No. Jesus.” Just hearing the word father, I could feel anger exploding in every part of me.

  Orlando wasn’t at home; his cell phone went right to message center. I didn’t leave a message. Neither Mattie nor Gloria answered. Frances had just bought a house, and I knew she didn’t have any money to spare. Adriana. The name lingered in my mind. I didn’t want to put her in jeopardy.

  Bethany answered on the third ring.

  “I’ll be right there,” she said, after I explained what had happened.

  She handed me an envelope as soon as she walked in the door. “What’s she in for?”

  “Shoplifting.”

  “Poor baby.” She was quiet for a moment. “We found Angelica,” she said.

  “Where was she?”

  “On the street.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “At my house. I’ve got friends staying with me on rotating shifts. So what’s your plan?” Bethany asked.

  I sighed. “I’m going to take her to the hospital. She said she’d go.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  The bail bondsman disappeared downstairs again, and when he came back up, he told me that Trina would be released after she signed the paperwork. “Nice doing business with you,” he said, pressing one of his cards in my hand.

  Another hour passed before Trina emerged. From across the room, all I could see were her lips, bright orange and shiny. The closer she got, the more colors I saw. Blue eyelids. Rust-colored cheeks. Black eyebrows. Trina was giggling at some private joke.

  “We’re going to the hospital,” I said, taking her arm. “This is my friend Bethany. She loaned me your bail money.” Bethany took her other arm.

  She didn’t resist. Trina got into the front passenger seat of the car and buckled up her seat belt. In between the giggling, she sang. Bethany sat right behind her. I watched the traffic and Trina, but I couldn’t do both at once. At the second red light I heard a sound. Click, click. The seat belt. Bam! The door. Trina running, getting smaller and smaller.

  The back door opened, and Bethany sprinted after her. As I watched, my car stood in traffic, not moving, cars around me blaring their horns. Finally, I parked and waited for Bethany to come back, hoping that she wouldn’t be alone. Loud rhythm and blues blared from the radio. Vintage Al Green just added to the confusion.

  “Make me wanna do right. Make me wanna do wrong.”

  I visualized Bethany tackling Trina to the ground. Had a crowd gathered to watch the fight? A heat flash rose up and began exploding as little pinpricks of moisture erupted all over my body. I got out of the car, just to feel the air on my face, and peered up and down the block. Bethany trudged resolutely toward me. My child had been swallowed up by the Los Angeles night.

  We rode around for half an hour. Nearly eleven and Crenshaw was slow but not deserted. Steel shutters had come down on the furniture and wig stores hours ago, but the fast-food joints and video stores, the liquor store that took up an entire corner, were still open.

  It was easy to hide out in LA, so much space, so much indifference. People were used to the bizarre here, the pre-rehab antics of stars in trouble. A pretty girl with too much makeup, too much cleavage, talking fast, not making sense, would attract attention but not the kind that would result in someone coming to her aid. In Atlanta, people were always watching, at least in Southwest, where close-set houses squeezed lives together and somebody’s grandma was always sitting on the porch. There the word would have spread like the dope man’s phone number.

  The neighbors had certainly talked about my mother. I remembered a sweaty summer night filled with stars and lightning bugs. The porches that lined our block were filled, the people driven from their hot homes to the cooler night air. Heavyset matriarchs and sedentary patriarchs sat on wicker chairs enjoying their iced tea, the faint breeze. Then from our house two bodies spilled from inside onto the porch and the street. My mother—hair done, tight dress and high heels, red lips and powdered face—ready for action, for a night of drinking. Ma Missy—do-rag, housedress, house shoes, grim face—hell-bent on stopping her. What a diversion they were as their arguing suddenly escalated. Ma Missy raised her open palm and whack! Right across my mother’s face. Suddenly the entire block had a focus, and every breath was heavy with judgment.

  “You ready to act like you got some sense?”

  By that time, Ma Missy had my mother on the ground. But the ultimate answer was no. My mother jumped up, pushed Ma Missy, and ran down the street.

  “I’m a grown woman, Mama. Do whatever the hell I want to do,” she called, then cut butter all the way to the waiting car.

  In the morning as I walked to school the children, ones I thought were my friends, fell silent as I approached. My best friend, a girl who lived two houses from ours, put her hand in mine; I found the gesture annoying and tried to pull away, but she was determined to stick by me and wouldn’t let go. At the end of the school day, though, I took the long way home by myself.

  I THOUGHT OF MY MOTHER AS BETHANY AND I DROVE, MY mother clean and sober, her resilient demons finally vanquished. Her words on the telephone replayed in my mind. “It’s your mother.” That phrase was so seductive, so powerful. “It’s your mother.”

  I let Bethany off in front of her car. Bethany smiled. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m going to wait until Trina meets the criteria for a hold, and then I’m going to try to get a conservatorship.”

  “Listen to me. Mental illness is in my father’s family big-time. My dad has schizophrenia. His father committed suicide. His sister had bipolar; out of her four children, two are ill. I’m telling you: Fuck a hold. Fuck conservator
ship, which could take months, years to get. Do you want your child to be well, to be safe?”

  That word again. “Bethany—”

  She wouldn’t let me speak. At the base of my skull a punishing headache was being born. Maybe that’s why everything Bethany said seemed to have an echo, why her words overwhelmed me. I tried not to listen, but Bethany was so loud and I felt so weak. I couldn’t summon the energy to ignore her. The night in front of me was a long horror. My house would be dark and quiet, my bed like a prison. Trina wouldn’t be back until she came back. I knew I’d never revoke the bail and have her arrested again. I didn’t have Orlando. I didn’t have Clyde. If Bethany stopped talking, I’d be alone with my aching head, my weak body that couldn’t fight off undue influence.

  “I want you to meet some people,” she said.

  12

  BETHANY GOT LOST ON HER WAY TO MY HOUSE THE NEXT day. She called me from her cell phone three times, and each time she was farther away than the last. The first call was from Crenshaw.

  “There’s all these guys standing on the sidewalk, and they have, like, T-shirts hanging from a wire fence. Where the hell am I?”

  “You went too far south,” I said.

  “What is this pie they’re selling? Bean pie? I’m getting one.”

  “Turn around and make a left onto Stocker.”

  She called back to tell me she’d just passed the biggest liquor store she’d ever seen in her life. Maybe she stopped in, because she went right by my house. Her next call was from Slauson.

  “I’m in the parking lot of Seven-Eleven,” she said.

  “Stay there. I’ll come get you.”

  When I pulled up beside her, she had all the windows in her car rolled down and she was sitting in the front seat smoking.

  “I bet you think I’m an idiot,” she yelled. That cracked her up. I could see her laughing in my rearview mirror as she followed me home.

  “What is this neighborhood?” she asked, as soon as we got to my house. “It’s fabulous. Look at that view. Amazing.”

  “View Park.”

  “I never even heard of it,” Bethany said. It was the first time I’d seen her enthusiastic about anything other than creating a ruckus. She stood in my driveway, gazing at the downtown skyline. nodding her head up and down, her expression one of amazement, as if something fantastic had jumped out of the woods and startled her. “So did you find your child?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  Bethany’s car was a junkyard on four wheels. There were newspapers and magazines, empty hamburger cartons, crumpled bags that had held French fries or potato chips, candy bar wrappers, crushed soda cans, several purses, two pairs of athletic shoes, a dirty jacket, and tufts of fur, lots of fur. The stale cigarette smoke went right to my head, and I started sneezing immediately. She didn’t apologize, just told me to dump everything in my seat onto the floor, which pretty much left me with no place to put my feet. Bethany was oblivious to my discomfort in more ways than one. She’s a weirdo, I thought to myself. And I was a fool for being with her.

  She drove west to Santa Monica, parked her car, and then we walked several blocks to the beach, sitting down on a bench that faced the water. All around us people jogged and skated, bicycled and walked. Stretched out like an endless ribbon was the calm, predictable Pacific.

  “I thought we were going to a meeting.”

  “We are,” she said. “See that guy over there by the wall? Walk over to him.”

  “What—” I stopped. Not twenty yards away, a man with a baseball hat pulled low over his eyes was standing by the wall. I hadn’t expected some clandestine secret-password FBI kind of scene. Bethany saw the doubt in my eyes. She looked around and gave me a shove.

  “Go,” she said.

  The man started talking as soon as I walked over. He sounded like John Wayne in an old Western. I looked down at his feet, expecting to see boots and spurs, but he had on sneakers. If he knew how to rope a steer, it didn’t show in his face.

  “My name is Richard. My son is twenty-two. He has bipolar with borderline features.” He spoke quickly, faster than the Duke would have. “I tried to get help through the usual channels. Nothing worked out. The kid would act out, terrorize the family, tear up the place. I’d call the police, and my child never fit the criteria. When they did place my kid on hold, it was never long enough. I found friends, people willing to take a risk.”

  “What?” I couldn’t concentrate.

  He didn’t look up. “Don’t ask any questions. Just let me talk. The friends told me about a place where I could take my kid. At this place, there are psychiatrists and mental health workers who don’t abide by the rules. They have a different take on mental illness. They believe in intervention. They don’t believe in the hitting-rock-bottom theory. They helped me save my kid’s life. My kid is taking his medication, going to school, doing well.”

  “I—”

  “The people who helped me can help you too. That’s all you need to know for now. It’s been nice talking to you.”

  He walked away.

  Bethany had the bean pie on the bench when I sat down beside her.

  “I should have gotten a knife or a fork or something.”

  “Who the hell was that?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you any more than he told you. But the people he told you about help people like us.”

  “What do you mean, people like us?”

  “People with mentally ill family members who are fed up with waiting for the system to act.”

  “Who is that guy? What people are you talking about? What is this all about, Bethany?”

  “If you’re interested, you can come to a meeting.”

  “Interested in what? I thought that was the meeting. What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Listen to me, Keri. There are people in the world who don’t believe in the way this country deals with mentally ill people. And they can help us.”

  “How? How do they help us? Can they get my kid on a hold? Can they help me get conservatorship? My kid is missing. Can they find her?”

  Bethany shook her head. “That’s not how they do things. They’re way outside that box.”

  “If you can’t tell me any more than that—” I rose.

  “You got a radical problem, you need a radical solution. The Weathermen. Symbionese Liberation Army. The Panthers. Civil rights movement. They didn’t wait for the system to give them what they needed.”

  “Well,” I said, “here’s the thing: When radical white people get tired of being radical they get to be state senators, or they write books, or if push comes to shove they can move to Oregon and hang out for thirty years before the FBI finds them. Radical black people get killed.”

  Bethany stared at me as though fire were shooting out of my mouth. Maybe she was pondering what I’d said, or maybe she was just trying to figure out how she could eat the pie without a knife and fork.

  Minutes later, we were both scooping up bean pie with our fingers.

  “Nobody’s going to get killed. But there are some risks involved, as with anything that’s worthwhile,” Bethany said. “I never thought about things being more risky for black people, but I guess that’s valid.”

  Between us, we finished off nearly half a pie. Afterward, we were quiet, just sitting and looking at the ocean.

  “I figure whatever this group is doing is illegal. Right? You’re snatching people who are over eighteen and forcing treatment on them. Does that about sum it up? Come on, I’m not stupid. What do you do, shove the kids in the trunk and take off in the night to parts unknown?” When she didn’t respond, I continued, “I can’t get caught up in anything like that. Period.”

  Bethany nodded. “That’s what I said at first.”

  “Are you involved?”

  “Are you in or out?” Bethany said, imitating the lines from a movie trailer.

  “So you’ve already done whatever it is that this gro
up does and now you’re recruiting?”

  “I’m not recruiting, I’m trying to help you.” Bethany sighed. “Angelica is in a very scary state. She finally crashed. She was pure mania for so long, and then she just crashed. She’s in the midst of a terrible depression. It’s a good day if she brushes her teeth. Very scary.”

  She stopped talking and put some pie in her mouth but didn’t chew it.

  “It’s awful watching her go through this. I have to get her some real help, and I can’t do it alone. Are you in or are you out?”

  She looked at me, and I stared back at her. She was willing to trust a bunch of radical strangers with her child’s life. What would it feel like to be that daring? I envied Bethany her ability to invent an option, even if it was a crazy one. Me, I followed the rules, even when they made no sense. I cleared my throat. “I’m going for conservatorship.”

  13

  BY THE TIME CLYDE RETURNED MY PHONE CALL, TRINA HAD been AWOL for nearly twenty-four hours. For some reason, when I spoke with him, I wasn’t furious. His absence was work-related, of course, some celebrity golf tournament he’d agreed to host. When I told him that Trina had been arrested and was now missing, he was speechless. When he could finally speak, he seemed dazed.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t realize.”

  “If she calls you, please—”

  “I will,” he said. “And if she—”

  “I will.”

  During that day, as customers searched through our racks, I called the Office of the Public Guardian six times before I finally reached Herbert Swanson. I had found his business card inside a zippered compartment of a purse I hadn’t carried for months. Conservatorship would give me the legal right to place my child in a locked facility, to force her into a place where she would receive her medication regularly. The Office of the Public Guardian was charged with helping people get conservatorship. Listening to him, a picture formed in my mind of a man with a telephone growing out of his head, a silver motor tied to his back, zooming from meeting to meeting. Sitting at my desk at the store, I filled him in on Trina’s background, the progression of her illness, and the recent events that had led to my call.