Rebel Mother

by Peter Andreas

  “Hello there, you two!” Rosalind chimed in cheerfully. “We’re so glad you both could make it.”

  “How was your flight? Make your connection all right?” my father asked without asking where we had connected from. “Good that the weather cooperated.” This was a big moment best handled by small talk.

  “Yeah, everything went fine,” Joel said, giving both my father and Rosalind a hug.

  When we got to the house, all the trappings of Christmas were on display—the little red-and-white-checkered birdhouse tree ornament I had made weeks before my mother kidnapped me dangled from the colorfully decorated tree in the living room, with shiny, perfectly wrapped presents underneath. There was my old red-and-white wool Christmas stocking, with my name embroidered on it, hanging from the fireplace. It was, in so many ways, just as I’d imagined all those years ago, on the run in Peru.

  At the dinner table that first night there, my father asked me safe, polite questions. “So, Peter, how is school? What grade are you in now?” He made sure not to ask where school was exactly, or even in what country.

  “I’m in seventh grade. It’s okay.”

  Rosalind joined the conversation. “Do you have a favorite subject?”

  “Social studies.”

  “Hmmm.” My father mumbled, “Just don’t become one of those crazy sociologists.”

  Rosalind gave him a sharp look and reached over to squeeze his hand.

  My father then continued. “Do you also take more practical classes, like woodworking? I remember enjoying that when I was in seventh grade.”

  After a long pause, Rosalind asked, “So what else are you interested in, in school?”

  Before I could answer, my father jumped back in. “How about photography?”

  “Nah, I don’t have a camera, anyway.”

  My father sighed. “Well, I suppose you’re still a little too young for that.” He then leaned back in his chair, putting his hands together behind his head. “I remember, during my sophomore year at Bethel, I was the president of the camera club. Maybe you’ll get interested in that sort of thing when you’re in college.”

  I nodded. That was the first time anyone had ever mentioned college to me. My father noticed my hesitation.

  “You are planning on going to college, aren’t you? We’ve still been putting money into an educational trust fund for you. Not that your mother is going to help at all with that.” Rosalind shot my father another stern look.

  Despite the awkwardness, spending time with my father and Rosalind after three years in hiding made me feel normal, even if temporarily.

  As always, my father did the dishes—it was the one kitchen task he was fastidious about—so my brother and I took turns standing next to him and drying. He disapproved of using the dishwasher, claiming it to be lazy and wasteful, and therefore insisted on washing everything by hand.

  Afterward, my father showed me my old room. “See, it’s just like you left it, Peter,” he said to me as he opened the door. It was true. It looked exactly the same as I remembered. There was my Hot Wheels car collection in the blue and yellow plastic carrying case, though I was now too old to play with them. Grandma’s beautiful handmade quilt still covered the bed. The maple desk that I had used to do my homework on was still there, too, against the wall across from my bed.

  Everyone stayed on their best behavior during our few days there, eager to get along. There were no arguments except for a brief intense exchange, in hushed voices, between my father and brother off to the side, which I assumed was about my mother. Rosalind had no doubt carefully coached my father not to make disparaging comments about my mother, which must have been hard for him. To my relief, there was no talk of going to church. Instead, we stayed home on Sunday and played Risk for hours and hours, just as we had during Christmas in Kansas years before.

  For a moment during that Christmas visit I fantasized about what it might have been like if I’d stayed living there with my father and Rosalind back in the fall of ’75, in that big, comfortable suburban house with its huge windows overlooking the trees. And then I wondered what it might be like if I stayed there now. But then I thought about my mother; our beautiful dog, Inca; my teachers and classmates at school; the streets of Denver. Since coming back from Peru, the city had finally begun to feel like home. We’d only been there for a little more than two years, but that was longer than I had lived anywhere else since leaving Michigan at the age of five. I’d also turned into more of a city kid and had a hard time imagining living in the suburban sprawl where one had to drive to get anywhere.

  While my father and Rosalind waited with Joel and me at the Detroit airport to catch our return flight a few days after Christmas, Rosalind leaned over and gently whispered into my ear, “Peter, we know you and your mother are living in Denver. It’s okay. We’ve accepted that. You don’t have to worry. We just want to see you. Maybe you can come for a longer visit next time, maybe next summer?”

  I liked that idea a lot, and nodded. I was taken aback that they knew where we lived, but I was also grateful I no longer had to worry about hiding and keeping our location secret. I began to hope that I might finally achieve my version of normal. We all hugged good-bye.

  As I said my good-byes and squeezed my father’s soft hand, I felt both sadness and a rush of relief. For the first time that I could remember, I held some control over my own life. I was now no longer simply a rope pulled by my mother and father. My mother had yanked the rope out of my father’s hands almost three years earlier, but now the tug-of-war was over. I wanted to live in Denver with my mother, and could, on my own, insist on keeping it that way, but I also longed for a real connection to my father and Rosalind, which was now possible again. As Joel and I boarded the plane to Chicago, we turned around to wave another good-bye.

  The Science Report

  I WAS A year behind my junior high classmates based on my age, and always assumed I would never catch up. But that was before Mr. Qualteri’s science class and my discovery of drugs.

  Mr. Qualteri never smiled; he was the most solemn teacher I ever had, but I suppose there was nothing lighthearted about dissecting a frog. Behind his back, the kids in the class made fun of Mr. Qualteri’s permanently somber persona, daring one another to find a prank that would make him laugh, or even smile. The fantasy I harbored was snatching his thick, dark toupee, but Mr. Qualteri would certainly not find anything funny about that.

  For the spring term, Mr. Qualteri assigned us two “science reports,” for which the requirement was simply to pick a topic and go to the library to research it. There were no other instructions, nothing about what kind of sources to use, how many to use, how to cite them, or even whether to cite them.

  At the small public library on the other side of Broadway, a mile or so from home, I told the librarian I needed to write a science report. “It just has to do with science,” I said. “Anything scientific.”

  “Well, all right,” she said. She went to a nearby reference shelf and pulled out a thick hardbound book, titled something like The Science Encyclopedia. I could barely lift it. She showed me the other books like it on the same shelf, with titles such as Encyclopedia of the Human Body and the Encyclopedia of Science and Technology.

  I flipped slowly through the pages. I could not believe my good fortune. Writing that science report would be easy, I suddenly realized. It was only a matter of choosing something, anything, and copying down the information.

  Maybe it was the fancy pictures—molar, incisor, bicuspid—that grabbed my attention, but whatever the reason, I pulled out my notebook and recorded word for word the entire entry for human teeth. In seventh grade, I’d never heard the word plagiarism. I even copied the pictures of all the different types of teeth and put them on the cover of the science report I handed in the next day in class. Mr. Qualteri was pleased; he gave me an A and wrote “Well done” next to the grade.

  Suddenly I was acing seventh-grade science. For my second science report I did e
xactly the same thing: walked over to the library the day before it was due, pulled out the various science-related encyclopedias, and skimmed through them, quickly looking for an entry to copy. This time I settled on the topic of drugs, specifically illegal drugs—something I would end up devoting much attention to in my academic research decades later. Once again, I copied down the text in the encyclopedia, word for word. The encyclopedia entry included an eye-catching illustration of a poppy plant with a syringe stuck into it, showing that the poppy plant was used to make heroin. I copied that picture for the cover of my report, which I titled “The Dangers of Drugs.”

  This time Mr. Qualteri was ecstatic, waving my report in the air and announcing to the whole class that “Peter here has written a very impressive science report. It shows how destructive and deadly illegal drugs are.” My heart swelled to see the huge “A+—Excellent!” he’d scrawled at the top of the page. Unexpectedly, I had become the model antidrug student.

  But then laughter broke out in the back row. Robert Vega clearly had something to say about this; I immediately suspected it had to do with my having smoked pot with him. Mr. Qualteri asked Robert to stay after class. I walked out as calmly as I could, trying not to appear nervous. The next day after class, Mr. Qualteri asked me to stay for an extra minute.

  “Peter, you know how much I liked your science report on the dangers of drugs,” he said. “But Robert tells me that you smoked marijuana at his house last week. Is this true?”

  It was true. I had been at Robert’s house, and he and his brothers were smoking dope, and I had tried it, for the first time in my life, only a toke or two, when they passed me the joint. But Mr. Qualteri didn’t want it to be true, and at that moment, neither did I.

  “No, Mr. Qualteri, that’s not true. It’s true that Robert and his brothers were smoking marijuana at their house last week, and it’s true that I was there with them, but I said no.”

  He sighed with relief and patted my shoulder. “I thought so. Robert’s just a troublemaker. You should hang out with other kids.”

  Before I left the room, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Qualteri. See you tomorrow.”

  “No, Peter,” he replied. “Thank you for that wonderful report. I have very high hopes for you, young man.” And then he actually smiled, just a flicker.

  * * *

  Late that spring, the principal called me into his office one Friday afternoon. I was anxious. Maybe Mr. Qualteri had finally figured out I had lied to him.

  “Please, have a seat,” Mr. Salazar said as he closed the door behind me. As I nervously wiped my sweaty palms down the front of my pants, he smiled at me. “Mr. Qualteri tells me what a terrific student you’ve been in his class this year, really exceptional. I’m always glad to hear such good things about a student. You’ve also been doing well in your other classes; your teachers speak highly of you. In fact, Mr. Qualteri has recommended that we skip you to the ninth grade, that way you’ll catch up to your age group. How would you like that?” Without waiting for a reply, he continued: “Oh, and I’m happy to tell you that you’ll be receiving the Trailblazer Award this year, given to the top student in the class. Congratulations!” Mr. Salazar reached out to shake my hand and flashed a warm smile. “You should be proud of yourself.” As I slowly got up and walked out of Mr. Salazar’s office he gave me a pat on my back. “Keep up the good work.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Salazar. I will.” The words came easily, automatically, but I could not look Mr. Salazar in the eye. I walked slowly down the hall, not quite believing what had just happened. But one thing had become clear: doing well in school was one way I could control my fate and take care of myself—and get others to care about me.

  Later, when I received the Trailblazer Award—a small, round, gold-colored medal, hanging on a red, white, and blue ribbon—I showed it to my mother, hoping she might be impressed. I knew not to make too big of a deal about it, though, so that she didn’t think I was becoming a conformist. When I explained what it was for, she said, “Oh, that’s nice. Too bad it has a red, white, and blue ribbon—looks too patriotic. I didn’t realize you were doing so well in school.” She then added, “Just don’t let it go to your head. We wouldn’t want you to start thinking you’re better than the other students.”

  That fall I moved on to the ninth grade. Everyone reassured me that eighth grade was a bad year anyway and that I wouldn’t miss it. I never did shake my guilt that I had lied to Mr. Qualteri about the few puffs of pot, but at least I didn’t try pot again for years. And I remained oblivious about the plagiarism.

  My friendship with Robert Vega died out after seventh grade. We barely even saw each other in the halls. Some years later, while my mother was clipping stories from the Rocky Mountain News, she came across a small news item reporting that a Robert Vega had been busted for robbing a convenience store on South Broadway. That was Robert’s neighborhood, and it sounded like the sort of trouble he’d always courted, but I hoped it wasn’t him.

  Tourists

  FOR MONTHS I had been pestering my mother about taking some sort of trip, just for fun, but never actually expected her to agree. A vacation was something that other families did. We simply couldn’t afford it, and even if we could, my mother would rather spend the time and money on political things. When she finally said yes to a vacation, at first I thought she must be joking. My mother saw the look of disbelief on my face and said, “Really, let’s do it.”

  This would not be just any vacation. It would be a trip to Europe. For once in my life, there would be no ideological debates, no rallies or demonstrations, no boycott campaigns, no leafleting, no consciousness-raising meetings, no slums, no revolution to chase. We would do it on the cheap, but it would still be a real vacation.

  The idea began when my mother wrecked her car. I was thirteen. She was never a very good driver, and during rush hour one afternoon she took a left turn with the sun in her eyes and plowed right into another car. Our little yellow Datsun station wagon was totaled. My mother was lucky that she only broke her leg. She called me from Denver General Hospital. When I picked up the phone she said, “Peter, I’m okay, but I’m at the hospital. I had a car accident.” I rushed to see her. Her right leg, all swollen and black-and-blue, was strung up in traction, a metal rod inserted to hold the bones together. It would take months to fully heal, but I was relieved that it hadn’t been worse. My mother’s poor driving posed a greater danger to her than any right-wing government or corporation.

  For several months, while she was in a cast and on crutches, I did all the cleaning, cooking, and chores around the house. I even emptied my mother’s chamber pot. I had attended to my mother like this back in Peru when she got sick, and I enjoyed feeling needed. My reward was that we would use the few thousand dollars in insurance money for a trip to Europe early the following summer. Back in 1969, my mother had taken my brothers and their friends on a six-week trip to Yugoslavia, chosen because at that time it was the only communist country where U.S. citizens could easily travel. My mother had wanted to take me, but we were still in Detroit at that time and my father balked; I was only five and he said I was too young to go. So, as she explained to me, she figured she owed me a Europe trip, and this was the right time to finally do it.

  My mother took me out of school in late May, a couple of weeks before seventh-grade classes ended, because plane tickets to Europe were cheaper then. “Your teachers will understand,” she assured me. “It happens all the time.” I was not as eager to skip school these days, but I was not going to complain about leaving.

  Off we went with our sleeping bags and duffels, hitchhiking to New York to catch our plane across the Atlantic. I was thrilled; I’d finally be traveling with my mother again, just the two of us, but instead of roughing it in South America and living in slums and remote villages, we’d be normal tourists in Europe.

  During the two or three days we were in London, we were like all the other tourists, except for my mother’s political commentary. We saw
the British Museum and Buckingham Palace. My mother was our political tour guide. “Before American imperialism,” she explained, “there was British imperialism. Look at all this, it was built on the backs of the poor.” Standing in front of Egyptian statues at the British Museum, she mused, “Look at what the British stole from the world.”

  We hitchhiked to Dover to catch the ferry across the English Channel to Calais, and from there caught a ride to Paris. The plan was to track down and stay with my mother’s old boyfriend, Jean-Pierre, with whom we had lived in Buenos Aires and traveled to Peru five years earlier. I’d liked him well enough, but hoped he and my mother would not get back together. I wanted to visit Paris, not move there.

  The problem was, my mother didn’t tell Jean-Pierre we were coming, and so we simply showed up at his house, late at night, only to find out he was out of town. It was a big sprawling home in a Paris suburb, shared by three youngish families—seven adults and five small children. Somehow, although they spoke very little English and we spoke even less French, my mother convinced them to let us stay in Jean-Pierre’s room. She always had a knack for making quick friends and gaining their trust, which saved us at midnight in Paris without a hotel room. The walls in Jean-Pierre’s room were covered with dozens of black-and-white photographs, many of them taken in South America, including a few of me and my mother.

  Jean-Pierre showed up a few days later, startled but happy to see us. “Carol, is that you? When did you get here?”