Crazy Horse's Girlfriend (9781940430447) (29 page)

Jake's trial was held not long after I moved out of Mom's place and even though Julia had said that she wanted to come, she ended up having to work. Jake looked so sad, dressed up in some stupid, cheap suit I was sure his state appointed lawyer had dug up for him. It was too short on him, on account of the fact that Jake is ridiculously tall and the bottoms of his pants rose high up over his shoes, exposing his different colored socks. One black and one brown. I waved at him and he smiled back. He looked calm but I could tell he was anxious as shit.

The place was packed and smelly, and the dark wooden benches were hell on my ass. I squirmed like an old lady with a massive case of hemorrhoids and never got comfortable. I figured that was the way it should be in a courtroom, I guess. There were wild looking fuckers everywhere, and folks who looked like they were the most normal, average what-the-hell-did-that-guy-do? folks. I don't know. I guess you can never tell. There was a big white dude with serious tattoos making big, obnoxious kiss faces at me every time I even started to look in his direction. After a couple times, I looked over and mouthed,
I will fuck you up
and he sat back, hard, and cut it out. Stupid fucker. He was the kind of guy Mom would think was really scary and she'd yell at me for threatening him, telling me I was gonna die that way someday. But I'd found out that half the time, the toughness of these guys went about two inches deep. Plus, I was done taking that kind of shit from men. Done for the rest of my life.

I waited for Jake to come up and prayed hard the way they'd taught me to the few times I'd gone to NAC in Denver, asking the creator and my grandma for help. It seemed like forever before they got to Jake. All those episodes of
Court TV
, all of those pissy judges came to mind. In those shows there was always a lot of crazy back-talking and in the end, the judge getting to tell it like it is. But in real life, it's more like a Justice Factory than an exciting show, that's for sure. It was just one dude after another, fast, boring and sad. Guilty/Not Guilty. It was like it barely mattered because from what Jake had told me over the phone, the lawyers had pretty much done all the deals beforehand and there was very little that was gonna change. I knew that if the judge decided to try him as a juvenile, he was gonna try to plead down to simple battery from the original charge of aggravated battery, on account of the fact that Jake had not done any really permanent damage. But it did look bad because Mike had been in a hospital bed and though he said seriously awful shit, the courts didn't much care about stuff like that. But Jake had told me that aggravated battery was more when you'd hit a kid, or a chick, or a cop. Or if you'd fucked someone up really, really bad. But it could have still been really bad for Jake, especially if he'd ended up with aggravated battery. I mean, it could affect everything: jobs, school. It could have meant he'd serve a year in jail, and that scared the hell out of me.

So when they finally called for Jake, I started sweating. I knew it was gonna be over fast for him. No one seemed to understand what a good guy he was. That he was only defending me. I mean for fuck's sake, Mike called me a whore after we'd dragged the stupid fucker to the hospital and saved his goddamn life. And Jake deserved a second chance, he really did. Jake and me had talked about quitting selling after the baby was born, about how we still had a good chunk in the bank and that it was enough to retire. Jake talked about going to school to learn to be a mechanic and we had enough in the bank to get him started. I told him if my dad could do that job drunk as hell, Jake could do it. I mean, mechanics can make decent money.

Jake stood there, towering over his lawyer, who was also in a pretty crappy looking suit, not that I knew the difference really. I could just see that the knees and elbows of it looked worn out and shiny. The guy looked tired and overwhelmed, shuffling the papers he'd pulled out of his briefcase around like someone had woken him up in the middle of the night for a rousing game of UNO.

My cousin shifted his feet awkwardly, the judge looking down at him with narrowed eyes, swathed in those crazy fucking robes they wear that make them look like giant babies more than anything else. He was an old white guy and he was balding, his remaining hairs combed back in a
'
do that was rapidly sproinging out of place. He looked more like a mad scientist than a judge. My stomach began to turn as they talked. The lawyer asked for Jake to be tried as a juvenile, and for the charges to be pled down to simple battery from aggravated. The Judge looked at Jake and asked him if he was going to do this kind of thing again. Jake looked uncomfortable and wiped the sweat off of the back of his neck and told him
no sir
. The judge looked down at something in front of him and then back up again. He asked Jake how he could believe that since it was clear that Jake had been getting in trouble for a long time. Jake's lawyer whispered in his ear but Jake batted him away.
Because I want to grow up, sir
, he said. I started to cry. I wanted to grow up too. We both wanted to be better than our parents, better than the people in our town. We wanted to get out, not out of town or out of our skins, but out of that big black hole that so many people throw their lives down. I felt sick. I closed my eyes.

The judge ruled that Jake would be tried as a juvenile, and could plead down to simple battery, but he would still have to serve a year of probation and community service. But that was better than having jail time. Or going to juvie again. He moved in with a couple of buddies a few doors down from me and Megan, and though his dad didn't want anything to do with him, Auntie Justine would go there once a month to yell at him about the mess he'd made of his life. I knew that was just her way of letting him know she still loved him. He'd felt so guilty about not being able to be there the day that Christine was born, but he had been at work, and by the time he got the call, I was back at home again.

I look over at Christine. She's awake now and staring up at me, happily, bubbles coming out of her mouth as she picks up her little foot and places it in her mouth around the bubbles. She looks like me for sure, but she also looks like her daddy. Her brown skin smooth as a stone and her eyes long and dark. I stare at her, taking her sweetness in for a while and then pick her up and take her to the kitchen to make her a bottle. Those bitches at the hospital tried to make me feel shitty for not nursing her, but after three days, I couldn't handle it. And she likes the bottle.

She sucks at it contentedly, and I get her bag ready. I'm off to the welfare office today, to settle some paperwork. That is an infinite clusterfuck.

Christine finishes her bottle and I change her diaper and get everything together and walk down to the car, which is making more noise than ever. It still runs though, and Mom's been telling me lately that Dad would like to fix it up for me, which is cool.

The drive to Georgetown, where the Welfare Offices are, is good, relaxing, and it doesn't take too long to get to where I'm going, park, get Christine out of her seat and into the welfare office. The thing that takes a long time is waiting. You take a number and you sit in a room for around an hour, if you're lucky. So I sigh, and sit down next to another chick who looks about my age. Her hair is huge and her eyebrows are painted on. I look down at Christine who is sleeping contentedly in her carrier, thank God. Usually I bring a book to read. But today, I reach into the diaper bag and pull out the letter from Mike.

I'd gotten it about a week ago. Mom had forwarded it to me. He'd just disappeared after the night at the hospital. When I tried to call his house there was an automated voice telling me the number had been disconnected. I asked everyone who might know, even resorting to calling his creepy track buddies, but no one seemed to know anything. And the rumors were everything from he was dead to he'd moved back to California, though I remembered his parents talking about rehab, and I wondered if that wasn't where he was. I figured that I would think about it later, maybe a few years down the road. That I would focus on getting by and feeding my kid and getting my life right before I thought about him. But it just seemed wrong to not tell him about Christine. And… I missed him.

My heart had leapt into my throat when I'd gotten the letter. Megan had told me to tear it up and for a minute there, I almost did. She stirred up how mad I was at him. And she made some good points: that he was a fuck up, and that he would only fuck up my kid's life. That whatever child support I would get out of him wouldn't be worth having to go to court, if they ruled in favor of visitation. That he would only confuse my emotions because I'd loved him so much. Plus, I didn't really want to spend the money to go to court. I nodded as she yelled and then took me and Christine to my room and sat with it in front of me while she had a bottle. I thought for a while. I thought about how curious I was to see what he was going to say. That I'd probably regret not at least knowing. I thought about what Megan said. I thought about my mom. How much shit she'd taken from Dad. I just figured I'd leave it alone for a week and then see how I felt. But I knew I was gonna read it eventually.

The address was from California, from a place called Teen Rescue. I sighed deep, pushed my number into my pocket, felt my heart thunder, and slid my finger through the envelope. I pulled the letter out. Placed it on my lap.

Dear Margaritte,

Hey. So. If you're reading this, IF you're reading this, you might have already guessed where I'm writing it from. Yes, that's right: rehab. My benevolent parents thought to give this a go. It's hilarious. I keep thinking about how funny you'd find it. It's full of rich white kids at the maturity level of bratty six year olds. It makes ME feel mature. And I think we both know how mature I am. They make us do group therapy. It's fantastic. The lead therapist is this cheesy woman who wears a bunch of Indian jewelry and looks at you so sincerely when you talk, she looks like she might explode. And she pretty much says the same three things, no matter what you say: Thank you for sharing! Negativity is NOT the answer! And the last is my personal favorite: Transform your story! The other day Margaritte, we were in group. Well, honestly, most of these kids are like me. They're spoiled. They've never encountered a thing in their lives that could be construed as a hardship in any way, unless you count having their credit cards rejected because Daddy finally figured out that all of those cash advances were going right up his precious princess' nose. In any case, we were sharing. That's what we do in this group, share. I've mainly turned to making things up. The first day was great, because I spoke the few words of Spanish I knew. So I didn't have to share anything and it was hilarious to watch them look at each other, try to figure out how I'd gotten there. But of course, once my group therapist talked to my individual therapist, who had my case file, that bit of fun was over quickly. So I try just making a new thing up every time I'm forced to share. Sometimes I tell the group I was raised in a house full of Satanists. That I was forced to sacrifice babies with a long, bejeweled dagger. Sometimes I tell them I'm the kid of a rich, Mexican drug lord and that I've been smuggling drugs over the border since I can remember. Other days I just go silent. The other kids there are pretty much of two kinds: the hardcore druggies who've been there many times and really do want to get clean, or the kids who just want their parents to think so, so they can get out and do drugs again. Some of them like sharing. Some of them are like me, they think it's a waste of time and a load of shit. What we all have in common is parents who have always thrown money at their kids rather than take care of them. And this is a way to still do that. That's what really amazes me.

The whole place really kills me. We each have our own room and the place is like a pretty, sterile Mexican restaurant, complete with miniature waterfalls. We're not supposed to socialize with each other in our rooms though; the deal with that is theoretically, we could be planning how to get more drugs together. But I think why they really do that is because we scare them. We're rich and we don't care about our lives. So why would we care about anyone else's, including theirs?

I have made a friend. His name is Rick. I like him because he doesn't buy any of the shit they're selling either. He's been in boarding schools since he can remember. The guy barely knows his parents. But he's funny as hell. Says he likes to paint. I told him we should get a place together when we get out of here. We're thinking about moving to San Francisco. I've heard we'd fit right in.

My parents do visit me. My mom cries and asks me if I'm better and if it's her fault and then yells at me and tells me that I'm running out of chances. My dad sits there, looking like he could use a drink. Mainly he's silent. I'm sorry about the things my mom said to you Margaritte, by the way. She's… well, she's an asshole. A well-intentioned asshole who loves me, but an asshole nonetheless. She was raised to be a showpiece and has done nothing but be a showpiece. I think that's why she got into church the way she did. She had to bury herself in something that didn't have to do with shopping and decorating her home. And my dad has done nothing but be the person his dad thought he should be. And so on. It's not their fault. But it doesn't surprise me that they couldn't get pregnant. Do you know that they'd asked for a light-skinned kid? That any time I would get dark in the summer, my mom would tell me that? She used to tell me not to drink, too. That because I was Colombian I should watch out for that. Yeah. Right. Colombian. The irony of my true vice in relation to the county of my origin is not lost on me.