Go Ask Alice (16 page)

August 1

Today Mom and Dad came to visit me. They still believe me and Dad has been to see Jan and feels that he will soon be able to get her at least to take back the statement that I was trying to sell her drugs.

I am so grateful for group therapy. Maybe now I’ll get something out of this place instead of being broken by it.

August 2

I had a session with Doctor Miller and I think he believes me too! He seems delighted that I want to go into social work and feels there is a great need for people who understand what’s going on out there. He suggested that I ask some of the kids here about their backgrounds which maybe would give me more insight into people but he warned me not to be shocked at some of the things I should find out. I guess he thinks there are still things in this world that might amaze me. It’s a good thing he doesn’t know all of my background, at least I think he doesn’t? ? ?

At first I felt I would be too shy to ask kids outright to tell me about themselves. But he said if I told the kids why
I wanted to know he was sure they would want to help me. I’m still not sure I want to go prying into other people’s lives. I’m not at all sure I’d want to tell them about mine. I guess I would though-except maybe the very worst parts.

I watched TV for a little while tonight, but there are only six kids on this ward and thirty older ladies, and since we have to vote on which programs we can see, naturally they win. I think I’d rather read or write anyway. I’m trying to get Babbie to read and maybe she will get a book from the Youth Center library tomorrow if I push her. It certainly will help take her mind off things, if she can concentrate. Her social worker is trying to get her into a foster home, but with her background it seems to be difficult, and apparently her parents don’t want her anymore. Isn’t that sad!

August 3

It’s been a beautiful, hot lazy day. We were lying out on the lawn when I got the courage to ask Tom _____, who is in the men’s section of my ward, why he was in.

Tom is a handsome, likeable, extremely articulate young guy. He’s fifteen and he’s the kind of person people automatically feel comfortable around. He said he came from a solid, comfortable, unbroken home and in his last year of junior high school he was voted best liked kid in his school. I guess I would be voted biggest idiot if they did that kind of thing in our school.

Anyway last spring, he and three of his buddies heard about sniffing glue and thought it sounded exciting so they bought a couple of tubes and tried it. He said they all blasted and thought it was great. I could tell from his eyes that he still thought it was great.

He said they made a lot of noise yelling and rolling around on the floor, and the kid’s dad yelled down and told them to cool it. He didn’t even suspect why they were cutting up. He just thought they were scuffling around like they always did.

A week later the same three tried his Dad’s Scotch, but they didn’t like it as much and found it was harder to get than pot and pills. He said what I’d heard before, that parents never miss their diet pills, their tranquilizers, their cold remedies, their pep pills, their sleeping pills, or any of the other things that will supply kids with a “jolt” when they can’t get their hands on anything else. So he started easy, but in six months he said he needed so much money that he had to get a job. So he applied at the most logical place — a drugstore. And it took the manager a fairly long time to figure out what was happening to his pill supply. When he did, he “laid Tommy off” to save his family embarrassment. Nothing was ever said and nobody but Tommy and the manager knew what was going on. However, even getting fired was okay with Tommy because by this time he was into hard drugs and really didn’t care very much what happened. A friend had introduced him to Smack and he started pushing at the Junior High to keep himself going. Then he ended up here, and in my green opinion he’s still freaked out, for even now he almost has a contact high just talking about drugs. I noticed that Julie, who was sitting fairly close to us, had almost the same reaction. It’s sort of like watching someone yawn. You’re drawn into it and you start yawning yourself. I’m so grateful I felt nothing, but I almost wish I hadn’t asked because it was really depressing to see that he and Julie can’t wait to get out of here and get back on their thing.

Oh, I hate it here! The dirty bathroom urine smells. The small barred cages where people are locked up if they get
out of line. One old lady who is a firebug is in one of the cages almost all the time, and I can’t stand it. The people are the very worst of all.

August 4

Today we went swimming. On the way back on the bus I sat with Margie Ann who said she doesn’t ever want to get out. She said as soon as she gets out the kids will be right there hassling her head and trying to get her to take off again and right now she knows she couldn’t say no. Then she looked at me and said, “Why don’t we take off, just the two of us. I know where we can get a mixed bag in a minute.”

August 5

Mom and Dad came to visit again today and they brought me a ten page letter from Joel. Mom wanted me to read it right away but I wanted to wait until I was alone. It’s very special to me and I really don’t want to share it with anybody but you. Besides I think I’m a little scared because Dad told Joel the truth about me, at least as much as he knows. So I think I’ll wait until later to open it.

Dad also said that he finally got Jan to sign an affidavit saying that I wasn’t pushing at the school. Now both she and Dad are trying to get Marcie to retract her statement. Dad says if that happens he’s sure he can get me out of here in no time.

I’m afraid to hope but I can’t help it, and the idea of hoping in this most hopeless of all places makes me want to cry.

Later

Joel’s letter was great. I was really afraid to read it but now I’m happy that I did. He is the most warm, compassionate, forgiving, loving, most understanding person in the world, and I can’t wait for fall when we can be together again. I know I won’t have any more drug problems, but I’m such a boob, such an immature, childish, impractical, improbable wishywashy that I’m really going to have to work to make Joel proud of me. Oh, I wish he were here right now and I wish I were strong like the rest of my family. I wish, I wish, I wish.

August 8

Oh, glorious, marvelous, wonderful, incredible, fantastic day! Day with birds and singing and sunshine and flowers! I can’t tell you how happy I am. I’m getting out of here! I’m going HOME! All the papers will be signed today and Dad and Mom will come and get me tomorrow. Oh, lifetime away tomorrow. I feel like screaming with joy but that would probably make them come and lock me up again. Actually I’m not being fair to this place. As awful as it is, it’s better than detention school. Kay said that if she had been sent to DT
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she would have learned every rotten trick in the book. Here, she sticks to the ones she already knows. I guess that’s pretty true with all of us.

I can’t believe I’m really going home. Somebody up there must be pulling for me. Probably dear old Gramps.

Later

I couldn’t sleep, so I woke up and began thinking about Babbie. I really feel guilty that I’m going and she’s staying.
Maybe when I’m really strong and the nightmare of my life fades a little, we can come back and get her. But I guess that’s just being childish. Life doesn’t really happen that way, which is too bad. But I can’t think about it anymore.

August 9

At last, finally and forever, I’m home. Tim and Alex were so glad to see me that I really felt rotten for having messed up so badly all these months. Then when Happiness came up and licked my face and hands, I thought Mother was going to cry and I was just glad that Gran and Gramps aren’t alive to see what’s happened.

I guess Dad knew how I felt, because he was so loving and dear. Dear, dear Dad, he always knows. And after we had all talked for a while, he suggested that I go up and get some sleep which was really great because I wanted to be completely alone in my own room with my own lovely curtains and my own wallpaper and my own bed and feel my own house all around me with my beautiful, loving family downstairs. I’m so very, very grateful that they don’t hate me, because in a lot of ways I hate myself.

August 10

Dear Diary,

It’s 2 A.M. and I’ve just had the sweetest feeling I’ve ever had in my life. I tried to pray again. Actually I was just trying to thank God for getting me out of there and bringing me home but then I started to think about Jan and Marcie and for the first time I really wanted God to help them too. I really wanted them to get completely well
and not to have to end up in a mental hospital. Oh, please God, I hope they do get well. Please help them and help me too.

August 12

Dad has a chance to go back East for two weeks to finish a lecture course, isn’t that marvelous? Of course it isn’t marvelous for Dr. _____ who has had a heart attack, and I really hope he gets better; but anyway, Daddy is going to fill in for him at the last minute, and we’re all going to stay in their gorgeous house and everything, isn’t that great?

August 14

They only had one double room left in the motel so Alex and I have one bed and Mom and Daddy have the other and Tim has to sleep on the floor because they don’t even have any more cots left. He doesn’t mind, though — he says it’s like camping out. We’re drawing lots to see who gets to use the bathroom first. I was last, but that’s okay because I wanted to write in you.

Everything would be absolutely perfect if only Joel were here. He is the only good thing missing in our lives, but I guess that would be a little messy, all sharing the same room and bath and us not even married. It might be even more embarrassing if we were — but I won’t even let myself think about that. There will absolutely be no more sex in my life until after I have taken a man for better or for worse until death do us part, and then I even think we’ll still be together. I just simply can’t imagine a just God making people who love each other be single after they get
to Heaven. Gran and Gramps and Mother and Dad could never possibly be happy unless they were together. I’m sure Gran died because she just couldn’t bear being separated. There wasn’t a single thing wrong with her except that she didn’t want to go on without Gramps.

I wonder if Mom ever even kissed another man besides Dad. Oh, I’m sure she did, because Dad sometimes teases her about Humphrey, but I know she wasn’t having sex with Humphrey. I don’t think many girls did things like that when Mom and Gran were young. I wish things were still like that. I think it would be much easier to be a virgin, marry someone and then find out what life is all about. I wonder how it will be for me? It might be great because I’m practically a virgin in the sense that I’ve never had sex except when I’ve been stoned and I’m sure without drugs I’ll be scared out of my mind. I just hope I can forget everything that’s happened when I finally get married to someone I love. That’s a nice secure thought, isn’t it? Going to bed with someone you love.

It’s my turn in the bathroom so I gotta go.

See ya.

August 17

Well, we’re settled. Daddy starts teaching today, and this afternoon we’re going to take a look at the town. It was dark when we drove in, but this neighborhood is incredible, everything is all lush and green and fragrant. I’m so happy we’re here. We’re all exhausted though because yesterday and the night before Mom and Dad took turns driving straight through. Two days and one night of driving put us all a little on edge, and while it was fun and interesting to see parts of the country we’re still glad to be settled.
Daddy says we’ll take longer to go home and maybe even go by way of Chicago, and stop to see Joel. Wouldn’t that be wonderful! ! ! I’m afraid to even uncross my fingers to eat or write.

August 20

Imagine me at a university tea! And even more startling, imagine me liking it even though it was a little stuffy. I must be growing up.

See ya.

August 22

Well, there will be no more exploring for wonder woman! Apparently I walked into a giant batch of poison ivy yesterday and really did it to myself. There isn’t too much of it around here, but wouldn’t you know who’d find it!

I’m swollen and red and itching all over, and my eyes are puffed up and almost closed and I really look great. The doctor came and gave me a shot, but he doesn’t sound too encouraging. Yuck!

August 24

I didn’t know P.I. was so contagious, but now Alex has gotten it off my clothes or something. She isn’t as bad as I am, but she’s still itchy and uncomfortable. Some people from the university came to find out where I’d run across the clump so they could go out and kill it, but I don’t even know what it looks like.

August 27

Hooray! We’re going to New York for the weekend. Mom and Tim and Alex and I are taking the train tomorrow and we won’t be back until Monday. Isn’t that great? All the stores and everything — I can’t wait. My P.I. is down to pink spots, and I’m sure my makeup can cover that. I hope, I hope. We’re taking the 7:15 train tomorrow, and Dad says I can buy a lot of new things for school. Hooray! Hooray!

August 29

It’s so hot and stuffy in Manhattan I can’t believe it. We’re fine as long as we stay in the big stores, but when we’re out on the street it’s like walking in a furnace. The heat comes up from the sidewalk in great clouds and I don’t know how the people who live there stand it. Joel says it’s as bad in Chicago, but I find that hard to believe. Anyway, we spent most of the morning shopping at Bloomingdale’s and then went to a movie at Radio City in the afternoon just to get out of the heat.

Taking the subway was the biggest mistake we ever made. It was so jammed with humanity that we were tangled like sauerkraut in a jar and smelled just as bad. One fat old woman was hanging on a strap beside me and her sleeveless dress exposed the most incredible bird’s nest under her arm. It was the smelliest sight I witnessed in my life. I hope Tim didn’t see it or he’ll probably be turned off women forever.